Chapter Eight
The brothers voices dissolve into a low, static hum. My hand drifts to the plushie on the table, fingers sinking deep into its cheap, synthetic fur.
Those damn eyes. Glassy, haunting, and too familiar for comfort.
I shove the little cat into my pocket, feeling its small weight bump against my thigh with each step. It becomes a constant, physical reminder of the woman who’s been living under my skin since she arrived at Coral Cay.
Scanning the room, my neck tightens when I don’t spot my particular brand of chaos.
I haven’t been near her enough today. It’s a literal fucking itch in my blood.
No matter where we stand, she always shows up.
Every damn time. Only my brothers have ever given me that kind of loyalty and getting it from her feels like a debt I can’t begin to repay.
Prowling through the clubhouse, my eyes combing every corner as I walk by each group.
Nobody’s seen her. Birdie said she left a while ago but didn’t say where or why.
A thin wire of unease pulls tight in my chest. I hate not having eyes on her.
It’s a damn primal malfunction in my system.
If I can’t see her, I can’t protect her.
If I can’t protect her, I’m failing at the only thing that matters.
Marigold wouldn’t have left without a word.
She’s here, creeping in the dark somewhere.
She has to be.
I lean against the bar, the cold sweat of a beer bottle slick in my palm. I wait for the air to shift the way it always does when Marigold is near, but instead, Hoover’s perfume crashes over me, synthetic and fucking desperate, as if demanding attention I shouldn’t give.
“Hey there, handsome. You’re looking a little lonely.” Her finger slithers over the leather of my kutte, dragging down to the metal of my belt buckle. “What do you say I keep you company for a bit?”
I don’t move. Don’t even breathe. My pulse stays flat, uninterested.
My lips twist into a smirk that never touches my eyes, a mask I’ve worn too many times.
I catch her hand, grip just shy of crushing, and bring her knuckles to my mouth.
My teeth graze her skin, a sharp, clinical nip she mistakes for something else, before I press her own fingers to her lips.
“Tempting as it is to let you use this mouth you're so good with to help me forget shit…” I keep my voice easy, unhurried. “...don’t really have the inclination today, darlin’.”
She pulls back, her face twisting. “Because of her? I don’t get what’s so special about her.
She doesn’t even let you touch her. How many times have you come to me to work her out of your system, Tomcat?
She’s just a hangaround, taking what she can from the club.
” She tries for a flirty tilt of the head, but the smell of her jealousy is rancid as fuck.
“I’m right here, baby. Ready to give you whatever you want, whenever you want it. Let me be your person.”
The air in my lungs freezes. Pure, lethal rage hooks beneath my ribs.
I step into her space, slow and sure, tension crackling between us.
My hand tangles in her hair, knuckles brushing her scalp.
I don’t yank, just tighten, control humming in my veins as her head tips back, throat bared, pulse flickering.
I lick up the side of her throat, chuckling with menace when she shivers.
My mouth drifts close to her ear, voice a low, gravelly rumble.
“Don’t you realize that if I wanted to be with you, I would?
You’re good with your mouth, sweetheart, but that’s the sum of it for me.
” I pull back just enough to force her to look into the dead space in my eyes that I’m sure she assumed was filled with hunger for her.
“Let me be perfectly clear. You don’t ever fucking speak about Marigold like that again.
You do, and I’ll personally make sure you walk out of here without a tongue to wag. Understood?”
She’s frozen, her pupils blown wide. When she doesn’t answer me, I let a growl tear out of my chest, a sound meant for the woods, not the clubhouse bar. “I said, do you fucking understand me?”
Hoover nods, her head bobbing in frantic, jerky bursts. I let go of her hair, the strands slipping from my grip like something rotten I can’t wait to drop.
“As for what’s so special about her? She’s mine. That’s a title you’ll never touch. Don’t come to me again. Don’t speak to me. You see me, you move. Go the long way around. Clear?”
“Perfectly,” Hoover whispers, her voice breaking.
“Fan-fucking-tastic.”
I drain the beer in one long, bitter pull and slam the glass down, the crack of it ricocheting through the room like a warning shot.
No one dares breathe a fucking word against Goldie. Whether she’s tangled up with me or running wild, I claimed her the moment I laid eyes on her. She just hasn’t figured out yet that in every possible world, she belongs to me.
The itch crawling beneath my skin erupts into a wildfire when Marigold still doesn’t show.
I yank my phone from my pocket, thumb trembling over her name for a heartbeat before I stab at her contact.
The ringtone bores into my skull, relentless and sharp.
One.
Two.
Then the line snaps to the hollow, mechanical click of her voicemail. My body locks up, boots glued to the clubhouse floor.
The fuck?
I redial. My pulse hammers against my ribs violently. Same result. The screen goes dark in my hand, and for a split second, my fingers tremble with a tiny quake I can’t control.
She’s never not answered. Not since the night I worked my way into her orbit and took her number.
The last time she didn’t pick up…
My heart lurches, a trapped animal kicking at my lungs.
The shooting.
Fuck.
The memory hits me like a physical assault. The copper tang of blood, the way she seemed so fragile as blood leaked through her fingers as she covered the gunshot wound.
What if something happened?
Nausea coils in my throat, thick and bitter. I don’t breathe. I don’t even speak to the brothers. I just fucking move.
I’m out the door and on my bike in a blur of leather and adrenaline. The engine snarls beneath me, wild as the chaos in my head. Devious catches my eye, sees the madness twisting my usual lethal stare. He doesn’t ask, just rushes to throw the gate wide.
I fly through it, a two-finger salute the only thing I have left of my composure.
The ride to her place is pure recklessness.
I lean too hard into every turn, my bike’s pipes snarling with a threat I usually save for enemies.
She lives close enough to walk, but every stretch of asphalt drags out, every red light a fresh torment.
The house is a dark tomb when I pull into her driveway.
I kill the engine, and the silence that rushes in is suffocating, as if the very life has been sucked out of the dirt here. Usually, this place is a riot of Goldie’s energy. Lights blazing in every room, music loud enough to vibrate the windows, the scent of those damn candles she’s always burning.
Now? Nothing. Just the cold, dead dark.
My heart hammers a jagged rhythm of dread. This isn’t a sharp alarm but a hollow ache of change. It’s the slow, sinking certainty that I am too late, that whatever happened cannot be undone.
I’m on the porch in two strides, my fist echoing against the wood of her front door. “Goldie!”
The silence swallows her name. I rest my forehead on the cold door.
“Come on, baby. Answer me,” I plead, my voice cracking at the edges, the normally controlled version of me dissolving into a man who’s terrified of the quiet.
Still nothing.
I slam both palms against the door, the sting biting into my hands, and let my head drop.
My breath comes in short, jagged bursts.
What the fuck happened?
I don’t move yet. I can’t.
Yanking out my phone, I jab the screen with my thumb. I press it to my ear, eyes drilling into the door, wishing I could see through the wood.
Then I hear it.
The muffled, rhythmic chime of her ringtone sings on the other side of the grain. Two rings, then silence. The mechanical click of the voicemail again is a slap to the face.
The hell?
“I know you’re in there,” I growl, my voice rumbling through my chest and into the doorframe. “What the hell is going on, Goldie? If you don’t answer me, I’m going to bust your fucking door down.”
A sharp ping comes from my phone, and I pull up her message.
GOLDIE
I have a migraine. Leave me be, you heathen.
My lips twitch at her calling me a heathen because it’s a familiar hook with her, but the knot in my gut doesn’t loosen. It cinches tighter, a cold coil of iron. She’s too quiet. Even with a migraine, Marigold is a damn storm.
The churning in my gut refuses to fade.
ME
You need anything?
GOLDIE
Peace and quiet.
I glare at the screen, blue light scorching my eyes in the porch’s gloom.
Usually, a migraine summons me to duty, her human shield in the shadows until the pain loosens its grip.
She never lets me be useful without making me work for it, and I never object.
Tonight, I’m left idle, uncertain if I’m relieved or useless.
This so-called peace and quiet? Feels like choking down a lie.
GOLDIE
You’re brooding outside my door. Go. I’ll let you know if I need you. This one isn’t too bad.
“You better,” I bark, my voice raspy enough to rip through the door. “Or I’ll spank your fucking ass when you’re upright again.”
I wait for her voice, expecting that sharp, teasing threat, the usual joke about not threatening her with a good time. The kind of comeback that makes me want to laugh and throttle her at the same time. But the silence presses in, as heavy as a winter coat.
I need a kill switch for this creeping paranoia.
“Hey, Goldie,” I say, my voice dropping to a low and dangerous tone. “What did I say to you when we first met?”