“Definitely old lady material.” Gunner sidestepped the fray to join them. “You keeping her?”

“Yeah,” Zane said, his chest swelling with pride. “She’s mine.”

*   *   *

Evie’s chest heaved and she glared at Arianne. Why wouldn’t she get out of the way? This had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with Evie needing to know exactly what being part of this world meant.

“He went against my orders.” Jagger stepped out from behind Arianne. “He broke the rules. He had a choice. Punishment or a kick out. He agreed to the punishment.”

“That’s barbaric.” Her voice rose in pitch and she tried to bring it down, but seeing Zane so badly injured, and knowing Jagger had done it … Her gaze dropped to the bottom of Jagger’s cut, lined with small red diamond patches.

Blood patches.

“Don’t judge us,” Arianne warned. “This is a different world. We play by different rules. Enforcing order in the club is a matter of survival—for both the MC and civilians.”

“What’s going on?” Connie ran into the room. “Evangeline? Everything okay?”

“Get Ty packed up. We’re leaving.” She couldn’t stay here, couldn’t expose Ty to this, couldn’t accept that Zane was part of this world.

“But…” Connie’s eyes widened and she jerked her head toward the door to the basement where they figured a dungeon might be. “I thought we were going to … play pool.”

Evie’s stomach twisted. Did she really want to know if there was a woman in the dungeon? Her gaze flicked down to the bottom of Zane’s cut. Blood patches. Just like Viper said. How ironic that everyone thought of Viper as the bad guy, and yet he had told her the truth.

“Come upstairs with me,” Zane murmured in her ear, his arm sliding around her waist. “I’ll explain it to you. Answer any questions you have.”

Her shoulders slumped as the fight drained out of her. It was all Viper said and more. The Sinners were no different from the Jacks. Zane no different from Viper. This wasn’t a TV show, it was worse. It was real and as bad as she could have imagined.

TWENTY

A bad repair decision may end up costing you time and money, but that’s OK. Everything can be fixed.

—SINNER’S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL

“Take off your clothes.” Evie leaned against Zane’s bedroom door, more for support than a means of escape.

“Evie…”

A growl curled in her throat, her anger growing as she realized this was the beginning of the end. Once she saw what was under his shirt, there would be no going back. “Take them off. I want to see what he did to you.”

He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the bed, then he stripped down to his boxers. Her legs trembled as her gaze swept over his body, starting at his feet, her strength leaving her as she took in the discolored skin on his shins and thighs, the cuts on his wrists, and then gave out when she saw the full extent of his bruised and lacerated torso.

Her beautiful Zane.

She sank down to the floor, wrapped her arms around her legs, buried her head and sobbed, the grief ripping her apart inside. Tears spilled down her cheeks dripping on the floor with each ragged inhale. She cried not just for him, but for them, and the knowledge they could never be together.

“Fuck.” Zane’s voice was harsh, raw as he crossed the room to kneel beside her. “Sweetheart, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

She shook her head, held herself tighter, unable to speak for the images spinning around in her mind. Jagger had no bruises on his body. That guilty look on his face when he’d come into the shop … the marks on Zane’s wrists.

Zane hadn’t fought back. His hands were tied and he hadn’t fought back.

“Let me explain.” He cradled her in his arms, as if she was the one hurting. She supposed, in a way, she was.

“There’s nothing to say that could make this acceptable to me.” Evie sniffed back her tears. “I can’t do this, Zane. Seeing you like this is tearing me apart. I’ll never be able to forgive Jagger, never forget what he did to you. I won’t even pretend to understand how you agreed to it. The fact that you live in a world where this kind of thing goes on is bad enough, but on top of it … your patches … blood…”

“I’ll leave the MC.” Simple words and yet they weighed heavy on her heart.

“I don’t want you to leave.” She held herself stiff, afraid to touch his battered body. “This club means everything to you. That you would take a beating from your best friend tells me how much you love this life. You would hate me every day for taking you away from it.”

“I love you more,” he said. “I have always loved you. I’ve lived my life in the shadows because I couldn’t let you go.” He drew in a ragged breath, brushed his lips over her hair. “I can’t lose you now. I went looking for Viper because I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

She struggled to sit, pushed herself to standing. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you either, but I don’t even know who I am anymore. All I know is that I’ve been stupidly naive, and this life you lead isn’t for me. I want to be with you, but I don’t see how this can work.”

His face smoothed, eyes darkened. Even now she knew him so well, she could see his emotional retreat.

She closed her fist and hit it to her breast, her eyes stinging with tears all over again. “It hurts me to see you in pain. It hurts me to think of you suffering. It hurts me to think of you in such danger that you have to take a life. I’ve spent my whole life hurting because I wanted you and couldn’t have you. I just can’t take the hurting anymore. I love you, Zane, but it hurts just too damn bad, and now you’re taking risks for me that could get you killed. I don’t want that. Even if we can’t be together, I need to know you’re alive and happy and doing what you love to do.”

His voice, when he spoke, was thick with pain. “You want to walk away? What about Ty?”

“I don’t know.” God, why couldn’t she stop crying? “I need some time to think about it. He adores you. He’s so happy to have you in his life, I can’t take that away from him.”

She turned, reached for the door, but it felt too wrong. Unfinished. There was something she needed to do.

“Will you let me do something for you before I go?”

“Anything.”

She gestured to his bruised, battered body. “You did this for me. I want to give something back. I want to take care of you so when I leave I’ll know you’re going to be okay.”

*   *   *

Pain.

His life was all about pain.

And yet the pain in his body was nothing compared to the pain in his heart. Zane’s hand clenched on his breast. If he could rip his damn heart out of his chest he would. Go back to the darkness that had sustained him for the last nine years, back to the shadows. Out of the damn light.

He heard the rush of water in the shower from the en suite bathroom, a luxury afforded only the senior patch brothers who kept rooms at the clubhouse, but he couldn’t go in. He was too wound up, too out of control, too damn emotional.

What else could he do? He had meant every word when he told her he would fight to be with her. He just hadn’t realized she would be the one standing in his way.

With a roar, he thudded his fist against the wall. His hands were about the only place on his body that wasn’t bruised. Might as well remedy that problem because he had saved them for nothing.

When he felt no release from his assault on the wall, he ripped a drawer from the dresser and smashed it on the ground. Clothes flew across the room and the wood cracked and splintered. Like his heart.

“Zane!”

But now that the floodgates had opened, he couldn’t stop. He lifted the drawer and smashed it down again, his aching muscles protesting the impact. “Do you want Viper, Evie? Is that it? Is that what this is all about?” He knew it was ludicrous. She had seen who Viper was, but he needed a reason, something he could change.