Page 79 of The Devil's Scars

She put up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “OK, OK, sorry. Habit when it comes to you MC boys, I just assume you’re all bed-jumping.”

Wolf glowered. “Not everyone, Zee, and definitely not Scars. You’d be surprised how many of the boys ain’t man-whores, no matter how you think they look. But that ain’t the point here –the point is that Scars was hurt bad as a teenager, and he suffered a huge loss. Ever since then, his life has been about findin’ and protectin’ family. Has he done some illegal and sketchy shit for the club? Yeah. So have I. So has everyone. And if you can still trust me and love me, knowin’ that I ain’t always been a good man, what’s stoppin’ you from doin’ that for Scars? He’s been through enough hell to last two lifetimes, and he’s come out the other side of all a stand-up guy. Believe me.”

“You’re talking about the car accident?” she asked quietly. “When he was nineteen? The one that scarred him for life?”

“Yeah. The one that killed his parents.”

“What?” She stared at Wolf in horror. “He didn’t tell me that part!”

“No?”

“No.”

“OK, well…” Wolf set down his coffee cup, looked at Zoe hard, like he was trying to see her insides. “Scars was at college in Texas on a full-ride football scholarship. He was home for Christmas, and his parents and younger brother Sam had come to pick him up from the airport. Bad weather, the car spun out, hit black ice, I think. They went right off a mountain edge, flipped over in the ravine below.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Sam was only twelve years old then, and Scars was in the back seat with him. Got them both out of their seatbelts, carried Sam clear and to safety. Then he went back for his Mom and Dad, who were both unconscious. By then, the car was on fire.”

“He – Scars went back into a burning car to save them?”

“You really don’t know who he is, do you?” Wolf rasped. “You don’t have the first fuckin’ clue what he’s made of.”

Chastised, ashamed, Zoe was silent.

“Anyway. Yeah, he went back to get his parents out, but he couldn’t get the seatbelts loose. He was burnin’ up, Zee, and he still wouldn’t leave the car. The man was nineteen years old then, and had caught fire, and he had to be dragged kickin’ and screamin’ out of the damn car by other drivers. Took five full-grown adult men to get Scars out and away. They’d just gotten him clear when the car exploded.”

“Jesus.”

“He quit college and took care of Sam the only way that he saw how: he started workin’ with The Road Devils. Good money, so Scars gave Sam everythin’ he needed. As Sam got older, Scars started to get deeper into the club, and by the time Sam decided that he wanted to go to med school, Scars had secured Jensen as the MC’s main partner. Scars knew what kind of deal with the devil he was makin’, but all he saw was steady income for the club –and for him and his brother.”

“Oh,” Zoe said, starting to see. “Oh.”

“Scars spent almost nothin’ on himself for almost ten years… everythin’ that he made went to pay for his little brother becomin’ a doctor. Scars paid the tuition, got Sam a great apartment, paid all his bills, did all his grocery shoppin’. He sacrificed everythin’ that he’s ever wanted for himself for Sam, and in all the years that I’ve known him, not once has he said one fuckin’ word of regret about any of that. That’s who Scars Innis is, Zoe. That’s the man you keep accusin’ of bein’ a liar and untrustworthy and selfish.”

“Oh,” she said in a tiny voice. “Oh, shit.”

“Yep. You’ve had the man wrong from the word go, baby girl.”

“Christ on a cracker.” She ran her hands through her hair. “How the hell was I supposed to know any of this?”

“You ask him?” Wolf suggested. “Like, with words, and conversation, and shit like that?”

“Shut up, Connor,” she huffed. “Like I’ll take any advice about talking to the person I’m sleeping with from you. You don’t even know the names of half the women you get into bed with.”

“Hey,” he snapped. “Watch the smart mouth, Zee. What I do ain’t your concern, and what you and Scars have got goin’ on ain’t anything like what I do, anyway. You can lie to yourself all you want, but he meant somethin’ to you from the first time you two met.”

“Oh, really?” she said, stung and confused by all her conflicting emotions at what Wolf had shown her about Scars. “And just how do you know that?”

Wolf flashed her that dangerous, predatory smile that had given him his name. “Because if he didn’t? You’d never have gone into that back room with him in the first place. Not after what happened the last time you did that with a man.”

She sucked in air, all snark and sass forgotten now. “Wolf –”

“Nuh-uh. You know I’m right. After what happened to you, the fact that you went on back there with him anyway, the very first night you laid eyes on the man?” Wolf shook his dark head. “That means that you liked and trusted him right from the beginnin’, baby girl. On some level, you knew you were safe with him, and you sure as hell knew that he was a good guy. He is a good guy, and you just can’t admit it to yourself.”

“I – I –”

“What I can’t figure out is why,” he said. “Why can’t you just let Scars be nice to you? Take care of you? Be good to Keira?”

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