WAYLON (Ruthless MC 1)

His lips curl up as if the memory still bemuses him. “You made me want to flirt and smile and tease—do all sorts of shit I wasn’t accustomed to. But when I figured out what happened to you too when you were a kid….”

I’ve been staring at him this whole time, but finally, he turns his head to look back at me. “When I learned that you were the same as me, had the same thing happen to you—it became about keeping you because I knew we were connected. I knew right then that you belonged to me. As my abuela would have said, you were my angel. That’s why God put you on this earth—to belong to me. And I believe in my chest that God put me on this earth to do for you—to give you whatever you want and need.”

My mind wrinkles at his mention of God. Considering his self-proclaimed reputation as a devil, why would he even be bringing that deity up? But then I realize….nobody believes in God more than a devil. Especially someone who became one in response to something that happened in his past.

But now, the devil thinks I’m his gift from God? Me?

The invisible rope—the one whose tug I’m always trying to resist when he’s near knots inside of me. My heart flops and flips around my chest as my overwhelmed brain tries to figure out what to do with all this information. And especially the conclusion he’s drawn from it.

The conclusion that has to be wrong. Doesn’t it?

“You think we're connected because we had the same experience,” I repeat carefully in the validating tone I was taught to use in the ER. “And that's why you brought me here to Iowa—why you built this house for me.”

“I don't think we're the same. I know we are,” he answers, throwing me a grumpy look. “If we weren’t the same, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.”

I rub at my head, trying to figure out how to tell him he’s wrong in a way he’ll understand.

But he keeps talking before I can come up with anything. “What I think is I get it, and you don't. Because I'm okay with my anger. I'm okay with my crazy. It works for me. But you….”

He turns his body to face me on the steps. “You're still scared of yours. You felt that thunderbolt too. You felt it just like me. I know you did. But it scares you because you’re scared of yourself. At least, that’s what your brother told me.”

The mention of my brother only introduces more confusion into my overwhelm. “Ant? When did you talk to him?”

“I paid a visit—right before your wedding day,” Waylon answers.

“You're the one,” I realize out loud, finally solving a mystery I haven’t thought about since I left Delaware. “You're the one who told him I was getting married.”

“I thought he knew,” Waylon admits. “Didn't know he wasn't invited until he acted surprised about you getting married. I was just there to clear our beef up since I was taking you back to Iowa with me. I got him back in with the cartels and made a few introductions to keep us simpatico—that was Hades’ idea. He’s better at being nice to people than me.”

I think of poor Persy and can’t quite agree. But I focus on the most important part of this new information. “You talk to Ant about me the day before the wedding? What did he say?”

“Not to bother,” Waylon answers with a wry look. “He said that you had changed everything about yourself after what happened in that foster home you guys shared. He didn't tell me what that thing was. But he said you blamed yourself for him going to juvie afterward, and you’ve been trying to be somebody else ever since. Fighting yourself and the person you really are.”

“It was my fault,” I whisper.

And I don’t talk about it. Ever. Not even with Ant.

But Waylon—tough as nails Waylon gave me his story. And somehow, it only seems fair that I share mine. “There was this older brother in the home where we stayed. The foster parents’ biological son. He said if I didn't let him do things to me, then he’d do them to Ant. So, I let him. For months I just laid there and let him come in my room and do stuff I didn’t want. And I tried to stay quiet. For Ant. He was so small back then. Just a little kid.”

“So were you,” Waylon reminds me, his voice gruff.

I understand why he didn’t let me comfort him when he was telling me what happened to him now.

I have to look away from him just to push through the rest of the story. “Anyway, one night, the parents were gone, and he tried to touch me even though we were in the living room with Ant watching TV. And I didn’t think. I just got so angry at him for putting me in that position. And there was a steak knife close by—we’d eaten dinner on the couch. I can’t even tell you what happened. Just that one moment it was on the table, and the next it was in my hand, and I was stabbing him in the shoulder. Like a maniac. Then I just…lost time.”