Chelsea

I pointed at him and smiled. “I’ll remember that.”

He just winked and turned back to his duties, filling the fridges with alcohol. Since Ham had pulled me off the edge of crazy that morning in the apartment, we’ve gotten closer. Ham is relaxed and fun, but I just have this feeling that he knows what it’s like to feel like you’re broken and have lost everything.

Maybe one day I’ll figure out why.

I strolled past the bikes that were lined up outside. I wasn’t sure where Optimus had gone, probably to sit with his brothers while they figured all this shit out. Optimus wasn’t the type of leader to delegate and expect not to be involved. He didn’t make his men do all the dirty work, he was always right there with them doing what he could to help. I guess it was just another reason why they respected him so much.

I smiled as I walked up to the gate and found Neil and Kev. I wondered who was on Harlyn duty. Neil was used following Harlyn around like he was her shadow. But then, I hadn’t been back for like a week so things could have changed.

Kev gave me a kind smile. “What’s up, Chel?”

“I just need to step outside and talk to my friend Rose.” His face quickly changed, so I tried to explain before he shut me down. “Look, she needs to come in so we can watch out for her, but she’s a bit standoffish because of Blizzard. I just need a few minutes to convince her to come in.”

“Where is she?” Kev asked, still a little suspect. He twisted the handle of the automatic rifle he had hanging from his side.

We both stepped out the small gap in the gates and I pointed just down the road where I could see Rose’s small figure sitting under a tree hugging her knees. She was close enough that if the boys ran, they could get to us in less than five seconds. Kev looked concerned. He lifted his rifle and eyed the area.

“You’re go

He scoffed. “She ain’t even looking this way.” He sca

“Thanks, Kev!” I yelled, jogging down the pavement to where my friend was located. I started to talk as I got closer, “Hey Rose, come inside. The boys are a little jumpy about us being—oh my God!”

I threw myself to my knees on the grass as she turned her head to face me. One of her eyes was swollen completely shut and was turning an unappealing shade of purple. Her cheekbone was also puffed up and the center of her lip was cut so bad, I thought it may need stitches. There was blood in her hair and down the side of her neck and face.

I felt tears pool in my eyes. “Oh, Rose. Babe, come on. Let’s get you inside.”

I held out my hand to her as I kneeled on the ground, praying she would take it. Fuck Blizzard and what she felt about the club. She needed help.

She shook her head and kept her knees pulled in tightly. One arm was cradled to her chest—the one she had burnt—but this time I knew it wasn’t a burnt. You could tell clearly that it was broken as a lump protruded from just below her wrist.

“Who did this to you?” I whispered, tears clogging my throat.

A small noise came from her mouth like it was meant to be a laugh. “I deserved it. I didn’t do well enough,” she croaked, sounding like a two-pack-a-day smoker.

“Rose, you do not deserve this. I don’t care if he’s your dad. He should care about you, he should love you no matter what.” I tried to move closer, feeling the need to wrap my arms around her and carry all her pain away.

That was the point in which my world stopped.

All I could hear in my head was the word, no. No, no, no, no, no.

The handgun sparkled in the small amount of sunlight that had broken through the shade of the tree as she raised it from beside her. It had been hidden by her body. Her finger was pressed to the trigger and the barrel was pointing directly at me. I stared down that dark black hole, mesmerized.

Was this it?

I pondered what it would feel like when the bullet hit me.

Would it hurt?

A thousand thoughts raced around my head until her sniffles finally pulled me from its trance. Tears streamed from her good eye and she attempted to blink them away as one hand was busy aiming the gun at my head and the other I assumed was too painful to move.

“Rose,” I cooed, not wanting to scare her. “Rose, what are you doing?” My heart was racing, but I fought to stay calm.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed quietly. “He’s making me, I don’t have a choice.”

I wanted to look over my shoulder and somehow signal Kev. I doubted that he could see what was going on as my body was sitting right in their eyeline, blocking Rose from their view.

“Who? You’re dad?” She nodded slowly. “Why?”

“To make me prove to him that I’m worthy of our family. You have to be worthy of wearing the name, DePalma.”

My heart stopped.

No. Not Rose.

She wasn’t one of them. She couldn’t be.

Rose was my friend. She’d helped me. She had supported me.

She sniffled. “If I don’t, they’ll throw me out and I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have anyone else.”

“You have me,” I told her, holding my hand to my chest and fighting to keep the vomit at bay. “You have me. You have the club. We can protect you, we can give you family. Please, Rose. Don’t do this.”

A furious look came across her face. “No,” she snapped. “The club is evil! The club killed my granddad. They killed my family.”

“They what?” I asked confused, ready to defend them, but suddenly I heard the squeal of car tires.

“Chelsea!” Kev called, I heard heavy boots against the pavement.

“Stop! Or I’ll shoot her!” Rose yelled as she climbed to her feet, pointing the gun directly at me but staring over my head. A dark car pulled up at the curb and the back door flew open. “Move Chelsea!”

I slowly climbed to my feet, checking over my shoulder to see Kev standing a few feet away, his rifle raised and ready to shoot. I had no doubt that Neil was already ru

I had to go, or this was going to turn into a bloodbath.

Rose followed me with her gun as I slipped in the backseat of the car. She threw herself in after me and I was pushed back in the seat as we took off from the curb.

The clubhouse flew by and I shuddered.

I’d finally found my place and it was about to be ripped away from me all over again.

“I guess the puzzle is slowly begi

“Yeah, it’s all coming together but it ain’t making a fucking pretty picture,” Leo grumbled as he paced the room. Blizzard, Leo, Wrench and I had come together to try and come up with a plan, or at least try to understand what the fuck was going on.

“Let’s get this all straight,” I told my boys, leaning with my palms flat on the table in front of me. I couldn’t sit down, my body was too anxious. Leo had talked to Kit’s father, Oz and he’d been able to shed some light on a few things, including the significance of the dates and places that had been changed on Leo and Wrench’s records. Oz had been around for almost as long as our national president—a hard ass name Huntsman—and had gained just as much respect. If there was someone big within the crime world taken down, they knew about it. They had to because, with one more name out of the game, it meant there was money to be made.

“Romano DePalma was locked up in 1997. It’s not often a mob boss gets caught with his hand on the evidence, but apparently there were suspicions of a rat inside the family,” Leo explained, recalling what he had heard from Oz. “They scrambled for a while, Marco, the oldest brother had no idea what he was doing. During the mess, the Brothers by Blood ended up picking up some of their buyers—guns and ice I think.”