Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Torment
The tension in the house didn’t dissipate after Hex lowered the shotgun and came back inside.
If anything, it thickened, settling over all of us like fog rolling in off the coast. But Hannah—Brandy’s mother—refused to let it take root.
She moved through the kitchen with practiced efficiency, pulling out ingredients, setting the table, her movements deliberate and calming.
“You boys hungry?” she asked, not really waiting for an answer. “I’m making dinner. You’ll stay.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a command wrapped in maternal warmth, the kind that didn’t leave room for argument.
Mercy glanced at me, one eyebrow raised in silent question.
I nodded. We weren’t going anywhere. Not yet.
Not until I understood what the hell was happening and who had been watching this house. Watching Brandy.
Dinner was a strange affair. The dining room table was large enough to accommodate all of us—Hex at the head, Hannah at the opposite end, Brandy’s siblings filling in the sides along with Brandy, Mercy, and me.
There was a smaller table in the corner where Brandy’s nieces and nephews sat quietly, as if they felt the tension rippling off the adults.
The food was simple but good: roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, fresh bread. Comfort food. The kind of meal that spoke of family traditions and Sunday dinners and a life far removed from the violence and chaos of the MC world.
Duke, the oldest at thirty-two, sat directly across from me.
He had his father’s build—broad shoulders, thick arms, the kind of frame that came from years of manual labor.
He worked construction, I learned, managing crews for a company out of Waterbury.
He watched me with the same intensity Hex did, but there was less hostility in it.
More curiosity. Like he was trying to figure out what kind of man had gotten his sister pregnant and then shown up on their doorstep with a VP in tow.
Tracy, thirty years old and Brandy’s older sister, sat to Duke’s left.
She was leaner than Brandy, with an easy smile and a quick wit that reminded me of Fury.
She worked as an electrician, ran her own small business, and seemed to take nothing seriously—at least on the surface.
But I could see the sharpness in her eyes, the way she tracked every movement Mercy and I made.
She was assessing us, cataloging threats, just like her father.
Her husband Michael sat quietly by her side.
Chris, the youngest at twenty-three, sat beside Brandy.
He was still finding his footing in the world, working part-time at a local garage while taking classes at the community college.
He had the kind of restless energy that came with being the baby of the family, always trying to prove himself, always looking for his place.
He kept glancing at Brandy, concern written all over his face, like he wanted to ask her a thousand questions but didn’t know where to start.
“So,” Duke said after we’d been eating in relative silence for a few minutes, his voice breaking through the quiet like a stone dropped into still water. “Brandy never told us much about her time in Nebraska. What’s it like out there?”
I felt Brandy stiffen beside me, her fork pausing halfway to her mouth. She shot Duke a look that could have melted steel, but he just grinned at her, completely unbothered. “What?” he said innocently. “I’m just making conversation.”
“It’s different,” I said carefully, choosing my words with the same precision I used in therapy sessions when navigating sensitive topics. “Smaller towns. Wide open spaces. Not like Connecticut.”
“Brandy always hated small towns,” Tracy chimed in, her grin widening. “Remember when she was sixteen and swore she was moving to New York City the second she graduated? Said she was going to be a fashion designer or something.”
“I never said fashion designer,” Brandy muttered, her cheeks flushing pink. “I said I wanted to work in fashion. There’s a difference.”
“Oh, right,” Chris said, jumping in with the kind of enthusiasm only a younger brother could muster.
“You wanted to be a buyer. For one of those fancy department stores. What was it you used to say? ‘I’m going to live in a penthouse and wear designer clothes and never come back to this boring town.’”
“I was sixteen,” Brandy said, her voice tight with embarrassment. “Everyone says stupid things when they’re sixteen.”
“You also said you were going to marry a millionaire,” Duke added, clearly enjoying himself now. “Remember that? You had this whole plan mapped out. Meet a rich guy, get married by twenty-five, have two kids and a dog, live in a mansion.”
Hannah laughed softly from the end of the table, shaking her head. “She had very specific ideas about her future. Very specific.”
“Can we please not do this?” Brandy said, setting her fork down with more force than necessary. “Can we not sit here and embarrass me in front of—” She stopped abruptly, like she’d been about to say something she couldn’t take back.
In front of Torment. That was what she’d been about to say. In front of the father of her baby. In front of the man who’d shown up on her doorstep claiming he wanted to be part of her life.
“Oh, come on,” Tracy said, her grin turning mischievous. “We’re just getting started. Duke, go get the photo albums.”
“No,” Brandy said quickly, her eyes widening. “Absolutely not. Do not get the photo albums.”
“Too late,” Duke said, already pushing back from the table. “I know exactly where Mom keeps them.”
Brandy turned to her mother, desperation clear in her voice. “Mom, please. Tell them to stop.”
But Hannah just smiled, that knowing, maternal smile that said she understood exactly what was happening and had no intention of stopping it. “They’re just excited to have you home, sweetheart. Let them have their fun.”
Duke returned a moment later with three thick photo albums, the kind with plastic sleeves and handwritten labels on the spines.
He dropped them on the table with a thud that made the dishes rattle, then flipped open the first one with the kind of reverence usually reserved for sacred texts.
“Okay,” he said, turning the album so Mercy and I could see.
“Let me introduce you to Brandy Lynn Griffin, age four.”
The photo showed a little girl with wild blonde curls and a gap-toothed smile, covered head to toe in mud.
She was holding a frog in one hand and grinning at the camera like she’d just conquered the world.
“She found that frog in the creek behind the house,” Duke explained, his voice warm with the memory.
“Brought it inside and tried to keep it as a pet. Mom made her put it back, and Brandy cried for two hours straight.”
“I loved that frog,” Brandy muttered, but there was a softness in her voice now, the embarrassment giving way to something gentler. Nostalgia, maybe. Or longing for a simpler time.
Tracy leaned over and flipped to another page, pointing at a photo of Brandy at maybe seven or eight, standing in front of a lemonade stand with a hand-painted sign that read ‘LEMONAID 50 SENTS.’ “She set this up every summer,” Tracy said.
“Made a killing too. Saved up enough money to buy herself a bike one year.”
“I was very entrepreneurial,” Brandy said, a hint of pride creeping into her voice despite herself.
“You were a hustler,” Chris corrected, laughing. “You used to water down the lemonade when you were running low and charge the same price. Dad caught you doing it once and made you refund everyone.”
“Business is business,” Brandy said with a shrug, but she was smiling now, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly.
The photos continued—Brandy at her first communion, dressed in white and looking angelic despite the mischievous glint in her eyes.
Brandy at a school play, dressed as a tree and clearly taking her role very seriously.
Brandy at thirteen, all awkward angles and braces, holding a trophy from a spelling bee.
Each photo came with a story, a memory, a piece of the life she’d lived before she’d run away to Nebraska and ended up in a world so far removed from this one it might as well have been another planet.
I watched her as her brothers talked, cataloging every micro-expression, every shift in body language.
The way her shoulders relaxed when Chris told a story about the time she’d tried to dye her hair purple and ended up with green streaks instead.
The way her eyes softened when Duke mentioned how she used to read to him when he was sick, even though she was younger and barely knew how to read herself.
The way she laughed—really laughed—when Tracy pulled out a photo of her at fifteen, dressed in an outfit so ridiculous it could only have been a product of early-2000s fashion trends.
This was the Brandy her family knew. The Brandy who’d grown up in this house, in this town, surrounded by people who loved her unconditionally. The Brandy who’d had dreams and plans and a future that didn’t involve motorcycle clubs or violence or running for her life in the middle of the night.
And somehow, she’d gotten dragged into my world. Into a life where she had to hide who she was, where she was reduced to a role—club whore—that stripped away everything that made her human. Where she was pregnant and alone and terrified because I hadn’t been able to articulate what she meant to me.
The guilt settled over me like a weight, heavy and suffocating.
“So, Torment,” Duke said, closing the photo album and leaning back in his chair, his expression shifting from playful to serious. “Brandy never mentioned you. Where are you from?”