All I could see was Hope’s face. The way she’d looked at me that night at the pond, her eyes soft and trusting even as I whisperedJulieagainst her skin. The way she touched me, held me, let me take everything she had to give while I grieved for someone else.
And she knew. She had known the whole time that I thought she was someone else, and she let it happen anyway.Why?
The question burned through me, sharp and relentless. Why would she do that? Why would she let me call her by another woman’s name? Why would she give me her body, her trust, her—Oh God!
Her virginity. The blood on my fingers. The way she tensed when I first pushed inside her. The soft gasp of pain she tried to muffle against my shoulder. I had taken her virginity while calling herJulie.
My bike swerved as my vision blurred, and I had to blink hard to clear it. My chest was so tight I thought I might have a heart attack. Maybe that would be better. Maybe dying out here on this empty highway would be easier than facing what I had done. But I didn’t get to take the easy way out.
I never had.
The miles stretched on, endless and unforgiving, and I rode until the adrenaline faded, until the panic gave way to a bone-deep exhaustion that made my hands shake on the handlebars. I needed to stop. Needed to think. Needed to figure out what the hell I was going to do before Shadow found out and demanded my head on a platter.
The sign for Medicine Park appeared in my headlights like a lifeline, and I took the exit without thinking. The small town was quiet. Most of the shops and restaurants had already closed for the night, but I found a motel on the outskirts. A run-down place with peeling paint and a flickering neon sign that read “VACANCY.”
Good enough.
I pulled into the lot and killed the engine, sitting there for a long moment in the sudden silence. My ears were ringing from the wind and the roar of the bike, and my body felt like it had been put through a meat grinder.
The motel clerk barely looked up when I walked in—just slid a key across the counter and took my cash without comment. I climbed the stairs to the second floor, found my room, and stepped inside. It was exactly what I had expected: sparse, anonymous, forgettable. A double bed with a faded comforter. A small TV bolted to the dresser. A bathroom with cracked tiles and a shower that probably hadn’t been updated since the eighties.
But it had a window.
I crossed the room and pulled back the curtain, staring out at the darkness beyond. In the distance, I could just make out the silhouette of the Wichita Mountains and the low, rolling peaks that were nothing like the Smokies back home in Tennessee, but close enough to make my chest ache with homesickness. I came here looking for mountains. For something familiar. For a piece of home that might ease the relentless pain of being so far from everything I had ever known. But it didn’t help.
Nothing helped.
I let the curtain fall and turned away from the window, pacing the small room like a caged animal. My mind was racing, thoughts tumbling over each other in a chaotic mess that I couldn’t untangle.
Shadow would find out. Of course he would. Hope would tell him, or Kansas would put the pieces together and demand answers. And when Shadow found out, he would come for me. He would demand the Golden Line-Up—the brutal MC punishment reserved for brothers who violated the sacred code. And Reaper, the Golden Skulls’ president, would back him up. Because Shadow was a former brother, and Hope was his sister, and I had crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.
I would be lucky if they just beat the shit out of me.
I would be lucky if he didn’t kill me.
My hand shook as I pulled my phone from my pocket, staring down at the screen. I needed to call someone. Needed to talk to someone who could help me figure out what the hell to do next.
But who?
Massacre would tell me I was fucked and offer to help me disappear.
Ravage would tell me to face it head-on and take whatever punishment came.
Reaper would—No. Not Reaper.Not yet.
My thumb hovered over Digger’s name in my contacts, and I hesitated. My brother would give it to me straight, no bullshit, no sugarcoating. But he would also tell Stella, and Stella would lose her goddamn mind.
Still, I needed to hear his voice. Needed someone to tell me I wasn’t completely losing my shit, even if I was. I hit the call button before I could talk myself out of it, pressing the phone to my ear as it rang once, twice, three times.
Please don’t let Stella answer. Please don’t let Stella answer.
“Slaughter?”
Relief flooded through me at the sound of my brother’s voice, rough and familiar and grounding.
“I’m in trouble, Dig.”
There was a pause, and I could hear the faint sound of movement on the other end of the line. Digger shifted, probably sitting up in bed. “What happened?”
