Page 101 of Sinner’s Torment

I smiled through my tears, feeling the warmth of his acceptance wash over me. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No.” He shook his head slowly, deliberately, as if he’d given this question considerable thought over the years. “It’s just a dangerous thing. A thing that requires people around you who understand it. Who won’t try to change you or break you or make you into something you’re not. People who love you enough to let you be exactly who you are, even when it terrifies them.”

We both knew he was talking about Torment. About the man who’d driven hours through winding country roads to find me, who’d stood on this very porch and taken my father’s violence without fighting back, without even raising his voice in defense, who’d gone to war to get me back from Stone. Who’d risked everything—his reputation, his safety, maybe even his life—for me.

The man who loved me exactly as I was. Not some idealized version, not the person I could become if I just tried harder or changed myself. He loved the messy, complicated, damaged reality of me.

“Tell me about the Silver Shadows,” I said, changing the subject slightly before the weight of those thoughts crushed me. “Really tell me this time. Not the sanitized, watered-down version you gave us the other day. The truth. The real history.”

My father studied me for a long moment, his weathered face unreadable as he weighed something in his mind. I could see him deciding how much to reveal, calculating what I could handle and what might be too much. Then he sighed deeply, the sound heavy with years of secrets, and gestured toward a couple of old wooden crates stacked haphazardly against the wall. We sat down on them, the wood creaking under our weight, the morning light streaming through the open barn doors and illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air between us, and he began to talk.

He didn’t tell me everything—some things, I understood, would stay buried forever, locked away in the darkest corners of his memory where even he rarely ventured. But he told me enough. More than enough, really. About the brotherhood he’d found in the club, the kind of bond that went beyond blood, beyond family, beyond anything most people would ever understand. About the sense of purpose and belonging that had drawn him in as a young man, back when he was searching for something to fill the emptiness left by a fractured childhood and a father who’d never been there. About the violence and the loyalty and the impossible choices that came with that life—the kind of choices that haunted you in the quiet hours before dawn, that reshaped who you were at your core.

About the sacrifice he’d made—taking the fall for a crime he didn’t commit to protect the club, to protect his brothers, the men who’d become his family when his own had failed him. He spoke of it with a resignation that broke something inside me, like it had been inevitable, like there had never been another choice.

About the cost it had demanded—five years of his life stripped away, his freedom stolen, his identity erased and replaced with a number and an orange jumpsuit. Five years of concrete walls and steel bars, of counting days that blurred together into an endless nightmare of monotony and survival.

About the betrayal that had followed—learning, piece by devastating piece, that the very people he’d protected had set him up from the beginning, had used him like a disposable pawn in a game he hadn’t even known he was playing, had thrown him away like he was nothing more than collateral damage. The look in his eyes when he told me this part—it was pure devastation mixed with a rage so cold it could have frozen the sun.

I listened without interrupting, without judging, my own heart breaking with every word that fell from his lips, understanding on a level that only his daughter could. Because I’d lived a version of that life too, hadn’t I? I’d given myself to the club, body and soul, had become what they needed me to be, had molded myself into whatever shape fit their purposes at the time, had sacrificed pieces of myself in the process—pieces I wasn’t sure I’d ever get back.

We were more alike than either of us had ever realized, two souls carved from the same damaged stone, both bearing scars from the same unforgiving world.

“I wasn’t just a club whore,” I said when he finished, my voice quiet but steady. The words hung in the air between us, heavy with years of shame and self-judgment I’d carried like stones in my pockets.

He looked at me, his expression unreadable. The lines around his eyes seemed deeper in the dim light, carved by decades of hard choices and harder consequences.

“I know,” he said simply. There was no pity in his voice, just acknowledgment. Just truth.

“I was trying to survive. Just like you were.” I picked at a splinter on the wooden crate, not looking at him. The rough wood bit into my fingertip, a small sharp pain that kept me grounded. “I didn’t know who I was, so I became what they needed. What they wanted. It was easier than figuring out who I actually was underneath all the expectations. Easier than admitting I was lost and didn’t have a map to find my way back to myself.”

“And then you met Torment,” my father said, not a question. He said the name carefully, like he was handling something fragile.

“And then I met Torment,” I confirmed. A ghost of a smile touched my lips despite everything. “And he made me wonder if maybe there was more to me than that. If maybe I could be something other than just... available. He saw something in me I couldn’t see in myself. Something worth protecting, worth fighting for.”

My father reached over and took my hand, squeezing it gently. His palm was calloused and warm, and for a moment I was a little girl again, safe and certain that nothing bad could touch me as long as he was there.

“There always was,” he said, his voice rough with emotion, thick with years of unspoken regret. “You just needed someone to believe in it. Someone to see past the role you were playing to the person underneath. Someone who could look beyond the masks we all wear and recognize the real you.”

I squeezed his hand as fresh tears blurred my vision.

“He believes in you, Brandy,” he continued, his eyes searching mine with an intensity I’d rarely seen from him. “That man loves you with everything he is. I saw it when he stood on that porch and took everything I threw at him without fighting back. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t defend himself, didn’t walk away even when he had every right to. When he went into that farmhouse to get you back, he didn’t hesitate for a second. Didn’t think about the danger or the consequences. That’s not obligation. That’s not duty. That’s not some misguided sense of responsibility. That’s love. Pure, unconditional love.”

I nodded, tears streaming down my face again, hot against my cold cheeks. “I know. I finally know.” The words came out broken, but they felt true. Real in a way nothing had felt in a long time.

We sat in silence for a moment, the morning light growing brighter around us, golden rays piercing through the cracks in the barn walls. The world was waking up beyond these weathered boards, birds beginning their morning songs, the distant sound of traffic on the county road.

“What about you?” I asked finally, my voice barely above a whisper, almost afraid of the answer. “Do you believe in it? In me? In the choices I’m making? In the life I’m trying to build?”

My father stood slowly, his joints creaking slightly, and pulled me to my feet with gentle hands. He wrapped his arms around me in a hug that felt like coming home after a lifetime of being lost. Like being anchored to something solid and unshakeable in a world that had always felt unstable beneath my feet.

“More than anything in the world,” he said against my hair, his voice breaking on the words. “I’m sorry it took me this long to say it. I’m sorry I let you walk into that life alone, without the tools or the knowledge or the support you needed. I should have prepared you better. Should have protected you more.”

His arms wrapped around me, as if he could squeeze away all the years of hurt and misunderstanding.

“But I’m here now,” he said fiercely, his arms tightening with a strength that felt both protective and apologetic. “And I’m not going anywhere. You’re my daughter. My responsibility. And I take that seriously. Always will.”

“I know, Dad,” I whispered, my face pressed against his chest, breathing in the familiar scent of leather and motor oil that had defined my childhood. “I know.”