Chapter 7
Wrath
I’m deep in discussion with Steel, Diesel, and Tank about negotiations with the Iron Serpents suddenly going sideways. Unexplainably, our potential alliance went cold and even hostile. Nobody understands why.
"Get Wrath! Get him right fucking now!" Trix’s panicked cry rings out like a gunshot.
I'm on my feet already pushing through Steel’s office door before she finishes her sentence.
In the dining room, a broken serving dish is shattered on the floor. Lizzie stands frozen by the long table, her face stricken. Trix white-knuckles a dishrag. But it's the empty space between them where Cami should be that sends icy tendrils crawling up my spine.
"Where is she?" The question carries all my years of honed violence.
"Outside," Lizzie says, her voice shaking. "She saw something through the window and just... I don’t know what happened. She dropped the serving dish and ran out front like she was sleepwalking."
Outside. Alone. After I told her to stay inside where it's safe. After the Iron Serpents were asking questions about her in town, after they suddenly turned hostile toward us, after every sign pointed to danger circling closer.
Through the front window, I see two figures on the sidewalk across the street—Cami's small form facing off against a man who trips my warning switches.
He's maybe fifty-five, average height but carries himself with the aggressive posture of someone used to intimidating people weaker.
Pressed clothes that don't quite hide the soft gut of a man who's let himself go, thinning hair slicked back with too much product.
But it's his eyes that make my trigger finger itch—cold, cruel, scanning our compound assessingly while talking to my woman.
I push my way through the front door, my boots eating up the distance between us in time to hear, "Daddy's come to take you home.”
His voice carries a mocking affection that makes my vision go red.
This piece of shit is her father.
My jaw locks. Every muscle coils tightly, begging for release, for violence, for the justice she was never given.
I'm through the door and crossing the street in seconds. Her father's expression shifts from confident to alarmed as he takes in my size, the leather cut, and whatever he sees in my face.
"Cami, baby,” I say quietly. "Come here."
She turns at my voice, and the relief that floods her face hits hard. She moves to my side without hesitation. I can feel her trembling, hear the shallow, panicked quality of her breathing.
"Well, well," her father says, recovering his composure with an ease that comes from years of manipulation. “No surprise this is where my daughter ended up. Should have figured she'd find herself a biker." The way he says biker makes it sound like a dirty word.
"Your daughter?" I keep my voice conversational. "Funny. You lost any claim to that title years ago."
His face flushes red. I see a flash of the temper that must have terrorized Cami throughout her childhood. "Don't know what kind of sob story she's been feeding you, but the girl's always been a liar. Dramatic, ungrateful, a troublemaker.”
The casual dismissal of her pain, the way he twists her survival into character flaws—my hands curl into fists. But when Cami's hand touches my arm, some of the red haze clears. She's watching. What I do next matters.
"Here's what's going to happen." I take a step closer, watching in satisfaction as he retreats. "You're going back under whatever rock you crawled out from and you're never contacting her again, never coming within five miles of this place, never speaking her name to another living soul."
"Or what?" No real challenge in his voice. Just bluster from a bully who realized he picked the wrong fight.
I smile. "Or I'll introduce you to why they call me Wrath. And the introduction won't be quick, and it won't be pretty.”
His hands clench and unclench. I see the calculation in his eyes, weighing his chances. Whatever he sees convinces him retreat is smarter.
"This ain't over," he growls out, already backing toward a rusted sedan down the block. "She's still my blood, still mine. Can't hide behind bikers forever."
"I'm not yours anymore," Cami says, steel in her voice I've never heard. "Haven't been since the last time you put me in the hospital."
Her father's expression twists in to an ugly rage as he’s humiliated by the dismissal from someone he's used to controlling. For a heartbeat, I think he might come forward and take a swing at her. If he does, they'll never find enough of him to fill a coffee can.
But survival instinct wins. He spits on the sidewalk then stalks to his car and drives away, leaving rubber on the asphalt.
I watch until his taillights disappear. Only when I'm certain he's gone do I turn to Cami.
Her face is ghost-pale. Chin lifted with false courage. But she won't meet my eyes.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine." The lie seems automatic, worn smooth by years of use.
I don't push, just wrap an arm around her shoulders—a slow, telegraphed movement so she can pull away if she chooses to. She doesn't. She leans into me, tremors running through her.
"Let's get you inside."
The walk back feels endless. Cami moves like she's underwater, each step requiring conscious effort. By the time we reach my room, she sinks onto my bed and wraps her arms around herself.
Her eyes have gone distant, seeing something that isn't there. Somewhere behind those green eyes, she's seven again, or twelve, or fifteen.
I settle in the chair across from her. Silence stretches between us.
She stares at her hands. They're shaking. Finally, she speaks.
“When I was seven, I was drinking orange juice. The cheap kind that doesn’t contain real juice.” Her voice is flat, disconnected. “The glass slipped. Doesn't matter if you mean to do it—just matters that it happened.”
I wait.
“I remember the sound of his chair scraping back.
I knew before he stood. You learn the sounds.
Different footsteps. The slight change in the air—" Her breath hitches.
"My arm didn't break right away. He had to twist it.
I felt something stretch and pull, but it didn't snap until he shoved me into the counter edge. "
She's rubbing her forearm now, unconscious and repetitive.
"At the hospital, they asked three times what happened.
Every time, he stared with this look that said he'd kill me if I told the truth, and also that he was disappointed I'd been clumsy enough to get hurt. So I said I fell down the stairs. They wrote it down like they believed me, even though their eyes held skepticism.”
A tear tracks down her cheek. She doesn't wipe it away.
"Nobody helped me. Not then. Not at twelve with black eyes and split lips. Not at fifteen in long sleeves through summer. Not at seventeen when I got brave enough to tell someone and the whole system swallowed up the truth like it never existed."
She looks at me then, devastation in her eyes.
"The truth is he put me in the hospital again two years ago.
Broke three ribs and gave me a concussion so bad I couldn't remember my name for six hours.
When I woke up and saw him beside my hospital bed crying fake tears about his clumsy daughter, I knew.
If I went back to that house, one day he'd kill me and call it an accident. "
She's crying now, silent tears while her body stays rigid.
"So I told the truth. I told them everything—about all the years of abuse—and he was arrested."
Her eyes find mine, devastated and angry all at once.
"My mother bailed him out the next day. Hired some expensive lawyer I don't know how they afforded.
Together they spun this whole story for the authorities—said I was troubled, hanging with a bad crowd of drug addicts, that one of them beat me up.
They said they were just caring, concerned parents.
Claimed they were trying to protect their daughter by grounding her, but I was so resentful of their restrictions that I falsely accused my own father.
" Her laugh is bitter, broken. "The authorities believed them.
He got off completely. Scott free. Like none of it ever happened. "
She sniffles and continues. "That's when I knew the system wouldn't save me. That my own mother would sacrifice me to protect him. So I ran. I’ve been running ever since.
Living in my car, working shit jobs." She pauses, her jaw clenching while I process her confession.
Everything she's survived, every choice she's made to stay alive—it all led to my door.
"I don't want to keep running. Don't want to be the girl in her car who jumps at shadows.
But I don't know how to be anything else. "
“You’ll learn. It may take time, but I’ll teach you."
"I want that. I really want it.” She takes a breath. Her hands shake but her voice steadies. "I want to run toward something instead of away from it."
I cup her face. “I want that too, baby.” I look down at my phone that’s buzzed for the third time in two minutes. I check the text. Fuck. I can’t ignore this.
“I don’t want to go, baby, but I have to. Steele’s calling church. It’s mandatory."
She nods, but I see the nervousness in her eyes.
“Come on down with me. You’ll need to wait outside. Church is for patched members only. No exceptions." I soften my voice.
I walk her to the chapel door. "Wait right here. Fifteen minutes, maybe less. I'll come get you."
I wait until she's seated on the bench outside, then step inside.
Patched members fill the space—hard men who've earned their colors in blood. Every chair is occupied.
Steel brings his gavel down the second the door closes behind me. "Brothers. We got a situation."
He lays out the intel—Iron Serpents asking about her at the diner, someone lurking out by the dumpster a few nights ago, her asshole father showing up tonight. There are grunts and nods as the picture comes together.
"Wrath's requested we formally recognize Camila Bennett as his old lady." Steel's voice carries the weight of every vote that's come before. "Full protection, full commitment of resources." He pauses, looks around the table. “Anyone got anything to say before we vote?”
Diesel speaks up. "She's a good woman. Been watching her these past few days. She's not some skanky whore looking for a free ride."
"Agreed," Jigsaw adds. "Plus, anyone can see Wrath's already claimed her. We're just making it official."
Steel nods. "All in favor?"
Crusher’s hand goes up first. Then Hound's. Then Bulldog’s. One by one, every hand rises. Not one dissenting vote.
Steel's gavel hits the sound block. "Motion carries. She's family now. Property of Wrath, our VP and under the protection of the Hellbound Devils." Steel looks directly at me. “Congratulations, brother."
"Meeting adjourned. Wrath, get her somewhere secure. Rest of you, doubled patrols around our businesses. If you see Iron Serpent colors, you call it in before you move on it. We do this smart."
Cami's on her feet the moment I step outside, trying to read my face.
"Unanimous. You’re the official ol’ lady of the Hellhound Devil’s VP.”
Then her hands fly to her mouth and tears well—but these are different. The tears of someone braced for rejection, but receiving acceptance instead.
"Really?"
"Really. You're family now, Cami."
For a long moment, we just look at each other. Then she wraps her arms around my waist and buries her face against my chest. Her shoulders shake with silent sobs, dampness soaking through my shirt, and I hold her while she cries out years of fear and hopelessness.