Page 105 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

For a while neither of us said anything. The trail bent and the trees thinned and somewhere off to the right a dog was barking at something.

Then Janice said, "What do you mean, you don't know what he was talking about?"

"Because it's Derek," I said. "Because he's a tight-ass and he says some cryptic controlling thing and expects you to do the work of figuring it out. That's what I mean."

Her tires went quiet. Then the soft drag of her brakes, and she came down off the pace until she was rolling slower than we'd gone all day, beside me.

"Wait." She wasn't watching the road anymore. "Lacey. We're talking about Derek Harrington. The one who chairs your board. That Derek Harrington?"

"Yeah, Janice." Sharper than the old me would have managed. "You know exactly who I'm talking about."

She heard it.

"Well, of course he'd say that. I mean, just because he hasn't been around the last while, that doesn't mean he wouldn't—"

"Been around where, Janice?"

She didn't answer right away. She frowned.

"Janice. Why are you being cryptic? You're as bad as he is."

"I'm not being cryptic." Real confusion in it now, the two of us each certain the other had skipped a stair. "Lacey, why on earth wouldn't Derek know about the club? He founded it."

I kept pedaling on muscle memory while my mind held the syllable and turned it and couldn't get it to mean anything.

"He and his wife. Years back, seven, eight." Offhand. The way you remind someone of a thing they already know. "Of course he knows the Second Circle, Lacey. It's his. The whole place is his."

My front wheel wandered off the line, drifted toward the grass at the edge, and the bike tipped after it before I caught the lurch and hauled the wheel back under me. It fought and shuddered and I almost went down. I got both feet flat on the asphalt and stood over it, breathing.

Ahead of me Janice rode on a few yards before the quiet behind her registered. Her head came up. She braked, circled back.

She stopped a few feet off and put a foot down. She didn't ask what was wrong.

"You didn't know." Her hand had come partway up toward her chest and stopped in the air. "Oh. Lacey. You didn't know."

I couldn't make my mouth work. The dog had stopped barking. Somewhere a long way off a car went by on the road that ran parallel to the trail, and then it was quiet again.

Derek Harrington founded the Second Circle.

Derek Harrington, tight, controlling and judgmental, the man who'd looked at my bracelet in a hospital cafeteria like it was an unbalanced budget.

Derek Harrington built a sex club.

47 - CASSANDRA

Janice

Lacey didn't know about Derek Fucking Harrington. How the fuck does a woman spend a season inside that place, wearing its mark on her wrist, and never once hear whose name is on the deed? Lacey's my girl and I would be failing her miserably if I didn't warn her about that arrogant sadist. She was too goddamn naive to be anywhere alone with him, of all people.

Which meant I had to go back over all of it. I mentally rolled my eyes. She'd walked into that house blind, and if she'd been blind to him, then Derek, being the big Dom, had grabbed her wrists on purpose. Fucking hell, he'd seen her like a snake sees a mouse, and she hadn't even known what was happening. The idea of what could have happened made me both sick and angry. The wrists, the part she'd told me on the trail in that flat careful voice I didn't like at all, that wasn't the club following her home. That was just him. Just dangerous Derek Harrington's powerful hand and nothing else between her and the floor. Well, that can't happen, not to my Lacey, not on my watch. That shit stops now.

I could see the ice cream stand ahead. I looked back at Lacey and saw that look on her face. Fuck. She's thinking about that monster like he's Prince Charming, that look I hadn't put on her face, not her best friend and mentor and lover, but the towering tin soldier turned petty king. "Come on, Lacey. Let's talk over ice cream," I nearly barked at her.

I kept sneaking looks at her the whole way up, which she'd have caught in the old days and called me on. I didn't like anything about that expression. Fascinated and rebellious and everything Lacey shouldn't be right now. She was right, I found her wire, which was an interesting way to put it. I found it and showed it to her. I could introduce her to that world in a safe, loving way. Derek would destroy her.

The stand came up on the left, and we laid our bikes against the rail. I bought two cones I didn't want, because buying them gave my hands a job. She took hers without a word. We carried them to the far table, the one at the edge of the gravel where nobody was. Be careful, Jan. Don't move too fast this time.

"So," she said. She hadn't touched her cone. "Derek Harrington."