Seeing her coming out of the bathrooms all clean and smelling like heaven. That damn near killed me when all I wanted to do was ravish her innocence and take what I knew was mine.
I never wanted anyone like I wanted Aariaani.
She was like the sun, and all I wanted was to bask in her glory.
I needed to think. To get my head in the game. Shit was about to go down that needed my full attention. I could feel it.
The day her father showed up at the compound changed everything. I should have killed that fucker where he stood. Instead, I let him drive off. When Reaper told me and the others the message he delivered, it took everything in me not to go after him.
They sold her.
He fucking sold his daughter.
Who the fuck does that?
The fucking bastard only came to inform us that the new owner wanted her and would be coming to collect her.
Like I would just willingly hand her over. Though he did seal his fate when he threatened what was mine. Nobody did that and lived, and I couldn’t wait to put my bullet in his forehead.
Phantom and Player stopped everything they were working on and started scouring the deep web to find the bill of sale. It didn’t take them long and when they told us who bought her, well…that changed everything.
The man we believed to be the collector, Darrin Reynolds, was, in fact, not the Collector. Sick bastards like Jeffery Denton, Sergio Pavlov, and Samuel Patterson, Ari’s Uncle, were his middlemen.
They worked for the fucking bastard. The Collector.
This shit was intricate, deep and none of us knew how far it was going to go. What we did know was that the club was somehow part of it, and no matter what we did, we couldn’t escape the clutches of this mastermind until we found him and killed him.
Reaper lost his shit and order two more brothers to stay with Remi until this mess was cleaned up. Then he ordered Bullseye and Chaos to go dark. To find out what they could and not to come back until he did. As for the others, Reaper ordered all family members to the compound. No exceptions. The brothers knew what that meant. They knew the drill, what to expect.
As for me, I had already made up my mind. I was getting Ari out of there as fast as I could. I wanted her hidden and safe from what was to come. She’d been through enough, and I refused to let some fucking piece of shit get their hands on her and deliver her to the Collector.
Through it all, Ari was a trouper. She didn’t complain. Hell, she had more grit, iron, and stamina than I did. She took everything with a grain of salt. She never objected. She just accepted everything as it came. Of course, I knew that was part of her training in the cult.
God, she lived in a fucking cult.
A cult I was once part of.
How the fuck was I going to explain that?
It was like my sins of the past were coming forward to claim my soul. I worked so hard to forget that part of my life, and then everything came crashing down around me. I still couldn’t remember much from the time after Mia’s death, only Ari. Her kindness and compassion. Her beautiful smile, her kind heart. The woman should be a saint.
Fuck!
I didn’t do anything to deserve this. I am technically still in fucking mourning, for crying out loud.
Yeah, for a woman I barely liked and never loved.
“Fuck me,” I growled, running my hands down my face. “This isn’t happening. It can’t happen. I won’t let it.”
“Won’t let what happen?”
Turning, I spotted a man leaning against a tree wearing a cowboy hat, jeans, and cowboy boots. The only thing out of place on him was the Golden Skulls cut he wore. Seeing his name over the left pocket of his cut, I groaned. “Lasso? Really?”
“Yep,” the man grinned, “Seven-time champion in the circuit. You Shadows brother?”
“Yeah.”
“Your brother isn’t playing with a full deck if you catch my drift.”