tried to kill me too. In spirit, they almost succeeded. In body, Colt saved me.
And now he’s ridden off to get his revenge and mine. And mine. That’s all I need to know.
Mine and Josh’s and Stormi’s.
I bet she’s at home with her sister. Where else would she be? Especially since Ace is here.
Her home phone number is one I’ll never forget for as long as I live. I’ve dialed it at least five thousand times growing up. More rarely later as we started drifting apart, but my fingers don’t even falter as I dial it now.
“Hello,” she answers breathily. That’s how she always answered the phone, because she was always scared it’d be bad news about her sister, or her missing mother, or her old grandmother. Just as I was always scared it’d be bad news about my mom, or her sister, or Stormi herself. We found each other in fear and pain, connected through it, made bonds that can’t be severed by either distance or anger.
“It’s me,” I say.
She inhales deeply and holds her breath. “Brenda, are you OK? I’m so sorry for leaving the way I did. Did you get my note? Ace said you got out. That you’re OK. Why didn’t you call sooner? I’m so sorry.”
Typical Stormi. Talking a mile a minute and jumping all over the place.
“No. I’m sorry for being such a bitch to you,” I say. “I understand why you didn’t tell me you were leaving, I totally do—”
“I just had to get out…but they caught me before I got on the bus. They were gonna kill me and Ace, and I just prayed you got my note and escaped,” she says, my head spinning with all this new information and fear and horror it brings.
“A guy from Ace’s real MC got me out,” I say. “Just in time too, they were gonna have Crow kill me. You know, the scary, greasy-haired guy with the dead eyes? He was gonna cut me up.”
Her breath hitches in her throat. “Fuck! But you’re safe now?”
“Yes,” I say. “Safe and in love.”
I can hear her smile in the way she exhales. “Really? You? In all these years we’ve known each other, I never heard you say that.”
“Yes, really, me. His name is Colt, and he’s in the same MC as Ace, and there’s absolutely nothing I want from him except him,” I say and laugh and she laughs with me and for the first time in forever it seems, we have good news to share. A lifetime of it, if I’ll have any say in it. And I mean to have a say in it.
I hear the rumbling of a Harley outside, faint at first, but growing unmistakably louder.
“My man’s come back now,” I say with a wide grin on my face. “I gotta go. But I’ll call you back soon.”
“OK,” she says and something else which I don’t hear because I’ve already hung up as I rush to open the door.
Colt’s changed his mind about leaving me all alone here. Good. It was about time.
I was gonna tell him that to his face, but the words die on my tongue as I open the door. And come face to face with Monarch. His dark brown eyes are hard as steel and the grey in his beard and along his temples is more pronounced than I remember it. His face is angrier and scarier than I’ve ever seen it.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding, princess,” he says, the softness of his voice the complete opposite of the hate in his eyes.
Three of his men are sitting on their bikes behind him, cutting off all avenues of escape. The dark shades they’re wearing makes it seem like they have no eyes.
“You still look fine, though,” Monarch says. “A little wild and unkempt, but quality like yours doesn’t fade.”
I open my mouth to speak, figuring the best way to handle this is the way I’ve always handled him. With sweet lies and big smiles.
His arm shoots out. I’m expecting a slap, but he grips my throat in his fist instead, pushing me backward into the room and kicking the door shut behind him. I can’t breathe and fat black spots are swimming before my eyes before he finally releases my throat and pushes me back on the bed.
“Now tell me, what have you done with my little cousin Josh before you whored yourself out to another club?” he says.
Before he spoke, I was sure he was