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He exhaled hard, running a hand down the scruff on his face before his green eyes pinned me. "Couldn't have escaped you the way shit is going lately. Not just in this area, but across the country. There's a lot of tension. People want guns. Some of those people might be the kind of people that you..."
"No," I said, the word low and powerful, bursting from my soul, from my marrow, from every molecule in my body.
"Duke. I'm not saying it will come to that. But if it does come to that, we are going to need your cooperation in putting out feelers."
"Reign you don't know what you're..."
"I know what I'm asking," he cut me off, gaze sympathetic, but tone hard. "But what I'm saying is, whatever hell it might put you through... don't you think it would be worth the lives of your brothers? Of their women? Of their kids?" he asked, then after a short pause. "Of the girl sitting there in your room who you have been watching over like a fuckin' guard dog for days?"
He was right.
I hated the mother fucker in that moment, a man who had allowed me to turn my life around, a man who showed me a different way of living, I fucking hated him for being right.
But he was.
There was no denying it.
When push came to shove, I would face up the skeletons; I would roll down my sleeves and put on gloves to protect me from the monkshood; I would steel my guts and swallow back the screams telling me to never go back; I would do what needed to be done to keep the people I had learned to see as family safe.
"If it came to it," he went on in my silence. "You wouldn't be alone. I'd go with you myself if you need it. But we need to do what needs to be done, regardless of how much we don't want to."
"I know," I said with a nod, exhaling slowly, feeling like my lungs were being compressed and all-too aware that they would never inflate again properly until this was all over.
"But, as it stands, that's not where we are looking yet. I just wanted to give you time to come to terms with that possible future though so we didn't just spring it on you."
"Appreciate that," I said, despite the burning in my chest.
"How's the girl?" he asked, surprising me.
I shrugged. "I dunno. She's alright I guess. Hard to tell. She doesn't talk much."
"Shame Summer is up at Hailstorm. Situations are different, but I think Summer could really commiserate with her."
He wasn't exactly wrong. While Summer had been tortured for months before Reign came upon her, there were similarities in their experiences. If Summer could get over her trauma, it went to follow that Penny could as well. There was a comfort in that.
"Know I'm overstepping here, but are you fucking her?"
"Why would it matter?"
"Doesn't," he said, shrugging. "Just curious. Seems inevitable whenever there is a damsel in distress 'round these parts. Me, Cash, Wolf, Repo..."
"Nothing is gonna happen with me and Penny," I said, willing myself to believe it as well as him.
"Sure it isn't," he said, giving me a smirk and moving off toward the stairs. "I'll see you in a couple days, Duke. Try to keep the guys from killing each other."
With that, he was gone.
I turned around, going over toward the two sets of bunks we kept in the basement for probates, moving toward the one set up against the wall and sliding into the lower bunk, sitting down on my old bed.
I stayed there as the men moved around upstairs, as day turned into night and things got quiet.
Finally, I stayed there until I fell asleep.NINEPennyDuke never came back.
I had sat in the center of the bed, picking at the food I had made, wondering what was going on outside the door.
Things only seemed to be escalating violence-wise. I was beaten. Two men were killed. And an entire business was burned down.
What the hell was going on?
I expected Duke to come back like he promised to at least give me some reassurance or something. But when the entire day passed and I hadn't seen or heard from him, I got both agitated and worried at the same time.
Around ten, things quiet outside the door, I grabbed the knife and folded it in my hand and headed out.
I wasn't a prisoner, I reminded myself as I moved into the main room where I expected to see a large group of the men as always, but instead only saw Lo's husband, Cash, sitting there.
"Heya sweetheart," he said, putting his feet on the floor from where they had been on the coffee table. "You alright? Need something?"
"I, um, I was wondering if Duke was around. I haven't seen him since this morning."
