Chapter 8
EIGHT
Charlotte
“And then they just… left?”
“Yes, they fucking left,” I snap at Ryder. I shake my head, but my brain is moving a mile a minute.
He’d found me still shaking in my apartment. Crouched on the floor a few feet from the front door. The gun Torch gifted me was clutched in both hands, pointed at whoever dared to come in.
The only reason I didn’t accidentally pull the trigger on him was because he’d shouted his name first. I didn’t even answer the seventeen missed calls he left in the hour and a half it took him to get here.
When he arrived, I was a full-blown mess—quivering, breath ragged. He’d had to lift me off the ground and carry me to the couch.
Now we’re sitting side by side. His laptop is perched on my secondhand coffee table as he clicks away like a man on a mission, while I try to piece together the scraps of what just happened.
“Okay. Okay, love. Can you recall anything else? About the cut? The patterns? Designs? Anything?”
He had given me a few minutes to calm down. But now the questions are coming—sharp, fast, and with that soft urgency only Ryder can manage.
??????
“Just wanted to see the girl who sent me to prison.”
Two years ago, Charlie would’ve flinched. Slumped her shoulders, nodded like a fool, probably said, ‘Yes, I’m so sorry, Glory.’
She would’ve contorted herself to fit the story Glory just fed her.
But I’m not that girl anymore. I’m Charlotte.
And even though I am staring down two men twice my size, ready to strike if she gave the word, I hold on to who I am in a reckless grip.
“I… I didn’t, Glory. I wasn’t the one who stole—”
“Why are you saying that?” she interrupts, frowning. Her expression shifts so quickly it makes my stomach turn.
“No, Charlie. I… I had the $115K, remember? And you kept the rest of the $95K. I know we spent a little bit of it. But… wait, did you use up all our money?”
Our money.
My whole body freezes. Her twisted words lodge somewhere deep, pressing on an old, sore nerve. But I power through it. “It… it won’t work, Glory.”
“What won’t work?” she asks softly, tilting her head.
“Y-your tactics. I didn’t steal anything. You got what your actions resulted in.”
I brace myself for another one of her sweet manipulations. Instead, her gaze hardens. Her eyes lose all shine.
“Charlie.” She sighs, stepping closer. “I should’ve known. I should’ve protected you from that club. They did nothing for us.”
I keep my mouth shut. Because behind her, one of the men shifts forward—and that’s when I see it. The faint glint of his patch under the streetlight. It isn’t one I recognize. Not local. Not affiliated. Definitely not safe.
“Charlie, listen,” Glory continues. “I just need our money back, okay? That’s all. Then we can… figure it all out.”
The sheer confidence she has in my naivety is baffling. She thinks I won’t notice the two men are from a different MC. That I am still capable of falling under the spell of her sweetly spoken voice. She thinks I can’t hear the veiled threats tucked behind her smile.
“Okay.” I sigh, lifting my gaze to hers. “Yeah… I’ll try to recover it.”
Her smile blooms instantly—sweet, triumphant, like she’s already won.
??????
“I didn’t get a good look,” I tell him, dragging my nails across my jeans. “Because it was literally seconds later that they were gone. But I saw—”
Bang!
My door slams open. I let out a muffled scream, instinctively recoiling. Ryder’s already up, gun drawn, body between me and the doorway like a wall.
I can’t look. I can’t breathe.
They’re here, aren’t they? Glory sent them.
The tremble in my limbs returns full-force, my stomach flipping like I’m about to throw up.
“Shit,” Ryder mutters under his breath. “It’s okay, love.”
I peek up. He’s tucking the gun back into his waistband. Only then do I turn to the doorway.
It’s Wolf… and Ruin.
But Ruin’s already moving. No, charging.
Stop, I want to say, but the word doesn’t even make its way up my throat.
I don’t have time to do anything before he’s in front of me, eyes wild, studying every inch of me. His breathing is ragged and he looks… frantic? Concerned?
“God, Charlotte,” he chokes out like he’s found me buried under rubble. “Oh God. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” His hands cup my cheeks, fingers too close to my neck.
No, no, stop.
My throat. My skin buzzes like it remembers things I don’t want to feel.
He’s rambling. Panicked, like he’s been imagining something horrific for hours. “Did she touch you—fuck, did she hurt you?” His palms slide down to my shoulders. Too close to my airway.
I flinch violently as I jolt backward. My leg crashes into the edge of the coffee table before my whole body gives way and I drop, ass-first, onto it. A loud thud reverberates through the room.
“Christ, fucker!” Ryder barks, lunging forward and shoving Ruin back. “You’re scaring her.”
My throat tightens, breath shaky. I can’t get a grip. My hands are trembling again and my eyes sting.
I look up to find Ruin standing there. Equal parts terrified and guilty. His hands half-outstretched like he doesn’t know what to do with them. His mouth opens, then closes again. He finally steps back, eyes locked on me with a look I can’t name.
Then I notice Wolf. Quiet. Still. Standing near the far wall like he’s been there for hours. Arms hanging limply, jaw tight, expression unreadable. Except, there’s pain there. Subtle. And I know that type of helpless pain. I can identify it. I can feel it across any room.
I look away. I don’t want to make sense of it. Not of his pain, whatever that means.
Then I watch him. Ruin.
Trying—really trying—to calm himself down. His chest rises and falls too fast, his hands twitching like they want to do something but can’t figure out what. Every bit of this feels foreign. Un-Ruin-like. His gaze never leaves me, not for a second.
“Can you get my keys from the bike?” he says, turning stiffly toward Ryder. “I uh… left them—I…” His words stumble over each other like he’s grasping at a rehearsed excuse but forgot the lines.
It’s not his character. I should know—I made a study out of him for years, and this is not like him at all.
And that’s what terrifies me. Buried beneath that fake, frantic concern, there’s a flicker of something sharper. Hotter. But not explosive. Not loud. But enough to chill my blood. I’ve been a witness to that rage over the years, many times.
When Ryder shifts like he’s about to head toward the door, panic slams through me. I can’t be alone with these two. “No!” I blurt, louder than I meant to. “No—W-Wolf will go. Or… or he can do it himself. Not you, R-Ryder.”
The air shifts.
Both Wolf’s and Ruin’s faces drop, like I gutted them with a few words.
Wolf’s lips part, then press into a hard line before he mumbles, “I’ll go,” and walks out.
Ryder exhales slowly, coming to my side and guiding me off the coffee table and back to the couch. His hand is steady on my back, unlike everything inside me.
Ruin doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word. He watches, like he’s memorizing every flinch, every breath I take. Jaw tight, shoulders locked.
“Really, Ruin?” Ryder finally says, voice on the edge of a smirk. “You left your keys inside?”
Ruin looks caught. “I… I… yeah, I just needed to—I just…” He swallows hard, then his gaze snaps to mine. Intense and unwavering. “I needed to see if she was okay.”
I freeze.
What. The. Fuck?