Page 28

“Who?” she says again, but I know she’s just playing dumb. Natalie is far more intelligent than most give her credit for. Her quietness isn’t because she has nothing to say; it’s because she listens and learns, using it when she needs to. I’ve seen it a few times, even before she came to live under my roof. She knows exactly who she was talking to. I just want to know if it’s because she heard of the name before, or if it’s because she knows him personally.

“I don’t like to play games.”

“Do you see me playing cards?” She gestures to herself with the hand I’m not holding, giving me the grace to look her over.

And I gladly take it.

The black dress is long, down to the floor, and it wraps around her neck in a choker. Something made for the winter months that provides both warmth and elegance. But it’s the high thigh slit along with the open shoulders that give the allure of the dress being more. Especially on her.

Her hair is down for once, floating behind her like a cape or a blanket, depending on her mood. A shield to cover herself with or one to let the air take hold of and float behind her to make her look impenetrable.

She kept the makeup minimal, if any at all. I know she has some; I made sure the boys brought everything over when they cleared her place out. Even went through the boxes she tossed after she had her nails done a few months back. I know what she kept and what she got rid of.

Even this close, though, I can’t tell if her flawless skin, rosy cheeks, and pink lips are natural and tinged from the cold or an illusion from some makeup company that spent years perfecting how to make it look like it’s not there.

She’s beautiful.

But I don’t tell her that. Instead, I get back to why I followed her out here.

“What did he say?”

She continues to glare at me before looking away. “What does it matter?”

At least she’s not lying about it anymore.

“Tell me.” My words come out soft, but the command is still there.

“He said what Milly says.” She looks back at me. “That I look familiar.”

I tilt my head to the other side as I stare into her eyes, feel her breath on my face. Feel her pulse beneath my touch.

“He knows you? Knows your family?”

“Apparently.”

“Do you know him?”

“Do I look like I know him?” she shouts in my face.

I raise a single eyebrow at her outburst, and she takes a deep breath as she closes her mouth and eyes before letting it out through her nose.

“I’m sorry.” She opens her eyes and looks at me. And because of what I see—or more accurately, what I don’t see—I let go of her.

Natalie and I have lived together for a while. Before that, I saw her in passing whenever she and Ruby were somewhere I was. I noticed things about her before she moved into my downstairs room. Mostly, I noted that she doesn’t apologize.

She always owned who she was and what she said, and she always took the time to speak carefully before things changed for her. Now that the cat is out of the bag and we know she’s from a Yakuza family, she doesn’t offer apologies for her actions.

But unlike Billy, Casper’s woman, who used a fake cover to gain favor inside our club to get someone to work with her, Natalie did it to survive. She hid her true self so much that when she finally showed up, everyone was shocked to see her. As if she had a dual personality or something. But I saw it. She was hiding every part of herself before. Now she doesn’t need to hide. She is who she is. No matter what she might pretend, it won’t change her path. Not unless she goes and starts over. I think that’s the only way the “old” Natalie will come back. I don’t see it happening any other way.

I know the signs to look for. I know when I see the truth. And Natalie apologizing is the first truth she’s said since she got on the back of my bike in Oklahoma.

She takes a step back and nods at me before looking up at the night sky. You can’t see shit out here; we’re too close to town with all that ambient light. Only the moon is visible.

“No matter where you end up, the moon always looks the same,” she says.

I chance a glance at it, noting the quarter phase, before looking back at her.

“The first time I was taken, I was seven. Picked up outside my school.” She laughs as she looks back at me. “You’d think my family would have learned after that, but they got me the same way that second time too.”