I sat with my back against the wall, head tilted back, eyes closed. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed like an angry wasp, relentless and grating. I didn’t bother opening my eyes to look at it.
What was the point?
The cell door was locked. I was alone. And somewhere out there, Kat was telling Frankie that I was a monster who beat people when I lost control.
She wasn’t wrong.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, heavy and deliberate. Not Haizley’s measured stride or Jack’s familiar gait. These steps carried weight. Authority.
I didn’t move.
The footsteps stopped outside the cell door. A key turned in the lock, metal scraping against metal, and then the door swung open with a groan.
“Get up.”
King’s voice cut through the silence like a blade.
I opened my eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the light. He stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, his expression carved from stone. The president of the club. The man who’d given me a place here when I had nowhere else to go.
And I’d repaid him by beating one of his members half to death in his own clubhouse.
“I said get up,” King repeated, his tone dropping lower.
I pushed myself off the floor, my body protesting every movement. My ribs screamed. My jaw ached. My hands felt like they’d been put through a meat grinder.
But I stood.
King’s eyes swept over me, taking in the blood on my shirt, the bruises blooming across my face, the split skin on my knuckles. His jaw tightened.
“You look like shit,” he said flatly.
“Thanks for the observation.” My voice came out rough, scraped raw. “Real insightful.”
His eyes narrowed. “You want to try that again?”
I met his gaze and held it. “Not particularly.”
The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. King didn’t move, didn’t blink. He just stared at me like he was trying to decide whether I was worth the effort of this conversation.
Finally, he stepped into the cell and let the door swing shut behind him.
“I leave for a couple of days,” King said, his voice cold, “and I come back to find Zero in the infirmary with a broken nose, fractured orbital bone, three cracked ribs, and a concussion. You’re locked in the basement.” He paused, his jaw clenching. “Seems everything went to shit while I was in Arkansas.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t look away. What else could I say?
“Cash wants you out. Permanently.”
I laughed, a bitter, hollow sound that scraped against my throat. “Can’t say I blame him.”
King’s expression didn’t change. “Jack’s fighting for you. Says there’s more to the story. Says Zero provoked you.”
“Jack’s too fucking optimistic.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, wincing when my knuckles brushed against the dried blood matted in the strands. “You want the truth? Fine. I lost my shit. Zero said something, and I snapped. Beat the fuck out of him until they pulled me off. That’s the story.”
“What did he say?”
