In my dreams I was with Scratch, his strong, capable arms wrapped around me, keeping me safe. Protecting me from my daddy, from the world, from myself. I turned to look at him, seeing the two long scars down his face, and I traced them with my finger.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sadness catching at my throat.
He replied in the form of a smile and pulled me closer. I could smell the familiar scent of him—his sweat, his bike oil, the woody deodorant he wore, his leather cut. Him. Scratch.
He pulled me closer, his arms wrapping around me, and I buried my face against his hard chest. I knew it was a dream. I knew it wasn’t real—could never be real, not anymore, not after what Daddy had done. But I held him as if it were. Remembering his hands on my body, his long fingers tracing my curves and reaching around to cup my ass.
I looked up at him with tears in my eyes. “If I could choose anyone, it would have been you.”
“We both know that’s a lie,” he said with a sweet smile. “Sleep now. It’s gonna be all right.”
I placed my head back on his chest and fell back to sleep, feeling safe in his arms and knowing that he was right.
*
I woke with a start, feeling choked on misery and sadness. Morning light spilled in through the window onto the bed where I lay. I rubbed at my eyes and sat up with a frown, confused as to where I was for a second before remembering everything that had happened—the moments that had brought me to this house. To these people. To Fighter.
I thought about Scratch, about my so-called family and friends. The Vipers. My daddy. Would it really be so bad to be with one of those men? Surely it had to be better than being with Fighter. He’d made it clear that he didn’t think of me like that. That he didn’t want me at all. Well, not unless I was chained to his bed and at his mercy. But that wasn’t how I was going to live my life. I wanted more. I deserved more.
Fighter couldn’t give me what I wanted.
We were completely wrong for each other, and spending my life with him would be just as bad as spending it with one of the Vipers. Neither man would be my choice, and that was what this had all been about: choice. My choice.
I slid out of bed, putting on my leather pants and red top. Daddy may have thought I was a slut, but I thought he was an asshole, so I guessed we were even. I was going back—going home. It wasmychoice. And if it was the only choice I got to make, then so be it. I’d explain to him, make him understand. I’d save up and I’d leave when I was good and ready/. I’d get the hell out of this town and leave this all behind me.
The house was silent as I crept along through the kitchen. I passed through the lounge, seeing Fighter asleep on the small sofa. He was far too big for it, his huge body dwarfing the piece of furniture. His features were relaxed as he slept. It was an expression I’d never seen on him. One arm was flung over his bare chest, and the other hung limply to the floor resting next to an almost empty bottle of whiskey, his large palm open.
The things those hands were capable of scared me and delighted me in equal measures, but I would never figure him out. Figure us out. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me. One minute he was holding me like he owned me and the next he was pushing me away like I was someone else. He was fucking with my head. Hell, that was all he’d done since the first moment I’d met him. I shook my head and turned away from him.
I unlocked the front door and slipped outside. The day was still young and curtains were still drawn all around me, people sleeping, blissfully ignorant of everything.
I glanced back up at Rider’s house, knowing I’d probably never get to see Charlie or Rider again. And Fighter? Fighter really could go to hell. He was just as bad as my daddy. Probably worse in some ways, because with him I’d felt something I’d never felt before, and then he’d taken it all away—thrown me away like I was nothing.
He could go back to his whores and his strippers. To kidnapping women in the middle of the night and torturing them. I wasn’t sticking around to live that life.
*
“The wanderer returns,” my daddy called through the clubhouse as I walked back in. The look on his face told me everything about what he thought of me, and I hoped I held a similar look for him.
He stalked forward, pulling me to him and draping his heavy arm across the tops of my shoulders. I refused to be the meek little girl he wanted me to be any longer, and I looked up at him, holding his stare.
“Dad,” I said.
Dad, not Daddy, because I was a woman now and he needed to accept that.
His gaze remained impassive. “Penny,” he retorted. “You seen sense then?”
I shrugged out from under his grip, my eyes narrowed on him. “This is my family, my home.”
“Yeah it is. And you’re going to make a fine old lady,” he agreed.
I nodded. “I don’t know who took me,” I said with a heavy heart.
His eyes blazed. “Never really thought you did. I just needed to make sure. Besides, we already know who took you, and that fucker is going to ground very soon.”
My stomach squeezed with anxiety, my thoughts on Charlie, Rider, Gauge…Fighter.
Pain sliced through my heart. How could anyone have found out about Fighter? About the Highwaymen? I hadn’t told a soul! I wanted to cry, to get angry, to lash out—to do something, but my own survival was on the line now.
