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He roared as he came, his hips jerking erratically before he flooded me with his seed. Kiernan slumped forward, his head resting against the cool concrete behind me as he held me in his arms despite his exhaustion. My entire life, I’d been lost in an unending circle of loneliness. Until they’d come crashing into my life, pulling me from the wretched darkness that surrounded me.
Now there was no looking back.
Epilogue
Six months later…
After that night, the pieces of my life had begun to fit together. For the first time in years, I was happy. Loved. Cherished. Surrounded by family and friends. Things weren’t always going to be easy. There was a war brewing on the horizon and too many unanswered questions.
Nothing in the future was certain.
The trust between the twins and me hadn’t been an easy fix, but they were quickly making up for it with the number of orgasms they were giving me each day. Sex wasn’t our answer for everything, but when we’d run out of words to say, it was where we went to get back on track.
Drew and Brittany were dead.
Good riddance.
“It happened by accident.” Vas shrugged unapologetically. “He was reaching for something under the covers. Thought it was a .45. Turned out to be his little .22, if you know what I mean.” He winked at me.
“I really wish I didn’t,” I deadpanned. That sent him laughing. The guy was a hoot. I also knew he was lying. Drew had been shot more than once and in a few strategic places. Ava didn’t seem bothered by his death, but whenever Brittany’s name was brought up in the following weeks, she’d flinch. Was she regretting shooting her?
Richard Crowe had been stabbed in his jail cell. There were no leads on who did it, but I could see the glint of satisfaction in my father’s face whenever the news ran the story. I know he’d done that for revenge. He’d been the one who started it all, but when he looked at me, his eyes full of love and pride, I knew he’d also done it for me.
To give me peace.
As Crowe’s daughter, I had never once felt protected and safe.
My new therapist said it was his way of making up for all the things that he’d been unable to protect me from before. That I would need to be patient with him because it would be likely that he would start displaying an overprotectiveness and possessiveness I’d never experienced before.
I was surprisingly okay with that.
It felt good to know that someone cared enough about me to display those emotions.
Shaking off the thoughts, I gazed out at the city that had given me more things than I could have ever imagined, even if the seas had been stormy. It was time I gave back in a way that mattered. Being an investigative reporter had been my life, but there was only so much the written word could do.
Now it was time to take up the mantle of the legacy I’d been destined to inherit.
“You ready?” Yelena called to me. She looked so cute in her leather getup, complete with a helmet she’d glued cat ears to.
“More than ready.” I smiled over at her as I donned my own helmet before circling my finger in the air. The roar of the engines behind me set my blood on fire. Beneath me, my own motorcycle roared to life.
A brand-new 2021 Indian Scout Bobber Sixty in matte black.
A gift from my father.
“We ready?” I asked into the comms system. A chorus ofhell yeahrose behind me. This was my family. Or at least part of it. Women who were hurt, damaged, and in need of repair, just like me. Ones my mother had risked her life to save and who’d returned the favor many years later by saving me. They were all given the chance at freedom again because of one woman’s selflessness.
Many of them had been rescued by my mother as children. Raised by affiliates of the club. Some of them, like Samala, were descendants of those who survived. Or Yelena, whose mother had been killed in the initial attack.
The warehouse where the old Vixens club was held had been torn down. A new compound replaced the old. The design was similar, but with one difference. In the center of the new club, stretching up toward the skylight above, a memorial stone had been erected with the names of those who had been massacred that fateful day. At the top, with angel wings sprouting from her back, was a statue of my mother, her arms hugging the stone.
The top readHoc Defendam.
“This I will defend.”
The world was a dark and dangerous place. Deception and violence lurked in every corner. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth defending. It just meant that more light was needed in the darkness.
Hope was a powerful motivator for the weak and damaged. Prey could easily become the predator under the right circumstances. Taming animals into submission at the end of a whip only taught them to submit until the time came to strike.
We were a pack of wild animals, waiting for a moment to show the predator just how dangerous prey could be. I’d been beaten once. Bent but never broken. Two men had put me back together without even knowing it. Two men became the love and safety I’d never known.
And I’d make sure that other women who’d been victims would get the same chance as me.
I would give them hope.
I would give them vengeance.
“Vixens”—I revved my engine—“ride out.”
