Walking Red Flag

Semyonov Bratva

Book Three

Lani Lynn Vale

This is a work of fiction created without use of AI technology. Any names, characters, places or incidents portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or events is purely coincidental or fictional.

WALKING RED FLAG

Semyonov Bratva, Book 3

Copyright © 2025 by Lani Lynn Vale™.

All rights reserved.

www.lanilynnvale.com

Available in ebook, print, and audio.

Cover Design © 2024 by Cover Me Darling.

Photographer: Golden Czermak of FuriousFotog™.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Without limiting the author's and publisher's exclusive rights, any unauthorized use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited.

LANI LYNN VALE® is registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Contents

Walking Red Flag

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

Coming Next

Acknowledgments

Other Titles by Lani Lynn Vale

About the Author

Walking Red Flag

Semyonov Bratva, Book 3

MILENA + CUTTER

Life isn’t fair.

If anyone on Earth should know that, it’s Milena Semyonov.

She’s suffered blow after blow, and the hits just keep on coming.

Just when she’s sworn off being happy, that maybe being numb is the better way to navigate life, she meets him.

Cutter Carson Clayborne.

The man that finally shows her how a real man is supposed to treat her.

Just when she didn’t think life could get any worse, the man that abused her as a young, impressionable teen is back, showing her that life can, in fact, get worse.

When she’s ready to quit, Cutter is there, making sure that she knows that he’ll be there, whether she wants him there or not.

He is her husband, after all. And the unlikely pair have an understanding that they’ll stay married for two years, make a baby, and join two crime syndicates in unholy matrimony.

Cutter has other plans, though. He only agrees to the original plan to make her his.

He won’t ever give her up. What’s his stays his. And there’s not a man on the earth that’ll ever touch Milena again. Not with Cutter alive and able to take out anyone that tries.

I do more gagging than nagging if you love me right.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

“I gotta go, Asher,” I said with a sigh. “Hazel is here to run with me.”

Asher rolled his eyes. “Of course she is. You go run instead of talking this out like an adult would.”

I gritted my teeth. “Asher, now is not the time. You knew that I was going running way before you started this discussion with me.”

“I did, but I didn’t think that you would refuse to talk to me about it. Why do you act like this?” he seethed.

“I promise that we’ll talk about it when I get back,” I repeated.

“Well, that’s not going to work for me, because I’m leaving on a business trip,” he grumbled. “I leave in an hour.”

“What?” I asked. “When did this happen?”

“While you were in the shower ignoring me. They asked last week if I wanted to go, I said no, because it was your birthday this weekend. Then you pulled this shit, and I told them I’d go.”

That just made me angry.

I narrowed my eyes at him and counted to ten in my head.

When I was calm enough to reply, I said, “Well, I hope you have a safe trip.”

He snorted and turned his back on me.

I shuffled to the door, wondering if I should just call it quits now.

It was obvious that this wasn’t working with Asher.

He was too…much.

Just too much.

There were no other words for what he was.

I opened the door to the apartment and was unsurprised to find Hazel already standing there.

“Hey…”

“What the fuck was that?” she grumbled.

I waited until the door of Asher’s apartment was closed before I gave her a “wait” face.

She did, not saying a word until we were downstairs and stretching outside of the building.

“Well? What was that?” she repeated, frustrated now.

I sighed. “That was Asher being a complete dick.”

Had she not been hanging out with her new office friends over the last month, she might’ve known that Asher and I had been having a few issues.

Those issues were now big issues that were dominating our relationship.

“Asher wants to go out and enjoy more of life than I’m capable of giving him,” I vented. “He wants to hang out with his friends, and he wants me to go with him because he feels guilty when I stay home. Then he says he feels obligated to hang out with me instead of participating. When I do go, he leaves me, and I only see him from across the room of wherever we happen to be. And to be quite honest, I’m not too fond of his friends, and he thinks I have an unhealthy attachment to my family.”

Hazel snorted. “You kind of do, but it’s understandable.”

I stopped stretching and looked at her. “What do you mean by that?”

“I just mean that you are with them all the time, and you never spend time with him unless it’s after you’ve seen to their needs.” She shrugged, like she hadn’t just stabbed me in the heart.

“You know that I love my family,” I pointed out. “I don’t think it’s a crime to want to be around them.”

“No, not a crime,” she agreed. “But you could go hang out with Asher before you check in with your family. You could stay with Asher without completely dropping him if someone from your family calls and asks you for something.”

I snorted. “The only time I ‘drop’ Asher is if someone calls for emergency babysitter help,” I said. “And Auden and Maven are really the only ones that call me to help, and that’s only because they know that Shasha and Brecken, as well as Nastya and Haze, are busy with their own kids.”

I was an aunt of seven.

Maven, my sister, had married Auden, a police officer with Sunnyvale Police Department, years ago. Maven owned a bakery, and was up at the crack of dawn every day making delicious delicacies that made fat go to my hips.

They had three kids: Lola, Brando, and Redford.

My brother, Shasha, is married to Brecken, a high school principal. They had two children, Vivi and Jessa.

Then there were Nastya and Haze, who was also a police officer, or more accurately, a detective. He worked for Fort Worth Police Department. Nastya co-owned her own business with Haze’s daughter, Desi.

“I mean, I know that you do,” Hazel said as she started to jump up and down to warm up her legs. “I just think that you might be in the wrong here. Maybe what he’s saying is kind of true. Maybe you don’t prioritize him, and he notices that.”

We started our run, and for the entire time, I listened to Hazel berate me, as well as talk about her new office friends that were just “the best ever.”

She talked about her really good friend, Rayann, that was married to a man named Gibson. Gibson and Rayann were partiers, and that worked out really well for Hazel’s boyfriend, Mark.

Mark was a social climber. He was all about finding people that could help him level up in the world.

As I listened to Hazel talk about how Mark was driving her nuts wanting to go to the parties that Rayann and Gibson threw all the time, I had to internally laugh because that was exactly what my own boyfriend was trying to do to me.

Yet, Hazel couldn’t see that.

She was so hypocritical.

The six and a half miles we were doing that day went by slow as molasses. Not because I was running slow, but because my mind was whirling, and I didn’t like what I was figuring out about my friend.

By the time we wound up back at Hazel’s apartment, I was fighting off a headache.

“See you tomorrow?” I asked.

“Oh, I can’t tomorrow.” She looked away sheepishly. “Something came up.”

I didn’t bother to call her on her obvious lie.

Instead, I said, “That’s okay. Are we still on for the long run Saturday?”

“Absolutely.” She hesitated. “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

I was nervous about what I was about to hear come out of her mouth.

If she said something about giving Asher another chance, I was going to scream.

“I wanted to let you know that I invited Rayann and her friend, Jacinda, to run the race,” she said. “I’m not sure they’ll go, but just wanted to let you know.”

“Oh,” I said, a little taken aback. “We’re still running it together, though, right?”

I wouldn’t have signed up for a trail race if we hadn’t been running it together.

I had issues with trails. I had depth perception problems, and the last freakin’ thing I liked doing was running where there were roots and rocks and shadows.

But she’d begged me to run the trail marathon with her, so I’d thought…for her, I’d do anything.

She’d run a marathon for me, of course.

“Yes, yes!” she promised. “Are you still planning on borrowing your brother’s RV?”

I shook my head. “No, Shasha pointed out that getting an RV that far would be hell. So he booked me a huge cabin in the woods with great views of the mountains.”

“Awesome.” She smiled. “I’ll talk to you in a couple of days.”

Meaning, she had no plans to call me in the next few days.

Something she used to do religiously.

We’d been best friends since I’d moved down here years ago.

She was the first person I met in the running group, and I couldn’t believe how fast she’d become such an important part of my life.

Now I felt like she was pulling away, and I wasn’t sure how my heart felt about that yet.

She wasn’t gone, per se, but it felt like she was gearing herself up to exit.

I didn’t like it, and I certainly didn’t like how she’d talked non-stop about how her boyfriend treated her when she was around her new friends.

After saying goodbye, I headed around the block to Asher’s place, unsurprised to find him gone.

What did surprise me was to see my purse and shit sitting out on his doorstep with a note pinned to it saying “please do not steal this.”

This fuckin’ bitch.

What the fuck?

Would it have killed him to just wait until I got back?

Apparently.

I searched through my purse and found all my stuff where it belonged, even my ringing cell phone.

I smiled when I saw it was Vivi.

“Hey, Vivi,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Can you come watch me for an hour or so? That way I don’t have to go to the doctor with Jessa and Mama,” my niece pleaded.

“Of course,” I said without thought. “I’ll be there in ten.”

I was there in fifteen, but Vivi didn’t hold it against me.

Brecken came out of her bedroom, Jessa, named after my grandmother, in her arms.

Jessa was screaming her head off, and I raised a brow at her.

Brecken frowned at me and said, “What are you doing here?”

“This one called me.” I threw Vivi under the bus.

Brecken sighed. “She didn’t want to come, because she’s afraid she’ll get sick, and she won’t be able to play in her soccer game on Saturday.”

That was a valid reason…

“I got her,” I reinforced. “What’s going on with Jessa?”

“Ear infection. Again.” She groaned. “It’s the third one in two months.”

I winced. “You do know that ear infections run in our family, right? You lucked out with Vivi here. But I had to have tubes. Maven had to have tubes. And so did Dima.”

“No.” Brecken rolled her eyes. “But one would think that would be something you’d talk about when your daughter gets back-to-back ear infections.”

I patted her on the shoulder as she passed and said, “Shasha is adorable in his own way, sis.”

Brecken snorted. “I’ll be back in about two hours or so. I have to stop by the store. Are you taking her to your place or staying here, so I can let the boss know?”

“I’ll stay.” I laughed. “We’re going to boat watch.”

By boat watch I meant people watch, because it made my day to see all the crazy drunks on the lake waltz around on their fancy boats and tie one on.

“Make sure that she doesn’t swindle you into another dip. Shasha still doesn’t have the path clear yet, and he said he’s seen a snake crossing the trail for the last three mornings.”

“Ew.” I shivered. “We won’t leave the deck.”

“Awesome. Artur, Ivan, and Bogdan are here. If you need them, call.”

I barely contained an eye roll.

My brother, Shasha, was the head of the Russian Bratva.

He was an important person, and there were quite a few people that would like to see him harmed.

That’s where his men came in, always around, and always protecting.

If Shasha had his way, I’d have a constant bodyguard, too.

But that was just something that I didn’t want.

Like my sister, Nastya, I just couldn’t deal with having someone following my every step twenty-four-seven.

“Behave.” She pointed at me, then she was gone, leaving me to look at my partner in crime.

We went out onto the deck, and together we boat watched and played Go Fish.

After I won for the second time, I turned to her and batted my eyes.

“You are my sunshine…” I started to sing, but my niece placed her hand over my mouth and narrowed her eyes.

“Stop,” she ordered. “I don’t like it when you sing to me.”

I pouted. “But I used to sing that to you when you were a baby.”

“I didn’t even like it then,” she deadpanned.

I burst out laughing, my already sore belly from my morning run protesting the movement. “But Vivi, how will you know that I love you if I don’t sing to you?”

“You could just tell me.” She crossed her arms.

God, so much like my brother, Shasha, it made my heart ache.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll try to remember that for next time, sweetie.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you use that term of endearment?”

“Words ending in ‘ie’ are always so adorable, just like you.” I giggled. “Cutie. Sweetie. Hottie.”

“Die,” she grumbled.

I sighed. “Still in a bad mood, I see.”

“I’d be happier if I could win.”

So we played four more hands before she gave up, and each time I made sure to play to win.

Wouldn’t do to have my niece getting a bigger head than she already had, thanks to my brother.

It’s crazy how no one in this life is perfect, yet everyone is so judgmental.

—Cutter to Chevy

CUTTER

“But this is ridiculous, Cutter. That’s money that we could spend on a house! You’re too fucking old to be living in this shit hole!” my soon-to-be-ex, Dorie, cried out in frustration.

Her hands were in the air, and the one-hundred-and-thirty-five-dollar manicure that I’d paid for with my hard-earned money glinted against the harsh, overhead light.

I stared at her in annoyed anger.

Not to mention, she was wearing my fuckin’ shirt that she knew I didn’t like her wearing.

“First off, take that fuckin’ shirt off. You know how I feel about you wearing it. Second, I’ve already explained it to you, Dorie,” I replied rather calmly, even though everything inside of me was telling me that I should rant and rave. Tell her that she just didn’t fucking listen to me. “This is nonnegotiable for me.”

Dorie yanked down her hands and fisted them at her side, spun around, and grabbed her keys. “Well, I don’t want to live in this hellhole for the rest of my life!”

I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “Before you leave, take all the things that you have here so you don’t have to come back. And if you take off with my shirt, I’m going to come get it, and you won’t like it if I do.”

She whipped around and narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“You heard me,” I replied. “Take all your things.”

“But why?” she asked.

“Because I’ve fought about this topic for the last time.” I shrugged. “We aren’t compatible.”

“You’re…you’re breaking up with me?” she cried out. “What?”

“Dorie, I think I’ve told you a hundred different times, in a hundred different ways, that this was a topic that I wasn’t going to budge on. You may want a new house, you may want a life that you’ve dreamed about since you were young, but that just isn’t me. I’m not here half the time, so why the hell would I put money into a place that I don’t even want to be in?” I pushed. “And it gets frustrating to listen to you talk about this because you know my reasoning behind it. I told you. So yes, I’m breaking up with you. I want you to grab your stuff and leave my key and my shirt on the counter. I’m going to go for a run.”

She looked flabbergasted. “I just want to be in a nicer house, Cutter. It’s not a bad thing to dream of better things.”

“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “But right now, your dreams and my dreams don’t coincide well with each other.”

“But I live here now,” she pointed out.

“You might’ve moved all your stuff in, but I never said that you could. I didn’t say anything, because the pussy you gave me was good enough that I could ignore the constant nagging. But now you’re not even giving me that for a couple months now because you think you’re teaching me a lesson.” I continued, “And, just sayin’, but no pussy is enough for me to give up my dreams for my family. If you were smart, you’d realize that family is everything. And you could’ve had mine had you played your cards right.”

“Cutter…” Her voice softened.

But I’d had enough, and cut her off with a curt, “Be gone by the time I get home, or you’ll be escorted out.”

She started to cry then.

Another time, another place, and I would’ve been affected by those tears.

But not anymore.

Dorie was a good gal.

Nice. Great lay. Or used to be.

But her priorities and mine were completely different.

She liked the bad boy in me and loved sticking it to her strait-laced family.

I, on the other hand, got over the novelty of her a long time ago, and I should’ve seen the writing on the wall.

I called my sister the moment I was out of the house.

“What’s wrong?” my sister asked the moment she answered the phone. “It’s not Sunday.”

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t call you any other time but Sunday?”

“Well,” Keely drawled, “considering you do your obligatory call on Sunday, and only call during the week because you have an issue, or you think I have an issue, it’s deductive reasoning.”

She was right.

I wasn’t a phone person.

I much preferred to talk face to face—which we did twice a week when I took her out to breakfast after she got off shift. We also met up at Chevy’s house to make our weekly trek to the penitentiary on Fridays, then went to eat after.

“Broke up with Dorie,” I admitted, not seeing the point in delaying the details. “I just wanted you to know not to fall for her poor, pitiful me act when she came in to work later.”

“Goddammit, Cutter.” She groaned. “I fucking told you not to date her. I told you, and yet there you were, telling me that it would be okay, that it would never be awkward.”

“She was pissed because I wouldn’t spend the money I’m saving on a house,” I explained.

She was silent for a long moment before she said, “And you told her why you were saving it?”

“Yes,” I answered. “About a hundred times. I told her everything, and repeatedly told her why I was doing what I was doing, and she still didn’t care.”

“Fuck her, then,” Keely grumbled. “What a bitch.”

It did make her a huge bitch.

Mostly because the reason we were saving money—all three Clayborne siblings that were currently not incarcerated—was for a very good cause.

Our older brother, Copper, was currently in prison.

He would be for another two and a half years.

He’d gone in at seventeen, and now, fifteen years later, he was on the tail end of a seventeen-year sentence.

“I fucking hate him.”

She didn’t have to tell me who “him” was. Instinctively, I knew who she was talking about. I fucking hated him, too.

When the Clayborne siblings—me, Chevy and Copper—were all young, we’d thought we had a good life. Keely, on the other hand, had a shit life.

Sure, we thought on the outside that it was just our dad being a complete asshole to the one and only girl in the house. He’d always single her out. He’d make her do the dishes and the laundry. She’d have to clean everyone’s room and take out the trash.

Pretty much, from a young age, Keely was a slave to my dad.

Chevy, Copper, and I had done our best to mitigate the strain my dad put on her, but we were working our asses off from the time we were twelve and thirteen. We were running paper routes, mowing lawns, and doing anything and everything that twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys could do to make some extra money.

All of that money went into a pool, and the four of us had split it evenly, living on what we made.

Sure, our dad paid the mortgage and kept a roof over our heads, but he didn’t do much more than that. We were responsible for buying ourselves clothes, food, and whatever else we might need.

Meanwhile, our dad sat on his cash throne, and lorded over us, making our lives miserable as hell.

What we didn’t realize until later was that the moment our little sister turned thirteen, and started looking like a woman, our asshole father had started to turn his attentions on her.

At seventeen, Copper had come home from his after-school job early because he’d gotten hurt at work. He’d walked in through the back yard because he’d wanted to check on our dog, and when he’d come in the back door, it was to see our father trying to force himself on Keely.

Keely who’d just given up and showed no fight.

Copper had lost his fucking mind, and when the dust settled, our father was dead.

He’d taken one too many fists to the temple and hadn’t survived the trauma.

And because of who our father was outside of the home—a prominent, well-loved real estate mogul who was a cherished member of society—a judge had thrown the book at Copper.

Copper’s reasoning behind his lost control wasn’t a good enough reason, and he’d been given the max amount of time they could give to him without outraging the public—and trust me, the trial was huge, and the public had been closely watching.

So, at seventeen and three-quarters, Copper had been sent to the biggest and most secure penitentiary in Texas to serve his sentence.

After that had gone down, Chevy, Keely and I had been forced to live with our grandparents in Michigan, a whole day’s drive away from Copper.

The moment that I’d turned eighteen, I’d joined the Navy in hopes that I could help support Keely and Chevy.

Nine months after me, Chevy had graduated and joined the Navy as well.

That left Keely all by herself in Michigan.

She’d stayed the last year before she’d flown the coop the moment that she turned eighteen and had also followed us into the Navy.

In our travels, we’d all come down to visit Copper as much as we possibly could.

To help him when he did finally get out, Chevy, Keely and I were saving twenty-five percent of our income and putting it into a high-yield account that would hopefully set Copper up for life when he came out.

Because that was what we all owed him. Our lives.

It could’ve been any of us that had walked in that day and come up on that scene, and all of us would’ve reacted the same way.

It was the least we could do.

And it pissed off Dorie that I wouldn’t spend the hefty sum of money on a house for us.

Which was quite funny because I’d never seen Dorie as anything more than a steady fuck.

I’d never given her promises.

I’d never seen her as anything more than a pussy in my bed every night that I didn’t have to worry about STDs with.

Maybe it was better this way.

Maybe tomorrow I’d look into a new place. One that wasn’t known by a certain someone.

Though, just sayin’, but I doubted it’d be any better than the one I had now.

After my run, I got home to a luckily empty house and took a shower.

Once I was clean, I got dressed in my work clothes and headed over to the shop on my bike.

I was a carpenter and had been for a couple of years now.

I started my own business a few months after getting out of the Navy, and my grandfather, who was all alone up in Michigan, moved down to Texas to help me.

He was the first person I saw when I pulled into the lot.

He was bent over a piece of maple, running his hands over it lovingly.

That was one good thing about moving up to Michigan for a year.

Granddad had taught me everything I knew, and he was the reason that I had the skills to do what I loved.

He’d taught me a way to release the anger that I had built inside, and he’d done that by giving me an outlet.

Needless to say, in that year that he’d taught me his trade, I’d fallen in love with it.

Not enough to stop myself from joining the Navy and seeing the world, but enough that when I was done with the world, I could come home and still live a good life.

It also didn’t suck that I was doing really well.

“Granddad,” I said as I got off the bike. “Tell me you didn’t lift that all by yourself.”

Granddad turned and grinned at me. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Which means, he’d gotten it up there himself, and tomorrow he’d be paying for it.

“You’re gonna throw your back out again,” I pointed out as I came to a stop on the other side of the maple slab. “Whatcha makin’?”

Granddad didn’t necessarily help me with anything much anymore.

He pretty much did his own thing and stocked our store room with new pieces that would sell for a fuckin’ mint—he, too, was contributing to Copper’s exit plan.

“I’m thinking a table,” he said. “I saw a really sweet football table on the news last week. It sold in auction for half a million dollars. So I thought I’d make one for the Dallas Cowboys. These fanatics love their home team.”

That was right.

Living in Dallas, Texas, you were either a Dallas Cowboys fan, or you were wrong.

Personally, I’d never really loved football all that much. I’d watch it if it was on and there wasn’t anything else to do, but it wasn’t my first pick.

Now, sand volleyball, rugby, or soccer, I was all for it.

“Is that what you’re entering into the charity gala auction for next month?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Gotta build something that’ll beat out your bullshit.”

I rolled my eyes.

I hadn’t even started on my ‘bullshit’ yet.

I had no clue what I wanted to do.

But I’d figure it out.

Hopefully.

“I have a set of cabinets that I need to get started on, and I have a client meeting around noon. Do you want me to bring you lunch back, or are you good?” I asked.

“I’m good. I’m heading to lunch with Chevy. He’s swinging by after his shift,” he answered.

Chevy was an anesthesiologist now. He’d gotten the government to use his GI bill to pay for him to go to medical school, and now he was making bank.

Keely was the only one that wasn’t really raking it in, and that was because she’d started going the nursing path only to graduate, work for a year, and realize that she fuckin’ hated it. She’d found a job at a sleep study place shortly after, and now she had a cushy night job that she could relax at, still use her nursing skills, and make a pretty decent living.

Though, technically, if she really wanted to, she could be making more than all of us.

Years ago, when my father died, he’d been grooming Copper to take everything over from his real estate business. When that didn’t work out for dad or Copper, Keely had reluctantly taken the CEO position over once she’d graduated. She had to do CEO things—things that she hated doing—to keep the business alive for when Copper got out.

Even though none of us had asked her to do that.

We knew the cost it would take on her to run a business of the man that’d abused her.

But Keely? She was stronger than all of us.

She ran that CEO position like she was made for it, all the while refusing everything that position granted in return.

“Gotcha,” I said. “I’ll leave you to your table.”

I walked into the shop and inhaled, loving the smell of wood, lacquer, and even the burned sap.

It was a calming smell, and never failed to make my blood pressure lower.

I loved this place, and everything about it.

Too bad I couldn’t have the same thing at home.

If you already know I have an attitude problem, why would you upset me?

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Brecken repeated for the fourth time. “We were supposed to be home in time, but this stupid traffic is insane! I mean, what the fuck?”

I smiled.

“It’s okay, I promise,” I repeated. “I swear, I’m more than okay sitting at home in my pajamas and not going out tonight. It’s been a long day, anyway. I had another employee quit.”

“Was Shasha responsible for this one, too?” she asked, sounding like she was sending accusatory glares toward her husband who was likely the one driving.

“I did no such thing,” Shasha said. “I haven’t even been into the damn shop in a week now because she doesn’t want me there until she finishes the remodel. She says that I scare the contractors.”

Which he did.

“Uh, huh.” Brecken didn’t sound very convinced.

“I promise, it was not me,” Shasha repeated.

“It wasn’t,” I said. “I caught one of them stealing from the drawer. I fired her.”

“How did that interview go?” she asked.

“It didn’t work out.” I paused. “She told me that she has time blindness, and asked me if I’d make accommodations for her. After the last girl I fired with ‘time blindness,’ her words, not mine, I am gun shy over that term.”

“What the fuck is time blindness?” Brecken asked.

“According to her, she doesn’t realize what time it is, so she just flies by the seat of her pants. She says she’ll try to make it in on time, but there’s a high possibility that she could be upward to an hour late.”

“Oh, boy.” Brecken laughed. “Kids these days.”

Brecken knew what I was going through.

She worked with juniors and seniors in high school, which was a lot of the pool I hired from to work.

Pretty much, working at a coffee shop was an entry-level job for most people. They worked there for a few years while they either went to school or figured out what they really wanted to do with their lives.

The ones that were older than twenty-five either loved the job, or didn’t want any more responsibilities than what they had working for me.

For instance, I had one long-standing employee that was twenty-seven and only worked because she was a people person and wanted to get out of the house for three to four days a week.

Her husband was a pilot, and she only worked on the days he was out of town.

She was fantastic, and I loved her to death. But she was adamant about not working when her husband was home.

Which was why I’d been looking for a new hire.

Sadly, finding new hires that were competent was hard.

And I was exhausted from searching.

“Okay, okay.” She added, “How about we bring pizza over?”

I winced. “It’s already eight…if you’re stuck in traffic for who knows how much longer, I’ll be ready for bed. I’ll just do a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and we can celebrate tomorrow.”

“Fine,” she grumbled. “I’ll relay it to Maven and Nastya.”

After a few more minutes of talking, she finally let me go, and I collapsed onto the couch.

I closed my eyes and contemplated just going to sleep, but a sound had my ears straining.

That sound got closer and closer, and it finally came to a stop outside of my house.

There was a knock at my door moments later, and I was unsurprised to find out who it was when I looked through the peephole.

I cautiously opened the door and said, “Asher, what are you doing here?”

“I came back early to make it in time for your birthday.” He looked sort of apologetic.

Like he was kicking himself for acting like he’d acted.

And because I was such a sucker, I didn’t tell him to go fuck himself like I should have.

Plus, I was bummed because everyone was busy tonight.

Maven’s son, Redford, had been in a school play tonight. Everyone had gone to watch but me because I’d had no employees to cover the shift at The Grizzly.

That had to be why I agreed to go out on a ride with him.

Feeling sorry for myself and all that.

When we got outside—me dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved tee and boots—he smiled at me sheepishly and said, “We have to go to my house to pick up your helmet. I came straight here.”

That was when I should’ve automatically said no.

That’d been something that I’d done from day one.

For some reason, the thought of my brothers and sisters finding me dead from riding a bike without a helmet really made me feel awful, so I’d always been sure to wear one.

I shouldn’t have disregarded that gut feeling, but I did.

I got on the back of his bike, wrapped my arms around his torso, and had the thought of “this feels wrong.”

Especially when he put on his own helmet and started to ride.

At first, it wasn’t too bad.

He kept it slow in the neighborhood.

But he got faster.

And faster.

And faster.

Until my heart was beating so hard there was no way he couldn’t feel it.

“Would you please slow down?” I begged.

I wasn’t wearing a helmet for Christ’s sake.

Why had I agreed to go on a slow ride with him around the lake without a helmet?

How dumb could I be?

He didn’t slow down.

He only laughed and said, “Live a little, Milena. This is what I’m talking about. You have no clue how to let loose.”

I felt my stomach clenching.

“I’ll fucking call my brothers,” I growled, knowing he could hear me, and knowing it would piss him off. He hated when I threatened to call my brothers, or brothers-in-law, to come get me. “Slow down and let me off!”

He only sped up.

He was going so fast that I was hyperventilating now.

He left the lake area and shot off onto I30, making my heart feel like it was going to burst inside of my chest.

We were on one of the busiest roads in Dallas now, weaving in and out of traffic, and I was so scared that I was seconds away from throwing up.

My hair was flying straight back from my face, and I swear to God, my skin was being flayed off with each whip of my long strands.

A group of motorcycles up ahead caught my attention.

They were going fast.

But nowhere near as fast as Asher and I were.

But, as if there were divine miracles after all, upon seeing those bikers, Asher slowed down to fall into formation right beside them, as if that’d been his destination all along.

He made some weird hand gestures or something, and I looked over at the man on the bike that was a little behind the one that Asher was hand gesturing at.

The man’s head turned to me, and I knew that he saw the terror in my eyes.

His gaze narrowed on mine.

I held out my hand, my fingers aching from holding on to my wrist so hard, and mouthed, “Please.”

In one swift movement, the man moved over, crowding Asher.

Asher slowed even more and turned his head toward the biker that was now almost kissing handlebars with his.

His arm came out, and as if he’d practiced it a thousand times, he pulled me off of Asher’s bike and onto his.

It was the smoothest movement I’d ever felt.

One second I was on Asher’s, and the next I was bear hugging a stranger and burying my face into the leather jacket covering his back.

I closed my eyes and held on for dear life, so freakin’ relieved that I couldn’t breathe.

I wasn’t aware that we’d even stopped until the rumble pulled me from my thoughts.

Safe.

I was finally safe.

The smell of cedar, pine and something else invaded my senses, and for the first time since this ride had started, I felt like I could breathe again.

Don’t nobody get on my nerves like everybody.

—Cutter’s secret thoughts

CUTTER

The sound of bikes pulling up outside my place had me grabbing my helmet, my cut, and slipping out the door.

I jerked my chin up toward the four bikers waiting for me and stopped at the side of my bike, shrugging into the Truth Tellers MC cut before sliding the helmet over my head.

There were quite a few people that didn’t wear helmets, but the Truth Tellers weren’t one of them. We were all former military.

Every last one of us knew the significance of protecting your noggin.

Plus, all of us had people we cared about, and we didn’t want them to find out we were dead because our heads met pavement and exploded like a cantaloupe.

“Boys,” I drawled as I threw my leg over my Fat Boy and leaned far enough to the side to swing the kickstand free.

“Coastguard,” Detroit, whose real name was Audric, greeted me. “Ready to ride?”

Coastguard was the name given to me by the old president of the Truth Tellers. He’d been a Navy man himself and knew how to insult a fellow Navy man.

“Sure am,” I breathed. “It’s been a long ass day.”

I started my bike up, and we went to the next house, which just so happened to be where Apollo had been spending his evening. Apollo’s real name was actually Finnian.

Apollo was running out of the house without his boots on.

He didn’t have his belt, shirt or cut on, either.

He did, however, have his helmet strapped to his head.

“Bruh,” Bodie, whose road name is Knight, drawled. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Apollo flipped the visor up on his helmet, and his blazing white grin shone through. “Getting caught up on all the gossip.”

“Hopefully you don’t get caught up on the clap,” Posy, better known as Doc, grumbled. “Seriously, she’s been sleeping with everyone at the hospital.”

Doc, being a paramedic, would know. He spent a lot of time there.

“I know, I know.” Apollo groaned. “But she gives really good head.”

I had to laugh as we started off, this time heading to Hagrid’s place.

Hagrid met us at the road before his house came into view, and I raised a brow at him.

He shrugged, but knew it was likely due to the way his girlfriend would yell at him about leaving as soon as he’d gotten home.

Once we’d caught up with him, Piers, whose road name was Webber, our de facto president, signaled for us to ride.

We did, going from I75 to I30, which would eventually take us to the road around the lake, which was where we preferred to ride since it was more scenic, and wasn’t fuckin’ wall to wall traffic.

The sound of a bike whizzing past us going the opposite direction had me shaking my head.

Going that fast was exhilarating, but it was stupid.

If you wrecked going that speed, there was no saving you.

You were dead on impact.

The sound of the bike faded, and the sound of my pipes replaced it, allowing me to forget the stupidity of some people and just enjoy the night.

As much as I could, anyway, with all the fuckin’ traffic.

But once we got past the goddamn Costco, things would get a little less busy.

It was a nice night for a ride.

It was mid-March, and it was the first night that it was above seventy in months.

So, of course, the club decided tonight was a perfect night for a ride.

That, and we usually tried to get together on a Wednesday to catch up.

All of us were busy people, and the times where we could get all of us into one place were few and far between.

Today, we only had about half of our group, but that was okay.

Spending time with my brothers from the club was great.

Even better was that Chevy, my actual brother, was in the Truth Tellers MC with me. Though, he was spending his time with Keely tonight.

The sound of the crotch rocket slowly started to creep toward us again, and I sighed, knowing that he was about to be on us any second.

All of us moved out of the fast lane almost as one, knowing the dumb fuck was about to come up on our right whether we were in that lane or not.

Which, we were right.

We moved over just in time for a red flashy, likely brand new off the showroom floor, crotch rocket came up to the side of us.

I looked over in time to see black hair flying.

My gaze went from the black hair—all long, lovely inches of it attached to a head that was buried so deep in the man’s back that she looked like she was trying to disappear—to the shapely body.

The very shapely body.

She had a fantastic set of arms that were clutching onto the man guiding the bike so hard that her fingers were bloodless. Her tan hands were the only thing that I could see of her skin.

She had long legs with shapely thighs and the cutest Timberlands on her feet that looked like they were kids’.

Then her face turned, and her eyes—goddamn, they were indigo and full of terror—met mine.

“Please,” she mouthed, and I couldn’t stop myself.

I moved my bike closer to the crotch rocket holding the terrorized woman and reached out for her.

After entwining our forearms, she let go of the man, and seconds later, she went from his bike to mine.

She clutched me like her life depended on it, and she turned her face to rest against my back.

And something shifted inside of me.

I didn’t know what it was.

What I did know was that the protectiveness that overtook me at having her wrapped around me was leaving me breathless.

The man’s outraged face turned to me, and I moved, forcing my way between Apollo and Webber, who moved to block the angry man’s attempt to follow me.

It took ten minutes, but eventually I’d maneuvered us to a place that was safe to pull off—a picnic area that would lead to the lake—and pulled the bike over.

When we came to a stop, I fully expected the woman to jump off and rid herself of my closeness, but she stayed where she was, which was when I realized that she was shaking.

And not just a little bit shaky. Full on bone rattling, teeth clacking, scared out of her goddamn mind shaking.

“Darlin’,” I said, trying to pry off her hand that was fisted in my leather cut. “You’re okay.”

Bikes pulled to a stop all around me, and I got quite a few looks that clearly said “fuck” from my brothers.

It was Webber who came up and handed me a phone before saying, “It’s hers. Was in her back pocket.”

“That’s my goddamn girlfriend, motherfucker!” I heard an angry voice say behind me.

I tapped the phone’s screen and saw a photo of a tiny little baby on the screen.

I idly wondered if it was hers as I said, “Honey, what’s your lock code?”

She didn’t answer.

She did squeeze me tighter, and it was then that I noticed that her arms couldn’t fit fully around my chest.

Covering her hands with one of my own, I hit the emergency number on the side screen and hit go.

“Milena,” a man’s smooth voice said. “Are you awake enough for visitors? We just pulled onto I30.”

I wondered who it was that I’d just called. “Not Milena. This is Cutter Clayborne. I just pulled your woman off a bike, and she’s fuckin’ terrified. Can you come get her? I don’t think any more riding is going to be a good thing for her right now.”

There was a long moment of silence before the man said, very carefully, “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

The shaking woman continued to chatter her teeth behind me, and the rest of my brothers talked softly all around me, casting sidelong glances at the girl that had yet to loosen her grip.

“Seriously, if you don’t move your fuckin’ ass right now and let me get to her, I’ll…”

“You’ll what, tit bag?” Hagrid asked. “You’re not getting through all of us. So, unless you really are stupid enough to try, go back to your bike and ride away.”

Hagrid had just finished the last of his taunting words when an armored black Mercedes rolled to a stop directly behind us.

I didn’t bother to ask how the man knew where we were.

Likely, he had a tracker on the woman’s phone.

“Honey,” I said. “The man who is in your emergency contact is here.”

Still no movement—well, besides the shaking.

The man arrived like an avenging angel.

He pushed through the bikers like he had not a single care in the world and walked right up to the woman in my arms.

I tried to release her, but she wasn’t going without any coaxing.

“Go Go, darlin’,” I said. “You gotta let go.”

“No,” she moaned.

“Milena.”

The man looked ready to rip her from my body.

I held my hands up to let him know I wasn’t holding her there.

He looked at me, studying my face, before saying, “Milena, sister. I have my car here…”

“Of fuckin’ course you’d show up,” the punk from the crotch rocket said. “She always calls her big brother to protect her from thin air.”

The “big brother” turned only his head and pinned the prick with a stare. “If you ever show your face in front of me again, I’ll peel your skin off your face and shove it up your ass.”

As threats went, that one was pretty damn good.

If I were a lesser man, like the punk behind me, I would’ve been definitely rethinking my words.

But he snorted. “You don’t scare me, Semyonov.”

That name had my mind screeching to a halt.

There was only one Semyonov in the area that would’ve scared anyone, and if this was him, I’d definitely be thinking better of my words.

From what I’d been able to garner based solely on word of mouth, Shasha Semyonov was one scary son of a bitch.

“If I get my sister in this car and you’re still here, I’m running you over with it,” Semyonov growled.

Seconds later, she was being pried from my body.

“No, no, no.” She reached for me again, and I wouldn’t admit to how that made me feel.

Warm.

Wanted.

Definitely delusional.

She was shaking so hard that he could barely hold onto her.

“Put her in your car, I’ll tell you what happened,” I suggested.

“What the fuck?”

Before the man could move with whom I assumed was his sister, the prick from earlier chose violence.

He pulled his crotch rocket right up in the middle of our club, got off, and barreled toward the man still holding the woman.

I stepped around the man and placed my body in front of his before saying, “I need you to think long and hard for a moment. Ask yourself is this really how you want to die.”

I wasn’t joking either.

I knew several different ways to kill the dumbass without breaking a sweat.

“Like the crime lord of Dallas really needs your fuckin’ help.” The dumbass snorted. “Give me my girl back.”

“She’s not your girl anymore,” I supplied. “You likely lost that privilege when you started driving a hundred and fifty miles an hour with her in the middle of rush hour traffic.”

“What?” the man behind me asked quietly.

“Car, man,” I said over my shoulder. “I’ll explain everything.”

The man behind me did just that.

When the one in front of me went to make a grab for her, I caught his wrist with my hand and twisted it quickly behind his back.

He went down to his knees screeching. “Do you know who I am?”

I didn’t care who the fuck he was.

I waited until he was damn near kissing the pavement before I told Semyonov exactly what happened.

He listened calmly, and didn’t interrupt until I was finished.

With one look from me to the dude still lying on the ground, his face full of sweat, he said, “You have two seconds to get out of my sight. If you decide to linger, we’ll be accidentally shoving you out into traffic.”

“There’s no…”

A car revved its engine, and I looked back to see a woman at the wheel of the car, looking pissed as hell.

“As I was saying,” he said. “Leave.”

The man finally found the head on his shoulders and left, but not without a last parting shot. “This isn’t over, Semyonov.”

Semyonov smiled and watched as the man left on his bike.

It was only when he was so far in the distance that we couldn’t see him that Semyonov turned to me and said, “I owe you a debt.”

I studied the man for a long second before saying, “You owe me nothing.”

I left after that, getting back on my bike.

The ride through the lake was beautiful, and by the time I arrived home, I felt like I could breathe again.

Only, my mind kept straying back to her, and who the hell she was.

Milena.

Milena Semyonov?

The sad fact was, I’d probably never find out.

I’m at the age where a 22-year-old guy is looking kinda good, but so is his dad.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

“Are you sure about this?” my sister, Maven, asked.

I nodded. “Sure, sure. Why?”

“Because usually you have Shasha deal with all of the building process,” she admitted, her smile becoming a bit of a leer.

Maven was right.

Usually, when it came to building anything, I allowed my brother and business partner, Shasha, to have free rein.

But since this was my brainchild, I was going to be the one to meet with the carpenter who would set my dream in motion.

“I need a distraction,” I said. “And Shasha ruins everything.”

At least when it came to finish work.

We’d had three crews quit off our multiple businesses when we were at the end, and the same wouldn’t happen with my coffee shop. I wanted it done to my specifications, and I wanted it done in a timely manner.

If I wanted those two things, that meant that Shasha needed to stay far, far away.

“You want to talk about last night?” she asked.

All of them knew.

They’d all been privy because of Brecken being on the phone with practically the entire family when it’d all gone down.

By the time I’d arrived home, I had a full house, and a lot of explaining to do.

The consensus for the night was that Asher would never be able to come anywhere near me again, or my brothers would kill him.

Literally.

Though Shasha and Dima—who’d been on FaceTime since he was deployed somewhere to parts unknown—hadn’t outright said they were going to kill him if he ever tried to contact me again, I knew them.

They were dangerous men.

They protected their own, too.

If Asher became a problem, one or the other would take care of it.

I just hoped that Asher was smart enough to realize that and not make contact.

“I’m fine,” I admitted. “I should’ve gone with my original gut instinct and stayed away from him. Everyone hated him, even your husband. I went against my gut instinct and stayed when I should’ve left.”

“So does that mean I can set you up with the man from the police department I’ve been telling you about?” She batted her eyelashes at me.

I shook my head. “You know this life that Shasha and Dima lead isn’t really conducive with that occupation. I know that you bury your head in the sand and all, but you have to realize how hard it is for us to not share everything with you. Auden is a great guy, but we’d never put y’all into that kind of position. And I definitely don’t want to be doing it with a man that I’m supposed to share everything with.”

She frowned. “But Nastya does it with her husband.”

I thought about Nastya’s husband, Haze Hopkins. He was a detective for the Fort Worth Police Department.

I opened my mouth to tell her why it worked, then closed it.

I knew that Maven would hold our confidences, but I didn’t want her to have to.

Haze was different.

He was burned out on life as an officer.

He no longer believed in the system.

Years before he’d met Nastya, he’d started to go a little darker and darker until he met her.

After Nastya, all sense of duty he felt toward his oath to the citizens had vanished.

Everything that the system had done to her, paired with her almost dying and the police doing nothing, solidified his belief that there had to be something more done.

So, he’d joined forces with my brother. My brother who righted wrongs and made no apologies for how he had to do it.

Haze was an inside man and fed Shasha any information that he needed. He also kept his ear to the ground for any rumblings on Shasha’s side that might make him a target of police attention.

Meanwhile, Haze’s help allowed Shasha to do his job better.

His job as the Pakhan of the Russian Bratva.

“Nastya and Haze have a relationship that I would never be able to balance,” I admitted. “I’m sorry, Maven, but I’m just not interested in sharing that kind of life with a police officer.”

Maven sighed right before her phone buzzed on the counter between us.

“Duty calls.” She stood up. “Send me the designs when you get them. I’m excited that you’re finally getting this place exactly how you want it. Oh, and good luck with your interview today.”

I grimaced.

I was meeting with the carpenter at eleven and a possible new hire at eleven-forty-five.

Hopefully the two didn’t overlap.

I tried to make the interview appointment for earlier, but the woman coming in had said that she couldn’t get there any earlier. Which didn’t bode well for me, but I chose not to doom the interview before it’d actually happened.

“Ugh,” I grumbled. “I actually forgot about the interview.”

“I was going to suggest you talk to a girl I met recently. I’ll send her your info. She’s a good kid. Her daddy says she needs a job, and he’s pretty particular about where, because she’s sort of high-profile.” She looked back at my bodyguard—Bogdan, one of my brother’s men—and said, “She has her own bodyguards.”

My brows rose. “Why’s that?”

She looked at her phone and started tapping away.

My phone buzzed, and I looked down at the screen to see that I was in a group chat with Maven and an unfamiliar number.

Maven:

Becky, this is Maven. You were talking to me about a job you were looking for, and I think I might’ve found the perfect one for you. This is my sister, Milena. She owns a coffee shop. It’s called The Grizzly. Come down and meet her!

“Her dad’s someone important. I’m not sure who, or why, but…”

Becky:

I can only work really early hours. Five to maybe ten a.m. I have classes at eleven.

Me:

That’s perfect. Come apply.

Becky:

OMW

“That’s teenage speak for ‘on my way.’” Maven snickered.

“I feel like this might be too good to be true,” I admitted.

Maven shrugged. “She worked really well when she came in with one of my other workers for the day. They’re best friends. I don’t need another helper, or I might’ve hired her myself. I really gotta go, though. I have to stop next door at the bakery before I leave,” she relayed.

I waved her off and watched her go out of the coffee shop doors, then walk right through the bakery doors.

Years ago, when we’d first started talking about attaching my coffee shop to her bakery, it’d been a pipe dream. Something we’d thought might never come to fruition.

However, last year, both Auden and Shasha had brought it up, and Shasha had run with it.

Now, we had a brand new, state-of-the-art building.

On the left side was her now-finished bakery, and on the right was my coffee shop.

Maven’s staff had made the move with her.

Mine had, like always, flaked out on me.

Though, I couldn’t blame them really.

We’d gone from having the coffee shop in Dallas to about twenty-two minutes east of Dallas in Sunnyvale.

Most of my workers didn’t want to drive five minutes, let alone twenty to get to work.

Hence the interviews.

I turned to survey the bare walls of the coffee shop.

Just as I was daydreaming on what it would look like, I heard the door swish open behind me.

Expecting it to be Maven again, I didn’t turn around, and instead said, “Please, please tell me you came bearing gifts. I could really go for a pastry right now.”

“Sorry,” a deep, very delicious sounding male voice said from behind me. “No pastries, but I see that there’s a bakery next door.”

I whirled around, my black hair swirling with me, and stared at the man behind me.

“I…” I started to say, but recognition hit, and my voice fell off.

It was him.

The man that’d saved me last night from Asher.

I opened my mouth, then closed it, unable to get words out.

“See you’re lookin’ a little better today than you were last night. All those tears made your face really red and blotchy, and the mascara that was melting down your face wasn’t the best look…” he rumbled.

I snorted, unable to stop myself. “No, I’m not a very pretty crier.”

“No.” He chuckled. “You aren’t.”

He came up to me then, offering me his hand.

I took it, amazed by just how large it was.

Last night when I’d extended mine to his, I hadn’t been thinking about how big his hand was, or how masculine. I didn’t notice the roughness of his calluses or the way his fingers felt so damn strong.

I’d been thinking about getting away from Asher and nothing else.

But today, when fear wasn’t overpowering me, I could take in all the features I’d skipped over last night.

The man was tall, as in well over six foot.

He was very muscular, and the way his white t-shirt stretched over those muscles was nothing short of delicious.

He had abs. Abs that I could see through a hole in his white t-shirt.

Not a big one, but enough of a hole that I could see definition.

His jeans were well worn. Both with the way he wore them—my god, he could fill out a pair of jeans—and the way they looked like they’d been worn so many times that they were one wash away from being unwearable.

He had on brown work boots that had wood dust in the crevices, and my goodness, the size of his feet…

“I’m sorry. For last night. I was a little distraught,” I said to cover up my perusal of his delectable body.

Fresh off a breakup, and I was already eating someone up with my eyes.

Though, you’d have to be fuckin’ dead not to eat this man’s body up.

“It’s okay,” he returned. “I think that you’re allowed to be distraught when you’re being rode around on a bike going way too fast for your comfort. He gives the rest of us a bad name.”

“Well, Mr. Clayborne, you’ll be happy to know that my brothers will kill him if he ever comes close to me again, so I’m good,” I shared.

The way he flashed me a swift smile had my heart thumping hard in my chest.

“I would hope so,” he stated. “And call me Cutter.”

“Cutter,” I said. “My name is Milena Semyonov.”

He grinned. “I know.”

“Oh.” I hit my forehead with my hand. “Last night. You probably got that, didn’t you?”

“I did,” he said as he turned to survey the space. “What’s your budget?”

I looked at the space with him and said, “I don’t have one.”

He turned to me and I twisted my head to look at him.

Damn, he was closer than I thought, and it made my mouth dry.

Which was, of course, when my stomach started to make itself known.

My stomach felt so bloated today after the pizza I’d inhaled last night when I got home that it’d been churning with it all morning.

I pressed a hand to my stomach and felt the pressure start to build.

I steeled my stomach and reiterated, “There is no limit. I want this done right. I don’t care how much it costs. If I cared, I would’ve gone with the builder’s recommendation. Instead, I called around and had you suggested to me well over four times. So I called you.” I paused. “I was aware that you weren’t cheap. I was warned. But the work that I’ve seen of yours…it’s phenomenal. And I want this place exactly how I want it.”

“Good,” he said. “Now tell me what you want.”

I did, explaining how I wanted floor-to-ceiling shelving behind the register. How I wanted the register/counter area to be one huge island with glass blocking the public from the product. I told him about my wants and desires with the side of the room.

I told him about how I wanted the bathrooms to look. I told him about the window from my back area to Maven’s kitchen area, so we could pass her product back and forth, along with the coffees that were ordered on her side.

And after I was done, my stomach was now so bloated with gas that I didn’t dare move too much from where I was planted.

During the entire discussion, the man—Cutter—walked around and took note of everything.

Only when I was done with my explanation did he say, “I’m going to take a lot of measurements today. I’ll do that now if you’re okay with it.”

I was.

“Sure,” I said a little bit desperately. “When you get done in here, let me know, and you can measure my office, too.”

I seriously needed to visit a room that was far away from him.

Far, far away.

Because the gas in my belly was about to explode.

“I’ll be in my office if you need me.” I smiled.

He jerked his chin in the affirmative.

His eyes followed my movement from the main room to the back hallway.

I walked slowly, disappearing into my unfinished office.

The door closed, and I counted to thirty, hoping that my stomach would get under control.

But, of course, it didn’t.

I had trigger foods.

Pizza and beer were two of them, and both of those I’d consumed in volume last night.

I didn’t want to say that I was lactose intolerant, because I wasn’t.

I was more gluten intolerant than anything else.

But in my opinion, the gas was worth the pleasure of eating pizza.

Not to mention, this morning before leaving, I’d had a protein shake that never failed to add to my gassiness.

I sat down in my office chair, then decided…fuck it.

The explosion of air releasing from my body felt like a dream.

God, I really needed to stop eating pizza.

It never failed to really fuck me over.

Worse, I’d gained eight pounds.

Sure, I logically knew that I hadn’t actually gained eight pounds. The majority of it was water weight.

But that didn’t mean that I didn’t look like I was a bloated mess in front of the sexiest guy I’d ever seen.

I hated myself for wearing my running tights, Christmas Crocs, and oversized Great Smoky Mountains sweatshirt that I’d stolen from Dima.

I wasn’t even wearing makeup.

How underwhelming could I be?

There was a sharp bark of laughter outside my door, and I froze, my butthole puckering in fear.

NO.

No, no, no.

Then came the knock on the door.

My cheeks flamed when I realized that there was no way that he hadn’t heard everything that’d just come from my office.

Swallowing bile now, I stood up and prayed that when I opened the door, I’d find a family member outside and not the hottest guy I’d ever seen.

Except, my hopes were dashed as the door swung open on squeaky hinges, and there he was in all his devastatingly sexy glory.

“Haven’t heard one that good since my sister let one off at the Christmas dinner table,” he drawled.

Yep.

Mortification.

That was a thing for me now, I guessed.

Before he could say anything, his phone rang, and he growled.

“Give me a second,” he said as he pulled the phone out of his jeans and placed it to his ear. “Seriously, please stop calling me. It’s getting really fuckin’ old.”

He paused and listened for a long moment, then he shook his head as he said, “Dorie, I wasn’t born yesterday.”

He listened a little longer, then frowned, pulling the phone away from his face.

“Let me ask you something,” he said, his eyes coming down to me. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you last had sex with someone three months ago, it wouldn’t net you a pregnancy that’s only five weeks along, right?”

I blinked. “Um, no. That’s not how it works.”

“Thought so.” He turned the phone onto speaker and said, “Dorie, I realize you’re trying to help this kid of yours, but I’m not that man.”

“It’s your kid,” she declared for a fourth time.

“You’re five weeks along. We haven’t had sex in three months. I’m sorry to break it to you, but that’s not how biology works,” he said. “I even asked a woman. She has all those same parts. She agrees with me, too.”

“Who is she?” she hissed, sounding pissed now.

Cutter’s devastatingly brown eyes came to me as he said, “She’s beautiful. You’d probably hate her.”

Beautiful.

I blushed profusely.

He was being awfully nice…

“I’ll bet she’s hideous,” she snarled. “Does she know that you’re cheating on me?”

“Dorie,” he said patiently, “I’m going to explain a few things to you very carefully. One, we broke up. Two, we were never serious. Three, I always used condoms, and you were on birth control. Four, if you’re five weeks along, that means that you fucked someone…”

He proceeded to give the best biology lesson he could ever give.

He was very knowledgeable, and I couldn’t stop the smile that lit my face at his explanation into how the female reproductive cycle worked.

After a bit more screeching, he said, “I’m blocking you now. Have a nice life.”

Then he hung up.

He shoved his phone back into his pocket, and it immediately started to vibrate.

Instead of reaching for it, he turned to me and said, “I have a few questions to ask you about the bathrooms.”

I followed him to the bathroom, still thoroughly embarrassed about what he’d likely heard me doing in my office.

“All right, Go. Tell me which one of these is the men’s bathroom. Then tell me if you’re going to have a urinal in it or not.”

I scrunched up my nose. “I’d planned on putting the men’s bathroom farther down the hall. I hate when I have to walk all the way down long hallways that are dark. It’s scary for women. And…urinals? Why would I put a urinal in?”

He looked at me like I was adorable, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

He then went on to explain the importance of urinals, and before I could stop myself, I blurted, “If you’d put one in, I’d better go with your professional opinion.”

He winked, and I reacted with a start.

He pushed into the men’s bathroom and said, “You’re cute.”

“What does ‘Go’ mean?” I asked to satisfy my earlier curiosity as he pulled out his tape measure.

He’d called me ‘Go Go’ last night, too.

I remembered it specifically because it was an odd thing to call me in the middle of a breakdown.

“Hold that, would you?” he requested as he gestured to the tip of the tape measure.

I caught it with my fingers and stood awkwardly.

“Hold it up against the wall,” he instructed.

I did, giving him the best hold job I’d ever done in my life.

When he was finished, he turned and indulged me, “Go. Indigo. The color of your eyes.”

Then he left me standing there in the bathroom, feeling…weirdly warm.

The first thing I did when I got back to my office was text my best friend.

Me:

I have the most embarrassing story to tell you about the man that’s making my cabinets and me. Are we still on for our long run tomorrow?

Not everyone is going to think you’re amazing, gorgeous and magical. They’re wrong, though. Dickheads.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

Me:

Hey, I’m running like two minutes late. I forgot where I put my shoes. Don’t start without me!

No response.

I didn’t waste time after sending the text.

Instead, I hurried out the door and to my car, heading to the front entrance of the lake where Hazel and I usually started our long run.

She hadn’t answered my text yesterday, but honestly, I hadn’t expected her to after I’d seen her social media story.

I’d happened to be stalking some random woman on Instagram and Facebook and had seen her story about being out with some girls from her office.

One of those girls was my girl. My best friend.

Hazel had been doing that a lot lately.

In fact, it’d been so long since we’d done anything more than run together that I was starting to get a complex.

Not to mention, any time I texted her, she either replied hours later, or didn’t reply at all.

I didn’t like the sick feeling it was leaving in my stomach, either.

Like our friendship was slipping through my fingers, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d lose it.

Feeling desperate now, I pulled out my phone when I got to a stoplight and texted again.

Me:

You know what’s always there for you? Carbs. They never let you down.

Still no response.

I stared at my phone, wondering what my best friend was doing.

On the way past Hazel’s place, I looked for her car in her driveway but I didn’t see it anywhere in the vicinity.

That was how we’d become such good friends.

We kept seeing each other on the trail that ran around the lake, and one day four years ago, we’d decided that since we were already running, we’d run together.

From there, a fast and easy friendship had formed.

I loved Hazel with all my heart and counted her as my very best friend.

Yet, as I waited for a solid thirty minutes for her with no response, I began to think maybe I wasn’t that to her anymore.

Stomach a little uneasy at the thought of Hazel not wanting to be around me anymore, I threw my running vest on over my shoulders and began loading it up with my running gels and electrolyte water.

Today I was running nineteen miles.

In exactly one month, we’d be running not only our first marathon, but our first trail marathon.

The marathon was in Glacier, Montana and I was super duper thrilled about it—despite my depth perception problems.

I was excited because one, I’d always wanted to go to Glacier National Park. And two, I got to get away from the store and my family for a while and spend a week at, arguably, one of the most beautiful national parks in the nation.

Me:

Hey, I’m really sorry, but I can’t wait anymore. I have to get all of these miles done before I have to meet the contractor at Grizzly to let him in.

With my heart heavy, I started my long run off.

At first, it wasn’t too bad.

The day was cool but proved that if I didn’t hurry up and get this long run done, I’d be spending the tail end of my run in the blazing heat with no shade.

I was about an hour in when I made it all the way around the lake.

I had a pressing need for a bathroom, so I went off course of my usual running trail and headed to the end of the lake where I usually stayed away from because Hazel didn’t like running it.

She’d told me once that the trails were all uneven, and she always felt like she was going to trip and fall if she wasn’t careful. Generally, we’d avoided that end of the trail for so long that it wasn’t something I even contemplated going to anymore.

But today, knowing there was a public bathroom that was well-lit and safe, I headed toward it.

I got to the bathroom, did my business, and started pulling my soaked leggings up my legs and positioning them in place.

It was while I was doing that—and if you’ve ever pulled on anything spandex and wet, you know what kind of a struggle it was—that I heard a familiar laugh.

I pushed out of the bathroom door once my leggings were in place and stopped, heart beating fast, and listened.

I knew that voice and that laugh.

Hazel.

A smile on my face, I rounded the corner of the bathroom only to come to a startled halt when I saw Hazel there, stretching, and talking to the best friend stealer.

Hazel was laughing about something.

Rayann turned to my best friend, a smile on her face, and said, “I just love this part of the trail. I’m glad you were willing to run with me today. I know you said you were busy last week.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I wasn’t too busy,” Hazel said. “What I had to do wasn’t all that important.”

What I had to do wasn’t all that important.

Noted.

“Did you talk with your other friend?” Rayann asked. “Did you tell her that we were going to go to the race with you?”

“Uh, yeah. She’s fine with it,” Hazel said, but immediately changed the subject. “Did you get your new trail shoes?”

I looked down at my stupid trail shoes that I hated beyond belief.

I hated running on trails.

I hated even more that I tripped eight thousand times and fell at least twice a run.

Stomach in knots now, I readjusted my pants one more time, then turned.

Since I could no longer go past them to the trail entrance that was beyond the bathrooms, I turned and ran for the road.

I still had two hours of running to go, and I wouldn’t skip out on it now, no matter how awful Hazel had just made me feel.

I wouldn’t get the trail running in that I should have gotten, but running on the road would boost my morale and hopefully keep me away from Hazel and her new friend.

Another twenty minutes passed when the sound of a motorcycle penetrated the woman’s voice that I was listening to on my true crime podcast.

It was about a serial killer that murdered all his victims on a trail—ironic, I know, since I was running on said trails.

The podcast itself had me slightly jumpy because the killings had gone on all over the country, but the serial killer had finally been found only a few hours away in East Texas. So when a motorcycle pulled up beside me, my heart jumped into my throat.

My head whipped to the side, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the familiar brown eyes.

Jeez.

The man was in jeans, a black t-shirt, motorcycle boots, and his MC cut, but he had to be the sexiest man alive.

“Hey,” I called to him after I pulled out my headphone.

“I’ve been calling you for twenty minutes,” he said. “I was going to go to the store early today since I suddenly had some time free itself up but couldn’t get ahold of you. You have a key I can have?”

I winced. “I silenced my phone for my run.”

Okay, so I’d silenced my phone because I needed to get through this run, and if I hadn’t, I’d be thinking every random text I got might be Hazel.

I reached for my keys, ready to just hand it to him, only to realize that my keys were gone.

“Shit!” I groaned.

Then I remembered hearing a jingle in the bathroom twenty minutes ago when I’d been pulling my leggings up.

“What?” he asked.

“I think I dropped them in the bathroom back there.” I groaned again.

He frowned. “Where?”

I gestured to his bike. “Give me a ride back so we can look?”

He indicated for me to hop on, and I did, trying to stay away from him to keep my sweat off his body.

“Scoot in, darlin’,” he urged as he took his helmet off and handed it back to me.

The tears that met my eyes as I thought about how Asher had never offered me his helmet hit me hard.

But, likely, the tears were more because of everything that had happened lately—which included Hazel—and not just Asher’s treatment of me.

Once I had the helmet on, I scooted closer and wrapped my arms around his solid torso.

Man, the guy was ripped.

There wasn’t a soft spot on his body.

The drive to the bathrooms took a whole lot less time than I wanted it to, and when I got off, it was with my head down so I could hide the tears still in my eyes.

I took off the helmet and placed it on his seat, then rushed into the bathroom, thankful to find my keys laying exactly where I expected them to be.

“Oh, good.” I bent over and snatched them up. “They’re here.”

“Glad I caught you, then,” he said from the mouth of the bathroom. “I was just riding around and spotted you. You live close to here?”

I explained where I lived, and he frowned. “Running on the road like that is really dangerous, Go. I don’t think you should do it. There’s no shoulder, and there are a lot of crazy people out here that don’t know how to drive.”

He had a point.

Plus, that podcast had freaked me out.

The trail was more populated than the road I’d been on…

“I’ll run on the trail,” I said to allay his fears. “This key is to get into the building. Will you be there all day?”

He nodded. “I will.”

“Then I’ll come up there and get the key, then go make a copy of it, and bring you one back once I’m done.” I looked down at my watch. “I still have another thirteen miles to go.”

His brows rose. “You’re running that much?”

I smiled, albeit a bit sadly. “Yeah, my friend urged me to sign up for a trail marathon run with her, and it’s next month. This’ll be my longest run before I start to taper down.”

He watched me for a long second before he said, “Stay to the trail. And be careful.”

I smiled. “I will.”

And I would.

I’d stick to the main trail this time.

He tucked my keys into his pocket and said, “You don’t need any more of these keys?”

“No, I have an app that will lock it.” I said. “I left the biggest key, my car key, locked in the car. Those keys are just the ones for the office, and to be quite honest, I don’t even know why I brought them.”

He patted the keys in his pocket and jerked his chin. “Seriously, be careful.”

I smiled. “I will.”

When I started my run again, I could feel his eyes trailing me as I went.

I hated the moment I rounded a bend of the trail and the trees closed in on me, blocking my view of him.

I don’t know why, but he made me feel so…protected.

And warm.

Definitely very warm.

I was finally feeling better about everything when, an hour into my run, I ran into Hazel and her friend.

The deer in the headlights look on Hazel’s face was enough for me to realize that I didn’t want to talk to her.

I ran right past them both, and didn’t stop.

I’d deal with Hazel later.

Maybe.

If she actually spoke to me.

But for now, I’d listen to my creepy true crime podcast about women getting murdered on a trail in the middle of the woods and forget about everything else.

Don’t just assume ’cause you see me on my porch that I’m home.

—Cutter to Chevy

CUTTER

Leaving her in the woods went against the grain.

And even after I lost sight of her, I still stayed, thinking about how it felt wrong to just leave her out here in the middle of nowhere.

But at least she wasn’t on the road.

Anyone could’ve hit her out there…

I was heading back to my bike when movement caught my eye.

I would not admit how excited I was that she might come back, but that excitement quickly died.

Two women were running up, both of them looking very well put-together for them to be doing exercise.

What was the point of twenty pounds of makeup when you were just going to sweat and ruin it?

“Was that her?” I heard one of them ask.

I walked away from the two women and back to my bike, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t listening to their entire conversation.

“That’s her.”

“Hazel, she’s totally stalking you. Didn’t you say that she hated this part of the trail, and that’s why you came to this part?”

I looked up to see who was talking.

The blonde was the one to reply.

Obviously, she was the one addressed as Hazel since she answered next with, “Yeah. I feel like she’s just desperate. Her family is crazy over the top, and maybe they just rubbed off on her.”

“You said that her family was bad. That her brother was in the military?” the redhead chirped as they came to a stop in front of the bathrooms. “How do you have a family that’s in organized crime, yet still go into the military? Isn’t that sacrilegious or something?”

That definitely had me intrigued.

Were they talking about Milena?

I had my confirmation in the next moment. “Milena is a conundrum. She’s never actually told me that her family is bad, but she always has a bodyguard when we go out and drink. She also lives in that gated community at the end of the lake over there.” She pointed to a point across the lake. “You don’t need the kind of security they have if you’re not trying to protect your ass from retaliation.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against my bike, not even trying to hide the fact that I was listening into their conversation.

“The worst part is, she broke up with Asher,” Hazel said. “Seriously, Rayann. That man was the one, and she kicked him to the curb because he wanted to go out and have fun. And she always hated going. He’d ask her to go out with his friends to dinner, and she’d refuse. Asher thinks it’s because she felt like she was too good for him and his friends. Which is a joke. He was too good for her.”

The Rayann chick looked appalled. “I’ve met Asher a time or two. He’s the stock trader, right?”

“Right,” Hazel replied. “And he has a ton of money.”

My gaze went back to Rayann.

For a small woman, she had a big personality.

Normally, that would be an attractive trait.

But for this woman, it made her abrasive and in your face.

“That’s a plus right there.” Rayann snickered, which sounded more like a cat sneezing. “That’s why I’m with Gibson, really. He makes beacoups of money, and I don’t have to work once we get married.”

She sounded like a real winner.

What a great trait to have when looking for a husband—has lots of money and won’t make me work.

I doubted that any significant other would want their spouse to have to work, but times were tough. Sometimes you didn’t have a choice.

I was getting ready to leave, getting tired of hearing their vitriol, when Hazel said what she said next.

“Asher said to me in private when Milena was at work that Milena was a cold fish in bed. He admitted that she never wanted sex, and that she was still refusing to give it up to him after months of them being together. Who the fuck makes their boyfriend wait that long if there isn’t something wrong with your vagina?” She snickered. “She did smell super bad after our long runs. Maybe she has something wrong down there…”

I’d had enough.

I didn’t even know Milena, but based on the way she looked and acted, I knew that she was reserved. She had self-respect.

Oh, and she didn’t smell at-fucking-all.

And I’d just been pretty fuckin’ close to her as I’d driven her here.

As close as one could get without both of us being naked…

Let’s just say, what I smelled wasn’t stink.

It was womanly, and so goddamn appealing that just thinking about it made me hard all over again.

I probably shouldn’t have reacted the way that I did.

I definitely should’ve kept my mouth completely shut, but fuck. The women and the way they were talking about Milena. It did something to me.

It made me enraged, and I didn’t like catty bitches that spoke ill of people they were supposed to protect.

I’d had enough of that happen in high school regarding my little sister.

She’d changed at some point, and her friends had noticed. Instead of treating her with caring and compassion, they’d turned on her. Which had only been worse for Keely.

Channeling the anger that always formed in my heart when it came to how my sister was treated, I stood from my bike, making myself known.

“I’ll have you know that Milena was here meeting me,” I said carefully. “She wasn’t here to ‘stalk’ you. She was here to meet me to give me a key since I was in the area. I can also share that she’d been running all the way from her house, and she most certainly did not stink. She smelled fantastic, and had she not been fresh from a breakup with an abusive man,”—I leveled Hazel with a look—“I would’ve made a move on her because she’s gorgeous. I also have to admit that she’s likely only a ‘cold fish’ with her ex because he was a disgusting human being. Why would you want to give your body to a man that you don’t respect?”

Neither woman had anything to say to that.

“As women, you should uplift each other. You should never tear each other down. And I hate that Milena has someone like you as a friend when it’s clear that you don’t think of her as a friend.” I turned my back on them and straddled my bike. Only when I had my helmet in place did I turn back to them and say, “Maybe you should do yourself a favor and start investigating why you have so much hate in your heart toward a woman that only has love in hers.”

With that, I started my bike up and headed toward my house.

I switched my bike out for my work truck and trailer, then headed to Milena’s place, The Grizzly.

Her shop was a little bit farther out than I would’ve liked, but that was okay. It was a nice change of scenery on the outskirts of Dallas.

A lot less headache, too.

Sometimes, I questioned why I’d decided to come back to this hellhole.

But then I remembered about my task for this afternoon, and all made sense again.

Traffic. People. Higher cost of living.

All of it was worth it to be closer to my brother.

Hours later, I was setting up the plastic so that the wood dust didn’t go all into the air ducts and into the finished back area when she came in.

She looked beautiful, albeit tired.

“How far did you get, Go?” I asked, unable to stop myself from asking.

She gave me a halfhearted smile and uttered, “All nineteen miles done.”

“Nice,” I declared. “Never got up to a marathon, mostly because the thought of running that far makes me want to cry, but I did a couple of halfs for the Navy when I was in. It sucked. Especially on a trail. I commend you for getting it done.”

She grimaced. “I don’t really do all that well on trails, to be truthful. I have a condition with one of my eyes that pretty much makes it impossible for me to see without both of my eyes open. My left eye has perfect vision. My right I’m nearly blind. But as long as they’re both open, I’m good. But the downfall is on my right side I have absolutely zero depth perception. So running on a trail is damn near impossible without wearing a contact. And the contact makes me feel disoriented because my brain has had so long to adjust that it doesn’t know what to do with twenty-twenty vision out of the one eye.”

“Amblyopia?” I asked. “My sister had that.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “That. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone that has it besides me. That’s…” she paused. “I was going to say exciting, but anyone that has it suffers. And I would never be happy to have someone suffer.”

“She actually doesn’t necessarily have it anymore. From the age of three to seven, she had to wear an eye patch over her good eye. She was able to get it corrected,” I admitted.

“Oh,” she sighed. “That’s what I was supposed to do, to be honest. But we caught it pretty dang late, and there was no way that I would’ve worn an eye patch in middle school.”

I snorted. “Kids are brutal.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered. “You’re putting up a lot of plastic.”

“Just trying to keep the dust to a minimum and save you from having to clean out your ducting system when I’m done,” I said, watching her.

She nodded, her face a little sad.

And I wondered if she knew how bad of a friend she had.

Between her friend and her ex, she could use a break.

Which had to be why I was blurting out what I did next.

“You want to go for a ride?” I asked, sensing her need for a distraction and running with it.

“Oh,” she paused. “Where?”

I grinned. “Somewhere that you probably don’t want to go…but it’s a nice, long ride. And I figure that it’ll give you time to clear your brain of whatever it is that you’re thinking.”

“I don’t know,” she bit her lip. “The thought of getting onto another bike…”

“I swear to God, I don’t drive like that prick,” I said. “I’ll stop if you want me to stop.”

She worried her lip with her teeth, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Honey is the tastiest of all insect vomits we have tried so far.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

An hour earlier

The moment I turned my phone off of silent, it started ringing.

I stared at it like it was about to attack me when I saw the name on the screen.

I didn’t want to answer, but I did anyway.

“Hello?” I answered cautiously.

“I’m so sorry,” Hazel replied. “I completely forgot we were supposed to run today.”

My shoulders slumped just a little bit farther, and some of the anger I’d been holding loosened from my shoulder.

But not all. Definitely not all.

The last thing I wanted to do was hold a grudge against my best friend, but I was beginning to wonder if she was someone that maybe didn’t need me as much as I needed her.

While I’d been running, I thought about all the effort that I had to put into my friendships.

Why was I always the one that had to reach out? Why did I always have to make the plans? Why did I have to go and sign up for the marathon, pay Hazel’s portion of the ticket, and then book the vacation rental?

“It’s okay,” I lied.

“It’s not okay,” she disagreed with me. “I saw you running past us today and I just…” she paused, searching for the right words. “I guess that I’m just so caught up with work and the new friends I’m making that I’m putting you on the back burner. And that’s not very nice of me.”

She sounded so genuine in that moment, but I didn’t let my guard down.

“It’s okay,” I continued to lie.

She sighed. “It’s really not. I know it’s not. You know it’s not. Can we meet up for the next long run in a week?”

I noticed she didn’t try to meet any earlier.

“I can’t Saturday,” I said, puffing up my chest.

All this time, I’d given her my Saturdays because it was easier for her to run then. However, for me, it was much, much harder.

In fact, Saturdays were one of my busiest days because it was hard to find help that wanted to work on the weekends.

“Oh,” she said. “What about Friday then?”

I blinked, surprised that she’d offer to change the day for me.

“I can do that,” I said. “Early morning?”

“Yes,” she continued. “Early morning.”

After a few more awkward moments of back and forth, she hung up, and I was left standing in my hallway, dripping with sweat, and wondering whether I should’ve just said “not next week.”

I was an overthinker.

Like, seriously, I could overthink anything.

The waitress setting the glass down too hard? Yeah, she did that because she doesn’t like me, and what if she spit in it because she didn’t like the way I looked at her?

Asher hadn’t called or tried to make contact in a few days. What if he was scheming, finding a way to make my life a literal hell? What if he was in the process of a plan that would make me lose my business?

Take my new carpenter, for instance. Today, he asked for a key, and I just gave it to him. What if he stole my car out of my driveway? What if he didn’t really need the key at all? What if he just wanted access to my key ring and wanted into my place so that he could get into Maven’s bakery and steal…

I hurried into the shower on the rest of that thought, quickly washing off the dirt and sweat from my run.

The moment that I was out, I dressed in leggings and a white t-shirt, shoved my feet into shoes, and then hurried to the car.

I was halfway there before another thought occurred to me.

Cutter was an honest guy.

I’d seen that in just the few times that we’d met.

I didn’t need to make him into a bad guy.

I went from seven miles over the speed limit to the speed limit.

There was one thing that I always made sure to do—if I could—and that was drive safely.

When I was a teen, my bodyguard had been driving me to school and had driven us into a light pole when he’d lost control trying to go around someone.

Thankfully, I’d been in the backseat and the brunt of the accident had taken place on the driver’s side front bumper.

Sadly, my bodyguard had sustained a head injury that had made him incompatible for security detail work anymore.

I’d been happy about it. Honestly, I had never really liked the guy, and Ernest Mosley, the guard, had always given me a really weird vibe.

Speaking of weird vibes, when I finally parked and got out of my car, I headed to my sister’s bakery instead of my shop.

I could see from where I was walking that the door was wide open, and there was plastic everywhere. In fact, that was all I could see as I glanced inside the shop on my way past.

Legs protesting the fast walking—I didn’t know why I didn’t want the man to see me—I opened the door to Maven’s bakery and went inside.

I spotted her in the doorway of the kitchen, a sheet of cupcakes precariously perched above her head, and my nephew jumping up and down yelling at her.

“Redford!” I called.

Redford whipped his head around and screamed, “Aunt Mina!”

When Redford was small, he couldn’t pronounce Milena fully, and my name had been shortened to Mina, since that was all that he could say.

I dreaded the day when he switched back to my full name.

He was growing so dang fast.

I bent down and opened my arms just as his surprisingly stocky body hit me full force.

I made a “whoosh” sound and fell backward onto my ass, my sore and tired legs protesting even a little bit of effort to stay aloft.

Laughing, I curled my arms around the sturdy little body and inhaled.

“Have you been eating cookies without me, Redford?” I teased, burying my face into his hair.

“I’ve been eating scones,” he disagreed. “I’d never eat cookies without you.”

I smoothed back his hair, which looked exactly like his daddy’s, and looked into his mama’s eyes.

“What are you doing here today?” I asked curiously.

“Mama said that I couldn’t stay at home with Lola and Brando because they have stomach bugs, and she didn’t want me to catch it,” Redford said. “She says that I can’t make it to the toilet yet, and that if I throw up all over the floor again from the top bunk she’ll murder Daddy in his sleep.”

I snickered.

I actually remembered that particular incident because I’d been staying over at their house because Auden, Lola, Brando, and Maven had been either on the mend from the stomach bug, or still actively participating in life with it.

I’d been there as backup for Maven so she could catch some sleep.

And I’d had to deal with Pukemageddon.

It was what sold me on never having kids.

Maybe.

I was sure if I met the right man, that sentiment might fly out the window.

I’d bet money that if Cutter offered to have babies with me, my legs would just fall open.

“If you want to help me stock my cases really quick, I’d be forever grateful,” Maven called.

I pushed myself up to my feet, ignoring the way my calf seized, and limped my way to her.

We got the cases stocked.

However, I kept stealing glances through the window that we could pass food and coffee back and forth through to see if I spotted the man next door.

“Why don’t you just go over there already and check out what he’s doing?” Maven elbowed me, misunderstanding my desire to catch a glimpse of Cutter.

I let her think that I was worried about the project.

“I’ll do that,” I said. “Let me know if you need help tonight.”

Maven grimaced. “I sure hope not.”

I was exiting the bakery when my phone rang.

I smiled when I answered it.

“Hey, Dima. Where are you at?” I teased.

I always asked, and he always answered the same.

“Can’t tell you, dingbat,” he drawled. “What’s up with you? How’s the training going?”

We talked about everything under the sun for the next twenty minutes outside my open coffee shop door.

Dima was in the Air Force.

He was currently deployed to parts unknown and had done a lot of growing up in the nine years since he’d left.

Every time he came home to visit, it was like I was meeting a brand-new person.

I loved it and hated it at the same time.

“When do you get to come home next?” I asked, knowing he probably wouldn’t have an answer for me.

“Actually,” he hesitated. “I think that I’m getting out.”

I paused and screeched, “What?”

He laughed. “Seriously. I think it’s time.”

“But the last time I spoke with you, you were thinking about reupping,” I replied.

“I was, but they want to take me off of the planes. It’s a young man’s job, and I just don’t fuckin’ want to not fly. I’d rather get out and fly, than stay in and ride a damn desk. I’d be suffocated,” he grumbled.

“Well, I’ll support you in whatever way you need, baby brother. Just let me know what you want me to do,” I offered.

“I’ll talk to Shasha, Maven, and Nastya, okay?” he said. “Just not…yet.”

I smiled.

Dima and I had always been the closest since we were the middle children that were forgotten about the most.

We’d formed a bond that could never be broken.

“All right,” I said. “But don’t make me keep this secret for too long, okay?”

“Okay,” he sighed. “Love you, Mil.”

“Love you, too,” I replied and shoved my phone into the pocket on the side of my leggings.

A gust of wind had my semi-wet hair blowing into my face, and I turned just in time to see Cutter with his arms raised as he measured from the floor to the ceiling.

His belly was partially exposed, and I saw the ab definition along his side for a split second before he dropped his arms back down to his sides.

Stepping into the shop, I said to myself, “Here goes nothin’.”

I must’ve blacked out, because ten minutes after entering my shop, I was leaving it.

To go on a ride on the back of Cutter’s bike.

My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t decide if it was going haywire because I was about to get on the back of his motorcycle, which I said I was never going to do, or because I was about to be on the back of Cutter’s motorcycle, once again wrapped up in the sexiest man I’d ever encountered.

Likely, it was more of the latter than the former, if I was being honest.

I was so nervous that I started chattering.

“Hey,” I said when he turned and caught me staring at him. “You got a lot done.”

He jerked his chin back toward the shop and said, “Your keys are on the table inside. I made a copy of the door key already. I’ll give it back to you once I’m done.”

He then proceeded to use his own key to lock my shop up.

I smiled, relief hitting me.

All of my earlier worries disappeared when I saw the amount of work he’d gotten done this morning.

“You really have been busy,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but getting the plastic up is the easy part,” he agreed. “Other than the running on a trail part, how did your body feel when you ran? Running that far is miserable, I’ll bet.”

Just the mention of my run again had my good mood disappearing.

I frowned and stared down at my feet. “Okay, I guess. Not good. Not bad. Just blah.”

He studied me for a long second, then nodded. “Good.”

He jerked his chin toward his truck, and I frowned. “Uh…”

“Gotta go get my bike, babe.” He grinned. “I’m leaving the trailer, though. Already unhooked it.”

I hesitated to follow him to his truck, and I didn’t know why.

Maybe it was my mood.

I maybe should’ve stayed at home.

It would be my only free Saturday for a while.

I’d lied to Hazel when I’d told her that I was working next week.

In reality, I didn’t have to work because my shop wasn’t supposed to be ready to go for at least another month.

We’d closed the old location, and the employees were now busy helping me move from one place to another. They were also helping me with inventory, and other odds and ends to make sure they got their hours until the new location was open.

If I was lucky, it’d be done in three weeks, according to the man in front of me.

The man that was seeing a little too much.

I turned my back on him and looked out the window, studying the parking lot.

It was smaller than I thought was good for a coffee shop/bakery, but you got what you got in the great, lovely DFW area.

Space was limited, and you were lucky to have parking at all sometimes.

“You want to give me some insight on what color cabinets you want?” he asked as he walked to his passenger side door and held the door open.

My heart literally melted.

Right there in a puddle in my parking lot.

I’d never had a man open the door for me, not even my brothers.

Sure, I’d witnessed them do it for their girlfriends, but never for me.

That had to be why I got into his truck.

At least, that was what I was telling myself.

Stop dating guys that look like they’d steal the copper out of your IUD.

—Life Lesson

CUTTER

She was a skittish little thing.

Though, my instincts were roaring at me to tell her what I’d heard her friend say about her, I decided that, maybe, I’d not butt into her life.

At least, not until I decided how to handle what I’d heard.

Maybe I’d just stay out of it.

I mean, the woman was nothing to me.

She was just a client.

I didn’t need to add her problems on top of my own.

Then again, I’d just invited her on a motorcycle ride to the fuckin’ prison that my brother was currently serving his sentence at. If I didn’t want to be involved with her problems, maybe I shouldn’t involve her in mine.

Though, she didn’t know that was where we were going.

I wasn’t super inclined to tell her, either.

I probably should.

But I wasn’t.

I don’t know if I was testing her or what, but if she wanted to have her mind off of her own problems, getting them onto mine seemed a good way to do it.

That, and if she thought she had it bad, all she had to do was see how Copper had it, and she’d know that her problems were insignificant in comparison.

When she got into my truck, I waited until her seatbelt was on before closing the door.

As I rounded the hood, I saw her eyeing all the shit around her, and grinned.

“Sorry,” I said as I got into my own seat. “It’s a work truck.”

“I can see that,” she said as she pulled a tape measure out of the crack between her seat and the console.

“Hey, I’ve been looking for that,” I said as I took it from her hand, my fingers brushing her palm. “Thanks.”

She flushed, and I wanted to run my finger down the length of her cheek.

Instead, I rolled the window down slightly and pulled out of my spot.

As I drove, I watched her face out of my peripheral vision, noticing her taking in every single turn we made.

“I live close to the lake,” I said. “Actually, I live on the lake if you want to be technical.”

Her brows furrowed. “What?”

I pulled down a street that not many people knew about, and her hands fisted in her lap.

Knowing she was probably freaking out right now, I said, “I live on a houseboat.”

Her mouth fell open. “What?”

I grinned at her incredulity. “I live on a houseboat. I was going to buy a place, but when my father passed away, he left me this thing in his will. As well as this parcel of land,” I pulled to a stop in a clearing. My motorcycle was under a covered porch area that housed a duck boat, my bike, and a spot for my truck. I pulled the truck in next to the bike before saying, “And I own about eight acres.”

“Wow,” she said as she looked out at the lake. “This has to be some prime real estate.”

“It is,” I said. “When my dad died, our grandfather separated the land and left all four of us twenty-four acres. We split it into three. My sister wanted nothing to do with the lake. This place holds some unhappy memories for her.”

She looked at me curiously, and I could tell that she wanted to ask, but I didn’t explain.

That would be something that I’d keep quiet.

I didn’t like telling my sister’s secrets.

If Keely felt that Milena should know them, then I’d share, but until then, I wasn’t going to make my sister vulnerable.

“You have three siblings? One sister and two brothers?” she asked instead.

“Yep,” I said as I got out of the truck.

She was unbuckling her belt and turning for the door handle when I had her door open.

“Thank you.” She blushed.

I wondered if any man had ever gotten the door for her.

Chivalry was a lost art among most men nowadays, but my grandfather taught all Clayborne siblings his ways, and he’d pitch a massive fit if he caught us not getting the door for a woman.

The way she was staring at me, a soft blush on her cheeks, let me know that she liked my grandfather’s teachings.

“This place is pretty cool,” she said as she stared at the house. “What’s that look like inside?”

I grinned. “Like a 1950s trailer on pontoons.”

I wouldn’t take her inside.

She looked nervous enough as it was.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes going to the lake. “I live across that point.”

I followed where she was pointing and saw what she was pointing at.

I didn’t bother to tell her that I already knew.

Instead, I said, “Big fuckin’ house.”

“The biggest.” She sighed. “That one isn’t mine, though. That’s Shasha’s. The one on the end, that one is my brother, Dima’s. I’m the next to last, and my sister’s sandwiched in between us. Though, when I say sandwiched, I really mean that we have about five acres between us.”

“Prime real estate,” I teased.

She sighed. “My brother’s insanely rich, protective, and overbearing.”

I grinned. “If Keely would, I’d have her sandwiched in between us, too.”

“Keely sounds like a smart girl,” Milena grumbled.

“The smartest,” I agreed as I led her to my bike. “I have a helmet that used to belong to an old girlfriend. It’s been in storage for a year, so I’m not sure how it smells.”

She wrinkled her nose. “We should’ve stopped to get one.”

I walked over to the storage room, pulled down the big tub that I held all my extra gear in, then pulled out yet another box.

I pulled it out and gave it a sniff.

Smelled brand new.

Which tracked, because other than getting it out of the box to look at it, my ex, Dorie, hadn’t much cared about riding.

I took the helmet out to her and offered it to her. “Smell.”

She did, pulling it back with a surprised look on her face.

Fitting it onto her head, she snapped the clasp closed and said, “It’s brand new.”

“Never even worn,” I admitted.

“She didn’t wear it?” she asked in surprise.

I grinned.

“I seem to attract women that don’t really care about my values and beliefs. Dorie, the original owner of the helmet, didn’t like riding with me. She said it made her feel dirty,” I explained. “We broke up because I, and I quote, ‘spend too much time with your club brothers and you might as well go fuck one of them.’”

She blinked rapidly, before her mouth twisted. “If she rode around with you, she might have gotten more time with you.”

I flashed her a grin. “Something I’d told her about a hundred times before we broke up.”

She gestured to the bike. “Where are we going again?”

I smiled. “Somewhere about two hours away. There’s a really nice diner there.”

That I’m going to leave you at while I go talk to my brother.

I didn’t know why I felt the need to have her go with me.

I should leave her here.

She’d probably be pissed as hell that I drove two hours and then left her at a diner for an hour, but I’d deal with that later.

Getting onto the bike, I held out my hand. “Mount, Go Go.”

She got onto the bike with surprising grace, then scooted up until she was almost touching me, but not quite.

I touched her knee with my hand, my fingers splaying over her lower calf, and said, “Scoot closer.”

She did.

“More.”

She scooted some more.

“All the way in, darlin’,” I urged.

She came the rest of the way, until every inch of her inner thighs, pussy, and torso was pressed to me.

I caught her hands and wrapped them around my middle. “Hold on tight.”

I started the bike, and I swore I felt a full body shiver.

“You okay?” I asked.

She nodded against my back. “Okay.”

I set off, questioning myself for the first ten miles.

By the time we got on the highway, and somehow her hand had made it up underneath my sweatshirt, pressing against my t-shirt-covered abs, I stopped questioning.

I wanted her here.

I’d wanted her with me since I’d taken her off her man’s bike.

There was no use in denying it.

Paper towels are just napkins on the cob.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

I should’ve probably questioned where we were going.

If I had, I might’ve figured out that where we were going was a good two hours away from where we’d started. I guess I thought it would be a two-hour trip altogether.

I also might’ve figured out that he was visiting a prison, and he expected me to stay at a diner for an hour while I waited for him to visit with his brother.

His brother that was in prison.

But I didn’t question him.

And now I was standing in front of a diner, staring at the man as he explained what was going to happen next.

He grabbed my hand, then walked us inside.

I was already on the fence about being here at a diner alone for an hour, but the moment we walked through the doors, the man who greeted us solidified the fact that I was most certainly not staying here alone.

The man at the front waiting area, sitting in a seat next to the door, was the first thing that caught my attention.

Why did he catch my attention?

Because the moment we walked inside, upon seeing me, he licked his lips and started stroking his junk.

“And who is this with you, my friend?” The repulsive man’s beady eyes went from me to Cutter and back.

Cutter looked at the man and dismissed him. “I’ll be an hour, tops. You can order us food in about forty minutes, and then we can eat before we get on the road again.”

I was shaking my head. “Why would I want to stay here?”

I moved to his other side when the beady-eyed man started to lick his lips.

He moved to the side so that he could see me better, and I continued to circle around Cutter’s body, feeling so uncomfortable that I was practically leaning into him.

“I know I probably should’ve mentioned—” he started, but I interrupted with, “Probably?”

“Okay, so I definitely should’ve said. But you looked like you needed a break, and I might’ve needed some incentive to get me here.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

He licked his lips. “My brother is going to ask about why Keely isn’t here, and I’m going to have to explain that she refuses to come.”

“What?” I asked.

“There’s a story,” he admitted. “Pretty much, some things happened to Keely…”

He hesitated as if he wasn’t sure how much to share.

“My dad was hurting my sister when my brother, Copper, caught him. Copper killed my dad, who was rich and important. My brother went away, and he’s been there for fifteen of his seventeen-year sentence,” he blurted. “About three years ago, one of my dad’s top aides was convicted of rape, and he’s also in prison. Which just so happened to be at the same prison that my brother’s at. My sister hasn’t confirmed it, but I have my suspicions that the reason that my sister refuses to come anymore is because of the aide.”

My stomach sank.

My dad was hurting my sister…

A dad hurting a daughter in any way was reprehensible. But I had a feeling the way he was hurting her went beyond that…

Disgust.

Pure disgust.

“Copper went down for your dad’s murder?” I asked, focusing on the major player, seeing as I was about to meet him.

“Yes,” he said, his eyes studying mine.

“Y’all should’ve gotten a better lawyer,” I grumbled. “Because I’m reading between the lines here but sounds like he maybe deserved it.”

He snorted. “We tried. My dad was just really…big.”

“Who was he?” I questioned.

“We don’t share the same last name,” I said. “When my dad died, we took my mom’s name. You’d know him as Castanon.”

“Castanon as in Castanon Industries, the biggest real estate mogul in the South?” I asked.

“That’s him.” He lifted his lip in disgust.

“I’ve heard a lot about him,” I said. “But I thought he was still alive seeing as his company is still thriving.”

That’s when Cutter’s eyes gleamed. “My sister is the one running it now…in her spare time. She owns the majority share of it, sits in as the head of the board of directors, and takes a pretty healthy dividend of their profits—or would if she agreed to take some of the shares. She won’t, because she feels like they’re Copper’s.”

“You don’t?” I asked.

He was already shaking his head before I could finish the question. “I want nothing of my dad’s. The only reason that Keely took it was because she was owed.”

I didn’t ask how she was owed.

But if Cutter felt like she was, then she was.

“Let’s go meet your brother first,” I urged.

“You want to go meet some random man in prison?”

I looked at the man that was still playing with his dick and said, “Most certainly.”

He followed my gaze and said, “Get the fuck out of here, perv.”

The man jolted, surprised that he was being addressed. Almost as if he was thinking he was invisible or something.

“Uh, I’m waiting for my lunch.”

“Then go wait in the fuckin’ car,” Cutter ordered. “Someone’ll bring it out to you.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it. “My mom said that I had to wait.”

“Does your mom know you’re a creep?” Cutter asked.

“Uh,” he said.

“Go,” Cutter snapped.

The man, which I now realized was a very young, likely not-all-there, early twenties ‘man,’ got up and bolted out the door.

“I’m still coming with you,” I asserted.

He opened his mouth, then closed it. “Okay.”

The ride to the prison was less than a mile.

“That is the women’s prison,” he pointed it out. “I have a friend that was in there. Her name is Sawyer. She’s married to a man that’s head of a motorcycle club in Louisiana.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s…interesting.”

He grinned at me. “She’s good people. Though, she was unjustly punished for something that wasn’t her fault.”

“I’m sensing a theme,” I said as he pulled to a stop in front of a building that looked intimidating as fuck. “I wonder how many men and women are doing time for a crime that was necessary.”

“Probably way more than you think,” he said as he got off.

I followed suit, grabbing the hand that he held out to me for balance.

I also held on to it for a bit too long, only realizing when we started walking that I was still holding onto it like a lifeline.

Did I let it go?

No.

I held onto it because I could.

When we got inside, a man’s gaze zeroed in on me.

“Rome,” Cutter nodded his head at the very large, very intimidating looking man. “How are the kids?”

I stepped behind my own very large, very intimidating man to block me from the other man’s view.

I wasn’t necessarily scared of him, per se, but the way he was looking at me like I was coming in here to do harm was making my heart race.

My watched vibrated, and I glanced down to see Shasha’s name on the screen with a ‘wtf are you doing at a prison?’

I ignored it, silenced my watch, and peeked out from behind Cutter’s muscular shoulder.

“They’re doing good.” He glanced at me, assessing. “How ya been? Haven’t seen your sister in a while.”

“She was busy. So, I brought Milena here,” Cutter said. “Go Go, drop your shit on the belt so he can scan it. They keep it while we’re visiting.”

I did as he instructed, only throwing one arm out to put my things on the belt before stepping back behind Cutter’s bulk.

There was a chuckle, and I wondered if he thought I was being weird or suspicious.

Probably suspicious.

I didn’t necessarily do well at prisons.

Not that I’d had any really bad experiences with them, just that they scared me.

There were a lot of bad men here…

And I had a very submissive personality, which automatically had me reacting weirdly anyway.

“Come on,” Cutter said as he caught my hand in his. “Just gotta have him use his wand on us to make sure we’re not concealing anything.”

I swallowed and moved to where there were footprints on the floor.

The big man, Rome, who I’d admit was sexy as hell later, came up to me with his wand. Now’s where I admit that being approached by a man with a wand with my legs spread wide should’ve been intimidating as hell, but when a man that looked like the guard named Rome did it, it was admittedly exciting.

“And who is Cutter to you, Milena?”

That’s when my mouth disconnected from my brain.

I mean, with a man like Rome so close, running a wand over your inner thighs, you tend to…disassociate.

A thousand thoughts went through it at once, and before I could stop myself, I was blurting out, “He’s my husband!”

There was a long pause, and then Rome the badass security guard looked from me to Cutter and back. “Huh. Didn’t see that coming.”

I was flushing beet red when I got through.

Cutter’s eyes were dancing, and I realized quickly that he knew I was nervous.

He hadn’t corrected me, either, likely to save me from embarrassment.

Cutter got the same treatment, and I realized that Rome didn’t treat me any differently, which had my anxiety level lowering.

A niggle of a memory, one that I kept shoved down deep with so many iron bars and walls around it, tried to peek through a crack. But I quickly slammed down every defense I had and tuned into the conversation that Rome and Cutter were having.

It was about our…marriage.

I flushed a deeper red.

“…married and not tell your brother?” Rome asked. “I haven’t heard a fuckin’ word about it, and I know that y’all write back and forth a lot. Since I’m one of the unlucky motherfuckers that gets to read the outgoing and incoming mail.”

“I don’t tell my brother everything,” Cutter admitted, not lying, but not exactly telling the truth, either.

When we were done, Rome gestured toward a room off to the side where a ton of other people had already taken seats at round, bolted to the floor tables with fixed bench seating surrounding them.

Cutter caught my hand and murmured down to me, “Married?”

I couldn’t stop the heat from hitting my cheeks. Again.

“I was flustered, okay?” I threw my hands up. “I was trying to decide whether to call you my dad, or my boyfriend. Then I started thinking that you look too scary to be my boyfriend. You’d have to be my man. And then, all of a sudden, my brain just shut down for like a half a second, and my husband came out.”

Cutter’s eyes shined with mirth for a few long seconds before he said, “Well, how, exactly, do you think this is going to work? You think we’re just going to be able to stop being ‘husband and wife’ after we leave here?”

I hadn’t thought that far.

“I…”

An obnoxious bell that sounded like it’d given up a few years ago sounded and I watched as everyone turned toward the door that was in the very far left corner.

Inmates started to come in wearing ugly brown jumpsuits, and our marriage was forgotten.

I knew the tenth person that came into the room was Cutter’s brother with one hundred percent certainty.

He was taller, bulkier—which shouldn’t have been possible—and looked a whole lot meaner.

However, you couldn’t deny the Clayborne family gene pool.

They had the same black hair, brown eyes, and height.

Oh, and the smile.

The moment that they saw each other, Copper’s smile was swift and lit up his entire face.

Wow.

Okay, so he’d gone from unapproachable to ‘I want to give you a hug’ in a half a second.

His eyes swept the tables as he went, and he glared at a few as he passed.

It was only when he got closer that he realized that Cutter wasn’t alone.

I sank down a little, curling my shoulders in on themselves, when the smile was wiped off his face.

“Who are you?” Copper barked.

I flinched.

“This is my wife,” Cutter drawled.

Copper’s brow furrowed.

He sat down opposite me and glared daggers.

“What?” Copper barked.

Cutter leaned in and explained everything.

Why I was there, who I was to him, and everything in between.

“Refused to stay at the diner, eh?” Copper turned to me. “I’d fuckin’ kill for a burger.”

I tilted my head. “There was a weird man making comments about my body there, and the only other two people that were there was a woman smaller than me making burgers in the back, and a woman behind the counter that looked old enough to be my grandmother’s age. Do you honestly think that I’m going to be sitting there, unprotected, with no one to help me? I didn’t make it to my age by being stupid.”

Copper’s lips twitched.

“So now that you’re married,” Copper said a little louder than was necessary. “When are you having kids?”

I blanched. “Let me enjoy my honeymoon period first!”

Copper laughed.

Cutter did, too, but a lot more contained.

“I like you, girl,” Copper said, then lowered his voice so that only Cutter and I could hear. “Don’t look now, but the douche that’s trying to singlehandedly add to my sentence is sitting behind you. Not sure how the fuck he got out here on good enough behavior to get visitors, but there he is.”

Whenever someone tells you not to look, it’s your honest to God reaction to look.

I tried to stop myself but couldn’t.

I turned my head, and that’s when I saw the man that was directly behind me.

I froze, my entire being going solid.

My vision tunneled, and the only person I could see was him.

“I bet you thought that you were safe,” he mouthed the moment my eyes met his.

He smiled a lecherous smile, and the walls around my greatest shame started to shake.

I was frozen.

Well and truly frozen.

I couldn’t move.

Couldn’t think.

Couldn’t breathe.

My vision was blackening around the edges, and I knew the panic attack was coming.

I couldn’t feel my fingers.

The last thing I remembered before I passed out was strong hands wrapping around my waist and pulling me to a muscular body.

I used to tell my mom she’s always mad for no reason. But look at me now, always mad Jr.

—Cutter’s secret thoughts

CUTTER

Amusement was simmering in my veins and had been since she’d called me her husband.

Had my ex-girlfriend tried that, I might’ve laughed it off, but I sure the fuck wouldn’t have gone with it.

I wouldn’t have let Rome think that I was actually married.

I wouldn’t have introduced her as my ‘wife’ to my brother.

I sure the fuck wouldn’t have been so okay with the thought.

Yet, there I was, sitting next to a crime lord’s sister, introducing her to my brother, and I felt…great.

I felt great.

Dorie had never met Copper.

Dorie had never asked to meet Copper, and I’d never asked her if she wanted to go.

Which really should’ve been her first red flag when it came to me.

Didn’t she ever wonder why I’d never asked her to come?

Because on my end, asking her to come would’ve indicated that she actually meant something to me. And since I hadn’t asked, that meant that I’d never seen the relationship going anywhere long term.

“I like you, girl,” Copper said, then lowered his voice. “Don’t look now, but the douche that’s trying to singlehandedly add to my sentence is sitting behind you. Not sure how the fuck he got out here on good enough behavior to get visitors, but there he is.”

“Is that the same one?” I asked.

“Lyle Pennington,” Copper grumbled. “The fuckin’ ass wipe that’s trying to make himself king of the pen.”

Copper had mentioned in his letter the day that Lyle Pennington had arrived.

He’d been transferred from another prison in Tennessee and had immediately started to assert his dominance and solidify his place in the prison.

From day one of his arrival, he’d been a thorn in Copper’s side.

First, he’d tried to win Copper over with his smarmy wiles. When Copper didn’t fall for it and not only refused to speak to him, but have anything to do with him, it’d pissed him off.

Because Copper had been here so long, he’d established himself as a man not to be messed with.

Everyone respected him from inmate to warden.

All the guards loved him.

Hell, there wasn’t a single person in the prison that didn’t respect him.

And Lyle Pennington wanted that kind of pull.

When Copper wouldn’t give him the time of day, Lyle had started to target him.

The last two years had been worse because of Copper having to constantly defend himself from Lyle’s attempts to hurt him.

If I could kill one man and get away with it, it’d be that douchebag.

I hated that my brother was struggling with it and hated even more that I couldn’t fix it for him.

“I…” I started to say, but the woman at my side started to sway.

I turned to her to see her face drained of all color.

There was no life to her face at all, and her breaths were coming in uneven pants.

Her entire body was shaking, and she was swaying on her seat, looking ready to fall over.

“Ahh, look who it is.”

The sound of his voice had me narrowing my eyes, but the absolute blankness out of the woman at my side had me terrified.

The shaking. The fear.

She was having a panic attack.

Had to be.

And she’d only started exhibiting these symptoms when she’d turned around and looked at who was behind her.

Who was now standing at the side of our table.

“Go sit down, Pennington, or you’ll be escorted back to your cell,” Rome’s deep, authoritative voice called out.

“Sorry, sorry.” Lyle held up his hands.

When they dropped back to his side, he purposefully reached out and brushed that finger down the back of Milena’s head, fingers running through her hair.

I got out of my seat so fast that Lyle took two very large steps back with his hands up.

“Whoa, accident!” He laughed. “I’m sitting…”

“You’re done, Pennington,” Rome said. “Back. Now.”

Lyle’s face went slack. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to my friend.”

“Not my concern,” Rome said.

“Is there a problem here?”

Warden Beauregard.

“No problem at all,” Lyle replied sweetly.

“Go. Now,” the warden snapped.

Lyle left with Rome to escort him.

Warden Beauregard, also known as Bayou to the outside world, took one look at me and said, “Your girl needs some help.”

I could see that.

Especially since she was all but collapsing on my body.

If I moved at all she’d fall over.

I had one hand on her head, holding her to my belly, and the other fisted at my side.

The need to murder that piece of shit was still boiling in my soul.

“I know,” I said.

“Go.” Copper looked on. “It’s okay.”

I bent down and gathered her into my arms.

Bridal style, I carried her out of the meeting room door—with everyone watching on curiously, even the fellow who’d been meeting with Lyle—and carried her to the row of chairs at the exit.

I sat down and pulled her deep into my embrace, surrounding her small body with as much of me as I could.

“Hey,” I said to her. “We’re gone. He’s gone. You’re okay.”

What in the hell could have happened?

The worst thing was, I couldn’t fuckin’ leave.

Not with her freaking out the way she was.

There was no way I could keep her on my bike and get us out of here.

“Here’s y’all’s things,” Bayou said, holding out a brown paper sack with our phones and my keys.

I gestured toward the seat next to me.

Bayou didn’t put it down.

He watched me for a few seconds before saying, “I have to go get my kids from school later. I have my wife’s Suburban. Do you want to take it to the diner?”

I glanced at him. “That would be great. You think you can get my bike down there to switch it out?”

“Sure,” he said, digging into my bag for the keys to my bike. “My keys are in the Suburban.”

I didn’t bother to ask him why they’d be sitting in there unattended.

Likely, no one had the balls to steal a prison warden’s vehicle, let alone the president of a motorcycle club.

And most everyone around the area knew who Bayou was.

Hell, I knew who Bayou was, and I lived two hours away from him.

A buzzing sound pulled my attention from my thoughts, and I reached into the paper bag to make sure it wasn’t mine, but saw Milena’s going nuts instead.

I glanced at the screen and couldn’t stop myself from reading all of her messages.

Shasha:

Swear to God, if you don’t tell me why you’re at that fucking prison right now, I’m going to burn it to the ground.

Shasha:

Answer me.

Shasha:

Seriously, Milena. Answer me.

Shasha:

I’m on my way.

Shasha:

Fuck. Please don’t go in there.

Shasha:

I’m an hour away.

Shasha:

Goddammit, Milena. Please answer me.

Shasha:

Forty-five minutes.

Shasha:

Please, please, please answer me.

The messages went on, and on, and on.

She had over a hundred messages from her brother and was getting them every minute.

Like he was texting her to keep her paying attention to him, and not the prison.

I looked back at Bayou, who nodded his head and said, “Get her out of here.”

I didn’t waste time.

I did stop and glance at Bayou as we were leaving to say, “I want to know everything that you have on Lyle Pennington.”

Bayou nodded once, and I headed to his Suburban.

The trip took a minute tops, but instead of putting her down when I got behind the wheel, I kept her in my arms for the mile it took to get me to the diner.

I pulled to a stop, turned off the vehicle, and wrapped both arms around her.

It was in that moment that I made a decision.

A stupid one? Most definitely.

A rash one? Of course.

One that I would never regret? Bingo.

Milena’s phone buzzed again, and with it, she shivered hard.

Shasha:

Please fucking call me.

Deciding he’d been worrying enough, I used my own phone to call him but used her phone to get the number from.

After I had it dialed, I hit Call, then placed her phone on the console face down.

Shasha answered the first ring. “Milena?”

“Not Milena,” I said. “This is…”

“I know who you are. How’s Milena?” he snapped.

I didn’t bother to ask how he knew.

I looked down at Milena’s face, which was buried into my chest.

Her breathing had slowed.

I didn’t know if it was because she knew who I was talking to, or if it was the sound of my voice.

Whatever the reason, I kept doing both.

“She had a panic attack when we were inside the prison,” I said. “Lyle…”

“Fuck!” I heard something bang. Likely Shasha’s fist against a steering wheel. “Fuckin’ shit!”

I smoothed my hands through Milena’s hair, hoping that it would help soothe her.

Her hair was so fuckin’ long.

Down to her damn waist.

Seriously, some of the strands were touching the seat that I was sitting on, it was so long.

“I wouldn’t have taken her in there had I known…”

“She didn’t know, either,” he admitted, voice hoarse. “No one but me and Dima know.”

“Tell me everything,” I pleaded. “This same motherfucker has been messing with my brother’s good behavior in prison. I want to know what we’re dealing with.”

I needed to know.

And the brother thing was a lie.

I needed to know solely because of the fact that it was Milena.

That decision I’d made earlier?

It was resolute.

She was going to be mine.

She might’ve inadvertently claimed me earlier, but I was advertently claiming her now.

She would be mine.

She would be my old lady.

She would eventually be my wife.

She would never go another day without me there.

I just had to ease her into it, first.

“Lyle Pennington—” The name sounded like a curse. “He and Milena briefly dated. She was seventeen, him twenty-five. I had no clue about it at first. Just knew that she was dating someone. When I finally met him, I was fucking livid. At first, I’d noticed changes coming from her. Her attitude. The way that she treated Dima and Nastya. The constant undertone of not feeling good enough. I watched my baby sister change from a budding young woman to a scared, hollow version of herself. And that was all because of him. The moment I met him, I knew that he was the reason for her change. And, because there’s no way a man that much older than my sister was going to date her, I forced them to break up.”

I was guessing it didn’t end so easily, or the man wouldn’t be in prison right now.

“Did what I needed to do to make sure that he stayed away. Until one day he snapped. He came by the house dressed as a guard. Even looked exactly like the one that usually came in for his shift around that time. The other guard left, leaving the house pretty much unprotected. I’d forgotten my wallet at the house, so I came home to get it before a meeting. When I walked in, it was to find Milena on the ground…”

He trailed off, and I didn’t need to hear more.

I knew.

I knew deep in my heart exactly what had happened.

“I was on the verge of killing the motherfucker, but at some point, Milena must’ve gotten a phone call out to the cops. They showed up lights and sirens and pulled me off of the disgusting piece of shit. Another minute, and he would’ve been dead.”

Good riddance.

“And he gets out this year,” Shasha said quietly. “I’m not sure how, but he made bail.” He blew out a deep breath. “I’m heading there now. I’m assuming she won’t make it home on the back of your bike.”

No, I didn’t think she would.

I squeezed her just a little bit tighter.

I was probably cutting off her air supply, but at this point, I couldn’t stop myself.

The shivering had come down.

She was no longer shaking in my arms, but she was sitting deathly still.

“I’m in front of the diner about a mile from the prison,” I informed him.

“I’m less than thirty minutes out.”

I didn’t bother to ask how he’d gotten to that point so fast. I just said ‘okay’ and hung up.

Milena never said another word.

She did relax in my arms, though.

She went from a shaking, stiff mess to a loose, languid, melty woman in my arms.

She fell asleep at some point, and I kept holding her exactly like this for the next twenty-four minutes.

Shasha arrived beside the Suburban and didn’t wait for me to get out myself. He walked right up to my door and stared at his sister.

Since he could see her face, he didn’t say much.

He only opened his passenger side door and gestured for me to put her in.

I did, placing her gently into the car.

Shasha rounded to the other side and pulled a couple of pink blankets from the back seat.

One he shoved underneath Milena’s head, and the other he gave to me to cover her with.

Carefully closing the door, I looked at Shasha over the roof.

“I would’ve never brought her here had I known,” I commented. “I was just trying to get her on the back of the bike again. I didn’t want her to be afraid.” I paused. “She’s had a really bad day today.”

Shasha’s head turned. “What else happened?”

I told him what I’d heard the two women talking about at the park bathrooms today.

His eyes narrowed.

“I don’t know what else happened, but she was really fuckin’ down when I saw her last,” I elaborated. “Running on the side of the road where a car could’ve hit her.”

He rubbed his hands over his face.

“Sometimes, she puts on such a good front that I forget that she’s broken,” he murmured.

Broken.

Was she broken?

I didn’t think so.

“She started running when she first got…” He couldn’t even say the word. Which tracked, because I couldn’t even think it. “She started running, and she got back to herself. Started going on dates. Started living life again. But sometimes, if you catch her at the right moment, she forgets to put the mask on. Forgets to act like she’s happy.”

My stomach, which had already been in knots, seized into one large ball of horror.

“She’s moved on. She’s dated. Had sex. Seen a therapist. She’s doing all the right things. I just know…I know that she still has issues,” he intoned. “But I never see those issues, because she tries her hardest to act like everything’s okay around us.”

I rubbed the back of my neck.

“I have a guard on her twenty-four-seven now,” he confided. “That was how I knew where you were. He gives me constant updates on her.”

I imagined.

“I knew he was there,” I nodded. “I just wanted her to escape.”

“The night that her ex tried to kill her on the back of the bike…she’d surprised the guard by leaving. He tried to keep up, but it was impossible,” he explained.

I hadn’t really thought about that, but it made sense.

A vehicle wouldn’t have a chance of keeping up with a bike.

“I’ll watch out for her now, too,” I told him.

His eyes met mine over the top of his car. “She has a bad track record of choosing losers.”

I grinned. “She hasn’t chosen me. I’m choosing her.”

I imagined that it was going to take some convincing on my end to get her to give me a chance.

But it was work I was willing to put in.

Shasha sighed. “I’ll take her from here.”

Meaning, he decided that I was done.

Maybe for now, Shasha Semyonov, but not forever.

Jerking my chin up at him, I stepped away from the car, and he opened his car door.

The purr of his Mercedes engine sounded, and seconds later he was driving away.

Rubbing at the spot on my chest that was all of a sudden aching, I watched them leave.

Then I went back to the prison.

I keep subtitles on because sometimes I chew too loud.

—Cutter to Chevy

CUTTER

Bayou met me at the door, his concerned eyes looking in the car and behind me, likely wondering where Milena had gone.

“Sorry, shit got out of hand when you left,” he said. “Got her squared away?”

I nodded, jaw clenched tight.

I was torn on whether to share with him everything I knew about Pennington, but it proved unnecessary when Bayou said, “Was that her? The one that he hurt?”

I looked up at him and said, “You know?”

“Looked it up after you left,” he said as he caught the keys that I threw him. “Was wondering what he did to put that look on her face.”

The way his jaw clenched meant that he knew exactly what the fuck he’d done.

I was still numb.

Just the thought of a hair on her head being misplaced was enough to make me want to roar in fury.

For her to have gone through that…

“I was hoping to get through the rest of visitor’s hour,” I admitted.

He jerked his chin. “Head on in. I’ll give you an extra hour if you want it.”

I did.

I missed my brother.

But today, we had more to talk about.

And Copper listened.

He listened to everything, not interrupting once.

His eyes, however, showed how furious he was.

That was the one thing that the Claybornes couldn’t do.

We couldn’t hide our anger, because it always shone through our eyes.

And Copper was fucking furious.

When Bayou finally came in to let us know that I needed to leave, I was beyond exhausted.

After giving my brother a back-slapping hug, I caught my keys from Bayou as I passed and headed back to Dallas.

Instead of going home, though, I went to where I knew I would get the help I needed.

When I got to the clubhouse later that night, it was with anger still simmering in my veins.

The crew met me at the bar, and there I told them everything, not leaving out a single detail.

Not because I was telling Milena’s life story, but because I knew that I would need help should that look in Copper’s eyes fail to accomplish what I knew he was planning.

If Lyle Pennington ended up getting out, I would need a plan in place to make sure that he wasn’t breathing free for long.

How do I take my coffee? Seriously. Very seriously.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

I woke up in my bed.

I blinked open my eyes and stared at the man sharing my bed.

A smile bloomed on my face, and I launched myself at him.

Dima laughed, caught off guard, and slammed back against the headboard.

“When did you get in?” I cried, squeezing his neck hard.

Which, inevitably, wasn’t that hard.

When he squeezed me back, it was to cause my breath to seize inside my chest.

Only when he let up did I say, “Does anyone else know that you’re here yet?”

“Shasha was here when I got here. Got pissy that I didn’t tell him that I was coming,” he said. “You want to talk about it?”

He knew.

Which, honestly, didn’t surprise me.

I mean, if Shasha was here when he got here, then Shasha would’ve shared.

There were no secrets in my family.

At least, not the ones that didn’t come as happy surprises when certain people came home…

“Not really,” I admitted.

I mean, what was there to tell?

I’d seen my rapist in prison.

He’d been sitting behind me, likely fully aware of me, the entire time.

Meanwhile, I’d been happy and content where I was, thinking that my rapist was in prison, far, far away.

“When did he move?” I asked. “I thought he was in Tennessee?”

“He was,” Dima said. “But he was moved a couple of months ago due to overcrowding issues in the prison back home.”

Before we’d moved to Texas, we’d lived in Tennessee.

When our sister, Maven, had been kidnapped from Gatlinburg on a family vacation, we’d settled there in hopes that one day she might come back.

Except, she never came back.

It was two decades later that an app that Maven’s best friend had created made a match with Maven’s missing person’s poster. From there, we’d moved to Dallas, wanting to be closer to her and her family.

We’d left Tennessee behind.

I, for one, had been more than happy to do that thanks to all the horrible memories that Lyle had given me.

I’d thought I was safe and happy here.

I was wrong.

“Shasha and I are kicking ourselves for not telling you,” Dima said. “He wants to know if you want to have dinner with the family tonight.”

I was already shaking my head, my mind skipping to a different place that I wanted to be.

“I need to go see my…I need to go see Cutter,” I confided.

“Cutter the motorcycle club friend?” Dima asked. “I’ve heard about him, too.”

I smiled. “I want to let him know that I’m okay.”

“Do you mind if I tag along?” he asked carefully.

I thought about it for a long moment and then said, “Dima, I’d like to do this alone. I have to explain today.”

He was quiet for a long moment and then, “What if I drive you there, and you send me a text that you don’t need me, and I’ll leave?”

Used to making compromises for the protective men in my family, I agreed.

“But first I need to find out where his clubhouse is,” I said.

Dima laughed. “Leave that to me.”

I left it to him for half an hour while I showered again and got dressed.

I chose to wear leggings, an oversized long-sleeved t-shirt and tennis shoes—my go-to outfit when I wanted to feel comfy.

Today practically begged for comfortable, too.

After the day I’d had…

“You look like a drowned rat,” Dima said as he came into the bathroom and sat on the counter next to where I was drying my hair.

I gave him the hair dryer and my brush, then turned around.

Used to helping me, he took both and started to blow dry my hair.

One of the deals that we had when I wanted to cut my hair at seventeen was they’d—Shasha and Dima—help me blow dry it whenever I wanted. I don’t know why it was so important to keep the long hair, but I’d never cut it. Even though I’d wanted to.

Badly.

He was on minute twenty when the hulking form of my oldest brother filled the door of my bathroom.

I smiled at him hesitantly, and he took a long step forward and wrapped his arms around my body.

Dima shut the hair dryer off and I had no other recourse but to bury my face in Shasha’s chest.

“I’m sorry for not telling you, Mil,” he rumbled.

I nodded, not bothering to say a word.

I knew he felt bad, and there was no reason to make him feel worse when he’d only done it to save me the heartache of knowing that my rapist and abuser was in the same state as me, and two hours away at that.

“Let me finish this, bro,” Dima suggested a long while later. “My ass is getting numb from halfway sitting in the sink.”

Shasha let me go, but not before he gave me one last squeeze.

Dima finished my hair while Shasha leaned against the doorframe watching us.

His dark, all-knowing eyes stayed on me while I looked down at my toes.

I didn’t want him to see the fear in my eyes.

Today had been…bad.

That night, thirteen years ago, had been the worst night of my life.

I’d been home alone except for the guards. Daniil had been the newest guard added to my brother’s team, and he was currently suffering from a case of food poisoning. But he’d stayed doing his job until his replacement had shown.

He hadn’t wasted time when he saw the guard come in, darting out the door after a brief exchange.

I’d gone back to binge watching Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel.

I was on one about a snowman coming to life when I felt the hair prickle on the back of my neck.

Turning my face, I stared at the guard. Christensen.

He was closer than he was the last time I looked at him, but he wasn’t paying attention to me. He was looking out the window.

“Hey, Christensen. What is it?” I asked.

That’s when Christensen turned, and I realized that the guard in my room wasn’t a guard at all.

I made a dash to climb over the sofa and run, but that only put me at the worst possible angle.

He was on me in two strides.

I’d only had time to lean over the sofa in my attempt to escape when I felt his hands on me.

He roughly ripped my pants off and…

“Done,” Dima said, pulling me out of the memories of the worst night of my life.

Sick.

I felt sick.

I’d done all the things after that night.

I’d gone to a therapist. I’d talked about it with my family. I’d been open and honest about everything that I experienced.

There’d been very bad days, but eventually over time, I’d learned to cope with the horror that had happened to me.

I’d never gotten over it, per se, but I’d learned to deal with it in a semi-healthy way.

Sure, I’d buried it deep so I basically never thought about it, but I was living.

I’d slept with men since.

I’d had many, many boyfriends.

All of them knew about what happened to me, because I made sure to tell all of them so if I freaked out, they knew why.

But I didn’t freak out all that much anymore.

Unless, that is, I saw my rapist at a prison he wasn’t supposed to be at.

The day that he got out was going to be the worst day of my life.

And the worst day of his, because I knew that the moment he was free, Shasha and Dima were going to kill him.

I cursed myself every single night for fucking up and calling the police instead of my brother.

Had I called my brother, he might’ve gotten there faster and dealt with the problem. But I’d automatically called the police, and they’d stopped Shasha from killing him.

Now, he was alive and living in prison knowing that he only had to serve a thirteen-year sentence.

I had exactly two years left until I had to start dealing with the fact that life was about to get complicated.

“Are you even listening to me?” Shasha asked.

I looked up at him and said, “When he gets out…”

Shasha grinned then, showing his upper and lower teeth. “Then he’s going to die.”

I shook my head. “Find a way to do it so that your daughters don’t have to grow up without a father.”

“Daughters. Times three. One more on the way.”

I blinked.

Then I straightened out of my lean against the counter and said, “What?”

“Brecken is pregnant again. With another girl,” he said. “We found out about fifteen minutes ago. Wanted to come over and tell y’all the good news in person.”

I shrieked and threw my hands to his face, then pulled it down to mine so I could kiss him on the cheek.

“Congrats, man,” Dima said. “Looks like I came home at the perfect time.”

After I did the whole jumping and dancing thing, Shasha put his arm around my waist and guided me into the living room where Brecken was sitting with their daughters, Vivi and Rosie.

The moment I saw her, I excitedly moved to her.

She looked at me sadly, and I pulled her to her feet and said, “I can’t wait until she’s here!”

Brecken laughed and we all exchanged another round of hugs and kisses.

Vivi, too, joined in on the excitement.

“Are you excited, baby?” I asked her.

“I’m not the baby anymore,” she declared. “Haven’t been for a while. You’re going to have to find a new name for me.”

“Okay, how about…” I tapped my upper lip. “Tiny?”

She scrunched up her nose. “That’s derogatory.”

I laughed. “I’ll think of a new nickname, then. One that’s not derogatory.”

Shasha had given Vivi a word of the day calendar, and she’d used the words in daily speech relentlessly.

I loved it and hated it, because some of the words not even I knew, and I was a thirty-one-year-old woman.

After we’d all calmed down, and were sitting on the couches, Vivi declared that she was going outside to sit in the hot tub.

Her bodyguard went with her to keep an eye on her, and the three of them stared at me, studying me.

I stared back until finally I said, “Shasha, did you or Dima find out where the Truth Tellers MC clubhouse is?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Will you take a guard with you?”

I shrugged. “I will until I get there.”

Meaning, I didn’t want one to stay.

Or come in with me.

Shasha sighed.

Dima said, “I’ll take her.”

Shasha turned to him and said, “What’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean?” he replied, looking away.

“You had another four months left on that deployment. You shouldn’t be here,” Shasha countered.

Dima opened his mouth and then closed it for a long time before saying, “I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

“Fair enough,” Shasha said, turning back to me. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I am…going to make it,” I said, not bothering to lie.

That was all I could give him.

I wasn’t great.

But I wasn’t bad, either.

I was what I was, and that wasn’t going to change until this looming presence of Lyle Pennington stopped hanging over my head.

The moment he was dead, then I’d be good.

But not until then.

Ain’t no cookie better than a subways Michael Damien cookie.

—Doc to Cutter (Macadamia)

CUTTER

I was on my second bottle of beer, and hot beer at that.

I didn’t even wait for the shit to cool down after the prospect brought it inside before I’d popped the lid on not one bottle, but two.

I’d finished the first bottle in about a minute and a half. The second one I was slowing down a bit on.

The men around me were all staring.

“What are the fuckin’ odds?” Detroit asked, not expecting an answer.

“Exactly.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “I mean, I feel like a fuckin’ asshole for taking her there now.”

Out of all the places that she could have seen someone that caused her trauma, why did it have to be there?

I shouldn’t care so fuckin’ much.

Really, I should be indifferent that I could never take her to meet my brother properly ever again.

But I was pissed way the hell off, and I had one single person to blame.

“You weren’t doing the wrong thing.” Webber, our president, used his authoritative voice that would usually shake me out of my funk. “You were doing what you thought would get her into a better mood. And that’s taking her for a ride. You should’ve probably left her at the diner but…”

“But now that you know that she was hurt in the worst way, leaving her anywhere by herself is never going to happen again,” Apollo grumbled. “Someone’s here.”

My brows lifted. “Who?”

The clubhouse was wired with some of the best security one could have.

All of it put in by a military member that now owned a construction business and built secure locations that were better than Fort Knox.

The clubhouse wouldn’t withstand a siege or anything, since the man had only done the security, but it was good enough to deter the most unwanted of visitors for a time.

It was also incredibly hard to find unless you knew where to look.

For someone to be here, meant that they knew where to look.

Apollo, our resident genius—literally, he had a higher IQ than ninety-eight percent of the world—was also the one that kept all of our security up to date. He monitored our houses, places of business, the clubhouse, and various places around town that we owned or operated.

He was, by far, our best friend in the tech world.

He was also on the FBI watch list because he didn’t know how to keep his nose out of places he didn’t belong.

Not that we worried that he’d get caught.

He wouldn’t.

And if the feds got something they felt they could pin on him, Apollo would beat it.

“Woman.” He frowned. “That’s the girl. The one that…”

The one that I’d just told them was sexually assaulted.

“Y’all can’t act like y’all know,” I said as I stood up and downed my beer.

The only reason I’d told them was because I wanted to find a way to kill the motherfucker.

If he ever got out of jail, it would be a short-lived freedom.

Apollo tapped away on his computer before saying, “Her brother, the one that’s in the military, is with her.”

“Which one is that again?” Webber asked as he took a slow sip of his beer.

“Dima Semyonov,” Apollo answered. “He looks a little pissy, too. Like he doesn’t want to be here. Why do you think she made him bring her?”

I grinned and dropped my two beer bottles in the trash.

As I finished, I turned around and saw the two of them standing in the door.

Dima did look pissed that he was there.

Milena looked nervous.

A man that wanted to become a prospect approached her, giving his charming smile that usually worked on everyone in the damn world.

But not fucking this one.

Before I could think about what I was going to say, the words just came out.

“Stay away from my wife!” I snarled to the young kid with aspirations of joining our club.

He wouldn’t make it.

Not just anyone off the street could.

Then I heard it.

The most magical goddamn sound in the world.

A tinkling laugh.

I looked up to find Milena staring at me, a smile on her face.

“What the fuck do you mean by wife?” Dima asked, starting to push Milena behind him.

I walked up to Milena, pushing her brother out of the way as she said, “It’s a joke, Dee-dee. Learn to take it.”

“I don’t like when people joke about taking my sister away from me,” Dima, a.k.a. ‘Dee-Dee,’ grumbled.

I offered him my hand and said, “I’ll make sure she comes to visit often.”

The laugh sounded again, and both Dima and I shared a look. His said “the only reason I’m allowing this is because you’re making her laugh and she needs to laugh right now.” Mine said, “I don’t care what you think, I’d do anything to make her laugh. I’ve claimed that laugh as my own.”

Both of us acknowledged the other’s thoughts, and we turned to survey the woman behind our motivation.

“I see you found the secret clubhouse,” I mused, studying her.

She looked better.

Well rested.

“Shasha can find anything that he wants,” she admitted. “Plus, he has a really good computer guy that is a genius at finding things that are hidden.”

“He does,” Apollo called from somewhere behind us. “His name is Lev. He’s got an IQ score that rivals mine. He’s been at it less time than me, which is why I’m still better. But I imagine if we give it a few more years, he’ll surpass even me. He has the driving force of anger behind him and has something to prove.”

Both Dima and Milena turned to study Apollo.

Apollo was an attractive man, even me, secure in my heterosexuality, could admit that he was something to look at.

Which had me feeling a jealousy that I shouldn’t be.

I moved so that my body was blocking her view anyway.

Her eyes traveled up the length of my chest before stopping on my lips for a long moment, which had my dick jerking in my pants, before continuing up to my eyes.

“Can I have a beer?”

She could have my whole goddamn soul if she wanted it.

“Absolutely,” I said. “But it’s hot…”

She smiled. “I don’t mind hot beer.”

I caught her hand and led her deeper into the clubhouse, introducing her to my club brothers as I moved.

I stopped at Chevy, however, and said, “This is my brother, Chevy.”

Milena studied my brother, who was fast asleep on the couch.

“He looks just like you and Copper,” she said. “Why is he sleeping? How is he sleeping?”

“Chevy works at the hospital,” I said. “On the overnight shift. It pays a whack, he only has to work four days a week, and it exhausts him, so he doesn’t have to think about his issues.”

A brown eye became visible as my brother’s eyes opened a slit. “Why are you standing over me?”

“Because you’re sleeping in the middle of a party,” Milena’s sweet voice replied.

God, she was beautiful.

His eyes opened farther. “What time is it?”

“Almost seven o’clock,” she answered without missing a beat.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “I have to go to work in fifteen.”

Chevy sat up and stretched his arms over his head.

He was studying Milena at the same time she was studying him.

Milena was right.

We all looked alike. Even Keely looked like us, and she was most definitely a girl.

My mom’s genes persevered in all of us, which was a good thing, because no one wanted to look like their sex offender father.

“You have purple eyes,” Chevy noticed.

“I have hazel-blue eyes that sometimes resemble purple.” She shrugged.

“Those are fuckin’ purple,” he disagreed. “Copper’s the one with colorblindness. I can most definitely tell my colors apart.”

Milena’s lips twitched. “Is that right?”

“That’s right.” He stood up, standing to his full height, which was just a hair shorter than my six-foot-three. “I hate to go, but if I don’t, I don’t get overtime, and I need overtime to pay for my brother’s house.”

Then he was gone, leaving Milena with a questioning look on her face. “What?”

I led her to the bar, got her a semi-cold beer, and explained.

“When my brother went to prison, the three remaining siblings decided that twenty-five percent of our paychecks would go into a savings account that would help set Copper up when he got out,” I explained. “When he gets out, he’ll have a whack in a 401K for him, as well as enough money in a high-yield savings account that’ll more than pay for any house he wants to build on the lake.”

“Wow,” she said, eyes wide. “That’s…” I waited for her to say ‘generous’ or ‘crazy’ but what she went with was, “Sweet.” She looked confused for a moment. “But didn’t you say that your sister ran your dad’s company for him?”

I grimaced. “Kind of. We’re not one hundred percent sure he’ll take any of the money from that place. Keely doesn’t. And so we’re preparing in case he won’t want anything to do with it.” My eyes narrowed slightly. “You don’t think it’s stupid that I live in a shitty house when I could be saving that money I’m putting into his account and putting it toward my own house?”

She was already shaking her head before I could finish. “To be completely truthful, I think that it’s very heartwarming to hear that you want to take care of your brother. You haven’t told me exactly what happened with your sister, but had Shasha gone to jail for beating up my attacker…” she trailed off. “I’d have done the same thing. I’d have given him my whole entire soul if he’d asked.”

She understood.

More than understood.

She’d experienced it with her own eyes.

Her brother might not have gone as far with Milena’s attacker as my own brother had, but she more than understood the feeling to make sure that Copper was always covered. He’d given up his life for our sister. It was only fair that we helped him when he got out.

I hooked my hand on her chair and turned her on the barstool so that her legs were between mine.

“Are you okay?”

She knew what I was asking despite not outright saying the words.

“I’m okay,” she admitted. “Not good. Not bad. Just okay.”

That was better than I expected, to be honest.

“Who wants another round?” Webber yelled.

Milena tossed back the last of her beer then stood up before saying, “Me!”

I grinned, loving the direction my night had just taken.

The day they handed out patience, Milena left because it was taking too long.

—Cutter to Chevy

CUTTER

My eyes peeled open and I stared at the stained roof, my head momentarily offline as I tried to figure out how I’d gotten in the position that I was in.

Then the woman next to me moved, and I was reminded.

Last night, I’d stopped drinking after my fourth beer.

Milena and Dima had not.

They’d both imbibed enough that I knew they’d needed to let off steam.

Some of the brothers got just as shit-faced as them.

Others had kept it mostly sober to protect the lone woman in our midst.

Long hours later, we’d driven back to my place in Dima’s car, and I’d hauled them both inside.

Dima was on my couch snoring—I could hear him sawing logs from the bedroom—and Milena was currently in my arms.

The woman was dead asleep, which was how I’d extricated myself from her embrace.

Last night, she’d dressed in a pair of my sweats and my NAVY sweatshirt that was so big on her that it might as well have been a blanket.

Today, the sweats had ridden up from her ankles to reside around her lower thighs, right above her knee. The sweatshirt was still in place, but half of her shoulder was visible.

And all that black hair was spread…everywhere.

On the pillow. The mattress. My pillow. Under both pillows.

How did she sleep with it unbound?

Okay, so the woman was adorably cute.

Until she went to sleep.

Then she had some terrifying things to say.

At first, I thought the sleep talking was adorable.

But then she started saying creepy things.

For instance, the last thing she’d said that had woken me from a dead sleep was, “Do you see it? It’s right behind you.”

At one point in the night she’d woken and said, “What’s that on your dresser?”

From that point on, I’d decided that earplugs might be the way to go the next time I slept with her.

Standing up and stretching my arms up high over my head, I yawned, though I tried to do it quietly as not to wake the woman that definitely needed some sleep.

When I got through brushing my teeth and using the bathroom, I headed out to the coffee pot that I’d set to brew not long ago—which likely had been part of why I’d woken.

The smell of coffee was one of my most favorite things in the morning.

The first was pussy, but that wasn’t in the cards for me right then, so I went with the coffee as a close runner up.

I was taking a sip of the brew when I saw a leg on my front porch.

I moved to the side so I could see better, and saw Shasha Semyonov on my porch, drinking his own cup of coffee—this one from a travel mug.

I walked out the sliding glass door and took a seat in my chair beside him.

“Did she sleep okay?” he asked the moment I sat down.

“Other than the creepy comments throughout the night, she slept fine,” I admitted, unsure what I was supposed to do with Milena’s brother on my porch.

“I had my ear to the ground last night,” he continued.

I waited, not sure that I would like to hear what he was about to say.

“One, I have a lot of eyes on me after Nastya went through a murder investigation years ago,” he said. “It’s been lurking under the surface for a long time, meaning, if I kill that motherfucker the moment he gets out of prison—which apparently is supposed to happen soon—I’ll have every goddamn law enforcement agent in the city coming down on my head.”

“Okay…” I waited for him to add more, and he did moments later.

“I want you to kill him for me.”

My brows rose.

“What makes you think I wasn’t already going to do that?” I asked.

“Because you have a lot to lose,” he said. “I want to give you an incentive.”

I waited, not sure I liked where this was going.

“I want you to marry my sister.”

I blinked, not sure I’d heard him correctly.

“Hear me out.” He held up a hand. “First, I want you to know that we could have an alliance. Or, more accurately, myself and your club.”

I didn’t respond.

“I know that you do some illegal shit,” he began. “I’ve left you alone in this city because your shit doesn’t affect my shit. But I think that we could be better together.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means that if you need help getting your product out of this city, I’m your man. What’s mine is yours. As long as you marry my sister, and you keep her safe,” he elaborated. “I saw the way you looked at her.”

He wasn’t wrong.

I had looked at her in a way that didn’t need to be explained.

I wasn’t sure, though, that I wanted to start a relationship with this woman on the wrong note. I felt what we had could easily be something that could last a lifetime, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that…

“He’s going to kill her the moment he’s out,” Shasha snapped. “I’ve been trying to get her to allow me to have a guard move in with her for years, and she keeps refusing. She wants to seem independent. I don’t know. But the guards that I keep outside her place have intercepted three hits that were taken out on her.”

I blinked, turning my head slowly to stare at him.

“The latest hit was her own ex-boyfriend,” he fumed. “Asher accepted the hit in exchange for someone paying off all his student loans. That night you got her off his bike, he was going to push her off into traffic. He’d set it all up.”

My stomach clenched.

“I need you to be there on the inside. Until I can get to the bottom of this, until Lyle Pennington is nothing but a speck of dust on this Earth, she’ll never be safe,” he insisted.

I swallowed hard. “And how, exactly, are we going to make this happen?”

His lips curled. “Leave it to me.”

I looked at him then.

“I’m not leaving anything to you,” I said carefully. “Do I think that you coordinating with my club will be a good thing? Yes. Do I think that this is a fucked up situation that I’m going to profit from? Also, yes. But I’m not doing anything to hurt her in any way. I’ll marry your sister. I’ll make her mine. But I don’t want her to leave me later on because she finds out that this was all set up by her brother.”

“You actually like her.” He studied my face.

“Like I’ve never liked anyone else in my life,” I admitted. “I just got out of a year-long relationship with a woman that I could barely stand to be around. It’s been like that for all of my long-term relationships. And even a few short-term. I like them, but not enough to change my life for.”

“But not with Milena,” Shasha said.

I didn’t answer him at first.

I stayed quiet, contemplating my next words, before saying, “I’ve never felt like this before with anyone.”

“I thought that when I met Brecken.” He grinned. “I wasn’t sure that I would ever feel that way about anyone, and then I met her, and she started stalking me, and I couldn’t stop myself from finding it amusing.”

My brows rose. “She stalked you?”

“Minutely,” he answered. “In a cute, she never quite could figure out how to conceal herself, kind of way.”

I grinned. “I don’t want her to hate me when this is all done.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Sounds like you might love her.”

I grimaced.

“I don’t know that I’m…”

“You might not acknowledge it to yourself yet,” he offered. “But it takes half a second to fall. And when you do, you’ll tell yourself it isn’t what it is. You’ll fight it, because loving women like them is like taking your soul and giving it to some barely capable of taking care of herself person to protect and nurture your very being. You don’t expect them to take care of it as well as they do, and all of a sudden, one day you’ve let them all the way in and never intended to. You think, okay, how bad can it be? She’s a tiny little thing half my size. I’m stronger, faster. She doesn’t have that kind of hold over me. Then she almost dies in your arms, and you’re wondering how the fuck you’re supposed to live without her.”

I swallowed hard.

“That sounds awful.”

He laughed. “It’s the best goddamn feeling in the world. You only have to give her everything.”

I didn’t care what he said.

That wasn’t something I was willing to do.

At least, I didn’t think it was.

But the way Shasha looked right then…he made me want what he had.

Could I have that with Milena?

The sliding glass door opened and Dima walked out, looking rough as fuck.

He had a beer mug full of coffee, and I laughed into the one and only coffee cup I had and took a drink.

“You need more coffee cups,” he grumbled as he took the last remaining seat on my porch.

I looked out over the water, checking out the very point of the lake where I knew the Semyonovs lived, and said, “I never needed more than one before.”

When Dorie semi-moved in without me asking, she’d brought extra everything.

When she’d left, she’d taken it all back with her.

I’d had to go out and buy a coffee mug because she’d taken mine with her, as well as the few forks and knives that I’d had.

At least she’d left me my paper plates…

“Well, my sister likes her coffee, so I hate to break it to you, but you’re gonna have to come up with something,” he pointed out.

I grinned. “I’d go out and buy her one but…doesn’t she own a coffee shop? She could make a better cup of coffee there.”

“She’s a bear without her coffee,” Shasha said as Dima said, “If she doesn’t get her coffee first thing in the morning, she turns into this evil version of herself that grumbles and growls at everyone and everything.”

“You have a cat,” Shasha said.

I looked toward the water where the stray cat I’d named Mustard came out of the water.

“I thought it was a rat,” Dima said. “That’s a cat?”

I whistled and Mustard came running.

“Hey, isn’t that Rudy?” Shasha asked as he leaned forward.

I turned to him. “Who’s Rudy? That’s Mustard.”

“That is Rudy!” Dima said as he got up. “Ru-Ru!”

The cat came walking up, stopped at the base of the steps, and shook himself free of the water clinging to his fur.

I reached behind me and pulled the box of cat food I kept on my porch forward.

Getting a small cup full, I dumped it on the floor of the porch and Mustard came up and started eating.

“My sister has a cat that looks exactly like this one…like to a T. But there’s no fuckin’ way that the cat would come all the way over here…right?” Dima asked.

“Cat comes in from the water every day for breakfast.” I shrugged. “I mean, logically, I guess it could be someone else’s cat.”

The cat ate half, then went back into the water and started swimming.

“That’s insane,” Shasha said. “Even in the winter he gets in that water?”

“Even in the winter,” I confirmed. “That’s actually why I started feeding him a year or so ago when I first saw him. He came in out of the water and looked freezing-ass cold. I gave him half a chicken leg, he ate it, then got right back in the water and swam off. After he did that a few mornings in a row, I started keeping cat food over here.”

“That lines up to about when my sister started noticing he wasn’t around for breakfast. But he was always there for dinner.” Shasha shook his head. “The only reason I even know, or care, is because my daughter loves that fuckin’ cat.”

The sliding glass door opened and a crazy-haired, beautifully sleepy woman walked out onto the porch.

She was still wearing my sweats, but now she had on a pair of my slippers.

She looked ridiculous, but I fuckin’ loved it.

She took a look at all three of us, glaring once at Shasha, then moved past both of her brothers to get to me.

She stared at me for a long second before she said, “Can I sit in your lap?”

I opened my arms and she crawled into my lap.

And I finally realized what Shasha was talking about.

Between one sip of coffee and the next…I realized that I’d do just about anything to make sure she was safe. Even go along with her brother and possibly piss her off later when she found out what I’d done.

People be like, bear with me, and they don’t even have a bear with them.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

Last night I’d slept perfectly.

It was the first full night of peaceful sleep I’d had since I’d moved out of my brother’s house.

Sadly, shortly after finding myself in the best place on Earth—Cutter’s arms—Shasha reminded me that I was babysitting everyone’s kids today so their parents could go out to a booze and shmooze for the City of Dallas.

I’d eagerly agreed to stay home and watch everyone’s kids.

The rest of them were headed to the champagne brunch that would only take just a few hours.

Sadly, only two minutes after crawling into Cutter’s lap, I crawled out of it.

After letting me know that he’d be at the coffee shop if I needed him, and him inputting every number he could think of into my phone, I’d left.

An hour later, I was at Shasha’s place with six children.

An hour after that, I started getting messages from Cutter.

Cutter:

What do you think about this?

I gasped at the amount of work he’d gotten done in just a couple of hours.

I now had floor-to-ceiling shelves on either side of the room. In the middle was a board that would eventually become the back counter where I kept all the machines.

“It’s gorgeous!” I said aloud, then typed it in so fast that I misspelled both words.

Me:

Tits Gorgonzola!

Me:

It’s gorgeous!

Me:

I was over animated and my fingers didn’t slow down enough to make sense of my words. Then I hit send without reading it, and yeah. That’s embarrassing. Please act like I never sent the first message. Also, please forgive me for my verbal word vomit.

Cutter didn’t respond, which gave me enough time to finish the fingerpainting craft that I was doing with all of the kids.

“Grandma gets mad when we paint on the counter,” Brando admitted.

“Grandma isn’t here. Aunt Millie is,” I replied cheekily.

Though, just sayin’, but the Carter matriarch would totally let them paint on the counter if they’d asked.

Likely what happened was that Brando had taken his painting to other places and hadn’t stayed at only the counter. Meaning, he wasn’t allowed to paint at her house anymore without an overabundance of supervision.

“I think we should make this bigger,” Lola said as she widened her arms, indicating the huge piece of paper that I’d gotten Brecken to source from her school.

We were making a mural to put on the walls of the principal’s office.

Only…

“Nathaniel, don’t you dare.” I narrowed my eyes at Nastya’s oldest.

“Sowwy.” He stopped painting his face and grinned.

I rolled my eyes at him and offered the purple to Vivi.

The next fifteen minutes were spent finishing up the paper, then I pulled them all to the backyard and hosed them off with the water hose before letting them run free.

I watched, but I watched with a beer in one hand from Sasha’s fridge, and a cupcake from Maven’s bakery in my other hand. I also watched from the comfort of an Adirondack chair that my sister-in-law had insisted that she needed around a firepit in the backyard.

That’s what I was doing when Shasha arrived.

I looked over at him in his unbuttoned shirt and unfastened tie and said, “You look rough.”

Then again, Shasha always did when he got home from having to kiss ass.

“It’s not my favorite thing to shmooze with the elite of Dallas,” he admitted, then turned. “I heard today that you’re married.”

My brows rose.

“What?” I asked.

His lips twitched. “From a fancy pants governor’s aide of all people. Apparently, you told them at the prison that you were married?”

My mouth opened and closed, and then I said, “That was before…”

He nodded. “Someone important heard, and it’s the talk of the town.”

“What?” I asked. “Why?”

He looked at his fingers.

“What would you say if I told you that I need you to actually be married?” he answered with another question.

I opened my mouth, and then closed it. “What? Why?”

He didn’t respond for a long few seconds before he said, “I have this…business deal.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared, not interrupting.

He looked like he was trying to figure out how to say what he needed to say because eventually I threw my hands up and said, “Just get it out, Shasha!”

“I’m going to kill him.”

I didn’t bother to ask who he was going to kill.

I knew.

He knew that I knew.

“Okay, but that doesn’t explain how you feel like it’s necessary for me to actually be married,” I said, then realized I’d just pretty much condoned him murdering someone for me. “Shasha, you’re not killing the man. We’ve gone over this before. You won’t kill him, because he deserves to be exactly where he’s at.”

That’s when something on Shasha’s face changed. “I learned from the warden of that prison, Benson Beauregard, that Lyle Pennington is getting out in three months. The parole hearing has already been held. He’s a free man come mid-summer.”

My mouth fell open. “What? He had two more years!”

“The prison system is overcrowded right now.” He sounded sick to be telling me this, and I closed my eyes as a wave of emotion rolled over me. “They’re letting quite a few criminals go, and one of those lucky individuals is Pennington.”

Sick.

I felt sick.

The cupcake and beer I’d had prior to Shasha coming home was threatening an uprising.

“Shasha…”

“It wouldn’t have to be for long. And it wouldn’t have to be real, per se. It’d just have to look real on paper. I can have you married legally by a judge I have on my payroll. Paperwork will be filed. You just have to act like you’re happily married, that’s all,” he offered.

“First off, that’s not going to work because Cutter would have to agree,” I declared. “Not to mention, Cutter’s family and friends probably don’t have the same kind of mindset that our family does. This isn’t something that we can just do and people not know about it.”

“I’ll talk to Cutter,” Shasha said. “I’ll explain why I need him to do it.”

“This is a big ask,” I pointed out. “And you haven’t told me why I need to be married yet.”

“It’s not necessarily being married, exactly. It’s being married to him, exactly.”

“Why?” I narrowed my eyes.

“Because Cutter Clayborne is an interesting man.” He expounded, “One, he’s sergeant at arms for the Truth Tellers MC, which is one of the biggest motorcycle clubs in the nation. They have chapters all over the United States. Not to mention, they’re allied with the biggest motorcycle club in the United States, The Dixie Wardens MC.” He took the seat across from me. “Men like Pennington will think twice about messing with me if I’m connected with them. And I’ll need the coverage if I’m going to take that piece of shit out.”

My brows rose at that.

“And, I don’t know if he told you, but he’ll be particularly motivated to help because his own sister was assaulted like you were. By their own father,” he explained.

My stomach sank.

I mean, I’d assumed, of course. But to have it actually shared with me…

“Oh,” I replied softly.

“That’s why Copper is in prison. For killing their father when he caught him abusing his sister,” he said softly. “Keely, their sister, is pretty fucked up still. She tries to act like she’s not affected.” he leveled me with a look that clearly said that he thought I did the same. “But she’s spiraling.”

I imagined she was.

To have her own father…

No, I couldn’t think about it.

“Copper is set to get out of prison in a few years…” Shasha said. “But I know a few people that can get him out early if he’ll agree. If Cutter says yes, then they’ll enjoy their first family holiday together in almost two decades. I’ll guarantee it.”

I scrubbed at my face. “It’ll take away all of Cutter’s freedom.”

“There’ll be an expiration date,” Shasha said. “If you both want it.”

I couldn’t imagine him ever agreeing to this…but the fear that was taking root inside of my soul told me that I was going to agree.

I’d do anything to no longer feel the fear anymore.

It was suffocating me.

All this forehead and I still can’t remember anything.

—Cutter’s secret thoughts

CUTTER

I was putting the finishing touches on the front room’s row of shelves when I heard the door open behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder, fully expecting my wood delivery to be the one arriving, and came to a stop when it was one I wasn’t expecting.

Milena looked…terrified.

And that look sent my stomach into razor sharp knots of dread.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

The door opened behind her and her bodyguard arrived.

Shasha jerked his chin up at me and said, “Clayborne.”

“Semyonov.” I rolled my eyes.

I never understood the point of using the last name as a form of greeting.

“You can say no,” Milena blurted. “Absolutely, you can say no.”

I frowned.

“What are you talking about?”

That’s when Shasha started talking, and I realized what play he’d taken.

He may not have shared the whole truth with her, but he’d shared enough of it that she was now terrified and agreeing to marry me without a single protest.

I listened to Shasha’s entire speech, acting like I was learning the information for the first time.

I did have to admit, I was a particularly great actor because I played the part perfectly.

She moved forward and grabbed my hand when Shasha finished. “You don’t…you don’t have to agree to it if you don’t want to. I will not be the reason your life is ruined.”

That’s when I’d had enough.

I cupped her cheek with my hand and said, “The very last thing I’ll ever do is tell a woman in need that she’s not important enough to put my life on hold for.”

She softened.

“You know…my sister…” I didn’t say the words.

Her expression melted. “Shasha didn’t tell me it all. Only the basic facts. I know.”

“Then you know that I’ll never, not ever, tell someone that needs help that they can’t have it,” I said, turning to Shasha. “How certain are you that he’ll get out and come after her?”

“He’s spent the last six years trading favors, pulling strings, and ultimately meeting every single bad guy in the goddamn system,” Shasha said. “When I say that this was the worst possible place he could’ve gone, I’m not exaggerating. What you thought was punishment was actually a goddamn networking thing for him. If possible, he is coming out with more contacts than he had when he went in, and he now has an army at his back ready to do his bidding.”

I watched as Milena’s face closed down completely.

Honestly, it was a bit worrisome with just how perfectly she’d been able to clam up. I could practically see the walls getting higher and higher, and I knew, even if I didn’t get anything out of this other than the opportunity to protect her, it would be enough.

“I’ll do it,” I accepted. “Now, do we move into my place or yours?”

That’s when Shasha and I started talking logistics.

Milena stood there, listening to everything, yet not.

Absently, I reached up and tucked my pencil behind my ear, and then touched her hand. “Come look at this and tell me if you’re okay with placement on these shelves. Counter height for me is too short, but since you said that you were going to be making coffee on them, I took the liberty of raising them up so that the height of the counter will be at a more natural level.”

Milena tilted her head but followed me to the counter.

Shasha nodded his head, mouthed that he’d be outside, and waited until I had her full attention to slip out the door.

“Oh, I guess you’re right about the more natural height,” she said as she held her hands up. “It’s really tall. But I like the idea of it being taller because then I can lean against it when I’m making drinks.” She paused. “Or, more hopefully, when I hire some reliable people that will allow me to come up here when I want, and not all the time.”

“Reliable people?” I teased. “What are those?”

“Exactly,” she sighed. “I had a promising interview last week. It’s one of my sister’s castoffs. Not in a bad way, but in a way that she wants more hours and different hours than what my sister is capable of giving.”

“I have a few suggestions for you if you’re looking for some reliable people…” I paused. “But they’re men.”

I saw her wince.

But if I could get some people that I trusted in here to work that would also have the benefit of knowing how to protect her if shit hit the fan…

“How reliable?”

I chuckled. “They’re prospects for the club. They’re all good kids, but they don’t exactly know what they want out of a career. We’ve been cycling these twins through our various businesses, but they haven’t found anything they like yet. And if the jobs they have are early, they can still do their classes in the afternoon, and their club duties at night. That would be the best case scenario for them.”

“Tell them to come out and interview on Wednesday. Early morning, though. I have another interview mid-morning.” She looked at me then, making me wonder if she knew why I’d suggested those two.

I’d been thinking about it for a couple of hours now.

Since Shasha had told me that Lyle Pennington had put a hit out on Milena.

I’d thought about what would be the best way to keep her safe, without actually telling her that I was trying to keep her safe.

One of those initial thoughts was getting people around her that I could trust implicitly.

I made a mental note to call Simeon and Conway, the twins, and tell them that I needed them after she left.

They’d get a giggle out of the fact that I needed help for my ‘future wife’s coffee shop.’

They were actually twenty-year-old future engineers that were in college to later go into the Navy as officers.

They knew exactly what they wanted out of life.

But they got bored easily, and they liked getting passed around to all of the businesses. They were born with a thirst for knowledge that I’d never seen before in my life and soaked up everything like a sponge.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they went into the Navy with more knowledge than any other person before them.

My second “protect Milena” moment this morning came when I’d had the great idea to professionally and expertly make it to where there were hidden cameras everywhere in the shelving that I was installing. I’d messaged Shasha with the dimensions of the smallest cameras he could find, and together we’d figured out the best way to install them.

Within an hour I’d had the cameras in hand, and a man that knew what he was doing with wiring, and we’d completely installed eight cameras in the front of the building, got them all online, and then planned out where the ones were going in the back so he could follow up behind me and wire them when needed.

That way, if someone so much as blinked in any corner of the shop she was in, we were going to know about it.

“Okay, what now?” Milena asked softly. “Where do we go from here?”

I grinned at her.

“Since you’re here, can you help me find my pencil?” I quipped.

She smiled then, revealing a set of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth.

It almost made me feel self-conscious.

My own teeth weren’t straight.

I’d been in the process of getting braces when my sperm donor had decided to commit his final crime that would take his life.

When the dust had settled, the estate had been frozen solid, and no money had come in or gone out for a whole year while the vultures fought for their pieces of pie.

In the end, my braces had been one of those things that I’d placed to the wayside, meaning to come back for them later, yet not bothering when the world looked different after Copper went to prison.

Moving forward with her eyes on me, she reached up and pulled my pencil from behind my ear.

I laughed.

She watched me laugh and said, “Are you sure about this, Cutter?”

I grinned. “I don’t do stuff that I don’t want to do, beautiful.”

Mentally, I’m just a corner on a fitted sheet that keeps popping off.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

We didn’t get married at a courthouse.

We didn’t get married in Vegas.

We didn’t get married in a church.

In fact, we didn’t get married at all.

What we did do was move in together later that night.

Into my place.

Neither one of us asked where he would sleep.

He’d walked into my house with a duffle—one that was stuffed so full that I’d had to question whether the zipper could handle the strain he’d put it under—and tossed it into my closet.

He’d then walked directly into my bathroom and stripped for a shower.

Which led me to now, watching him strip out of his sawdust-covered clothes.

Being covered in sawdust was not conducive with closing the bathroom door, apparently.

“Do you, uh, want me to get the door for you?” I asked.

“You got a hamper or something?” he asked. “I should’ve probably done this outside. I’m gonna get the bathroom floor covered in sawdust.”

I bit my lip and said, “I’ll, uh, get the vacuum once you get in there. That way you’re not getting water all over the floor after you get out.”

“Thanks,” he turned to me as the shirt was carefully pulled off of his body.

Now, here was the moment where I might’ve lost a few brain cells.

See, I’d seen the whole “man takes shirt off from the back of the collar thing” before.

My brothers weren’t shy with being half-naked in front of me.

They both took their shirts off like that.

Previous boyfriends, as well as my latest, had always taken the shirt off from the bottom, lifting the shirt up and over their head as they turned the shirt inside out.

But Cutter?

He carefully lifted the shirt from the back of his neck, hunched his shoulders, and pulled it free from his body.

All the while, in slow motion, making my mouth all but water.

“Hamper?” he asked when it was off and he was taking the shirt and rolling it into a ball.

I licked my lips and tried, but failed, to make my brain comprehend the question he’d just asked me.

It didn’t work, though.

Because…tattoos.

Lots of them.

As in, all over his body, from mid bicep to right under his collarbone, to just under his diaphragm.

I opened my mouth, intending to tell him about the hamper maybe, but instead said, “What the fuck?”

He laughed. “That’s what everyone says.”

“Well, maybe if you weren’t hiding all of that…” I said, gesturing to his upper torso. “Why don’t you have any visible tattoos?”

“Because I’m already a biker. Professionals need to look professional, in my honest opinion. I don’t need to be adding to the tics on the upper crust of Dallas as they see me pull up to a job site. They’re already wary when I get off a bike. If I get off covered in tattoos, too, they’ll pass on me and go to someone else. And, to be quite honest, I’m not too proud to admit that I could really use the money. I’ll gladly act like I’m respectable as long as they pay me what I’m asking for,” he expounded. “Hamper?”

I jumped and moved, opening a cabinet where the laundry chute was located.

When Shasha had this house built, the entire freakin’ place was custom built. Even the laundry chute in the bathroom.

“This fancy schmancy thingie is a vacuum. You put the clothes,” I reached for his shirt and he handed it to me, “right up against it, and it sucks them through this ducting system into the laundry room where it’ll spit it out into the hamper.”

His brows rose. “I feel like I just entered the Twilight Zone.”

“Wait until you see the safe room Shasha had built for me.” I rolled my eyes. “This place is like a fortress. With the high gates, the alarm system, and then the safe room, I could logically withstand a siege.”

His head tilted as he started unbuttoning his pants.

I turned slightly away to give him privacy, and he laughed.

“I’ll just tell you now that being in the military has completely cured me of my shyness,” he said as he took his pants off. “Plus, you saw me in this yesterday.”

I bit my lip, and he studied me, freezing.

“Is this…”

I knew what he was asking.

Was it too much.

I shook my head. “I’m…that part of me…I…”

I searched for the words, and he let me, watching me carefully as he completely unloaded his pants pockets onto the counter.

His phone. Wallet. Keys. Cash. Change. A pocket knife. His third pencil he’d lost for the day. A chalk stick. And a…gun. A tiny one. One that was so small I’d never suspected he’d even had it in the first place.

“That part of my issues…that’s really a non-issue now. I can have sex. I can be with a man in any sexual manner. I’ve worked that out with a therapist a while ago,” I explained quickly, the words coming so quickly that they were like ants pouring out of a disturbed hill. “My issues stem from other places now. I can trust with my body, but not with my heart anymore.”

I hoped he got what I meant by that.

I was very…standoffish.

If I was being honest, with Asher, I’d not been the girlfriend he deserved.

I was there, and present, but I wasn’t actually there.

He didn’t have ‘me.’

My body? Sure. My heart? Absolutely not.

There was no one in this world that I could trust with that thing.

My brothers didn’t count, either.

They were family.

He finished emptying his pants, pulled the belt out of the belt loops, then walked up to the chute opening and pressed his jeans against it. The pipe sucked the jeans out of his hand, and he chuckled.

When he did, the rib muscles at his side flexed, and my eyes were drawn to a spot right under his armpit—a tattoo—that I hadn’t seen before now.

Vengeance.

I looked at it for so long that Cutter cleared his throat and said, “You okay?”

I looked up at him and said, “If you ever see Lyle…I don’t want you getting in trouble for me. I don’t care if you kill him. I don’t care if you help Shasha string him up by his toes and torture him for the rest of his life. What I do care about is other people paying for my stupidity. I should’ve never been with him. I should’ve left when my brothers said to. I should’ve come to Shasha and Dima when I realized how dangerous Lyle was. But I didn’t. I stayed because I was just so freakin’ desperate to live my own life that I didn’t care how I had to live it. I made the biggest mistake that I’ve ever made, and I don’t want anyone else to pay for that.”

He studied me for a long moment and said, “If that man comes anywhere near you, he’s dead. I’ll do it in a way that won’t blow back on you, me, or your family. Not my club. Not anyone. I learned from my mistakes with my father.”

I bit my lip.

“I haven’t been caught yet, darlin’. Trust me.”

Then he turned the shower on, dropped his shorts, and got in.

I saw the flash of a white backside, much in contrast to the tanned skin of his back, as he disappeared behind the clear shower doors.

The only thing stopping me from seeing him fully was the red towel that I’d hung there for aesthetics.

I watched him for a few seconds too long, because eventually he said, “Vacuum?”

Did he just tell me, without telling me, that he’d killed before and hadn’t gotten caught?

And why was the idea not appalling to me?

I went to get my stick vacuum out of the hall closet, and when I came back, it was to see that Cutter was now onto the soap part of his shower.

White suds were running down his body in rivulets, and I couldn’t stop myself from watching as he rubbed my rose-smelling soap all over his body as I vacuumed up the sawdust.

When I was done, I replaced the vacuum, then went to sit on my bed because I didn’t know what to do.

I knew what I wanted to do, though, and that was sit in the bathroom and enjoy the show.

Which was why I sat on the end of my bed with my hands underneath my thighs and stared straight ahead.

If I turned slightly to the right, I’d be able to see him in the bathroom mirror.

The shower turned off, and I closed my eyes.

He came into the room moments later and said, “I’m decent.”

I opened my eyes and saw him wearing my red fancy towel around his waist.

I bit my lip as I watched water slide down from his wet hair to the towel. All the way down his chest, his abs, and then into the hollow of his hip before the towel absorbed the drop.

I’d never wanted to be a water droplet more in my life.

“We’re not even married yet and you’re watching me like you want to devour me,” he teased.

I looked up at him and said, “I’ve never seen a man have quite so many muscles before.”

“Manual labor, time in the gym, and good genetics,” he said as he bent down, testing the tuck job of the towel as he did.

The towel parted and I saw the tanned expanse of one muscular thigh before the towel broke free at his waist.

He caught it just in time to keep his junk covered, but not the rest of him.

I squeaked and closed my eyes.

“Guess I wasn’t decent after all.” He chuckled.

The bag unzipped and I heard fabric rustling.

“Now I’m actually decent,” he pronounced.

I opened one eye and saw that he was, indeed, decent.

Or, more accurately, he was clothed from the bottom down.

He had on a pair of pants and nothing else.

I doubted he even had underwear on.

But with him turned the way he was, I only got the backside view.

“Show me that panic room, darlin’.”

Before I could, the doorbell rang, and I sighed. “That’s probably my family.”

He jerked his chin toward the shower and said, “Your turn. I’ll get the door.”

I’m not clearing up any rumors about this unless they say I’m out there drinking unsweet tea.

—Cutter to Copper

CUTTER

She was right.

It was her family.

Only, it was Shasha with a stack of papers that said, “Congratulations. She kept her last name, though.”

I took the papers from him and looked at the top sheet.

It was a marriage certificate.

I blinked at the documents and said, “I should probably have told my sister and brothers before I went and got hitched.”

“It happened kind of fast.” Shasha laughed. “Have a good night.” He paused halfway down the walk. “With you here, I won’t leave the guard.”

I nodded. “I’ll take care of her.”

His eyes studied me for a long second before he said, “One hundred and seventeen confirmed rapists killed by you and your club is reassuring, Cutter.”

I snorted. “Confirmed.”

We killed more than that.

Pedophiles.

Rapists.

Murders.

If you committed the crime, and you were a bad person, and the criminal justice system chose to give you leniency, or you didn’t get caught…well, the Truth Tellers would give you the fitting punishment.

Most of the people ended up dead.

Some of them were in places that they’d never be found, living their lives in a way that meant no more happiness for them. Ever.

We knew how to get away with murder, too.

Which, likely, was what brought Shasha’s attention to us in the first place.

“Right, confirmed,” Shasha said. “If I had any doubt that you’d take care of her, I wouldn’t have asked you to marry her and protect her.”

I nodded. “I’ll take care of her.”

And I would.

No matter what it took.

Shasha disappeared through the gate and down the street, a man appearing out of the shadows to walk behind him.

His guard.

Or possibly Milena’s guard.

Once the place was locked down and the alarm was set, I walked back toward the bedroom to hear Milena in the shower.

Whereas mine took five minutes, hers was going on ten, and when I got into the room, it was to see her shaving.

The red towel I’d used earlier was hanging back up along the railing, blocking most of her from view.

I could see her slim shoulders from the back, the way her hair was somehow piled onto her head with only what looked like conditioner holding it in place.

She had one long tendril that’d escaped the mass and was trailing down the length of her spine.

It was so long that I couldn’t see its end.

“Milena.”

She looked behind her and said, “Yeah?”

“You almost done?”

She snorted. “This is one of those showers that’s going to take fifteen minutes because I’m shaving everything.”

I grinned. “Your brother dropped off some papers.”

“What papers?” she questioned, turning fully now.

Her beautiful tits, though on the smaller side, were perfectly perky.

Her nipples were a dusky brown and…

“You have a tattoo,” I said, studying the small sun underneath her left breast, mostly on her ribcage.

She pressed her hand to her breast and lifted it up and out of the way, giving me a better view.

A sun.

“It was a reminder to myself that I’d find the sun again,” she said softly. “And I did, mostly. I just need him permanently gone to finish up the healing.”

If it was the last thing I did, I’d make sure that he was wiped free of this planet.

There wouldn’t be a single goddamn hint of him, not even a name on the internet, when I was through.

She let her breast go, and then leaned her head back so that she was mostly underneath the showerhead.

The water sluiced down her hair then her back, and I watched, transfixed.

For the next fifteen minutes I sat on the counter and talked with her about everything and nothing while she did what she called an ‘everything’ shower.

Her arms were shaved. Her legs were shaved.

She’d exfoliated with something.

She’d left a hair mask in her hair.

Then she was getting out, letting me get a full view of everything as she did.

My mouth watered, and the erection I’d barely been keeping in check popped from semi to full.

She dried everything, left her hair up in the towel, then went to the bedroom for a shirt before saying, “I’ll be right back.”

And she was, with a shirt on her back that clearly belonged to a man.

“I have a shirt in my bag.”

She blinked at me. “What?”

“A shirt. I have one in my bag. Wear it.”

I didn’t know why it bothered me so much that she was wearing another man’s shirt, but it was all of a sudden very important to me, so I didn’t question it.

She studied my face for a long second before she said, “Is this a husband thing? I only wear your shirts?”

I shrugged and gestured toward the papers on the counter. “It’s a Cutter Clayborne thing. And I guess it’s a now-husband thing.”

She hummed, then disappeared only to come back with the towel gone, and her wet hair trailing down my single-most favorite shirt I owned.

It was a Dallas Cowboys one that I’d bought when I was nineteen after seeing a game with Copper, Chevy and Keely the night before Copper was locked up permanently.

When Dorie had tried to wear that shirt weeks ago, I’d thrown a fuckin’ fit.

Now, there Milena was, wearing it.

And I felt nothing but excitement to see her in it.

She walked right up to the papers on the counter and I heard her gasp. “He already did it?”

“Guess so.” I shrugged. “But, just sayin’, we have to tell my family before they flip the fuck out.”

She brought both of her hands up to rub at her temples.

“We have to tell mine, too,” she admitted. “Maybe we could just send a mass text message to them all, include Shasha in it, and then go on a beach vacation somewhere that has no signal.”

I snorted. “One, that might work for the time being, but eventually we’d have to come home. I like the beach, but I don’t like the beach enough to live there full time. Two, I have about eighteen jobs lined up right now, two of which are at the Dallas Cowboys stadium to put in lockers in their locker room, and it’s going to pay me a whack. I can’t skip out of town for more than a weekend for now. And three, you’re not a coward. You face stuff head on.”

“I do?” she teased, looking at me.

I walked up to her and smoothed her hair behind her ear, fingers tangling in a small wet knot, before saying, “You’re a Clayborne now. We don’t back down for nothin’.”

She smiled. “According to these documents, I’m still a Semyonov.”

My eyes gleamed. “Legally, on paper, you might still be a Semyonov. But I know where city hall is, and I know how to fill out paperwork.”

She giggled. “If you want me to change it…”

“I do,” I said suddenly.

Fiercely.

Her eyes widened. “Then I’ll change it.”

Mesmerized, I watched her dry her hair.

She struggled with it for a while before I said, “How do you usually dry the ends of your hair?”

“I mostly let them air dry. I can do it, but it’s exhausting.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve thought about cutting it for a long time, but when I was hurt, I’d immediately decided that my hair was getting cut. All of it. Shasha and Dima begged me to leave it, so I did. But I made them promise to dry it for me forever, no exceptions. They could be old men, and they had to dry it for me. Whenever I wanted. They agreed, and when I need it dry, I usually go to Shasha and make him dry it.”

“Not Dima?” I asked.

“Dima is military,” she said. “He’ll do it, if he’s home. He actually did it yesterday. But since he’s not here all that much, the burden falls on Shasha.”

I hopped off the counter and held out my hand for the brush.

She placed it into my hand with a raised brow.

I took the Dyson—excuse the fuck out of me, but didn’t they used to make vacuums?—and turned it on.

After a couple of minutes of learning the best way to make the round brush turn and not get it stuck in her hair, I started to effectively dry her hair.

It was actually fairly soothing, and the bonus was that the fan kept causing the t-shirt to smooth down taut over her backside, revealing her ample ass to me.

When I was done, she arched and stretched, causing the curve of her neck to be exposed.

I wanted nothing more but to wrap my hand around that throat and pull her to me.

Before I could stop myself, I was doing just that, not stopping until her backside was now pressed against my erection.

Her eyes flared wide, and I immediately kicked myself for the move.

“I’m…” I began to apologize, but she turned in my arms and pressed herself against me fully.

“Do you know how fucking hard it is to be a sexual being, for wanting sex, all kinds of different sex, and the men in my life treating me differently because of something that they think I should be traumatized by?” she asked.

I looked down into her indigo eyes and said, “Tell me, exactly, what I’m allowed to do.”

“Everything but hold me down and take me when I’m saying no,” she said.

I blinked, my blood boiling now.

I didn’t know whether to pull her to me and drop my mouth to hers, or to punch a hole in the wall for how that Pennington prick was about to pay.

In the end, she chose for me by saying, “I’m not fragile. I like sex. I like hard sex. Sometimes, when I’m by myself, I get my eight-inch vibrator out of my…”

I didn’t need her to say anymore.

For the last few days, everything had been leading up to this moment.

Before I knew that she’d been hurt, I’d wanted to take her roughly.

Against a wall.

Bent over my motorcycle.

In the back seat of my truck.

Anywhere I could get her alone for just a few minutes.

That would be all I needed.

I’d get us both off with barely any effort.

My hand smoothed up her arm starting at her wrist. I moved until I was cupping her throat, using my thumb to tilt her head up to stare into my eyes before saying, “No means no. Always has, always will. You say no, I’ll stop immediately.”

Something inside of her seemed to settle because I saw the visible wilting of her body before she said, “You’ll treat me normal?”

I dropped both hands and cupped her under her ass.

“I don’t know about normal…”

I want to go to dinner, then be dinner. Nothing crazy.

—Milena to Nastya

MILENA

“I don’t know about normal,” he said just before he bent down and captured my mouth with his.

We’d known each other for a matter of moments in the grand scheme of things. I’d liked everything I’d known about him.

I liked that he was rough around the edges.

I liked that he was a killer—did that make me sick?

I liked that he was unapologetically masculine.

I liked that he could break someone in half with barely any effort.

I liked everything about him, and that included how sexually attracted to him I was.

My body had craved his for days, and now that I had him where I wanted him, I wasn’t going to hold back.

I wanted to be free, and I had a feeling he’d make me fly.

His big, rough hands smoothed down my arms, past my hands, and to my hips. When he had a firm grip, he lifted me up effortlessly, not grunting even a little, and twisted us so that I was now sitting on the counter that was mostly free of products, stray hairs, and hairbrushes.

The moment my ass met the cool, granite countertop, I squeaked.

He pulled back from the kiss, smiling as he did.

“Cold?” he teased.

I shifted restlessly, my nipples pebbling for an entirely different reason, and said, “Yeah. These counters are freezing.”

He lifted me up again, let me slide down his body—and his erection was really, really hard—and reached for the towel that was on the hook next to the opposite counter.

Snapping it toward him, he spread it flat on the counter behind me with one hand and then lifted me onto the counter again.

This time it was warm, but I wasn’t sure if that was because he’d done it in a way that showed off his tight abs, or because the towel itself was warm.

Probably both.

He moved between my legs, making me completely forget about the chill, and pressed himself fully against me.

I looked up at him then, the height difference between us making my neck stretch, and said, “I’m not on birth control.”

His eyes flared. “No condoms.”

At first, I was thinking he meant he didn’t have any condoms.

But then I realized that he was telling me he wasn’t going to wear them.

“O-okay,” I said.

The gleam in his eyes let me know that he liked my response.

When he bent down and took my mouth again, I forgot my own name, let alone what he’d just said to rock my world.

There was only so much world rocking you could take until your mind literally shut down.

And that was exactly what happened with Cutter.

He made me forget everything.

Where I was.

Who I was.

What had happened to me.

The expectations.

The world.

There was only him and me.

No trauma.

No what ifs.

No should dos.

Just him, me, and the magic we were making together.

His hands were everywhere then, smoothing up the length of my body, gauging my readiness with the way that I shifted and shimmied against him.

When my heels went to his butt to pull him closer, he chuckled and pulled away from our languid kiss, his fingers smoothing up the backside of my shirt.

I shifted my body, going up on one butt cheek, to allow him to lift the shirt from underneath me. Then repeated it with the other side.

As soon as the shirt was free of my body weight, he ran his hands under the lower hem revealing my legs and hips.

I don’t know why I didn’t feel exposed around him.

Maybe it was the way he’d saved me already.

Maybe it was because when I was in his presence, I felt like I could take on the world.

Whatever the reason, I didn’t flinch at his perusal of my body.

I allowed my hair to cover me, displaying the tight peaks of my nipples through the fabric of his shirt and strands of my hair.

My hair pooled in my lap, mostly covering my naked lower half.

His eyes trailed down my body, and he stopped when he realized that I was panty-free.

His eyes came up to mine and he said, “No wonder you were so cold earlier.”

I giggled and said, “I don’t sleep in panties. They’re restrictive.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, his finger trailing along my thigh.

Shivers danced along my skin, following the path of his finger.

I studied his profile as he watched his finger move, starting at my hip, then farther up underneath my—his—shirt.

My nipples pebbled in anticipation as the tail of my shirt rose, revealing more and more skin, until his finger was now up between my breasts.

The path that his finger took felt like a brand straight to my soul.

“On a scale from one to ten,” he murmured, voice low but somehow deeper. Huskier. “How in tune are you with your cycle?”

I blinked, my mind blanking for a moment before saying, “I mean, I know when it’s supposed to come next.”

“My sister, in her infinite ‘teach your older brothers about women’ era, taught us all about when a woman is fertile,” he circled one taut nipple. “Told us about how when, if she was at a point in her cycle, that was the best opportunity to get them pregnant. And to stay far, far away from them at that time unless we were willing to deal with the consequences.”

I bit my lip when his fingers plucked my nipple.

“And for some fuckin’ reason, my alpha male, neanderthal brain is telling me that, if we’re married, I might as well really cement you permanently into my life by getting you pregnant while I’m at it.” He looked up then, his eyes super intense. “Because I don’t think I’ll ever let you go, Milena soon-to-be-forever Clayborne.”

I swallowed hard at the intensity in his eyes. “I, uh, I’m fairly sure that I’m not ovulating.”

His smile seemed to dim slightly at the news, and I saw the moment that the thought, the very idea of me carrying his child, permanently solidified in his brain.

He wanted me pregnant.

He was being one hundred percent serious.

He wanted me to be his.

Forever.

What kind of crazy, fucked up, weird shit was this?

And why the hell did I see that walking red flag that was Cutter Clayborne and want to run directly to him and go with the crazy ideas he was throwing at me?

Why did the sound of being pregnant with his baby totally appeal to me?

Why did I want to permanently cement him into my life like he’d suggested, and make it to where, no matter what, we would always and forever be connected?

I should be running for the hills.

I should be telling everyone that I’d spoken out of turn.

I should be doing a lot of things, the least of which was not being in this position right now.

Yet I still sat directly in front of him.

I still allowed my hips to be widened.

I still watched as he dropped down to his knees in front of me.

I watched as his eyes came up to meet mine as his tongue darted out to taste my pussy.

I gasped, my heels coming to rest on the counter.

He grinned wickedly…then devoured me.

I’d never experienced anything like it.

Too overly consumed with what was going on around me, who I was allowing to get that close, and what could happen as a result of what I was doing, I’d never been able to just let go.

But there was just some switch inside my brain that seemed to turn off when Cutter was around.

Some indescribable knowledge that I no longer had to be on guard, even a little.

Cutter would protect me.

Cutter would take care of me.

Cutter would fight anything off to make sure that I was always safe.

Cutter was my off switch.

I closed my eyes and allowed my body to just feel.

And feel it did.

His tongue flattened, and he took one long sweep from asshole to clit, tasting every inch of me as he did.

I groaned and leaned back, knocking my toothbrush holder over in the process as my shoulder blades connected with the mirror at my back.

My head went backward, and I felt my hair get caught on what I assumed was the faucet.

But I didn’t make a move to remove the tangle.

I was unable to keep my body from doing anything but experiencing what Cutter was doing to me.

I’d never known it could feel like this, but when Cutter swirled his tongue around my clit, I knew this wouldn’t be the last time that I felt this.

I’d request it like a woman writing her Christmas list.

Noon. Morning. Night. Tuesdays. Fridays. All days.

I would ask for this for the rest of my life.

He was just that good.

His tongue went to focus on my clit when his fingers came to my entrance.

Only one penetrated, and I cried out as my pussy started to clench around him.

My hands went to his hair—his glorious, utterly soft and thick hair—and yanked.

I tried to stop myself, but my body just didn’t know how to play nice in that moment.

Because I was coming.

I was coming and coming and coming, and my god, I’d never been so wet in my life.

He growled something against my pussy, and just when I thought it might be over, he was up and shoving his fat cock deep into my pussy.

I cried out, the invasion of his cock something that should’ve been shocking and surprising, but again, things with Cutter weren’t as they should be.

They were better.

More.

And good, goddamn, was it something that I’d fight and kill to keep for the rest of my life.

My arms went around his shoulders, and he yanked me closer to him, practically holding my body off the counter as he fucked me so hard and fast that I might explode from his ferocity.

But it was everything that I ever wanted, and something I never knew I needed.

His cock was so thick, and he reached so deep, that my mind was reeling.

He was hitting spots inside of me that not even my vibrators had reached.

His growl, one of possession and need, filled me up and yanked me under.

It was all that I needed—knowing that he was in this as deep as I was—to take me over once again.

My pussy clenched, and the wetness from earlier returned.

I cried out, my arm curving around his neck to hold on, grabbing on to his opposite ear, as I screamed out in pleasure.

If I had neighbors, they’d definitely have heard.

Thankfully, the guards weren’t there—that, at least, was a godsend.

Then again, maybe God had taken pity on my suffering and had seen fit to send me a man that could be my peace.

Because he literally felt like a man that was sent to be my perfect fit.

“Fuck, baby. Fuck, fuck. You’re so wet. You feel so tight and slick. Gonna make me come…” he panted into my ear. “Do you feel my dick twitching inside of you? Do you feel me swelling? I’m about to fill you up so full. Plant a baby inside of you so that you’ll never leave.”

I swear to God, I’d finished coming, only to turn right back around and come some more.

It was a shock as he took me under once again.

His strangled cry of, “Oh, holy fuck,” followed me under.

I felt his cock swell.

Felt it start to twitch deep inside of me.

Then he was coming.

I felt the hot splashes of his come bathe my insides, and soon my wetness joined his, and we turned into a messy mixture of fluids as we both came down from our highs.

“I don’t know what got into me,” he said as he pressed me against the cold wall.

I pressed my forehead to his collarbone and said, “I know what’s gotten into me.”

He chuckled, and it made his semi-hard cock jerk inside of me.

Tiny twinges of delight sparkled through me.

I groaned and said, “I liked it. A lot.”

He lifted me up, and it was only then that I realized his fingers on one hand were practically feathering my back hole.

I shivered for a different reason, and he paused in his return to the counter.

“What was that for?” he asked, pulling back so that he could look at me.

I licked my lips, wondering if I should tell him, then decided…fuck it.

“Your fingers,” I whispered. “I like where they’re at.”

His eyes flared, then that cocky grin that had drawn me to him returned as he said, “Maybe when I recover…”

I giggled as he sat me down onto the counter and gently pulled out.

I watched as our combined releases leeched onto the counter.

“Fuckin’ hot,” he said as he caught the hand towel next to the sink and wiped his cock clean.

When I went to grab for it, he pulled it away and announced, “No, you’re sleeping exactly like that.”

I licked my lips, shifting restlessly against the counter, and said, “I’m sticky.”

He grinned. “You can sleep on a towel.”

And that’s exactly what I did.

When we crawled into bed, he moved me until I was on the towel, and then scooted in close.

He was naked now, not a stitch of clothing on himself, and spooned himself in close, curving his body around mine. His cock nestled up against my ass.

“Gonna fuck you again in the night,” he growled against my ear. “Gonna put that towel to good use.”

Oh, what fresh hell is this?

I mean, good morning.

—Cutter to Chevy

CUTTER

The first time I woke her up, it was with my voice in her ear.

“Milena, baby. Wake up.”

She did, coming out of her deep slumber with my hard body curved over hers.

“You awake?” I asked, watching for the glimmer of her eyes in the dark with only the small bathroom light to guide me.

“Yeah,” she croaked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I replied as I pushed her onto her back and crawled between her legs. “Just wanted to fuck you, and didn’t want to do it with you asleep without getting permission first.”

“You have blanket permission to fuck me whenever, wherever, and however you want,” she replied as she widened her thighs.

Her sleepy, husky voice was enough to send my entire body thrumming with anticipation.

I hummed as I snuggled deep into her, letting her feel some of my body weight, as I started to work my cock through her pussy.

It was still wet from earlier, but new wetness was quickly joining the mess, and I slid into her deep without much pressure.

I was a big guy, with a big cock, and she took me like a dream, despite her small stature.

The fury that rode me at the thought of someone hurting her tried to push through, but I blanked my brain and just inhaled, drowning my senses in her.

I fucked her slow and steady, something that I’d been wanting to do for the last hour.

I’d given her two hours of sleep, one of which I’d joined her with, but she’d woken me up with a “please” that had given me ideas.

Ideas that I’d fought for a while before I’d decided that I needed to wake her.

Which led me to now, as I fucked her slowly.

Her hums and pleas were soft and sleepy, and when I felt her start to flutter around me, I poured my release into her, filling her all over again.

She hissed out a breath as I gave her more of my weight.

“I need to go to the bathroom.” She laughed when I stayed there for longer than I probably should.

I rolled us, allowing her to pull herself off of me once we were closer to the edge.

She climbed off and went to the bathroom, coming back moments later to crawl over me once again.

I twisted us so that she was once again situated over the towel, then reached for her pussy, liking when I found it just as wet as I wanted it.

“Good,” I growled as she snuggled deeper into me.

We both fell asleep with my fingers buried in her pussy, and when I woke up, she was riding them.

It was hours later, but still only three in the morning when I glanced at my phone on the nightstand.

Which made me fuckin’ grin as I gently turned her over and scooted in close.

I positioned my cock at her entrance and slowly worked it inside, sinking in deep with just a few thrusts.

She was so wet and covered with me that it was easy, and soon I was gliding in and out of her abused pussy, hoping not to wake her until she was coming.

I slid my hand over her hip, then lower to slip between her pussy lips.

My fingers first felt my cock that was tunneling into her pussy, gathering wetness. Once I was sufficiently coated in us, I brought my hand back to her pussy and circled her clit, feeling her tighten around me in response.

She murmured something incoherent, still very much asleep, and I pushed deeper.

A tiny little gasp, then more mumbling followed.

But her pussy tightened around me, and she was still breathing deep, if not a bit choppy.

When her pussy started to flutter, I buried my nose into her hair and growled as my release started to boil up inside of me.

Hot spurts of come left me, filling her deep, and still, she didn’t wake.

I cursed into her hair, breathing deep, as my heart rate tried to find a more sustainable pace.

I stayed buried deep and closed my eyes, focusing on her breathing.

Still very much asleep.

I smiled, then immediately felt like a lecher.

She pulled away then, slipping my cock free of her cunt, and I growled in annoyance.

But she surprised me by turning and practically crawling on top of me.

“Liked that. Do it again,” she muttered, making me realize that she wasn’t as unaware as I thought she was.

She shimmied down my body, then slid back onto my cock.

I cursed, my body immediately jerking up to fill her, even though it was only slightly hard.

It quickly filled, and I realized something.

I wasn’t a goddamn teenager anymore, but I was acting like it.

“Fuck, baby,” I said.

She didn’t say anything because she was once again asleep.

I trailed my hand down her spine, my fingers finding her ass, and started to move her on top of me.

She moaned slightly, but didn’t move.

And I eventually fell asleep like that, slowly rocking myself inside of her until I could remember no more.

You know what hurts the most? My back.

—Every Millennial out there

MILENA

My body was deliciously sore.

As in, the best feeling I’d ever had in my life.

I’d lost track of how many times I’d come in the last twenty-four hours.

Ten? Fifteen?

I didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to count.

“Sweet Mary, Mother of God,” I breathed as I looked at the man doing jump ropes in my driveway. “What have I done to deserve this?”

“Who are you talking…oh.”

I felt more than saw my sister-in-law come up beside me and stand perfectly still, enjoying the show.

“Do you think he has underwear on?” Brecken whispered.

“I don’t know.” I groaned. “Probably.”

It was uncomfortable to have stuff just flopping around. I would think he was wearing something to contain the beast in his gray sweatpants.

“What are you…wow,” Maven breathed. “That’s…that’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.”

“What is?” Nastya asked as she came up behind me and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Holy wow.”

My thoughts exactly.

“Your fake husband is…endowed,” Brecken said. “You should just go ahead and test it out for authenticity sake. I mean, if someone asks you if your husband’s dick is big, you should definitely be able to tell them that it is.”

“Right,” I said as I watched the sweat drip down Cutter’s chest and into the band of his sweatpants.

“Is anyone impressed with how well he jumps rope?” Maven asked.

“I’m impressed. He hasn’t missed a single jump in five minutes,” Brecken said. “And he’s doing all that fancy footwork. No wonder he’s in such good shape. Do you think he’s been doing that the entire time?”

“I know he went to run, because he passed me as I pulled onto the road,” Nastya said. “He was running really fast, too.”

“What are y’all looking at?”

I looked over, my cheeks flushing when I saw who’d entered the room.

Keely, Cutter’s sister.

“Uhh,” I hesitated.

She walked to the window and grimaced. “Did you know that Cutter used to be chubby?”

I blinked and turned so that I could see her and the view outside clearly.

“I’m sorry, but what?” I asked.

Cutter had taken our conversation about “getting it out of the way” to heart, and had invited everyone over to my house this morning for breakfast before I’d even woken up.

He’d sent out a group text to his family. Then tagged my phone and sent one out to mine, including himself in the text message.

He’d then ordered food and had it delivered, consisting of everything left at Maven’s bakery so she had no reason not to attend, and didn’t tell me about it until my—our—doorbell started to ring.

I’d gotten myself out of bed just as the fourth ding had sounded.

I’d gotten up to find Maven and Auden, as well as their three kids. Nastya and Haze, with their kids. Brecken, Shasha and Rosie, minus Vivi who’d stayed with Dima the night before at his place. Keely and Chevy. With Dima and Vivi taking a rain check because apparently Vivi had a play date that she wasn’t willing to miss.

I’d stared at all but two of my family—old and new—in the kitchen snacking on Maven’s food before turning around and heading back into the bedroom to get dressed, though I’d left his Cowboys shirt on, and slipped into a pair of leggings.

By the time I’d gotten back, Cutter had told them everything, and I came back with them all acting like one big happy family, with no one surprised in the least that I’d gotten married to a man I’d met a week ago.

Which led us to now, sufficiently full, and playing games and talking for the last three hours.

The men had all dispersed, leaving us women to chatter while the kids had continued to play around us.

Cutter hadn’t left, though.

He’d stayed in the yard and worked out, using my gym that I’d put in, but never used.

Now he was jumping rope in a pair of gray sweatpants, and I was dying.

I didn’t think it was possible to want more sex, but there I was, wanting—no, needing—it.

I shifted in my seat, thinking that I could get the ache to get back under control, and realized it wasn’t gonna happen.

Sitting up, I said, “I’m going to run outside really quick, be right back.”

There were some knowing looks, and Keely made an “eww” face, but none of them stopped me from going into the garage and coming to a stop in the middle of my garage gym to get a better view.

He was dripping sweat, and I’d lost count two hundred jumps ago, when he finally looked over.

He didn’t look surprised to see me, and his knowing smile let me know that he’d known I was there all along.

“Something I can help you with?” he teased.

I licked my lips, then lifted my shirt and started to tunnel my hands down my pants. “No, I’m just going to watch…”

His eyes focused on my hand, and then he was abandoning the rope and walking toward me.

I didn’t miss the bulge in his pants as he came stalking my way.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

My fingers met my pussy, and I found my wetness—our wetness.

I still hadn’t wiped him out of me.

I liked it.

Wanted it there.

He reached me, and without much thought, hit the button to close the garage door on his way.

He caught me, then twisted me so that I was bent over the back of an incline bench.

I caught the supple leather in my hands as he yanked my leggings down to my ankles.

He pushed two thick fingers inside of me just as I felt the drip of his sweat hit my bare back.

“Fuckin’ soaked,” he growled.

“I still have you inside of me,” I said, causing him to growl again.

Then he was surging inside of me with no finesse.

Which was fine, because I didn’t need finesse. I only needed him.

With long, hard strokes, he filled me up, hitting the end of me with each stroke.

“God, yes,” I breathed as his balls started to drum a steady tap-tap against my clit.

He growled when I started to tighten around him, and before I could tell him I was coming, I was there, squeaking out a quiet scream to hopefully conceal what we were doing out here.

His growl of release totally defeated my attempt, and before I could think too hard about it, he was filling me up as I pulsed around him.

When he was through, he pulled out, then stuffed his fingers into my pussy before saying, “I want you to be filled with me all day.”

I looked at him over my shoulder and said, “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

When I came back into the living room, Cutter’s brother was back, and he was laughing at something Shasha, who’d also come back, was saying.

Cutter followed us, now dressed in his wet t-shirt, and frowned. “I thought you were going on a ride?”

“Tried, but it started raining.” He looked at Cutter. “Which you should probably know, since it’s raining so hard that it’s now pouring.”

Cutter and I both looked out the window and sure enough, it was raining.

I flushed deep red, and Shasha sighed, “I knew this day would come when my sister found someone, but I truly didn’t think you’d make me listen to that. Ruining my life.”

“How is it ruining your life?” I laughed, still embarrassed as hell. “And when did you get here?”

“Just got here.” Shasha looked at me. “I imagine that Dima won’t be too happy that he can’t just show up to crash at your place anymore without alerting him.” He looked at Cutter with narrowed eyes. “But I guess it all works out, since now he won’t have to worry about you anymore.”

I softened.

“Wow, wonder what that feels like?” Chevy asked.

“You are not marrying me off to make you not worry anymore, Chevy Clark,” Keely called from the kitchen.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her brother’s head whip around and his eyes widen.

“That’s an excellent idea!”

I ain’t too good at fractions, but I still know you’re a whole ass bitch.

—Text from Cutter to Chevy

CUTTER

I was knee deep in sawdust, had my arms high above my head holding a shelving unit in place, and my phone was ringing.

“Go!” I called out to Milena.

She came in from the front, her eyebrows raised. “You rang.”

I grinned at her, then shifted my hips to indicate what I wanted. “My phone’s ringing.”

She eyed my hips. “Could you do that again?”

I shot her a look, which she returned with a smirk.

“It’s my granddad’s number, or I wouldn’t answer it,” I informed her.

“How do you know it’s your granddad’s number?” she asked.

“Because Keely thought it would be hilarious to assign everyone their own vibration on everyone’s phone,” he answered. “Granddad’s is the Jaws theme. I can feel the vibrations going, dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun.”

She gifted me with a smile that would’ve knocked me off my feet had I not had a couple hundred pounds over my head.

“Got it,” she said as she came over.

She stuck her hand in the pocket without the phone, and I didn’t bother telling her it wasn’t in that pocket when her fingers brushed against the line of my cock.

“Whoops.” She giggled and went for the other pocket.

Pulling it out, she answered it while on speakerphone.

“Hey, Granddad,” she cooed.

Granddad and Milena hadn’t officially met yet, but only because Granddad’s schedule was very busy. As in, Mondays he played Bingo at the Bingo Hall with his crew. Tuesdays he went out of town to a shopping mall in Sunnyvale where he ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Wednesdays he played pickleball. Thursdays he played pickleball. Fridays he ‘recovered’ and played Bunko. When he wasn’t doing that, he was at my shop putzing around, building things out of my wood without asking. Saturdays and Sundays he did his various activities at the old folks’ home that we were able to sneak him into by the skin of our teeth.

And, seeing as Granddad wasn’t willing to miss much of any of his activities, not even to meet his grandson’s wife, he’d yet to meet her.

Though, we had plans to join him at pickleball tomorrow, according to Keely and Milena—who’d become fast friends a couple of days ago after meeting.

I’d decided that it was their common history.

They both had bonded over their overprotective brothers, how their lives had changed, and how much they wished that their family could see them as people, and not as victims.

Truthfully, it’d taken Milena explaining things to me to understand.

She wasn’t hung up on anything anymore.

She’d figured out how to navigate life after the unthinkable had happened to her, and she wanted to be able to live. And we—Chevy, Copper, Shasha, Dima, and I—hadn’t been giving them the freedom they needed to live their lives.

We’d been holding on so tightly with both hands that we hadn’t realized that they’d overcome and persevered.

But now, I was giving that freedom to Keely, and I would work hard to try to convince my brothers—and Milena’s—to do the same.

“Oh, hey, darlin’,” Granddad said. “How are you?”

Milena grinned at me and said, “I’m doing really good. Trying out my new coffee machine today. Would you like some coffee?”

“Oh, I’d love some dear.” He paused. “Hey, can you tell my grandson I might need some help for a bit?”

I screwed in the shelf, then fastened it to the other wall with more screws, before I said, “What did you do, Granddad?”

There was a pause and then, “Oh, nothing, nothing,” he declared. “I just need you here to clear up a few things.”

“Where is here?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m at Sunny’s,” he said. “The place just down the road from your wife’s coffee shop.”

I looked at Milena and raised a brow.

She held up her finger and said, “Granddad, we’ll be right there.”

I sighed and walked out with Milena to the bike.

“Come on,” I said. “I get in your car, and I’m gonna get it disgusting.”

“But what if your granddad needs a ride back here?” she asked.

“Then we’ll figure it out,” I pointed out.

She hopped onto the back of my bike, and I handed her the helmet that I’d purchased just for her only a day ago.

She pulled it onto her head, and I adjusted my own helmet, before we took off.

Granddad was right. It was only a bit down the road.

Milena pointed over my shoulder at the small diner, and I pulled into the parking lot, unsurprised to find a crowd.

“What is going on?” Milena asked.

“I need you to go inside,” I said. “Stand in the windows so I can see you.”

She bit her lip but didn’t argue, which I was happy for.

She didn’t go all the way inside, though. Instead, she went into the small vestibule area that had another set of doors that would lead you inside.

She stayed in that small glass room and stared, but kept the door cracked so she could hear what was happening.

I walked up to the crowd of people, unsurprised to find my granddad and his cronies—three older men that were also Vietnam vets—at his side.

“You the ‘dolphin trainer’?” one man asked.

I eyed his cut, seeing it said ‘Crazy Motherfuckers’ on it.

Original.

I looked at my grandfather and said, “Again? Really?”

He shrugged.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes, uncaring that I’d semi-turned my back on the men that were obviously a problem.

Even now, I heard the bikes arriving.

I didn’t go anywhere without backup, and as we were leaving, I sent a mass text to the club, asking for a little backup if they were in the area.

I wasn’t sure who’d responded, but it didn’t matter. All of them could handle themselves. And I trusted all of them with my life.

“Granddad, what the fuck did I tell you about calling me a dolphin trainer?”

“Well, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I was…” I let go of the bridge of my nose. “Training SEALS. Not dolphins.”

“Oh, yeah.” He giggled, shrugging. “It’s not like these men would really understand, anyway. It’s not like they have any brain cells to rub together.”

He knew damn well what I used to do.

There was a shuffle of feet behind me, and I just knew one of the men that’d been at my back had lost their patience.

I shifted, putting my back to the brick pillar behind me, but didn’t have to make a move because there was an angry cop there blocking the path.

“I think not.”

Auden Carter, Milena’s sister’s old man.

Fuck, I hated having a cop in the family.

Cops were such buzzkills.

The bikes were so close now that I knew they were parking in the middle of the parking lot, ready to leap off at any possible signs of distress.

“And who the fuck do you think you are?” the first man to address me asked Auden. “You’re one lone cop in a sea of bikers.”

I shifted, crossing my arms over my chest.

I looked out of the corner of my eye and spotted Webber and Doc, both watching but not making a move to intervene.

“I think if you want to act all big and tough, you might not want to do it with a whole fuckin’ diner full of cops,” Auden pointed out.

Sure enough, when I looked behind me, what looked like the entire Carter Clan was in the diner behind me, staring out the plate glass windows.

One of the elder Carters, which likely was Auden’s dad, was standing protectively next to Milena. Which made me feel a sense of relief, even if he was another cop.

I hadn’t wanted her in this sort of situation, but the worse thought was leaving her behind with no protection where she expected to be safe.

Next to the group of Carters was a couple of familiar faces from another MC watching but not intervening.

I didn’t have to look at the name patch to know that gator skeleton.

Gator Bait MC.

Fuck, but these fuckwit bikers really chose the wrong fuckin’ diner.

If they only knew…

The Truth Tellers MC and the Gator Bait MC were friendly. There’d been many times that we’d had each other’s backs in the past.

But having the Carters here, who had a kinship to my wife…

Granddad did know how to start a party.

“You don’t fuckin’ scare me with your cop badges,” the biker, whose name patch said ‘Sniff’ on it, said.

Ol’ Sniff had no clue.

Sniff’s friends shifted restlessly, likely seeing the error in their friend’s ways.

Sniff didn’t care, obviously, because his next words were short and sweet.

“I’m going to fuckin’ kill you.”

Then he launched himself at my granddad.

And let me tell you something, folks.

My granddad was a vet.

He had done things, seen things, and experienced things that not even I, as a SEAL, had experienced.

He’d been in the trenches of Vietnam.

He’d turned into a man that not even I would fuck with.

Not even at eighty-eight years old.

Sniff launched himself at Granddad, and Granddad slapped him across the face like a bitch, dropping him to his knees.

Auden moved then, cuffing Sniff before he could recover from the slap.

Granddad’s friends were snickering, and Sniff’s friends were shifting from foot to foot.

“Now’s the time to take a hike,” I suggested to them.

They looked like they wanted to argue but chose not to.

The crowd of them dissipated, heading toward the back of the lot where the bikes were lined up.

Auden walked toward a cruiser I had noticed in the corner of the lot and deposited a bleeding Sniff into the back of the cruiser.

I turned just in time to have Milena come up to my back and wrap her arms around my side.

“So, you’re a dolphin trainer?” she teased.

I looked down at Milena and narrowed my eyes. “Not anymore.”

“Why not?” she pushed.

“Because it was exhausting,” I admitted. “And it was time to find a new path in life.”

“Now he’s just a pain in our ass.” Webber came up after parking his bike. “It’s nice to see you again.”

Milena offered Webber her hand and said, “It’s great to see you again, too.”

The lines at the corners of Webber’s eyes creased as he practically beamed at her.

The most dangerous man I knew, smiling like a fuckin’ loon.

“When’s your man going to bring you around again so we can get to know you better?” Doc walked up and offered his hand as well. “I feel like he’s been hogging your attention.”

Milena flushed.

I narrowed my eyes at Doc.

Always the fuckin’ charmer.

It was part of his persona.

Charm them. Make them think that he wasn’t as dangerous as he was.

But sometimes he was genuine.

Like right now.

“Circumstances.” She shrugged, not offering an explanation, which I approved of.

I loved my club brothers. Most of them I loved like my real brothers.

However, the less people that knew about why I married her, the better.

Because, the more people that knew, the more likely that Milena would know, and I didn’t ever want her to find out the real reason.

She might hate me for it, and I didn’t think I could handle her hating me.

“Well, now that we’re here,” Webber drawled, rubbing his belly. “I’m a bit peckish.”

I waited until Auden got back and offered him my hand, which he surprisingly took.

“Thanks for having my granddad’s back,” I offered.

“He didn’t have my back. I had my own damn back!” Granddad cried.

My lips twitched as I turned to the man that’d finished raising me—who was pretty much the only positive male influence I had growing up—and said, “Granddad, since you’re now unbusy, maybe you could finally meet my wife.”

Granddad’s sharp eyes turned to Milena and held. He stared at her for a long moment before saying, “You’re a looker. You do realize that he’s way beneath your level, right?”

I shook my head, a smile forming on my mouth despite my granddad’s words.

“Oh?” Milena turned to stare at me, the two of them giving me very different appraisals. “I think he’s mighty sexy, though. He has all these abs underneath that shirt, and he has the stamina of a racehorse. And the co⁠—”

I placed my hand over her mouth and said, “Don’t you dare.”

Her hand came to my wrist, and she pulled pitifully hard.

I gave her the play and dropped my hand from her mouth. But she curled my hand underneath her chin and said to my granddad, “You can sit by me as we have breakfast.”

“I’ve already eaten,” Granddad said. “But I guess it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship to sit there for a few minutes. That’s all I can spare, though. Tiny and Big Head want to head to Whataburger to sit after this. We have a pretty good routine.”

I rolled my eyes, causing Auden to chuckle and say, “Pop, when will you turn into an old man like that?”

Auden’s ‘Pop’ chuckled as he held the door open for us.

We all went inside and were greeted by a very full house.

Luckily, it looked like the Carter family was finished and were cleaning up and heading out.

They all offered chin lifts, but didn’t stay to talk, leaving the entire place breathing a collective sigh of relief once they were gone.

The Carters were good people, but they were cops after all.

Cops were such Debbie Downers.

“Coastguard.”

I looked up to find Etienne, one of the members of Gator Bait MC, standing there with his hand out.

I took it with a grin and said, “Etienne. What are you doing in Dallas?”

“Poker Run for Easter,” he said.

“Ahh.” I nodded. “I actually heard about that.”

“You’re not doing it?” he asked. “There’s a big to-do going on in Mansfield.”

“Not this time,” I said as I curled my hand around the back of Milena’s thigh and pulled her closer to me when Etienne’s club brother, Bain, came closer.

His eyes weren’t exactly on Milena in a way that I thought he was finding her attractive, but in a calculating way.

I grumbled something under my breath, causing Bain to look at me.

He didn’t look apologetic in the least as he said, “Coastie.”

My club name was Coastguard, but sometimes it was too long to say in a satisfying way, so lots of times it got shortened to Coastie.

Normally I wouldn’t care, but Bain had just sized my woman up, and I wasn’t feeling all nice and tingly about that.

“I don’t know if you remember me,” Bain said, ignoring me. “But one time I came into your sister’s bakery. About two years or so ago. And you were there helping. You gave my daughter a cheese Danish when she fell and busted her lip.”

Milena’s head tilted sideways a bit before saying, “The one that bled all over the floor and it looked like a murder scene?”

“That’s the one.” Bain laughed.

I let up on Milena’s thigh, but instead of pulling away, she leaned into me more.

“The cops came in because a dad was complaining about the noise, and I threw a freakin’ fit.” Milena snickered. “How’s she doing?”

“Growing like a weed,” he said, his eyes flicking to me.

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. I read the look in his eyes.

If I ever hurt her, he’d kick my ass.

But he needn’t have worried.

Milena had a long line of male protectors that would kick my ass if I fucked this up.

“Come sit with us and catch up,” Etienne said. “Webber, how ya doing? Your ol’ lady still doing good?”

“My ol’ lady isn’t my ol’ lady anymore,” Webber grumbled as he took the seat next to Etienne.

I waited until everyone was seated, even my grandfather, before I turned Milena to face me. “You okay with eating with them?”

She raised her hand and smoothed my beard down before saying, “As long as you don’t leave me there alone, I’m perfectly fine.”

I pulled her to me and stared directly into her eyes when I said, “I’d have to be dragged away dead before I left you.”

Other girls: I’m a delicate little flower.

Me: I’m the claw end of a hammer.

—Text from Milena to Cutter

MILENA

Married life was a lot like single life.

Well, more accurately, being married wasn’t nearly as bad as I always thought it would be.

Not that my brother and sisters didn’t have great relationships. They did.

Moreso, it was because I always thought it was a bit suffocating.

Having someone constantly know where I was, what I was doing, and asking when I would be home sounded awful.

But being married to Cutter wasn’t like that.

Not at all.

He cleaned up after himself. He made coffee in the morning before I left for work—which was about an hour earlier than him, but he always, always followed me in then went to his place to pick up his work trailer and hang for a bit to watch the sunrise.

Oh, and he was considerate, kind, and everything that I could’ve dreamed up in the perfect man.

“Montana, eh?” Cutter asked. “What if I don’t wanna go to Montana?”

I grinned. “I mean, I never really invited you.”

His eyes twinkled as he said, “Do you want to go alone?”

I thought about it for a long second before saying, “This was something that Hazel and I were going to do together. As much as I’d like you to be there, I think that would be unfair to her.”

Hazel and I were…okay.

In the last few weeks that I’d been married, Hazel had made every single run with me, even the short ones.

She’d shown up, which had put me at ease for how this weekend would go.

However, she still didn’t know about Cutter.

I’d been keeping Cutter to myself when she was around.

Not that I was ashamed of him, but I just knew that she would lecture me on how I’d moved on too fast, and how I’d never really given Asher a chance.

She didn’t know about Asher, either.

All she knew was that Asher and I had permanently broken up.

She’d never know about Asher, because that would be something that we would never agree on, and I didn’t want to be disappointed in my friend if she chose to side with him after he’d almost killed me.

“It’s only for four days,” I pointed out. “And to be quite honest, you’re so freakin’ busy right now that you shouldn’t leave.”

He knew I was right, too.

His Cowboys locker room remodel was now in full swing. He had two more full days of work before he would be finished, and when he finished, he had to immediately go straight into another project.

If he left now, he’d be behind, and you shouldn’t be behind when you were trying to make a name for yourself among the elite.

Which was exactly what he was doing.

“What about a bodyguard?” he asked. “You won’t fight me on that, right?”

“I won’t,” I said. “Though, he’s gonna have to get a flight and figure out a way to run a marathon while still protecting me.”

Cutter’s eyes gleamed as he replied, “I’ll let your brother pick which one is the fittest to do that.”

My phone buzzed before he could say anything more, and I pulled it out to check it.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Cutter pulled out his phone and did the same, likely talking with Shasha.

That was another thing that’d come as a surprise.

His utter agreement with my brother, his business, and the bodyguards that were always around if Cutter wasn’t.

My phone buzzed again, reminding me that I’d gotten a message.

I’d been expecting Hazel’s reply, so I wasn’t surprised to see her name on the screen when I glanced at it before unlocking it.

I was surprised, however, by what she texted me.

Hazel:

Hey, so…change of plans. I’m going to drive up there. I was going to rent a car once I was there, like we’d planned, but it’s like hella expensive. Plus, the airlines bumped me from my flight because they overbooked. That okay?

I immediately texted back.

Me:

Of course. Do you want me to drive with you?

I hoped she didn’t. I loved traveling, but I hated traveling there by car.

Hazel:

No, no. I’m good. I have my road trip playlist already loaded. I’ll meet you at the rental!

Shoving my phone back into my pocket I relayed the change of plans.

He frowned when I was finished. “I would’ve fought the canceled flight. It might be expensive to rent a car, but it’s just as expensive to pay for the gas to get all the way up there. Plus, now she has to leave a day early.”

Agreed but…

“Hazel is a bit on the odd side,” I admitted. “If you ever stopped hating her, you might actually like her. She has a brain that’s fascinating.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. She’ll have to prove herself first.”

I patted his chest and then said, “We have to meet your club in thirty minutes, and we’re twenty minutes away. Are you changing, or are you wearing that?”

He winked before saying, “I guess I’ll change so you’re not getting sawdust flying into your eyes the entire ride over.”

We were heading to the Truth Tellers MC clubhouse this afternoon for a barbeque.

According to him, everyone would be there.

I watched him walk away, and my phone rang seconds after he disappeared into the bedroom.

I pulled it out without checking the caller ID and placed it to my ear.

“Hello?”

There was this weird clicking sound and I frowned as I walked toward the bedroom, obviously not going to miss my husband undressing for a phone call.

I could hear the shower already running, but by the sounds of it, Cutter hadn’t made it inside yet.

My eyes spied his now bare ass reaching in and testing the water when the robotic voice filled my ear.

“Collect call from Huntsville Penitentiary from,” the robotic voice changed when I got into the bedroom. I saw Cutter leaning over the trashcan throwing something into it when the voice hit me. “Your best boyfriend ever.”

I must’ve made some sound because Cutter whipped around toward me.

The shock started to course through my veins, but before I could hear anything more, Cutter put the phone to his ear.

His face went from concerned to thunderous, and my breathing accelerated.

“Listen to me and listen very carefully,” Cutter said in a dangerously low tone. “You will never call her again. You will lose her fuckin’ number. You try again, and I’ll make sure you never leave those prison walls.”

There was a long pause, and then Cutter turned even scarier. “Two weeks is a long time, my friend. Lots of things could happen in two weeks.”

There was another pause and then, “You could try. You could damn well try, but let’s just say that’ll never happen. Your attempt failed. You won’t ever get close to her.”

Cutter listened a little bit longer before hanging up.

When his eyes met mine, I knew that I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

“Wonder how many more years Copper’ll get if he takes care of him now for me,” he replied.

I was already shaking my head. “You can’t ask him to do that.”

“To protect you, I’d ask him to do anything.”

CUTTER

To say that I was in a bad mood would be an understatement.

What was meant to be a fun day celebrating mine and Milena’s marriage with the club had turned into a planning session.

Luckily, Milena understood the assignment, and hadn’t fought me when I asked her for some time with the boys shortly after introducing them all.

She’d been miraculously easygoing about all of it, and only when I’d asked her why did her answer literally break me.

Cutter, darling. The fear that lives inside of me is constant. I know that one day that man is going to get out, and he’s going to come after me because his conceit won’t allow him to let the slight pass. However, when I saw him at the prison, I didn’t have you in my corner. My fear is barely noticeable when you’re around. And even when you’re not. Because I know that you’d protect me, even if you had to burn the city of Dallas down around our ears to make it happen.

“So what you need to do is get the ex-boyfriend brought in,” Hagrid said. “Short of killing him, which would be pretty hard to do since he’s high-profile right now.”

Hagrid wasn’t lying.

Asher was a goddamn boy wonder right now in the Dallas business community.

His think tank for whatever the fuck he was working on right now was going viral, and getting rid of him would be considerably harder now than it would have been even a week ago.

I should’ve just taken him out after the incident with Milena, but I’d allowed Shasha to deal with it.

And now I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“I could plant something,” Apollo suggested. “I mean, he’s a computer tech. He might very well find it before it’s found, but if I’m smart about it, and leak it to the right people, I could have him brought in tomorrow if I tried hard enough.”

“Do it,” I agreed. “I’ll talk to Shasha and make sure that he’s on board, but I don’t see why he would have an issue.”

“Would be easier if we had time to get this done, though. Make it more of a permanent thing instead of a small charge. Really get it to stick,” Chevy put in.

“She’s headed to Montana,” I said. “Shasha is sending a bodyguard, so whatever we do needs to be done before she gets back so she’s not implicated.”

“So go over the phone call one more time,” Webber requested.

I looked over at Milena, who was talking with Simeon and Conway, her two newest hires.

She was over the moon to have them, and I was over the moon to have someone I knew could protect her and always be with her.

“Got home and started to take a shower. Milena followed me in like she always does when I’m gettin’ in, and the look on her face was…terrifying. Her face leeched of color and I reached for the phone,” I said as I leaned back in my chair and took a long sip of my beer. It was nearly hot, but I wouldn’t point that out. Simeon and Conway were doin’ the best they could with the hours that I’d pretty much forced upon them. I’d give them a slide on the beer. “When I put the phone to my ear, the first thing I heard was Lyle Pennington saying he was getting out soon.”

“What else did he say?” Chevy leaned forward, eager to hear it all.

Lyle Pennington had been causing Copper some trouble for weeks now, and he’d been on our shit list since it’d started.

We didn’t like anyone messing with our brother, and though he was in jail, that didn’t mean we didn’t have the connections that allowed us to get to him.

“When I cut into his celebration of getting out, by telling him to listen to me, and to listen very carefully,” I said, “he went quiet, and then I told him to never call her again, to lose her fuckin’ number. Or I’d make sure that he never saw the outside of those prison walls again.

“Only when I was done did he say that he was getting out in two weeks, and there wasn’t much I could do to him because he had friends inside, and no one would allow anything to happen to him.” I paused. “That’s when he started talking about Asher, and how he was going to get Asher to kill her, and any other ex-boyfriend that Milena strung along like he did all the others.”

“He sounds like a fuckin’ prick,” Detroit muttered. “Maybe I should get myself locked up there for a bit so I can take care of it.”

“When I smarted off to him again, he told me that Milena would be dead before next week if I wasn’t careful,” I said. “After a few more choice words, I hung up on him.”

“So we need to get a list of all her ex-boyfriends and watch them,” Apollo said. “I can do that.” He paused again. “And I can also get Asher pulled in. If anything else, I can put him on a twenty-four-hour hold, which’ll be enough time to get Milena to Montana. I can then change her info on the flight manifest once she’s on, and there’ll be no record of her leaving the state.” He grinned then. “I can get Asher put on a no-fly list for the time being. He won’t be able to go anywhere.”

“That’ll do for now,” I said as I looked at my watch. “But my most immediate plan of action is going to visit the warden.”

“Tonight?” Webber asked.

“No,” I shook my head. “She’s leaving from Dallas Love Field tomorrow at six in the morning. I don’t have to be at work until well past noon. That should give me enough time to run to Bear Bottom and back.”

“Bear Bottom?” Knight said. “Are you gonna go see the Guardians?”

“Gonna go see the warden at his place, and hope that he’ll help me,” I said as I glanced at my woman who was now looking at me with concern. “We should party like we intended. I don’t want her worried about what I’m about to do.”

Webber got up and slapped me on the back before saying, “We’ll let Apollo go to work. The rest of us will have beer, brats, and talk about how stupid of a decision she made marrying you.”

Lord, please take this gas out of my stomach and put it into my car.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

“And then there was this one time that Coastguard went down to the Dairy Queen off Interstate 5 and was talking to a man about dolphin training for a whole hour,” Detroit wheezed.

Out of all the guys, I thought Detroit was the funniest.

It also helped that he had these mesmerizing green eyes that seemed to light from within whenever he talked.

To be completely truthful, I liked them all a lot.

Not a single one of them had been unwelcoming the entire time.

Well, as long as you didn’t count the women.

None of them had been welcoming.

There were quite a few women, and even a few that I noticed were clearly ‘with’ the men.

But none of them wore those vests you saw in romance novels proclaiming them ‘belonging’ to a member of the MC.

I wondered idly if I’d ever get something like that, or if it was truly something that only happened in dramatized stories.

“On that one.” Cutter laughed as he stood up from behind me where he’d been sitting on my bench and cuddling me close. “We gotta go. Milena has to be up at the ass crack of dawn, and I have to get her to the airport for her six in the fuckin’ morning flight.”

I snickered.

To say that Cutter wasn’t a morning person would be an understatement.

I’d learned this multiple times over the last few weeks, and it’d yet to get any better.

I doubted it ever would.

Sadly, the job that Cutter had taken on had pretty much demanded he be there early, per businesslike standards.

If he’d had his choice he’d be there ‘whenever he fuckin’ felt like it.’

His words, not mine.

To be honest, I kind of liked the idea of coming in later, too.

The idea of a coffee shop opening early didn’t sound nearly as awful until after I had a warm man in my bed to keep me company.

When Cutter’s hand came out to help me up, I took it, his large palm engulfing my tiny one.

The tingles started the moment his bare skin touched mine.

That was a lie, though.

His body had been wrapped around me all night.

He’d placed his hands on my bare thighs, running his palms up and down the length of my legs. He’d wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in tight to him. He’d placed kisses on my neck and shoulders.

He’d been playing the long game all night, and I was at the breaking point.

And the thought of getting on that bike and riding nearly thirty minutes home—if traffic was cooperating—sounded like torture.

Turning in his arms, I stared up at him and said, “You never showed me your room.”

His eyes turned curious as he said, clearly misunderstanding why I was asking, “It’s just a bed in a room the size of a Post-it Note.”

The operative word there was “bed.”

Though, I suppose, with Cutter’s strength, he didn’t necessarily need a bed.

I hummed before going up on my tippy toes and saying, “Show me.”

His hands on my hips tightened, I was guessing still in confusion but curiosity as well, and I flushed when he started to drag me toward a long hallway.

The clubhouse itself was one large barndominium with a kitchen on one side and the bedrooms on the other side of a very large, open room.

There were a shit ton of couches, a bar, and TVs. A lot of them.

I’d gone to the bathroom, which was one of four in the long hallway on the left side.

But I hadn’t ventured any farther past them, too worried about what I’d find if I started to look.

Now, as he dragged me toward the bedrooms, I wondered idly if his bedding was clean.

I was proved neither right nor wrong when he walked to a door near the end of the hall on the left and pulled me inside.

The mattress was still in the plastic, and the bed frame was half-put together leaning up against the wall.

“I like what you’ve done to the place,” I teased.

He didn’t bother closing the bedroom door when he lifted me up and pressed me against the wall.

The newly painted wall that still smelled of fresh paint.

So he’d known what I was asking after all…

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked as he pressed himself against me.

I licked my lips and said, “Yes.”

“Why?” He skimmed his rough palms from my hips up underneath my shirt, his hands stilling when he felt my braless state.

That was the good thing about having smaller breasts. You didn’t need a bra when you wore the correct clothing.

“You’re not wearing a bra,” he murmured in surprise.

“They’re constricting, and make me feel like I can’t breathe,” I admitted. “If I can get away with not wearing them, I don’t.” I looped my hands around his neck, then went up into his hair as I started to pull his mouth to mine. “As to why, I didn’t think I could sit on the back of your bike for however long and not come…and it’s always way better to come with you inside of me than empty. Though, it might be a close second, coming against your back while on your bike…”

He growled and smashed his lips to mine.

It didn’t take Cutter much to get going.

He was gone for me…just like I was gone for him.

This whole situation was freakin’ mad, yet I was there for it.

I didn’t care that we barely knew each other.

I didn’t care that this was completely and irrevocably insane.

I only cared about how I felt right now, and that was fantastic.

With his hips grinding into my pussy, and his hard body pressed against me while he held me aloft…well, I truly couldn’t think about a single thing to complain about.

“Milena,” he growled against my throat when he pulled back from my mouth to catch his breath. “I don’t have any condoms.”

I snorted.

We’d said the same damn thing, either him or me, each time we’d had sex since this had all started. Now it was just a game we played, even if a bit repetitious. Regardless, it made me smile.

“It’s okay…maybe you can just put the tip in,” I taunted.

It was his turn to snort as he pulled back, set me on my feet, then started unbuttoning his pants.

I hastily got rid of my shoes, my shorts, and my panties.

Once I was standing there half-naked, he’d had enough time to get his pants unzipped and pushed partially down to reveal his cock.

His hand was wrapped around it, his fingers lazily stroking the long, thick length.

A bead of precome was gathered at the very tip, and as I watched, the drop fell to the floor.

The desperate thought of ‘lick it up’ hit me, but I wasn’t that far gone.

Now, if there happened to be another drop gathered at the tip, I could lick that drop off….

I went down to my knees, my hands going to the side of his calves, as I leaned forward and allowed my tongue to come out.

He continued to stroke, and the next drop that fell happened to be directly onto my tongue.

I brought my tongue into my mouth and rubbed it against the roof of my mouth, his salty flavor bursting to life on my tastebuds.

“Fuck,” he growled. “I’m way too fuckin’ old to be feelin’ like I might come like a damn teenager again. What the hell hold do you have over me?”

I grinned up at him, then brought my tongue out for him to continue to stroke the tip against.

He did this for a few long seconds more before he said, “On the bed.”

I crawled over to the bed on my hands and knees.

The moment that I was on my knees with my ass up in the air, ready to flip over, he stilled me and kept me exactly where I was, pressing himself against me.

“Just the tip?” he asked as he brought the tip of his cock to my entrance and teased me with it.

I gasped, feeling the spread of my pussy.

The head of his cock was by far the widest part, bulbous and ruddy, parting my tiny pussy with laughable ease.

“Just maybe a little more than the tip,” I begged.

God, I needed him.

This need inside of me was all consuming.

And it was all for him.

“More,” I begged. “Just more.”

He pushed just a little bit more inside, pulling back far enough that he could go just that exact depth more all over again.

“Cutter,” I begged. “Please, Cutter.”

“Please what?” he asked, his voice sounding as ravaged as I felt. “Baby, we can’t. We aren’t protected.”

This game we played.

Every single time, it went like this.

Did it make me stupid to play this game with him, knowing what it could lead to?

Why did I fuckin’ love it so much?

What was done was done by now. If I was going to get pregnant, I was already pregnant.

I wasn’t missing my period yet, but if it didn’t show up tomorrow or the next day…

I snorted. “That hasn’t stopped us before.”

“Yeah, but before you weren’t fertile. Before, we weren’t playing a game with fate,” he said. “We were unprotected, but I know for a fact that you weren’t close enough to your window to…”

God, just the tabooness of it all…

“Please, Cutter,” I begged. “Please. Just a little bit more.”

He gave me more, this time going about halfway.

He gave me little pumps of his hips, forward and backward, just enough to make me want even more.

“Cutter,” I breathed. “Just…just give me all of it just once. Just once.”

He sank inside and froze, so deep I could barely breathe.

“You know, there’s another hole that I could be inside that wouldn’t have the risk of a baby,” he drawled. “I could come inside of you and not feel a single ounce of guilt that I’m tying you to me forever.”

I shook my head. “You and me are already going to be tied together forever. A baby isn’t going to be the first tie, and it won’t be the last.”

His cock jerked inside of me, and I mewled.

“Cutter,” I pushed back onto him, fucking him what little I could due to the way he was holding my hips. “I’m just gonna…”

I pulsed my muscles around him, my eyes closing as the need started to ratchet up, higher and higher.

At last, his control snapped, and he started fucking me for real, no more games.

Or, more accurately, too far gone to really care about how it was too soon, and we were freakin’ nuts.

He fucked me with a blind abandon that showed his lack of control.

I reveled in it, my eyes closing and my face going to the plastic beneath me as I braced my arms in front of me and took the pounding he wanted to give me.

He fucked me hard, fast, and raw.

My orgasm snuck up on the both of us.

With no preparation, it blindsided me and pulled me under so hard and fast that I didn’t control the scream that left my throat when it came.

He growled, his hands on my hips tightening, and rode the wave along with me until at last he allowed himself to fall.

He grunted as his release hit him. Hot jets of seed spewed from his cock and bathed my insides, filling me so full that it spilled out, bathing my inner thighs.

Our breathing was the only thing filling the quiet room as he finally let my hips free of his death grip.

“I really will get you pregnant one of these days,” he growled. “Game or not, if you’re not by now, you will be soon.”

A statement.

A fact.

“Would that be a totally bad thing?” I asked. “I thought the idea really turned you on?”

He hummed, his mouth going to my right shoulder blade as he skimmed his lips against the soft skin there. “No. We might be fuckin’ new. We might be fuckin’ temporary. But it feels very fuckin’ right. It does turn me on. It does make me want to scream from the rooftops that you are mine, branding you with come in a way that’ll make any man stay away.”

Temporary.

I didn’t like that word a single bit.

But he was right.

This was supposed to be temporary.

Wasn’t it?

The only blizzard conditions I’m interested in are from Dairy Queen.

—Text from Milena to Cutter

CUTTER

I dropped her off at the airport with her bodyguard that morning at five, then drove to Apollo’s place to see what he’d accomplished.

If I was a man that was willing to admit his weaknesses, I’d tell everyone that it was much harder to let her go than it probably should’ve been at this stage in our relationship.

Watching her walk away from me felt like she’d cut a cord that I needed to live.

The horrible feeling in my chest at our distance was what was occupying my head when I arrived at the house in the nice neighborhood that screamed ‘family’ and not ‘biker.’ I pulled into Apollo’s drive, shut the bike off, then headed toward his door.

I felt more than saw the eyes on me.

Apollo lived in a neighborhood inhabited by old people.

I was fairly sure the median age of the entire block was seventy-five.

At any given time, they had this phone-tree thing going on that alerted the whole damn neighborhood of anything that happened the moment that it happened.

Apollo liked it because he felt like his place was always protected—which it was.

I, on the other hand, hated it.

I didn’t like prying eyes on me like that, yet I still ended up at his place once a week.

Well, I had before I’d tied myself to a beautiful black-haired beauty.

Apollo opened the door before I could knock and waved me inside.

“Asher Soren is in custody now, and get this,” he said as he walked toward the living room. “I didn’t even have to do anything to his computer. He already had that kind of sick shit on there. Though, they were underage women, around fifteen and sixteen. Had a buddy that did some shit for his start-up and he was more than willing to dig through his shit and send it in.”

I curled my lip up. “That’s disgusting.”

“It is,” he said as he caught up his cut. “You ready?”

I was.

After feeding his outside cats a scoop of cat food, he walked to his bike and mounted.

Five minutes later, the two of us were headed to Bear Bottom so I could talk to Bayou in person.

“Let me get this straight.” Bayou crossed his arms over his chest. “You want me to let you into my prison to kill a man before he can get out.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And what makes you think that I’ll allow that?” he asked carefully.

“Benson, honey.” His wife, Phoebe, came into the room. She was dressed in scrubs, and she looked like she was ready to head into work. The same work that her husband worked at, though in a different, much more secure part of the prison.

She was the prison nurse, and worked there for eight hours a day, three days a week. And the other four days of the week she was a stay-at-home mom to what seemed like fifteen children but was only six.

“Yes, Fancy?” he asked, looking at her with love and acceptance in his eyes, and not annoyance that she’d butted into a conversation that was likely pissing Bayou off.

“What would you do if a man assaulted me in that way?” she asked carefully.

Bayou’s entire body went ramrod straight and said, “I’d fucking kill them.”

She looked at me then. “Benson just needs to relate to the situation. He’s very literal and has to be by the book when it comes to that prison. However, if you so happened to come in because your brother was hurt, and you were worried he was on his deathbed and you were coming in to say your final goodbyes, and you also just so happened to see another certain someone in there. And also just so happened to have a syringe full of insulin that your sister-in-law could give you…well then, that would be…kismet.”

With that, she walked to her husband and kissed him on the mouth. She then walked to me, patted me on the chest and said, “See you in about, oh, say, two hours? That’s about how long it would take you to get here from Dallas if you were actually coming from your house, correct?”

I wasn’t about to tell her it was more than that. Not when she was doing me this kind of favor.

With that, she whirled out of the room and the door beyond us closed with a resounding click.

“Your wife is scary as fuck.” Apollo watched her car back out of the driveway on two wheels and then accelerate down the road at the speed of light.

“You have no fuckin’ idea,” Bayou muttered. “Y’all want to go have breakfast?”

I grinned. “After I make a call.”

“Is this enough?” Nastya asked, looking practically gleeful.

She liked the idea of me killing the motherfucker as much as I did.

“I have no idea,” I admitted.

I may have done medical stuff for the Navy when I was in, but I didn’t have any clue about insulin.

“Well,” Nastya bit her lip as she stared at the syringe full of insulin. “This is what I would normally give myself if I was about to die. So I think it should be fine. I think too much would be suspicious.” She frowned hard. “What do you think about maybe just taking two syringes in there? You can’t put the needle on yet, though. That’ll ping with the metal detector. So, you’ll have to get one from the nurse that gave you this idea.”

“I think I can handle that,” I said, taking both syringes. “I’ll ask, hypothetically, how much is too much when I get there.”

Haze, Nastya’s husband, looked on but didn’t say anything.

Haze was a detective with Fort Worth Police Department, and I wasn’t sure that he should be here right now just to keep his proverbial nose clean, but I wouldn’t have allowed Milena to drive all the way over here to hand off a murder weapon on her own, either.

My phone rang, and since Milena had programmed her own vibration, I knew exactly who that heartbeat rhythm was without seeing the display.

I placed the phone to my ear seconds after sliding my finger over the screen and said, “Hey, Go. Did you make it there okay?”

“I did, and this place is amazing. I wish you could’ve come with me now. It’s…breathtaking. Though, just sayin’, but it looks like it’s gonna snow at any second.”

“You better hope not, or you’re gonna be doing a lot of running up mountains in dangerous conditions,” I pointed out.

She made a rude noise and then replied, “What are you doing?”

“I’m talking to Haze and Nastya. They stopped by to see you,” I lied.

“Whoops,” she snickered. “Tell her to check her messages before she comes over next time.”

“I will,” I said. “Is your rental car there yet?”

“You mean Hazel and her non-rental car?” she asked. “No, not yet. Artur got a rental for himself and we’re waiting in it for Hazel to arrive.”

“Maybe give her a call,” I suggested. “Find out where she’s at?”

The bad feeling I had about Hazel grew.

She was supposed to have been there hours ago, so there should’ve been no issue meeting Milena’s flight on time.

“I’ll call her now,” she said. “Also, signal up here is very, very bad. Artur has a satellite phone if you need us and can’t get ahold of us.”

“Got it,” I said. “Text me what she says.”

Milena hung up with a “I will, Cutter. L…uhhh…later.”

My heart skipped a beat when the phone hung up.

Was she about to say what I thought she was about to say?

“Milena made it?” Nastya asked.

“She did,” I confirmed. “Though she’s waiting for that dick of a friend to show up, and now she’s having to call her.”

“Hazel is a dick,” Nastya agreed. “I’ve never liked her. Why, if your friend hates trail runs so freakin’ much because of her condition, would you ask her to run a marathon trail run with you? Why not find a regular marathon to run?”

“Tell me again about this condition?” Haze asked.

“She has amblyopia,” she said. “It’s a pretty common condition among younger children, and usually if you’re treating it at an early age, you can correct it before it becomes a problem. But Milena and her sensory issues made it nearly impossible to keep an eye mask on her eye when she was younger, so she never got hers corrected. One of the main issues with this condition is a depth perception problem. Shadows, trees, stumps, roots. They all cause the ground to appear uneven, and it makes Milena hyper focused on the ground, and not the surroundings. That’s why she’s been so bad the last few long run days. She’s just overstimulated and needs a break.”

I rubbed at my neck. “You’re sure that Hazel knew about this?”

“Oh, positive,” Nastya confirmed. “Milena isn’t afraid to tell anyone about her issues. Hazel knew straight up. But Milena’s a good friend, and Hazel wanted to do it, so she agreed.”

I didn’t think I could hate the woman any more, yet there I was, hating her more.

Luckily, a text came in from Milena about two minutes later.

Milena:

Headed to the cabin.

Me:

Good. Let me know when you arrive. Love you, too.

Milena:

I almost threw up when I said that. It’s too soon, isn’t it?

Me:

I don’t think anything we’ve done so far has been normal.

Milena:

No, I guess you’re right. Have a good day. Love you. face blowing a kiss

I shoved the phone in my pocket and looked at Nastya and Haze. “See you later.”

Yes, I would definitely have a good day.

Getting rid of this motherfucker would be my pleasure.

I don’t like to be in public too long. I start to get irritated.

—Milena to Cutter

MILENA

“Hey,” Hazel said distractedly.

“Hey, where are you?” I asked.

“Oh.” Hazel paused. “I might’ve messed up.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

I looked over at Artur who was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel restlessly.

We’d been sitting at the airport for an hour now, and we were both more than ready to leave.

Yet, Artur hadn’t complained one bit.

He was, by far, one of the favorite guards that Shasha assigned to me. Mostly because he was pretty chill and didn’t much care what I did or where I went as long as he got fed along the way.

But we were going on hour six of no food for him, and I was fairly sure he was about to perish.

“I might’ve had an alcoholic beverage, and can’t drive now,” Hazel admitted. “I got a drink with breakfast, and I didn’t realize that it was a real mimosa until I was about three in and feeling fiiiinnnne.”

I gritted my teeth and said, “Okay. Well, I guess that I can just meet you at the cabin. How will you get there if you’re inebriated? Want a ride?”

“Oh, no. I have a ride. I’m not too far from the cabin really, either.”

I narrowed my eyes as I looked at the GPS that was hooked up and saying we had a two-hour drive on our hands.

God.

Why did she act like this?

“Okay,” I said. “Well, then I’ll meet you at the cabin.”

Artur didn’t wait for me to finish before he was driving out of the underground parking garage.

The first view of the mountains was breathtaking.

Luckily, the phone call cut off when we got too far away from the Wi-Fi, making me not be able to yell at Hazel for her rudeness.

Instead, I sent out a text to Cutter, using iPhone’s new satellite texting technology when you have no service, and admired the view.

I didn’t say a word when Artur pulled into the first drive through he got to, which luckily was Chick-Fil-A.

We were both sipping on sweet teas when we got our first view of Glacier National Park.

“Oh my god,” I breathed. “This is breathtaking.”

“Yeah it is,” Artur said. “Nothin’ like the Smokies, huh?”

“Agreed.”

We arrived at the cabin an hour later, and I couldn’t believe the place that Shasha had scored.

It was big enough to fit ten people easily, so fitting three would be no problem.

I inputted the code, and the first thing I saw upon entering was shit.

Like a lot of it.

There were bottles on every available surface, some empty, some full and opened.

All of them liquor of some kind.

Artur, who’d preceded me into the cabin, walked around with a look of disbelief on his face.

The place was trashed.

“What the hell?” I asked.

That’s when a car pulled up behind us.

I looked out the still open door and saw Hazel’s car slide to a stop.

But it wasn’t Hazel driving.

No, it was Hazel’s boyfriend, Mark.

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at Hazel and Mark as they got out of the car.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

He appeared sober, but I wasn’t sure due to his horrible park job.

“I came with Hazel.” He frowned. “Why?”

“It was only supposed to be Hazel and me,” I pointed out.

“You have someone with you.” He pointed behind me at who I assumed was Artur.

“Artur is my bodyguard, bozo,” I said. “Which you all know.”

“Yeah, but Hazel wasn’t comfortable staying in a house with another man so close without me,” he pointed out.

What was more likely the problem was that Mark wasn’t interested in Hazel staying in a house with another man without him.

“Well, as you know,” I said, “Hazel has spent plenty of time with Artur…and she can speak for herself, can’t she?”

Except Hazel was on the phone, giving directions to our cabin and not paying attention.

“Oh, there you are!” Hazel cried. “Hi!”

Another car pulled up, and two people spilled out of the car.

Rayann and Gibson, as well as their friend, Jacinda.

What. The. Fuck.

“Oh, you’ll just love the view!” Hazel chirped at them. “Come in! You can put your bags down in one of the upstairs…”

I was already shaking my head. “Artur, go get them their things. They won’t be staying here.”

Mark frowned. “What do you mean, we won’t be staying here?”

“I mean, I’m not allowing y’all to stay here anymore. The only person whose name is on the list to rent this house is me. So, sadly, y’all are on your own for accommodations.”

That’s when Rayann turned to me with a sneer. “What are you talking about, bitch?”

I waited for Hazel to say something, anything, and she didn’t.

“Hazel,” I said carefully. “What is going on here?”

Hazel swept her arm wide. “Well, I was looking at the cabin since you sent it to me in a message, and I know we have more than enough room to fit everyone comfortably. So I invited them to stay here.”

I was already shaking my head. “I’m not comfortable with that. So they’ll have to stay somewhere else. Even Mark.”

Hazel’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said,” I ground out.

“But…it’s going to be impossible to find a place to stay now!” she cried. “This can’t work!”

“This is going to have to work,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Hazel’s and Mark’s things hit the ground of the porch, and I said, “Have a good one.”

I walked inside and closed the door, disgust again hitting me at the mess.

“I’m sorry, Artur,” I said.

“It’s okay,” he replied. “I’m just glad that I was here.”

“Hey, you can’t do this!” Hazel banged on the door.

I walked away when she tried to input the code into the house. “Hey, will you reiterate that this isn’t going to work for me?”

“Oh, I’ll reiterate it all right,” Artur said.

I walked to the back porch and shut the door so I didn’t hear everything that happened.

The moment my butt hit the chair, I started to cry.

I’m sorry I didn’t answer the phone when you called. I don’t use it for that.

—Text from Milena to Cutter

CUTTER

I heard my brother’s ‘what the fuck’ from behind a curtained-off area.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I heard him reply. “I won’t die, ma’am.”

“Oh, are you sure?” Phoebe said as she wheeled Copper into the room. “I swear to you, I didn’t mean to cut you like that. Here, hop up here and let me take a look at it.”

She threw the curtain open that I was sitting behind, and my brother and I locked eyes.

His face split into a huge grin and then we were throwing our arms around each other.

Copper was fuckin’ huge.

Which, compared to me, was saying something.

He had a lot of muscle to him, and this was the first freakin’ hug I’d been able to truly feel from him in a long time.

“God, it’s good to see you without my hands and feet chained,” he crowed. “How are you?”

“Sit down so I can get a look at that cut,” Phoebe ordered.

“I was really freaking out.” Copper pulled away and sat on the table. She just walks up to me and cuts the shit out of me with a scalpel and is all, “I’m so sorry. Let me take you to my infirmary and fix that up for you.”

I chuckled as I said, “You’re just a distraction.”

His brows rose.

Then they narrowed as he whispered, “Lyle?”

I nodded.

“Oh, did you hear that he was sick, too?” Pheobe asked. “He’s on his way here because he had a brush with a prisoner that arrived yesterday that we suspect has measles. Those are so contagious that we have to be super careful when we’re in a prison. We can’t have all that spreading around like wildfire.”

The two of us shared a look over her head.

“You look perfectly good now. I’ll go get a Band-Aid.”

She was gone seconds after that, heading to a big drawer-type thing in the middle of the room.

“I have some needles in this drawer,” she called out. “Syringes right beside the needles…”

Then she recited everything that she had before she came back to clean Copper’s arm up.

She’d done a pretty good job at cutting him open. There was blood literally everywhere.

He looked like a murder victim. Which would make sense if you called a family member if you thought he really was going to die.

“I’ll just give y’all a few minutes and go check on my other patients,” she said as she closed our curtain.

I pulled the syringes out of my pocket and placed them on the bed beside Copper’s leg.

Peeking out of the curtain, I headed toward the drawers Phoebe was just at and got two needles, then walked back to Copper.

After getting them onto the syringe, I looked at Copper and quietly said, “Lyle’s.”

He jerked his chin up and said, “You want me to hold him? Or you want to hold him?”

“I want to look in his eyes when I do this,” I said.

“Then I’ll hold him,” Copper quietly replied. “Let me borrow your phone.”

I shook my head. “Had to give it all up to get here. But…”

I jerked my chin toward Phoebe’s phone on the desk. “Code is 2224.”

Copper grinned and headed for it.

I didn’t bother to ask him why.

Instead, I stayed back and allowed him his phone call, peeking through the curtains to see when Lyle was brought in.

He was wheeled in with chains on his feet and hands, and he looked spooked.

Being exposed to a possible deadly virus would freak anyone out.

But Phoebe was really amping him up, talking about the worst possible side effects she could come up with.

“…then you could start bleeding from your eyes…” She pointed toward the bed. “Sit here.”

“Rome, you can stand outside.” She pointed to a spot right out of line of sight and said, “Thanks.”

She walked out of the room with Rome, and I jerked my chin to Copper.

He hurriedly hung up the phone while I snatched the syringes.

With the curtain partially closed, Lyle didn’t see us sneaking up on him.

Copper threw his arms over Lyle’s shoulders and pinned him to the bed just as I covered Lyle’s mouth with my hand.

I grinned at the man whose eyes went wide as hell when they saw me.

“Milena sends her regards,” I said, bringing the syringes up to my face to pull the caps off with my teeth.

Lyle started to struggle harder, and I stabbed him with the needles and depressed the plungers on both.

After pulling them out, I waited until Copper was fully out of the way, then I popped Lyle on the head, right against his temple.

He slumped onto Copper’s arms, and Copper threw him down on the bed in disgust.

Using the cuffs that were on the bed, I strapped Lyle to it, then the two of us went back to the curtained-off room.

Phoebe’s voice sounded a few minutes later, much louder than necessary.

“I’ll just swab him, and you can wheel him back to confinement,” Pheobe called out.

I grinned wickedly and opened the curtain just in time to see Rome.

I jerked my chin up at him, then looked at my brother. “Glad you’re not dead, brother. I would’ve fuckin’ hated it.”

Copper gave me another back-slapping hug and said, “Two more years.”

My heart was heavy when I replied, “Two more years.”

It was most of the way back to Dallas when Shasha’s phone call came through.

I pulled over and answered the call.

Apollo followed, uncaring that we’d stopped.

His eyes were on the sailboat that was in the middle of Lewisville Lake.

“Hey,” I said. “Everything okay?”

“Define okay,” Shasha grumbled.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Got a call from Artur,” he said as he relayed the call.

By the time Shasha was finished explaining, my blood was boiling.

“I’m headed up there,” I said. “You got a private plane, by chance?”

“Not a private plane that can get here in time, no,” he said. “But I can charter one.”

“It’ll take me another four hours at Dallas Cowboys stadium until I’m finished today. Gotta pack up and clean up. Get my cleaning crew in there. Show the owner everything,” I explained. “Then I can be at DFW airport by six.”

“Flight’s about four hours,” he said. “Drive is two from the airport. If you leave at midnight, you can sleep on the flight, then drive from four to six straight to her race. That way you don’t wake her up in the middle of the night, and she gets a good night’s sleep.”

He had a point.

“Fuck,” I said. “She hasn’t called me to tell me yet, though. You think she will?”

“Artur said that she’s trying to act unaffected. She also begged him not to tell me because she knew we’d be pissed, and she doesn’t want to bother anyone. She said she was just going to come home tomorrow.”

I was already shaking my head. “I’m going to move my schedule around. We’ll both stay up there. Might be good to be gone, really.”

He got my hint without me having to say it.

“Yeah, being gone sometimes is good,” he said. “Hey, you hear the news that her ex-boyfriend was arrested for child porn?”

“I did,” I confirmed. “I’m glad he was caught. Fuckin’ sicko.”

“Indeed,” Shasha said. “Accidents happen all the time in lock up.”

I hoped it did.

But I was going to try not to make it a habit to take out all the men that had once done Milena harm.

Someone might catch on eventually.

“I’ll get on the horn and get your flight scheduled. Make sure you pack hiking shit. She fuckin’ loves hiking. As long as she can go slow and enjoy it,” he said.

I thought about her depth perception, then thought about her hiking alone, missing a tree root or a rock, then flying down the side of the mountain.

A shiver of terror rocketed through me as I shuddered. “I’ll pack my boots.”

I didn’t have hiking boots, but I had motorcycle boots, and those were the same damn thing, right?

My age is very inappropriate for my behavior.

—Milena to Cutter

MILENA

After kicking Hazel and her crew out of the cabin, I ordered Artur to sit on the couch—which I freakin’ had to clean first—then went on to clean the rest of the place up.

Not only had Hazel and her boyfriend trashed downstairs, but they’d trashed the upstairs, too.

Not only had they taken the master bedroom—one would think that they would’ve left the master bedroom for the person whose brother had paid for the whole house—they’d tested out all of the rooms. Each of the upstairs bedrooms looked like they’d been slept in.

Or other things that I wasn’t really willing to think about.

After seeing the master and all of the others dirty, I’d taken all the sheets downstairs to wash. Luckily, the rental was freakin’ awesome and had detergent for me to use to do that with.

While the sheets were washing, I tackled the kitchen while listening to an audiobook that I’d intended to listen to tomorrow during my run.

About halfway through that audiobook was when I’d finished cleaning the entire house.

Artur took two bags of trash out for me, and he looked angry.

As in, angry enough that I was worried he’d go searching for Hazel’s boyfriend and break his ankles for having to sit there and watch me clean for the last couple of hours.

The last task of the night was putting sheets on the beds and trying to get enough sleep.

When I went toward my room, I gave Cutter a call, and didn’t lead on that anything was wrong.

I didn’t want him to feel bad, and sadly, he couldn’t always bail me out of terrible situations. He was a man with a business, and it’d been my decision to fly twenty-nine hours away to Glacier National Park where it was way harder for him to get to me.

After hanging up with Cutter, I fell into a fitful sleep.

The entire night I’d woken up with a feeling of impending doom.

I didn’t know if that feeling was because I’d kicked who I’d once considered my best friend out of a house we were supposed to be sharing, or the fact that I was about to run twenty-six miles on a trail that I knew would be excruciatingly hard on me—and not just because of the mileage.

By the end of tomorrow, I fully expected my entire self—body and soul—to be exhausted.

“You were made to do hard things,” I said to myself as I slipped into my trail shoes.

I sent a photo of myself to Cutter with the caption ‘fit check’ on it.

He probably wouldn’t care what I was wearing, but I wanted to calm myself down, and I knew Cutter would be able to do that for me.

His immediate response made me giggle.

Cutter:

That bra does wonderful things for your boobs.

Smiling, I put my contacts in, washed and brushed, then applied deodorant to every single inch of my body that had a crease to it.

I then checked out my boobs and realized that it did appear that I had some cleavage in the shirt that I was wearing with my Nike bra.

Turning around, I gave him a photo of the back, then hit send before heading downstairs.

I found Artur already up and eating a muffin.

“Where’d those come from?” I asked.

“Uber,” he answered. “Want one?”

I was already shaking my head.

“Normally, I’m all about muffins. But I’m not taking the chance to mess up my stomach before I’m about to run a trail marathon,” I admitted.

He shrugged but didn’t argue.

That was the thing about Artur.

He was a great bodyguard. Professional.

When he was with my brother and not on duty, he was a hoot. But when he was working it was like he slipped into this personality that was impenetrable.

Though, today, he was a very unhappy bodyguard.

Before we’d left, we had a discussion with Shasha, Dima, and Cutter about Artur’s ability to guard me during the race. In the end, we decided that though he’d be there, he wouldn’t be participating in the race and wouldn’t always have active eyes on me.

It was a risk, according to them, but it was one I was willing to make.

I wanted to finish this race.

I wanted to run it without having to worry about Artur, who’d assured me that he would be able to keep up.

And maybe he might have.

But I didn’t care.

This was something that I wanted to do by myself, and he was still slightly salty about it.

The drive took ten minutes, which was the whole point in renting the cabin that we did.

Thankfully, all we had to do was drive out of the cabin’s road, then onto the main road, cutting off hundreds and hundreds of cars because we had right of way.

We parked, I drank some more water, and we waited patiently for the race to start.

Sadly, where they had us walk to was the side of the road. It was cold, there was nowhere to sit, and even worse, they only had eight porta-potties.

It was awful.

We stood there for a solid hour while the rest of the race participants slowly started to trickle in.

Artur stood next to me, offering his body as a shield to the cutting wind that felt like it was ripping through me.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“All racers, head to the starting line!”

My stomach, which was already in knots, went nuclear.

The nervous ‘I have to pee’ feeling took root, and I made a mad dash toward a porta-potty that was luckily unoccupied.

Artur stayed back and gave me a head nod, allowing me to walk up to the starting line by myself.

When I got there, anger stole over me.

Hazel and her friend, Rayann, just so happened to be directly in front of me at the start line.

Both of them were dressed in pink matching outfits that made me want to gag.

The man beside me shifted from foot to foot, brushing my shoulder with his.

He looked down at me apologetically and said, “I can’t believe I’m having to run this in the snow. It’s freakin’ March.”

“It is,” I agreed. “I’m from Dallas and we’ve had sunny, eighty-five-degree weather for the last month.”

“Oh, I’m from Mansfield.” He smiled down at me, and though he tried to make the smile seem genuine, he didn’t quite accomplish it. Something was off about it, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. “Small world.”

I just offered him a smile and took a half step away from him.

He didn’t comment and neither did I as we all bunched up tight.

“Ready for some fun, racers?” the woman came over the bullhorn in front of us.

Since I couldn’t see her over the crowd, I didn’t bother to look.

Instead, I studied my gloves, picking at a string that was coming loose on my middle finger.

“Racers, let’s run!” the announcer finished.

“Fuckin’ finally.”

A text came through on my watch and I glanced down at it.

Cutter:

You are so fucking cute.

Cutter:

Run safe, Mrs. Clayborne.

The nerves fled my belly as I covered my watch with the sleeve of my shirt and looked up just in time for the crowd to start moving.

The two pink assholes in front of me took off through the arches of the start line and then disappeared around a corner.

I finally got my chance to run through and started to run.

So far, so good.

I never caught up to the pink bitches.

Which was okay.

I mean, I had issues with my depth perception. I was allowed to be careful and cautious.

What I hadn’t expected was how slippery the snow was.

Not only slippery, but cold.

My feet were numb by the thirty-minute mark.

By the hour mark, when the first break in the trees came, I could finally see people again that weren’t the runners.

But, like all the other runners, I kept running and smiled when we hit a water station that was finally out in the open.

I headed for the end of the line like I always did, stopping to get a water from the person holding it out with two hands.

“Thank…” My voice trailed off as I looked up at the man holding the water and gasped.

I threw myself at that man and wrapped my arms around his neck, a keen coming out of my throat when I did.

“Hey, baby.” Cutter circled his arms around me. “Get your water and keep running. I’m freezing my balls off here.”

I giggled and pulled away, then reached for the water that he’d managed to hold steady despite my throwing myself at him.

Taking two quick gulps of both, I winked at him and kept running, my heart so damn full that it felt like it would burst.

Sure, logically, I knew that he needed to be at home taking care of business.

But my mind wasn’t logical.

It was quite illogical, really.

And the fact that he was here…

I kept a smile on my face until the next time I saw him.

And not only him, but my brothers as well.

“Y’all are all here?” I squealed as I waved like a maniac.

This time I couldn’t get close to Cutter or my brothers, but it didn’t matter.

I was freakin’ happy.

It didn’t even dim my spirit when I saw Mark, Gibson and Jacinda standing a little farther down from my family.

My audiobook saved the day, though, when I hit mile twenty.

By that point my head was spinning and pounding with each step of my feet.

Not even seeing Cutter, Dima, Nastya, Shasha, Maven and the rest of their crew could penetrate it.

I was done.

When I saw the six-mile mark ahead of me, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Almost done.

Only six more miles…

I walked. A lot.

But, throughout it all, I was passing more people than I was getting passed by, which I counted as a win.

By the time I saw the finish line, the euphoria that overtook me was unreal.

I didn’t speed up when I saw it, though.

Couldn’t.

The shuffling jog that I used to cross the finish line was my utmost best.

And when I started to go down onto my knees, my head a pounding mess, two strong arms came around me and hauled me up.

I had just enough energy to loop my arms around Cutter’s strong neck and hold on as I started to cry.

“You did so good, Go,” Cutter said. “Way to fuckin’ go.”

I smiled against his neck and said, “I can’t feel my feet.”

He chuckled and hauled me to my family.

All of them were there, and Cutter set me on my feet to get a round of hugs from all the adults.

“Where are all the kids?” I asked.

“Desi’s watching ’em at the cabin.” Nastya smiled. “She’s makin’ bank, though, so don’t feel bad for her.”

I smiled and my eyes landed on pink behind me.

Hazel and her crew were glaring at us.

I raised a brow, surprised to see hostility there.

I mean, I wasn’t the one who did anything wrong!

But, the next second, everything was explained when a woman looking race official-like came up to me with a smile.

“Bib numbers 354 and 355 are disqualified because they didn’t cross the halfway marker on the trail,” the woman holding the ribbon out to me said. “You’re our age group winner. Congratulations!”

She held out a medal to me and it spun, front to back multiple times before Cutter took it from her and held it out to me.

I took it, stunned.

I stared in shock at the huge medal for a long few seconds, and then slipped it on over my head.

When I turned around, it was to see 354 and 355 bibs on Rayann’s and Hazel’s shirts.

Turning my head back toward Cutter, I couldn’t stop the excitement despite the throbbing pain in my head.

With the last of my energy, I threw myself at him.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” I sniffled.

He hugged me so tight that it was hard to breathe.

But it was a good hard to breathe.

“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he confided. “You ready to go?”

I nodded, not letting him go.

He chuckled and placed me on my feet, which protested mightily.

The pain on my face must’ve made itself known, because he picked me up and all but threw me onto his back.

I squeaked in surprise but looped both my arms and my legs around his torso and held on tight.

The walk to the car was much easier than it would’ve been had he made me walk on my own.

I smiled in commiseration at everyone as we passed them.

They were walking very carefully, the snow and the uneven ground making it near impossible even if we hadn’t just run twenty-six miles.

We’d just made it to the rental, a huge black van that looked like it was on steroids, when a commotion caused me to turn and look behind me the moment Cutter set me on my feet.

A woman was rushing up to us, another medal around her neck and the woman with the clipboard behind her.

“Could we get a picture?” she called out. “I was seriously staring at your back the entire way, and the race director said that it would be a great cover piece for next year’s race.”

I smiled and hobbled toward her.

She smiled at me in commiseration and turned so that the mountains were in the backdrop of the photo and not rental car.

“Oh, perfect,” the race director said, taking multiple photos.

I pulled away from the woman just as the man from the beginning of the race came out of the space between two vehicles behind my family.

The same feeling came back at me just as two pink flashes came toward us from the opposite side, drawing my family’s attention away from the man.

“Have a good one,” the woman said as she slipped away.

I waved but kept the man in my line of sight.

“You have to let us stay with you!” Hazel pleaded. “Every single hotel and rental is sold out because of the race!”

She was directing it at me, but my gaze was still on the man that was watching me watch him.

A smile came over his face, and he lifted up his shirt.

A black gun sat nestled against his flat belly, and seconds later, it was in his hands.

My heart rate skyrocketed, and before I could say anything, he raised the gun and aimed it at me.

The next few seconds were a blur, but the gun went off…and there was blood everywhere.

You’re why God’s last name is Dammit.

—Cutter to Chevy

CUTTER

So fucking proud.

That was the feeling in my chest as I watched Milena run her race.

She looked more and more exhausted as the race went on, and by the time we were walking back to the rental van, she felt heavier because she was too tired to even hold onto me anymore.

After dropping her slowly to her feet, Shasha steadied her and stepped away to open the van door.

That’s when the twat twins rolled up in their pink vomit suits demanding a place to stay.

They started rapid firing demands at Milena, but Milena only had eyes for the van.

She was fuckin’ tired.

She was staring at the van with such hard concentration that I decided that enough was enough.

“Listen, ladies,” I said as they pushed even farther forward. “It’s time for you to go. We’re all here now because of y’all’s fuck up. There’s no room at the cabin anymore. Have a good one.”

“But…”

I pushed them farther out of the way to allow room for everyone to load into the van and caught a flash of black out of the corner of my eye.

I had just enough time to react.

And let’s just say, it wasn’t my finest moment.

When the gun was lifted and aimed, I had enough time to take both of the pink bitches in front of me and shove them.

But, not out of the line of fire, into it.

The two women screeched as I pushed.

It was the scream from them as the bullet tore through their bodies that might’ve meant that I was a bad person.

But I’d do anything to make sure that Milena didn’t take that bullet, even throw two women in the line of fire to stop it.

Blood exploded from them, but I didn’t care.

I only…

Dima was there seconds after the gun went off, coming up behind the man with the gun and breaking his neck before he could get another shot off.

The quiet was oppressive seconds after the gunfire.

People were so stunned that they didn’t know how to react.

Then the screaming started.

It took us six more hours to get home, and by then I was truly worried about Milena’s state.

She wasn’t shivering anymore, which made me terrified.

I took her straight up to the bathtub and sat her into it.

I didn’t go too hot, just barely over warm, and she shrieked when her naked body hit the water.

“Holy fuck,” she breathed. “That’s hot.”

It wasn’t.

But I imagined to her freezing state, it would be.

Over the next ten minutes I eventually got her up to hot, and by that time, her face finally started to fill in with some color.

Her feet, however, were still practically blue.

“It looks like you’ll keep all your toes,” I teased.

She snickered as she rested her head on my bicep.

Since I was now half-wet anyway, I gently pushed her off of me and stripped my clothes off.

Climbing in behind her, I held her to me for the next thirty minutes until she said, “I’m freakin’ starving, and I have to pee. I know we’re married and all, but I think we’re not at the stage where I can pee in our shared bath water yet.”

I chuckled and stood from the bath, taking her with me.

Sitting her down onto her feet, I went for some towels and said, “Call me if you need me.”

Then I left her to take care of herself and got dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

Pulling out some clothes for her to wear, I waited until she made it into the bedroom before dressing her next.

“You want a ride down the stairs?” I asked.

She smiled and said, “I think I’d rather you get us food started than get a ride just yet. I’m going to dry my hair.”

I dropped a kiss to her mouth and said, “Then in that case, I’m going to go downstairs and find out what Shasha’s learned.”

She rolled her eyes, but then caught me by the tail of my sweatshirt when I went to head out.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “For protecting me that way. I know that you have to be a bit upset about it.”

I snorted. “I like that you think that I’m this altruistic man, but I’m not. I don’t give a fuck. I didn’t like them in the first place after what they’d done to you. And I certainly couldn’t care less that they were both shot instead of you.”

Her lips quirked. “Send one of my brothers up here to dry my hair.”

I tilted her chin up and dropped a kiss to her mouth. “I’ll do that.”

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, it was to see Dima closest to me.

“Hey, your sister says that she needs her hair dried.” I slapped him on the shoulder as he passed.

He sighed. “She’s ruining my street cred.”

“What street cred?” Shasha rolled his eyes. “Plus, I did it last. It’s your turn.”

“Actually…”

Instead of listening to them fight, I went into the kitchen to find Maven, Brecken, Nastya and the kids there.

“Hey,” I said to them. “Y’all got food goin’?”

“Yes,” she said. “We ordered enough pizza to feed a church congregation.”

“Awesome,” I said a I went to the bags of things still sitting on the counter.

I found her favorite snack that I’d asked for Brecken to buy during the race, then walked back to Dima who was heading for the stairs.

“Hey,” I tossed the bag to him. “Can you make sure that she gets that?”

Dima tucked it under his arm and climbed, leaving me alone with Shasha.

“What’s the word?” I asked.

“Hitman. Last one that Lyle was able to get out before he died last night.” He grinned wickedly. “Poor guy died in his sleep in his confinement cell.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Are we sure this is the last one?”

“There’s no more money to pay the people, so yeah, I’m sure,” Shasha said. “I had Lev clean him out. Donated to a battered women’s shelter anonymously.”

“Good,” I said. “And since I know that Milena is going to ask when she gets down here, what’s the status of the two women?”

“Stable,” Shasha said dispassionately. “Screaming nonsense about being pushed into the line of fire.”

I shrugged. “It was pretty chaotic.”

“Uh-huh,” Shasha muttered. “Sent Artur to check out the hitman’s place. Found Milena’s dossier. Prepaid, too. Lev’s gonna work on gettin’ him cleaned out next.”

“Good,” I said.

My phone rang before I could ask my next question, and I pulled it out and immediately answered it in the next breath.

“Call from…” the robotic voice of the prison that Copper was located filled my ear.

I waited until Copper was on the line and said, “Hey, man. What’s up?”

“I need a ride.”

I froze. “What?”

“A ride,” he said. “I’ve been fuckin’ pardoned.”

My mouth dropped open. “What?”

“The governor of fuckin’ Texas issued a pardon,” he exclaimed. “Come get me.”

Dima: I’m by your house.

Me: Get away from it.

—Text from Milena to Dima

MILENA

I smiled at the man walking through the front door of my coffee shop.

The coffee shop that I changed the hours to shortly after getting home from Montana.

I was no longer opening at the ass crack of dawn like every other coffee shop in the area.

Instead, I opened at ten and stayed open until eight.

I had four very consistent employees, one of which was Simeon.

His brother came in to work when his schedule allowed, and I’d hired two girls that were more than willing to work next to two very hot guys.

I also had six part-time employees that, though not perfect, allowed me to work as little or as much as I wanted.

And I’d finally realized that there was more to life than my coffee shop being open.

If no one showed up, I didn’t open, because there was no way that I was living like that anymore.

Was it the best business practice? No.

But was it working out for me? Yes.

I’d seen my life flash before my eyes in those moments when that hitman’s gun had been pointed at me, and what I saw, I hadn’t liked.

I didn’t want to live my life buried in work anymore.

I wanted to live it, and to do that, it required me giving up a little of the control that I’d always held onto so tight.

“Simeon.” I smiled at him. “Thanks for coming in.”

He rolled his eyes. “They tell me to jump, and I ask how high.”

I patted his shoulder as we passed in the middle of the store. “True. But you’re almost there, right?”

“Hopefully,” he muttered. “Conway’s at least not getting to go, either. So there’s that.”

I chuckled as I readjusted the leather material on my shoulders.

Today was the first day that I was going riding on the back of Cutter’s bike with the vest declaring me as ‘Property of Coastguard’ on my back.

It should’ve been sexist.

It should have irritated me that such a blatant claim was on my back.

But what it did was make me feel wanted.

It made me feel special.

It made me feel like I belonged.

Plus, I liked the way it made my husband hard when he saw me wearing it.

Something primal in him really got off on seeing me so publicly claimed.

Speaking of my primal husband, as I pushed out of the door of the shop, it was to see three smiling Claybornes on the backs of their bikes waiting for me.

Only one caught my eye and held it, though.

Walking right up to Cutter, I leaned into him and kissed him like I hadn’t just seen him a couple of hours ago as I’d left our bed.

“Hey, baby,” I said as I pulled away.

“Hey, Go.” He gripped my hip, his fingers coming around to the inside of my thigh, right in the crease of my ass.

“Could you spare about five minutes?” I asked sheepishly. “I broke something in my office and I want you to take a look at it.”

He and I both knew there wasn’t anything in my office for him to fix.

I just wanted him to give me a quickie before we got onto the back of his bike together.

The two brothers groaned and got off their bikes as well.

“Don’t take too long.” They followed us inside. “We have to be at the meetup spot for the poker run in twenty-five minutes.”

I ignored them and walked into the back while Simeon made them a coffee for the wait.

The moment I was in my office, my back was to the door and Cutter’s mouth was on mine.

His hands made quick work of my jeans, and soon I was bent over my desk.

His cock filled me in one go—god, I’d needed him so bad all day—and he fucked the holy hell out of me.

By the time we were done, my pencil cup was on the ground with pens and pencils scattered all over the floor. My papers were scattered, and I was fairly sure a glass of water had fallen over the other side of the desk onto the floor.

I cleaned up using wet wipes that I kept in my office for just this type of occasion and smiled innocently at my man as he tucked himself back into his jeans.

“Thanks.” I flushed.

He caught me up and pulled me into his arms, his smiling eyes taking me in as he said, “You don’t ever, and I do mean ever, have to thank me for that. It really is my pleasure.”

I scrunched up my nose at him and we headed out but came to a stop when we found Hazel standing in my shop with her arms crossed over her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she said to me. “I was wrong about Asher. I was wrong about Jacinda and Rayann. And I was really wrong to put you last.”

Rayann and Hazel had suffered gunshot wounds to their abdomens.

Both had recovered fine, except Hazel had to wear an ostomy bag for a couple of months while her bowels healed.

At this, Rayann had been properly disgusted and left. Along with Mark, Hazel’s boyfriend.

It’d been two months, and through the grapevine I heard that Mark and Rayann were now dating. Jacinda had started dating Rayann’s ex, Gibson.

“It’s okay.” I shrugged.

I wasn’t one to not offer forgiveness, but she would never be my friend again.

Once burned, never fucking shy again was my motto.

“Asher is dying in prison.” She shook her head. “I had no clue about him. I’m sorry I encouraged you to try again with him.”

Cutter’s hand cupped my ass and he said, “It’s time to go.”

I smiled at her. “Bye, Hazel.”

She opened her mouth to say something more I was sure, but Cutter guided me out the door and to his bike.

Copper and Chevy stared at us.

“Nice hair.”

I immediately started to smooth it down, causing both men to grin.

“Not funny,” I grumbled.

I’d forgot I was in braids.

My hair and motorcycle riding did not get along.

I’d learned the hard way to always braid it, and always tuck it into my helmet.

“It’s kind of funny.” Copper chuckled as he placed his own helmet over his head.

As we drove to the meeting point, I thought of my life up until this point.

Never in a million years would I think a pseudo-arranged marriage would turn out to be like this for me.

But now that we were married, and I was officially a Clayborne, I couldn’t see my life going any other way.

I was happy, truly happy, for the first time in my life.

And that was all because of the man I was currently wrapped around.

He’d saved me, and I couldn’t dream up a better man.

I always mean what I say, even if I don’t mean to say it out loud.

—Cutter to Milena

CUTTER

I came inside, sweat dripping from every inch of my skin, and found my wife at the window.

“Watching me?” I drawled.

She raised a brow. “If there’s ever a time that I don’t watch you chop wood up outside with an axe, you should probably make sure I don’t have a brain tumor or something.”

This woman.

I grinned. “I’m gonna go shower.”

She licked her lips. “You do that.”

My hand brushed her hip as I passed, and I tugged on the tiny belt loop.

Her “hey” made me smile, and while she was distracted I snatched a fish stick off the plate in front of her—one that was likely for our kid—and popped it into my mouth.

I immediately did the hee-hoo-hee-hoo thing people do when they eat something incredibly way too hot.

She caught my face in her hands, brought my open mouth down to hers, then blew in it.

I closed my teeth around the food to keep myself from spewing it in her face, then started to laugh.

“That was new.” I chuckled after swallowing the still-piping-hot fish stick.

“I’m sorry, I panicked.” She blushed. “Those were like fresh out of the air fryer!”

I pulled her into my arms, careful of her plate of fish sticks, and said, “It turned me on.”

She rolled her eyes, uncaring of the sweat that was now covering her, and said, “It doesn’t take much, hubby.”

I pressed a kiss to her nose, then pulled away.

She rolled her eyes at the sweat left behind, but didn’t react more than that.

It was likely one of the cleaner things on her body right now.

With three kids under five, one of which was an infant, bodily fluids were her jam.

I headed up the stairs of our home—we’d decided to stay in the home that Shasha built for her, but added onto it—and stopped in the doorway of my daughter’s room.

She was playing with the toy kitchen that I’d made her for her third birthday.

“Where is it?” she asked, I’m guessing, herself.

Or possibly her bear.

It was definitely possible she was talking to the bear.

The bear that we’d gotten her the day that she was born, and she carried with her everywhere.

She bent down and opened the “oven” door and said, “Ah-ha!”

She pulled the colander out of the oven, sniffed it, then turned to her bear and narrowed her eyes. “Did you piss in this?”

I snorted out a laugh and kept walking, letting her play since she was doing it without tearing the house down around her for once.

I moved farther down the hall to where I could hear the water running.

Dima was on the floor in the hallway outside of the bathroom. He had his phone out and his face buried in one hand as his shoulders shook.

I was just about to ask him what he was laughing about when I heard it.

“If you’re happy and you know it wash your penis!” my son sang. “If you’re happy and you know it, make your balls show it. If you’re happy and you know it wash your penis!”

I glanced down at Dima’s phone that was recording the whole interaction, though the closed door was all you could see.

Shaking my head and kicking his foot as I passed, I kept walking down the length of the hallway to the master bathroom.

I took my own shower, and because I was happy, I, too washed my penis.

I got a whole lot happier when my wife joined me in the shower.

“I have a babysitter, and I’m using him,” she breathed as she jumped at me. “God, do you know how turned on it makes me when you go out and do those manly things like that outside my kitchen window?”

“Yes,” I answered honestly.

“Well, then,” she stated. “You better get to work.”

I got to work.

And since I was so good at working, I went ahead and made her another baby while I was at it.

Nine months later, we added another baby to our crazy life.

Four kids under six.

Some might call us crazy—hell, I might join them—but there was no one else in the world that I would rather do life with than Milena.

She had no clue that she was about to walk into my life and turn it upside down, but I’d known from the moment that I saw her that it would never be the same.

And I was right.

She’d rocked my world, tore it apart, then built it back up around me.

There Milena was, building me a goddamn world, and she didn’t even know it.

To say that love was a miracle would be an understatement.

What’s next?

Look for ALWAYS SALTY, the fourth and final book in the Semyonov Bratva series featuring Dima Semyonov!

To find out when new books release

SIGN UP FOR MY NEWSLETTER today at

www.lanilynnvale.com/newsletter

Acknowledgments

Golden Czermak—Photographer

My Brothers Editor & Ink It Out Editing—My editors

My mom—Thank you for reading this book eight million six hundred seventy-seven times.

My betas. Seriously, I don’t know what I would do without you.

Other Titles by Lani Lynn Vale

THE FREEBIRDS

Boomtown

Highway Don’t Care

Another One Bites the Dust

Last Day of My Life

Texas Tornado

I Don’t Dance

THE HEROES OF THE DIXIE WARDENS MC®

Lights to My Siren

Halligan to My Axe

Kevlar to My Vest

Keys to My Cuffs

Life to My Flight

Charge to My Line

Counter to My Intelligence

Right to My Wrong

Ask Your Mom If I’m Real

CODE 11- KPD SWAT

Center Mass

Double Tap

Bang Switch

Execution Style

Charlie Foxtrot

Kill Shot

Coup De Grace

THE UNCERTAIN SAINTS

Whiskey Neat

Jack & Coke

Vodka on the Rocks

Bad Apple

Dirty Mother

Rusty Nail

THE KILGORE FIRE SERIES

Shock Advised

Flash Point

Oxygen Deprived

Controlled Burn

Put Out

I LIKE BIG DRAGONS SERIES

I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

Dragons Need Love, Too

Oh, My Dragon

THE DIXIE WARDEN REJECTS

Beard Mode

Fear the Beard

Son of a Beard

I’m Only Here for the Beard

The Beard Made Me Do It

Beard Up

For the Love of Beard

Law & Beard

THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL

Pitch Please

Quit Your Pitchin’

Listen, Pitch

THE HAIL RAISERS

Hail No

Go to Hail

Burn in Hail

What the Hail

The Hail You Say

Hail Mary

THE SIMPLE MAN SERIES

Kinda Don’t Care

Maybe Don’t Wanna

Get You Some

Ain’t Doin’ It

Too Bad So Sad

BEAR BOTTOM GUARDIANS MC

Mess Me Up

Talkin’ Trash

How About No

My Bad

One Chance, Fancy

It Happens

Keep It Classy

Snitches Get Stitches

F-Bomb

THE SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN SERIES

Hissy Fit

Lord Have Mercy

Quit Bein’ Ugly

KPD MOTORCYCLE PATROL

Hide Your Crazy

It Wasn’t Me

I’d Rather Not

Make Me

Sinners are Winners

If You Say So

SWAT 2.0

Just Kidding

Fries Before Guys

Maybe Swearing Will Help

Ask Me If I Care

May Contain Wine

Joke’s on You

Join the Club

Any Day Now

Say it Ain’t So

Officially Over It

Nobody Knows

Depends Who’s Asking

VALENTINE BOYS

Herd That

Crazy Heifer

Chute Yeah

Get Bucked

SOULS CHAPEL REVENANTS

Repeat Offender

Conjugal Visits

Jailbait

Doin’ A Dime

Kitty, Kitty

Gen Pop

Inmate of the Month

Shakedown

MADD FIT SERIES

No Rep

Jerk It

Chalk Dirty to Me

BATTLE CROWS MC

Always Someone’s Monster

Make Me Your Villain

Rattle Some Cages

Not a Role Model

Get Tragic

Strange and Unusual

Never Trust The Living

GATOR BAIT MC

Nobody Cares Unless You’re Pretty

Good Trouble

Cute But Psycho

Annoyed At First Sight

The Voices Are Back

Special Kind of Twisted

I’ll Just Date Myself

CLOWN WORLD

Fun House

Freak Show

Show Off

Clown Motel

Sold To The Circus

Killing Booth

The Fool

CARTER BROTHERS

No Cap

I Can’t Even

Thirst Trap

Clap Back

Rent Free

Time To Bounce

YOLO

SEMYONOV BRATVA

Stay Toxic

Hey, Daddy

Walking Red Flag

Always Salty

CONTENT ADVISORY

Grumpy Sunshine

Look at Her and Die

Enemies to Lovers

Other Woman Drama

Mistaken Identity

Ugly Duckling

SINGLE TITLES

Big Nick Energy

Suck This

Somethin’ About That Boy

About the Author

Lani Lynn Vale is an American author of humorous romantic suspense novels. Born in the Great State of Texas, she has lived the majority of her adult life in East Texas where most of her novels are based. She's married to her high school sweetheart whom her readers refer to as "LLV's Bearded Half." She published her first novel, Boomtown. in the summer of 2013 after the birth of her third child. She's gone on to publish over 100 novels, with most of them going on to become USA Today Bestsellers.

For more about Lani and her books visit www.lanilynnvale.com.

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