“I didn’t want to be the reason the club went back to bloodshed.”
“Eden, we never got out,” he snaps, not at me, but at the situation. “We’ve always been involved. I just kept you away from it.”
“I thought I was protecting you. Protecting everyone. You said you wanted the club clean. And Jimmy—Liam—you said it was nothing to worry about. Then you had him following me.”
“It’s a mess,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair. “A fucking mess.” He stands abruptly. “You need sleep. You haven’t slept properly in weeks.”
“Maybe I should go. Let you process everything.”
He scowls. “Go where? You’re not leaving.”
“But you said—”
“I didn’t know then.” He steps closer. “I know now.”
“Kade, you don’t have to feel sorry for me.”
“The only thing I’m sorry about,” he says darkly, “is that I didn’t get to kill him myself.”
My chest aches. He takes my hand gently and leads me from the office. The club seems quieter now, less chaotic. Almost like it knows we need time.
We go to the bedroom. “Rest,” he murmurs.
“Aren’t you staying?”
He shakes his head once. “Night, Queenie.”
He kisses my cheek lightly, and walks out, closing the door behind him. I stare at the wood, fighting the ache in my chest. He’s proving my worst fear true.
He’s looking at me differently.
KADE
I don’t remember walking down the hallway.
One minute I’m closing the bedroom door behind me, the next I’m shoving open my office door and stumbling inside like I’ve been beaten half to death. I’d welcome that right now.
The second the lock clicks behind me, my legs give out.
I drop into my chair, elbows on my knees, hands gripping the back of my neck like I can hold myself together if I just squeeze hard enough.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. Every time I close my eyes, I see her. My girl. My Queenie.
Drugged. Alone. Confused.
A broken fucking sob tears out of my throat before I can swallow it down. I slam my fist against the desk, a useless burst of rage, and my knuckles crack. “Fuck!”
Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t Iknow?
All those nights I accused her. All the times I yelled. The suspicion. The doubt. The jealousy eating me alive. And she was trying to survive. My stomach lurches, and I dig my fingers into my hair.
“Fuck,” I whisper, pressing my palms to my eyes as tears burn hot and relentless. “Fuck, Eden…”
She’s been walking around this clubhouse terrified and in pain, and I thought she’d cheated on me. I thought she’d gone off with some other man. That would hurt less right now.Shit,how I wish she’d met another man instead of this…this fucking nightmare.
I was ready to throw her out. I packed her fucking bag and gave it to her with instructions to get the hell out of Nottingham. I wanted her far away so I didn’t have to see her again.
A sound escapes me—painful, hollow, a noise I’ve never made before.
