Chapter 2 Void
Four days earlier—
“What the fuck is she doing now?” I asked aloud, to no one, because the room was fucking empty.
Well, except for the view in front of me, which revealed far more than Becca knew or realized.
Nine different vantage points were put in place to ensure I could always be there for her, spotting trouble before it ever reached her.
And if she wanted me for any other reason, . . . I’d be ready.
Was it presumptuous? Obsessive? Yeah. Did I care? Fuck no.
I stared at the wall of monitors that not only projected from every angle of the house we lived in, but also the clubhouse of the Feral Rebels MC, a second home to both of us.
Bulldog, my stepdad, had been a member, raised us both after my mom split, and then died in a bloody territory war with a rival club.
I joined and became the club’s hacker and tech expert shortly after he married my mother, and when he was killed, it was my skills and determination that helped track down the motherfuckers responsible.
So it made sense for me to stay here with Becca.
I was the only one left in the family to ensure her safety.
The cameras blipped, showing her walking from the kitchen, where she made a snack, to her room. I shouldn’t have been able to follow her, but I had cameras in there, too. Always watching. Wherever she went, I followed.
Every angle in the house we shared. In her car. Work. The clubhouse. She couldn’t run from me if she wanted. I preferred it that way.
We never moved out or sold this house, staying put since her father—who had become my stepfather ten years ago—died. The only place I didn’t watch her twenty-four seven was her bathroom. Even I had to draw the fucking line somewhere.
But since she found out that I had cameras and could keep tabs on her, and that I actually used them often, she’d been pissed. I could see the frown on her face as she slammed the door and dropped her plate of cheese chunks, apple slices, and peanut butter on her desk in front of her window.
Her gaze roamed the room, bouncing around every shelf and corner, scrutinizing the area. Her eyes narrowed.
Shit. She was trying to find all the cameras.
And I’d left a few out that were obvious in case this situation occurred, but the truth was that I had twelve different options inside that showed me multiple angles from every room. If she found and removed some of them, there were more she’d never find.
I thought back to the conversation we had yesterday after she barged into my domain in the basement and found all the video feeds, which seemed eager to reveal how nearly every inch of the house was visible from where I sat. She didn’t usually come down here. It was an unspoken rule.
Shocked, Becca’s dark blue eyes took it all in as she clenched her fists, blinked, and then let me have it in true Becca style.
“What the fuck, Void! Why do you have all these cameras in the house?”
“I’m a hacker, Blackbird. Remember?” I’d been calling her by that name since we met. She had black hair and those sultry dark blue eyes, but ruffle her feathers even a little, and she let you have it, pecking until you wanted to silence her with your cock as you rammed it down her throat.
Shit. I had to stop that mental image from taking root in my head.
Becca pointed at the monitors. “Tell me why you have cameras in my room, Void.”
“Protection.” I shrugged. She didn’t need to know more. Not yet. She wasn’t ready.
“Protection?” She said the word like it was a bad taste in her mouth. “Is that all?”
“What other reason would I have?” I asked, not wanting to get dragged into a discussion about how I felt about my stepsister or how frequently my thoughts skewed in her direction, or how inappropriate they had become in recent months. In truth, years.
A part of me was sick of this game we were playing, where we pretended our attraction didn’t exist. We weren’t related by blood. We were never brother and sister.
Our parents hooked up and then decided to move in together after a wild night at the clubhouse. After that, we all lived together. I fucking wanted Becca from the moment we met, but I convinced myself that my feelings were wrong because she was so fucking young. Just sixteen.
She scoffed, staring me down. “Tell me the truth.”
“What do you want me to say?” I folded my arms across my chest because if I didn’t, I would end up hauling her against me and kissing her the way she needed to be kissed.
She huffed and tapped her foot, too agitated to give me the real reason.
“Go upstairs,” I ordered, turning my back on her.
“Void!”
I hopped up so fast my chair slammed into the edge of the desk and stalked my way forward. I pinned her against the nearest wall, her back pressed to the concrete blocks as I placed my palms on either side of her head. “I gave you an order.”
“I don’t answer to you,” she snapped, pausing to lick her lips, “so fuck off with that. You’re my brother, not my goddamn club president.”
Her fucking defiance gave me a stiffy.
“I’m not your brother either,” I growled, hating that word because it implied something forbidden, inconceivable, and morally wrong. “And you’re not a member of the club, Blackbird. So come up with a better response.”
“Ugh!” She shoved at my chest, and I backed up, letting her think she won. “Turn off all the cameras in my room, Void. I want them out. Now!”
Just to piss her off, I shrugged. “When I get around to it.”
She shrieked and stomped up the stairs, slamming the basement door. My hand lowered and pressed against my erection. Fighting with Becca always turned me on.
At no point did I hide the bulge pressing against her lower stomach. I think she felt it.
“Void.”
I blinked, focusing on Becca’s voice.
She stood in her room, facing a camera I had placed on the edge of her favorite framed photo. The one of me, her, and her dad taken a year before he died. “I know you can hear me.”
Yep.
“This isn’t funny.” She swallowed, blinking as she fought tears. “Turn them all off.”
“I can’t,” I responded, knowing she couldn’t hear me. “I’ll let you think I have, though.”
One by one, I turned off the cameras I knew she had found, eliminating four of the nine in her room. But I wouldn’t budge on the rest. I had to be able to see her window, her bed, the doorway, the closet, and the entrance to her room. They were non-negotiable.
“Oh, good,” she breathed. “I think he listened.”
I did. Sort of.
This wasn’t about betraying her trust. We lived in a world where violence was an everyday part of life. Her father had been killed because of his association with a biker club. She was too closely connected, too vulnerable. That was why I never moved out.
Becca understood that, and it was why she never asked me to leave.
“WAKE UP, FUCKER,” DIESEL announced as he kicked my chair, sending me flying across the room several feet.
“Asshole,” I muttered as I blinked, waking up from the brief nap I’d taken. My gaze immediately shifted from Diesel to the monitors.
Where was Becca?
I almost panicked until I saw her sleeping on the couch in the living room, a blanket draped over her.
“Isn’t your job to watch? When I came in, the fucking front door was unlocked.” He scrubbed his hand down his face and over the stubble on his jaw. “For fuck’s sake, Void.”
I flipped him off. “You wanna do this every minute of the day and never sleep? Huh?”
He smirked. “Not really.”
“I didn’t think so, asshole.” I pushed my chair back and stood, stretching as I cracked my neck and rolled my stiff shoulders. “Why are you here?”
“Same as you. Watching over Becca.”
“Right.” I picked up my smokes and lighter, gesturing to the door on the opposite side of the basement. The private entrance was one of the best things about staying down here. I didn’t have to enter the main floor of the house unless I wanted to.
The lower level had been renovated when I moved in with a kitchenette and bathroom.
Bulldog had sectioned off a portion of the room for my use, so I had privacy if anyone came downstairs to do laundry.
The laundry room and unfinished storage area were located by the staircase that led up to the kitchen, away from the wall where I set up all my shit.
I had a livable space of my own. That meant the world to me when I first moved in. Bulldog always made me feel included from the moment he married my mother, but he also understood a young man’s need for his own space.
“Becca still order you to smoke outside?” He grinned like he knew that statement would rile me up.
“Yeah. Fuck off,” I added as his dimple popped, proving he found way too much amusement in my response. “You gonna smoke in the house?”
“Fuck no,” he laughed. “I enjoy my balls attached to my body.”
Okay. “Then hop off my dick.”
He chuckled, following me up the stairs and outside into the backyard. It was late, well into the early morning hours.
“Not gonna keep asking, Diesel. Why are you here at three in the fucking morning?” I lit up a smoke and dragged nicotine into my lungs as I waited for him to answer.
“Hades had a dream.”
Hades, our president, was one ruthless son of a bitch.
He didn’t take shit from anyone about anything.
I could count on one hand the things he valued and cared about, and that included the club, its members, and Becca.
When Bulldog died, he left a letter detailing all his final wishes.
He left the house to his daughter, which didn’t bother me any since it wasn’t my childhood home like it was hers.
But he asked something none of us expected.
Bulldog wanted Hades to step up and become a surrogate father to Becca.
Now, Hades had never had a kid, and now that he was in his late forties, it didn’t seem likely that he would. He’d always been close to Becca, though. For reasons I couldn’t say other than he already loved her like a father, Hades agreed.
So, when Diesel said Hades had a dream, I took notice. For one, because Hades could sense shit that defied logic or explanation. Two, if Diesel was here, it meant whatever Hades dreamed of involved Becca.
“What about her?” I didn’t have to say her name.
“Her birth parents.” He released a sigh. “Said something isn’t right. They were afraid.”
Fucking hell, that was vague. “Afraid of what?”
Diesel kicked a rock, launching it across the grass. “Don’t know.”
“How the fuck is that helpful?”
“It’s not,” he growled, as agitated as I felt. “Becca still doesn’t know.”
“I’m aware.”
No one ever told Becca that she’d been adopted as a baby.
Bulldog didn’t want her to think she wasn’t as loved as if she had been his own.
I only found out the truth when he was in the hospital, dying on that fucking gurney as they wheeled him into surgery.
He looked at Hades, making him swear never to tell Becca the truth. She was his, that was it.
But it wasn’t that simple.
Not when the people who gave up Becca for adoption had connections to a rival club that trafficked women. What if they found her? What would they do if they learned she had gotten away before they could sell or use her?
I flicked my cigarette to the ground and stomped out the cinders. “What’s the play?”
“Hades said we sit tight. Protect Becca.”
“Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.”
“Yeah.”
Lucky for Becca, I had done that since the second I patched into the Feral Rebels MC. I had five different safe house locations with no connection to any club members, including me. They couldn’t be traced to anything that would lead them to Becca.
If someone came for her, I had it covered.