“Nothing happened. He refused my mark and asked me to dance. I changed his mind. I didn’t go there alone. I’m not stupid. He knew Arianne and Banks were outside. He wasn’t going to hurt me.” Dawn folded her arms and leaned against the brick wall. “In the end it worked out well. I don’t always need you to rush to my rescue whenever there is a hint of danger.”
“You’re in danger every fucking minute of every fucking day, and I can’t take it anymore.” He thudded his fist against the brick wall. “I got a need to protect you that I don’t even understand. I thought my heart was gonna explode when Jagger called to tell me where you were. Only reason everyone in that pool hall isn’t dead is ’cause I brought Gun with me and he held me back.” He leaned in, resting his forearm beside her head, caging her with his body.
Startled, she looked up, and he almost drowned in the emerald depths of her eyes.
“I know you can protect me,” she said softly. “I don’t doubt that. But I need to stand on my own feet. It felt good to see Bunny. It felt good to tell him I wouldn’t dance. And it felt damn good to come up with a solution that didn’t involve fists or firearms. I want to stand up to Jimmy the way Arianne stood up to Viper, the way I stood up to that guy in the park. I know you’re planning to go after Jimmy after the election, and I want to be part of that.”
His body shook with emotion. “I get that you want to fight your own fight, but some fights you can’t win. My mom never won her fight with my dad. After years of abuse, she finally moved out, but the week after I was sent overseas, she went back to him. In the end he hit her one too many times, and she died from a subdural hematoma. I never confronted him. Never saw him again. He died in jail. I could never understand why she went back.”
Dawn stroked his jaw, her eyes warm with understanding. “Because that kind of abuse twists your mind. It saps your strength and confidence. You feel worthless and incompetent. You believe the demeaning comments. You don’t think you deserve any better. You think no one cares. Every day is a fight to survive. Every night you hate yourself for not running away. You feel humiliated and alone, and sometimes the abuser can seem like a comfort in the storm, especially on the good days.”
“What did he do to you?” he asked, although he knew. He’d lived through it. And it was all he could do not to jump on his bike and shoot Mad Dog dead, or die trying. Just the thought of Dawn suffering the way his mom had suffered stoked a fury inside him so fierce he thought he might explode.
“He beat me.” Her voice was surprisingly calm and even, a startling contrast with the rage that suffused his veins. “He made me strip and dance for his friends. He treated me like a piece of property and shared me around. He kept me isolated and humiliated me. Sometimes after it was really bad, he would apologize and buy me flowers, and then it would be okay until it started again.”
“I wasn’t there to protect my mom in the end, but I’ll damn well be there for you.” Cade clasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her head roughly, forcing her to look at him. “I’ll do what has to be done to end this. You may want to face him, but we both know you’ll never pull that trigger. And even if you could, I won’t let you bear that burden.”
“Cade … no.”
Overwhelmed by a tumult of emotion, he stepped away. “You may not want my help and protection, but you will have it. Even if it means going against my club so you never have to face Mad Dog again.”
SIXTEEN
I will show no mercy when mercy is not deserved.
SINNER’S TRIBE CREED
Dawn waved to the bus driver as the city bus lurched out from the bus stop and into the street, somehow working its way past a black cat that had bedded down for the night on the asphalt. Exhausted from a late shift and the emotional upheaval of the day, she wanted nothing more than to fall into bed, and she was profoundly grateful to Cade who had arranged to have her bed replaced, and the damage to her home repaired by a small army of junior patch. Maybe tomorrow she would be able to think clearly again and decide just how deeply she wanted to get involved in the Sinner’s Tribe. As if she weren’t drowning already.
She unlocked the front door and then stepped inside, closing and bolting it behind her. But as she reached for the light, her skin prickled in warning.
Too late. Maybe she shouldn’t have made that wish the other night.
“Welcome home, love. Come give your old man a kiss.”
Ice flooded her veins and she turned to see Jimmy sprawled on a chair in her darkened living room. “How did you get in here?”
He gestured for her to approach him, scowling when she didn’t move from the door. With his face half in and half out of shadow, his hoodie bunched around his neck, and his all-black attire, he looked every inch the monster she knew he was.
Run. She should run. But dammit, this was her house. Plus she knew he wouldn’t let her get away that easy. There would be some trap lying outside: Brethren hiding in the bushes, a gun in his hand hidden by his side.