“But he took her!” I sob, then I look down and see Ramos even more bloodsoaked now. His breathing is shallow and he’s unconscious and there’s blood all over my shaky hands.
Everything becomes painfully clear. I lost myself to the rage building inside me. I could’ve just killed him.
“Y-you stopped me,” I whisper, looking up at Sean. He’s still holding me in his arms.
“I’ve got you, baby,” he whispers as sobs rack my body. I give in, and I just cry harder.
“I’m so sorry it’s not the words you wanted to hear, but it’s the truth and now you know it,” he says. Kai unties Ramos and he slumps to the floor then Kai drags him into the corner. I look up at Sean as he gently swipes my hair off my forehead. I’m covered in sweat and another man’s blood.
“Maybe it was wrong to seek him out so you could learn this. Maybe I shouldn’t have subjected you to this, and that’s something I’ll live with for a long time. But I couldn’t keep it from you. I wanted to give you the choice.”
“No, you weren’t wrong. I wanted to know. It’s been haunting me for two years. I’m so sorry you had to do this to him for me.”
Sean strokes my hair as he speaks. “This is what it means to be mine, Layla. You’re always in control. What you say goes. This is the iron-fisted chokehold you have me in. I’m at your service. Whatever you want is yours.”
My body trembles as Sean holds me and strokes my face, letting me know he’ll always hold me. “I’d line up twenty more of these fuckers without a second thought and pick them off one by one with my bare hands if it meant I could give you peace,” he says. He bends down and kisses my lips, my cheeks, my throat. His voice is a rasp against my ear. “I’m no longer just my club’s soldier, little dove. Above all, I’myours.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Sean
I don’t know how long I just hold Layla on the floor. But I do until her sobs stop and she’s not shaking anymore. She looks back at Ramos in the corner. Kai is oblivious to the carnage in this room—the fucking guy lives for this shit. He’s probably champing at the bit to shoot him. He sits in the corner smoking and scrolling on his phone. I won’t tell her what she doesn’t need to know, so I keep to myself that one of the things Ramos uttered to me, between us waterboarding him, was that he found Layla because someone left a note on his bike with her address, telling him that I was coming for him. My head races knowing they’ve been watching us—and her. Either that or someone from our circle gave intel to them, which seems impossible. The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m going to make it my life’s mission to tear apart with my bare fucking hands anyone who was behind Ramos getting to her. But first I’m going to look after her until she recovers from this.
“What will happen to him?” she whispers after a time.
“Whatever you want,” I tell her, stroking her tearstained face.
She looks back at him then up to me. “I don’t want him tohurt anyone again.” She shrugs. “But she wouldn’t want me to take his life. I know it.” I watch her red-rimmed eyes as she decides his fate. “I want him to live and be reminded of her every day. I want him to regret his choice to kill her every single day until he dies. Can you dothat?” she asks.
I nod and kiss her face. Layla has had enough trauma for one day, and I can make sure he’ll never shoot another gun or ride ever again. It goes against everything in me not to make sure he’s put into the ground, but if that’s not what she wants I’ll give her that. She doesn’t need this man on her conscience. My girl is too good to sentence a man to death.
I kiss her and stand, helping her up in the process. Then I make my way to Kai, telling him quietly enough that she won’t hear what my plan is as she rips a piece of paper towel from over the sink and blows her nose.
Kai stops and squeezes Layla’s arm as she rejoins us. “We’ve got you now,” he says as she nods to him. “We’ll make sure he never hurts anyone else.”
“Will he come back or send his club to hurt you?” Worry lines her pretty face as she asks us.
“No, little dove. They wouldn’t dare.”
“They could try.” Kai grins. “It’d be the last thing they’d ever do.”
Layla nods, but as Kai moves back to the table, her eyes harden. “Sean. I want you to know, your club life and this stay with me. No matter what it is you have to do.” She reaches between us and takes my hand, tracing the ink there, flipping my wrist over to trace the compass. “I will never breathe a word of it, but I have some conditions if I’m gonna be your …” Her face crumples up. “Ol’ lady.”
I chuckle, kissing her forehead. “And they are?”
She takes a deep breath and steadies herself, reaching her hand up to my face. “Thank you for finding me the truth. Butthe details of this, what happened with my mother and him …” She looks around, her eyes landing on Ramos. “Those memories stay here too. If I want to talk about it I will, but I never want to focus on why she died, only the positive.”
“The positive?” I ask, always trying to get a step ahead of the way her beautiful mind works.
“She lived, she loved, and even though he took her from me, he gave her happiness in those last months. That’s what I want to remember, and I’ll take her secret affair to my grave. I expect you to as well.”
I nod. “Of course.”
“As far as your club life … this sort of thing.” She waves a hand toward the blood on the floor. “Unless I specifically ask, I want onlyyouwhen you’re with me. The things you have to do to be this man?” Her eyes focus on Ramos’s battered body. “You leavethose thingshere, with the club, understand?”
Her words are full of command. A woman changed, a woman coming into her own.
Fuck, she’s breathtaking.
