Page 97 of I Was Born Ruined (Death by Daybreak MC 1)
Good thing I’m already planning on running away, or else I’d be a serious pariah. The other students, they’ll never trust me, not after feeding them bad drugs.
I stay up all night, with Crown lording over me, denied a phone, a computer, a TV, so that I can’t check the news. There’s no way to know who’s alive, and who’s … not.
“You’re as bad as the rest of them, just as much a monster,” I whisper, my voice hoarse as I lay on my side and stare at that handsome face, just a mask for yet another one of my father’s demons. Crown ignores me, his expression so blank that I start to wonder if I imagined that moment in the bathroom. Did that really happen? Was there truly fire between us? Shit, maybe he is dating Amber, maybe he doesn’t give two fucks about me at all?
After a while, I fall into a troubled sleep and wake to Cade Grainger smoking a cigarette in my doorway. He doesn’t look at me when I sit up, rubbing my sticky eyes and fighting off a hangover. Fem hops onto the bed and licks my face, giving Grainge the side-eye. If the asshole tries to come over, my three-legged dog will turn him into a three-limbed asshole.
“And here I was thinking you were one of the worst ones,” I grumble, drawing those brown eyes my way. Grainge plays with his lip rings and then cocks his head at me, his rust-red hair slicked back in the center, shaved down the sides.
“What could’ve possibly changed your mind?” he asks, but not like he cares. No, more like he’s mocking me. “Crown isn’t the angel you thought he was?” Grainger’s wicked mouth curves into a cruel smile. “Isn’t that fun? Now you know that behind all the lectures, all that upstanding citizen bullshit, he’s just as bad as the rest of us.”
My eyes are narrowed, but between Queenie’s posthumous message and the sea of bodies I saw on my way out of the Artefact, I don’t have a lot of witty repartee left in me. Turning my attention to the window, I can see Nellie’s Escalade and Cade’s bike in the driveway, that’s it. Good. I might have a pounding migraine and a conscious rife with guilt, but hey, phase one of my plan should work out nicely.
Get Fem in the backyard, talk to Nellie, get Grainger to take me to the clubhouse.
If there is a god out there somewhere (doubtful), then I guess he or she is listening because Grainger turns to me and slides his smoke from his lips with two inked fingers, offering it up to me. I take it gingerly, careful not to make contact with his skin. Even with everything going on in my life, I can feel that tension between us, hot and sticky and ready to catch fire. My body throbs with remembered pleasure, and my cheeks flush.
“Cat wants you at the clubhouse today.”
My brows go up.
“What for?”
Cade shrugs his muscular shoulders, leather vest crinkling, that spicy-sweet smell of his causing my stomach to flip over in excitement.
“Guess you’ll find out when we get there,” he says, looking me over with a detached sort of expression that scares the shit out of me. Grainger and I, we usually run hot. This faraway look in his eyes, I don’t like.
Today is the day, I think, sensing the energy in my father’s sergeant-at-arms. Today is the day Cat wants me to shoot the kid. He’s just used me to pass out bad drugs, drugs that’ll bring the feds sniffing around for the mafia. And now he wants to cement my loyalty.
Blood in, blood out.
When I run, I hope I don’t leave a crimson trail for him to follow. Because if I do, I may just very well end up with Grainger’s gun in my face or Beast’s hands around my neck.
The club, as sanctioned by Cat, won’t hesitate to put me in an early grave.The Death by Daybreak compound is positively buzzing when we pull up around noon, the hot sun blazing its way through the sky and chasing away some of the forest’s dark shadows. I can’t see the cabin where Grey’s being kept, not from here. Instead of heading up toward my grandmother’s old house and Uncle Benny’s cabin behind it, we’re at the main clubhouse, where I first did blow with Grainger, argued with Crown, watched Beast brawl, and sucked Sin’s dick. Yep, all happened right here.
“Finally,” Cat says when he sees Grainger and me pull up in a front space. “Grainger, we’ve got church,” he grunts, and the asshole nods, lighting up another smoke and acting like I don’t exist. “You, stick around and don’t get yourself into trouble. Wander off these grounds, and I swear to hell, if the mafia doesn’t kill you, I’ll do it myself.”
