One

Trey

“This isn’t how it ends, Winn. You’re not getting on that stage,” I say to myself as I stare at the bar flyer with Winnie’s face plastered across the front of it.

Ace told me I could trust him, but trust doesn’t involve an underage girl stripping for money. He has flyers all over the park, and because of him, whatever anonymity Winnie had left is gone. In a matter of twenty-four hours, he managed to turn the sweetest girl in Carillon into trailer trash, and she hasn’t even stepped onstage yet.

I failed her.

I’d thought I had it all figured out. That, if I watched as best I could, I’d be able to shield her from the wolves and keep them out of her room. But this isn’t about Jax trying to sneak into her room anymore. This is about her body and her soul—the two most precious gifts she has left.

I wanted her to have choices in life. So that, when she grew up, she’d believe she could go anywhere and do anything. Nothing about Tess, her dad, or this shitty trailer park would hold her back. But, for Winnie to do something as insane as dancing, her back must be up against a wall. And, once I find out why, Ace, Tess, and whoever else is involved will remember why I’m so good at my job.

When I pull up to The Whip, Ace is getting out of his car. His head’s down, and he’s not paying attention. My fists tighten inside my leather riding gloves. Images of his smashed skull flash through my mind. But a quick and painless death would be too kind. He deserves slow and painful. What I have in mind resembles torture because he deserves to feel the sting of Winnie’s pain through every inch of his body.

You can’t kill him until he talks, Trey. And not until you find Winnie.

I take a deep breath and alternate my footsteps with his. The pattern of my boots hitting the pavement after his makes him slow down and glance over his shoulder.

“What do you want, Trey?” Ace’s tone is calm, way too calm for what he’s done.

I flip the shield on the helmet, so he can see my eyes. As soon as he gets a glimpse, his posture changes. This isn’t a friendly visit. I’m not here to fill his pockets with money to pay for Winnie’s shifts or to remind him to keep her fed. This visit is personal.

I get as close to his face as I can, pressing my helmet against his forehead. He stumbles in the gravel and then squares his shoulders.

I’m not the least bit intimidated when I say, “You could have any girl in Carillon on that stage, Ace. Why fuck with Winnie?”

He shrugs, and that pisses me off even more. Winnie’s reputation is on the line. It’s not like he’s asking her to tend the bar or wait tables. He’s making her get onstage and strip. That’ll change her life more than living with Tess ever could. Because one song underneath the lights, and what’s left of her spirit will die. She’s an eight-count away from becoming Tess.

“You’d better start talking,” I tell him.

“Because Tess said so,” he spits.

He’s so full of shit. There’s more to it than Tess. She might be the headliner inside The Whip, but outside those doors, she’s a dime a dozen, and nothing about her is special. The makeup and clothes are all for show—to cover up the person she can’t stand to look at in the mirror.

“Since when do you do everything Tess says? Last time we talked, you mentioned letting her go if she didn’t get her act together.”

“Look, Trey,” he says, “it was a business decision. I’m under a lot of pressure from the boss. He’s talking about building another bar, which means this one will get even less of his attention. Once I’m the low man on the totem pole, I’ll be forgotten. So, if I have any hope of surviving in this business, I need some serious cash flow to keep his interest. Tess is the biggest moneymaker we have.”

“Because she has no inhibitions. No morals. And you know it.”

He shakes his head and laughs. “I’m not asking anyone to date her. Just to watch her. And it just so happens she’s the one they come here to see. But she’s all banged up, and I told her, if she wanted to keep her job, she had to find a replacement until the bruises healed and the stitches came out of her head—someone who could bring in the same kind of money, if not more. I figured she’d either step up or walk away. If she walked away, I’d find a replacement on my own. But I got lucky, and she stayed sober long enough to figure it out on her own.”

“Her replacement is seventeen, Ace. Seven-fucking-teen. Winnie’s not legal, and everyone in the damn trailer park knows it. It won’t matter what your boss thinks of the place or where you rank on his list of importance when you’re shut down.”

“Who the fuck is going to shut us down when there’s fresh pussy on the stage?”

My plan was to talk this through, but the second he talks about Winnie’s body, my hands are around his neck. The leather from the gloves widens his eyes, and when he realizes I could end it right here, in the parking lot, he starts to panic.

Before he passes out, I tell him, “If she’s anywhere near that stage, I’ll kill you before the cops get here to shut you down.”

Ace’s eyes widen, and he grabs at my wrists. The more oxygen he’s deprived of, the weaker he gets. He can barely keep his eyes open. “Okay,” he whispers.

When I let go, he bends over and coughs so hard, it sounds like there’s a seal in his throat. There’s no use in going toe-to-toe with me when it comes to Winnie. I’ll always find a way to keep her safe. No matter what it costs me.

Ace isn’t done yet though. He’s a slow learner and the type who always has to have the last word. “What if Winnie wants this for herself?” he asks. “Maybe she wants to be seen, and she’s done hiding behind her protector.”

Stripping would never be okay with Winnie. Her dreams revolve around paper and fabric, drawings and sewing machines. If he knew her, the real her, he’d know that.

“Fuck off, Ace.”

“I’m serious,” he says. “What else does Winnie have going for her? This could be her chance to make a shit-ton of money, move herself out of the park, and focus on something better.”

That’s all I’ve ever wanted for Winnie—for her to get the hell out of Carillon. As much as I hate to admit it, Ace has a point. If she gets on that stage, she’ll make more, if not double, than what Tess brings in. She’s the perfect mixture of sweet and sexy, innocent yet a little bold. Whether she can dance or not, her looks are enough to keep everyone entertained for hours.

I’m sure Tess fixed her up, and once those lights hit Winnie’s face, I’ll lose her forever. I’ll lose her to the money. Because, once she has money, she can run as far away as she wants; she can be whoever she wants to be, and she won’t need me anymore.

“Face it, Trey. Right now, Winnie needs me more than she needs you. Your money is nice while it lasts, but eventually, that’ll end, too. She’s smart enough to realize the only person she can truly depend on is herself.”

My fingers flex one last time, and then they curl into the tightest fists. I can’t get another breath in, and little white lights explode in front of my eyes. Ace senses it this time and backs up until he’s against the front bumper of his car. The hood’s still hot enough from the engine that his back burns when I shove him down. The sight of him wincing only makes me push against him harder.

“How do you fucking sleep at night?” I ask him. “You have a daughter. What if that was her about to step onto the stage?”

His eyes narrow, and I realize I finally hit him where it hurts. He didn’t see it with Winnie, but with his little girl, it’s a hell of a lot more powerful.

“I wouldn’t let my daughter within a mile of The Whip in the first place.”

“Winnie’s not my daughter.”

“Okay,” he says with half a laugh. “If that’s how you want to play it, then I wouldn’t let my girlfriend near it either. I guess that says a lot about you, doesn’t it, Trey?”

Without thinking, I reel back and knock him square in the jaw. Defenseless, his head swings to the side, and blood shoots out of the corner of his mouth and onto my leather jacket. I take a step back, and while I debate on telling him to wipe it off, I let him stand up.

He digs into his back pocket, and I assume he’s getting something to wipe the blood off his mouth, but I underestimate Ace. I figured he carried, but a knife? I don’t think he has the slightest clue what to do with one of those.

“What now, tough guy?” I question with a smirk.

If a knife is supposed to scare me, he’s going to have to do more than holding it in the air.

“Maybe I should ask Winnie. She’s the blade expert, isn’t she?”

“You motherfucker.”

I’m not sure how Ace found out about Winnie’s cutting. She conceals it well enough, and from what I can tell, she always cuts in the same spot—the top of her thigh. It’s not something she talks about or gives anyone a glimpse of, yet Ace somehow knows. If I find out he so much as picked a piece of lint off her polo shirt while she was at The Whip, I’ll use his own knife to gut him.

I lunge at him again, and I’ve been in enough fights to anticipate every move he makes with the knife. He’s a shit fighter—all talk with nothing to back it up.

“Ace!”

Tess’s high-pitched voice sends chills up my spine like nails on a chalkboard. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her and Jax rounding the corner and walking across the lot.

Perfect timing.

Tess reaches into Jax’s back pocket, but I let go of Ace and have my gun pulled before she has his Glock aimed at my head. Ace knows he can’t compete with guns, and his knife dangles next to his thigh in his limp hand.

What’s left of this fight is now between me and Tess. But neither Tess nor Jax realizes who I am because of the helmet on my head. They’re still too far away to see my eyes, and they haven’t heard my voice.

I use it to my advantage and whisper to Ace, “One word, and you’ll die.” And then I pull the shield back down to cover my face and hide behind it. It’s the only way to keep my identity a secret.

As long as I have a gun in my hand, I trust he’ll keep his mouth shut.

My eyes are still locked on Jax and Tess. She’s staggering, grasping at nothing, trying to regain her balance. Jax realizes getting the gun out of her unpredictable hand is more important than any threat coming from me.

“Baby,” he says, “I’ve got it from here. Give me the gun.”

She shakes her head, and her finger lingers over the trigger. “Nobody’s gonna hurt Ace. Ace is good to me.”

“Nobody’s hurting Ace. Right?” Jax looks at me, and even though he can’t see my eyes, he somehow thinks whoever’s under the helmet is going to negotiate with him.

I lower my weapon enough to let Jax know I’m not planning on shooting.

Ace works with me and says, “Tess, I’m fine. Put the gun down. We can go inside and talk.”

“You’re lying,” she mumbles.

When Tess is high, she’s impossible to talk off a ledge. But I’ve never seen her stick up for someone else the way she’s going to bat for Ace. It makes me wonder how involved he is in Tess’s life outside The Whip. How much money is he really giving her, and why? And what else is he involved in?

“Tess, come inside with me,” Ace tells her.

She licks her lips and wobbles over to him like a lost puppy who found its way back to its master. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were involved. That girl will do anything if she’s desperate enough, and Ace has way too many connections for her to ever cross him. At this point, he’s her lifeline, the hand that feeds her addiction.

Tess teeters backward on her heels, the gun still held loosely in her hand. Ace exchanges a look with me and then keeps his eyes on her, encouraging her the closer she gets to him. But, no matter how many times he asks her to, she still won’t drop the gun.

If I had any sense, I’d rip my helmet off and handle Tess myself. But the helmet is the only thing that’s probably keeping Tess from blowing my brains out. As soon as she saw my face, she’d do it—without hesitation. That’s how much she despises the fact that I’m alive and Mick isn’t. His death wasn’t my fault, yet I get all the blame.

The door behind me opens and slams shut.

One of the bartenders stands there with an empty box in his hand, frozen in place next to the dumpster. “What the fuck?” he mumbles.

Jax, Tess, and Ace are focused on the bartender when I spot Winnie running toward the building. Her eyes are focused on the ground, and I beg her to look up and see us before she gets too close to turn around.

She doesn’t.

Her dress is too short, and her hair’s all over the place, whipping around in the wind behind her. She swipes at her cheek with the back of her hand, and I’m pretty sure she’s wiping away tears.

As soon as she sees the leather covering my body and the helmet on my head, she covers her mouth with her hands. She knows it’s me standing in the middle of the parking lot with a gun.

Run away. Please.

“Trey!” she shouts and sprints toward me, crying harder the closer she gets.

No, Winn. No.

The second she hears my name, the calmness that was slowly taking over Tess vanishes. She looks at all the faces in front of her, and by process of elimination, she narrows her gaze on me. “You motherfucker,” she spits. “It’s you.”

My identity no longer matters, and I flip the shield up, revealing my face. Tess’s manic laugh bubbles out of her while Jax’s jaw hangs open.

Once the shock wears off, Jax realizes the gun’s pointed at me again. Tess’s eyes smolder with hate. She’s holding revenge in the palm of her hand and that doesn’t sit well with any of us.

I feel Winnie by my side before I see her. But her presence is always like some kind of spiritual awakening. It’s just what she does to me.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I tell her. She looks the same age as me in that dress and with all that paint on her face.

She overwhelms me with one look, and even though I want to tell her how much I love her, I shove my feelings aside like I’ve been doing for months.

With a gentle voice and as much calmness as I can muster, I say, “Go inside. Stay in Ace’s office until I tell you to come out.”

“Tess is my battle. Not yours,” she says. “And I’m not leaving you, Trey. I can’t.”

Like Ace just stabbed me with the tip of his knife, her words cut through my heart and settle somewhere in my gut. Maybe it’s how she’s dressed or the way the wind’s blowing the hair by her face, but it’s like she’s mine, ten years from now, and the whole world knows it.

Winnie’s entire life is a goddamn fight between good and evil. And there’s so much she doesn’t know. If she did, she wouldn’t look at me the way she does. She’d be as repulsed as everyone else.

“Don’t argue with me, Winn. Not now.”

“I fucking knew it,” Tess says. And, suddenly, Tess can’t decide whom to aim the gun at. One last look of disgust toward me, and then her attention’s on Winnie. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought about killing you in your sleep?” she asks her.

Winnie’s breath hitches, and her mouth is so dry, I hear her struggle to swallow.

“Nobody would miss you, ya know. You’re fucking worthless.”

Ace is still behind Tess, on the hood of his car. He holds his phone up so that only Jax and I can see, and I pray that means he’s calling the police.

Jax exchanges a look with the both of us because we all know Jax is the only one capable of talking some sense into Tess right now. She respects Ace, but she trusts Jax. Right now, trust is the only thing able to keep Winnie alive.

“Baby,” Jax says softly, “do you hear the sirens? The cops are on their way. If they see you with the gun pointed at Winnie, you’ll get arrested.”

Though the threat is real, Tess doesn’t even look at Jax. All she says is, “Then, I guess I’m going to jail.”

“I won’t be able to see you if that happens.”

“Aw, will you be sad, Jaxy?”

Jax is getting nowhere with the nice routine, so he raises his voice and steps closer to Tess. She takes a step to her right, wanting the space back. But Jax doesn’t falter.

He says, “Give me the gun.”

“She ruined my life, Jax.”

“You ruined your life, Tess. This isn’t Winnie’s fault.”

“Everyone cares about precious Winnie,” she says through gritted teeth. “The little bitch always gets her way.”

Winnie winces, and I try to inch my fingers over to hers. Just a little brush against her skin would calm her down, but I can’t reach her.

Jax inches closer to Tess and then glances over his shoulder to Ace. Ace motions to grab the gun from her. Tess isn’t steady on her feet, and it wouldn’t be hard to tackle her to the ground. I’d do it myself, but I’m on the wrong end of the barrel.

Sirens wail in the distance, and Jax is running out of time.

There’s no count of three.

No warning at all.

Ace runs and jumps on top of Tess.

Jax reaches for the gun, and as they wrestle it out of Tess’s hand on the ground, it fires. I grab Winnie, pulling her against my chest, at the same time she wraps her arms around my neck and melts against me.

“Everything’s okay, Winn. You’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The warmth she fills my soul with vanishes, and in its place is an icy chill like I’ve never felt before.

My fingers are coated and then my entire hand. When I pull back and take a look at Winnie’s face, her eyes are already rolling back in her head.

“No, Winn. No,” I beg. “Please.”

I scan her body and watch as the blood seeps through her dress and down her thigh.

“Stay with me,” I beg. “What have you done?” I scream at Tess.

But Tess can’t hear me. She’s lying on the ground, screaming at the top of her lungs, clawing her nails into the gravel, while Ace and Jax fight to restrain her. She’s so high, she has the strength of three grown men.

The gun’s still pointed at us, only it’s now on the ground in the dirt.

Winnie’s limp body rests in my arms. All I can do is hold her against my chest and rock her back and forth, like I did when she was a little girl. Only this time, I’m not praying for her to grow up and become the princess she always dreamed of becoming, I’m praying for her life to a god I’ve never had any reason to believe in.

“Trey,” she whispers, “don’t leave me.”

“I’m not, Winn. I’m right here. You’ll be okay.”

The sirens are a block or two away and I know I have to get up and get out of here before the cops see me. If they do, I’ll never see Winnie again.

“I have to lay you down now, sweetheart. Close your eyes, and think about the beach. When you open them again, I’ll be with you. I promise.”

“No,” she whispers. Her breaths are coming slower and slower. Her eyelashes flutter as she fights to stay awake.

The pool of blood surrounding her grows, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to help her.

With every ounce of strength I possess, I stand up and run toward my bike. If I look back, I won’t be able to leave, so I don’t.

Tess is still screaming.

Jax and Ace are still holding her down.

And Winnie’s dying.

As I gun it out of the parking lot on my bike, I try to convince myself I’m not running. I’m leaving to protect her.