Gently, I prise her hands away, my heart pounding in my chest. She’s unravelling before my eyes.
“Who did we fail to protect you from, Briella?”
“No one,” she screams in my face. “Stop acting like I need saving! I don’t. I don’t need you to ride in like the white knight on a fucking horse. I don’t need anything from the Untamed Sons. Leave me the hell alone! I hate you! All of you!” The way she spits out the club’s name has ice pumping through my veins, ready to spill out. It’s so unlike her. She loves the club, or at least, I thought she did.
I watch as she storms off up the small hallway. Then she slams the door behind her and the walls rattle. My breath rips out of me, panic tingling along my skin. Fuck me. I unleashed something here, something dark and forbidding.
“Fuck, Brie, what the hell happened?” I whisper to the empty room.
It should make me back off, but her reaction has me wanting to dig deeper, to find out what the hell is going on. I want to stop the hurt claiming her, smooth it all away and wrap her up, so nothing touches her again. Levi’s right. She’s spiralling, and I ain’t letting that happen while I have breath in my body.
I should leave, I should get the fuck out of there and do what she demands, but I don’t. I walk over to the sofa and plonk my arse on it. I’m not leaving her like this. I can’t. I peer at the door, wondering what the fuck happened.
8
Briella
My heart is pounding as I sit on the edge of my bed, my thoughts jumping around my brain. I didn’t expect Daimon to keep pushing me on this, but he seems determined to get answers, and that terrifies me. The moment my truth comes out, I’ll be moved into the dreaded victim category. No one will see Briella any longer, just the vile act that was done to me. That can’t happen. I don’t want to see the pity in their eyes, to be treated like glass. I’m not letting him take anything else from me.
The only person who knows what happened that night is Layla, and I’ve already seen how that information has changed her. She’s different. Reckless in her own way, and she gives me more leeway than I should have, scared of pushing me over the edge. She definitely sees me as a victim. I hate it. She thinks I don’t notice the sideways glances or the small frown between her brow, as if she doesn’t know me, as if I’m not the girl she grew up with any longer.
I have no idea where Daimon is. I tell myself I don’t care, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. I curl up on my bed, pulling the covers over me, and I cry myself into an uneasy sleep, needing the relief letting my emotions out brings.
Nightmares stalk through my dreams, replaying my trauma on a loop. I see his face, feel his weight on top of me, feel the pain he caused me as he shoved inside me without a thought for me, the way he smiled as tears fell from the corners of my eyes.
It takes me a while to pull free of the hold the nightmare has on me and when I do, I wake on a scream, the darkness clawing at me as my heart hammers wildly against my ribs.
In the silence, I can hear my laboured breaths as I try to draw air into my lungs. My breath catches again as the bedroom door is shoved open and a dark figure is standing in the doorway. I shriek, clawing back across the bed as it stalks towards me.
“No!” I let out a frightened wail.
“Brie, it’s me.”
Daimon.
I relax, only fractionally. What the hell is he still doing here?
Another figure appears behind him and the room is suddenly filled with light. I blink against the brightness, the light burning my eyes as the shadows are chased away. Layla’s eyes flare as she takes in the huge biker standing in the middle of my room before she steps around him and comes to the bed.
“Are you all right?” she demands, her fingers skimming over my arm in reassurance.
I nod, even though I’m not.
“It’s just a dream,” I tell her, forcing a smile. “You can go back to bed.”
Layla eyes me like she thinks I’ve lost my mind if I think she’s leaving. If our roles were reversed, there’s no way I would leave her either.
“I’ve got this,” Daimon surprises the hell out of me by saying.
I blink at him, my eyes roving over his face, taking in his arms crossed over his chest, the set of his jaw. He’s got this? Layla isn’t convinced.
“You ‘got this’?” She crosses her arms over her chest as she stares down a dangerous biker who could probably make her disappear with a word.
I expect Daimon to explode, but he doesn’t.
“Just give us a minute, please?”
I don’t know if it’s the gentleness of his voice or the please that does it, but Layla’s eyes soften at his words.
She turns to me.
“I’m next door if you need me.”
Traitorous bitch.
Daimon waits for the door to shut behind her, his eyes never leaving my face. I want to wilt under that scrutiny. My heart is already hammering in my chest, my hands clammy. I can’t deal with this much attention directed at me.
I focus instead on his bare feet and the fact he’s removed his kutte, so he’s only in his jeans and tee. I can see every contour of his chest beneath the material, straining as he shifts. I pull my eyes, not wanting to ogle him. “You screamed,” he says finally.
“I was… dreaming.”
“You often scream when you’re dreaming?”
I do since him.
I swallow bile. “I don’t need protecting, Daimon.”
“I’m not trying to protect you.”
“Then what are you doing?”
He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again, as if the words are stuck in his throat.
“Why are you still here?” I press, needing to know.
“I don’t know,” he admits, his candour taking me by surprise.
The confession has my stomach doing a little flutter. Is he here because he cares? The thought makes warmth spread through my body.
“Levi—”
“Doesn’t get a say in this,” he interrupts before I can finish my words. I’m not sure what I was going to say, so I’m almost grateful he did, though I still scowl at him.
He moves towards the bed and I hold my breath.
“You’re trembling.”
I peer down at my hands and see he’s telling the truth. My hands are shaking. I swallow down the fear and try to regain control of myself. I can’t unravel in front of this man, but I feel close to it. All my carefully crafted walls are starting to tumble down around him, and I don’t like that they are.
“I’m okay,” I tell him.
“Why you still lying to me?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m fine.”
“You’re drinking—”
“I had a few glasses to unwind,” I lie.
“You’re having nightmares. You’re acting out. What the fuck is going on with you?”
“Acting out? What am I? A kid? I’m an adult and I can do whatever the fuck I want. The sooner you remember that the better we’ll both be.”
“Your brother’s worried about you.”
I frown at him, his words making my stomach twist unpleasantly. I never want to make my brother worry. “He is?”