“Charlie, listen,” Glory continues. “I just need our money back, okay? That’s all. Then we can… figure it all out.”
The sheer confidence she has in my naivety is baffling. She thinks I won’t notice the two men are from a different MC. That I am still capable of falling under the spell of her sweetly spoken voice. She thinks I can’t hear the veiled threats tucked behind her smile.
“Okay.” I sigh, lifting my gaze to hers. “Yeah… I’ll try to recover it.”
Her smile blooms instantly—sweet, triumphant, like she’s already won.
??????
“I didn’t get a good look,” I tell him, dragging my nails across my jeans. “Because it was literally seconds later that they were gone. But I saw—”
Bang!
My door slams open. I let out a muffled scream, instinctively recoiling. Ryder’s already up, gun drawn, body between me and the doorway like a wall.
I can’t look. I can’t breathe.
They’re here, aren’t they? Glory sent them.
The tremble in my limbs returns full-force, my stomach flipping like I’m about to throw up.
“Shit,” Ryder mutters under his breath. “It’s okay, love.”
I peek up. He’s tucking the gun back into his waistband. Only then do I turn to the doorway.
It’s Wolf… and Ruin.
But Ruin’s already moving. No, charging.
Stop, I want to say, but the word doesn’t even make its way up my throat.
I don’t have time to do anything before he’s in front of me, eyes wild, studying every inch of me. His breathing is ragged and he looks… frantic? Concerned?
“God, Charlotte,” he chokes out like he’s found me buried under rubble. “Oh God. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” His hands cup my cheeks, fingers too close to my neck.
No, no, stop.
My throat. My skin buzzes like it remembers things I don’t want to feel.
He’s rambling. Panicked, like he’s been imagining something horrific for hours. “Did she touch you—fuck, did she hurt you?” His palms slide down to my shoulders. Too close to my airway.
I flinch violently as I jolt backward. My leg crashes into the edge of the coffee table before my whole body gives way and I drop, ass-first, onto it. A loud thud reverberates through the room.
“Christ, fucker!” Ryder barks, lunging forward and shoving Ruin back. “You’re scaring her.”
My throat tightens, breath shaky. I can’t get a grip. My hands are trembling again and my eyes sting.
I look up to find Ruin standing there. Equal parts terrified and guilty. His hands half-outstretched like he doesn’t know what to do with them. His mouth opens, then closes again. He finally steps back, eyes locked on me with a look I can’t name.
Then I notice Wolf. Quiet. Still. Standing near the far wall like he’s been there for hours. Arms hanging limply, jaw tight, expression unreadable. Except, there’s pain there. Subtle. And I know that type of helpless pain. I can identifyit. I can feel it across any room.
I look away. I don’t want to make sense of it. Not of his pain, whatever that means.
Then I watch him. Ruin.
Trying—really trying—to calm himself down. His chest rises and falls too fast, his hands twitching like they want to do something but can’t figure out what. Every bit of this feels foreign. Un-Ruin-like. His gaze never leaves me, not for a second.
“Can you get my keys from the bike?” he says, turning stiffly toward Ryder. “I uh… left them—I…” His words stumble over each other like he’s grasping at a rehearsed excuse but forgot the lines.
