Joey had simply gotten out of his SUV, grabbed my bag from River, tossed it into his backseat, and helped me into his passenger seat. He’d put a pillow behind my neck so my back was off the seat, and he’d driven off without a word to anyone. He hadn’t even stopped long enough to hug Adelaide or spend a little bit of time with the boys like he normally did.
I could see the rage in his eyes. Joey looked at me as family—like a little sister. He’d been the one to find me behind the Fathers of Mayhem clubhouse the night I’d been raped numerous times. He’d been the one to hold me and promise me I would be okay. But had I ever really been okay?
“They know the man who did this?” he had asked me a little while later.
I’d just shook my head, and he’d dropped it. If they did, I didn’t know. I’d given what information I could. I was guessing whoever had done this to me had just assumed River would know who it was. They sent me with one message and one message only: they wanted Axel.
But now, a month later, it was time for me to get back home. After Sam had tried calling me numerous times a day for two days straight after he’d woken up, I’d trashed my phone and told Joey that anything to do with me needed to go through him. He’d accepted it without question.
Joey sighed as he put the SUV in park, looking over at me with worry and concern in his dark gaze. “You know you didn’t have to come back if you weren’t ready,” he said when he noticed my panicked gaze on the front of the clubhouse.
I shook my head. “I can’t run forever,” I whispered. And that was the truth. I had to face this shit storm at some point. I wasn’t ever going to beready. I just had to do it.
I pushed open the door and got out, making a beeline for the back of the clubhouse. I just needed to get in my room and get my head together before I faced anyone. And I was most afraid of facing Sam.
Because I knew he didn’t know what had happened to me. Only River, Tank, Adelaide, and the prospect knew, and they were keeping it under wraps, just as I’d asked.
Everyone else thought I’d left because I’d finally had enough of Sam’s shit. Fuck, it was believable enough. Just seemed cowardly on my part when he hadn’t been around to stop me. But I’d rather be a coward in everyone’s eyes rather than them know the real horror behind the reason I took off running.
I pushed open my room door and shoved it closed behind me, flipping the lock. Needing a shower after that long drive, I stripped out of my clothes, and for the first time ever, I looked at my back.
And I fucking burst into tears.
The Angels of Hell emblem was sliced into my back, taking up every bit of available space. I bit back a scream, my throat physically hurting with the effort it took to hold it down. How had Joey not thrown me aside? He’d been the one to tend to my back for me until it began to heal on its own.
Why had River been okay with me sticking around?
A marked woman could normally only find safety within the walls of the club who had marked her. And a woman with the Angels of Hell emblem cut into her skin, walking around other clubs like I had been? I was just a dead woman walking. The only difference between me and the other women in the ground was that, for some reason that I didn’t understand, I still had fucking breath in my lungs.
With tears pouring down my cheeks, I stepped into the shower, letting my tears mix with the water spraying onto my face. My hands shook as I tried washing my hair.
I was alone in this shit, but at least River’s son was safe. I was just a woman of the club. They wouldn’t go after someone for me. They’d asked me if I knew a name, but I didn’t. But they’d obviously known a club.
And they hadn’t bothered telling me.
I truly was alone in the world.
Banging sounded on my room door, making me drop my poof. I stared out through my bathroom door, fear gripping my chest. “Reina!” Sam barked. “Baby, come on. Open the door.”
I whimpered, closing my eyes. He’d go away if I ignored him. I knew he respected my privacy at least that much. He wouldn’t barge in when I had the door locked.
“Baby, please,” he begged. Oh, God, his pleading just about brought me to my knees. I shoved my fist in my mouth, trying not to scream for him to come make all this fear and internal pain stop. “I just want to talk to you, work shit out.”
I wanted that, too—more than he knew. But there was nothing to work out now. There was no hope for us. In fact, there was no longer an us. Wasn’t sure if there ever had been in the first place.
And now, I was a marked woman. He was the VP of the club that was a rival of the club I’d been marked by.
I had no savior.
I had no hope.
I was on my own.
Sam
She wasn’t answering me.I could hear her shower running—pretty sure I even heard her whimper at one point—but she wasn’t coming to the door.
She didn’t want shit to do with me.