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CHAPTER 1
SIOUX
The only thing I can do, as I’m sweating more than I want to be or feel comfortable with, is glare at Devin. Does he know I call him ‘Demon Devin’ in my head? Yes, because I’ve said it out loud more than once.
It’s a moniker he has earned over the past few months. He even has the fucking audacity to smile at me whenever I sneer his nickname at him with all the rage my exhausted and pain-filled body can muster. He takes great pride in it, honestly.
“Come on, Sioux,” he’s going for some sort of ‘rah-rah’ tone in his voice that makes me want to throat punch him, “you have five more in you. Give them to me.”
If I were to rip his balls from his body, would he still be able to put me through his hellish physical therapy routine? I’ve wondered about it often, but then I hear my best friend, Wrenley, in my head reminding me that I need to do this and that it’s for my own good.
I know it is, but she has no idea how much the PT session wrecks me or how much they make me want to crawl into a hole and sleep for days. I don’t, but I want to.
No one would let me do it, anyways.
I know Wrenley is driven by our friendship when she encourages me, but there’s also some guilt there. It’s guilt I completely understand. She blames herself because I was shot. It sure as hell wasn’t her fault.
Hell, I feel like more of the blame lands on me than her. She won’t listen to me when I tell her that. I get it, because the day I was shot is not one I like to revisit. But I refuse to allow my best friend, someone who is like a sister to me, to carry any guilt.
The person who shot me is to blame.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Anarchy, the former—because I have no doubt that he’s dead now even though that hasn’t been confirmed directly—Prez of the Riding Rebels MC would have never become obsessed with Wrenley if I hadn’t insisted that we go to their bar one night. I had no idea Alloy Riot was owned by a motorcycle club, but I’m not sure knowing would have changed anything. Maybe it would have. Maybe I would have still insisted that we go out because my girl needed to let loose a little.
Anarchy tormented Wrenley to the point that she sought help from the only people she thought could help—the Devil’s Saints MC. Had she not done that, she wouldn’t be the blissfully in love woman she is now.
I also wouldn’t have been shot.
The thing is—I don’t think I would change how everything went down if I could go back.
I love seeing Wrenley happy and in love. I would have never thought she would end up with the same guy her older sister dated in high school. They were in love right up until Jessica was killed. Then Reid took off, unable to handle the pain.
Jessica’s death changed Wrenley. We were only 13; how could it not change someone? I lost her for a little while and even though her parents were alive, Jessica’s death meant she lost them as well. They never fully recovered from the loss of their eldest child and the fact that Wrenley needed them didn’t seem to matter.
I always thought it was fucked up and it made me even more determined to make sure Wrenley got the support and love she needed. We weren’t sisters by blood, but sisters of the heart and that hasn’t changed in all the years we’ve known each other.
It’s probably why we’re both still grappling with guilt over how everything went down. But maybe it was supposed to happen the way it did.
Wrenley found love.
I got shot.
And I also acquired a giant of a man who insists he wants to give me the world and who has done a surprisingly excellent impersonation of a nurse. Apostle was at my bedside when I woke up after surgery and he hasn’t left me alone since.
Hell, the man barely left me alone from the moment I met him. Wrenley invited me to DSMC clubhouse for the first time after she went to them for help and was put on a modified lockdown for her own protection.
I wish I could say Apostle is hideous or something. He’s not. He’s big, burly, gruff in most instances, sexy as all get out, and the way he looks at me sends shivers up my spine. Not gonna lie, we hooked up pretty early on. Honestly, I thought we’d get each other out of our systems and then move on. It’s not like he’s without women throwing themselves at him.
And I don’t think a commitment is in the cards for me. Relationships take effort I’m not sure I’m capable of putting in. Not when I know things can go wrong and have for me in the past. Explosively wrong in a way that has left me devastated. Because I’m not capable of loving someone half-way. I give them everything and they suck me dry.
That’s just the way it is.
Except Apostle won’t give up or give in. He watches me like I’m his prey, even in moments when I know I haven’t looked, felt, or behaved the best.
He’s never wavered, and it makes my defenses feel like glass instead of the cinderblock I want them to be.
“You got this,” Devin encourages me and brings me out of my thoughts of Apostle and the past. Thankfully.
I know I can do it. I’ve been doing it. I’m not consumed by pain anymore. Don’t get me wrong, that is great and all, except sometimes you want to have a little pity party for yourself and then move the fuck on. Wallowing is good for the soul, or something.
