Chapter 10
Talia
The chair is ugly.
That is not the most important thing happening right now, but my brain has apparently decided to focus on upholstery because the alternative is screaming.
It’s old. Wooden. One leg shorter than the others. Every time I shift, it rocks beneath me with a tiny, uneven tap against the cabin floor.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Like a countdown.
My wrists are tied behind my back. Not with rope, because apparently that would be too cinematic. Zip ties. Hard plastic biting into skin already raw from fighting in the back of Landon’s SUV. My mouth tastes like dust and the cloth they had shoved between my teeth until ten minutes ago.
They took the gag out because Brianna wanted to talk.
Of course she did.
My stepsister always did love an audience.
She stands by the window, arms crossed, looking out through a gap in the curtains. The oversized hoodie is gone. So are the sunglasses and the shaking voice. Underneath, she wears fitted jeans, a cream sweater I know for a fact used to be mine, and the gold hoops I thought I lost two years ago.
The sight of them hurts more than it should.
Ridiculous.
I am tied to a chair in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and part of me still wants to say, You took my earrings?
Brianna turns from the window and catches me staring.
Her mouth curves.
Small.
Mean.
Real.
“You always did have that face,” she says.
My throat feels scraped raw. “What face?”
“The wounded one.” She tilts her head. “Like you can’t believe someone would hurt you after you tried so hard to be good.”
The words slide under my ribs and start cutting.
I stare at her, searching for something. A crack. A tremble. A sign that the sister I raised is still in there somewhere, trapped behind whatever this is.
There’s nothing.
Just Brianna.
Clear-eyed.
Dry-eyed.
Cold.
“Why?” I whisper.
It is a stupid question.
It is the only one I have.
Brianna laughs, but there’s no joy in it. “God, Talia. Really?”
“Yes. Really.” My voice shakes, and I hate that. “I thought you were missing. I thought Landon had hurt you. I went to that villa for you.”
“I know.”
Two words.
No guilt.
Nothing.
“You knew I’d come,” I say.
“Of course I knew.” She walks closer, slow, like she has all the time in the world. “That’s what you do. You come running. You fix things. You make that sad little martyr face and act like the world should clap because you gave up something again.”
My chest tightens.
“I loved you.”
Her eyes flash.
There.
Something.
Not guilt.
Anger.
“You smothered me.”
I jerk back as much as the chair allows. “I raised you.”
“You loved saying that, didn’t you?” Her voice sharpens. “Poor Talia. Always stuck taking care of Brianna. Always giving Brianna her clothes, her makeup, her leftovers of a life. You made me feel like a charity case in my own house.”
“That’s not what I was doing.”
“No. You were being noble.” She spits the word like it tastes bad. “Dad and Mom left, and you got to be the saint. You got to be the good one. The responsible one. The one everyone would pity if they bothered to look.”
Nobody looked.
That’s the thing that almost breaks me.
Nobody looked then.
Nobody except me.
“I was eighteen,” I whisper. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“You knew enough to keep the best parts for yourself.”
I blink.
“What?”
Her gaze drops over me, ugly and assessing. “You always were the better sister. The good girl. Teachers liked you. Customers liked you. Even when you were working yourself to death at that diner, people looked at you like you were sunshine in an apron.”
A laugh bursts out of me, broken and disbelieving. “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“I gave you everything.”
“You gave me what you wanted me to have.”
The cabin feels smaller.
The air thinner.
She steps closer, and I see it now. The sweater. The hoops. The shade of lipstick she used to steal from my bathroom drawer. So many little things I thought I misplaced. So many moments I blamed myself for being careless.
“But I took what I wanted. Your blue dress included.”
“My blue dress,” I say slowly.
Brianna smiles.
The memory opens like a wound.
Senior winter dance. The blue dress I saved for, altered myself, kept hanging on my closet door for three weeks because it was the first thing I’d bought that felt beautiful. The morning of the dance, it vanished. Brianna cried, swore she didn’t know. I stayed home because I had nothing to wear.
“You took it.”
“You looked stupid in it.”
My breath leaves me.
“And the envelope from Pete?” I ask. “The one with my culinary school application fee?”
She shrugs. “You weren’t going to leave anyway.”
My eyes burn so hot it hurts.
I did not go because I thought I lost the money.
I thought I was careless.
I thought I failed myself.
All these years, I thought that was on me.
“You sabotaged me.”
“You were in my way.”
“I was taking care of you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
The chair rocks beneath me.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Something inside me goes quiet.
“You let me think you were one of the girls they took,” I say.
Her mouth tightens. “Don’t make it sound so dramatic. I’m in the business.”
“You help him take girls, Brianna?”
“Those girls wanted money. Parties. Attention. They made choices.”
“You lured them.”
“I introduced them.”
“To men who sold them.”
Her eyes go flat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No,” I say, voice shaking. “I think I finally do.”
For the first time, her expression flickers.
She doesn’t like that.
Good.
Landon storms in from the next room, phone pressed to his ear, face pale under his fake tan. Two men follow him, both tense, both armed. The cabin door bangs shut behind them hard enough to rattle dust from the rafters.
Brianna turns. “What happened?”
“Shut up.”
Her face twists. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
Landon ignores her. “Say that again,” he snaps into the phone.
Whatever he hears makes the color drain completely.
My heart starts beating faster.
Not fear this time.
Hope.
Landon lowers the phone.
For one second, nobody speaks.
Then he looks at one of the men. “Salazar’s down.”
Brianna goes still. “What do you mean, down?”
“Arrested.” Landon’s voice cracks on the word. “Him, his brother, two cousins, half the damn office. Raids hit three clubs and the warehouse outside Black Pines.”
The Saints.
It has to be.
Jayce.
The thought hits so hard I nearly fold over the zip ties.
Brianna’s composure breaks at the edges. “That’s not possible.”
“Does it look like I’m making jokes?” Landon snarls. “We move. Now.”
One of the men gestures toward me. “What about her?”
The room shifts.
Brianna looks at me.
There is no sister in her face.
No girl I packed lunches for. No kid I taught to braid hair. No crying sixteen-year-old in my sweatshirt.
Just someone who hates me enough to let me die for finally seeing her clearly.
“She’s a problem,” Brianna says.
My blood goes cold.
Landon’s eyes flick over me. “She’s leverage.”
“No,” Brianna snaps. “She spread her legs for a biker, Landon. You take her with us, the Saints never stop.”
The words hit like a slap.
Not because she’s wrong about what I did.
Because she makes it sound cheap.
Because she makes him sound like a mistake.
And Jayce is the only thing in this nightmare that doesn’t feel like one.
“They won’t stop either way.”
“Then end it.”
The words land like a fist.
I stare at her.
“You want me dead?” I ask, voice barely there.
Brianna’s mouth tightens, like I’ve made this inconvenient for her.
“I wanted you gone.”
I swallow against the hurt. It goes down jagged.
“There’s a difference?”
“There was,” she says. “Before you brought the Saints down on us.”
For a second, I feel eighteen again. Holding everything together with grocery coupons, diner tips, and a desperate belief that if I loved her hard enough, she would feel safe.
I was wrong.
So wrong.
A noise cracks through the trees outside.
Landon freezes.
The armed men turn toward the windows.
Another sound follows.
Low.
Deep.
Engines.
Not one.
Many.
The cabin seems to hold its breath.
My heart doesn’t.
It kicks.
Hard.
Brianna’s face changes.
Landon whispers, “No.”
The first gunshot blows out the front porch light.
Glass explodes inward.
I scream and duck as much as I can. The chair tips, then slams back upright. Men shout. Landon grabs Brianna and yanks her down. One of his men fires toward the window.
The cabin becomes noise.
Wood splintering.
Boots pounding.
Men yelling.
Brianna screaming now, for real this time.
And then a voice cuts through all of it.
“Saints!”
The door crashes open.
Shadow comes through like the dark finally found a body.
Black cut. Gun raised. Eyes colder than anything I’ve ever seen.
Behind him, men move with brutal precision. They fill the cabin like thunder, controlled and deadly.
Landon turns his gun toward me.
He doesn’t get the chance.
Shadow fires.
Landon drops with a cry, gun skittering across the floor.
Not dead, I think.
I don’t care.
Shadow is already moving toward me.
Someone tackles one of Landon’s men. Another man in a Saints cut drives Brianna to the floor when she tries to run.
“Talia.”
My name in Shadow’s voice breaks me.
Not Jayce.
Shadow.
The man who came for me.
I make a sound that might be his name, but it comes out wrong. A sob. A gasp. A thing with teeth.
He drops to his knees in front of me, gun still in one hand, the other already checking my face, my throat, my arms.
“Where are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.”
His eyes blaze. “Don’t lie to me right now.”
“My wrists.” My voice shakes. “Just my wrists. Maybe my ribs from the car. I don’t know.”
His jaw clenches.
“Knife,” he barks.
Someone puts one in his hand. He cuts the zip ties with terrifying care, like the plastic personally offended him but my skin is holy.
The second my hands are free, I fall into him.
He catches me.
Of course he does.
His arms lock around me, hard enough to hurt, not enough for me to care. His face buries in my hair. His whole body shakes once.
Just once.
But I feel it.
“I’ve got you,” he says, voice rough.
I clutch his cut. “I thought you wouldn’t find me.”
His hand grips the back of my neck. “Never.”
One word.
No room for doubt.
Behind him, Brianna sobs. “Talia, please. Please, tell them I didn’t mean it. Tell them he made me.”
I stiffen.
Shadow starts to turn, but I grab his cut tighter.
“No,” I whisper.
His eyes come back to me.
I look past him.
Brianna is on the floor with one biker standing over her, wrists zip-tied now. Her face is wet. Her hair a mess. She looks young again.
Small.
Familiar.
Fake.
“You always come for me,” she cries. “T, please.”
The nickname hurts.
But it doesn’t work anymore.
I lift my chin even though my whole body feels broken.
“I did,” I say. “Every time.”
Her sob hitches.
“I’m done.”
Silence spreads.
Brianna stares at me like I slapped her.
Maybe I did.
Good.
Shadow’s thumb moves against the back of my neck, slow and steady.
Another man speaks behind us, low and hard. “We need to move.”
Shadow nods once, but he doesn’t let go.
He slides one arm beneath my knees and lifts me.
I should protest. Should say I can walk. Should do anything except melt into him like I was made to fit there.
But I am tired.
So tired.
And he is warm.
And here.
Outside, the morning is too bright. The air smells like pine, gunpowder, and gasoline. Bikes line the dirt road in front of the cabin. Men move fast around us, talking into phones, securing weapons, hauling zip-tied men toward waiting vehicles.
Shadow carries me past all of it.
I keep my face against his chest until the cabin is behind us.
Then I whisper, “She hated me.”
His arms tighten.
“I know.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I thought I was saving her.”
His voice goes low. “You were trying to save the girl you loved. That’s not the same as being wrong.”
I close my eyes, but tears slip out anyway.
“I feel stupid.”
His steps stop.
He looks down at me, and for the first time since he came through that door, Shadow fades.
Jayce looks back.
Raw.
Furious.
Mine.
“Listen to me, love. She used what was best in you. That doesn’t make you stupid. Makes her rotten.”
A broken laugh catches in my throat. “That’s your sweet confession?”
His mouth tightens.
Then softens.
“Sweet isn’t what I’m good at.”
“I noticed.”
His eyes move over my face like he needs to memorize that I’m breathing.
“I should’ve kept you in my sight.”
“You came.”
“I was late.”
“You came,” I say again.
His jaw works.
“I’ll always come for you.”
My heart cracks.
Not from pain this time.
From something bigger.
Scarier.
“I thought I lost everything,” I whisper.
His arms tighten around me.
“You didn’t lose me.”
The words hit too deep.
I look up at him, my fingers trembling against his jaw. “I barely know what you are to me.”
His eyes move over my face.
Possessive.
Wrecked.
Certain.
“I know what you are to me.”
My breath catches. “What?”
His hand slides to the back of my neck, holding me like he is afraid the world might try to take me again.
“Mine.”
The word should scare me.
It does.
But it also settles something broken in my chest.
I touch his face. “And you?”
His mouth brushes mine.
“Yours, love.”
My heart cracks wide open.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It is.”
His thumb strokes once at the side of my throat.
“But it’s true.”
This time, when he kisses me, it is not fire.
It is not panic.
It is not a bad idea with a heartbeat.
It is a vow.
Behind us, men shout and engines rumble and the world keeps breaking apart.
But Shadow holds me like he can keep every piece from touching me.
And for one fragile, impossible second, I believe him.