“One night, they came back stoned. They saw me… They raped me.”
Link didn’t react, but I heard Sin hiss, just as Nyx let out a snarl.
Steel grated out, “Those bastards.”
I jumped when a fist smacked into the table, the noise overly loud as I blurted out, “You believe me?”
I didn’t look away from Link.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Nyx demanded. “Those fucking pieces of shit.” Both hands slammed against the table this time before he picked up his coffee cup and hurled it against the wall.
Steel snapped, “Back off, Nyx. Calm the fuck down.”
But his anger helped me. It was cathartic. I needed that. I needed anger. Not disbelief.
“Grizzly said no one would believe me.” With my free hand, I swiped at my eyes. “He said I was just like my mom—”
“We would always have believed you,” Link chided softly, leaning over so that he was closer to me. “Just the once or more…?”
I bit my lip hard enough to feel the pinch. “Just the once,” I choked out. “By them. I-I stopped babysitting.”
Link froze as he read between the lines. “It happened again?”
“In college.” I sniffed, wiped my eyes some more. “But that isn’t related to this conversation—”
Before I could finish the sentence, the table, the heavy walnut expanse that was cut from one tree, went flying.
Nyx upended it.
Papers, glasses, pens, computers all went soaring through the air.
Link knew his brother too well because he'd dragged my seat quickly away, his own too so that we weren’t in the danger zone.
Nyx tossed over the table like it weighed nothing, and he let out a roar that reminded me of Rex’s on Christmas Day.
It was pain-filled.
Hurting.
For me.
That was when I sobbed.
“You believe me,” I whispered, sitting amidst the chaos that Nyx had created; a chaos I didn’t even know I needed.
Nyx dropped to his knees in front of me, papers crunching, glass smashing as he did so. His hands went to either side of my seat cushion and he stared into my eyes, his face moving uncomfortably close as he rasped, “I’d kill Grizzly and Dog for you if they weren’t already dead.”
I could feel my face crumple at his words, but I shook my head and pressed my hand to his shoulder. Squeezing down, I rasped back, “You made a promise that I intend for you to keep.”
“The only people I care about… Why?” His mouth worked and his fingers tightened to the point where the chair groaned under the pressure of his hold. “Any brother who touches a woman against their will, I’m going to saw off their cocks in the future. I'm the VP now. This is our motherfucking MC.”
He said it like he was telling me he was going to punish Prospects by sending them to clean the gutters.
Like it was an everyday point of conversation.
Instead, it was candid. Raw.
He meant it.
“Then, I’m going to make them watch as Cruz melts it in his chemicals.”
I gulped. “Y-You can’t do that.”
“I sure as fuck can and I sure as fuck will!”
A tissue appeared in front of me, and I shot Steel a grateful look as I snagged it and blew my nose. Gingerly, he patted my shoulder.
It was such an unlikely move that I whispered, “You don’t have to treat me like I’m a delicate flower. I’m the same Rachel. I-I just—”
“Is this why you’re such a bitch?”
“Fuck’s sake, Mav,” Link ground out.
I was almost grateful for the question. I didn’t want them to behave differently around me. “You had guns to protect you. I had ice.”
My flat response had Mav nodding. “Makes sense. Wish you’d told us. Nyx wouldn’t have been the only one lynching those bastards.”
“I’m glad Lodestar got to Dog now,” Steel muttered.
Mouth tightening, I nodded. “That was a very nice gift.”
“She didn’t make him suffer enough,” Nyx snarled. “I’d—”
“You don’t own torture,” Link grumbled. “I’m sure he didn’t want to die. I’m sure she made it nice and painful.”
I blinked. “I shouldn’t be hearing any of this.”
“If you think Lodestar’s ever going to get caught, you’re crazy,” Mav said flatly. “You don’t need plausible deniability for her.”
“Stop being a prick, Maverick,” Sin snapped. “This is Rach. We’re not talking statistics—”
Maverick narrowed his eyes at Sin. “Fuck you. Do you have any idea what I do for this club? The shit I’ve trawled through to get Nyx his evidence? His righteous kills? The things I’ve seen would get that temper of yours really fucking firing.”
“This isn’t a competition,” Steel tried to placate. “We’ve all been through the wringer.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t mean to start an argument. I just wanted to explain—”
Nyx peered up at me. “Giulia said you’re pregnant.”
A shocked breath gusted from me. “She wasn’t supposed… How the hell did she know?”
“Saw the pregnancy test.” In his gaze, I saw that feral side of him that he was struggling to contain soar to the surface. “Is the kid Rex’s?”
“Yes.”
Link crouched down next to me. “I know you’ve got a weird dynamic. It’s why he spent most of his time playing fucking chess with Peach than—”
He’d been faithful to me?
My eyes widened as I grabbed his arm. “They used to play chess?”
Link shrugged. “Most of the time. Figured you were...” He paused. “Well, to be honest, I don’t fucking know what was going on with you two. I just knew that you had his cock in a vise.”
Brow puckering, I asked softly, “I didn’t mean to.”
“Women never do,” Sin drawled. “Doesn’t stop it from happening.”
Nyx cracked his knuckles. “What happened on Christmas Day? Did you tell him he was going to be a dad?”
“No!” I scowled at him and shoved his shoulder. “Nyx, you seriously think Rex would run out from his responsibilities? Shame on you!”
Link chuckled. “There’s our Rach.”
I didn’t stop scowling at Nyx who finally raised his hands in apology. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here.”
Pissed on his behalf, I grumbled, “Not that. Rex would never, ever—”
“Yeah, yeah, Saint Rex,” Nyx sniped. “What did happen then?”
“We had sex.” My cheeks blossomed with heat as their faces turned expressionless. Which, of course, meant I’d be the topic of conversation the second I left the room. Men were such terrible gossips. “I-I have issues.”
“Understandable,” Link attempted to soothe.
“Is it?” I asked bitterly. “I’m already a walking trigger. It wasn’t even his fault. Christ, it never really is.” I rubbed my brow again. “It was… It happened on a sofa. I didn’t think it through. He was on me.” My mouth worked. “He wasn’t… He was asleep. I was asleep too. But if I share a bed with him, and we—” God, how did I explain?