Page 22 of Deadly North

The last time I tried, I paid the damn price for it. So it’s the single life for me.

Coincidentally, my last serious boyfriend was a biker. His name was Dylan. I was convinced I was in love with him, and that we had something rare and transcendent. Transcendent, my ass. The bruises lasted almost longer than the relationship.

Things were great between us, for about six weeks. Then one weekend, I was staying at his place (a total dump, but I was too lovesick to notice). He made a remark about how I was his old lady now. I played dumb and asked what that meant, even though I knew from being around Connor’s club that it basically meant he considered me his wife.

Dylan said, with a strange look in his eye: “It means I own you. You’re done talking to guys without my permission. And you’re done doing tattoos on guys. My lady doesn’t touch other men, period.”

I thought he was joking. I really did. Which is why I started laughing.

But I wasn’t laughing for long.

By the time he left on Monday morning to go take care of something for his club, I was so battered and bloodied I think he figured I’d be too embarrassed to leave. Just before he left, he smacked me one more time across the face, hard, before pulling me to him and kissing me with breath that hadn’t seen a toothbrush in a couple of days.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, almost tenderly, before closing the door.

I lay on the living room floor and cried for forty-five minutes.

And then I got up and left.

I was too embarrassed for anyone to find out what had happened to me. Instead, I called the tattoo place where I was working and everyone else I knew, telling them I was taking a last-minute beach vacation by myself to relax and decompress. In reality, I holed myself up at a motel a few towns away to let the bruises and swelling on my face and body heal. It took over a week until I was presentable again. One of those spray tan places gave me a plausible amount of color so people wouldn’t question where I’d been. Thankfully, people you love are usually pretty ready to believe what you tell them, as long as you don’t give them any obvious reasons not to.

That was the last time I ever let a man get close enough to me to believe he had any right to claim designs on my time or my body. I’ve kept my sexual interactions with men to one-night stands since then. I’ll never be tied down to a man I can’t trust again. And that means no kids. My worst nightmare is procreating with someone like Dylan, and then being joined to him by an invisible thread for the rest of my life.

Kat doesn’t know about Dylan. The only one who does is my brother. I broke down one night in a moment of weakness and told him. When I confessed what had happened, Connor demanded all the details I had about him, but wouldn’t say why.

A week later, he told me he’d “taken care” of the problem.

I never asked what he meant. I was afraid to. All I knew was that, according to Connor, Dylan would never bother me again. And he was as good as his word. I never heard from Dylan after that. Six years of radio silence.

And now, somehow I’ve attracted another crazy biker. And this time, not only am I in danger, but potentially Mack and Connor, too. I hate it so, so much. The whole thing makes me want to just get in my car, drive away, and never come back.

“Oh, come on,” Kat says, breaking into my thoughts. “You’d be a great mom. But in any case, I’m just really glad you’re here, under the club’s protection.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, it’s not like I had much choice in the matter. Mack was being a total jackass about it, of course, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. So I guess I’m here for a while.”

“I can believe it. I saw Mack out in the main room on my way in. He looks like he’s about to bring down holy hell on whoever torched your house. He’s in full-on protector mode. I recognize the look from Con.”

I let myself shrug. “Yeah. Mack is taking Connor’s order to make sure I’m safe annoyingly seriously. He’s on me like glue.”

“Well,” Kat says, “Mack has always had a soft spot for you.”

I blink. “Um, what? Is there some other Mack around here that I don’t know about?”

Kat chuckles. “Have you seriously not noticed that?”

“Are you high? Mack has always hated me. And the feeling has been mutual, trust me.”

But Kat just shakes her head. “He’s just protecting his heart, love.”

“From what?”

She gives me a strange look. “From you, of course.”

Before I can decide whether to ask Kat more, Connor comes in to check on both of us. And that’s the end of that conversation — leaving me to wonder if my sister-in-law was just inventing something that isn’t there, or whether there’s a possibility she sees something I haven’t.

11

GIGI