Cade looked to me blandly. “And that’s who you’ve pissed off.”
I shrugged. “Go big or go home, right?”
I saw Cade’s face morph and his fists clench as he struggled not to yell at me. I could almost hear him counting it down in his head.
“This isn’t Rosie’s fault,” Luke cut in from his place beside me. Which was where he’d been. Constantly.
It would’ve been annoying if I thought he was shadowing me because he thought I needed a knight. But it wasn’t that. He knew I had a sword of my own. He just wanted to be near me, give me his sword too.
He’d braved the looks and glares and pointed comments whenever we were at the club. Most of them came from Cade.
Actually, all of them came from Cade.
We’d had conversations, and Cade hadn’t shot him, which was his version of approval, but that didn’t mean an almost thirty-year grudge would be settled in a handful of months. Cade wasn’t wired that way.
Neither was Luke. But he was trying.
Cade settled his glare on Luke. “Rosie running off to Venezuela, putting her nose in shit where it didn’t belong—like she always does—and deciding to throw stones at the biggest player in the human trafficking game without thinking he’s gonna throw stones back isn’t her fuckin’ fault?” Cade questioned.
Luke’s hand flexed on mine. “She was doin’ the right thing.”
Cade continued to stare. “The right thing would’ve been not fuckin’ leavin’ in the first place,” he clipped. “I’m sure I’ve got you to thank for that one, so maybe it isn’t Rosie’s fault. Maybe it’s yours. You wanted to destroy the club but it wasn’t working the regular way, so you decided to try it different. Fuck my sister—”
“Stop,” I hissed, slamming my hand down on the table.
Lucky jumped beside me, not expecting it. “Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered, placing his hand on his heart like an old lady might when someone cursed in front of her.
“Enough,” I said quietly. “You continue that train of thought, you won’t have a sister to push away anymore.”
Cade’s eyes flickered. “You haven’t considered it?”
I tilted my head. “What? That Luke did some roundabout thing to push me away on the off chance I’d run, and gambled that it would be to Venezuela, where I would happen to stumble upon a human trafficking ring and decide to arm up?” I continued to glare at my brother. “And then he decided to quit the force he loved so much, move to LA to work with Keltan so he could organize Lucy to get stabbed so I would come home and somehow have the Venezuelan bigwigs try to shoot me on the street months later, all so he could destroy the club?” I asked, my tone dripping in sarcasm. “No, I haven’t considered it, because I’m not that fucking insane, but now I know you’re that fucking narcissistic. Could he not be here, standing up to the big, bad and all-powerful Cade because he, oh, I don’t know, fucking loves me!” I shouted. “All you see is what you want to see. If you knew what Luke’s done for this club—”
Luke squeezed my hand. “Baby,” he murmured in my ear. “Easy. Don’t say shit you’re gonna regret.”
I glared at him, hating that he was stopping my roll. Hating that he was right.
“There’s a reason I left last year. A real reason,” I clarified to the table. I eyed Lucky, who looked like he was going to start rattling off past transgressions. “Not because I felt like following Thirty Seconds to Mars across Eastern Europe. Not because I wanted to walk the El Camino, or party with some guy whose name I didn’t remember,” I said before he could. And maybe so I could put off saying the real reason I left. “I remember the name of this guy.”
Lucky grinned. “Here we go.”
I smiled back. Or attempted to. Then I sucked in a breath and looked above Cade’s eyebrows as I spoke to the table. “His name was Kevin. We dated. I dumped him because I didn’t like the way he spoke to me. Both with his words and his fists.”
The second I finished my sentence, Lucky’s grin disappeared. It would’ve been comical if the tone in the room allowed for it.
It did not.
Luke squeezed my hand.
I smiled weakly at him.
“Rosie—” Cade bit out, his form marble.
“Please, Cade, and all other furious males in the room—AKA every male in the room. Please do not interrupt story time,” I requested. “There’s plenty of time for yelling or breaking the furniture after I’m done.” I went for airy because I didn’t quite think I’d make it through otherwise. I knew I wouldn’t make it through without Luke beside me.
“I didn’t tell you because A, you had enough going on at the time, and B, because I handled it.” I paused. “Or at least I believed I did. After I shot Devon, I came home. Kevin was there. Long story short, he was not happy about the breakup, or the very real castration threat I’d left hanging over his balls. He did not communicate this with words. He, to put it not quite delicately, beat the shit out of me.”
Cade hissed out unintelligible words.
Lucky brought his fist down on the table so hard the wood cracked.
Steg hadn’t moved a muscle, his eyes hard and shimmering.
“I’m just gonna preface the next part of the story by saying he did not rape me,” I said, deciding not to tell them everything. I could tell my girlfriends; they could heal. These men couldn’t, despite how strong they were, knowing that would leave a mark, so I protected them from that.
Luke squeezed my hand tighter that time, then brought it up so he could press his lips to it.
“He handcuffed me to the bed. With less-than-noble intentions. Before he could consummate those intentions, Luke arrived.” That time I squeezed. “And he killed him.”
The room paused. Everything. For a second, no one seemed to breathe, and a collection of eyes went to Luke. For the first time not in hatred or anger.
“Let’s be clear here and say that he didn’t technically need to kill him,” I continued. “I’d managed to get him off me and chewing on his tongue. Luke could’ve done the ‘cop’ thing. Shot him in the leg. Restrained him. Cuffed him. Read him his rights. But he didn’t. Because of me. He sacrificed everything he stood for because of me.”
I looked around the room. At the men I grew up with. Who I considered family. My eyes lingered on Steg before landing on Cade.
“I’m not asking you to sacrifice everything you believe in,” I whispered. “I’m not even asking you to kill for me. The opposite, in fact. I’m just asking you to do something for me. Let me be happy. Let me live with the man I love without the fear that the family I love will kill him. Because to be clear, ending this, ending him, that’s me gone. One bullet will end two lives.”
There was silence at the table for a long time.
The longest.
“Where’d you bury him?” Gage asked conversationally.
“Quarry that got shut down a few years ago, twenty minutes south,” Luke answered.
Gage nodded. “Nice.”
I stifled my grin.
“He hit you and you didn’t come to us?” Cade asked quietly. Only I could hear the hurt in his tone.