Was this really my life? Did Silas slide into bed beside me each night and hold me in his arms? Did he fight me for the middle-of-the-night feedings?

I’d asked for a lot in my life. I wanted fame and fortune and a twenty-four-inch waist. I got so much more.

“Are you ready, Blue?” At three months old, he was growing up way faster than I liked. I hefted his carrier up and snapped him into the car. “Daddy’s waiting for us.”

The first time Silas had said, “Come to Daddy,” I’d burst into tears. There was a time when I’d thought my son would never hear those words, but he heard them every day along with Daddy’s boy, Daddy’s little buddy, Daddy loves you. Silas had been an amazing father to Blue and an amazing man for me.

Tonight was fried chicken night. It was the one thing Ana craved with regularity along with chocolate cake, so every Wednesday night we met her and Ryker at the diner to have a family dinner.

Silas and Ryker were almost finished with the house above the garage. They worked mornings in the shop with Ryker repairing bikes and Silas repairing the mess Ryker had made of the books. The afternoons were spent with paint and plaster.

We’d all truly settled into our lives, and it was impossible to imagine being any happier. Even Blue seemed to know how lucky we were, based on his excited coo when I said, “Let’s go pick up Auntie Ana.”

When I pulled up in front of Ana’s house, she waddled out to the car. At seven months along, she was in full bloom, and pregnancy looked good on her.

“I’m starved.” She climbed into the front seat and tugged on the safety belt to gain space for her belly.

“You’re always starved.” I put the car in reverse and headed toward the best things in life … chocolate cake … fried chicken … Savage men.

“Aren’t you the woman who could eat a box of black and white cookies at one sitting?”

I held my hand in the air and waved. “That’s me, and I hold the record. Are you going to challenge it?”

She pulled at the knit shirt that hugged her tummy. “I’ll stick with the cake.”

A few minutes later, we arrived at the diner, but it wasn’t the calm place it normally was. Outside a crowd gathered around a man who lay prone and still on the sidewalk. Silas and Ryker stood over him. Hannah sat collapsed against the building in tears.

Ana practically flew from the car, and as soon as I could park and get Blue out of his seat, I did the same. Ryker had moved and was already holding Ana. His words broke my heart. “I’m so sorry, baby. I couldn’t let him beat her and get away with it.” Tears ran down his face. He kneeled before her and kissed her belly like he was saying goodbye. “I’m so sorry.”

Silas turned in my direction, his expression conflicted as he looked from me to Blue and then to his brother. The man next to him groaned. In the distance, the sound of a siren echoed through the air.

Everything was in his expression. Rage and sorrow warred within him. “This is bullshit.” He picked the guy up by the collar and told him to open his eyes. “Look at me, asshole. I don’t want there to be any doubt about who beat the shit out of you.” He shook the guy, and when the man opened his eyes, he punched him in the face and let him drop back to the asphalt.

Silas pulled me off to the side of the crowd. “Grace, I’m so sorry. I can’t let him go to jail again. He went to jail for me once. I have to go for him this time.” Silas looked over at his brother, who was still on his knees in front of Ana.

I stood there, stunned into silence. This was supposed to be fried chicken and chocolate cake night. Those were happy things; this, whatever it was, was not.

Silas told me to stay put and walked over to his brother. “You need to leave, bro.” He pulled his brother to a standing position and pushed him toward the Subaru. “Go now. You’ve got Ana and a kid to take care of. You did this for me once. Let me do it for you now.”

“You’re not taking the fall for my actions.” Ryker pushed against his brother, and I thought they’d throw fists at each other. “He saw me. He knows I hit him.” Ryker looked toward Hannah, who still sat against the wall with her hands buried in her face.

I was torn. I wanted to pull Silas to me and tell him he couldn’t give up everything we had, and then I looked at Ana, whose hands were wrapped around her pregnant belly. Her eyes focused on the man she loved, the man who had already paid for a thousand sins he never committed, and I knew there was no choice.

I rushed to my friend and told her to take Ryker home. If they weren’t at the scene, they couldn’t be questioned. I stared at all the witnesses, and I wondered whether they would confirm the lie I knew Silas would tell.

Ryker and Ana didn’t budge, and something in me knew they wouldn’t. Ryker was the type of man to take responsibility for what he did. He’d proved that over the past twenty years. And Ana would never let another person take the fall.

The blame for the Fury massacre had sat on Ryker’s shoulders until Ana thought she’d been the one to cause it all. Then they both learned the truth. It wasn’t either of them, but a Rebel named Tiny who started it all. There was no way my friend was letting Silas take the rap. Pregnant or not, Ana couldn’t live with the guilt.

Silas walked to Hannah and moved her hands from her face. There was a red hand mark on her right cheek. I kneeled beside her with Blue in my arms.

“What happened?” Someone had to make sense of all this mess, and since Hannah seemed to be in the middle of it, I hoped she could shed light on why Ryker was waiting to go back to prison and why Silas was volunteering to take his place.

Hannah sucked in a few ragged breaths. “He followed me.” She hiccupped and swiped at her swollen eyes. “I parked, and he attacked me.”

“Who is he?” I looked at the man who was now in a sitting position. Someone had handed him a wad of napkins from the diner to hold against his bloody nose.

“Cameron Longfellow.” She looked at the man and then cried again.

That name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place his face. Then again, one of his eyes was nearly swollen shut, and his nose now curved off to the side.

Sheriff Stuart pulled into the parking lot with sirens blaring. The sound wound down as he exited the car and walked to where the crowd stood.

He assessed the situation and stepped into the middle of the crowd. “Can someone tell me what’s going on here?” He scanned the parking lot, looking for the one person who would spill the beans, but it didn’t appear that anyone was talking.

Word traveled fast in a small town, and within minutes even Marty and Mona were here, checking out the big event at the diner.

“You need an ambulance?” the sheriff asked Cameron.

The man shook his head and tried to stand, but he was wobbly on his feet and fell back to his butt. “I want to press charges.” His voice was nasal, and his nose made the kind of whistling sound that happened when you were stuffed up.

Sheriff Stuart looked around the crowd. “Who hit you, and why would they do that?”

Hannah scrambled to her feet. She raced to the sheriff. “He attacked me.” She dropped her head and, in a muffled voice, said, “I fought back and he hit me.” Her hand reached for her blazing red cheek.

The sheriff looked at Cameron. “You did this to him.” He chuckled and then adopted his stern sheriff demeanor.

“I ignored his advances, but he pushed for what he wanted.” She looked around at the people staring at her. “I thought he would rape me.”

Those words tore at my gut. No woman deserved that treatment, and I was proud of Silas and Ryker for coming to her rescue. Few men would have.

“You want to press charges?” Sheriff Stuart gave her a look that said please say yes, but Hannah shook her head no, and there was an audible gasp from the crowd.

“He’s the Pine Creek mayor’s son. He’ll get a slap on the wrist while I get much worse. Nothing sticks to slime like that.”

Cameron let out a chuckle that made me want to punch him in the nose. “Damn it, Sheriff. I want to press charges. I’m the victim here.”

“It’s your right,” the sheriff said, “but remember, there are a lot of witnesses. Now tell me: Who hit you?”

Something strange came over me in that instant. Maybe it was the fact I loved Silas more than I loved myself. Maybe I thought the Savage men had paid their debt to society, or maybe I knew the sheriff wouldn’t send me to jail.

I stepped forward and said, “I hit him.”

Both Ryker and Silas snapped their heads in my direction, but a funny thing happened. Other people stepped forward to claim the assault.

Ana was first. “I hit him.” She clenched her fists at her sides.

Marty followed. He shuffled forward with his cane in hand and said, “I did it. I hit that little bastard.”

Mona stood in front of the sheriff, only she wasn’t looking at him when she confessed. Lord knows she couldn’t see him. She stared off into the distance, fisted up, and swung at nothing. “I hit him. A clean right hook is all it took to make him crumble.”

She turned toward Marty, and I swear she mumbled the words weak pussy bastard but when the sheriff asked her to repeat what she’d said, she replied, “Next week’s a bastard, Sheriff.” She lifted her right Clarks loafer. “Corn removal.”

One by one, the townsfolk took turns until the sheriff had eighteen names on his list.

Cameron Longfellow looked straight at Ryker and Silas and said, “They hit me, and I want them in jail.”

In spite of the mass confessions, Sheriff Stuart couldn’t overlook that accusation, and Ryker and Silas couldn’t deny their involvement. They were the type of men who owned their shit.

He didn’t handcuff them. In fact, he went into the diner and bought them a meal to go before he told them to climb into the back of his squad car.

“You two need to call a lawyer,” he said to Ana and me. “These are bullshit charges, but I know Mayor Longfellow, and he has friends in high places even though his son is a bottom feeder.” He walked us over to his car where he told us to give our men a kiss goodbye.

“We’ll be down to bail you out in a few minutes,” I said to Silas.

Cameron Longfellow yelled from a distance, “See you in court, assholes.” He looked at Hannah, who was icing her cheek. “I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.” Then he cackled like a crazy person, climbed into his Porsche SUV, and took off.

“Call Henry and ask him to look into Cameron,” Ryker said before Sheriff Stuart closed the doors and drove away.

Ana and I knew Sheriff Stuart wouldn’t mistreat our men. Ever since that day in front of his house when the truth came out, they had forged a friendship. Sheriff Stuart had stopped being Junior or Sheriff and had just become Sam. He was no different from any of the other boys of Fury. He was a victim of a tragic event and a survivor, and he’d become a friend.