There was some amount of perverse pleasure in watching the horror that flooded her face. As though her disgust were justification, though for what, he didn’t know. Dash had wanted to shock her, scare her, make her realize what sort of shit she was in. Since she’d first whispered his name, he’d felt his grip on control sliding through his fingers. Away. Snagged by the blast from the past that was Rennie.

Her response to him had him unnerved, the way she looked at him with those big green eyes had his gut stirring in all kinds of ways it shouldn’t. Not to mention his cock, which needed no additional incentive where she was concerned. Never had.

But she was looking at him the way she used to—she was looking at him like he was someone else. Whoever she thought she saw didn’t exist anymore.

“What do you mean, you killed him?” she asked finally. “I heard it was heroin.”

Dash arched an eyebrow. “Where do you think he got it?”

“You don’t do drugs.”

The words were automatic, almost programmed. They made his gut hurt.

“No,” Dash replied. “I didn’t do drugs. Before. Things changed after you left.”

Because you left.

But he wouldn’t say that. She didn’t need it—with everything else, adding the weight of his brother’s overdose to her already burdened shoulders wouldn’t just be unnecessary, it’d be cruel. Dash had eventually reconciled that Rennie hadn’t had any control over the fact that her father was a controlling dickwad who had decided to ship his daughter away rather than be a goddamned parent. Hell, a part of him—most of him—had known her disappearance from his life hadn’t been her fault, but it hadn’t hurt any less.

The ticking time bomb he’d been before meeting Rennie had made his peers and teachers nervous, especially in a post-Columbine world. The counselor who had initially paired him with Rennie had thought she would be a good influence on him, because she was one of the only teenage girls in Missouri who didn’t give a rat fuck about his reputation or how damn scary he looked.

She’d smiled at him, cracked jokes, made him laugh.

Made him hard.

Still doing that last thing.

Most of all, she’d been his friend in a very lonely world, and he’d been hopeless to do anything but love her stupid.

And for a while, he could pretend she loved him back. Hell, maybe even she had. He’d never know.

“You gave him the heroin?” Rennie asked, drawing him back to the present.

Dash shook his head, a familiar ball of self-loathing forming in his stomach. His gaze landed on his Victory Hammer—his solace. His escape. Lucifer’s Legion had given him that. Gunner had given him that. A way to leave behind the mess that was his life and build something else out of it. It might not be pretty, but it was his, and until Gunner had asked him to take out the only good thing that had been in his life before, Dash would have sworn he was happy.

The road didn’t judge. Neither did Lucifer’s Legion. His history was fucking child’s play compared to the others.

“No,” he said at last. “It was in my room. He found it. He knew what it was, and he wanted to… I dunno. But it killed him. I killed him.”

The silence that spread between them would have suffocated a lesser man. In Dash’s world, though, he’d learned there were far worse things than silence. Things much harder to live with. Being so close to Rennie might confuse his thoughts, but he could never fool himself into the sort of thinking that convinced a man he could go back. Hell, were that even an option he wasn’t sure he’d want to.

Life hadn’t necessarily been good, but it had been fun in many ways. Liberating. Even with all the shit Gunner pulled. Lucifer’s Legion had grown in size and influence in the years since Dash had been recruited, and while he might not have necessarily agreed with each step Gunner took, he’d definitely hold to his end that he owed the man more than he could say.

“How did Gunner save your life?” Rennie asked at last.

Dash swallowed. “I wanted to go the way Dalton did, but I was too chicken shit. Fuck, Rennie. I hadn’t even touched what was in my room, but after the funeral, I didn’t care. Gunner refused to sell me—”

“Gunner’s who sold you the heroin in the first place?”

He didn’t want to answer that. Gunner had his hand in a lot of things looked down on by the law—he was the son of the club founder, and had been born into this way of life. Paying off cops, making deals, sorting out exchanges—this was the way it was in the Black dynasty. So when Dash had been desperate for anything to ease the pain of Rennie’s sudden but inevitable disappearance from his life, he’d known where to look. Dash had been raised on the side of the tracks that took the law as guidelines more than restrictions, which was one of the endless reasons Orson had forbidden him from interacting with his virtuous daughter.

“Yeah,” Dash answered at last. “Gunner sold me the heroin.”

“What a fucking prince. And you blame yourself for Dalton’s death?” She snorted and rolled her eyes, dismissing him as only she could. It wasn’t surprising, but it was disappointing. A part of him had very much hoped she would understand. “So, what, he decided to not sell you more heroin after?”

“No. I went to him looking for a fight. I was stupid and pissed off and drunk off my useless ass. I knew if I threw a swing at him, he’d kill me.” Dash shrugged a shoulder. “I wanted him to.”

Rennie looked at him with her large green eyes, and apparently saw nothing. She blinked. “So…his way of saving your life was not killing you.”

“He knew what I was there for. He decided to—”

“Dash, that is the most fucked up logic I’ve ever heard, and I was raised Church of Christ.”

A rush of anger shot down his spine. “What the hell would you know about it?”

“I know that not killing someone doesn’t mean you saved their life.”

He gestured. “The way I didn’t kill you, you mean?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, exactly the way you didn’t kill me. What do you want, a thank you? You could have called me.”

He snorted. “Yeah. Tell me how that woulda gone, would you?”

She didn’t answer. “You could have just—”

“Could have what?” Dash snapped. “You were gonna testify and put a man on death row.”

“I was going to tell the truth. He murdered two people.”

“One was a crooked cop and the other was a cheating bitch!”

“And again, both shitty things, neither worthy of the death penalty.” Rennie glared at him for a long, cold moment before breaking away with a harsh laugh. “Dammit, Dash, I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t even want to go on that stupid date.”

He couldn’t help himself. Images of Tanner Wilcox pawing at Rennie had plagued his imagination in tandem with the dread of what he’d been asked to do to rid the prosecution team of its star witness. Dash had spoken with Tanner a handful of times, occasionally been the one to make the cash drop offs that had bought the late deputy’s silence. The man had asshole written all over him.

“Seems to me you ain’t a kid anymore,” he drawled. “You don’t gotta date who you don’t wanna date.”

“Orson had nothing to do with it.”

“Didn’t he?”

She ignored him and pressed on. “Tanner pulled me over for speeding. He hit on me. I was skeeved, but I didn’t exactly want my return to town heralded with gossip about run-ins with the law.” Rennie wrinkled her nose and looked away, flushed. “He hinted strongly that if I went out with him, he’d forget about writing my ticket. It seemed harmless.”

Dash felt the rein he had on his control slip a notch. “Well, ain’t he a fucking prince?”

“No,” Rennie shot back. “He was a tool. I didn’t want to be alone with him, but I played nice. And…like I said, once I told him I don’t believe in God, he seemed to think it was okay to tell me all this illegal shit he was involved with. Like my moral compass was switched off and I’d get it. All I can tell you is he loved being on Lucifer’s Legion’s payroll. Thought that made him a bad-ass or something.”

“I still can’t believe Orson Jones’s daughter doesn’t believe in God.”

“Get over it.”

Dash shook his head. When it came to Rennie, there wasn’t much in the way of getting over anything. Still, he found himself wanting to hear more—despite his need, urgent and very real, to kill a dead man. Tanner was the sort of piece of shit who would manipulate a girl like Rennie. Motherfucker thought he’d been untouchable because of the badge and the cut of whatever Gunner was dealing at the moment.

“So he took you to the clubhouse,” Dash pressed. “After your romantic dinner was over. What, to show you around?”

She made a face. “He said he had a paycheck to pick up. I asked him to take me home, but he…he said it’d only take a couple minutes, and what the hell was I supposed to do? Issue an ultimatum?”

“How about not date the jackass in the first place.”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Hindsight.” Rennie settled back and began stroking one of her injured wrists, momentarily drawing Dash’s line of sight down her body.

And there it was—the familiar pang of something he didn’t want to name in his gut. The thing he’d been able to ignore, mostly, since bringing her in here. Rennie had always been a looker, even before she started trying. When he’d known her before, she hadn’t dolled up her face with makeup—a sin in Orson’s home—and hadn’t fashioned her hair in any particular style. She’d worn respectable clothes that bordered on gender neutral, save the few skirts that practically dragged on the floor. He’d always assumed from the few times her shirts were tight enough to show, or when he’d brushed against her, that her tits were generous, but he’d been a kid. His imagination had exaggerated every feature to ridiculous proportions.

Rennie had grown up. The skirt she wore had hiked up her legs enough to reveal enough skin to get him riled, but he’d tried to avoid focusing there. He’d been less successful prying his gaze away from the suggestive v-neck of her blouse. It wasn’t overly revealing—the girls Gunner and the others brought to the clubhouse wore clothes in the loosest definition of the word. Dash hadn’t complained once, and had indulged more than a few times…but there was something about the understated sexy nature of Rennie’s natural beauty that enhanced but teased in her simple attire that spoke to him unlike any other woman ever had.

Her brown hair was mussed and tangled, and the sweet baby-fat that had softened her face ten years ago had smoothed into womanly lines that made him think things he shouldn’t.

He was already fucked beyond repair. Rennie should be anywhere but the clubhouse. She should be…

Well, he wouldn’t think about that right now. No answers were forthcoming. He still didn’t know what to do to fix this shithole mess he’d gotten himself in.

“So,” Dash said, and cleared his throat, “you didn’t wanna come in. But we both know you did.”

She winced as her fingers massaged the broken skin at her wrists. “I tried calling for help after a half hour or so, but my phone was dead. Then I tried his police radio, but…I don’t know if they didn’t believe me or didn’t hear me all the way, I just knew they weren’t coming. And he’d been in there way too long. I didn’t know what to do.”

“So you decided to snoop.”

“I decided to make sure he was all right,” she retorted, her tone hard. “Everything I’d heard of Gunner and Lucifer’s Legion had me nervous. He’s a criminal. You’re criminals.”

“Obviously you weren’t nervous enough to stay away.”

“What would you have had me do, Dash? Tanner had the keys. I had nothing but my purse and a dead cell phone.”

“Maybe not go into the criminal’s clubhouse?” Dash would be damned before he admitted it, but the word stung. He had no delusions of nobility. With or without a murder charge, Gunner and Lucifer’s Legion had operated on the other side of the law since he’d known them. In this part of the country, firearms and narcotics—meth being the most popular—kept his wallet damn near obese. Still, hearing Rennie refer to him as such didn’t sit right with him.

Probably because he’d never thought in a thousand years he’d see her again.

“Right,” Rennie agreed dryly, jerking him back to the present. “Because sitting outside the criminal’s clubhouse would have made a difference.”

“You coulda been hurt.”

“Aren’t you supposed to kill me?” She arched an eyebrow at him. “And anyway, it wasn’t like I went in with both eyes closed. I was armed.”

Dash paused, then frowned. Nothing that Gunner had told him following the deputy and Luanne’s deaths had included a story featuring Rennie holding a weapon. “You had a gun?”

“A 9mm. It was in Tanner’s glove compartment.”

“Since when do you shoot?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

Yeah. He was beginning to see that. “Have you always known how to shoot?”

“My father’s a government-hating country preacher. What do you think?”

He needed no goddamned reminder who her father was. “So you know how to shoot.”

She nodded. “Have since I was seven. And when I’m down here, I carry. I’m licensed. But I hadn’t brought my gun that night. I found his when I was looking for a spare set of keys. Believe me, if I’d found those, I’d have burned rubber to get out of there.”

Dash’s frown deepened. Gunner had discussed what had occurred numerous times, namely to reinforce the reasons Rennie had to die. She’d seen too much, she was a danger to him, putting her down was for the good of Lucifer’s Legion. After all, the club was Gunner’s legacy, as it would undoubtedly become his son’s. Regardless, never in any of the retellings had Rennie been armed.

Perhaps that detail wasn’t important, but damn, Dash couldn’t see how. Because he knew, without needing to ask, that Rennie wasn’t the sort of woman who carried a weapon she wasn’t prepared to use, or who aimed a gun she didn’t mean to fire.

Something terrible occurred to him then—something that should have been immediately obvious, but had somehow escaped notice.

Gunner had been shot that night. Once in the gut, once in the kneecap. He’d claimed Wilcox had gotten off a few rounds, but hadn’t said much more about it. And truthfully, Dash hadn’t thought too much on the matter. He hadn’t felt the need. He’d been prepared to do whatever was asked. And since the gun fired at the scene had belonged to Wilcox, there had been no need to question. Not where he was concerned.

“What next?” Dash prodded, his voice soft.

“Don’t you know this story?”

“Seems there’s a famous saying about there being two sides to every good one. I wanna hear yours.”

Rennie rolled her eyes. “I went inside. I called out to announce myself. When no one answered, I went deeper. I didn’t want to go upstairs, because I’ve seen one horror movie too many and I know the score. So I went down that front hall toward the back. And that’s when I heard the noises. Those noises.”

“And you…”

“I heard someone yelling behind me,” she said. “And the front door slammed. So being the prize idiot I am, I decided to go toward the sex noises.”

Toward Gunner’s office—though calling it an office was a bit grandiose. It was where he dumped his shit, where he kept records. Where the vault was located, and likewise the only area of the clubhouse Wilcox had ever shown any interest in. “Yeah?”

“You’re gonna make me say it?”

“I want to hear.”

She glared at him for what felt like a century before blurting, “Tanner had some blonde spread across this pigsty of a desk, and he was fucking her.”

This was where the story got murky. “What’d you do?”

“What do you think I did?”

“I dunno. You were armed. You were pissed. The man was on a date with you.”

Rennie’s face hardened. “For fuck’s sake, Dash, are you ever going to let that go?”

“Any reason I should?” he fired back.

“I told you why I went out with him.”

“The Rennie I knew would’ve taken the ticket.”

“Well, I had to grow up sometime.” She glared at him a moment longer, then looked away. “I said something…I dunno. It sounded clever at the time. Something like I didn’t mean to interrupt their fuckathon, but I really wanted to be getting home. They stopped and looked at me like I was about to blow them away…but then I realized they weren’t scared of me. By that time, I could hear him—louder, and coming down the hall. I had enough time to get behind the door before he saw me. Gunner came in, took one look at Tanner and the blonde, said a lot of nasty things, and then…” She shivered and rubbed her trembling arms, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “My ears were still ringing when I stepped out from behind the door. He didn’t see me at first…but when he did, it was clear I’d gotten the jump on him. I pointed my gun and told him to lower his. I told him to toss me Tanner’s car keys, and he did. And then I tried to back out of the room, but I knew—I knew—he wasn’t gonna let me. I was almost in the hall before he tried to make a move.”

This was a version Dash hadn’t heard. Unlike Gunner’s account, which had Tanner firing the rounds that resulted in his injuries. A pit of dread formed in the bottom of Dash’s stomach, but it didn’t stay there. Rather, like a cancer, it began to spread, moving upward until it had seized control of his thoughts.

No.

Still, he had to at least hear it. Her version. “What next?”

“I fired,” she said simply. “I aimed for his leg. He went down. He dropped the gun. The…murder weapon. And then I jumped for it. God knows what I was thinking. It made sense at the time. If he didn’t have that, I could get away.”

The cancerous thought tightened its hold. Dash did all he could to ignore it.

Rennie continued, oblivious to his struggle. “He grabbed me. He was so strong. And I heard them—others. Maybe even you, Dash.”

He shook his head. He hadn’t been there that night. He’d been near Neosho, checking on his Gram’s old farm following a call from the neighbor. The place had been vacant for years, namely because Dash didn’t have the heart to sell. Aside from Rennie, the old place was the only remnant of his former life. His own parents might have been pieces of shit, but that place had always been his haven.

What would have happened had Dash been at the clubhouse? Would he have seen Wilcox come in, would he have stopped the motherfucker from sticking his dick in Gunner’s woman? Would he have seen Rennie walk through that door, gun drawn, eyes wide, shoulders back. Would he have been able to save her from…?

“No,” he said. Then he met her eyes. “Gram’s. I was there that night.”

Rennie’s expression softened. “How is she?”

“Dead.”

The gentle look fell. “Oh.”

“I kept it. The farm. Promised her I would. Think she thought…” He trailed off, unable to give the sentiment voice. He knew damn well what she’d thought, because she’d told him outright multiple times during her last days. She’d thought he’d drop Lucifer’s Legion, drop Gunner, and need a place to start. She hadn’t understood, though, why he needed it. She hadn’t known his role in Dalton’s death. “Anyway,” he continued, “I wasn’t here.”

Rennie stared at him a moment longer, and fuck if the look in her eyes didn’t make him feel like he was something else. Anything else. Anyone else, other than the sad truth provided by reality. It was that spark of recognition, this time tainted by a bastard called hope.

“I’m not like you remember,” Dash said, though he didn’t know why the words needed voice. It should be obvious.

To her credit, Rennie didn’t back down. She barely acknowledged what he’d said. Instead, she licked her lips, and continued her story. “I’d grabbed the gun. Gunner’s, the one he dropped, but I still had Tanner’s, and I couldn’t hold on to two of them. I dropped one. The other…it fired. It was awful. He made this…this terrible noise, and then he wasn’t holding me anymore. I got out. I went back until I found a door, and thank god it led outside, otherwise…” She trailed off, swallowing hard. “I ran around the house. When I got to Tanner’s car, I started freaking out until I remembered Gunner had tossed me the keys.”

“And you still had ’em? Even after—”

“They were in my bra. I guess I put them there—I don’t remember putting them there, but that was the first place I looked. I got in and took off. I drove and drove until…” She exhaled. “I ended up on the side of the road. Shock, I think. I don’t really remember what happened after that. I was told they found me.”

“They?”

She nodded numbly. “Umm, the sheriff. I guess my attempt to radio in… I dunno. They found it. The car. Me. I went to the hospital. And then they wanted to know what happened, and…everything started happening fast.” Rennie fell quiet for a moment, her eyes glazing over. The reprieve didn’t last—within seconds, her expression turned firm again, and she looked at him. “He would have killed me if I hadn’t gotten away.”

Dash swallowed thickly. “I know.”

“And you’re okay with this?”

That answer didn’t come as quickly as it should have—yes, no. He understood. The club came first. Always. Beyond right or wrong, guilt or innocence. When Gunner had given him the choice, Dash had sworn his loyalty to Lucifer’s Legion. Nothing came before the club, and by the club’s rules, Gunner had done nothing wrong. Tanner was an employee at best and a lackey at worst, and he’d overstepped. He’d fucking trespassed. The indignity of Gunner walking in on his woman being fucked by a fucking cop had been worthy of death. The law within these walls was crystal clear.

Maybe that was the problem. Rennie brought with her the outside, and the outside had no place inside. Not in this garage, not in this building. Definitely not with Dash. Because that confused things.

Also, her account confused things. Gunner had sworn the wounds he’d taken had been at Tanner’s doing. Another reason the piece of shit deserved to eat lead. No one fired at Gunner Black. To do so was to declare war on Lucifer’s Legion, and most everyone was smart enough to know that was something to avoid.

Except Rennie. All she’d wanted to do was live. Of course, that was beside the point to Gunner. She’d been a trespasser, a nuisance, and club rules were clear on what was to happen to trespassers…especially those who saw something they weren’t supposed to see.

But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t the indignity that had earned Gunner’s wrath. Sure, he’d have killed Rennie without a second thought anyway. But it wasn’t the threat of what she’d seen that had signed her death sentence in Gunner’s eyes.

It was the fact that he’d been shot by a woman in his own clubhouse.

The sick sensation from earlier resurged with a vengeance, nearly knocking Dash off his feet. He didn’t try to fight it this time. There was no point. The law was the law. Rennie had broken it. She was going to die with or without the threat of her testimony.

“Are you okay with this?” Rennie demanded again, her voice growing more frantic. “’Cause he’s going to expect me to be dead, Dash. And you…you have to—”

Whatever she wanted to say died the next second, butchered prematurely by the sharp ring of his cell. Dash sprang from her as though she’d electrocuted him, and from the wild, erratic look in her eyes, he read she was just as shaken.

Once the shock of the interruption waned, Dash pulled the phone from his pocket. He didn’t need to look at the screen to know who it was. More than enough time had passed.

It was with more poise than he felt that he brought the phone to his ear.

The realization should have hit him sooner. The second he saw her, perhaps. Or even the instant he’d been given her name. The instant Gunner had identified her as a problem to be dealt with. Sometime before now, definitely, Dash should have acknowledged that things were going to change. That everything in his life—this life, the one he’d built for himself, the one he owed to the man who had saved him—would become a casualty of something greater than he was.

Because it had never been a question for him. Could he kill Rennie Jones? No. Not even if his hands hadn’t been red from Dalton’s blood. Even if Rennie’s story wasn’t true. Even if it was. Nothing would change the fact that she was the only other person in this world he’d ever loved—really loved. Killing her wasn’t possible. Maybe that had been the test. Maybe he’d been wrong, and Gunner had known their connection all along.

Fuck.

If he couldn’t kill Rennie, that meant he didn’t put the club first. That meant his oath was shit.

Still, knowing this, he somehow managed to keep a level voice. Looking into the eyes of the woman who was supposed to be dead, and answering the man who had ordered it.

“Gunner.”