Judge simpered and kissed his teeth. “He already did.”

  Jonathan grimaced, and I smirked as I eased closer.

  “They’re like rabbits, the two of them,” Judge added, finally lifting his damn shotgun. “Always fucking.”

  He adjusted his stance, and I smirked when Jonathan realized we had the upper hand. Sure, he could shoot me with his little handgun, and it’d hurt, but Judge would blow his skull to nothing with his shotgun. I shot forward and snatched Jonathan’s thin wrist. He shrieked as I twisted it until it made a sick popping noise and he dropped his gun.

  “Wait—”

  I kicked him in the knee, and he collapsed with a mighty yelp and stared up at me with pleading eyes, eyes that looked so much like Isabelle’s. Was that how she looked at him before he hurt her? I gritted my teeth and growled and grabbed the mayor by his face. He struggled, and his jaw clicked as he tried to yank his head free, but he wasn’t going anywhere. I moved my thumbs and found his eyes. He squeezed them shut, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I pressed my thumbs into his sockets, and he hollered, but it was nothing compared to the horrific screams I heard coming from the casket he put Isabelle in. To me, his screaming was a lullaby, a peaceful melody that soothed my soul. He was going to burn Isabelle alive. I gritted my teeth and pressed harder. He scraped at my forearms, my wrists, and my face. He clawed me, deep. I felt chunks of my skin ripping off as he raked his nails over me. The pain breathed life into me. I wanted more, to torture him more…but I knew Isabelle wouldn’t want him to suffer, as much as he put her through. I released Jonathan and he fell to his knees, clutching his face and sobbing. Dark blood ran between his fingers and down the back of his hands.

  “You won’t hurt her again,” I told him. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  I held out my empty hand, and Judge moved close, placing his shotgun in my grip.

  “You sure you want to end it so quickly?” he asked, not letting go of the gun. “Could always take him back to the shed.”

  “Nah.” I pulled the gun out of his hold and kicked Jonathan onto his ass. “Tilt your head.”

  Resigned, he lifted his chin, and I stared into his bloodied eye sockets as I placed the barrel to his forehead. I wanted him to die here, the place he intended to murder Isabelle. I straightened my shoulders and tightened my grip. I began to squeeze the trigger when I heard it.

  A whimper.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Isabelle as she stared at her father kneeling at my feet. Her face was bloodied, bruised, and twisted in pain, but her eyes were enough to give me pause. She dragged her gaze up to me and caught her lower lip between her teeth. She didn’t need to have a clean, clear face for me to see she didn’t want me to murder her father. If anything, she looked mortified, disgusted even, and for the first time in my life, being the way I was felt gross in my veins. I hovered my finger over the trigger. I wanted to pull it and get my revenge. If I didn’t, I knew it’d keep me up for the rest of my life, an unresolved problem that’d bug me relentlessly.

  I needed the closure…but I didn’t want her to be afraid of me.

  I needed the closure…but I needed her love more.

  I was whipped enough to admit her admiration fueled me more than revenge ever would. I could live with the torment of not taking Jonathan’s life if it meant keeping her.

  I handed Judge the shotgun and dipped my chin. Wickedness flashed in his eyes, and he nodded his head. I didn’t have to verbalize anything. He knew what I wanted. I didn’t want my revenge, but who was I to take it away from someone else?

  “Give me that.” I flicked my head toward the sweatshirt he tied around his hips.

  He did without question, and I took it to Isabelle and draped it over her. Her chest heaved, and blood trickled from her mouth. Baby. I cursed and lifted her into my arms, and her little whimper evolved into sobbing as I carried her out of the crematorium and climbed onto my bike. Armi and Modo helped position her in front of me, her chest to mine, her legs over my thighs. She continued to cry as I took off my cut and turned it around. I put my arms through the holes and pulled it on backwards. It held her close to me and supported her back, like a sling. Then I grabbed my handlebars and eased out of the parking lot. Minutes into the drive, she went limp, and I was flying low, desperate to get her home…

  …where she belonged.

  ***

  At the clubhouse, Harlei and her mom, Pearl, were on standby to receive Isabelle. Within ten minutes of me arriving, they had Isabelle stripped naked and hooked up to different machines, different drips. It was overwhelming. They rushed around the room, like Izzy’s life depended on it, talking gibberish. I couldn’t keep up. All I did was watch the numbers on Isabelle’s machines climb high and sporadically dip low with every breath she took. With every inhale, the machine beeped and told us she wasn’t taking in enough air, but Harlei didn’t seem worried. She said she had more important things to worry about, things that directly impacted whether Isabelle would make it or not. So I tried not to worry about it, but it was distracting. Every beep, every ring, had my heart clenching in my chest. If she died, I was going to regret not pulling Jonathan apart.

  A pointy mass hit me in the stomach, and I grunted and stepped back from the bed.

  “You’re too big,” Harlei grumbled, elbowing me out of the way so Pearl could stick a needle and a tube in Isabelle’s slender arm. “Get out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Then do something useful,” she ordered, pulling open the drawers on a stainless-steel cart. She reached inside and dragged out a clear bag of liquid and a syringe with a strange plastic tip. “Flush her wounds so I can see which ones need stitching. Mom, grab the peroxide.”

  “What about her feet?” I demanded.

  I noticed some of the blisters had ruptured and were bleeding.

  “Only got two hands, Creed. I’ll get to her feet when I can.”

  I flicked my stare over Isabelle’s body. She was naked on the bed, her hospital gown completely open. Horrific bruises spotted her body and made mine ache all over. A light layer of smoke and ash covered her from head to toe, and it was hard to tell what was dirt and what was blood.

  I swallowed hard and filled my first syringe with saline. I gently squeezed, and the saline squirted out the tip and cleaned her body, revealing scratches and cuts. By her ribs, a thick line of ash and blood gathered, and it took a syringe and a half to clean it out. Fresh blood seeped out when the debris was cleared, and I crouched lower to get a better look. Inside, more debris was caught, so I held the tip to the slice and I emptied the syringe, flushing it out. When the last drop hit the wound, a shadow fell over me as Harlei put her head beside mine to get a closer look.

  “Shit,” she swore. “Didn’t see that.”

  “Knife wound?” I asked, my blood simmering.

  “Possibly.” She straightened and turned to her mother. “We don’t have a thoracostomy tube. Get me an occlusive bandage and call Grant.”

  Pearl nodded and rushed off. I frowned. Grant was a surgeon who owed us after we helped his son out of a tough spot years ago. We were still dealing with the repercussions of attacking the Ventillis in Las Vegas. We didn’t call Grant often, only when shit got serious.

  Grant arrived seventeen minutes later, all scrubbed up in navy. He didn’t greet me. He just went to work on Blondie, and I let him go, unbothered. I stood there for hours, holding an extra bag of…whatever it was. The sun was up and the rest of the men had returned by the time Grant was done. When he was done, he left immediately while Harlei slept against the far wall, her hands clean, but her shirt was spattered with blood. In the past, Harlei and I frequently butted heads. I even demanded Judge get rid of her more times than I could count, but in this moment, I was thankful for her. She shot around this room for hours, trying to save someone she didn’t know, someone who didn’t have any ties to the club. For that, she had my respect.

  I watched the last of the liquid in the bag I was holding drain down the tube and into Blondie’s arm. Thank fuck. My back hurt and the muscles in my arm screamed from holding it up, but I didn’t mind it. It was the least I could do. Isabelle was clean, thanks to Pearl, and draped in a light blue gown. Her hair still held remnants of her awful time, but I’d wash it for her as soon as I could.

  When her blood started to travel back up the empty tube, I pulled it out and bandaged her up, like Harlei instructed. Then I pulled up a chair and sat by her bed. My eyelids grew heavy, my limbs felt like bricks, but I couldn’t drift off. There was a shitstorm coming, and I had to protect her from the fallout. But how? I kept my attention on her. I watched her eyelids flutter and her chest rise and fall with sluggish, painful-looking breaths. I wished I could switch out with her, to give her my breaths, and it was an odd feeling for me. Confusion invaded my mind. Was I in love? I didn’t know. Didn’t even know what it felt like to be loved. I didn’t chase friendships or romance. I preferred to chase the road, to chase danger and money…until that night in Isabelle’s room. From then, she was always a lingering thought in my mind. I knew I cared for her, knew I’d do anything for her, and I knew I couldn’t love her alone. I needed my men to love her, too; she’d be safe then.

  I shuffled on the chair and let my eyes fall shut, moving low so I could rest my head on the back rest. Sleep hit me at once, kind of like the realization I had about my feelings for Izzy, and I dreamed of her. I always dreamed of her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Creed

  Two months had passed since the night we pulled Isabelle from the casket at the crematorium. She was healing nicely, if not fully healed. At least, that’s what Harlei told me. I swallowed a mouthful of my beer and stared into the bonfire, watching the flames as they devoured the large wooden logs Modo fed to them. Truth be told, I hadn’t spoken to Blondie much since that night.

  She avoided all of us…

  Most of them didn’t notice, but I did. Every day dragged on longer than it should, and nights were colder spent on a couch or outside my room where she slept in my bed. It took every sliver of patience I had not to confront her and demand she acknowledge me or demand her to love me.

  It killed me to give her space since my feelings for her only got worse and we’d barely exchanged a sentence. I wanted to hold her, to squeeze her until she popped and kiss her until my lips hurt, but she was closed off and cold. She kept me at arm’s length, and I didn’t know why. If it wasn’t for Iris, Isabelle wouldn’t eat or leave my room.

  A week after that fiasco, we escorted her to Chelsea’s funeral. It was a solemn thirty-motorcycle cortège. Isabelle was still recovering from her injuries, so Kace drove her in Armi’s truck. We waited on the sidelines while Isabelle attended the ceremony. No one paid her any attention, even when she was sobbing as they lowered Chelsea’s casket into the ground, and it hurt my fucking heart, but what could I do? At that point, I didn’t exist. Only her grief did.

  There hadn’t been a funeral for Jonathan. As far as anyone knew, he was still missing.

  The men roared with laughter, enjoying their time around the fire. It’d been a while since we were able to laugh. Following the disappearance of Jonathan, we’d been under scrutiny from the FBI. These days, they seemed to be on the lot more than we were. God knew they’d spoken to Blondie more than me. I was nervous after the first few interviews they had with her. I thought she’d throw us all to the wolves, but she didn’t. She spoke her truth, explained what her father did, and maintained her innocence in his disappearance. We all told the FBI we didn’t know where Jonathan went after we rescued Isabelle from the crematorium. I was the only one who knew Judge murdered Jonathan, burned him, and scattered his ashes over the hot sands of Nevada somewhere. I’d take that information to the grave.

  As for the business side of things…while the dust was still settling and the feds were sniffing around, business was at a standstill. We were low on money and on morale, but it was only short term, and we had to stick it out.

  “He wouldn’t fucking pay me,” Modo boomed, spilling his can of beer.

  Ayr snickered and shifted his leg, moving out of the splash zone. I simpered, entertained by Modo’s story. Though we kept a low profile, some of our lesser members still did runs. I envied them. Going on runs would give me something to do. Instead, I hung around the clubhouse, doing nothing. I lifted my drink and took another mouthful when I saw a flash of pink out of the corner of my eye. No one wore pink here. No one except Blondie. I turned my head, and the sight of her strolling toward us took my breath away. The setting sun hit her milky skin and bounced off her long, blonde locks. It was cool out, but she didn’t seem to care. She threaded her fingers in front of her thighs and flicked her nervous stare over our group of twelve.

  As she closed the distance, I shifted in my seat and averted my attention to the bonfire. Isabelle wouldn’t be coming here for me. Since Iris sat three seats to my right, I was prepared for her to walk right on by. What I wasn’t prepared for was her shadow to darken my spot.

  “She’s looking at you, VP,” Casino shouted.

  Fuck. I dragged my stare from her scarred and bare feet, up her slender legs to the hem of her flowy pink dress that swayed around her knees. Most of her cuts were no longer visible, but Harlei said her feet would forever carry the heavy scarring of her father’s betrayal. I inhaled through my nose and lifted my gaze to her face. Our eyes locked. Her irises were as striking as ever, and there was a warmth to them I hadn’t seen in months. God. I missed her. More than anything. Everything about the woman who stood in front of me was utter perfection. From the highlight on her top lip to the way the wind blew strands of her hair into her pretty face. Everyone in this circle knew Isabelle Laurent turned me to putty, and they all eyed us immaturely.

  I sat back in my chair and watched her. What did she want? Izzy glanced at my lap then back to my face. She wanted to sit? I moved my arms out of the way, and she turned and lowered herself onto me. I peered awkwardly at Judge, who smiled and finished off the remnants of his beer with a single swallow. What the hell was I supposed to do? We’d barely spoken to each other in months, and now she was sitting in my lap? Were we good? Was that what this meant? To test it, I placed my hand on her thigh, and it was bare and smooth where her dress lifted. Isabelle relaxed under my touch, melting against me. My dick twitched as heat gathered at the collar of my tee. I’d gone so long without her…if she made any sudden movements, I was done for.

  “Anyway,” Modo continued, his British accent thick. I forced my attention from Izzy’s slender shoulders to his ugly face, which softened my hardening cock. “Where was I?”

  “He didn’t want to pay you,” Ayr answered and leaned forward onto his elbows.

  “Oh, right. The fucker didn’t want to pay me.”

  “So what’d you do?” Ayr encouraged him, his face splitting with a wide grin.

  Modo flicked his gaze to Blondie then Judge. “She’s one of us, isn’t she? Creed’s old lady?”

  Isabelle straightened as Judge looked at her. He arched an eyebrow, asking her a silent question, giving her a way out. I held my breath. If she said no, she could walk away, and there wouldn’t be a thing I could do to stop it. If she said yes, she was mine, and there was no walking away from this. Isabelle glanced at me over her shoulder, but I didn’t make eye contact with her. I didn’t want to plant the answer in her head with my expression. I wanted her to do what she wanted.

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice wrapped around my soul and squeezed tight. “I am.”

  For whatever reason, I looked to Judge, whose eyes flared wickedly, the dirty bastard. He was smug and satisfied because he knew her answer meant he’d get her, too.

  “I tied him down,” Modo said, swiping a hand down his copper beard. “And I shot him.”

  Ayr laughed, tossing his empty can of beer into the makeshift cardboard bin. “Tell ’em where.”

  “I aimed at his knee and as I pulled the trigger…” Delight danced in Modo’s amber eyes. “I sneezed and shot him in the nuts.”

  Izzy gasped, and I laughed, squeezing her thigh. The men howled with laughter, too, and from there, the conversation separated into smaller ones. The only people not engaged in convo was Isabelle and me. She noticed, too, and twisted on my lap, awakening every cell in my body. I flicked my stare over her face, forgetting how beautiful she was, even up close.

  “I miss you,” she whispered, and her admission punched me in the chest.

  So many weeks had passed, and it never crossed my mind that she missed me.

  “I miss you, too,” I said without hesitation.

  My stomach turned at the heavy feeling of being vulnerable, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted her to know I missed her, that I wanted to be close to her. I craved to hold her, touch her, kiss her. More than anything, I desperately desired to hold a conversation, to hear her voice in my ears. Her silence and avoidance fucking hurt, more than any wound I’d ever suffered. And I hated it. I hated I felt that way—hated that I cared so much for her—because it made me weaker.

  Isabelle leaned closer and touched my cheeks. I hadn’t shaved in a while, but I could still feel the softness of her hands and the warmth radiating from her palms. Her eyes flickered to my lips and back.

  “Do you hate me?” she asked, leaning in until her chest touched mine. “It’s okay if you do…”

  Worry swam in the pools of her blue eyes and made my heartbeat through my chest. The smell of her, leather and lavender, wafted through my nose, and I forgot where I was. No one else existed. I only saw her and the flames that danced behind her.

  “I hate a lot of things,” I told her. “But not you. I could never hate you.”

  Izzy closed the distance between our lips and kissed me tenderly, until little sparks of static danced over my skin. When she finally broke the kiss, I was dazed, and her lips were swollen. Our breath eagerly clashed, our grip on each other significantly tighter than it was when we started.