Is that why he put me up front? So that it looked like I left of my own accord?
“Are you going to tell me where I am?” I rounded on him as he turned on lights that showed the loungearea. A large flat screen TV was mounted on the brick wall…the only brick wall in the place like it was some feature piece.
“Don’t worry, you won’t be staying long.”
The edge in his voice had my insides seizing up. Gone was the man who claimed he wanted his family back and now in its place was who he had always been around my father.
“What happened to wanting your family back?”
He turned to face me, his mask completely gone and replaced with an expression I saw on my father and other brothers’ faces.
“Had things been different, Darby, I would have gladly left you down there. At least you would have had Shona, but unfortunately, our father was an asshole and he made promises to people who gave him weapons, drugs and money. He has debts to pay, and now they land on my shoulders because I wasn’t there when your friends blew up the clubhouse.”
I knew it.
Somehow, I knew he would do this. I’d known my father had been cooking something up in the final weeks before I was “kidnapped” by the Ghost Rebels, but I’d not wanted to believe he wouldsellhis own daughter for influence.
“Why? Why wouldn’t you just go into hiding?”
“It’s not as simple as that. Our world rarely is.”
I hated him. I fucking hated him.
“You’re condemning me.”
He sighed, and I saw the exhaustion behind his expression. “I am, and I’ll burn in Hell for it, I know, but I have no choice.”
“You do…you’re just choosing yourself over your sister.”
“A sister who hates me…it’s not much to decide on, is it?”
I looked away, unable to look at him any longer. Why hadn’t I trusted in Rebel? I wished he was here. He would make it all go away…I knew he would.
He was my safe place.
He was … my everything.
I didn’t even know you could feel this way about anyone, much less someone I barely knew. The stuff about his dad, about how he hated talking about his family…it only made me love him more. I wanted to be the balm to his injury, the salvation in his soul that mended that heart of his.
I wanted him to know I was his.
Even if I was sold to someone who would use my body as they pleased, I would always be Kendrick’s.
Refusing to let him see my tears, I turned my back on my brother, pushing through the pain that was lodging in my body at the thought of being used as leverage.
“You can’t get out of here. It’s locked with a code. I guess you’re used to that now.”
Hatred. Revulsion. Loathing.
That was what I felt for my supposed brother while I waited for him to hand me off to be raped, beaten and probably put into the skin trade. I looked around the prison and saw empty rooms, one bedroom at the end of the hall that looked just like Riagan’s clubhouse room.
This was his house?
I sat down on the edge of his bed and let the tears fall. My mind stayed firmly on Rebel. The memory of being with him would be the only thing that got me through this.
He was my safe place.
My sanctuary.
