Dark Secret - Avelyn Paige Page 0,8

accomplished.

Tonight’s the kind of night I just want to sit here at the bar, get drunk, and pass out until tomorrow. I shouldn’t even be here, seeing as I’m in no mood for celebrating, but ghosting them like Shelby did to me on such a big night for our club isn’t in the cards. I’d be disrespecting both GP and Blair if I hadn’t shown up. So, here I sit, wallowing like a fucking asshole in my own personal shit instead of celebrating with my club.

“Hot damn!” Karma yells out from the crowd. “Hey, honey, how about you come and sit on my lap?”

Great. One of the club girls must be putting on a show. Grabbing my beer, I start to turn around when…

What the fuck?

A fucking ghost from my past. One I never expected to walk back into this place so long as my lungs still sucked in air. Shelby fucking Dawson. The woman who broke me.

“Is he here?” her voice calls out over the noise, rocking my fucking world. The beer drops from my hand, shattering to the floor, bringing her attention to me.

Fuck me sideways. Ain’t no hiding from her now. Way to go, asshole. Couldn’t just make a quick escape, could you?

She bolts toward me, fear clear as day on that pretty face I used to call mine all those years ago. The face that fucking bailed without so much as a goddamn word.

Each step she takes closer to my location, my heart thuds inside of my chest. The years have been good to her. Damn good. The girl I knew has grown into a woman, and a smoking hot one at that. Her short, spiky, pink and blonde hair has changed into an even punkier look of bright purple. Every pair of unattached male eyes are on her. Hell, even the ones attached are looking. The beast lying dormant inside of me growls, wanting to re-stake my claim on her and force them to look away. But she’s not mine anymore. She’d made that clear enough when she left.

“Wyatt,” her silky voice calls out to me. A voice I never thought I’d hear again. A voice that still—after everything—has the power to ruin me.

“So, you do remember my name. Figured you’d forgotten it with the way you left.”

Her beautiful eyes soften as a tear slides down her cheek. The pained look tells me all I need to know. She’s not here for a reunion, nor to apologize for leaving the way she did. She wants something, and she’s desperate enough to come to me after all these years.

Well, she came to the wrong fucking man.

“I need your help.”

“I ain’t in the helping mood, darlin’, not anymore. Go ask someone else,” I snarl, stepping around her.

“Please,” she pleads. “My daughter’s gone.”

She has a kid? The fact that she could leave me so easily and have a child with someone else doesn’t escape me. It’s been years, and her moving on should be a given. So why does that hurt so much? I peek at her left hand. No ring. Commitment still isn’t her strong suit, it seems.

“Must get that skill from her mother. You were real good at running away yourself.”

“I’m not here to rehash the past, Wyatt. I really need your help.” Good. There’s nothing for the two of us in the past or in the present. She made damn sure of that thirteen years ago.

“Why should I care about some other man’s spawn?”

“Because she’s yours.”

Those words hit me like an electric shock, straight to the heart. I gape at her, unable to move. “Say that again? I could’ve sworn you said she was mine. Last time I checked, I didn’t see my name listed on a birth certificate anywhere.”

“My daughter… she’s yours.” This time, her voice cracks.

I narrow my eyes and take a step closer. “How do you know she’s mine? It’s been fucking years, Shelby. For all I know, you’re lying to me so I’ll help you.”

“She’s twelve, Wyatt. Do the math.”

With a frown, I push past her and pace the floor, ignoring the people around us watching our every move. If she’s really twelve, the timing would be right, but why the hell would I believe her? The woman I knew back then wouldn’t have hidden this from me. She knew I wanted kids. A tie to someone by blood, since my own family didn’t bother to stick around.

“Please, Wyatt,” she sobs. “She’s missing. I know something’s wrong. Someone’s taken her.”

The hurt