Grace stands a little taller, regaining her composure. “What exactly did you two talk about?”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done? They know who you are now. Who your family is. You murdered the VP of a rival MC, and then you came here. That’s an act of war. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I didn’t want to die,” she snaps.
“You should have considered that before you killed him.”
“I didn’t have a choice. You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me. And it better be a damn good reason, because South Bay is about to become a warzone. Andyouwere the catalyst.”
Lips pursed, she steps back and hugs her middle, like she’s trying to shield herself from my questions. I know the look. Whatever she’s hiding, she’s planning on taking it to her grave.
No one talks. No one cooperates. The instinct was built into her DNA.
But it’s all about pressure.
“He offered me a deal, you know.” I slip my hands into my pockets and rock back on my heels.
Her eyes narrow to slits, but she only clamps her jaw shut harder.
“I keep what you stole, pocket the cash and offload the drugs myself, and he gets you. I deliver you, and they walk away. No harm, no foul.”
Grace goes back to where she came from, there’s no biker war, no gunfire, no bodies. South Bay is safe, and I come out of it with a little extra money in my pocket.
Then maybe she’d finally beout of my system.
The problem is that little part of me that won’t fucking die. That little tug, the weight pulling on my stomach. Along with that other feeling. With the understanding of what they’d do to her came that tightness in my chest. Blood-boiling, pulse-throttling, need-to-kill-something kind of rage. I couldn’t turn it off.
“You wouldn’t,” she says, her face paling. “I know you wouldn’t.”
I cock my head, swallowing down the sickness creeping up my throat. “You sure?”
She’s not. She’s been feeling me out. Trying to understand what kind of man I am, waiting for me to be something I’m not. It’s finally starting to dawn on her. Grace is scared. She believes me when I say I’m about to hand her over to a group of men who will give her what I know will be a very brutal death.
“Tell me, Gracie,” I say, voice dropping in warning as I step closer.
She doesn’t back away, but by the way her shoulders round and her eyes dart, she wants to.
“Tell me why you brought this mess home with you.”
A small sob racks her body, and she drops her eyes. When a tear runs down her cheek, I have to physically stop myself from wiping it away. “Broedy… Keegan’s brother, I was his old lady. And he—he put me on the block, okay? And I couldn’t…” She takes a breath. “If you don’t know what that is?—”
My stomach lurches. “I know what it means.”
In an MC, women are property. That can mean a lot of things to the men who think they own them. Including gifting your old lady to the club. A woman gets put on the block, and those assholes take it as a free pass to do whatever the hell they want. Fuck her, beat her. Anything goes. It’s violent and brutal, and the women are rarely willing participants. Axe has never pulled shit like that. I don’t think Jimmy ever allowed it either. But other clubs? Yeah. It happens.
“Of course you know what it means,” Grace snarls. “It’s what your father did to my mother, isn’t it?”
An icy sort of feeling bites at my chest. Yeah. It’s exactly what he did. When the sperm donor who fathered me was chased out of town, he lost his woman and his club in one breath. He wanted vengeance. So he rolled in, took Grace’s mother, the woman he claimed still belonged to him, and handed her over to his new MC. It’s why Jimmy took off, why he packed up his family and left all this shit behind.
“Grace—”
“Screw you, Decker,” she says, voice quiet but angry. “You let them take me, and you’re just as bad as he was. No. You’re worse. Because you’re doing it for what? A little cash?” She jams her finger into my shoulder and pushes me back. “Fuck. You.”
The quiet that shrouds us is near deafening.
She’s right. I’d be just like him. Just like all the men I tell myself I hate. The last strike against my soul.
