At the Edge of Surrender (Moonlit Ridge Book 3)

1. Kane

ONE

KANE

At close to midnight, Theo and I sat at one of the high-backed wooden booths at Twisted Moon Tavern.

A country song droned from the jukebox, and the dim lights hanging overhead cast lapping shadows over the hazy, dingy space.

Place was always fuckin’ quiet, which was why I preferred it whenever I wanted to have an actual conversation with my crew outside of our normal meeting place.

A conversation that had been coming for a long damned time.

Theo glanced around, making sure no one was in earshot as he leaned forward across the table. “You think we need to step in and intervene? Shake things up?”

Dude always looked like a coiled viper waiting to strike.

Black hair and even darker eyes. Arms and hands covered in tats. Tats that rolled up from the neckline of his black tee and fully wrapped around his throat.

In his case, appearances were not deceiving. The dude was fuckin’ deadly, just like the rest of us.

Taking a sip from my scotch, I warred with what to say, then I edged forward, my hand still wrapped around my tumbler as I rested it on the worn table .

“My gut tells me this extraction is going to be messy. I know River is still all in, but he’s got a family he needs to think about. We can’t sit here and pretend like the entire dynamic of our crew hasn’t shifted.”

River getting with Charleigh, and now Otto and Raven coming together.

The whole reason the rule had been made that we couldn’t get attached in the first place was because this shit was dangerous.

Fucking peril coming at us from every direction.

It wasn’t like I resented my brothers for going against one of our creeds.

It was just time we admitted it changed things. That the pact we’d made all those years ago no longer stood.

Rocking back in the booth, Theo canted his head to the side. “So what? You think it’s time to take a step back?”

My attention darted to the tattoo on the back of my left hand. It was the one that had two Ss sitting on top of each other. A dagger ran through them, top to bottom, and an eye was stamped in the middle.

It was identical to the one every member of Sovereign Sanctum had in the same spot, though mine had a wilting rose on top.

My chest clutched at the sight of it, at the mark I’d made of my greatest failure, and I squeezed that hand into a fist as I lifted my attention back to Theo. “Not a fuckin’ chance. Just think it’s time we switched things up. Stand in where we haven’t before.”

Each of us had our roles within our secret society. River’s was the one that normally put him in the line of fire. Dragged him down into the darkest pits of depravity.

But it wasn’t like every single one of us didn’t have blood on our hands.

Tainted in it from the beginning, even though the rest of my crew didn’t have a clue about my extracurricular activities. The lengths I went. The kind of shit I would never ask them to get involved in.

Something I had full intention of enacting next week considering some info I’d picked up about some scum working out of San Diego.

Awareness of what I was suggesting dawned on the blunt edges of Theo’s face. “You want to go instead. ”

He didn’t even phrase it a question.

“Haven’t gotten dirty in a while.”

Okay, that was a blatant lie, but some things were better left in the dark.

“Seems only fair that I go up to bat.” I tacked a smirk onto it.

Theo chuckled a rough sound. “Oh, brother, think you’re plenty dirty.”

He jutted his chin out toward the murky film of Twisted Moon Tavern.

My latest acquisition.

Other than this one, I owned two other bars in this small town of Moonlit Ridge, plus the club dubbed in my namesake.

All of them were nothing but a cover.

Another avenue for running Sanctum’s money through.

It wasn’t like this dive was actually going to have any sort of profitability.

I let my gaze slide out to take in the place.

A handful of old guys were at the bar, drowning their miseries, basically permanent fixtures.

A younger group of four guys were standing around at the end of it. They were barely old enough to be in this bar and were nearing the point that they needed to be cut off.

Getting rowdy and obnoxious. Starting to fumble around as their voices grew in time.

Two booths on the opposite side of Theo and I were taken, one by two women who’d been there chatting for the last hour, and another with two middle-aged couples.

But it was the one woman sitting by herself at a high-topped round table near the front who snagged my attention.

She’d been there since I’d gotten here. Her back had remained turned toward me the entire time. An elbow on the table with her head downturned and concealed as she nursed the same drink she’d been sipping all night.

A thick cascade of warm, blonde hair rolled down her slender back, and a mountain of grief weighed down her shoulders .

Found myself itching in my damned seat every time I glanced her way.

Some fucking twisted thing inside me wanting to cross to her.

Brush back those full locks of hair so I could get a good look at her face.

Promise her that things would get better, even though I didn’t have the first clue what she was going through.

“Ah, I see the way you’re really wanting to get dirty.”

Theo’s razzing snapped my focus back to him, and I shook myself out of the stupor and pasted on a grin. “Not my type.”

He busted out a full laugh. “Bullshit. Everyone is your type.”

Okay, fine. I wasn’t one to typically deny myself pleasure.

But I was pretty sure this girl wasn’t out looking for a good time, and I wasn’t the kind of prick who preyed on that.

But apparently that basic human decency wasn’t extended by everyone because one of the assholes who’d been loitering at the bar went sauntering her way, all cocky sleaze, encouraged by the three other dickbags who were hooting vulgarities in their direction.

Rage fisted my stomach, rising up from the chaos that lived inside me. For the most part, I could contain it until the moments when I was able to set it free.

When I unleashed it on the most perverted of society.

I tried to tamp it then. Get it under lock and key because it wasn’t any of my business if this douche attempted to hit on this girl.

None of my business if she packed up her things and walked out the door with him, though there was something about her that left me confident she would tell this idiot exactly where to shove it.

Still, I clutched my tumbler like it might keep me rooted as I watched him waltz right up to her and lean in close to her ear.

I saw her flinch, her back going rigid as he got in her personal space.

My teeth ground with restraint.

She shook her head and shifted farther away from him, and I almost sank back with relief until he reached out with a giant mitt and took her by the elbow.

And that was the moment it completely became my business.

Asshat trying to force her to look at him, arrogant disbelief tromping all over his pompous face, like she didn’t have the right to tell him no.

A shocked gasp ripped from her, and I could hear her rasp, “Let go of me.”

She spun on the stool and attempted to yank her elbow from his meaty grip.

“Motherfucker,” I growled, no restraint left, already on my feet and pushing from the booth when she finally ripped herself free.

Only the movement set the stool off balance, and it wobbled as the monster went to reach for her again. She flailed to get out of his reach, and it sent the stool toppling backward, taking her down with it.

Her ass hit the ground, and the stool clattered on the hardwood floor beside her.

There was no longer any keeping that rage at bay.

Because that bastard still moved her way.

Only a feral shout came from her when he reached for her, and the woman kicked and flung her arms out to fight off the bastard.

The bastard who yelped, “You bitch,” when she clawed him across the face like she was the one in the wrong.

I’d made it right up behind him by the time he was getting ready to retaliate, and I had him by the nape and was hauling him back at the same second I was driving my fist up under his ribs from behind.

He howled, bowing back as I delivered the blow, and he tried to swing around to get to me.

He was twice as wide as me, but I kept his back pressed to my chest as I dragged him backward toward the door. “You want to touch someone when they don’t want to be touched? This is what that feels like.”

I repeated the punch in the exact same spot, knowing it was going to hurt a whole hell of a lot worse that time. Doubted anyone would blame me that I was probably a little too satisfied by the fact.

He floundered and thrashed and wailed while his group of friends came running up to assist.

Fuckers stopped dead in their tracks when Theo stepped out in front of them, all that bravado wearing thin once they realized they’d picked the wrong place to get stupid.

Towing the piece of shit to the door, I yanked the front door open with one hand while I tossed him out of it with the other.

Asshole rolled across the wooden planks of the sidewalk out front.

He scrambled around onto his hands and knees, panting like mad as I stepped out and let the door drift shut behind me.

The sound of the music clipped off from where it played inside, and his eyes rounded with fear when I came to stand over him.

Fury a storm around me. Hatred so thick I could hardly breathe.

Sometimes I wondered what they saw in me when I came for them. In that moment before they met their end. Because their expressions so often looked just like this.

This dirtbag was lucky I didn’t know his past. Lucky I wasn’t privy to all the seedy shit he had undoubtedly gotten up to. Lucky I wasn’t wise to whatever played out in his mind.

Otherwise, he would not be receiving this pass.

I crouched in front of him and angled in close to his face, keeping my voice controlled.

Maybe even friendly. “I’m letting you off easy because I’m a pretty decent guy like that.

But if I ever catch you with those hands touching something that doesn’t want to be touched again, you’re going to end up without them. Do you understand?”

He made a garbled sound, saliva dripping out the side of his mouth.

“Good.” I patted his cheek, a little harder than necessary. “Now get the fuck off my property and take your friends with you before I change my mind.”

I pushed to standing and turned my back on the pile of scum, fighting the urge to whip back around and teach him the lesson he’d earned.

Hands tingling with wrath.

Though I could feel something stronger luring me in a different direction.

This sensation rippling from inside .

I strode back through the door and into my bar where all eyes were on me. Everyone was frozen in their exact same positions as when I’d dragged the monster out fifteen seconds ago.

Disgust billowed off Theo where he held the three pricks at bay, my oldest friend looking at me in question, silently asking for the go to tear them apart.

Not tonight.

Had something far more important that needed tending to.

“Get them the fuck out of here,” I growled, not slowing as I shifted back toward the solitary table that sat in the front corner.

My heart was a fucking battering ram in my chest as I edged that way, every muscle in my body locked as I took her in where she was on the floor.

Sitting up but curled into a ball.

Head still downturned with those long, blonde curls draped around her. Arms wrapped around her knees as she shook.

Slowly, I started to kneel, but apparently not slowly enough because she lashed out, two hands smacking into my chest to push me back.

A warrior, this one.

Could feel it radiating around her.

The fight mixed up with the pain.

“Whoa, I’m not going to hurt you.” I kept my voice quieted. “It’s okay. That prick is gone.”

A shiver rolled through her.

“You’re safe.”

She seemed to war, turning in on herself, before she warily lifted her head so I could see her face.

Fuck. Me.

A thunderbolt struck through me just looking at her.

Giant eyes the color of toffee stared back, dappled with these flecks of fiery orange.

Woman with a face that could drop a man straight to his knees.

All sharp angles and high cheeks and the poutiest lips I’d ever seen .

But it was the agony swimming in her gaze that I wasn’t sure had a whole lot to do with what had just gone down that had me whispering, “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

I had no clue why the fuck I was claiming it.

No clue what possessed me to carefully move to her side and scoop her slight body up into my arms.

Only thing I was sure of?

I couldn’t stop myself.