Page 25 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
“They were marrying you off to the boy?” Cat says, throwing a glance in Crown’s direction. “The hell they playin’ at?” It’s a rhetorical question, not meant to be answered in the here and now. “Well, shit, guess we better load up before they bring in the big guns.”
“Should I take her in the Escalade?” Sin queries, flicking his silver eyes my direction. They slide from my face down to my chest, and then he frowns, his semi-crooked mouth reminding me why I always thought he was so damn cute.
I follow his gaze and glance down at my chest, at the hole in the lacey neckline and the nearly black blood leaking out of it. With a frown of my own, I hook a finger under the edge of the torn lace and pull it back, noticing for the first time that …
“Oh, I was shot,” I say, and then the dizziness and the swirling scenery, the confusion and the blistering cold, it all makes so much more sense.
“Fuck,” Sin murmurs, and then he manages to catch me as I fall forward.
That’s the last thing I remember for days.
It’s a monumental task to get my tired lids to part, to take in the blurred scenery and try to make sense of it. Am I back in that bedroom again? I wonder, reaching out a hand and finding a warm male body sitting on the edge of the bed. I must be. And this is Grey.
The man squeezes my hand, and a hot thrill shoots through me, like a shock of adrenaline to the heart. I snap to, sitting up suddenly as the man withdraws his hand. It takes me several more blinks to bring the room into focus and realize that I’m in my grandmother’s old bedroom, the one that still smells like her perfume.
Though … this house hasn’t really been a home in a long, long time.
Instead, this is where the club buries the bodies they don’t want found. It may as well be a graveyard, a cursed place full of death and pain and misery. Underneath this house, there’s a sea of skeletons tumbled together in a mass grave.
I shiver and rub at my face with both hands. The motion makes the bandage on my shoulder pull, and I wince against the pain.
“Easy,” the man breathes as I drop my hands to my lap, realizing as I do that it isn’t Grey sitting there: it’s Crown. Crown. Fucking Crown. Born Calder Reid, ex-cop, Boy Scout among thieves, six foot five with auburn-highlighted brown hair that curls in such a sweet, endearing way that it almost tricks me. Almost.
“No lectures?” I manage to choke out, but then the coughing starts, and Crown is offering me a glass of water. I push it away, and he growls at me.
“When someone’s trying to help you, don’t fight it.”
He scoots closer to me, wraps a strong arm around my waist, and forces the water to my lips. He tilts the glass in just such a way that I’m forced to either drink it or let it spill all down my front. I choose the latter and Crown curses at me. My eyes are narrowed as I stare at him, and he finally pulls the glass away.
He looks at it then back at me before taking a huge drink and then offering it up again.
“It’s not poisoned; don’t be a stubborn little brat for once in your life.”
The way he’s staring at me, the way he’s talking to me, it isn’t how I’d expect him to treat a traitor of the club. He’s angry, that’s for damn sure, but why wouldn’t he be?
I Tased him. I stole his bike. I freed a hostage—a hostage who just so happens to be the prince of the mafia that the club’s been locked in war with for decades.
Rightfully, my head should be on a pike. Instead, I’ve been tended and washed, dressed in clean panties and a tank top, my shoulder cared for. My hair is even brushed and tangle-free. Reluctantly, I accept the glass and swig the remainder of its contents, swiping my arm across my lips as Crown and I examine one another like we both suspect the other of something nefarious.
It’s weird to be back here, like waking up in another world. Have three months really passed?
“Gidge,” Crown starts, sweeping hair back from my face. The gesture seems to annoy him as he withdraws his hand, staring down at it like it’s the traitor—rather than me. He opens his mouth to talk and then pauses, eyes flicking toward the bedroom door.
Somebody’s coming. I can hear the cacophony of boots as they make their way up the stairs.
“Listen to me,” Crown continues, turning all the way to face me and taking my head in two, big, tattooed hands. Our eyes meet, and I almost want to cry. I want to throw myself into his arms and let him hold me. And like, since when has that ever been a thing? We have never had that kind of relationship. It’s like the devil begging to be pulled into God’s embrace. Except … I know that Crown is anything but godly. Tears will not help me now—even if I were to realize that crying doesn’t necessarily make one weak. Maybe it’s that I’m just not strong enough to let my true feelings show? “After Grainger brought you to the compound, you bummed a smoke from Sin, and that’s the last thing I can recall. Only the five of us know you traded us for that boy.”
