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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Tessa

My ears were still ringing when Randy came barreling into the room, grabbing a handful of my hair and dragging me against his body.

Pain shot across my scalp.

Before I could think, let alone move, his arm was anchored around me, and a gun was pressed to my temple.

“What was that?” I asked, disoriented.

“Shut up,” Randy snarled, pressing the muzzle of the gun harder against my temple.

I’d like to claim it was the first time I’d had a gun to my temple. But Randy had a thing for his guns. Sometimes during sex. And they were usually loaded.

On the plus side, my history with them meant that I didn’t panic just because his hand felt like it was shaking.

There was a commotion in the other room.

Before I could figure out what was going on, though, the door burst open.

And there he was.

Looking like some kind of avenging angel, snarling at Randy.

“What are you talking about?” Randy asked.

Typical.

He hadn’t even noticed the rings.

He’d never been a particularly observant guy.

“Yeah. Engagement. Wedding. Got the papers to go with it. So if you don’t get your hands off my motherfucking woman—”

“You’re not the one barking orders here, asshole,” Randy snapped.

He’d never been good at being challenged. I guess that was what made him a rather fearsome president—his swift and ruthless punishment of anyone who questioned or pushed back against him.

“Get the gun off my wife’s head.”

Maybe it was the wrong time to feel a little cartwheel in my chest, but there was no reasoning with unstoppable forces like affection… and love.

“Fuck you.”

“Tess, babe,” Rook said instead, giving me a tight smile. “You okay?”

“Ready to come home,” I said, starting to nod my head, but the press of the gun muzzle had me stilling.

“You’re going back with me. You’re mine.”

“She’s not yours anymore,” Rook said. “That’s my old lady. And you’re gonna get your hands off of her, or I’m gonna tell my club to rip your men apart, limb by fucking limb.”

I could feel the change in Randy, the way he jolted at Rook’s words.

“Old lady,” Randy repeated. He’d never been a bright guy. And he almost always needed to think things through aloud. “Club,” he went on.

He was probably looking at Rook, confused by his lack of a cut. After all, the Iron Wolves ate, slept, and fucked in their cuts. The only time Randy was without his was when he showered.

And Rook almost never had his on, thanks to his parole and Nancy’s constant and unexpected drop-ins. Even if Randy and the guys had seen another club in town, there’d be no reason for him to assume Rook was affiliated.

“Yeah. Club.”

“Need a hand in here?” Slash asked, walking into the bedroom, looking every bit the scary, badass, scarred-faced, tattooed biker president. And unlike Rook, Slash was wearing his cut.

“This place is a shithole,” Slash declared, turning in a circle to casually show off the logo and rockers on the back of his cut.

Against me, Randy tensed harder.

For a second, I thought it was because he was accepting defeat.

But when his arm tightened harder and the muzzle loosened—like maybe he was going to move it, aim it somewhere else—I knew the challenge to his authority was making him want to double down.

I was going to have to do something.

Or I was going to watch my ex gun down the man I’d fallen for.

Would he be able to fight off the whole club when they came running? No. But it would be too late for Rook at that point.

Someone had to do something.

And I was pretty sure that someone had to be me.

My hand slid into my pocket, feeling the cool handle against my fingers.

I pulled it out, flicking it open.

Then, before anyone could figure out what I was doing, I swung down, stabbing the knife clear through the hand holding me around the waist.

The shock had his grip loosening, and I let myself drop to the floor.

Rook didn’t waste a second before rushing forward, taking Randy down with a leap, the two of them falling back into the bed.

Slash scrambled forward.

Then another set of hands were grabbing me, dragging me away.

“No!” I shrieked, trying to fight the hold, needing to help Rook, to make sure he was okay.

But the grip just tightened, turning me, and walking out of the bedroom.

“Easy, sweetheart,” Raff said, as he half-dragged me out of the trailer.

“Let me go!”

“Hey, Rook’s okay. Slash is there. He’s fine. Let’s worry about you.”

“I’m fine. Please, just let me—” I started, but trailed off when someone else came walking out of the front door, the whole front of his shirt bloody, his arms and face stained as well.

Coach?

The sweet, gentle, yoga-loving Saúl?

“Get her outta here,” Coach said, tone brooking no argument.

“No, please—”

“We need to get you back to the clubhouse,” Raff said, pulling me across the lawn toward where I could see a car parked on the other side of the trees.

“Murphy!” I said as soon as I saw her standing near the car. “Tell him to let me go. Please. Rook…”

“Clubhouse,” Raff said, dragging me into the backseat with him, his arms pinned around me.

“No,” I cried.

“I’m sorry,” Raff said, giving me a squeeze. “I’m sorry.”

But the car was peeling off.

And any hopes of getting a look at Rook disappeared as Murphy sped through the mobile home park, past the apartments, around the rich area of town, then into the parking lot of the clubhouse.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Raff said as a pathetic little whimper escaped me.

He wasn’t actively dragging me anymore.

Because Nyx, Murphy, Vienna, and Everleigh surrounded me. And all of us just… moved as a group into the clubhouse.

What use was there in fighting anymore? I wasn’t going to get back there in time to try to help Rook, to check on him, to try to warn him about how ruthless and savage he could be when cornered.

“Rook is fine ,” Nyx assured me as she pressed me down onto the couch in the common room.

“You don’t know that. You don’t know Randy.”

“No, but I know Rook,” Nyx said, sitting down next to me and taking my hand. “And I know my husband.”

“Not to mention Crow,” Murphy piped in.

“He had men too.”

“Yeah, they were good and incapacitated, judging by how Coach looked,” Raff said, dropping down on the coffee table in front of me. “I hope you won’t hate me forever, pretty girl. But Rook would have my ass if I didn’t get you out of there and safe.”

I got that.

For better or worse—depending on the club and the men within it—the wishes of your brothers topped the priority list.

And, with a little distance, yeah, I could see that there was nothing I could have done. That if I stayed, I would have been a distraction, a liability.

So, no matter how much my heart was in a vice and my stomach was sloshing around, I had to just sit and wait it out, have faith that Rook’s club was stronger than Randy’s.

“I might be slightly less angry if you get me some coffee,” I told Raff, who was quick to jump up and do just that.

“It’ll be the best coffee you’ve ever had,” he declared.

The girls watched him walk off.

“I don’t know how Lula has resisted him this long,” Vienna said, shaking her head.

“I think Lula just assumes he’s a flirt and not serious at all,” Murphy piped in. “And to be fair, that might be true.”

“How are you?” Everleigh asked, reaching out to take my hand and give it a squeeze.

The instinct to pull away was immediate, ingrained.

But I forced myself to leave my hand in hers, reminding myself that these were not the club women I’d known in the past. These women didn’t want to compete; they wanted to create community.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” I admitted.

“Believe me,” Nyx said, waving around. “Most of us get that. It will sink in. Likely after you see Rook again and know everything is handled.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I hope no one got hurt. Like… your men, obviously. Because of me.”

“To be fair, we’ve all been the reason for a lot of strife with this club,” Nyx told me. “It’s practically a rite of passage to become one of their old ladies.”

Raff came back with a coffee that, yeah, was probably the best one I’d ever had.

To keep the conversation going, the girls each told me their versions of their stories of the trouble they found themselves in. I think doing so was equal parts distraction but also an attempt to comfort me that the club wasn’t going to be angry about my situation.

And, honestly, it did help.

Even if I was on pins and needles until, suddenly, the front door opened and Rook walked in.

He was every bit as bloody as Coach had been. But when my gaze tracked over him, I didn’t see any visual wounds. The couple of bruises on his face.

“Rook—”

“He needs to get cleaned up,” Nyx said, trying to grab me. But I shot off the couch too fast, rushing behind him as he made his way to the freight elevator.

“Wait, Rook. I’m so sorry!” I said, my voice catching as I rushed in the elevator with him.

Just when I felt like my heart was about to shatter into a million pieces, Rook reached for me, pulling me close and pressing his sweaty forehead to mine.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, sucking in a deep breath as the tension leeched from his body.

“I should have told you.”

“I knew you had secrets. I figured you’d tell me when you felt comfortable enough to. You still don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready.”

That right there was what made me want to tell him it all. Every dirty, ugly, shameful thing I’d been keeping to myself for years.

“He told me he was going to take care of me,” I told him. “And after a lifetime of never having anyone do anything for me, I think I just wanted that so badly. Badly enough that I didn’t even hesitate to believe him.”

“And it was good at first,” Rook guessed.

“I don’t know if I would ever say that it was good. Not that I know what good actually means,” I said as my hands slid around his hips, pulling him closer, getting my ex’s blood all over me. And, somehow, that felt fitting.

“But it was… it was better than life with my mom. There was good, at least. Someone who actively looked for me and wanted me around. But it wasn’t because he actually liked me. He just wanted to possess me. He wanted to exert his… his… ownership of me in front of the men.

“And before long, he liked to punish me in front of them too.”

“Punish you?” Rook asked, tensing.

“He didn’t… hit me often. It happened. But Randy was much more into psychological abuse. Like, like if I, you know, refused him for any reason—even a legitimate one—he would drag me out to the common room, grab a club girl, and force me to watch him have her go down on him, or fuck her, while telling the club how I didn’t know how to satisfy my man.”

“Christ,” Rook said. “How the fuck were you even able to look at me, if that was your experience with bikers?”

“I’d like to claim I just saw the goodness in you, but I honestly just saw safety in you.”

“Safety?”

“Randy didn’t have a lot of morals. But he did respect club rules. Namely, that no one touches another biker’s old lady. I thought being married to you would protect me from him. I guess I was wrong there.”

“I don’t think you were,” Rook said, surprising me enough to pull back to look at him. “In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t kill Randy tonight. I would have. But Slash pulled me back. Make no mistake, he might be wishing for death right about now, but he’s still breathing. As much as he can through a nose that broken, anyway.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I get the feeling he doubled down out of shock and not being used to having someone stand up to him.”

“That’s definitely how he is.”

“Once we were pulled apart, he was, I don’t want to say… reasonable. But he said he didn’t know you ‘belonged’ to me when he came to take you back. Putting aside the disgusting language, he agreed that if I married you, that you’re mine. And he isn’t going to come for you again.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I think so. I mean, the guys are riding out of town with that whole crew right now. Who probably should all be in a hospital, not doing a road trip, but they will follow until that crew crosses out of state. And we will be on high alert for the next few months. But I think it’s done, babe. And if it isn’t, I will put an end to it.”

“Thank you for coming for me.”

“Babe, I’d go to the ends of the fucking earth to get you back. In a strictly non-controlling way,” he added with a little light in his eyes. “Not because you belong to me, but because I think we belong together.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, heart squeezing. “I think we do too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We do have a problem, though,” I said, wincing a bit at his face.

“What?” he asked, tensing.

“What the hell are we going to tell Nancy happened to your face?”

To that, he shot me a wicked little smile.

“Out of curiosity, how attached are you to that car of yours?”