Page 26 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
He keeps our gazes locked, squeezing me just a bit tighter than he should.
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
What?
“Who are you and what have you done with Crown?” I whisper, but he leans in even closer to me, putting our foreheads together. His voice is low and urgent and as close to desperate as I’ve ever heard it.
“Gidge, that’s all that I remember.” He pulls away from me just in time for the bedroom door to open. Cat walks in first, followed by René, Gaz, Sin, Grainger, Beast, and a handful of higher-ups and favorites of his. Then there’s little ol’ me, wearing nothing but a tank, panties, and a heart that’s close to bursting.
In club culture, the club comes first. Always. Forever. No matter what. It comes before wives and daughters, sons and cousins and grandparents and best friends. The club is life. The men are each other’s brothers in a way that marks the rest of the world secondary. Loyalty comes first and is prized above all else. Disloyalty is punished by death.
When I say blood in, blood out, I do not mean it euphemistically.
Then there’s Crown.
Mr. Black and White, choose a side and follow the rules, Boy Scout motherfucker.
For him to lie for me … for him to keep lying for me. No greater declaration need ever be said. The world’s greatest romantic gesture, and I don’t even know what to do with it.
Only the five of us know you traded us for that boy.
It doesn’t take a genius to parcel out who those five are. Me. Crown. Sin, Beast, Grainger.
I swallow hard and let out a long, slow exhale.
I’ll deal with the anger inherent in that statement later. Traded us. Ouch.
He thinks I chose Grey over him, over all of them. In a way, I suppose, I did. In my defense, I wasn’t aware that any one of them was a real option.
“Morning Gidge,” Cat says, pulling a chair close so he can sit in front of the bed.
“It’s Gidget,” I correct automatically, but the familiar quip seems strange, almost foreign. When I took Grey and ran, I was giving up this life forever. No, no, not just giving it up, as if it were some passive thing. I was throwing it as far and as hard as I could. I was making a guarantee and a promise that I would never come back. Yet, here I am.
Cat snorts and reaches out to ruffle my hair with his big hand. I stiffen up because, you know, the last time we were in a position similar to this, he put a gun to my forehead, pulled the trigger, and then dumped my bloody dog in my lap. Excuse the fuck out of me for not trusting the guy.
My brother glares daggers at me, his distrust apparent but unvoiced.
My eyes travel across the other faces in the room. Even though Sin tries to keep a straight face, he can’t. He cracks and gives me a small, crooked smile, the scar on the edge of his lip pulling his mouth up in such a way that he looks like a wolf. A pack predator. Just remember, Gidge, you are still a bear. You are still solo, even if it looks like you have allies.
Grainger and I lock eyes, and even though he scowls and looks away from me, we both know what happened in the chapel. He told me he missed me. That he hated me when he meant what was likely the exact opposite.
To his credit, Beast gives me nothing. But I can feel him. All of that power, all of that violence. The loyalty in his leash was moved long ago, and I just didn’t realize it, not until the day he beat up Gaz and ignored my father’s order. Only my voice could stop him. Only my voice could keep the monster at bay.
I look back at Cat.
“Girl, I won’t presume to know the things you been through,” he says, but with a grudging admiration and respect in his voice that I’ve never heard directed at me before. A rush of heady pleasure spirals through me, making my skin flush, and my lips part. It’s addictive, finally getting that approval from Cat that I’ve always craved, whether I knew it or not—even if I hate myself for it at the same time.
It’s so intense, so overwhelming, that it almost makes me understand why Gaz is such a suck-up, why he licks Cat’s boots and kisses his lily-white ass. Almost.
“There are unique tortures that a woman …” Cat stops, and I realize he’s giving me a moment to tell him if I’ve been raped. How many times, and by whom.
“They gave me to their son,” I say, weighing each word carefully, knowing that my entire life depends on the things I say in this room. Shit, my father’s officers’ lives depend on what I say now. If I slip up at all, we might as well dig a mass grave together and curl up inside. Five peas in a pod. “To Grey Wolfe.”
