Despite what the club did—drugs and guns, violence and bloodshed—I found myself loving each and every Highwayman. They were, at heart, good men. They just wanted a family. They wanted to belong. And they had found that within that club.
But none of that mattered now. Things were accelerating with Mateo and Carlos. They weren’t satisfied with just the drop. They wanted more. They wanted blood. There was only one thing I could think to do now. One thing that would likely get me killed regardless, but it was the only chance I had of ending this once and for all. One big leap and one small chance that I might actually get out of this alive.
I had to finally tell the club.
I trusted Beast with all my heart, and I knew he’d know what to do.
He could protect me and Jenna and make all of this go away.
I smiled, thinking of him—my beautiful Beast. He didn’t think he had a soul. He thought his heart was black and empty, but it wasn’t. There was so much love in him, and slowly, inch by inch, I’d been peeling back the layers to reveal him. I hadn’t meant to fall for Beast, but I knew there was no coming back from it—from him.
When everything else was stripped away, when the worry and the fear and the tears were gone, there was only Beast and the life we could have together. And after last night, despite him not telling me he loved me back, I knew deep down that he felt the same way. I just needed to strip back some more layers and show him the life we could have. One where we would make love all night and I’d cook his dinner when he came home from the club. He’d take me out on his bike and we’d watch the sunset together with a cold beer in our hands. He’d come to dinner with Jenna and Gregory, and she’d hate him and he’d hate her, and they’d argue and bicker but deep down they’d love each other really because they had to because they both loved me.
That was the life we were supposed to have, not this one.
I sighed, staring up at the white cotton sheet, the scent of Beast keeping me warm. Yes, I needed to tell him everything, and now, before it was too late. Because if he found out from someone else, he’d never trust me again. And I couldn’t lose him, not now that I’d found him.
I chewed on my bottom lip, thinking of Lorenzo and how mad he was going to be. He’d changed into someone I didn’t recognize in the past week. Someone I didn’t like, at all. He treated me like an object. He made me feel useless. He looked at me like he owned me, and I had to really think about how much he knew of his brothers. He said that he didn’t have anything to do with them anymore, but his actions and theirs spoke loudly to me.
Lorenzo and I were over, no matter what happened. I needed Beast and no one else.
I realized that knowing I was going to tell Beast meant I wasn’t afraid anymore, and for the first time in weeks I felt the heavy burden of secrets shift from off of my chest so I could breathe again. God, it felt good. Like the air had been tainted with poisonous lies for so long, and now it was clean and fresh.
The sound of the bedroom door opening had me crawling out from under the covers with a smile on my face. I pushed my hair back from my eyes as Beast sat in the chair opposite, his hands steepled in front of him as he rested his elbows on his knees.
“Beast,” I said, his name a sigh of relief on my lips. “Where were you?”
Beast was my savior, my protector.
“Get dressed,” he said, his voice hard and clipped, like he didn’t know me as intimately as he did.
My smile fell. He looked so sad and broken. So lost, like he had in the hospital. “I need to talk to you,” I said, mustering all the courage I could. It was now or never. “It’s really important.”
His gaze was cold, disciplined, and I frowned as he sat back, lifting his leg so that his ankle rested on his knee. “No, I need you to get dressed,” he said simply. Beast pulled his cigarettes out of the top pocket of his cut and put one between his lips before lighting it.
I watched him carefully, a small frown pulling between my eyebrows. “What’s going on, Beast? You’re scaring me.”
He took a drag on his cigarette, exhaling like he was putting a lot of thought into it. His face was expressionless, devoid of everything I knew and loved about him, but he couldn’t hide the emotions from his eyes. Everything I needed to see was in those eyes of his, and what I saw frightened me. “Just need you to put some clothes on, Belle.”
My clothes were on the other side of the room, and I wished that I had thought to get dressed before he came back. I suddenly felt completely self-conscious, like he could see more than just my skin but all the way to my soul.
I shimmied to the edge of the bed, wrapping the sheet around my naked body as I stood, and walked to my clothes. His eyes were cold and hard and watching my every move, and I swallowed, suddenly terrified of what was happening.
I grabbed my clothes and walked back to the bed, my knees knocking in fear. He was still watching me, his hard gaze not giving me even a second of reprieve. I threaded my arms through my bra, trying to put it on without flashing him, but the bed sheet was slipping and I couldn’t get it under my boobs. I was getting flustered and panicked and sweating, the sheet sticking to me, the bra suddenly feeling too small, my hands trembling, and the air slowly being sucked out of the room breath by my frantic breath.
And the whole time he sat there, smoking and staring, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Oh my god, can you at least turn around for a moment so I can get dressed without you staring at me!” I snapped, my chin trembling as tears filled my eyes.
Beast sucked in his lower lip before releasing it with a heavy sigh. He swallowed and I watched mesmerized as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat like he was thinking it over. He dropped his leg from his knee and leaned forward, his elbows back on his knees so that when he looked up at me it was through his thick, dark lashes. And honestly, he’d never looked so beautiful or so dangerous.
“I’m not getting dressed while you stare at me like some kind of sociopath!” I yelled, my fear growing by the second. What was happening? How had we gotten to this place?
Beast scowled and stood up, his shoulders rolling. Sitting on his bed looking up at him, he seemed even bigger—like twelve feet tall and easily able to squash me under his foot. And by the look on his face right then, I didn’t doubt that he would. I wished that his bed was sinking sand and it would suck me under. I wouldn’t even fight it; I’d just let it take me down into its murky depths because I had no idea who I could trust anymore. Everyone I loved turned their back on me.
“Please,” I begged. “Let me get dressed without you staring.”
He swallowed again before turning around, and as he did I caught a glimpse of the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans. It was a good thing that I was sitting down, because my legs turned to jelly and my body seemed to pool into a terrified puddle next to the bed.
