“Yeah, you will. You’ll marry the man I say you’ll marry or I’ll kill you myself, Penny,” he said with a sneer before walking away. “Let’s finish this party, brothers.”
The men and women headed back inside the clubhouse, leaving me alone. I stumbled back over to Scratch’s body, dropping down to my knees again as I cradled his head in my lap.
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed, knowing it was all my fault.
I‘d known my father was insane, but I never thought he’d go that far. He had cut Scratch, scarring him badly, but this was murder. He’d murdered his own enforcer, and if he’d do that, I had no doubt that he’d kill me too.
My plan for leaving, for getting the hell away from there, seemed even more important then, because there was no way I was marrying one of the Viper men. I didn’t want to marry anyone—certainly not anyone that was connected to my father.
I gently placed Scratch’s head back down and stood up. My hands had blood on them, both figuratively and literally. Barring killing myself or running away and truly believing that I could disappear never to be found again, there was only one way out of this situation.
But I was just as scared of that option as I was of my father.
Because both choices made me feel weak, less than, and afraid.
I was a Benite. I was fierce and strong. Or at least I had been before my dark angel had kidnapped me and changed me into something else. Someone else.
Now I felt weak and afraid, and I needed help.
~ 22 ~
Now
Penny
“What do you need?” he asked, staring down at me, his eyes so familiar but so strange now that I could see his whole face.
I knew it was him right away. How could I not? I was drawn to him. Like a moth to a flame, the moment that clubhouse door was opened I felt his pull and I went to him. He was both a stranger and yet so familiar to me. My body automatically reacted to his scent and proximity, like it knew I was in the right place.
“Penny?” he said my name, the familiar sound sending a current straight to my core hard enough to make me sigh.
I hadn’t thought it would be that way—that seeing him again would affect me so much. I’d hoped that Scratch had wiped away some of the stain this man had left upon me, but apparently not.
“I need your help,” I mumbled, finally shaking free of some of my trance.
His coal-black eyes blazed as they moved over my skin, taking in my body like I was naked.
“Fighter?” another man asked from beside me.
So that was his name. Fighter. It was fitting of him through and through. He was a fighter in every sense of the word. And right then that was exactly what I needed.
“I’ve got this,” Fighter replied, his hard eyes still on me. He gripped my arm and started to pull me out of the room, but another man had stepped closer, blocking his path.
I knew something was wrong when I saw the veins in his neck pop out; I just didn’t know what.
“Is this who I think it is?” asked a man that, despite looking like he was in his late thirties, had silver-gray hair and beard.
“Yeah,” Fighter grunted. He wrapped a large hand around my bicep and pulled me to him protectively. “And no one’s fucking touching her.”
The silver-haired man looked me up and down, a scowl pulling between his eyebrows. He reached into his cut and I tensed against Fighter. His grip on me tightened and I forced myself to stay calm as the familiar scent of him wrapped itself around me.
Was going there a mistake? Probably. Yet I didn’t regret it for one moment.
The other man pulled his cigarettes from his cut and lit one with a shake of his head. “You’re looking pretty good for a dead girl,” he drolled calmly.
“And you all look good for a club that kidnapped and threatened the daughter of Razuuk Benite,” I bit out, my skin flushing. Less than six hours out from under my daddy’s club and I was already using his name to keep me safe? That was bullshit. I needed to grow the hell up. “I haven’t told him,” I said firmly, trying to show whose side I was on, and then I scowled, because I wasn’t sure how my life had come to this—choosing a side between my evil father and the evil man who had kidnapped me.
“Stop talking, Penny,” Fighter grumbled.
