Chapter 20
Kayla
I’ve been separated from Roman for just one month, but it feels more like one year.
Every day I discover some new, tangled thread connecting my life to his that needs to be severed.
Our shared bank account. The cell phone plan.
Streaming services. Shared passwords. Health insurance.
Small things that I never thought much of until suddenly I had to.
I still haven’t gone back to our house. I know I’ll need to eventually. Soon the house will need to be cleared out and put on the market. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to deal with it yet.
My new job isn’t ideal, but I earn enough that I’m able to pay Morgan rent and buy my own groceries. And it keeps me busy, which means less time spent in my own head, brooding over Roman and his betrayal.
“Two vanilla lattes for Chloe,” I call out, placing the drinks on the counter with the smile I’ve perfected over the last two weeks. The smile that says I’m fine, everything’s fine, my life isn’t in complete freefall.
I’ve started making the next drink when the delivery guy walks in, holding a cheerful bouquet of sunflowers and daisies. My smile drops instantly. Not again.
“Kayla Sullivan?” he asks, though he knows it’s me. It’s always me. Same guy, different flowers, three times a week since I started working here.
“That’s me,” I tell him, accepting the flowers from him. Taking them to the small backroom, I leave them there. When I leave tonight, I’ll throw them in the dumpster on my way out. Just like I have with every other bouquet he’s sent.
My coworker Amber raises her eyebrows at me. “Seriously, if my ex sent me flowers like that, I’d take him back in a heartbeat.”
“You don’t know my ex,” I mutter, turning to go back out to the line of waiting customers.
The notes are always the same. He misses me. He loves me. He’s thinking about me. I’m the only one he wants. He’s sorry. He’s sorry. He’s sorry.
It’s seems like Kit was correct. Roman has finally realized what he had.
Too. Damn. Late.
Some days the anger burns so hot I can barely function. I break things—a pencil that I’m suddenly gripping too hard, a plate that gets put down with a little too much force. Morgan doesn’t say anything when she finds me sweeping up the shards. She gets it.
On other days, the grief is so overwhelming I can barely get out of bed. On those days, I curl up under the blankets, letting the tears come until my body feels hollowed out, scraped raw from the inside.
But most days, I just feel… nothing. A numbness that wraps around me like a fog, insulating me from both the rage and the sorrow. I go through the motions. I serve coffee; I smile at customers; I nod at the right moments when Morgan talks, but I’m not really there. Not really present.
And then the harassment from Roman’s MC started.
It’s a Tuesday, just past the morning rush, when the door chimes and three women enter.
I recognize them instantly: Trinity, Mack’s old lady; Sara, who belongs to Diesel; and another whose name I never learned.
They’re all wearing their cuts proclaiming them property of the Devil’s Rejects.
And they all wear identical unpleasant smirks.
“Well, look who it is,” Trinity drawls in a tone that makes my skin crawl. “Haven’t seen you around for a while, Kylie.”
Amber throws me a questioning glance, but I keep my face carefully neutral. “It’s Kayla. And what can I get for you today?” I ask, my professional voice giving nothing away.
They order complicated drinks and then hover near the counter, watching me work with predatory intensity. When I finally call their order, Sara takes a sip and makes a face.
“This is not hot enough,” she says, though steam is still rising from the cup.
“And this has too much syrup,” Trinity adds, shoving her cup toward me.
“I ordered skim milk, not whatever this is,” the third woman complains.
I remake all three drinks, my hands trembling slightly as I feel the eyes of every customer in the shop on me. The second round of drinks meets with the same dissatisfaction. So does the third.
“I’m sorry, ladies,” my manager finally intervenes. “Maybe Amber can help you instead?”
“Oh, we specifically wanted Kayla to serve us,” Sara says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “After all, she’s practically family, isn’t she? Or at least, she was.”
They leave eventually, but not before making sure everyone in the shop knows they were dissatisfied with me, with my service, with my attitude. It’s humiliating, and when my shift ends, my manager pulls me aside.
“Is there something going on between you and those women?” he asks, concern mixing with irritation on his face.
“No,” I lie. “Just difficult customers. It won’t happen again.”
At least I hope it won’t.
But it does happen again. And again. Different women each time, but the same routine.
They order, I serve, they complain. Loudly.
Publicly. My coworkers have started giving me the side-eye, sighing heavily when they have to pick up the slack.
I’ve started trying to duck into the back when I see leather cuts approaching, but somehow they always end up at my register, anyway.
And it’s not just at the coffee shop.
Walking home, I spot a biker parked across the street, watching me from behind dark sunglasses.
At the grocery store, I turn down an aisle and nearly collide with a tall, bearded man who stares at me with so much hostility I abandon my half-filled cart.
Pumping gas, I look up to see two motorcycles idling at the curb, their riders’ attention unmistakably focused on me.
“They’re just trying to intimidate you,” Morgan says when I tell her about it. “Roman probably put them up to it. He wants you to feel unsafe so you’ll go running back to him for protection.”
But the Roman I knew, for all his faults, wasn’t capable of something like that. He was a liar, yes. A man who kept parts of himself locked away, absolutely. But I didn’t believe he would deliberately frighten me.
My certainty was tested, however, as the days passed and the women continued to come in to harass me and bikers continued to turn up everywhere I went.
What if this was Roman’s twisted way of bringing me back?
Or maybe it’s the club’s way of punishing me for leaving one of their own. Or it might be something else entirely.
All I know for certain is that I’m afraid. And that makes me even angrier.
I make the decision somewhere between my third double espresso and the end of my morning shift. Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m walking the six blocks to Roman’s tattoo shop, anger fueling each step.
The electronic bell chimes as I push through the door. The shop looks and smells exactly the same as it always has, and for a disorienting moment, it feels like nothing has changed, like I could be stopping by on any ordinary work day to bring him lunch, the way I used to.
Then I remember everything has changed.
Roman is hunched over a client’s arm, the buzz of the tattoo gun providing a steady backdrop to the classic rock playing softly from the speakers.
He glances up at the sound of the bell, his hands never pausing in their work.
The moment he sees me, his entire body goes still for a fraction of a second before he recovers, returning to the line work he’s completing.
“Almost done here,” he calls to me, his voice giving nothing away. But I catch a spark of what might be hope in his eyes. “Take a seat if you want.”
I don’t sit. I stand rigidly by the door, arms crossed, watching him work.
Despite everything, I can’t help admiring the steady concentration in his movements, the care he takes with his art.
His dark beard is neater than when I last saw him, but the shadows under his eyes have deepened.
I’m clearly not the only one having trouble sleeping.
Roman finishes the tattoo, wiping away excess ink and applying a thin layer of ointment before covering it with a bandage.
His aftercare instructions are delivered in the same calm, authoritative tone I’ve heard a hundred times before.
The client pays in cash, and Roman makes change, thanks her, and reminds her when to remove the bandage.
All perfectly normal, except for the way his eyes keep darting to me, as if afraid I’ll disappear if he looks away for too long.
Finally, the door closes behind the client, leaving us alone in the shop. Roman flips the sign to “Closed” and locks the door, ensuring our privacy.
“Kayla,” he says, my name a prayer on his lips, “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.”
His joy at seeing me only fuels my anger. I pace across the small waiting area, unable to stand still with the fury coursing through me.
“Is this how you think you’re going to get me back?” I demand, not bothering with pleasantries. “By terrorizing me? By sending your little club minions to harass me at work? To follow me around town? Do you honestly think making me feel unsafe is going to drive me back into your arms?”
Roman’s brow furrows in confusion, but I’m too wound up to register it.
“Or is this just punishment?” I continue, my voice rising. “The big bad fucking Viper can’t let his woman leave without consequences? Need to teach me a lesson about what happens when someone walks away from the almighty VP of the Devil’s Rejects?”
I’m pacing faster now, hands gesticulating wildly as weeks of fear and frustration pour out. “Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? That I wouldn’t know those women were from your club? That I wouldn’t notice the men following me everywhere I go? What kind of twisted game is this supposed to be?”
I’m so caught up in my tirade that I don’t immediately notice how Roman’s expression has transformed.
The initial confusion has given way to something else entirely; a cold, focused rage I’ve rarely seen directed at anyone, let alone felt aimed at me.
His jaw is clenched so tight I can see a muscle twitching in his cheek, and his hands have curled into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
“Who,” he says, cutting me off mid-sentence, his voice dangerously quiet, “has been harassing you?”
The intensity in his voice stops me in my tracks. I blink at him momentarily thrown off balance.
“What do you mean, ‘who’? Your club, obviously. The old ladies have been coming into the coffee shop for weeks, ordering drinks and then making scenes about how terrible they are, how terrible I am. They’re trying to get me fired.
” The words tumble out, my anger giving way to confusion at his reaction.
“And there are bikers everywhere I go now. Watching me. Following me. At the grocery store, at the gas station, on my walk home from work.”
With each detail I provide, Roman’s face grows darker, his body more tense, like a predator preparing to strike.
“Names,” he demands. “Give me the names of the women who came into your shop.”
“Trinity,” I say. “Sara. Others. I don’t know their names, Roman.
I don’t know their names because you kept me away from the club.
You cut me out of a huge part of your life!
And when you did bring me around, everyone treated me like shit!
” My voice is getting louder the longer I talk. By the end, I’m practically shouting.
Roman swears under his breath, a string of profanities that would make a sailor blush. He runs his hands through his hair and pulls, a gesture I know means he’s trying to contain his anger.
“You didn’t know,” I say slowly, realization dawning. “You really didn’t know they were doing this.”
“No,” he says, his voice tight with barely contained fury. “I had no idea. But I promise you, Kayla, it ends today.” He takes a step toward me, then seems to think better of it and stops. “I promise you no one from the club comes near you again. Not the old ladies, not the brothers, no one.”
“If you didn’t tell them to do it, then why are they doing it?” I ask, my earlier certainty crumbling.
Roman hesitates, something flashing across his face that I can’t quite read. “I’m not sure,” he says carefully, “what matters is that it stops. Today.”
“You’re telling me the truth?” I press. “You really didn’t put them up to this?”
“Kayla,” he says, his voice low and intense, his eyes begging me to believe him. “I would cut off my own arm before I’d do anything to make you afraid. I swear to you, I had nothing to do with this.”
We stand facing each other across the shop, the space between us charged with a strange mix of tension and uncertainty.
Without my anger to sustain me, I suddenly feel awkward, unsure what to say or do next.
Roman takes a tentative step toward me, and I can see in his eyes that he wants to say more, to reach for me, to explain something.
“I—” he begins.
“I can’t do this right now,” I cut him off, shaking my head. “I just… I can’t.”
Before he can respond, before he can say whatever it is he wants to say, I turn and leave, the electronic bell chiming cheerfully behind me as I escape into the bright chilly winter afternoon, my thoughts more tangled than ever.