Page 56 of X's and O's

I shook my head. They seemed like the sort of club who would go building to building, collecting their dues.And the businesses inside them would have to pay just for them to leave them alone.

Assholes.

They just kept coming, bike after bike, roaring into the parking lot. Some even had women on the back.

I had no idea how they could stand to be around men like them. But maybe they didn’t know what they’d gotten themselves into. But I knew. I knew all about the Slayers. Levi had told me everything about his old club in his letters.

The anger inside wanted me to storm over there and tell them exactly what I thought of them. My feet itched to move. To go and defend the man I’d so stupidly fallen for.

And then one of them dragged off his helmet, freezing me to the spot.

Levi stared up at the Psychos clown logo, and my breathing stopped.

He didn’t turn my way, just followed the rest of the guys into the club. But there was no mistaking it was him. I might have only seen him for a few minutes, in the dark up on the bluff.

But my heart knew, just as well as my eyes did.

God, he looked good, in jeans that hugged his thighs and that leather jacket pulled tight across his broad shoulders.

But there was no mistaking the logo on his back.

It hit me like a punch to the stomach.

He’d gone back to them? I had dozens of letters, where he’d poured his heart out, telling me how betrayed he’d felt by them, how he was working to turn his life around and become better than the man he’d been. Andnow he was back with them, just a couple of weeks after walking out of the prison gates?

If he’d lied about that, it was clear to me he’d lied about everything. I was such a fool.

I twisted on my heel. I wasn’t going inside those doors and facing him.

“Violet!”

I glanced up, searching around for the feminine voice who’d called my name.

It definitely hadn’t been Levi.

A woman unclipped her open-face helmet and got off the back of a bike to wave at me.

I gawked at her. “Bliss?”

She passed her helmet to the guy she’d ridden in with, and he swatted her on the backside, grinning as she trotted over to where I stood.

“What are you doing back here in the line?” She tucked her arm into mine. “Come on. I’ll show you around and introduce you to everyone.”

I didn’t even get a chance to protest before I was dragged up to the front of the crowd. She paused at the door, her smile widening for Scythe, who was blocking the entrance.

“Hey, V.”

She hugged his middle, and he enclosed his arms around her protectively. She twisted her face against his chest to smile at me, but she didn’t let him go.

“I know you’ve met Scythe, but have you met Vincent?”

“We haven’t had the pleasure,” the man said in a voice that was identical to Scythe’s and yet somehow completely different at the same time. Where Scythe wasall laid-back sarcasm, Vincent’s greeting had been so polite it was almost formal. “Hello, Violet. I am truly sorry for everything…Scythe included.”

I didn’t even know what to say. I remembered Scythe saying he had a split personality, but normally when people said something like that, they meant their bad moods were very opposite of their good moods and they could switch between the two quickly…

Not that they were literally two different people inhabiting one body.

But it was instantly clear to me that’s what was going on here. Because there was no trace of Scythe in this man standing in front of me, even if they did look the same.