It was a strange thing when all the seemingly isolated clouds in your life joined together, creating the perfect storm that even George Clooney wouldn’t dare sail through.
It shouldn’t happen, such a storm. Even in my dramatic and barely believable life, such events, like the one of that fateful day, should not have stitched together like at the hand of Frankenstein itself, creating a monster I’d provided all the parts for.
Like most of the shouldn’ts’ in my life, it got turned into a “surely will.” Imagine that in a Southern accent too, just for kicks.
It was just another Sons of Templar courtship. The most recent of the five, and this time, finally, Lucky got his girl. But shadows as black as midnight yanked at the both of them, taking two members of my family on the darkest journey the club had seen since Laurie.
Just another day in that courtship meant a car bomb.
Specifically the car Lucy and I had been about to get into until Bex saved our lives. The message was to her and the club. By the person trying to destroy it all.
They failed, just like everyone beforehand had.
But it was close.
Emergency trip to my brow lady kind of close.
But everyone was fine, save Lucy’s broken wrist.
But an explosion in the Sons of Templar compound didn’t go unnoticed by local law enforcement.
Specifically would not go unnoticed by Luke.
I knew that, which was why I had been trying my level best to escape the aforementioned compound before Luke arrived.
Yes, I was running and hiding, though not from the reasons that I also got blown up.
From the man who would’ve liked to protect me from all that.
From my family.
Who would’ve done that by destroying it.
But my overprotective family—more precisely, my overprotective brother—wasn’t about to let me escape without being under observation.
So while the men fought amongst themselves, trying to control a situation that was already chaotic, the sound of shrill sirens cut through the air.
“We’re gonna have cops crawling the place right about now,” Brock said, hard eyes on the windows showing the smoking remains of my car.
Every part of me froze.
“Yeah, well, let them come,” Cade growled from in front of me, where he was currently standing as if to make sure he hadn’t overlooked a missing limb. “We’ve got nothin’ to hide, and as much as I loathe Crawford’s little visits, maybe we can make the boys in blue work for our taxes and fuck around while we find out who did this.”
I unfroze at the mention of Luke’s name, and at the utter hatred in my brother’s voice.
I darted up from the chair they’d banished me to. A woman couldn’t possibly be expected to stand after she survived an explosion. As if being vertical would be the thing that ended me, not the explosives.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, my voice bordering on hysterical. Hopefully everyone would think it was due to an explosion that almost killed me, not the police officer who was much more dangerous.
Bex eyed me shrewdly.
Cade foiled my escape attempt, his eyes hard. “Are you fuckin’ insane?” he demanded. “No, wait, I already know the answer to that question. But you were almost just fuckin’ blown up, kid. You’re not goin’ anywhere.” His voice rippled with fury, as did his eyes, only I could see the concern lingering beneath the granite gaze. And a flicker of fear.
That one day we’d stop getting off lightly with scratches and ruined jeans and broken bones.
That we’d lose one.
Another one.
My eyes quickly touched on Bex, the demons dancing on her face, even now that she had a man who adored her and the horrors of her past behind her.
Though our horrible past was never really behind us. For Bex, it was in the memories and waking nightmares she struggled with every damn day.
For me, my own horrible, beautiful nightmare was about to strut through that door. Bex couldn’t run from her nightmares, because they were incorporeal. I could at least scamper away from the physical portion of mine.
“I’m fine,” I lied, eyes on the windows, watching the patrol cars screech in. My escape would be impossible soon. “My eyebrows bore the brunt of it,” I continued, struggling in Cade’s arms. “Nothing a spa day can’t fix. Now I’ve really got to go. I think I left my straightener on.”
My struggles were becoming more and more frantic, more and more feral, like a wild cat trying to escape the embrace of someone trying to domesticate it.
I could not be domesticated.
Which was part of the problem.
Another big part of the problem was the two different sides of the law that Luke and I called home.
“I’m a police officer. Let me the fuck in.”
Speak of the Devil’s slightly more well-behaved brother and he shall appear.
Luke’s cursing and tight, bordering-on-uncontrolled tone surprised me. He wore his professionalism like a mask, indifference for me scathing in its almost authenticity when he was around the club.
Though I couldn’t say anything else would take away the sting over the fact that whenever he was around the club, he was trying to take them down.
Despite all that, my eyes went to Luke, latching onto his baby blues even though I knew I couldn’t really do anything. Couldn’t really be anything to him.
Fury rippled off Cade as he followed my eyes toward Luke, who was stomping toward me.
He let go of me immediately to shove himself between Luke and me.
He didn’t need to create a physical barrier; the ideological one worked well enough.
“The flaming and smoking remains of the bomb that almost killed my sister are outside, Deputy,” Cade said, almost spitting the words at him, though his tone was somehow flat. “I assume that’s where you should be doing your job.”
Cade’s tone, his entire demeanor, betrayed something.
I flinched. Could he know?
No. He’s Cade just being Cade.
I couldn’t rip my eyes away from Luke’s glacial stare, every inch of hatred spearing me in the heart with its intensity.
Though it didn’t stay on Cade for long. He didn’t seem interested in a macho-man stare-off. Instead, every inch of the glacier melted, hate disappearing, leaving something much more complicated in its wake as his eyes once more focused on me.
“I’m right where I need to be, Fletcher.”
I blinked. Uncomfortable silence bathed the room as everyone watched Luke’s blatant statement of something he’d made his business to keep secret.
He didn’t even seem like he noticed or cared about what he’d exposed with those words as his eyes catalogued my entire body, zeroing in on even the smallest of scratches and my charred clothing.
“Are you okay?” he little more than whispered.
My heart began to beat all the way in my throat, making me unable to form words. The only thing I could do was nod weakly.
His soft gaze didn’t stay on me for a second longer, he finally commenced the macho-man stare-off Cade had been hanging out for. “I see the story of you going legit was a total pack of lies,” Luke hissed, unbridled anger poisoning his voice.
I didn’t know why I expected anything more, that just because he gave me a handful of words and a lingering gaze, that would repair decades of hatred. I shouldn’t have expected it. I should’ve known better. It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less.