“Are you going to tell me where they are?”
“I love you,” I say. And I mean it. It doesn’t matter how much pain he’s inflicted. I may have chosen the club, but I still love him. I’ll always love him. “No,” I say in defiance. Before I can get the word out and take a breath, he slaps me across my temple again. Then again, and again until I lose count. I can’t even tell where the club is now. I’ve lost all sense of my surroundings.
“Keep hitting me,” I say as loud as I can, but it comes out as a mumble. My jaw isn’t quite working right. I’m slurring words, and my tongue keeps getting in the way. “I won’t hurt them.”
Michael’s smooth hands wrap around my neck, squeezing so hard I lose sense of place and time. “Tell me where they are!” he screams into my face.
But then a second later, they’re gone, and he’s gone. A loud crash sounds across the room. A figure kneels in front of me, and a sharp blade closes in on my skin. Shouting ensues with so many voices going at once, I can’t even make out who’s who or how many of them there are. Internally, I panic at the very real possibility of being sliced up just like Tegan. Only, the blade yanks and pulls at my rope binding, and suddenly I’m free. My body slumps into the one crouching in front of me. Strong arms reach out, holding me. And it only takes a moment to know from his scent and his touch, that it’s Ryan.
“I got you, baby,” he whispers in my ear.
“My brother,” I cry out.
Holding me close, he says, “He’s alive.”
It’s not much, but it’s something—the best I can hope for. I have no right to ask them not to kill him, even if I want to. With one arm beneath my knees and one supporting my back, he scoops me up. Moving into a standing position, he walks us out of the room, though to where, I can’t tell. As he walks us to safety, he whispers his apologies in a strangled voice. “I’m so sorry, baby. Please be okay. Please be okay.”
But they’re not the words I want to hear, so I tell him. Or I try to. Through the steady thumping of my heartbeat in my ears, I can’t make out much else besides his voice. With a raspy voice, I mumble, “Are you done fighting it?”
“I’m done, Cub,” he says without hesitation. “Let’s not make a big deal of it, but I love you, too.” It feels good to hear it even if I knew it already. It’s just a little confirmation that he’s willing to go to the mat for me—for us. And once I’m healed up and I can think clearly, we’ll get this mess sorted out with the club. Once everything settles down, I’m going to dig into his commitment issues. Because I’m determined to make this work with him.
As we slide into the back of a SUV, someone else crawls in to our right. Panic swells in my chest at the arrival of another person until I hear the deep, familiar voice. “It’s just me, Princess,” Duke says. Ian slides in to our left, also confirming his presence. The SUV fills with men I can’t identify.
“You’re okay, kid,” Jim says, his voice breaking in-between words. Ryan’s hand reaches out for mine and he slips his pinky around mine. And for the first time, despite the mild confusion and inexplicable pain, I do feel like I’m okay. More than okay, I feel protected, and whole.
“It’s just a scratch,” I say in a slur. The men around me laugh, all except for Ryan. He remains perfectly still and solid beneath me. I let myself drift off despite Ryan’s attempts to keep me awake. Lost in thought, I think back to all the ways my life has changed these last few months. I’m not that same girl I was back in Brooklyn. I’m braver, stronger, and maybe even a little less co-dependent. But more importantly, I belong somewhere—to someone.
They came in leather and jeans, whisking me away from everything I knew—everything that was about to get me killed—all of the Armani, and bullets, and death. They made me one of them, a part of a family in a way I never had been before. Beyond gratitude and obligation, I chose them. I chose them because they love me, because they accept me, and maybe because they’re wild and rowdy. Maybe because they brought me to my mother. And I still choose them.
They brought me to him, and for that, they’ll always have my loyalty. Because he was my salvation.
Epilogue
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Winston Churchill
SNUGGLED DEEP INTO the covers with Ryan at my back, I let out a heavy yawn. He pulls himself up and peers over me, moving my hair out of my face.