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“We’re a family,” Lark clarifies after a long silence where I can’t find any words because I have so much banging around on the inside of my skull.

“Women should stick together. They should support one another. We’re each connected to the club through our men, but more than that, we belong to each other. ”

I didn’t think it was possible for women to be a sisterhood like this. In my experience, anything involving a club goes hand in hand with jealousy, cattiness, and competition.

Ella frowns, though with concern and not censure. “We truly can leave.”

“N- no.” I’m able to unglue my tongue for at least that much. “Please stay. I’m sorry. I am just shy and I- I’ve been… Yeah. It’s been hard.”

Understatement to end all understatements, but I’m playing a role and I made an agreement. I have to give them something and keep up my end of the bargain I made with Dravin, or the whole thing might blow up and Dravin would be… whatever he was yesterday .

I shouldn’t care. I thought I didn’t. But seeing him like that eviscerated me.

It wasn’t frightening. It made my insides all clench together and squirm.

The smallest touch, the look he gave me—all of it had me reeling and burning up on the inside.

I’m still not ready to analyze that, but then, what’s to pick apart?

I was careless and I wounded someone, and it made me feel like shit to wake up and see that.

In one sense, maybe it’s best to get this meet and greet over with. At the very least, six enthusiastic women with an arsenal of gifts in one very small house should make for a good distraction.

I plaster on a smile that they can all probably tell is totally forced and hold open the screen door with the ornate wood flourishes in the corners. “Come in, please.”

They do, as a troop. There’s no more polite asking me if I’m certain or if I’m okay. It’s a massive relief that it’s somehow understood that I don’t want to answer those questions.

Once the whole gang is inside, they fan out, some to the kitchen, others dropping what they have on the table and heading straight back into the living room.

The house is boxy, with a typical wartime floor plan that includes actual doorways that haven’t been renovated out with the fresh gray paint and obviously new gray laminate flooring, but it’s so tiny that one room basically has to flow into the other by sheer force of compressed space.

The living room has just enough space for a long leather couch and two upholstered chairs on the other side. A small TV is mounted on the wall. Even that leaves minimal floor space open.

Willa settles on the couch first then basically pulls her sister right into her lap to make room for Ella and Lark. They both jam together so that Haley can wedge in at the end, which leaves a chair for Tarynn and one for me.

Six sets of eyes flick around the room. No one mentions that I haven’t added a single personal touch since I moved in.

I jammed all the canvases and my painting supplies into the one half of the loft upstairs.

It’s more like a half story up there, with the ceiling so low at the highest point that it almost grazes my head.

There’s a bed, a small dresser, and one end table.

There’s no doors and I really hope no one asks to see up there, because I’ve barely contained all the art supplies on the other half of the space.

“I- when we moved, I- we- didn’t have much time to pack anything.”

All eyes land on me. It would be less painful to punch myself right in the face than to have said anything at all.

As far as they know, this wasn’t a forced move.

I think? Fuck. Why have I not asked Dravin for the exact details of what the club knows?

Would men like that care about his background?

Even if they knew everything, would that just be a drop in the damn criminal well of overflowing violence for them?

“That’s okay,” Haley says softly, giving me a sympathetic look. “I experienced something similar.”

It hits me like a thunderclap right above my head that I know those shadows in her eyes. Something in her past hurt her and left her with wounds that turned into scars. They might be healed over now, but she still has that slightly haunted look of someone who has kept a lot of secrets.

How old can she possibly be? She doesn’t appear any older than I am.

Although, that figures too. These days, I feel as though I’ve lived ten lifetimes.

“When I left my parents’ house, it was basically because I was running away with Crow after meeting him just a few times.” Tarynn swings one of her pink ponytails around so she can clutch it and run her fingers over the length.

Crow. I’ve heard Dravin mention him a few times, mostly because he’s the one who owns this house and the tattoo shop that Dravin lives above.

“I’d only met him a few times. He literally came and kicked in my parents’ front door.”

“And then they immediately went to Vegas and accidentally got married,” Willa supplies.

It’s obvious that she has one of those bubbly, in your face, loud, but not obnoxious personalities that you can’t help but love.

Lynette appears to be the total opposite.

She’s quiet and straight backed on the couch with her hands folded tightly in her lap.

“Lynette met Bullet because I was drunk at a bar and he saved me from some creep, but then the creep headbutted him and basically broke his own face and wanted to put Bullet in jail for assaulting him. I begged Lynette to be his lawyer because that’s what she is—a lawyer.

It all ended up being part of this big conspiracy with this crazy guy who had a grudge against the club, and we just got caught in the crossfires and had to move to Hart and she fell so hard in love with him. ”

Lynette’s almost severe face practically glows when she cracks a tiny smile. She elbows her sister in the ribs. “When we moved here, Willa fell in love with her bodyguard who became her best friend. He’s also sort of her landlord.”

Willa’s cheeks flush, but she’s not going to be outdone. “Lynette’s going to have a baby. She and Bullet are going to be incredible parents.”

Now that she says it, it’s obvious. Lynette has a beautiful glow.

The other women let out tiny little sighs of happiness and Lynette sets her hand on her flat stomach.

“I’m not really telling anyone for sure outside the club, but then, I don’t really know anyone outside of it.

It’s still very early. I’m only about six weeks along. ”

In the spirit of sharing, Ella ventures her story. “I was forced to get married to Raiden because of biker politics, but it all worked out. We’re very much in love now.”

“I married my brother’s best friend,” Lark says, wrinkling her nose at Ella playfully. Gray just happens to be Ella’s brother and Raiden is mine.”

A very real, delighted little gasp escapes me. “Oh my god. That’s so—”

“It’s a long story,” Ella cuts in. “We’re abbreviating all of this for you, but it’s still probably very confusing.

” She twists her long blonde hair up and secures it in a messy bun at the top of her head with an elastic she pulls from below the cuff of her jacket.

“There are a lot of men in the club, although it’s not considered a big one.

To make it simple, there are officers and then there are other patched in members, and then the prospects—the guys who want to join the club. ”

I don’t let on that I’m familiar with the hierarchy of clubs.

Even though Marcus wouldn’t let me anywhere near his or any of the men involved in it, I could do basic research.

I never liked anything that I found. Even though I want to stop making judgments, it’s hard not to fear the worst of this place.

Lark’s eyes land on my face a little bit unnervingly, but her expression remains friendly.

“Instead of us bombarding you with club business, we’ll just say that you’re welcome to anything you want to come to, and if that’s nothing and never, we all understand.

It takes time to adjust to a new place, and this is probably very overwhelming.

Dravin said that you were worried that we’d think you were a snob or rude for not being able to just jump into the thick of it, but that’s not true at all. ”

Dravin .

They’re calling him Dravin.

I’m officially the world’s biggest dumbass. There’s no way that he would give up his real name. All this time, why did that never occur to me?

“Thanks,” I whisper-mumble, trying not to feel like one more piece of the world hasn’t just fallen in on me.

What did I expect? That he’d give me—a total stranger who he had no idea if he could trust—his real identity and put himself at risk, and probably me along with it?

I guess just because I don’t know what name he was born with doesn’t mean that the things I do know about him aren’t true.

Then again, what proof do I have that it isn’t all fabricated?

Why any of that matters to me at all, I’m not even sure. Maybe because I so badly want just one stable thing to cling to, even if it’s just a fact or a name.

“Anyway, that’s enough about the club,” Lark announces dismissively, waving her hand in the air. Her long black hair sways with the movement. “Is it okay if we tell you about ourselves?”

I nearly melt into a blob of liquid gratitude at the attention again being shifted away from me. “Yes. Please.”