I took a deep breath. “Is it too much to ask that you stay here?”
“Fuck you, Jay.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She didn’t flinch. She slid the flash drive into her jacket and grabbed her helmet off the table. I watched her for a second longer.
That’s when her phone buzzed. She moved too quick, shoving it into her pocket, but not quick enough.
The preview lit across the screen before it vanished.
Unknown: Still breathing? Thought I told you this ends with you in the ground.
My gut clenched. My voice dropped into a growl. “What the fuck was that?”
Her shoulders tensed. “It’s nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
She hesitated, then exhaled. “It’s Gage. He’s been texting me.”
My pulse spiked.“Been?”
“A couple times since the night after the alley.”
I was on my feet before I realised it, heat flooding through me. “You’ve been sitting onthreatsfrom him for days and didn’t say a goddamn word?”
“I didn’t want to make it worse,” she snapped. “You had the club tearing itself apart already. I thought?—”
“You thought wrong,” I cut her off, fist slamming the table hard enough to rattle the bottles on it. “You don’t keep something like that from me. Not when it’s Gage, and definitely not when it’s aboutyou.”
Her eyes went sharp, wounded and furious at once. “I’m not one of your brothers or club whores, Jay. I don’t need your permission to breathe.”
The silence shattered like glass. She shoved the helmet under her arm and stormed out, the door slamming hard enough to make the maps on the wall sway.
I stood there, chest heaving, fury and fear tangled until I couldn’t pull them apart.
My gaze slid to the chair in the corner. The Henley I’d given her was still there, folded. But all I could see was her in it, bare feet on the clubhouse floor, sleeves swallowing her hands, fire in her eyes that I couldn’t stop wanting even when I knew I should.
If Gage got to her first, all I’d have left was a shirt that still smelled like her and the weight of what I didn’t say.
Chapter 28
Lucy
Icould still feel the heaviness of his anger on my skin, even though he was standing ten feet away. Jay leaned against his bike like he had all the time in the world, but his jaw was tight, his shoulders stiff. He hadn’t forgiven me for keeping Gage’s texts quiet.
The night air bit through the thin fabric of my dress. I didn’t shiver; I wouldn’t give him that. I could’ve asked for his Henley back, but I didn’t because I hadn’t only liked the warmth of it, but how it felt like him. It was as if I was wearing his armour, even for a little while, and I wasn’t ready to admit what that did to me.
“You should’ve told me the second he reached out,” Jay snapped.
I tightened my grip on my helmet. “What would that have changed? You’d still be pissed, and we’d still be here.”
He stepped closer, gaze like a blade. “You don’t get it. Holding back in this world doesn’t keep you safe, it gets you killed, and it gets me killed.”
My chest ached, but I forced myself to meet his eyes. “You want the truth? Fine. Here it is.”
I pulled out my phone, thumb shaking as I opened the last text. I shoved it toward him.
