Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

CHAPTER TEN

Finally

Millie

I SAT IN the back of the taxi, exhausted beyond comprehension, my phone to my ear.

“No, I’m good, Dot,” I told my sister, a complete and total lie since travel and jet lag were kicking my ass. “Is my car at my house?”

“Alan and I took it there yesterday, babe. Also straightened up a bit,” she shared cautiously, giving me the information and doing it not wanting to remind me why my place was left the way it was. “But do you think you should stay there?” she asked, then suggested, “Maybe you should stay over here.”

I wanted to stay with my sister and Alan and the kids for as long as I could stay with my sister and Alan and the kids since I intended to move as soon as I could to Arizona, and I wouldn’t be able to see them whenever I wanted to see them.

But I was wiped and being wiped and needing sleep and clear headspace to get on with doing what I needed to do were not conducive to having two kids under the age of ten in the house.

“I’m gonna crash at my place,” I told her. “And I’ll be fine,” I assured hurriedly, hoping she’d believe me even knowing she wouldn’t. “I just need to get my head together¸ start getting other things together, and maybe tomorrow night I can come and stay with you?”

“You can stay with us anytime, you know that,” she replied.

I did.

And I would.

For as long as it took me to sort things out with work, get my house on the market, and get the hell out of Denver.

“Right,” I said. “I’m almost home. When I get there, I’m going right to bed. When I can think straight, I’ll call you and we’ll plan. Okay?”

“Okay, Mill. Whatever you need.”

That was what it had always been from Dottie.

Whatever I needed.

And nearly two weeks ago, after I’d driven like a lunatic to get home after what happened at The Roll, packing like a crazy person, only grabbing the things I needed, all this so I could get out of there and fast just in case Logan got a wild hair and followed me, she’d again done just that.

Given me what I needed.

I’d woken them up when I’d made it to their house. Then I’d blathered and bawled, letting it all hang out, everything from what happened in Logan’s RV to Hop singing “Far Behind” and all the rest.

As he listened, Alan, a good man, a good husband, a guy who loved his wife like crazy and loved her sister, too, had kept it together by the skin of his teeth. I knew he was close to ballistic. That ballistic being hunting Logan down and giving it his all to beat the crap out of him (which would be an interesting scenario, as Alan was a badass so it would be a close match, though I suspected Logan would fight dirty).

But he didn’t lose it because at that moment he needed to be all about me and doing what he could to help his woman help her sister.

And that he did.

Dottie had kept it totally together, as usual, and got online to get me covered.

She’d also let me borrow things to take with me. Once sorted, something that at Dottie’s hand didn’t take long, we got in the car and she stole me away to the airport.

It had taken ages but I’d eventually landed in France. I’d then had my first vacation since... ever... doing it the first week communicating liberally with Claire, Justine, Dottie, and various clients. I did this with the girls so they had my work covered (it took all of them pitching in... and they all did, loved my girls and owed them huge).

I’d also phoned my parents in Arizona and sorted that out.

Then I’d found a real estate agent.

Last, I’d had several in-depth conversations with Claire, who had been with me a long time, who knew what she was doing, demonstrated this repeatedly over the years but did it more by covering my shit while I took off to another country and had a mini nervous breakdown.

She was considering buying me out. It’d take her years. She’d have to do it in installments. And she didn’t much like the idea. She liked working with me and actually preferred being an assistant and not having the headaches of being the boss.

But she knew she was good at what she did, the clients knew her and trusted her, she could keep Cross Events functioning and successful, and she could make a whole lot more as the boss.

So she was considering it.

That was all I’d managed to do while I was away, partly because I was in a different time zone on a different continent, so there wasn’t much more I could do.

But mostly it was because I was taking my first vacation... ever... and I was in Paris.

And I was in Paris at the perfect time because it was November, the place wasn’t overrun with tourists, and there were actually Parisians in the city (Parisians, I was told while I was there, did their best to take off when the place was covered in tourists). Thus I decided my experience was more authentic.

It was chilly but it was amazing. So beautiful it almost seemed unreal.

So I ate. I drank. I roamed. I shopped. I got on tour buses, rode, took pictures, and listened to not very good tapes telling me what things were. I got out of the city and saw Versailles. I sat in spectacular gardens and people watched. I spoke broken French to French people who were a lot friendlier than I’d expected them to be.

I had intended to spend two full weeks there but it finally occurred to me I was hemorrhaging money having a Parisian getaway/breakdown when my future was uncertain. Therefore, I cut my visit two days short, thus necessitating a variety of flight changes that were not the greatest.

But they got me home.

And I got what I needed from Paris.

I’d come to terms with what was left of my life.

And what I came to terms with was that I was not beaten.

I was angry.

Twenty years ago, I’d broken up with Logan. Yes, we were in love, deeply in love. Yes, we were happy. Yes, we had it all.

Because I gave it all to him.

Sure, he gave it back but I was the best old lady ever. Keely absolutely adored Black, she had old lady down pat, but I was even better than her.

And I was totally better than Naomi, who, frankly, was mostly a bitch (so I was glad Tack had moved on, though I was not admitting it since I was also ticked at Tack and his new woman).

And most importantly, I’d ended it for him.

For Logan.

Logan didn’t know that but I did, damn it.

What I didn’t do was cheat on him. Steal from him. Stick him with a knife while he was sleeping because he didn’t buy me a diamond bracelet I wanted (since I didn’t want any diamond bracelet, just him). Burn down the house in a fit of pique to make a point about him not doing the dishes.

We were together.

We broke up.

Twenty years ago.

People broke up all the time!

He had to get over himself.

But he’d have to do it without me.

He thought I had to pay? Well, maybe he was right and I knew he didn’t know (and I wasn’t going to tell him, not ever), so being the man he was, he would think that.

And I’d paid.

Now I was done.

No more.

I hoped I communicated that to him and the rest of them that horrible night at The Roll. I’d also spoken to Kellie and she told me what she’d told them, so if I didn’t communicate it to them, I hoped what she said did.

But it didn’t matter. I had set my course and it was time for massive change. A new life away from any possibility of seeing Logan at my home, having his people mess with my life, or even seeing him at a Chipotle ordering a burrito.

I just hoped I could avoid any of that kind of thing before I was able to get myself gone. There was a lot to do. It would probably take weeks.

During that time, after I got preliminary stuff sorted, I’d stay at Dottie and Alan’s. I could work from there, too, unless I had to see a client, which meant going to my studio. And being at Dot and Alan’s, I would hope, would mean Logan wouldn’t mess with me.

But if anything happened, if any of them did one single thing, I was calling the cops.

Fuck them.

All of them.

Especially Logan.

He was dead to me.

All of Chaos were.

They had to be so I could get on with what was left of my life.

This was what I was intent on doing (after I slept for three days) when the taxi dropped me off behind my house. The driver took my luggage out of the trunk and put it inside the back door. I gave him a good tip. He smiled and I didn’t watch as he got in his cab and rolled away.

I knew Dot had been in to turn up the furnace, straighten up, return my car, and make sure I had some food.

So all I had to do was take off my clothes and drop in my bed.

Which was what I was going to do.

I locked the door behind me and wandered into the living room, sliding the purse from my shoulder to toss on my couch, my feet set on a course for my bed.

“Millicent Anna Cross.”

I stopped dead as my body coated in ice when I heard a voice that shouldn’t be coming at me from my living room. I looked and saw the man sitting in my cuddle chair, facing me, two men standing behind him.

I’d never seen him before.

He was dressed well. Hispanic. Good-looking. And he seemed laid back.

But he scared the holy shit out of me because I didn’t know him, he knew me, and he was in my living room!

I tensed to flee but stopped as my head shot to the side when I felt movement there.

Another man was coming close.

And he had a gun pointed at me.

I felt the blood drain from my face and my eyes drifted back to the man in my cuddle chair against their will because I thought it pertinent to keep an eye on the guy with the gun.

But the man in my chair spoke again and he seemed the type of guy who liked to have people’s attention when he talked. He also seemed the type of guy you didn’t piss off, seeing as he was cool with breaking into a woman’s home with his minions, one of whom pointed a gun at her.

“You should know who I am, of course,” he stated. “I’m Benito Valenzuela. Perhaps your man has mentioned me.”

I stared at him, fighting my body quaking, so aware there was an actual gun pointed at me and scary people I did not know in my living room that both these things felt like physical touches slithering against my skin, making the fight to stop shaking an extremely difficult one.

“Has he?” the man asked.

I kept staring and did it awhile before it hit me he’d asked me a question.

“Sorry?” I croaked. “Has who what?”

“Has High mentioned me?”

Oh fuck.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

This guy was here because of Chaos.

This man was in my house with his minions, one of them training a gun on me, because of High.

It was then I belatedly saw the crate sitting next to my cuddle chair.

The crate I thought was lost.

The crate with the pictures in it that I’d mourned.

Until two weeks ago.

Now, like a bad penny, it was back.

But now I knew this man had taken it.

Which meant he had an eye on my house. High coming. High going. Pictures of High and me in that crate.

He had the wrong idea.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“I see he hasn’t,” the man muttered, and my attention sliced back to him. “Chaos. The only thing we agree on is keeping gash out of our business.”

I felt my mouth get dry.

He tipped his head to the side. “You’ve taken a lot of resources.”

“I... what?” I asked when he didn’t say anything further.

“Having a man at the airport waiting for you,” he told me. “Two weeks. That’s a lot of man hours.”

More cold slinked over my skin.

Why would he do that?

“Weak link,” he said softly, something in his eyes changing, and I didn’t like him or this situation before, but that change made me like it even less. “With Arlo out west and the situation here deteriorating, I had to find the weak link. The one with the hot head. The one who understands how the game is played. The last bastion of a lost empire. The one I could nudge to set things in motion.” He lifted his finger, wagged it up and down my way, and whispered, “I’m nudging.”

“I don’t know...” I cleared my throat quickly when the words came out choked. “I don’t know what you think but I don’t have anything to do with Chaos.”

He shook his head, moved a hand, tapped the top of the crate beside him, and said, “High Judd fucking you on your desk in that pretty little house out back says different.”

Oh God!

“You watched?” I wheezed.

He shook his head again. “Not me, I missed that show. But I heard it was a good one.”

Oh God!

Now I was terrified and humiliated.

“Now,” he went on, “I’ve waited some time for your return and I’d rather not wait any more. You’re home, so you can deliver a message for me.”

Since delivering a message usually included being capable of doing that, this gave me hope that perhaps this scenario was not going to end how I feared it would. In other words, culminating in a variety of horrible, degrading, painful, and possibly deadly ways.

So quickly I asked, “What message?”

Eyes on me, slowly, he stood.

I braced, doing it fearing my body would splinter into pieces, my attention keen on him.

I experienced that sensation for far too long as he just stood there, staring at me.

When I thought I’d scream, he said one word.

“Nudge.”

Then, just with that, he gave me a weird, frightening smile, looked to the men in the room, jerked his head, and they all walked to my hall and disappeared.

I heard my front door open and close.

I stood frozen to the spot, breaths coming in rasps, torn between running the other way and running their way to make sure they were gone.

I heard a car start up outside and I also heard it drive away.

When I heard it no more, I moved.

I did it fast and I did it without thinking.

My movements took me to the drawer in my kitchen that held a variety of things, all of it meticulously organized in trays.

I grabbed my car keys and dashed out the back door.

I didn’t lock it.

I ran to my car, got in, tossed my purse to the passenger seat, started up, turned the SUV around in my courtyard, and headed down my drive.

I then took a trek I had not taken in twenty years.

I drove to Broadway, down Broadway, direct to Ride Auto Supply.

Direct to Chaos.

I pulled in, drove down the side of the store, and saw the big garage in the back where they built their bikes and cars. I headed into the massive forecourt of the garage, turned left, and parked outside the long building that ran the length of the space from the back of the store to the end of their property.

The Chaos Compound.

I parked, got out, and ran into the Compound.

I skidded to a halt in a place I knew like the back of my hand, hadn’t seen in decades, and with the little I took in, noticed it hadn’t changed a bit.

I’d skidded to a stop at the curve of the bar that ran along the front of the room.

There I saw Big Petey on a stool and seeing a man I once cared about deeply, I couldn’t hack it.

So I looked behind the bar to a good-looking, young, blond guy I didn’t know and snapped, “Who’s your president?”

I was holding on by a thread. I was drained from travel, my body in a different time zone, and I’d had my home invaded by a man I knew was the worst news there could be.

“Say what?” the blond asked.

“Millie—” Pete started, and I sensed him getting off his stool.

I whipped up a hand, palm out his way, not looking from the blond but declaring to Pete, “You don’t exist.” Then I used my hand to jab a finger at the blond and demanded, “You. Tell me immediately. Who’s your president?”

The blond didn’t look happy some strange woman was barking at him but I didn’t give that first fuck. I’d stand there and scream my question until I was hoarse in order to get an answer.

The blond opened his mouth to speak when I heard from behind me, “I am.”

I turned at the rough voice I knew all too well and watched Tack sauntering into the Compound.

He’d taken over.

His side had won.

And Logan was still Chaos.

This didn’t surprise me in the least.

Bottom line no matter who held the gavel, Logan would be Chaos.

It was what he was.

It was all he was.

That filtered through me but as it did I didn’t lose hold on my mission.

I turned to Tack.

“You have this one shot,” I declared. “It happens again and I survive it, I’m going straight to the cops. I know Chaos doesn’t like cops and this is the... final... respect I pay the Club. It happens again, I don’t care if it brings down the brotherhood. I’m going to the police.”

Tack didn’t look from me when he ordered, “Snap, get High. Now.”

“No!” I yelled, panic leaking in, me beating it back, and I looked toward the bar to see the blond moving the length of it. “Don’t you move!” I cried. “This is not about High. I do not wanna see High.”

“Go,” Tack commanded. “Fast.”

The blond jogged out.

Fuck.

Focus. I had to focus.

“Millie, sweetheart, you’re riled up,” Big Petey said from behind me. “Come sit down, girl.”

I didn’t look away from Tack.

“You get him to back off,” I demanded. “You tell him I am not Chaos. You tell him to keep the fuck away from me.”

“You need to talk straight to High, Millie,” Tack returned, weirdly gentle, like he was handling me with care. “You know how it is, darlin’,” he finished.

“Why?” I asked. “He’s not president.”

“It’s his business, not mine,” Tack replied.

“It is yours. It’s,” I whirled a finger in the air, “all of yours.”

Tack started to say something but I felt a hand light on the small of my back so I whirled, then I scampered four steps deeper into the room, running into a chair and stopping.

“Do not touch me,” I hissed at Big Petey.

He flinched, his face turning haggard with worry, then he looked at Tack.

I also looked at Tack and saw him watching me closely.

“High’s at the store, Millie. He’ll be here soon,” Tack said.

“I don’t give a fuck where he is,” I retorted. “You’re the president. You deal with shit like this. I know. I know this is your shit because he told me. Benito Valenzuela sat in my,” I jerked a thumb toward myself, “cuddle chair while one of his minions pointed a gun at me and he told me!”

The room, on alert, went wired but I didn’t give that first shit.

“Keep him away from me,” I snapped. “You don’t, I call the cops. Your shit stopped infesting my life at The Roll while Hop sang a Candlebox song.”

“Valenzuela visited you?” Tack asked, and I heard it.

I heard the menace.

Hell, I even felt it since it was clogging the room.

“He told me to tell you nudge,” I shared. “I don’t know what that means. I don’t care. Just keep that asshole out of my life.”

“Millie, honey, you need to take a breath and take a seat. Let me get you a drink,” Pete offered, and I cut my eyes to him.

“I don’t want a drink. I want nothing from Chaos except for them to get the fuck out of my life!” I ended this screaming and I ended it right before a door closed.

I looked that way and saw the blond.

I also saw Hop.

And further, I saw Logan.

He looked surprised. He looked watchful. He also looked guarded. And he looked all of these as his attention was focused entirely on me.

But the brutal beauty of the vision of him burned. Burned straight into my eye sockets, searing right into my brain.

I’d let him go to give him everything.

I’d searched for him to explain and say how sorry I was it had to be that way.

And he’d used me, abused me, and torn me to shreds.

Then his shit invaded my home, not the bad shit that was him and his brotherhood, the stinking pile of shit that was whatever mess Chaos was involved in with Benito Valenzuela, something they were clearly failing to control.

“This is the last time I see you,” I told Logan.

“Millie,” he said quietly, moving my way slowly. “Let’s go back to my room so we can—”

It happened then.

There was no way to hold it back.

I no longer had it in me.

So I leaned his way and lost it.

Completely.

“This is the last time I see you!” I screeched.

He rocked to a halt as my emotion scored jagged through the room.

I looked to Tack and jabbed a finger his way again. “You keep your business out of my business.” I jabbed my finger toward Logan but kept my gaze to Tack. “And you keep him out of my life.”

“Millie, baby,” Logan, now talking gently, said as the door opened and Hound and Boz came in, eyes instantly darting around to take in the players. “Come with me to my room—”

“Fuck you!” I spat at him, and looked back to Tack. “Deal with it. You don’t, I will.”

And I was done.

Even as the door opened again and Tyra and the tall, lanky, dark-haired guy that was with Tabby at Wild Bill’s moved in, I started to make my way hurriedly toward the exit.

I was stopped when Logan moved quickly to the side and caught my elbow.

I twisted it out of his hold and scuttled away again, this time running into a table.

“Don’t you ever again put your hand on me,” I bit out.

“Mill—”

“You never again touch me!” I shrieked.

“Baby,” he said softly. “We gotta talk.”

My body snapped straight and my mouth moved.

“Yes, we do,” I bit out. “We absolutely do. While Tack deals with your little problem that’s leaking into my life,” I declared. Logan shot a quick glance at Tack, then back to me when I continued speaking, “I’ll talk.”

Then I kept right on going.

Right on going.

It was time.

Time to fucking end this.

He was going to get it all so I could do what he said he was going to do.

Once and for always.

Put him in my fucking, fucking rearview.

My love for him.

My longing for him.

My grief for all we’d lost.

My sorrow for all we’d never have.

The burden I’d borne as I’d walked through fire for him and he’d thrown it all away, knocking up some bitch and making all I’d sacrificed not... worth... shit.

“I’m as good as gone, High,” I stated. “I’m leaving Denver. But before I go, you get it. You get it all. So you’ll know and I can be done with you.”

“Millie, darlin’, fuck, please come with me to my—”

“I’m not going with you anywhere.” I pointed a finger to the floor. “This is happening here.”

He moved toward me. “Babe, I’m beggin’ you, please—”

I retreated, bumping into things and scurrying out of the way, warning, “Don’t get any closer.”

“You don’t go with me there, I’m takin’ you there,” he warned.

He’d do that. I knew it. These men got what they wanted.

They always got what they wanted.

However they had to do that.

The panic I was holding back started breaking through.

“Don’t get near me!” I yelled, still scurrying, needing to get this done, get out, get gone and not needing to be alone with Logan.

“Baby—”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, changing direction, watching him change direction with me, stalking me.

“Fuck,” he clipped. “Please—”

“Stop moving,” I demanded.

“Millie—”

He was getting closer.

And I hit wall.

I slithered along it, shouting, “Don’t get near me!”

“Goddammit, Millie—”

“I can’t have children!” I shrieked.

Logan froze.

I did too.

All of me.

Except my mouth.

“There, Logan! There! You have it all!” I screamed. “I’m infertile. Barren. No go. No way. Never. And I knew you wouldn’t let me go. You’d never let me go. And you wanted kids so bad.” I shook my head, not even feeling the tears filling my eyes. “So fucking bad. You wanted to build a family. A big, fat, loud, crazy, wonderful family. I couldn’t give you that. I could never give you that. And you were mine. You were my Logan. You had to have it all. You were mine.” My voice cracked and I didn’t hear it, didn’t even feel it. I was beyond feeling anything but the need to get this done and go. “It was my job to make sure you had it all. It was my job to make sure you had everything. But you wouldn’t let me go. You’d never let me go. So I made you let me go so you could have it all!”

My throat was burning. My eyes were leaking.

But I saw the look on his face.

Ravaged.

Wasted.

That wasn’t giving him it all.

That was killing it.

And that wasn’t my job.

I’d failed.

Failed again.

So I had to escape.

And thus I ran.

Ripping viciously through unseen hands that tried to grab me, I got to the door of my car, hand on the handle, but I didn’t get it open.

Suddenly, I was pressed to the door, Logan’s hard body pushing in behind me, his arms like steel bands clamping around me.

“Let me go!” I shrieked.

He didn’t let me go.

He shoved his face in the side of my neck.

“Let me go! Let me go!” I jerked unsuccessfully in his arms. “Let me go, go, go!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Quiet.

So quiet.

But each word was a new wound.

I stilled in his arms.

“You wouldn’t let me go,” I whispered.

“No.” His arms tightened. “No, Millie. I would never let you go.”

I again pushed against his hold.

“Now you need to let me go,” I kept whispering.

He didn’t let me go.

He held me so tight I felt the air leaking out of my lungs.

Then he moved, violently, brutally. He took one arm from around me, drew it back, and slammed his fist into the steel at the side of my car, making a dent, his face coming out of my neck.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he roared.

My body went still but my soul shattered.

“High, brother.”

I heard this like it was from far away.

Tack.

“You are not in this,” High growled.

“Get your woman inside,” Tack said quietly. “It’s cold and starting to snow.”

I stood still.

So did High.

For a nanosecond.

Then he moved me from the car.

For the next however long I did not know I had very little recollection of anything that happened except in that first moment, me arching my back so hard my feet left the ground as High kept hold of me and turned us toward the Compound while I screeched, “No!”

Faintly, I remember struggling. Clawing. Screaming. Kicking. Pushing. Getting loose when he got me back in the Compound and seeing all the brothers of Chaos fanned out in the common room, sentries for Logan, soldiers of their brother, fencing me in.

I made a frantic choice, running toward the blond guy to get through him. I failed. He got hold of me and dragged me right back to Logan.

Logan again took control and I fought it but eventually found myself behind the closed door in his room and it went on.

Me fighting him. Fighting him like I was fighting for my life.

And Logan defending himself against my attacks, doing it gently, doing it in a way he wouldn’t hurt me and helped me not hurt himself, and doing it continuing to contain me as he murmured over and over again, soothingly, “Calm,” and, “Relax, baby,” and, “Stop it, beautiful.”

At my end, reaching it somehow on the bed with Logan, I grunted as I gave one final, colossal buck to pull out of the ironclad hold of his arms, attempting to jerk my legs away from the heavy weight of his clamped to mine.

Then I went slack.

When I did, he slid his hand in my hair.

“That’s it, Millie,” he whispered to the top of my head. “Settle. It’s over, darlin’. It’s done.”

“Are Cleo and Zadie beautiful?” I asked his throat in an uncontrolled utterance because even if I already knew, I still had to know, and felt his fingers bunch my hair reflexively.

“They are,” he rumbled. “So, so beautiful, baby.”

“I gave you them,” I told him, fading, finally fucking fading.

“You did, Millie,” he agreed softly.

“I gave you them. I gave you that Daddy they call you that warms you to your bones.”

He pulled me deeper into his arms, shifting into me, taking me to my back, smothering me with his weight and heat, drowning me with his scent, but he said nothing.

Still fading, I murmured, “I gave you them. I gave them you.”

“Baby,” he whispered, the word tortured.

“I gave you up, walking through fire to do it but I did it,” I told him. “I did it in the end. I gave you everything,” I finished, finally, finally fading.

Fading away.

Into nothing.

High

High waited, holding his girl, making sure she was in a place where there was no pain and taking his time doing it.

When he was certain she was resting, gently he pulled away.

Then carefully, he took off her boots, more carefully tugging off her jacket, and he pulled the covers out from under her, dragged them over her, and tucked her in tight all around.

After he did that, he didn’t look at her.

He couldn’t.

He’d climb back in bed with her, which meant he wouldn’t do what he had to do.

So instead, he walked out of the room.

They were all there. Word had gotten out. It did that in times like these. So all the brothers were there. Even Lanie; Elvira; Shy’s wife, Tabby; and Joker’s woman, Carissa, were there.

He looked right to Tack, not missing a step on his stalk to the door.

“She does not leave,” he stated.

“High, you shouldn’t leave either. Not if your shit’s not tight. Snow’s gettin’ bad,” Tack replied.

He stopped, hand on the handle, and looked back to his brother.

“Then do me a solid and get food in ’cause if I get back and it’s too bad to get her to my RV, we’re workin’ the rest of our shit out here and considerin’ what just went down, that’s gonna take some time.”

On that, he walked out into the snow.

He’d taken his truck that morning, knowing the weather was moving in.

So he swung in the cab, started her up, and rolled out of Ride.

The snow was heavy, sticking, but the roads weren’t bad as he made his way to where he needed to go.

He parked out front, prowled up the walk, and pressed his finger to the bell, not pounding on the door like he wanted to and taking his finger off the button only because there could be kids inside.

The door opened, not much, a crack, but she moved into the space and looked up at him.

“Holy crap, Lo—” Dottie started to breathe, eyes wide.

“You didn’t tell me,” he growled, watched her face pale and knew his guess was right.

Millie had shared with her sister.

And her sister did not share with him.

“Logan,” she whispered.

“I wouldn’t give a fuck and you know, woman.” He lifted a hand to stab a finger her way. “You know I wouldn’t give a fuck and you let her do it anyway.”

She opened the door only to wedge herself in it and asked, “Did something happen?”

“Millie’s in my bed at the Compound, passed out, fucked up, gone. She shared, Dot. She told me why she got shot of me. She did it and she unraveled right in front of my goddamned eyes, finally givin’ me that fuckin’ shit and you fuckin’ knew and you said shit.”

Her pale face went white and pain entered her eyes.

“She wouldn’t be swayed,” she said carefully.

“So the fuck what?” High shot back. “You knew and you could have told me and stopped her pain because I sure as fuck would have stopped her pain and you know it.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t, Logan. She’s my sister. I love her. You don’t know how she was. I couldn’t—”

“I know how she was,” High growled. “Twenty years it’s been and I got that pain passed out in my bed, Dot.”

“No,” she said harshly. “You don’t know. It was bad, Logan. So bad. I couldn’t go against her wishes.”