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I stared at her for one last second, my chest tight enough to ache, my thoughts already spiralling somewhere dark and dangerous and entirely past the point of reason, and then I stepped back from the door because if I stayed there a second longer, I was going to do something reckless enough to get us both killed.

Her face crumpled fully then, and she pressed her palm flat to the glass as though she wanted to stop me leaving, even as every instinct in her body had begged me to do exactly that.

That nearly fucking killed me.

Because she did want me.

She did.

I could see it now in every trembling line of her body.

And somehow that made this worse.

I backed toward the balcony railing slowly, not taking my eyes off her, not trusting myself to turn away yet, because now that I had seen it—now that I had seen the fear and the locked door and the truth she wasn’t saying—I knew I would never be able to go back to pretending.

She had trusted me once.

She had reached for me once.

And if she couldn’t do it now, then I’d have to be the one to reach harder.

The thought followed me all the way down from the balcony and back into the shadows of the trees, where the cold night air did nothing to cool the rage simmering beneath my skin.

Because somewhere behind me, trapped in that room, was the girl who had once called me when things went wrong.

And all I could think, as I disappeared into the dark, was that there had been a time when she hadn’t hesitated to let me save her.

A time when she had looked for me.

A time when she had trusted me to come.

Chapter 20

Gabriella

Before

16 Years Old

Darren may just be the most boring man in existence.

I loved the club life. I was groomed to love it, so I hadn’t been left with much of a choice. But fuck me… there was more to living than bikes and memberships.

All evening, all he had spoken about were his wishes, his potential, how he was being put forth for prospect status next year. I don’t think he’d asked a single question about me—not even a simple, “hey, how are ya?”

But, I thought bitterly, that hardly mattered. The important thing wasn’t getting to know me. It was the fact that I was the president’s daughter.

At eighteen, Darren had aged out of the Juniors, but hadn’t proven himself to my dad yet. Usually, if you spent enough time in the Junior division, you were able to bypass prospect status entirely. But my dad had been more and more strict on thatscore as of late, and rarely did anyone graduate without that prospect patch.

“Are you having a good time?” he asked me, his eyes focused on nothing but my legs in my skirt.

We started off this date in the clubhouse, but things soon turned… aggressive there. It was the same deal every Friday night. Darren had offered to take me for a drive, and now here we were, in one of the rougher areas of Leeds, the heart of Rider territory, walking around with our hands entwined. As though we were young lovers with the world at our fingertips.

“It’s been nice,” I said as politely as I could. “But I think we should be getting back soon.”

“How come you’ve never dated?”

“Excuse me?” I asked, stopping dead still, my arm cracking as he continued walking, pulling me forward. “I’ve dated.”