Chapter 2
Royal
The barrel’s already out back when I step into the night.
No light. No witnesses. Just the scrape of gravel under my boots and the low hum of the clubhouse bleeding through the trees like a reminder that I still belong to something bigger than my sins.
I don’t look toward the building where I keep what I don’t want found. I never do. Thinking about it too hard gives things weight. Memories that don’t stay buried if you give them air.
The masks are in my hands instead.
Cheap plastic. Cracked paint. Sweat-stained straps. Halloween garbage that somehow became something else when I put it on and let it turn me into a shadow she could survive.
The skull ghost goes in first.
Black howl. Hollow eyes. The one that watched her breathe when she didn’t know who I was. The one that let me touch her without asking her to carry the truth. The one I hid behind when telling her would’ve broken her worse than lying ever could.
I flick the lighter.
The flame catches fast, hungry, curling the edges like it’s been waiting. The skull’s gape warps and melts, collapsing inward until it’s nothing but blistered plastic and smoke that burns my nose and sticks in my throat.
I watch it and think about the journals.
The poetry.
Every word I ever wrote about her burned the same way. Page after page fed to fire because I knew what they’d say if anyone read them. That I wasn’t in control. That I’d crossed from wanting into worship and never came back.
Biker Boo wasn’t a costume.
It was a confession I never meant anyone to hear.
I toss the rest of the masks in without ceremony. One after another. Faces that don’t matter now. Shapes that let me be something I can’t afford to be anymore. The barrel flares, heat licking my knuckles, and I don’t pull back.
I deserve the burn.
I think about Becki believing what she believed. About the nights she thought she was touching someone else. About how there was never a clean way to tell her without shattering what little ground she stood on.
She’s not right. Not fully. Anyone with eyes can see that.
But she didn’t get that way because of me.
Still, I know how it looks.
I know what Legend would say. What my brothers would think if they ever connected the dots. I won’t be the man they blame for tipping her further into the dark. I won’t be the reason she’s written off as broken beyond saving.
The fire dies down, leaving twisted shapes and ash.
I grind it all into the dirt with my boot until there’s nothing left to recognize. No grin. No eyes. No proof.
I stand there longer than I need to.
I think about everything she’s done. Every lie. Every manipulation. Every way she’s twisted people to survive. I reflect on how I know all of it and still can’t make myself hate her.
That’s the danger.
That’s why this ends here.
I turn toward the clubhouse, toward the cell where she’s being held, my room, knowing one thing for sure.
Whatever she is now, I won’t let anyone say I made her worse.
And when I walk into that room, I won’t be wearing a mask.
Not ever again.
The first thing I notice is the chain.
Silver metal catches the dim morning light, glowing cold and cruel, like something ripped out of a medieval dungeon.
Been here since this place held criminals.
It wraps around her small wrist, gleaming against her skin like jewelry made by the devil.
The other end is welded into the steel frame bolted into the concrete floor.
A man could pull until he tore his arm out of the socket and still not break free.
A woman even as tall and fit as Becki Crowley has no chance.
Yet she sleeps like she might.
Becki looks nothing like the girl the Reverend tried to shape.
She’s all sharp edges and softer shadows.
Dark hair chopped short, framing a face made for defiance.
Even asleep, chained to my bed, she looks like she’s daring the world to try her again.
Her mouth is full, stubborn, the kind of mouth that speaks truth even when it burns.
Her lashes fan against her cheeks, too delicate for a place like Hell, Kentucky… too delicate for a man like me.
But it’s her neck that gets me. The slope of it, exposed where her shirt slipped sideways. Her tank top rides up enough to show a strip of stomach, tight and tense even in sleep. No bra on, I see the outline of her nipple rings. Those are new. Fuck me.
Heard about them, not seen them. Not yet. Will.
I regret returning her clothes. She curls one hand near her face like she’s ready to claw the world apart the second she wakes.
She shouldn't seem serene.
She shouldn’t look breakable.
But she does, and that’s the problem.
There’s a fierceness under her skin. A girl raised in a cage who learned to sharpen her own teeth. A girl I should fear. A girl, I should return to her father and walk away from.
Instead, I sit in the old metal chair across from the bed and watch her breathe. And I wonder when the hell she got so deep under my skin.
A bruise blooms just beneath her collarbone, not from my chain, but from running, from fighting, from surviving. Could be from the other night when she lunged at Sophie. Could be from Oaks and I dragging her inside. Could be from when she swung at me, and I caught her too hard.
Becki collects bruises the way church women collect recipes. She has always been marked by something, someone, some place. Born into a preacher’s house. Raised in fear. Fed on guilt. Carved by shame. Every hurt in her is a story waiting to break open.
And God help me, I want to be the one she breaks open for.
It is a problem.
She’s a problem.
She’s my fucking problem.
Legend told me to keep her here until we know what the Reverend is really planning, what Becki meant by her threat at Paradise Falls, what lies are tangled under that new haircut. I try not to notice his name carved into her thigh.
Means nothing now.
Sophie wants her gone. Wants her erased from the picture. Legend wants answers before bloodshed. Oaks wants her punished. Vandal wants her watched. Whiskey wants her muzzled. They all wanted her contained.
And they all knew I was the best one to do it.
Not because of the chain.
Because I know how to keep secrets.
Because I know how to want a woman and not touch her.
Unless she begs for it.
Unless she bleeds for it.
Becki bleeds beautifully.
She shifts in her sleep, rolling onto her back.
Her lips part slightly, pink and soft in a way that makes something inside me twist. She breathes like a woman whispering to a lover.
And for as long as anyone remembers, that’s been my president, Legend, my brother in so many ways as the Reverend took us both into his sick fold.
It should disgust me. Make me walk out. Make me turn away.
But it doesn’t. It never has.
I close my eyes. I let memory pull me back.
Rain. Screech of rubber. Her bike spinning out on Crooked Creek Hollow. The thud of metal slamming into a tree. Steam pouring out like a spirit fleeing the wreck.
I’d been tailing her for weeks then. Masked.
Hooded. Silent. Watching her slip between club and cult, between rebellion and despair.
I wore the mask then, white and tight and stitched black around the mouth like some horror movie villain.
I liked it that way. It kept the world out and me in.
She didn’t know someone had been following every one of her footsteps.
She never does. Becki walks through the world like she wants to be seen and never expects to be saved.
The night she crashed, I should’ve left her. Let her father find her. Let the Reverend drag her home by her hair and punish her for daring to live. Let her suffer beneath the burden of the man who raised her like a sermon carved from bone.
But I didn’t.
She blinked up at me, blood trickling down her temple. She didn’t scream. She didn’t even ask who I was. She only reached for me with shaking fingers and whispered, “Legend?”
She thought I was him.
And I let her.
I carried her into the woods, away from the curve in the road, away from the headlights.
She curled into me like she had been waiting to collapse into someone’s arms for years.
Rain soaked her clothes, her lashes, her mouth.
I felt her breath warm against my throat.
Her fingers dug into my hoodie. She trembled in a way that made my entire body lock.
I wanted her.
Not just her body.
Her surrender.
I wanted to put her on the wet leaves and take her like the earth had already claimed her. Wanted to kiss her until she forgot every man except the one holding her. Wanted to mark her where no preacher could scrub the stain off.
I carried her.
I made sure she lived.
And I eventually, yeah, I fucked her. Let her believe it was Legend in the mask.
Then I disappeared like the ghost she thought I was.
I moved on.
She rolls onto her back now, stirring from sleep. Her eyes open, hazy then sharp. Switchblade eyes of two different colors lock on me. Then they flick toward the chain, then toward me. Disgust curls her lip, but behind it, there is something else. Something dark and curious.
“How long are you gonna watch me like some kind of pervert?” she asks, voice rough from sleep but rabid all the same.
I shrug. “You ain’t that interesting.”
She tugs the chain, metal scraping against metal. “Then let me go.”
“You’re staying.”
“For how long?”
Standing, I move toward her, letting my shadow fall over her. She tenses but refuses to shrink. She wants me to see, she can meet any threat head on.
“As long as it takes.”
“To do what?” she snaps. “Make Sophie feel better? Let Legend sleep easier? Or is this just your sick little fantasy?”
Grabbing the chain, I jerk it tight. Not enough to hurt her. Enough to remind her she’s bound to me. Her eyes widen, and she hates that reaction, hates that her body betrays her.
“You think this is about sex?” I say. “You think I chained you here to fuck you,”
She smirks. “Ain’t that what Kings do with their property?”
The words hit center mass. Because she ain’t wrong. We’ve fucked women with less provocation. We’ve claimed girls for sport. But Becki Crowley ain’t a pastime. Not for me at least. She’s a risk with teeth.
“You ain’t my punishment?” I say, the insult sounding fake even to me. “You’re evidence.”
Her brows knit together. “What does that mean?”
“It means we don’t know who we are dealing with. And until we do, you stay.”
I turn away before the desire crawling through me becomes something I have to act on. I leave the room, lock the door, and walk toward our war room under the old jailhouse lights.
Oaks is pacing like a man ready to set the world on fire. Vandal is cleaning his gun with the concentration of a preacher cleansing sin.
“What’s the word?” I ask.
Oaks spits on the floor. “Another girl gone. Twenty. No girl. Last seen outside choir practice.”
My stomach turns.
I don’t ask which church.
I already know.
Pearly Gates.
It is always Pearly Gates.
“That bastard is hiding something,” I say.
“He has been hiding something for years,” Oaks snaps. “We just don’t know what the hell it is.”
Vandal scoffs. “And locking up his daughter is gonna magically make the truth fall out?”
“Maybe,” I mutter. “She knows more than she pretends.”
Vandal smirks. “Careful. Girls like that sink their claws in deep.”
Too late.
I grab a water bottle and protein bar and head back. I unlock the door and step inside.
Becki sits cross-legged, posture straight as a queen on a throne made of chains. Her hair is wild. Her eyes are bright with challenge.
“You didn’t bring me pancakes?” she mocks.
I toss the bar at her. “Eat. Don’t pass out. I ain’t carrying you again.”
Her expression shifts. Something soft. Something dangerous.
“Did you carry me before?” she asks quietly.
I say nothing.
“You were there,” she whispers. “The crash. The woods. That was you.”
Silence answers her.
It is the only answer she needs.
“You let me think it was Legend. I let you...”
Her voice ain’t accusing.
It is something hotter.
Something that reaches into me like a hand closing around my throat.
“Yeah right. I didn’t touch you.” I grind out, denying it.
“Liar. You meant to… touch my soul.”
The words hit harder than anything she’s said so far. I leave before I forget every reason I chained her to that bed in the first place. My palms itch. My jaw is locked. My cock aches like I’m eighteen again and stupid with wanting something I can’t have.
I shut the door.
Lock it.
Lean my forehead against the cold metal.
I ain’t sure how long I can keep my hands off her.
Because I fucked her once.
And I will fuck her again.
Soon.
Soon.