Page 33 of Ruin

Not that Devil or his crew had ever let normal citizens get in the way of them shooting something—or someone—up. They’d just kill the citizens, too. It was one of the things I’d always hated about that crew and one of the reasons Knight had been so ready to move against them.

At least, I guessed, having no one else on the street would mean we’d see Devil’s guys coming from literally five miles away, if they decided to attack us.

The thought of Knight moving against Devil brought my mind right back to where it had started, though, and I brought the cup up to my mouth and sipped gently. True, Knight had chosen to move against Devil because of Devil’s history of breaking the code. Killing innocents. Hurting people who didn’t deserve to be hurt.

People like me.

Knight and Devil had a history that might have prepped for this war, and sure, Devil had done enough to Knight personally to make this happen. But at the end of the day, it was still going to come down to one factor: me.

Knight had claimed me, and Devil wanted me back. They were both willing to do whatever it took to win that particular battle.

If I were a different sort of girl, maybe I would have been flattered. Blushing and pleased at the attention and the thought that two men wanted me so badly. Feeling rather important that they were both willing to fight for me like that.

I was not that sort of girl. I never had been.

Instead, all I was feeling was the guilt of being at the center of the fight—and the guilt of being the reason people had already died. I also hated that I couldn’t do anything about it. I wasn’t taking an active role in whatever we were doing now. I was just sitting around sort of waiting for someone else to play the hero.

And that didn’t sit well with me.

What I needed was a plan. A way forward, a way to fix what had happened because of me. Tinker was dead, and Mandy and a number of the guys were in jail. Remy, Brock, and Knight were in danger, and we didn’t even know where anyone else was. All because of my existence in their world. Sure, Knight was the one who’d made the decision to keep me, but without me here as something he wanted to keep...

Wait.

Without me here as something he wanted to keep.

I set the coffee cup down on the rail in front of me and put my hands over my mouth, overcome at the thought and the ideas that it brought with it. If I wasn’t here as something Knight wanted to keep, then this would all go away. Tinker would still be dead, yes, but everything else... The battle with Devil and the coming war and the need to fight... Even, I assumed, the problem with the cops...

It would all go away.

Gem would get out of the hospital in one piece. Mandy would get to come home. The guys would all be released back to the clubhouse, and Knight could start living his life again instead of constantly having to check over his shoulder to see who might be following him. Brock could heal, Remy could step up and help Knight with the club...

It ticked off all the boxes. Answered all the questions and fixed all the problems.

I just needed to disappear, and their lives could go back to normal.

I knew I might be oversimplifying things, making them way more shallow than they actually were, of course. Devil didn’t often forget when he thought someone had wronged him, and he almost never let go of a grudge if he didn’t have to. The chances of him just giving up this war were almost nil, now that he’d gotten his teeth into it.

Unless he got what he’d wanted in the first place.

Me.

I WAS WALKING IN A circle around the tree in the driveway because I’d found that this was the only place where I could get enough quiet to actually think. There were men all over the place in the house, and they often overflowed into the garage, which made it impossible to think in either of those places. Not even Knight was capable of keeping his mouth shut for long, and when it came to building a plan, I needed quiet.

And a plan was exactly what I was building.

The premise was simple: If Devil got what he wanted, it solved two problems. It got Devil what he was after, obviously, and it took me out of Knight’s camp, which meant Devil couldn’t use me as an excuse to go after Knight anymore.

Clean. Simple. Guaranteed to work.

I would turn myself over to Devil. I’d been planning to do it on that first night, when he made his initial demand, but I’d been stopped by Mandy and Knight. And we all knew how that had gone.

This time, I wasn’t going to let anyone talk me out of it. Honestly, this time, I wasn’t planning on telling anyone else what I was doing at all. The less they knew, the less responsible they’d have to feel when I disappeared and they realized where I’d gone.

And the less chance they’d have of talking me out of it.

The rest of the plan was slightly more complicated, but that was by necessity. Devil was a crafty and very paranoid guy, and not someone who’d allow himself to be duped easily. I had to figure out the right way to do it, and the right time and place.

Luckily, I thought I had those things.