WAYLON (Ruthless MC 1)

He looks at me for a hot, angry beat—then surges forward.

This time I’m not as brave as when I returned to the apartment and found him out of his handcuffs. He was angry then, but he’s a different kind of furious now. I cringe and brace when he comes right at me.

But he doesn’t grab me. He grabs the suitcase I just packed. Grabs it and heads toward the modular house’s sliding back door, his heavy boots clomping across the laminate floor.

“What are you doing?” I demand, following in his wake.

Instead of answering, he stomps outside with the suitcase.

“What are you doing?” I demand again, jogging through the sliding glass door he opened into what turns out to be a shared backyard.

Four other trailer homes are circled around it, and there's a fire pit in the middle of the green with a grill. I can imagine people meeting out here with beers, barbecuing, roasting marshmallows on sticks fetched from the nearby woods, and having a good time.

Not today. Shadows peak out at us from behind the other trailers’ glass doors—nosy neighbors who want to see what’s going on but somehow know better than coming out here.

Probably because of the look on Waylon’s face, furious and crazed.

I mean, I wouldn’t be out here if he didn’t have the suitcase.

“What are you doing?” I ask the question again, even though the answer becomes obvious when Waylon rips the grill off the top and tosses it to the side.

He unzips the suitcase and upends it over the pit. All the clothes I packed fall out along with the piece of paper with Stephanie’s name written across the front.

My heart drops to my feet when he picks up a nearby bottle of lighter fluid. And my questions about what he’s doing immediately get replaced with “No! No! You can’t do this!”

But the thing is, he can. He holds me back easily as he douses my few belongings in lighter fluid. Then he pulls one of those permanent matches out of his front pocket.

“No! No!” I screech. “Those are my things!”

Granted, I've only had most of "my things" for less than a couple of hours. But they’re mine. The clothes Lucinda brought over for me. The scrubs Doc let me keep. The note from Stephanie.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like such a psycho?” I slap at Waylon’s chest, pull on his arm—try to get him to stop. But it's like attempting to move a statue. He barely budges. Nothing, including my screeches and arm tugs, keeps him from striking that metal match.

Just a few seconds after I try to stop him, I watch the items he dumped out of my suitcase go up in flame.

“You belong here,” he says between gritted teeth as the fire destroys everything I’ve accumulated over the last 24 hours. “You belong to me. This is where we are supposed to be. I’ll get you whatever clothes you want when you finally understand that—when you submit. But if you try this shit again, I will punish you again.”

I let go of his arm, no longer wanting to touch him.

I've spent my entire adult life trying not to be angry, trying to be a better person. But at that moment, I lose the fight.

“I hate you,” I screech, shoving against him. “I fucking hate you! If I were a man, I'd beat you like you beat Jonathan!”

I swing at him with clawed hands, determined to scratch his eyes out.

But he just catches my wrists and regards me with a stone-cold expression.

“If you were a man, we wouldn't be in this situation,” he answers, his voice as angry and gruff as mine is helpless and enraged. “But you’re a woman. My woman. And guess what? You don't have to like me to belong to me. Now, get back in Meemaw’s place before I strip you out of the clothes you’re wearing and burn those, too.”

I want to argue. I want to fight. I want to yell at him about the life he's destroyed and tell him he has no right.

But the way he's staring down at me, his blue gaze full of challenge. Like he’s dying for me to call him on his bluff—that tells me it’s not a bluff.

Whatever edge Waylon has, he’s reached it.

And yes, I'm angry, well, and unquestionably angry for the first time in my adult life.

But he knows, and I know, this isn't a fight I can win.

I return to the house, just as he commanded without looking back.

But I don’t have to look back to feel his eyes burning into me as I leave.

I back down, but I don't give up.

I spend the rest of the day in my room behind a locked door, ignoring Meemaw when she comes upstairs and asks if I want dinner. She sounds apologetic but offers no explanations.