Page 5 of The Bastard's Lily
Ghosts ride back eventually. And some of them come for blood.
She was never supposed to look at me. Not like that. Not with those too-big eyes and summer freckles and that goddamn sunshine smile she used to aim at the choir pews on Sunday morning.
Calla Lily Blake. The preacher’s daughter.
The whole town thought she was made of light. But I know better. I saw the cracks in the stained glass. She didn’t belong in my world, and I sure as shit didn’t belong in hers. But she came anyway. Every time. Like a moth to a flame. Like she didn’t care that my hands were stained and my name was cursed.
I was the club’s feral stray—raised on rage and whiskey fumes, taught to ride and survive before I ever learned how to breathe easy. I was fifteen when I got my first black eye from one of the older patched members for mouthing off. She was thirteen when she found me behind the chapel, spitting blood and laughing like I wasn’t broken.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” she asked.
“Not as much as being ignored.”
She sat down beside me anyway. Cross-legged in a white dress that didn’t belong near oil stains and bruises. She smelled like lavender and clean sheets. Like sin waiting to be unwrapped. I told myself I’d never touch her. Told myself she was off-limits. But she made it impossible.
She showed up with lemon bars and bandages, sweet like Sunday school but wild in the eyes. We talked about nothing and everything. She hated being watched, hated being good, hated the weight of her name. And I… I hated everything but her.
I kissed her for the first time in the back of the church one Sunday. She tasted like defiance and freedom.
Now she’s back. And it’s like I’m bleeding all over again from a wound I forgot to keep stitched. Preacher’s daughter. And the club’s bastard son. That was always the problem. We were never meant to be anything more than a cautionary tale.
But fuck if I didn’t want to rewrite it. Once upon a time, at least. Who knows who Calli is now. She left like I was something to run from. And I let her.
Calla Lily fucking Blake.
Preacher’s daughter with a spine made of rebellion and honeyed lies. I thought I’d buried her in the ashes of who I used to be. Thought time and rage and a thousand miles of silence would dull the edges.
But here I am, still in Berlin, still to the blood and bone. And she’s all I can think about. Again.
Because some nurse in the prison clinic has the same damn eyes. Same stubborn jaw. Same storm in her spine when she walks. And I’m not about to let a ghost haunt me twice. If it’s her, I’ll know. I’ll look her in the eye and rip open whatever’s left between us. Get my answers. Find out why she disappeared without a fucking word. Why she left me standing in the ruins of everything we built, like I never mattered. Like I was just some feral bastard she experimented with before slipping back into her perfect porcelain life.
And if it’s not her? Then I can stop wondering. Stop chasing shadows. Stop bleeding for a girl who stopped bleeding for me.
But if it is her… if it’s reallymyCalla Lily… then she’s got one hell of a reckoning coming. Because I still dream about her. I still hear her laugh when I’m half drunk and half dead. I still remember the way she whispered my name like a sin she was willing to burn for. And I hate her for it. I hate her for still having that kind of hold on me.
I slam the door open on my way back into the clubhouse. The hinge rattles like it knows better than to argue. If I don’t put this energy somewhere, I’m going to start breaking shit that matters. So I head down.
Concrete under my boots. Fists already curling. Jaw tight. Steps sharper than the sound of bone cracking on impact. The basement hallway reeks of sweat and spit and old adrenaline. A breathless kind of rage lives in these walls. Feral. Fuming. Fucked up. Same as me.
A couple of prospects move out of my way without a word. They know better than to stop a man with hell in his eyes. The fight ring is already lit—red bulbs overhead casting everything in blood. Chains on the wall. Cracked leather mats. Rusted lockers and a low hum of voices from the crowd. Betting slips. Hushed trash talk. That electric tension before violence explodes.
Perfect.
“You fighting or running your mouth again?” someone calls from across the cage. Leo. Bare-knuckle bastard with a grin made of malice.
I kick off my boots. Shrug out of the cut. Rip the shirt over my head and toss it to the side. Blood’s already thrumming. Muscles too tight. Breath shallow and caged.
“Put me in,” I say, voice sharp.
“Who you want?” Leo’s still grinning, already licking his damn lips like he’s hungry for my pain.
“Doesn’t matter.”
It never does. I’m not doing this for the win. I’m not doing this for respect. I’m doing it because I need to feel somethingotherthan the ache she left behind. Because if that nurse is her—ifCallacame back to Berlin without telling me—I don’t know if I’ll kill the past or drag it screaming to the surface.
And if it’s not her?
Then maybe getting my ribs cracked open will finally shake her loose from the cage she’s got around my fucking soul.
