Chapter 2
TWO
KEELEY
I’m warm. That’s the first alert that something is very wrong. The second is that everything hurts. My head. My face. My hip. I force my body to surface, even as it begs to disappear back into the silence.
Opening my eyes feels like swimming through concrete and it takes a moment for my body to come back online. I blink the room into focus. All I see is white walls and dark furniture. There are soft sheets beneath me and the lights are low, dim enough it doesn’t burn my eyes.
This is not right.
No, no, no.
My breath comes too fast, too shallow, like every breath is punching its way out of my lungs.
The last thing I remember is—
Fuck. The cage.
Where am I now? Why does this feel worse than that dark hole I was in? At least I knew what that was.
This… this feels too clean and way more dangerous.
I toss the blankets back, and my heart stops. This is not what I was wearing before. The t-shirt is soft grey cotton and hits my mid-thigh. It smells clean. I smell clean.
Did someone wash me while I was unconscious?
My skin crawls as I lift the hem and check between my legs. I’m in a pair of dark shorts. No underwear, but no pain either.
I don’t think I was touched like that. I’m not sore or bruised. No blood on my thighs. No feeling of something having been inside me.
Relief punches my chest.
I’m okay. Shit, I’m okay. Breathe, Keeley.
The bands around my chest loosen enough that I can glance around the room. There’s nothing here that tells me where I am or who has me. No bars on the window, no chains around my ankles or wrists, either.
I push up on shaky legs. Pins and needles fire through my limbs, electric charges of pain under my skin as the blood rushes back into my body.
Shit. Fuck.
I reach for the edge of the dresser to steady myself as my knees turn to liquid. I’m weak in a way I’ve never been before. What if I need to run?
You’ll definitely need to run, Keeley. You passed out in a cage and now you’re here… wherever here is.
The door swings open, and my muscles lock. It’s only instinct that has me stumbling back when he steps inside.
He’s huge, or at least he seems it. Dark hair, stubble covering his jaw, and eyes that aren’t hard or angry, but assessing. He looks like a threat wrapped in shiny packaging. The wrong kind of man women trust too easily before getting burnt.
The kind of man I absolutely have fallen for in the past.
“You’re awake.” His voice is deep and rough. It scrapes low through me, and my skin prickles with awareness.
He’s wearing the leather vest I know makes him one of them. The same patches, the same club, the same men who smile when they betray you.
My vision blurs until my chest tightens.
The panic hits hard and fast. He’s not safe. “Stay back!” My voice wobbles.
His hands drop to his sides, loose and easy, as if he’s not a predator standing in front of prey. I brace in case he lashes out or grabs me, but he doesn’t even twitch toward me.
“Hey, look at me.” The command in his voice has my eyes snapping up against my better judgement. Everything about him is hard edges, but not the way he’s looking at me.
That’s… soft. It would be easier if he was angry and spitting fire. I don’t know what to do with this or what it means.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he adds.
He sounds sincere, but I don’t trust it. He has the kind of presence that doesn’t just walk into a room—he owns it and everything in it. Am I something he wants to own too?
I narrow my eyes. “I’m just supposed to believe that?” Did I wobble? I felt like I wobbled.
“No, but it’s the truth.”
He says it like he means it, but men lie. Men wearing that name on their backs definitely do.
Yeah, fuck trust. Earn it first.
I flatten against the wall behind me, as if the illusion of distance will help. It won’t.
The truth is if he wants to drag me out of this room by my hair there’s nothing I can do to stop him. If he wants to throw me down on the floor and—
Nope, don’t go there, Keeley.
“Where am I?” My hands tremble, but I take a breath. Then another. It doesn’t help, but I keep doing it anyway.
“My clubhouse.”
He’s still talking in that soft voice, but my brain is too busy scrambling for something that makes sense to notice. The Sons clubhouse? Why in the fuck would he bring me here?
“No.” The word scrapes up my throat like razors before I can stop it. This is not good.
He frowns at my reaction. “What’s your name?” he asks.
“What’s yours?” I fire back, as if I have any control here. I don’t expect him to tell me, but he does.
“I’m Nic—Phoenix, but no one calls me that.”
What kind of name is that?
I search my memory for it. I’m pretty sure that would stick somewhere, but even if it did, my thoughts are fuzzy and fogged. I can’t hold on to anything. It gives me a headache trying.
I press the heel of my hand to my temple, squeezing my eyes shut for a second. “What did you do to me? Why can’t I think? I don’t remember—”
“You were unconscious when I pulled you out of the cage.”
I swallow bile as the memory fractures through the haziness. Bars, cold, pain. Peeing in that fucking bucket like a dog.
And him…
He was looking at me through the bars. Not Nic. No, not him. A face I didn’t think I’d see again, and hoped I wouldn’t.
I try to remember more, but my head throbs. “Why can’t I think straight?”
“There was food in the cage. Probably drugged. That wound to your head? Wouldn’t have helped either.”
My fingers lift automatically, and the moment I scrape over my hairline, I hiss. I don’t remember getting hurt. Or maybe I do. I don’t know, everything is running together and drifting apart.
I shift onto my other leg. My hip is aching. My ribs too. There’s been a slow tilting whirl filling my vision for the last few seconds that is going to become a problem if I don’t sit back down. But I watch him like a sniper.
“Did you dress me?”
“One of the old ladies.” I don’t know what that means and it must show on my face because he adds, “The wife of one of my men. She was the only one who touched you and only to get you clean.”
That knot in my chest should loosen. It doesn’t.
I glance at the door, then at him. He’s not blocking it, but he’s too close for me to risk passing him. The room feels smaller with him in it, and not just because of his size.
“I want to leave.” I say that with more strength than I feel, and the look on his face tells me the answer before he gives it.
“Yeah,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his jaw, “that ain’t happenin’. You wouldn’t make it five steps. You’re barely standin’ now.”
“I’ll take my chances.” It’s a bold statement considering he’s right. I’m swaying on my feet like I’m half cut.
“You gonna take your chances with whoever locked you in that cage, too?”
Fuck him for saying that. “You mean your club?”
I drop my gaze to the patches on the front of his leather vest. Somehow I missed the president patch, and that only adds more fuel to the fear. I don’t know shit about biker structure, but president sounds pretty important.
Nic narrows his eyes a fraction. “Was it Crank? Why did he put you down there?”
This time, I’m the one frowning. I don’t know that name. Is he another member? Was he down in that room with me? “Who’s that?”
For a split second, everything hangs in the air like a weight. “If it wasn’t Crank, who was it, then?”
I don’t know if it’ll cause me more problems or less, but I answer because if he wants the truth, he’ll get it out of me however he wants. “My brother.”
His eyes narrow just a fraction, and my pulse kicks up a notch. I press harder into the wall. Maybe I can disappear into it.
“What’s your name?” Nic repeats in a low, commanding voice.
I swallow. I could hold it back, but if he’s with my brother, then he already knows who I am.
“Keeley… Keeley West.”
He blinks, clearly shocked. Then his jaw tightens and his eyes darken. Oh, fuck. Am I in trouble here? Maybe I should have kept quiet.
“Your brother’s Daniel West?” I nod slowly and immediately wish I hadn’t told him. Nic’s fingers interlace at the back of his neck. He’s staring at me like I’ve just handed him a live grenade. “Fuck.”
I’m not surprised by that reaction. Daniel has that effect on everyone, including me. My brother is a fucking dick.
Nic stares at me for a beat too long. “You’re sure you don’t know Crank?”
“The only person I remember seeing from your club is Daniel.” I frown, grappling for a memory, squinting through the instant headache it gives me. “But… I think—yeah, I think there was another guy too.”
His eyes lock on mine, granite hard. “Who?”
He drifts through my memory like smoke. Shorter than my brother, but attractive in a snakey way. He carried himself like someone used to people falling to their knees in front of them.
And the way he looked at me?
Like I was nothing.
I lick my suddenly dry lips. My entire mouth feels like it’s full of sand. “I don’t know who he was, but he wasn’t wearing one of your club vests. He was in a suit.”
Nic paces the floor in front of him like a caged animal. I keep very still, trying not to draw attention to myself.
“All this time I thought this shit was tangled with Crank, but—” He stops and cuts his gaze to mine. “Keeley, why did your brother put you in that cage?”
“I don’t know.” I glance at the door, my nape suddenly cold. Where is Daniel? Usually, he’d be here, tormenting me. Nic’s too… nice. None of this is adding up.
“Is he—” I hate how small my voice is and I try to make it steel. I fail because, honestly, I’m fucking terrified of him. “Is he here? Is he going to hurt me?”
Are you going to do it for him?
The air changes instantly. Nic’s jaw ticks, like he’s trying to calm something volatile inside him. “He won’t touch you. No one will.”
My laugh is sharp, but also has that edge of dark amusement that makes it sound wrong. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can.”
That should make me feel better, but I’m not sure it does.
But… Nic hasn’t tried to hurt me, not yet anyway.
I’m clean, I’m warm, and yeah, I’m mostly dressed.
All of that is a small grace and makes little sense.
Daniel would have had me bleeding by now if he were here.
So why hasn’t Nic touched me if he’s working with Daniel?
I squint at him, trying to understand who this man is and how he fits into whatever this is. Nothing makes sense.
Nic doesn’t seem to like my brother, which isn’t surprising. Most people don’t. But he promised Daniel won’t hurt me.
And yeah, that should be a relief, but it’s not. Now, I’m just confused and more scared.
I thought he and Daniel were working together. Or I did. Maybe this is like a good cop-bad cop thing?
But for what purpose? Why did Daniel need me in that cage and why the hell did he let me out?
Why did he bring me to his club?
I stare at Nic and he stares back, unblinking. I swallow bile. “Daniel always finds a way to get what he wants, Nic.”
“Not this time.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you sure you know him?”
Because if he did, he wouldn’t be so sure of that.
Daniel’s not a monster. That word is too theatrical, too dramatic.
He’s smarter than that. He’s devious and charming.
He makes people believe the lies he tells and manipulates them to do what he needs.
Even when he was a kid, he had a dark side to him that scared our parents.
As an adult without guardrails, he’s terrifying. That’s why I’ve stayed out of his life for as long as I have. I don’t want to be around Daniel or his friends. This world he lives in isn’t mine, and I don’t want it to be.
Nic pauses, still scanning my face as if I’m holding some deep, dark secret there.
My breath sticks in my chest as I wait for him to speak.
“Didn’t know him as Daniel,” he murmurs. “Just knew him by his road name.” His eyes don’t leave mine as he drops the name my brother wore like a costume. “Blade.”