Page 15 of Wiley A.F.

His muscles tensed, and his eyes widened at the mention of the name. He recognized it.

“You’re right,” he admitted, and it was in that moment I surrendered my breaths to him. He could take them all. I didn’t want to live another second because living meant acceptance, and I wasn’t ready to do that. If I even entertained the idea of accepting him as anything other than dead, it meant I was letting in all the other damning ideas that came along with it. It wasn’t possible that I was such a shit of a human that my husband-to-be not only had a whole life I was unaware of in Cleveland, Ohio, but he faked his own death to get away from me. Those were the demons that I wouldn’t survive. It didn’t matter how hard I tried; I wasn’t able to put the pieces of this puzzle together for it to make sense.

After a moment of silence, eyeing the man to his right, and shook his head when the man opened his mouth to speak. Fear jolted through every nerve ending in my body. This was wrong on so many levels. I knew there was a possibility I would find answers I didn’t want here. Okay. I was positive of it. It was even an expectation to feel as if he were still alive as I dug through his past, but him actually being here was completely unleashing the hounds of hell to drag me under with them.

“No good has ever come from chasing ghosts,” I coughed, trying to catch my breath.

“Right again, darlin’,” he answered in a smooth velvety tone. “Or your brother’s woman.”

My eyelids batted and heat rose from my toes, consuming my entire body. “Huh?” My eyes closed, and I didn’t fight them any longer. Giving into the warm welcoming arms of unconsciousness was something I would take any day if given the chance of choosing between the comfort of darkness or having my heart torn from my chest by the light.

13

WILEY

“Who the fuck is Malcom, brother?” Sleeper asked in a calm tone, cocking his head to the side and his eyes met mine. It wasn’t natural for anyone to be as chill as he was in high stress situations. He claimed it was because he was fucked in the head and his dopamine worked in opposite to most people’s because of ADHD. I never argued the fact with him because I figured he knew a hell of a lot more than I did when it came to medical things. He worked as a nurse, which was a win-win situation for the RBMC. He had access to an endless supply of meds and supplies to doctor us up when it was called for. I still had no clue how he hadn’t lost his job yet, given the amount of shit he had taken from the hospital for club usage. I’m sure the hefty donations we made helped cushion the blow, but there was always a whistle-blower. As far as we were concerned, though, they could take that whistle and shove it up their ass. It wasn’t coming out of their paychecks.

“Someone from my old life,” I answered as truthfully and vaguely as I was able to without losing my shit right there in front of my brother. She wasn’t supposed to be here.Fuck!Ghoul was right. She was a damn liability, but I refused to hurt someone innocent, and as far as we could tell, she was. So, she was not only alive, but she had also fucking followed us back home.

To keep things quiet, there were only a few of us bastards brought into the FBI headquarters the last time: those who had already been vetted. Although the truth would surface eventually, I’d asked if we could keep as much of it on the down low for long as possible. Sleeper had just gotten back from his trip, and we hadn’t filled him in on everything he missed. He was clueless to the connection between the woman and me. She was, too, if I was splitting hairs and thinking of fucking specifics. Hopefully, she would stay that way because she didn’t need to know more than she already did. The problem was right there, though. I had to find out what information she held in that gorgeous head of hers, and if she knew too much, if I didn’t end her life, Ghoul or the FBI would. Depending on how the next span of events panned out determined if he would remain in the dark or if I would have to bring him into the light of what I was soprivilegedto call my past.

As I scooped the most beautiful of death sentences into my arms and carried her to her car, I sighed, drinking in her features. There was no telling how long she would be unconscious, but it probably wouldn’t be very long at all. She didn’t seem to be the most lucid of people, and logic told me to put her crazy ass in the cab of her car, put the AC on high, and walk away. That was what I should have done. There had been a very big fucking reason I didn’t have anything to do with my brother: I thought he was dead. As it turned out, he was a piece of shit, and there was a very real possibility that this woman was, too. It didn’t matter what type of person she was or how many details of my past she knew; her being here was a threat—one I couldn’t let anyone else know about until I figured out her intentions. Best case scenario was she really was bat-shit crazy and thought I was my brother, meaning she was oblivious to who I was and what I had done. Worse case, she knew exactly who I was and what I had done.

“I hear ya.” He coughed a few steps behind me, a cloud of smoke filing out of his mouth. “You have a fucking past?”

“’Course I do, Sleeper. How the fuck you think I came to be? That I was just blinked into existence?”

“Fuck if I know. Just kind of figured you were one of those people who grew up in Cleveland and stayed around because of the club.”

“I did.”

“I don’t know; I thought I knew everyone you did.” He shrugged.

“How could that even be possible?”

His shoulders rose and fell again, “I don’t know. I guess I never gave it much thought. Guess everyone has secrets, hmph?” He eyed me momentarily, pulling a needle from behind his cut, his teeth clamped down on the plastic cover, and he freed the needle.

“You really think that’s necessary, brother? She’s already unconscious.”

He glared through his thick lashes briefly before nodding. “Not sure if you saw that one-woman psych ward that just happened in front of us, but I sure as shit did, and nah, I’m good. I don’t need an encore when she comes to.”

His free hand pulled the side of her jeans down, exposing her hip, and then the sharp metal pierced her flawless skin.

Her eyelids jolted open at once, and her eyes locked with mine. “Malcom, who is this? Is he your brother? I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say, okay?” She batted her eyelashes, and tears brimmed her lower lids. “I’m sorry for fucking everything up. Will you forgive me?” she rambled. It was clear she did not fucking know how to keep her trap shut. I had to do something to shut her up. I clamped my gloved hand over her mouth, expecting her to fight me on it, but she didn’t.

Sleeper and I looked at each other. “I couldn’t listen to any more of that mind-numbing nonsense anymore,” I lied as my attention returned to the woman who had the ability to ruin everything by being here. The more she spoke, the more paranoid I became that she would be the first innocent life I would have to take. If she had helped him at all, I would strap her to a stokes basket and run her over with Tin Man’s semi-truck. My mind ran wild with proclivities of torture and even though I had no clue whether she knew what she was talking about or not, pure fury coursed through my veins by simply being in her presence.

I nodded silently in agreement to answer her, hoping it was enough to keep her silent. Unsure if it was the correct response to do the trick or not, I lifted one finger from her face, testing the waters a little. Too many days had passed since I was in Tennessee for her to have followed me. My mind raced, trying to connect the dots as to what or who led her to Cleveland. The problem with survivors was everyone wanted to hear their story, and then someone else told it to another person, and before you knew it, they were on the six o’clock news telling their heart wrenching story to the world. If even a fraction of this were the case with her, there was going to be a fucking massacre tracing from Cleveland almost all the damned way to Kingpin’s neck of the woods in Nashville, Tennessee. If that happened, Bulldog, our national President, would lose his ever-loving mind. The thought of my brothers suffering because I made one damned mistake gutted me. They didn’t ask for this, but then again neither did I. People often complained about life being unfair, and if I were one of those self-wallowing people I would as well. I didn’t see the point to do so. I was more of a handle your shit and accept whatever you’re dealt kind of guy.

“I understand but had to see…” she quickly blurted out and her voice faded with each word that passed through her lips until they were a mere whisper. Her body relaxed and went limp as Sleeper’s concoction coaxed her into oblivion. This was nowhere near the first time I’d been around when he drugged someone. Truthfully, I had lost count of how many people he’d done this to. All of us had a weapon of choice. Sleeper’s was drugs.

“Where are we taking her?”

“We?”

“Dude, I see the way you’re eye-fucking her. Who knows who the fuck she is? Shit around here has been too damn quiet since we took out the Russian’s. They will retaliate. It isn’t a question of if, it’s when. She could be the first of many sent to infiltrate us.”

“I’ll drop you off at the clubhouse.” I was fast to put an end to his tirade before he headed too far down that rabbit hole. Regardless of his speculations, neither of us had the time for him to sift through one of his conspiracy theories right now.

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