Page 47 of The Devil's Weakness

“Y’all get back to your food now. I didn’t work hard on that meal to have it go cold before it hits your bellies,” Bon-Bon tells my brothers, who have all gathered around the table for an early lunch.

We round the table and head through the thick door leading into the infirmary. The moment I see Iron’s open eyes, an incredible sense of relief rushes over me. If he can pull through, I feel like I can salvage the cluster fuck I got myself into with Sasha.

“Iron,” I sigh. “Fuck, man, you scared us.”

Stone appears on the other side of the hospital bed; his reaction changed from violent to relieved. Hawk joins us from across the room and begins speaking.

“Iron suffered a mild stroke,” he begins, but Stone cuts him off quickly.

“Because of the accident?” he inquires, looking at me with hatred all over again before turning his attention back to Iron. “We got the bitch responsible for it in the basement. Whatever you want done to her, I’ll make sure it happens.”

He pierces me with his stare again, the fury from our earlier confrontation back and stronger than ever.

“No,” Iron speaks up. “No, it’s not her fault. I don’t remember everything, but I remember enough. I was on my way to the clubhouse when I started feeling weird. I was nearing the intersection of Deep Run and Wine when my vision blurred, and my left arm went numb. My bike began pulling to the right as she approached me. I tried to correct myself, but I couldn’t. The front of my bike hit her car. I bounced off of it and dropped my bike. Both it and I skidded across the road and ended up down that hill.”

His injuries could have been so much worse. I send a huge thank you to the man upstairs for keeping Iron on this side of the pearly-white gates.

“The girl. You said she’s here?” Iron asks with confusion.

“Yeah,” Stone says, almost in a daze. “We thought she… we couldn’t let her get away with it.”

“I need to see her.”

My heart plummets. I can’t face her again so soon. I need to figure out what I’m going to say to her.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Stone tells him. “You need to regain your strength first.”

Stone seems as unenthusiastic to face her in light of this news as I do.

“She saved my life, Stone. Bring her to me.”

Chapter Fourteen

He fuckedme like a whore and threw me away like a piece of trash.

The sight of him closing me in here, again, will haunt me forever. I could have killed him when he put his hand on my shoulder, pushing me back into my cell.

Where his touch once heated my skin, it now makes me sick.

“Sasha, youidiot,” I chide myself.

When he told me that there was no going back, that I would be his forever, I didn’t actually believe him. I thought it was a heat of the moment kind of thing. And even if he meant it, it’s not like I thought I’d move in right away, and we’d suddenly become the fucking Cleavers. I assumed we would start dating or whatever the equivalent is in the biker world.

Shit. What if thisisthe equivalent?

He’d gotten me so worked up; I would have agreed to damn near anything. I knew I would regret sleeping with him, but I never expected him to put me back in here.

This can’t be what he meant when he told me I would be his. Blade is a fucking bastard, but I never took him for the type of Buffalo Bill psychopath that kidnaps girls and starves them in his basement.

Whatdidyou think he was like? He hunted you across state lines, stalked you, and then dragged you back here kicking and screaming.He’s kept you hostage in a steel cage in his basement for thirty-six hours, scared out of your mind that this stay would end with your murder. Wake up, dumb-dumb.

I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to look at him again. He probably thinks I’m as much of an idiot as I feel like—just some stupidlittle girl.

The nickname he first gave me two years ago has grated on my nerves ever since then.

Until it didn’t.

In the past, I’ve felt patronized, terrorized, and threatened when he’d use it. But last night was the first time that I remember feeling giddy. I liked it. It sent heat through my body, like what I felt when he had me up against the wall in the motel. Heat that pierced through me when he licked my tears away in the forest.

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