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Apparently, the young sheriff had been old enough to remember that. Remember the cigarette burns in his dear mother’s skin. Her bruises, her broken bones. The drug habit that they hooked her on.
Little Elijah—or Beau was his birth name—acquired a healthy hatred for motorcycle clubs in general and toward ‘loose women’ who reminded him of the mother he loved and hated in equal measures.
He had been watching the club for some time, had been making plans.
He told us all of this after we caught him. He stayed alive for a good long while, each of us taking our time with him.
Our new sheriff, one of his former deputies, was a local and more than willing to work with us and declare the perpetrator as ‘missing.’
We caused him pain. Made him bleed. Made him wish he was dead long before we killed him. But that wouldn’t heal anything. Wouldn’t change shit.
Sariah, to her credit, was one tough bitch. She shouldn’t have even been able to stand when she was there for the birth of our daughter. The fuck had cut her up good. She was bleeding out, standing there. Had done it quietly, without a fucking word while Violet gave birth.
She’d almost fucking died in the hospital. Something she forbade every single patch to tell Violet. Something everyone had agreed to do because they didn’t want to face her wrath.
She wouldn’t tell anyone, not even Violet, what he did to her in those hours he had her. But whatever that sick fuck did was enough to cause damage. Damage that birthed a darkness in her that hadn’t been there before.
I knew she and Violet had spoken about what Sariah’d kept from her. Knew that Violet didn’t give a fuck about how her best friend got her money; all she cared about was that her best friend was breathing.
She moved to Garnett permanently. Colby barely left her side. At first, she fought it. Then she did her best to ignore him. She was there for Willow. For my wife.
Until she wasn’t.
Until one day she left with a note and a promise she’d be back.
No one knew where she went, and not for lack of trying. The bitch was fucking smart and evaded even Wire. I suspected she had help from her hacker friend.
Wanted to be mad at her for putting my wife through all of this worry, but I couldn’t. Not with the devil she had on her heels.
“She’s gonna come back,” I repeated, clutching Violet’s neck, looking into her troubled eyes. “As much as I know you want to do something for her, you can’t, baby,” I said as softly as I could. “She’s tough. Toughest person I know. Including every man who wears a patch.”
That was not a fucking lie. The club would agree with me on that one.
“She’s runnin’ from shit. Maybe chasin’ shit,” I continued, stroking her bottom lip. “But she’s not alone. Not with Colby making it his mission to tear this country apart looking for her.”
Violet smiled weakly. Colby had a one-track mind when it came to Sariah. No matter what she did or said to push him away, he stayed fast.
“We’ve got another Sons of Templar courtship on our hands,” she muttered.
“This one is likely to be the most explosive of them all,” I replied, laying my lips against hers. “We can’t do anything now,” I murmured, reveling in the taste of her. “But we do have about two hours before our daughter wakes up. I’m thinking I’m gonna bend you over the patio furniture so you scream into the desert.”
Violet’s dazzling eyes flared with desire, her body stiffening with need.
Artemis seemed to sense things were changing, and she trotted back into the bedroom.
I grinned, taking my wife by the hips and lifting my tee to expose her bare, sexy ass.
She opened for me, submitted to me, and eventually, screamed for me.
Hours later, I left her sleeping soundly in bed and found Artemis sitting by Willow’s door, waiting for us to begin our day.
Not for the first time, I thanked fucking whatever controlled this world that I kissed Violet on that rooftop all those years ago.
Then I opened the door, my daughter already standing in her crib, staring at me with her mother’s eyes, showing me my whole fucking world. Showing me that even villains got a happy ever after.
