Brittany
Two weeks feels like two years when the man you love is sitting in a cell for something he didn’t do.
Hell, Kentucky has a way of stretching time when it wants to watch you suffer. It drags the minutes out like taffy, slow and sticky. Every sunrise feels like a dare. Every night feels like punishment.
Oaks refuses my calls, and that hurts worse than the arrest.
The first day I try to reach him, they tell me he ain’t taking visitors. The second day, Royal pulls me aside behind the clubhouse and tells me, in that smooth, careful voice of his, that Oaks doesn’t want me tangled in the legal side of this.
“He made a choice,” Royal says. “Let him carry it.”
“I didn’t ask him to,” I snap, because my anger has nowhere else to go.
Royal studies me like I’m something fragile he doesn’t want to break, which is insulting in its own way. “Doesn’t matter,” he says.
Legend says the same thing, only quieter.
I corner him outside the Lockup one afternoon while Sophie is inside helping with paperwork. He looks tired, older than I’ve ever seen him. Leadership does that to men. It drags weight into their eyes and carves lines into their face like worry has a knife and plenty of time.
“I didn’t push her,” I tell him again, because if I don’t keep saying it out loud I’m afraid it’ll stop being true. I’ve already told him the whole story that Oaks refused to. The whole truth.
“I know,” Legend says simply.
The certainty in his voice makes my chest ache.
“Then why is he in there?” I demand.
Legend’s dismissive. “Because he decided that’s where he needed to be.”
“For me?”
He doesn’t answer, and that’s the answer.
“Tell him to stop,” I whisper. “Tell him I don’t want this.”
Legend’s eyes go flint-hard. “You think this is about want?”
I flinch like he hit me. He steps closer, lowering his voice.
“Count your blessings, darling. He stepped in front of something ugly. Not many men do that without expecting something in return.”
My throat burns. “He ain’t expecting anything.”
“No,” Legend agrees. “He ain’t.”
That’s what scares me.
The town shifts around me after that. First it whispers. Then it pities. There’s something worse than being hated in Hell, and that’s being looked at like you’re a tragedy that might be contagious.
No longer accused of murder, I’m the poor young girl who got wrapped up with the wrong biker. An older outlaw biker so mean and so enthralled with me, a girl way too young for the likes of him, he pushed his wife into the lake.
The diner regulars start leaving extra cash on the table when I refill their coffee.
Mrs. Hanley presses fifty dollars into my hand and tells me it’s “for rent.” I don’t even have a place to rent yet.
A bake sale pops up outside the hardware store with a hand-painted sign that says SUPPORT brITTANY in sloppy red letters like somebody tried to do kindness with a hammer.
I want to crawl under the counter and disappear.
Lottie squeezes my shoulder while Mason runs circles around my legs at the pawn shop. “They mean well,” she says gently.
“I don’t want charity,” I mutter.
“You don’t get to choose how people care about you,” she replies.
That’s the problem. Nobody asks what I want. Not the club. Not Oaks. Not this town. Not the law. Not the rumor mill that’s turned my name into entertainment.
I go through the motions. Work. Smile. Nod. Pretend I’m sleeping at night when really I’m staring at the ceiling and replaying the sound of cuffs clicking around his wrists. I can’t shake the last look he gave me.
Calm. Certain. Like he’d already accepted whatever came next.
I’m alone at the pawn shop. There ain’t been any gloves or notes or strange men lurking. Elijah’s texts have stopped. It’s like Hell got what it wanted. The Vice President of the Kings of Anarchy MC behind bars. So, I’m alone.
The bell above the door jingles bright and cheerful like nothing is wrong in the world.
Bethany looks like she stepped out of a magazine. Perfect lipstick. Hair smooth and shining. Nails immaculate.
For a second, my brain refuses to take her in. It feels like a hallucination, like grief invented a villain because it couldn’t stand the empty space.
“You look surprised,” she says, smiling.
My heart stops.
“You’re…” My throat closes around the word.
“Alive?” She tilts her head. “Last I checked. I’ve been in Cincinnati,” she says casually. “Spa. Massage. Detox wrap. You’d love it.”
It checks out. Her skin’s glowing like she’s been somewhere with filtered water and cucumber slices over her eyes. She doesn’t look like a missing person. She looks like a woman who got exactly what she wanted and slept like a baby afterward.
She touches her cheek. “The makeup works, but make no mistake, I’m still bruised.”
The room goes too small. I can’t breathe.
“You let them think I killed you,” I whisper.
She shrugs lightly. “I let them think whatever they wanted.”
“Oaks is in jail,” I say, and my voice shakes on the last word.
Her lips curve. “Yes. I heard.”
“You didn’t stop it.”
“Why would I?”
My stomach drops so hard I feel it behind my eyes.
She walks toward the glass case like she’s browsing jewelry instead of standing in front of the girl her husband just went to jail for protecting. Like she didn’t detonate my whole life and then go get a massage.
I grip the counter to keep my hands from shaking. “What game are you playing?”
Her eyes flash, and for the first time her polish slips enough to show the anger underneath.
“You think I’m done?” she murmurs. “You think you win because he sacrificed himself for you?”
Heat crawls up my neck. My humiliation flares so hot it tastes metallic.
“I don’t want him,” I lie, because my pride is stupid even when my life is on fire.
She laughs softly. “Oh, honey. You glow.”
The insult lands deep. It ain’t about sex. It’s about the fact that she can see what I feel, like my skin is giving me away no matter what my mouth says.
“You let everyone think I pushed you,” I say again, because I need her to say it out loud. I need the truth to exist where it can’t be twisted.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her smile fades.
“Because I wanted to see what he’d do.”
The words hit like a slap.
“And he chose you,” she continues, voice tightening just slightly. “That’s what I needed to know.”
Something inside her cracks then. Not a breakdown. Not tears. Just a hairline fracture where control stops being pretty and starts being dangerous.
“And I don’t like it.”
Before I can move, she grabs the metal stool beside the counter and slams it into the glass case.
It shatters.
The sound is deafening. I scream and stumble back as shards scatter across the floor like ice exploding.
Bethany reaches into the broken display without hesitation and pulls out a hunting knife from the collectibles section.
She holds it up, studying the blade like she’s considering a manicure tool.
“You think you’re special?” she says quietly.
“Put that down,” I whisper, because my lungs are tight and my brain is behind my body again.
She steps toward me.
“I’m going to fix this,” she says. “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t want you anymore.”
My back hits the wall.
“You’re insane.”
“Am I?” She lunges. “First I’ll gouge out your eyes. Then I’ll take your tongue.”
The first slice catches my arm. It burns hot and sharp and wrong, pain so clean it feels unreal. I cry out and scramble sideways across the glass-strewn floor. My shoe slips on a shard and my stomach flips as I catch myself on the counter.
My hand slams into the broken case and I grab blindly, fingers closing around another knife.
Bethany laughs like she’s delighted. “You think you can fight me?”
She comes at me again, grabbing my hair, yanking my head back hard enough that tears spring to my eyes. It’s like the lake all over again. The blade flashes toward my face.
“Pawn shop trash,” she hisses. “Jailbait whore.”
She shoves the knife closer. Close enough that I can feel the cold of it.
“I’ll carve you up so he won’t even look at you.”
Rage snaps through me. Not fear. Not panic. Rage. It comes up like a fuse catching fire.
“Cut me again, and I’ll kill you for real you crazy bitch,” I spit.
She presses the knife closer. “He’s mine.”
Then her voice goes breathless, frantic, and for the first time I hear the real threat in it.
“If he leaves me,” she says, “I will burn him to the ground. I will tell them everything. Every run. Every crime. He’ll rot in prison for life.”
That lands heavy. Real. She means it.
She slices again, catching my forearm. Pain explodes, and my body finally stops trying to be civilized.
I move.
I shove forward with everything I have and drive my blade into her side.
The resistance shocks me. Skin ain’t paper. Bodies are not soft. Her eyes go wide, and for a split second neither of us moves, like we’re both stunned the line got crossed for real.
Then she staggers back.
Blood blooms through her perfect blouse like a horrible flower. She looks down like she can’t believe her own body betrayed her.
“You…” she gasps.
I’m shaking so hard I can’t feel my hands.
She stumbles, falls, and hits the floor with a dull thud that makes my stomach roll.
Silence crashes over the room.
I stare at her.
Waiting.
She doesn’t move.
I drop the knife like it burns. “Oh God,” I whisper.
I turn toward the door. I need help. I need an ambulance. I need a lawyer. I need Oaks. I need something I don’t deserve. Forgiveness.
My hand reaches for the handle.
And then I see her chest move.
Barely. A shallow breath.
My heart pounds so loud I can’t hear anything else.
If she lives, she will destroy him. If she lives, she will tell everything. If she lives, Oaks goes away forever.
I turn back slowly.
The knife is on the floor.
My hands are shaking.
I pick it up.
“I didn’t want this,” I whisper, and it’s true and it doesn’t matter.