Last time I saw him he was spitting fire at me, now he looks broken as he stands there, staring at me, as if he’s seeing into the depths of my soul.

I swallow past the lump in my throat, icy claws wrapping around my heart as he takes a step into the room. I can barely breathe as his eyes crawl over my face, looking for what, I don’t know. He must not find it, though, because he pulls his eyes from me and flicks his gaze towards the bed.

I shift slightly, putting my body between my daughter and Rav. I don’t think he’d hurt her, but I can’t get a read on his state of mind right now, and that terrifies me more than if he’d come in here spewing venom. At least then I’d know where I stand.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, my words coming out in a breathy whisper.

Every synapse in my body is snapped to attention, firing electric charges throughout my body.

He doesn’t speak, but moves to the bed. I shift, ready for whatever is about to happen next, but he doesn’t do anything except peer down at her. Lily-May watches him from beneath heavy lids, her long lashes fanning over her cheeks as her eyes shutter closed and sleep claims her. Seeing her with him has my walls start to pull down. Everything in me hopes he’s her daddy, that the filth of my past hasn’t marred my daughter too. It’s an ache that gnaws at my gut until nausea rises in my throat.

“Rav?” His silence has me on edge and I tighten my grip on the rail of the cot. Why the fuck isn’t he speaking?

“Did the results come back yet?” he finally asks, his voice sounding raw. My brows draw together as I try to get a read on him, and fail.

“Tomorrow.”

I watch him cautiously, unsure what his next move will be, but when his eyes come back to mine, I see the remorse, the guilt and cold washes over me.

He knows the truth.

Nox told him what Sin did to me.

My throat constricts as if someone has a hand wrapped around my neck and I struggle to draw breath. He can’t know. No one can.

Filth crawls over my skin as I stand in front of him, laid bare as he sees beneath my carefully crafted walls. They shatter at the same time I do. Tears brim in my eyes before I let them fall.

“You know.” There’s a hint of accusation in my tone, a hint of anger too, although I’m not sure if that’s directed at him or me.

Panic swamps my belly when he doesn’t answer. Does he believe me?

“Nox told you—”

I barely get my words out before I’m dragged into his arms and engulfed by his hard body. I stiffen for a second before I melt against him, smelling his aftershave, the leather of his kutte. All my fear, all my hurt is soothed by the feel of his thick grasp around my body. God, how I’ve missed this. I burrow into his chest, letting my tears fall freely now and he squeezes me tightly against him.

For the first time in years, I feel safe surrounded by him. He chips away at the dirt covering me, just long enough for me to take a lifesaving breath.

My hands snake around his back, clinging to him like I’m scared to let him go. I am. I don’t want to see pity in his eyes. I don’t want him to look at me differently.

His fingers thread into the hair at the nape of my neck, as his nose brushes through the strands on top and he breathes into it.

“I can’t fix what he’s done, but he’ll pay for it. I promise you that,” he assures me on a quiet, but deadly breath.

I tighten my hold on him and press my cheek to his chest. Being back in his arms after all this time feels right, good. I’ve missed him holding me. I’ve missed him touching me. I don’t want this to ever end, but he pulls me back from him and the moment shatters. The warmth from his body disappears, leaving me cold to the bone.

He peers down at me, and with gentleness I’m not sure I deserve, he uses the pad of his thumb to wipe my tears from my cheeks.

“You should have told me.” There’s chastisement in his tone.

“He’s your family. Would you have believed me?” My voice is pitched low, soft, filled with remorse.

He dips his head and presses his lips to my forehead. It’s a gesture that’s intimate and has my eyes closing as I embrace his unspoken words. Rav has never been good at talking about his feelings. He’s a biker. They don’t do emotions, but his actions tell me the depth of feeling he has right now. It tells me how ravaged he is by what he’s learnt, and more importantly, it tells me he believes me—something Sin said would never happen. I believed that with every painful breath as I walked away, but I should have believed in the man in front of me. Rav has always protected me. Why did Sin’s words have the power to make me doubt him?

That’s when it hits me. Sin made me feel powerless. He took away my safe place and made me doubt the world around me, the men that cared for me. For the first time in my life, he showed me what fear really was, but he was wrong. So fucking wrong.

I spent the past three years, doing it alone, when I could have had Rav at my side. We could have raised Lily-May together.

The thought breaks something inside of me as I remember every time I wished he was there: the fear and pain I felt bringing her into this world, when she took her first steps, when the doctor first told me she was sick…

One question bobs to the surface of my thoughts. Could he ever accept her as his own?

I push that thought into the darkest, deepest of my vaults and shut the door on it. Lily-May can’t help how she was conceived, and I’ll never make my child feel anything but loved. If Rav can’t get on board with that then he has no place in our life.

“Knowing he touched—” He breaks off, gritting his teeth so hard, it makes my own hurt. “It fucking guts me, Sasha.”

His words blanket me in relief as much as they cause me pain. I hate that he’s hurting too. This has to be destroying him, but the fact he believes me unlocks the heaviness in my chest that I’ve carried around for years.

“Rav...” There’s so much weight in that small word, so much I want to say but can’t. “I should have told you. I shouldn’t have believed Sin. It killed me walking away.”

“I know,” is all he says, as if he can see all my thoughts.

“What happens now?” I ask, pulling back slightly so I can peer up at his face.

His mouth pulls into a sneer.

“Now, I find Sin.”

“Find him?” My heart twitches at his words. I take another step back.

I watch Rav’s jaw work. “He took off.”

Panic floods my belly and my breath starts to quicken, but Rav cups my face with his ringed hands. “He’s not going to touch you again—or Lily-May. I promise, I’ll protect you both.”

I want to believe that, I really do, but I thought I was safe in the past and that wasn’t the case. I don’t say this to Rav. He’s barely hanging on as it is, but the thoughts dance across my consciousness.

I’ll never be safe while Sin is out there.

And neither will my daughter.

13

Ravage

Seeing Sasha break is like a blade to the gut, twisted deep inside me. I didn’t expect her tears. Each one is like a bullet to the heart. She’s always been so strong, but the woman in front of me now is nothing like the woman who left me. She’s harder in many ways. Her eyes are filled with distrust, hurt mixing with her fear, but there’s a vulnerability there that I never noticed before.