Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Brandy
I heard his voice from inside the house.
That deep, controlled tone that I’d memorized during those nights in Diamond Creek—the voice that had whispered filthy promises against my skin, that had commanded and praised and broken me apart in the best possible ways. The voice I’d been avoiding for weeks.
I rushed to the window just in time to see my father lift Torment off the ground like he weighed nothing, and my heart stopped completely. “No,” I whispered, my hands pressed against the glass. “Daddy, no—”
But he couldn’t hear me. Wouldn’t have listened even if he could. I watched him throw Torment against the porch banister, watched the wood crack under the impact, watched Torment’s face contort with pain and shock.
And I ran. I burst through the front door without thinking, without planning, driven by pure instinct and terror because I knew—knew—that if I didn’t stop this, someone was going to die.
My father was a force of nature.
And Torment was just... Torment. Smart and controlled and careful, but not built for this kind of raw, brutal confrontation.
Then Mercy pulled his gun, and everything went cold and sharp and deadly.
I screamed. Positioned myself between them. Used the only weapon I had—my father’s love for me—to stop the violence before it consumed us all. And it worked.
Barely.
Now my father was gone, disappeared into the house with a five-minute ultimatum hanging in the air like a guillotine blade. And I was alone with Torment. The man who’d gotten me pregnant. The man I couldn’t call. The man who’d shown up at my family home like he had any right to be here.
I turned on him, fury rising up to replace the fear, hot and sharp and so much easier to handle than the hurt underneath. “What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to keep it steady.
Torment straightened slowly, one hand pressed against his ribs where he’d hit the banister.
His shirt was torn at the collar where my father had grabbed him.
His hair was disheveled. His eyes were dark and intense and locked on me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“I came to see you,” he said, his voice rough. “To talk about—”
“About what?” I cut him off, taking a step back when he moved toward me. “About how you knocked up some club whore and now you have to deal with the consequences?”
“Brandy—”
“No.” I shook my head, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “You don’t get to ‘Brandy’ me. You don’t get to show up here after weeks of silence and act like you have any right to—”
“I have every right,” Torment interrupted, his voice rising slightly. “That’s my kid you’re carrying.”
My kid.
Not our kid.
Not the baby.
My kid. Like I was just the incubator. The vessel. The convenient womb that happened to be attached to a woman he’d fucked a few times. The hurt slammed into me so hard I actually took a physical step back, my breath catching in my throat.
“Your kid,” I repeated, my voice flat and cold. “Right. Your kid.”
“That’s not—” Torment started, but I was already talking over him, the words pouring out in a rush of pain and anger and desperate self-preservation.
“Well, congratulations, Torment. You got what you came for. Confirmation that yes, the baby is yours. DNA doesn’t lie, right? So now you can go back to New York with a clear conscience, knowing you did your duty and checked in on your kid.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” he said, his jaw tight, his hands flexing at his sides like he wanted to reach for me but didn’t dare.
“Then why?” I demanded, my voice breaking despite my best efforts. “Why are you here, Torment? Why now? You’ve had weeks to call. Weeks to reach out. King gave me your number. Told me you wanted to talk. But I couldn’t—I couldn’t call you because I knew—”
I stopped, my throat closing up, tears burning behind my eyes.
“You knew what?” Torment asked quietly, taking a careful step closer.
“I knew you’d only want the baby,” I whispered, the truth spilling out before I could stop it. “Not me. Never me. Just your kid. Your responsibility. Your problem to solve.”
“Brandy, that’s not—”
“I can take care of this baby on my own,” I said, my voice stronger now, fueled by desperation and pride. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need your money. I don’t need your pity or your sense of obligation or whatever the fuck brought you here.”
“It’s not pity,” Torment said, his voice rough with frustration. “It’s not—Jesus, Brandy. I came here because I needed to see you. To make sure you were okay. To—”
“To what?” I challenged, crossing my arms over my chest. “To claim your property? To make sure your kid is being properly cared for?”
“No!” The word came out sharp and loud, and Torment ran a hand through his hair, his expression twisting with frustration. “Fuck, no. That’s not—you’re not property. You’re not just some club whore I fucked a few times.”
The words hit me like a slap, and I laughed—a bitter, broken sound that hurt coming out.
“That’s exactly what I am,” I said quietly. “That’s what I’ve been for five years. A club whore. A warm body. A convenient fuck when the brothers needed stress relief. That’s the drill, Torment. I knew what I was signing up for when I chose to stay. No strings. No expectations. No promises.”
“Stop calling yourself that,” Torment growled, his eyes flashing with something dark and dangerous. “You’re not a club whore. You’re more than that. You’re—”
“I’m what?” I demanded, my voice rising. “What am I, Torment? Because from where I’m standing, I’m exactly what I said. A woman you fucked. A woman who got pregnant. A problem you need to solve so you can go back to your life and forget I ever existed.”
“That’s not true,” he said, his voice strained. “I don’t want to forget you. I can’t forget you. You’ve been in my head for months, driving me fucking crazy, and when I found out you were pregnant—when I found out you’d run—”
He stopped, his jaw working, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“What?” I pressed, my heart pounding. “When you found out I ran, what?”
“I lost my fucking mind,” he admitted, the words coming out rough and raw. “I punched a wall. I yelled at King. I demanded Shame track you down because the thought of you out there alone, pregnant with my kid, scared and running—it made me—”
He stopped again, his expression twisting with frustration.
“It made you what?” I whispered.
“I don’t know!” The words exploded out of him, loud and desperate.
“I don’t know what it made me feel because I’m not good at this shit, Brandy.
I’m good at analyzing other people’s emotions.
I’m good at helping them work through their trauma and their fears and their fucked-up relationships.
But when it comes to my own feelings? I’m a fucking disaster. ”
I stared at him, my chest tight, my eyes burning. “Then why are you here?” I asked again, my voice barely above a whisper. “If you can’t even tell me how you feel, why did you come?”
“Because I had to,” he said simply. “Because the thought of not seeing you, of not knowing if you were okay, of not—”
He stopped, his expression helpless and frustrated and so unlike the controlled, confident man I’d known in Diamond Creek.
“Just go,” I said quietly, my voice breaking. “Please, Torment. Just leave. Forget about me. Forget about this. I’ll be fine. The baby will be fine. You don’t have to—”
“brANDY!” My father’s voice cut through the air like a gunshot, loud and urgent and filled with a terror I’d never heard from him before.
I spun around just in time to see him burst through the front door, a shotgun gripped in his hands, his face twisted with fury and fear.
“Get my fucking daughter inside NOW!” he roared, not at me, but at Torment.
Mercy appeared behind him, his expression sharp and alert, his hand reaching for a weapon that was no longer there.
I didn’t understand. Didn’t know what was happening.
But Torment didn’t hesitate. He moved so fast I didn’t have time to react.
He just grabbed me, his arms wrapping around me as he lifted me off my feet and turned toward the house.
“Torment, what—”
“Inside,” he said, his voice hard and commanding. “Now.”
He carried me up the porch steps, moving with a speed and urgency that made my heart race.
I caught a glimpse of my father raising the shotgun, his eyes locked on something down the driveway.
Then we were through the door, and Torment was setting me down, his hands on my shoulders, his body positioned between me and the windows.
“Stay down,” he ordered, his voice leaving no room for argument.
But I couldn’t. I had to see. I pushed past him, rushing to the window just in time to see a lone figure on a motorcycle speeding down our driveway, gravel spraying up behind the tires. And my father—my father was shooting.
The shotgun boomed once, twice, three times, the sound echoing across the property like thunder, reverberating through the valley and shaking the windows in their frames.
The sharp crack of each blast sent birds scattering from the nearby trees, their wings beating frantically against the sky.
The biker didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. Didn’t even flinch.
Just kept going, the motorcycle’s engine roaring defiantly as he disappeared around the bend in the road, leaving nothing but dust and the acrid smell of gunpowder hanging in the air.
My father lowered the weapon slowly, his chest heaving with exertion and adrenaline, his knuckles white around the stock of the shotgun, his expression carved from stone and rage and something else—something that looked disturbingly like fear.
“Who was that?” I whispered, my voice barely audible, my hands pressed against the glass so hard my fingertips turned white, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might break through my ribs and escape my chest entirely.
Torment stood beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body, his jaw tight with tension, a muscle twitching beneath the skin, his eyes tracking the empty road where the biker had disappeared like he could somehow will the stranger back into view.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly, his voice low and dangerous, edged with barely contained violence.
“But whoever it was, they were watching the house. Watching for a while, from the looks of it.”
Watching the house.
The words sent ice water through my veins.
Why?
Why would anyone be watching my family’s home? What could they possibly want here?
And suddenly, the fight we’d been having—the hurt and anger and miscommunication that had driven a wedge between us just moments before—seemed insignificant compared to the cold, creeping fear that settled over me like a shroud, suffocating and heavy.
Had someone followed me from Diamond Creek?
Was this related to the war between the clubs, the violence that seemed to follow Torment and his brothers wherever they went?
Did I somehow endanger my family by bringing this world to their doorstep?
The questions multiplied in my mind, each one more terrifying than the last, until I could barely breathe under the weight of them.
And I had a terrible feeling that running away had just made everything so much worse.