Page 28 of Savage Reign

“What are you doing here?” I asked calmly. Of all the ways I had pictured how I would be once they found me, calm wasn’t one of them. I supposed I thought as soon as they found me, they would drag me back to the Tiernan mansion, kicking and screaming.

“I thought it was obvious.”

“What if I didn’t want to be found?”

He let out a small huff. “How does that lie taste on your tongue, baby?”

“I’m not lying,” I answered sullenly.

“Aren’t you?” He walked closer to me but still not within touching distance. I watched him warily.

“I left.”

He shook his head. “You ran away because you heard something you didn’t like. Saw something you weren’t sure would be okay for you to accept.”

I frowned at him. “You mean in the basement when Silas was…”

He nodded. “When Silas was torturing a man for information.”

“He whipped the man,” I gritted out, fresh tears forming in my eyes.

“We thought it would be an… apt punishment.”

“Apt?” What was so apt about it when they knew what my father had done to me in front of his men?

“Yes, apt. Considering the man was from the Heartless Saints MC.”

My heart pounded, and I looked up and met his eyes. “What?”

He nodded and walked a little closer to me. “Yes, baby. There is a small group of the Heartless Saints MC who are trying to revive the club back to its former glory.”

His eyes took me in carefully as I tried to fully digest his words. It wasn’t like I should have been surprised, considering Lenny, my father’s former sergeant-at-arms, had come for me back in New Orleans. He didn’t succeed because Silas had been there that night, and I assumed there were some pissed-off former members of the club looking for a pound of my flesh because of who my father was and the terrible state he’d allowed the club to get in, making it an easy target for the Tiernan brothers. But to say someone was trying to revive the club again…

“Sebastian Cline is leading it,” Maverick said quietly, his gaze heavy with meaning. It could only mean one thing. He knew. Silas probably told him Sebastian Cline was mysupposedfiancé. “They have been causing us trouble since New Orleans. They have been looking for you.”

My thoughts ran back to when Maverick had taken me to his company. A man had followed us and managed to get to me. He had said something about there being a price on my head. I assumed it was from the other gangs around, miffed that Dad was gone long before he could settle his debt. That reason sounded silly in my head now.

“Why?” I asked, looking away from him. I thought I might just break if I looked into his dark blue eyes.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Sebastian Cline has it in his head that he is going to marry you, and he’s willing to go to great lengths to make it so.”

Why was the bastard so obsessed with me? Fucking hell, wasn’t it enough that I got the Tiernan brothers on me? I shook my head slightly at the thought.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” I asked. If he wanted to scare me enough to want to go back with them… well, it was working. I’d much rather be caged in by the Tiernan brothers than marry Sebastian Cline.

“Because we’re going to be completely honest with each other from now on,” Maverick said, taking a step closer to me.

I frowned, moving my gaze back to him.

“You left,” he stated. I nodded, even if I didn’t need to. I didn’t know how to respond. “And baby, I don’t think you left because we didn’t give you birth control.”

I could feel my lips pulling back in a slight snarl, but he shook his head.

“I admit. It wasn’t the wisest decision, and perhaps you are angry about that.”

“Not perhaps. I am.”

He nodded. “Yes, you are. But not enough to leave. You left because we hid it from you.”

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