1
Archer
"Congratulations, Mrs. D'Ath. Welcome to the family."
My brother's words hung in the air like a death knell. Damn, they were exactly that because there was no way in hell she would forgive me for this.
I couldn't look at her. My head refused to turn and see what was sure to be horror and betrayal passing over her beautiful face. I didn't need to. Not when Kody's tortured expression said it all as his gun arm lowered and his eyes pleaded with her.
She wasn’t looking back at him, though. I knew her better than I knew myself some days. The staggering silence that followed Zane's words told me how she would react to this new development. She wouldn't yell or scream or punch me... no matter how much I hoped she would.
From the corner of my eye I caught her stooping to swipe the folded papers off the step. She didn't look at them, just stuffed them into her back pocket and gave a short nod.
"Thank you for letting me know," she told my brother, and the ice in her voice was like a jagged blade straight through my heart.
Zane's brows shot up in surprise, his eyes shifting to meet mine once more. He didn't know her, though. He couldn't sense the cold, acidic fury coursing faster through her veins with every passing second. He hadn't witnessed her highs and lows, and he had no idea that this was worse than all of those lows combined.
I was fucked. Totally, completely, utterly fucked.
But I would still do it again. Given the same choice, offered the same opportunity to buy her, to own her and all her assets? Yeah, I'd do it again. In a fucking heartbeat.
"MK, it's not what it sounds like," Kody started to say, his voice threaded with panic and his gun at his side, forgotten, as he implored the girl he'd fallen in love with.
She wasn't listening. The second Zane had dropped his truth bomb, she'd shut us out. All of us... because regardless of the fact that it was me who'd purchased her like a fucking prize cow at market, both Kody and Steele were complicit. They’d known all about it, about how deeply intertwined our lives now were, and they’d kept my secret.
In that light, their betrayal had to be so much more cutting. They'd made her care for them... They'd fallen for her in return. That, surely, was a bigger crime than what I'd done.
At least I’ve never fucked her.
Anger burned through me as I eyed my brother, ignoring everyone else for a minute. They'd directly violated the rules of our agreement, and crimes like that couldn't go unpunished. I'd proven my point to Zane over and over, but apparently all it took for him to forget those bloody lessons was a pair of great tits and some silken pink hair.
"Boss," Cass said quietly in his damaged voice, "we should go."
Smart move. Cass had known me since I was a kid; he'd been there as my grandfather put me through training. Hell, he'd been through it himself. He—even more so than Zane—understood what I was capable of. He'd sensed the shift in my mood and recognized the impending danger.
Zane gave me a small, cruel smirk, and a growl of anger burned through me. He claimed he was doing this for some debt he owed Kate's dead mother? I called bullshit. He was doing this to hurt me, and it was working. That motherfucker.
Cass and Zane climbed back onto their motorcycles, kicking the engines over. Kody shot me a confused look, and I knew exactly what he was asking me. Was I going to let them leave unharmed? Probably not. But it was more fun to leave the illusion of freedom, only to shoot out their tires right before they exited the property. Then? Well... then I dare say my big brother was well overdue for a lesson on exactly why I was a bigger, badder wolf in Shadow Grove than anyone else.
"Wait," Madison Kate shouted, her voice like a bucket of ice water over my bloodthirsty plans. She stepped over the bloody heart—the one stalker gift I was glad to see—and approached the two Reaper leaders. "I'm coming with you."
She didn't wait for permission, just climbed onto the back of Cass's bike like she fucking belonged there, linking her hands around his waist in a way that sparked my anger to murderous levels.
Cass was a fucking dead man.
"Hellcat, don't do this," Steele pleaded, his silent resolve cracking. "Don't fucking run from us. Please, baby, you need to hear us out."
For a moment, I thought he'd got through to her. Those violet-blue eyes of hers flickered with pain—and any emotion was better than the cool mask shuttering her true feelings away. But as quickly as it came, it shut back down. Her eyes flicked away from Steele like he no longer existed in her world.
"Go," she ordered Cass in a whip-crack voice, "there's nothing left for me here."
He was smarter than that, though—certainly smart enough that he hesitated and his brow creased ever so slightly with indecision.
"Boss?" he asked Zane, seeking direction.
"You can't be fucking serious!" Kody exploded, shaking his head in disbelief. "Arch, do something. You know you can."
Zane met my gaze, his lips curled in a smug grin of victory, and sour hatred filled my body. I wanted to kill him so fucking bad. The only reason he was still breathing was that he served a purpose in running the Reapers. That usefulness was fast running out.
"MK, come on," Steele tried again, taking two steps closer to where she perched on the back of Cass's motorcycle. "Please, trust us. Don't run."
"Archer!" Kody snapped. "Say something. Fucking anything."
But what the fuck could I say? Zane hadn't lied. He hadn't even misled her, although I had no idea what was in those papers, what proof he'd provided. But it didn't matter, did it? Money had changed hands, her piece-of-shit father had had his bad debts cleared and his life saved. All it’d cost him was his only child.
What a bargain.
When I said nothing, Kate's curiosity won out. I’d known it would. Her eyes met mine for one tense, soul-destroying moment. Her expression was shuttered, her pain and fury tucked carefully away behind a mask of indifference, but I knew it was there. She couldn't hide from me.
"Let her go," I finally said, holding her gaze and giving away nothing in my own. Two peas in a pod, we were. A match forged in the blood-drenched bowels of Hell.
"What?" Kody exclaimed at the same time as Steele shouted a curse.
I let a small smile touch my lips because if there was one thing I was good at, it was getting under my wife's skin. All the better now that she knew the truth. We were married and had been for over a year.
Happy belated anniversary, babe.
"Let her go," I repeated, bleeding smug satisfaction into my smile and locking down all the howling pain inside me. "She knows she can't escape me forever."
This provoked a reaction from her, just as I’d expected. It was small, just a fractional lift of her brows, but the message she conveyed was clear.
Bring it on, motherfucker.
The roar of motorcycle engines filled the air as Zane and Cass took off, carrying my wife with them, and I did nothing to stop them. My vicious plans were abandoned as quickly as they'd been formed because there was no way I'd shoot out their tires when she was involved.
They knew it too, those bastards. Kate was their shield, and they'd keep her close to save themselves from my retaliation. That knowledge both infuriated me and eased my mind. As badly as I wanted to tear carnage through the Reapers for this breach of the rules, for this literal act of war against me... I couldn't. They'd keep her safe, guarded, protected, and that was something I'd failed miserably at recently.