Page 96 of Tempting Fate

Zeke likes him, but I find him shifty as hell.

Bear only speaks to me when Nadia’s around. He’s always trying to one-up the other enforcers in front of the hierarchy. The speed with which he sweet-talked Nadia into bed and then into wearing his “Property of Bear” patch never endeared him to me either. His attraction to her felt contrived, almost like he calculated the best way to get closer to the Shamrocks inner circle with the least amount of effort, and then did everything he could to make it happen.

Not that I’ve ever told Nadia that.

She’s always felt out of place hanging with the club since she didn’t have an official role.

I’ve spent years trying to persuade her that she’s family, but she wouldn’t accept it.

I guess her history with Sander and Alex now explains some of her reticence.

After re-taking his feet, my man flicks my brother’s ear. “Just go.”

Deliberately blanking my dad, Zeke pulls me to him. He slides his hands under the back hem of my shirt and around my sides. Cupping my sore ribs, directly below the swell of my breasts, he softly strokes my skin. Goosebumps erupt. The shudder that runs down my spine has nothing to do with the pain I’m feeling.

“Make him carry the trays. You’re overdue for pain relief.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think to bring any.” To disguise my reaction to Zeke’s caress, I turn in his arms and wave his wallet in his face. “Didn’t even grab my purse.”

“Just as well that what’s mine is yours then,” he offers in a rough whisper. His warm breath flows over my ear, heating my belly, making my clit pulse. “Always will be.”

“Don’t,” I tell him with a sigh. Everyone seems to hold their breath, apparently as uncomfortable with the distance between me and Zeke as I am. Even my father has his ears peeled, an expectant gleam in his cerulean gaze. “Not here… not when we don’t know if Fret’s going to be okay.”

“Whatever you want, sweet thing.”

He lets me pull out of his embrace.

As Zeke re-joins Slash and Toker’s vigil, Sander and I exit the waiting room. We head for the elevator that will take us to the lower level, where the only decent café is located.

“I want you to know that Nads isn’t the bad guy,” Sander announces the moment we’re stuck in the lift together. “She had her reasons back then… and she’s done a good fuckin’ job of gettin’ her life together ever since.”

“You all still should’ve told me.” I stare up at the red numbers as they count down the floors.

“When?” my brother asks in a flat tone. “While you were healin’ from the broken bones Alex caused? While you were cryin’ because he’d affected your chance to have children? Or should we have made Zeke tell you that he’d discovered your best friend was aidin’ your twin’s addiction while you were in therapy for slicin’ your own skin open to bleed out the poison you believe Alex’s infected you with?”

“Don’t… don’t… throw all that in my face.” His succinct description of what I was like back then is enough to make my throat fill with bile and my chest squeeze tight. “Not when I was hurt trying to protect—” Although I stop myself from finishing the thought out loud, Sander recoils from me. I grab hold of his forearm. “I didn’t mean it. I swear.”

“You should, though. If I wasn’t so weak, Alex never woulda gotten his claws into you.”

“That’s not true. If it wasn’t your drug use, he still would’ve found something else to blackmail me with. He’s insane… once I had his attention, I don’t think there was any way out for me other than via a hospital bed or a coffin.”

“Jesus, Cherub.” Sander’s voice is shaky as he says, “You had an entire MC at your back—shit never needed to go as far as it did.”

The elevator lurches to a stop, and the doors open with a ping.

“Maybe you’re right.” As I step out onto the ground floor, I shrug. “Or maybe you’re just as delusional as Dad.”

Stomping off, I leave Sander behind. It’s a rude and dismissive move, yet I can’t bring myself to care. While I shouldn’t have allowed the conversation to get so far off track with my knee-jerk reaction to his description of my state after Alex’s attack, I’m not going to allow him to act like the Shamrocks are my saviours.

Sander jogs after me. “Come on, Anna… you know I’m right. The Shamrocks would’ve protected you back then.”

When he draws level with me, I sarcastically ask, “The club would’ve protected me… you mean like they protected me from being kidnapped yesterday? Like they protected Fret today? Or do you mean that the club will protect me the next time he comes after me, even though they’re batting zero for three already? I mean, sure… blame me for trying my best to avoid a massacre at our birthday party, but let’s be real here. The Shamrocks aren’t God. They aren’t X-Men. They can’t supernaturally protect me just because they have a stockpile of guns and wear matching patches.”

“Fuckin’ hell.” Sander scrubs his palm over the back of his neck. “I’m not blamin’ you. I’m just saying that you need to stop being so blindly stubborn ’cause the Shamrocks can protect you.”

My feet grind to a halt, and I whirl on my brother to share the epiphany that hit me as Joseph Kingsley had his officer of the “law” hold us at gunpoint at the compound. “No, they can’t. No one can. Until one of us is dead—either me or him—Alex is going to keep coming after me. And when he does, he’ll probably even manage to rape me again because that’s his biggest weapon in this fight.”

During our argument, we pass by an older dark-haired lady sitting on one of the benches that lines the corridor my brother and I are stomping down. With a gasp, she jams her hands over her heart when I say “rape me again” before pushing back to her feet and fleeing in the opposite direction. She’s moving so fast that she comes close to running in her desperation to get away from me before I can infect her with my status as a rape victim.

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