“She’s in danger with that man. You know she is.”
“She wasn’t scared to call him for help,” I mutter, tightening a bolt.
“She felt she didn’t have a choice. She picked the lesser evil.”
I look away, my jaw locking. “Doesn’t matter. She made her choice.”
“Okay. So, she’s gone for good?” I give a stiff nod. “And you’re letting her go?” I nod again, wiping my hands on a dirty rag. “So, why is your heart still breaking?”
I don’t answer because we both know why. Because I haven’t let her go.
Because Ican’t.
Lexi steps back, watching me with the kind of patience only saints and bikers’ wives have learned. “When you’re ready,” she murmurs, “go get her. Before she doesn’t have a choice left.”
She leaves me alone in the garage. The silence is suffocating.
I look down at my hands.
The scars.
The bruised knuckles.
The violence I’m built for.
For the first time in my life, they feel useless. Because I didn’t fight for her.
I just let her go.
“Fuck,” I mutter out loud. “Fuck!” The wrench goes flying. It clangs off the concrete and skitters under a workbench. I grab my kutte, shrug it on, and head for my bike.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Remi
The church smells like dust and old wood polish, exactly how it was a few months ago when I came here. I wasn’t going to come, it’s an hours long trip each way, and I don’t want to be recognised. But it’s the closest place that will feed me for free, and I am so hungry, I feel like my insides are splitting.
People queue quietly, with their heads down, avoiding eye contact. I blend in better than I ever have, hood up, hands stuffed into my pockets. We all smell of desperation here, no one standing out against anyone else.
When I finally reach the table, I grab a tin of soup and two packets of noodles. Something light. Something that won’t draw attention.
“Need a bag?” a voice asks. It’s warm,familiar,like smoke and gravel and gentleness.
I freeze.
Slowly, I lift my head.
Kade stands behind the table in his black shirt with the little white collar, his kutte draped over the back of the pew behind him, his hair tied back.
His gaze skims over my face, and he goes still. I quickly duck my head back down, pissed at myself for getting seen.
“Remi?”
My throat closes. I swallow, but it barely works. “Hey.”
He doesn’t say anything at first, but I feel the heat of his gaze. And I know he saw . . . how could he not? The dark bruise blooming across my cheekbone. The split in my lip. The faint marks on my throat.
I risk another glance, hardly lifting my chin as I peek from under my hood. “Bag,” I almost whisper, reminding him.
