Page 39 of I Should Hate You-but I Don't

While she believed men could have sex without love, she believed the turmoil Zane fought, trying to keep his distance from her and failing, was motivated by love.

There was never any doubt that he wanted her.

But it wasn't her responsibility to make him accept that love.

As hard as it was to go through each day wanting to love him completely without anything holding her back, she turned the other way, crawled onto the bed, and hugged her pillow. She hated nights like this.

Chapter Seventeen

Zane

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The low hum of conversations in the room covered the noise Zane's boots made on the cement floor of the visitor's room in the prison. He sat across from his dad at the table, instantly looking for the injury that demanded his father be put into solitary.

From his first inspection, he couldn't see anything. No bruises. No stitches. No swelling.

He met his dad's gaze. "What happened?"

"Tried to puncture a lung and take me out. The knife bounced off one of my ribs. Nothing a hundred stitches wouldn't fix." His dad sprawled his fingers out flat on the surface. "He won't get another chance to kill me."

The rules were simple. If his dad fucked up, he wouldn't make it out of prison.

He leaned his elbows on the table. "If you need protection, I can talk to the members inside who can—"

"If I can't protect myself, I might as well be dead." His dad's hands fisted, straining at the handcuffs keeping him sitting at the table. "It'll take a lot more than a small cut to take me out."

There was no changing his dad's mind. Even though he was in prison, Ridge Stafford was as much in control of his life as if he were living on the outside and running Gem Haven Motorcycle Club.

The fact was his dad had a parole hearing coming up. He couldn't fuck up, or he'd be spending the full sentence behind bars.

He counted on his dad getting out. It'd been a long fucking time, and during his absence, it was Zane running the club and everything Gem Haven owned.

Now that he'd seen his dad's condition, he had other business to take care of that had nothing to do with the club.

"I want you to get a message to Tom Pruitt—"

"He's on death row, son."

His jaw clicked. He knew the rules. But his dad had ways of communicating and getting messages through.

"I want to speak with him." He held his dad's gaze.

His demand had nothing to do with confessing his involvement with River. He couldn't give four fucks what River's dad thought of him or how he'd gone from protector to guardian to lover.

He needed inside, face to face, with Pruitt to convince him that the best thing, the only thing, the man owed his daughters was the truth. River deserved to know her father was alive.

One day, the truth would come out, and the only person River would hate was Zane. She'd blame him for all the years she could've had with her dad, regardless of the Plexiglass standing between her and Tom Pruitt.

"Impossible."

"I'm going to put in the request." He refused to back down. "Make sure he accepts."

"What the fuck are you doing, boy?

Boy?He'd quit being a boy when he was nineteen years old, and his dad went to prison, and Gem Haven became his responsibility. He not only kept himself alive, but he protected Kingsley, two juvenile girls, and a fucking motorcycle club.

"You got involved with one of them, didn't you?" His dad shook his head. "You know how favors work. Tom Pruitt doesn't owe you shit, son. How old are the girls now?"

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