Page 2

Chapter Two

Adelaide

M y head was throbbing, and the taste of stale vomit lingered on my tongue, not to mention it felt like I’d chewed on fucking cotton balls all night.

Fuck, I had partied way too hard.

I slowly ripped my eyes open and cursed softly as I quickly took in my surroundings.

This certainly wasn’t the fucking clubhouse.

Normally, I woke up with Joey’s arm thrown over my waist as he snored next to me, even if we were on the outs because he didn’t like leaving me alone when I was wasted. But Joey wasn’t anywhere to be found.

He never left me alone after a night of partying.

So, where the fuck was I?

The bedroom door opened as I began to push myself up into a sitting position, my head spinning at the movement, nausea rising fast in my throat. I swallowed it back down, a master at keeping myself from getting sick after so many nights of losing myself at the bottom of a liquor bottle.

Tristan strode into the room, a disgruntled scowl settled on his features. Rage rose hot and fast in my veins. Why the fuck was I here ? Hell, why the fuck was he here?

Fucking hell, I hadn’t seen him in three years, not since he had ripped my heart out and stomped all over it in his steel-toed, black boots on my eighteenth birthday at my birthday party that he had organized for me.

I hadn’t even seen him at my best friend’s funeral—his twin’s funeral.

“Morning, Addy,” he roughly greeted, shooting a devilish smirk my way that still had my stomach twisting into knots. Fury laced through my veins at myself.

Christ, he couldn’t really still be able to affect me like this, could he? It was unfair. Life was fucking unfair. And half the time, I felt like it was laughing at me right in my face.

I didn’t want to feel anything for Tristan but anger and hatred. Why did he still have the power to affect me so deeply?

“Why am I here?” I demanded to know, wincing when the sound of my voice just made my head hurt so much worse than it already did.

Tristan silently strode over to me and grabbed a bottle of medicine off the nightstand and a bottle of water. Different emotions swirled in my gut—fear, hatred, wariness.

Confusion.

He had thought about how I would feel when I woke up, enough to set medicine and water near me so I would have quick access to it when I was finally awake.

I hated that it made me long for more of that care. Tristan had never been this attentive when we were together. He just took care of me, but I had been hopelessly in love with him back then. So in love that I overlooked how bad of a boyfriend he was.

“Here,” Tristan gruffly spoke up, holding out two pills and the now opened bottle of water.

Silently, I took the medicine because my head was hurting too bad to refuse him, keeping my eyes steady with his. I didn’t care how he made me feel. I was here because of him. That much was clear. I wanted to know why the fuck I wasn’t with the Sons of Hell. With Joey. “Well?” I demanded.

He shrugged. “I found out that for the last three years, you’ve been with Joey’s crew,” he informed me, anger twisting his handsome features into a snarl, but he didn’t intimidate me. Instead, I only grew angrier at the fact that he thought he had any right to be pissed about what I’d been doing with my life when he was the one that brutally ripped my heart and soul apart and left me fucking stranded .

“I brought you back here where you belong.” I opened my mouth to snap at him, but he kept going, not giving me a chance. “Why the fuck were you with Joey’s club?” he snarled down at me.

“Because three years ago on my fucking birthday, Tristan, you fucking ripped my goddamn heart out,” I bitterly reminded him. His face paled slightly at my words, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I wanted you to hurt as much as you’ve hurt me,” I admitted angrily. “So, I fucking betrayed you by joining the one fucking crew you can’t stand ,” I lied. In all reality, Joey had offered me a night of fun, and I’d taken it with both hands, just wanting to forget about my heartbreak.

But later that night, when he had gotten ready to drop me off at home and saw where I lived, he just shook his head and drove back off, not even letting me attempt to get out of his vehicle.

“I’m not letting you stay in a fucking trap house. Not when you’re of legal age now, ” Joey had told me. “You’re coming home with me.”

“What the hell?!” I shouted at him as he drove off so fast, my back slammed against the seat. “Joey, turn back around! I’m not going home with you!”

He turned those dark eyes on me, settling the unease in my gut. I didn’t know how he did it, but those dark eyes had been soothing me all night. “Pretty girl, you’re eighteen now. Any man in that house could now take you, and you’d probably lose the rape case because men get away with that shit all of the time. I won’t let you be a victim.”

I helplessly tossed my hands up in the air before letting them drop down to my lap with a loud smack. “Well, I don’t have anywhere else to go, Joey,” I bitterly reminded him. That horrible fucking place was all I had.

He smirked at me, melting my insides. “You do now, pretty girl.” He rolled to a stop at the end of the street and reached over, cupping my cheek in his hand. My heart flipped in my chest. “You have me, pretty girl.” My bottom lip trembled, tears burning in my eyes. His words were so sweet, and I was doing my best not to cling onto them, but it was so hard. He was giving me so much without asking for anything in return. Had anyone ever done that for me? “You’ll always have me.”

He glanced behind us at the house we had left behind. “Besides, with how tormented your eyes have looked all night, I have no doubt in my mind that you’d lose yourself inside of every drug you can find in that house, and I won’t let you do that to yourself.” A tear slid down my face.

I had actually planned on doing just that. How had he known?

He leaned forward and brushed his lips to my cheek, catching the tear before it could meet my own lips. “I’m going to teach you how to breathe again, Adelaide. Just give me time.”

“Did Helene know?” Tristan demanded, dragging me out of my head and out of that sweet memory I shared with Joey. The muscle in Tristan’s jaw was ticking with his outrage.

A smirk twisted my lips, my heart squeezing painfully in my chest. “She told me it was a fucking great idea,” I retorted, lying straight through my teeth, but he didn’t need to know that. Helene had thought Joey would be a good rebound guy for me, nothing more. She hadn’t expected nor wanted me to get in so deep with him and his club. “She hated you for doing that to me,” I told him, and that was the fucking truth. He had always loved his sister. I knew that much. They used to be two little peas in a pod. But something between them had broken when he turned his back on me.

And I planned to use that to hurt him as much as I could. I was a sadistic bitch, but he had destroyed me.

His face fell the tiniest bit. “I know,” he said quietly. “I fucking remember.”

I shook my head and slid off of the bed. “I need to get back,” I told him, not wanting to continue with our conversation. What happened between us was done. It was over, and I had no urge to rehash old feelings, to reopen those wounds deep inside of me. It would do nothing but make me destructive. Self-destructive, at that.

“You’re not going anywhere, Adelaide,” Tristan informed me, using my full name.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who the fuck are you to dictate my goddamn moves, Tristan?” I sneered. His features darkened, but I wasn’t afraid of him. I had faced worse—much worse. Chills slid down my spine at the mere thought of the hell I had recently endured. “I’m fucking grown. I’m no longer that naive little eighteen-year-old girl that begged you to stay and love her.” He flinched. “I have shit I need to do, and I can’t fucking do that if I’m here.”

Tristan glared at me, and he shook his head. “You’re here now, Adelaide. You’re done with Joey’s crew, got that?”

I picked up the closest thing to me, which happened to be a lamp, and threw it at him. He ducked, letting it crash against the wall and shatter into pieces as it fell to the floor. “I’m not fucking done any goddamn where, Tristan Groves!” I shouted at him, my chest heaving with rage. Who the fuck did he think he was?

He was not keeping me from Joey. I would lose myself if I lost Joey.

Tristan made it clear three years ago how he felt about me. I turned to someone else, and that someone else actually cared about me and loved me in his own fucked up way.

Joey and I might clash heads, but he had never fucking abandoned me, not like Tristan had done.

Tristan stormed over to me, his eyes almost black as they swirled with rage. I swallowed hard, remembering the kind of rage Tristan kept under the tight composure that he always wore. I tilted my chin up in a dare despite my heart pounding hard in my chest. Tristan had never put his hands on me before, but I’d seen what he was capable of doing to other people, had seen the aftermath, and it had never been a pretty sight.

If he put his hands on me, he would quickly realize why I was Joey’s woman.

I was fucking dangerous—lethal. Joey had created a monster to make sure I continued breathing. He had given me a purpose .

Tristan gripped my chin, his fingers digging painfully into my skin. “Don’t you dare do something like that again, understand?” he growled.

I let a smirk twist my lips. “Or what?” I taunted.

I squeaked in shock when he gripped a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back, covering my lips with his. In one quick step, he had me pushed against the wall, his hand sliding around to hold the back of my neck as his other hand tightly gripped my hip. I gasped, opening my lips under his demanding ones as my body surrendered to his. My nerve endings curled tightly, and desire swept through my core, leaving me throbbing and wet as his tongue slid along mine.

Fucking hell, I had forgotten what it was like being with Tristan. To be claimed and taken by him.

And I couldn’t resist kissing him back. All of those old, buried feelings rose inside of me sharp and fast, and I gripped his cut in my fists, kissing him back just as hungrily.

The shrill ringing of my phone jerked me out of the moment, and with a gasp, I shoved him back from me, my eyes widening in horror.

What in the hell had I been thinking. Fuck, what had I been doing ?

Tristan cursed, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. “What the fuck is that noise?” he heatedly demanded.

“My phone,” I grumbled, moving toward the sound only to find it on the floor beside the bed.

Jessie.

I answered the phone with a drawn-out sigh. “Yes?” I asked.

“Adelaide, you know I’ve tried protecting you from Joey for the last year since you went off the rails, but I can’t do anything this time,” she told me right off the bat, her voice sounding slightly panicked.

“What now?” I demanded to know, my gut twisting.

“You’re with Tristan,” she told me. I grunted. It sure as fuck wasn’t by choice. “Joey is pissed , Adelaide. You can’t come back. Promise me that you’ll protect yourself,” she begged, sounding truly panicked.

I snorted. “Jessie, Joey and I have fallouts all of the time—” I tried reassuring her, but she quickly interrupted me.

“No, Adelaide, this time it’s different.” I clenched my jaw, glaring at the sheets of the bed as I sat down, my heart thumping crazily in my chest. My throat burned with tears. He couldn’t be doing this. He promised me that I could always keep him with me.

“He’s destroyed your entire fucking room, and he’s got a meeting this afternoon with a hired hitman,” she informed me. I swallowed hard. My life just took a major downward spiral. Joey had officially turned his back on me. I guessed his word didn’t mean shit either. “You need to stay hidden.”

“Thanks, Jessie, but I can take care of myself,” I quietly told her.

I hung up, clenching my jaw to hold in my tears and the hurt burning through my chest. I quickly pulled up my texts and went to Joey’s number, a smirk twisting my lips as I prepared to piss him off even further. I couldn’t help it. I was hurting. Fucking aching .

And I was self-destructing.

Adelaide:

Can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned, Joe- Joe. Love you!

My phone pinged with a text message a moment later. Tristan hovered over my shoulder as I opened it to read the message.

Joey:

What the fuck are you talking about?

“What the fuck is going on?” Tristan demanded to know. When I didn’t answer him, he gripped my arm and yanked me off the bed, swinging me around to face him. My heart was splitting in my chest, the pain billowing out through the rest of my body. “Fucking answer me, dammit,” He snarled down into my face when I didn’t immediately answer, his eyes narrowed.

I shrugged, moving back from him. My heart and mind started going nuts when he touched me. I hated it. I couldn’t let him affect me like he used to. I wasn’t that same young, foolish, naive girl anymore.

I wanted Joey, but he was giving up on me.

My phone pinged again, this time with a text message from an unknown number.

Unknown:

Wherefore art thou, Adelaide? Tick. Tick. Boom.

“Fuck!” I shouted, gripping Tristan’s wrist in my hand as I pulled him toward the bedroom door.

“Addy, what the fuck?!” Tristan shouted, trying to pull me to a stop.

“We’ve got to get out, Tristan. This place is about to fucking explode!” I barked at him over my shoulder, my heart pounding hard and fast in my chest as adrenaline rushed through my veins.

Something in my gut told me this wasn’t Joey’s doing. He wouldn’t have had time to have a talk with a hitman yet nor to set up any kind of plan.

Someone was after Tristan.

Or me. There was no real way of knowing. I’d pissed off a lot of people in the past three years.

We rushed out of the old, rundown house right before the ground shook with an explosion. The last thing I remembered was Tristan throwing me to the ground and covering his body with mine before everything went dark.