Eyes crawl over me as everyone watches me struggle to control my shaking body. They judge me, wondering where the strong, fiery woman from the past has gone.
If I could get my lips to move, I’d tell them she’s gone.
Long gone.
She disappeared the moment Frankie hit me for the first time. He beat that woman so far into the ground, I can’t even stand to look at myself in the mirror anymore.
I flinch harshly at Valkyrie’s hand on my shoulder, not missing the anger that flashes in Pope’s eyes.
People are all around me, and there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
A vise constricts my chest as my body urges me to leave. That insidious voice whispers in my ear that if I don’t get out right now, they’re going to hurt us.
“Let me take them, Birdie. That way, you can fill them in on what’s going on,” Valkyrie says.
I nod, loosening my hold on the twins. I’d try to cut their hands off if it was anyone except my twin sister.
She’s the only person I trust with my heart right now.
If there was anywhere else in this vicious world I could go, where they would protect us like Pope and the Saint’s Outlaws, I’d be there in a hurry.
I wouldn’t have come back to Coral Cay by choice.
Nothing could have brought me back to the place of my biggest heartbreak.
Except for my children.
I’d walk through the bowels of hell for them.
There were so many times that I already had.
I keep my eyes glued to Kyrie and my kids until they’re no longer in the room with me.
My buffer between me and the club is gone.
Their claws dig into me, trying to flay my skin open in their search for answers.
Impatience tinges the air around us.
I whimper, curling my arms around myself. Pope scoots closer to me, but I grasp the necklace around my neck and move to the side, away from him. The pearls dig into my clenched palm, a visceral reminder of our differences now.
“Will you let Hannibal check you out?” Pope questions softly.
My eyes flash around the room, trying to determine who that is since it’s a road name I’ve never heard before.
When they figure out that I’m searching for him, a rugged young man steps forward.
He’s tall, thick, and covered in tattoos, with a menacing air around him that has me tightening my grasp on the necklace with a whimper.
His silver eyes, which were so cold a minute ago, soften, and he tries to make himself smaller for my sake.
I glance at Pope, begging him silently to tell me that it’s okay. I don’t trust him with my heart, but I have to believe he’d never let any of his club brothers physically hurt me.
“It’s okay, little mama. He’s a big softie underneath all that fuzz on his face,” Pope reassures me.
Hannibal steps beside us, holding his hands out to his sides. “Got nothin’ to fear from me, lass. My ma would shoot me herself.”
My eyes jerk to Pretty Boy as he steps up and hands Hannibal his medical bag. Then he meets my gaze with a wink and blows me a kiss.
I fight the amusement that tickles my insides at his familiar goofiness.
Hannibal squats beside my chair and opens the medical bag while keeping his eyes on me. Warmth flickers in and out of them as if it’s an emotion he’s not used to showing. As if the light and dark sides of his psyche are battling for supremacy.
My body trembles as fear from his nearness floods my system. There are too many people. Too much menace fills the air, reminding me of the same suffocating way it did when Frankie was in a rage.
Pope reads the terror on my face and turns to his club. “Everyone except my council, clear the room.”
He tries to keep his voice soft for me, but the authority and anger come through.
“Wait, what?” a feminine voice cries. “This woman shows up on our doorstep with obvious trouble and suddenly we’re the interlopers?”
Pope jumps up so fast that I flinch with a whimper, but he’s so focused on getting to her that it doesn’t register with him.
The fear on her face triggers my own, and I jump to my feet, frantically searching for my sister and my kids.
We have to go. We have to get out of here. They’re bad, too. They’re going to hurt us again. We have to go.
I suck in huge gasps of air as black dots dance in my vision.
My teeth chatter, matching the rhythm of my shaking body.
The pearls fall from my hand as I claw at the invisible fingers around my throat.
Tighter and tighter, they press until my knees shake and I drop.
Before I hit my knees, strong, familiar arms catch me and lift me bridal style.
“Get that bitch the fuck out of my face before I feed her to the pigs,” Pope snarls, his words causing his chest to rumble against my cheek.
Tears drip from my eyes as I hide my face against him. I use his body as a shield against the vitriol that pours from the eyes that rest on us. Their censure, pity, and sorrow weigh so heavy against my skin that it’s like fire licking against it. They burn with the emotions they can’t control.
It’s as if they blame me for leaving.
Or maybe they’re blaming me for returning.
It’s a burden that shouldn’t be placed upon me, but the woman who would have given them their own licks so long ago can’t find the will to even meet their gaze as they pass by us.
There’s a long-forgotten part of me that beats against my insides, demanding to be let out.
She’s been screaming at me for the last few years, but every time I showed a hint of her, Frankie was there to put her back in submission.
Allowing him to focus on me kept him away from my kids.
I would have taken everything he gave me repeatedly as long as they were safe from his ire.
But the second they no longer were, I did what I had to do to get us out of there.
The silence of the room drifts to me, and the panic starts to leak out. I lift my head, needing to see what’s going on around me because silence is never good. Silence means something bad is coming my way. The devil doesn’t make a sound when he comes for your soul.
“Let me down,” I whisper harshly.
Pope’s arms tighten around me, but when my breathing speeds up, he loosens his hold and helps me to my feet. “Easy.”
“I’m fine.” My eyes widen, and I scramble away from him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, please. I didn’t mean to snap.”
My back collides with another hard chest, and I gasp, spinning around to find myself staring into eyes so similar to mine that my heart stutters. I freeze as my brother’s figure blurs.
No matter which way I turn, betrayal surrounds me.
My love. My husband. My brother.
There has to be a limit to the amount of betrayal a person can carry on their soul.
“Poppet,” Cyanide whispers, sorrow filling his eyes as they roam over me.
His fingers curl into his palms, his posture tense as he fights his need to pull me into his arms.
My brother used to be my biggest protector, but now, he’s just another person who hurt me the most.
The ice builds around my heart as I finally begin to understand that I’m surrounded by the people who pushed me onto the path that led me to Frankie.
Is it fair to lay the blame on them? No, but right now, I’m not thinking rationally, and it’s the only defense I have against them.
Swerving around the council members, I don’t look any of them in the eye as I head back to the chair that Hannibal is standing by.
I sit down, my back straight, my hands clasped together in my lap. Agony shoots through my body as the bruises pull and the cuts tighten, but I grit my teeth and keep my face blank.
“Do I have permission to answer your question as he tends to my injuries?”
Pope’s brows squish together as he regards me, a darkness in his eyes that never bothered me before but now scares the shit out of me. Frankie would get that same look when I did something that displeased him.
I brace myself, but Pope turns away from me, his shoulders rising and falling as a guttural yell tears from his chest.
A wisp of my tattered soul slithers out of me as I watch a part of him break open.
I watch him blankly until he turns back to me, his face clear of anything he was just feeling, and folds his arms across his chest.
I don’t miss the way all but Hannibal keep a wide berth from me.
“Tell us what happened to bring you here,” he orders.
“Yes, sir,” I respond, catching the tick in Pope’s jaw at the emptiness in my voice. Or maybe it’s the way I addressed him. Frankie would backhand me if I failed to address him properly.
I close my eyes and take us all back to two days ago.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5 (Reading here)
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
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