CHAPTER ELEVEN
EDEN
We sit in a tight circle, all the women who now share my secret.
My nightmare. For a brief minute tonight, I thought maybe it was coming to an end.
Maybe, now my rapist is dead, I can finally breathe.
But then this. Even when Kade looked at me with hatred, even when he said the words that he was done, all I could think to tell him was that my period was late. Fuck.
“We have to tell them,” Fern insists, gripping my hand so tightly it hurts. “This has gone way beyond wanting to protect the club now,” she adds. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Fern’s right,” Lucy agrees. “Kade’s tearing himself to pieces. And now this.”
“I’m leaving,” I mutter. “It’s irrelevant now.”
“Kade won’t be angry when he knows the truth,” Darcie says gently.
“He’ll ask a thousand questions,” I snap. “He’ll look at me differently. I look at me differently. I know he won’t handle it.”
“Right now, he thinks you cheated,” Lucy whispers. “He’s devastated. Just tell him the truth.”
“My job as the president’s old lady is to protect him. That’s what I’m doing,” I say, my voice cracking with emotion. “The club doesn’t need to be dragged into this. Besides, Liam’s dead. Problem solved. Everything can go back to how it was.”
“Everyone except you and Kade,” Lucy mutters.
“And things won’t go back to normal for you,” Darcie warns softly. “Not after this. When the adrenaline stops, you’re going to crash. Liam’s face will haunt you. Murder changes you.”
“His face already haunts me,” I hiss. “And because of him, I had to change. I don’t regret what I did tonight. I’ll never regret it.”
“He got what he deserved,” Fern agrees, “but that won’t stop it messing with your head. You need us. You need Kade.”
“If I tell him, it becomes his nightmare too,” I whisper. “He’ll suffer worse because he’ll blame himself. I have to go, for all of us.” I stand, staring towards the office where Kade, Jimmy and Diesel are talking. My chest tightens. “And honestly? I’m done with men treating me like shit.”
Maddie hurries over, breathless. “Jimmy’s asking the club to help him deal with Liam’s killer.”
“How do you know that?” Fern asks.
“I overheard. The cops don’t know yet. Jimmy’s men found the body. They think it’s linked to some big guy in London, and Jimmy wants the club to help take him down.”
“See?” Fern hisses at me. “The club’s involved anyway!”
The office door opens and the men step out. Jimmy shakes hands with Kade and Diesel before leaving with the half-empty whiskey bottle.
Kade’s eyes land on my suitcase. His jaw tightens. “Saying your goodbyes?”
I nod.
“There’s things to discuss first,” Fern snaps, shooting me a warning look. “Let’s all sleep on it and talk tomorrow.”
“Eden can’t be walking the streets at this time of night looking for a hotel,” Lucy adds.
Kade exhales sharply, shrugging. “Fine. Whatever.”
He storms into his office and slams the door. Diesel watches us, suspicion darkening his face. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you,” Fern promises, “but Eden has to tell Kade first.”
“I don’t think he’s in the mood for story time,” Diesel mutters. “Try tomorrow—”
Kade throws his office door back open. “Someone find me a whore!” he roars. “And not Eden.”
“Dick,” Fern mutters under her breath.
“I HEARD THAT!” he fires back.
“GOOD,” Fern snarls. “Grow the fuck up, and at least hear her out before you ruin anything you have left.”
He storms toward us, fury radiating from him. I keep my eyes downcast, not wanting to make anything worse.
“I didn’t cheat,” he snaps at Fern. “She did. She ruined everything.”
“And dragging a club girl into your office will fix it?” Fern mocks.
“Yes. Yes, it will. Jade? Jet? Nymph? Anyone?”
Jade appears, confused and hesitant. Kade’s never called for one of them before. He jerks his chin. “My office.”
Jade glances at me, like she’s checking I’m okay with it. Like it’s my choice. My heart aches as I force a weak smile, not wanting to nod in agreement, but not wanting to make her feel any worse than she’s going to.
“Do something,” Fern hisses in my ear urgently. “Stop him, or he’s going to feel terrible when he learns the truth.”
I close my eyes, take one steadying breath, and push to my feet.
“Wait,” I say softly. He keeps walking. “Wait,” I say louder. He stops and turns. The anger in his eyes hits like a punch, but I swallow down the panic. “I need to tell you something.”
“Make it quick,” he mutters. “I’ve got a night planned.”
I glance at Fern who nods encouragingly. I clear my throat. “Erm, can we go somewhere private?”
“No.”
“It’s delicate,” I say, twisting my fingers until they ache.
“Christ,” he growls. “Say it or don’t. I’m past caring.” He turns toward his office again and grabs Jade’s hand, dragging her along.
“I killed him,” I blurt out. Kade freezes mid-step. Diesel goes rigid beside him. Even Jade stops breathing as her eyes widen. “I… I killed Liam,” I whisper.
A heavy, suffocating stillness fills the room.
Diesel lets out a shaky laugh. “Good one. You had me there—”
“I’m not joking,” I whisper.
“It’s true,” Fern says quietly. “I was there.”
Diesel’s head snaps towards her so fast his kutte shifts. “What?” His voice is low. Dangerous. He grabs her by the arm and hauls her upright. “Tell me this is a joke, Fern.” She shakes her head.
The room seems to shrink around us. My throat closes. I stare at the floor because I can’t bear to see Kade’s face.
Jade touches his arm gently. “Kade…”
He blinks, like he’s coming out of a trance, and lets go of her hand. He steps back once. Twice. Then his voice cracks, hoarse, raw, not quite steady. “Office.” He swallows hard. “Now.”
My chest tightens, and I glance up. “Me or Jade?”
“You.” His eyes snap up, blazing. “You—get in the fucking office. NOW.”
The roar shakes me to my bones. I flinch and hurry past him, hearing Jade gasp behind me.
Diesel and Fern follow, and Kade slams the door so hard the metal frame rattles. He twists the lock. Marches over and yanks the blinds shut in one violent sweep.
Then he goes still.
He stands behind his desk like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. Hands braced on the wood. Head bowed. Shoulders rigid. Breathing too hard.
The silence is suffocating.
I fold my arms around myself, trembling.
When he finally speaks, his voice is gravel.
“Start talking.”
“You told him to follow me,” I begin, my voice barely holding itself together. “I knew someone was watching, and it was freaking me out. Then I saw him, in the shadows so I followed him. I was scared and I…” I swallow hard. “I stabbed him. A lot.”
Kade pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s fighting off a migraine. “You stabbed him,” he repeats, dazed. “My Eden. My Eden stabbed a man to death?”
I nod.
He lets out this cold, disbelieving laugh. “With what? What are you doing––carrying weapons now? You in some kind of fucking street gang?”
“With his knife,” I whisper.
Kade’s eyes pierce me. His eyebrows shoot up. He flicks a glance at Diesel, who only shrugs helplessly.
My body starts shaking. Violent. Uncontrolled. Fern’s voice echoes in my head—adrenaline come down—but it doesn’t help. She didn’t mention how I stop it. My head aches and sickness bubbles quietly in my stomach. I force it down because I am done vomiting in front of Kade. Done looking weak.
He drags a hand down his face. “Jesus Christ. You killed him with his own knife?” I nod again. “How?” he demands, sharper now. “How the fuck did you get a knife off him?”
“He dropped it,” I murmur. “In the struggle.”
His head jerks up. “Struggle? What struggle?” His voice breaks into a shout. “I asked him to follow you, that’s it. There wasn’t meant to be a fucking struggle!”
“There’s more to it,” Fern says quietly.
Kade sinks into his office chair like his legs finally give out. He scrubs his hands down his face and lets out a low groan. “Of course there is. Because why the hell would anything be simple anymore.”
Fern leans in closer to me and kisses my cheek. “We’ll let you talk,” she mutters, her eyes full of sadness. “You’ve got this.”
I don’t feel like I’ve got anything. Not my courage. Not my sanity. Barely my breath.
When they leave, the door closes with a dull thud that feels like a lock clicking inside my chest.
I lower myself onto the couch slowly—carefully—like my bones are glass. The yellow fabric stares back at me. I chose this couch. A sickening thought punches through me. Was he going to fuck Jade on this couch? My body tenses, cold flooding through me.
I press my shaking hands between my knees.
And now I have to tell him the part that will destroy him forever. Like it’s destroyed me.
KADE
My patience is hanging by a fucking thread.
She sits hunched on that ugly yellow couch she insisted on buying—my ol’ lady who used to fill every room with light, now staring at a piece of furniture like it holds the secrets of the universe.
Maybe that’s why I was going to fuck a whore on it.
Eden loves the couch. I let her pick it. I let her pick everything.
Her fingers twist together. Her lip trembles. She’s shaking like she’s freezing, even though the room is warm.
I sigh and drag the Scotch from my drawer, pouring a small amount into a glass before sitting beside her. I hold it out. The movement snaps her out of whatever daze she’s in.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know if I’m—” She stops herself before the word pregnant. My stomach knots violently. The idea of her carrying another man’s child burns through me like acid.
“It’s good for shock,” I say, forcing the glass toward her. “Drink it.”
She takes it with a trembling hand. When her fingers brush mine, they’re ice cold. I grab the blanket from behind her and lay it over her shoulders because she looks like she’ll crumble without it.
Then the bitterness rises, hot and ugly in my throat. “Does your new man know about this?”
“There’s no one else,” she whispers.
My jaw clenches. “So he got you pregnant and has done a runner?”
She shakes her head weakly. “If I’m pregnant, it’s yours.”
“I doubt that, Eden. You need to have sex for that.”
She flinches. “The rooftop,” she murmurs.
I laugh but there’s no humour in it. “We’ve been trying for months. That one time on the rooftop when you faked an orgasm would have to be a fucking miracle.”
“My period was due three days ago.”
“I don’t believe you. You lie constantly now. You keep secrets. You killed a man, for fuck’s sake.” A thought hits me hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. “Was it him?” I whisper. “Did Liam get you pregnant?”
Her mouth opens and closes, no sound coming out, and something inside me snaps. I shoot to my feet, pacing, trying to make sense of any of this. If Liam was here that day… Queenie. He was comfortable enough around her, to use my fucking nickname for her.
“Liam?” I roar.
Eden bursts into tears. It’s too much. I knock the drink right out of her hand and she flinches like she thinks I’m going to hit her. I step back immediately, because the horror of that thought turns my stomach, but I’m drowning in rage and confusion.
“Why?” My voice cracks. “Why him?”
“It wasn’t like that,” she sobs.
My heart feels like it’s ripping apart, each tear worse than the last. “Get out,” I choke.
“Listen to me, please—”
I grab her by the arm and haul her toward the door, shoving her weight forward. “OUT. Before I do something I’ll regret.”
She grabs the doorway, holding on with a strength I didn’t know she had. “NO!” She turns her head, her eyes wild, fierce—haunted. I’ve never seen that look on her. I don’t recognise her. I don’t recognise us.
“It wasn’t like that,” she cries, voice breaking. “I didn’t want him. I didn’t WANT him.”
“I don’t understand!” I shout back at her, because I don’t. God, I don’t.
“I was raped.” The words are barely audible but they hit me harder than any punch I’ve ever taken. “Liam raped me.”
Her body collapses like the confession ripped her strings free. She hits her knees, shaking, coughing, and sobbing so hard she can’t breathe.
And I just stand there.
Staring.
Because everything inside me, every suspicion, every accusation, every bit of anger, all of it flips, and implodes at once.
She was raped.
By Liam.
My knees nearly give out.
I’m frozen. Completely, utterly frozen.
Images of Eden flash through my mind, one after the other, like some fucked-up film reel I never want to see again.
Her stumbling through the clubhouse door, covered in dirt.
The cuts on her knees. The bruises she tried to hide.
Her pale, empty eyes. Her hands shaking as she lied about being “fine”.
Each image hits me like a punch straight to the face.
Then another memory slams into me so hard I sway; her crying underneath me. Her tears. The panicked voice. Me telling her to relax. Me pushing into her. Me thinking she was being dramatic.Christ.
I stumble back, gripping my chest because the pain blooming there is unbearable. My breath shudders out of me in broken pieces.
“Oh God…” I croak. “Oh God, I made you—we—Christ, you cried. You cried.”
Eden launches forward so fast she nearly falls. She grabs my kutte, her small hands fisting the leather desperately. “No—no,” she says, shaking her head violently. “Kade, listen to me. It was okay. I said I wanted to. I wanted to with you.”
I can’t get enough air. I gasp and pull at the collar of my shirt, trying to loosen it, trying to breathe through the guilt crushing my ribs like a vice. “I didn’t know,” I rasp, staring at her, but not really seeing anything. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t see you.”
“It’s not your fault,” she whispers, eyes glassy with fresh tears. “I didn’t want you to know. I—I was scared you’d get into trouble. That the club would go back to how it was.”
That makes something inside me snap. A raw, broken sound tears out of my chest and I cover my face with both hands. “Oh God…” My voice cracks as the truth claws through me. “You went through all that, and you still protected the fucking club.”
Her breath hitches. She gently touches my arm, like she’s scared I’ll shatter. “Kade,”
But I can’t hear anything except the roaring in my ears. The realisation that she was hurting and injured, broken, and I was angry at her. Suspicious. Wanting sex to make it all go away. Accusing her of cheating. And she was carrying this alone. For me. For us. For the club.
I lower my hands slowly, my face hot with tears I didn’t even realise were falling, and I stare at her like she’s a stranger and my whole world all at once.
“Sweetheart…” The word comes out wrecked, barely a whisper. “What did he do to you?”