Scars of Yesterday (Sons of Templar MC 8)

Olive was picking the kids up from school, filling in for me after I’d told her I had something urgent come up. Rest assured, I wasn’t going to tell her the details. She’d been happy over the years to know the bare minimum when it came to the club.

Evie and Ashley were here because they did not have men in cuts telling them what to do—though Wire shot Ashely a look when he entered the house.

Various men came through the house, checking for explosives, other creatures or recording devices.

They found none, thankfully.

But they also found that the snakes in my underwear drawer were highly venomous. This little tidbit had Kace checking me for bites once again. I was dressed by then, thankfully Evie had brought clothes with sleeves long enough to cover the marks on my arms.

Once all was declared safe, the men started to disperse. But not without promises of vengeance, expressing their determination in finding whoever this was and ending them. I trusted them to do so. I would not lose a single wink of sleep, knowing this person was going to die.

The watch was back on now. Kace was going to go DEFCON level alpha, no doubt.

Ashely and Evie eventually left. Evie had offered me and the kids to come and stay at her place, but I’d refused. Exactly like she had expected me too. Nothing was scaring me out of my home.

Olive was going to have the kids for dinner so I could get my shit under control. So I could do my own check of the house. So I could have a conversation with Kace. Or so he could have a conversation with me. The testosterone was almost leaking out his ears at this point.

He paced the kitchen while I made M&M tea.

“This is my shit. Coming to haunt me. Haunting you. It fucking has to be,” he grated out, running a hand through his hair.

I frowned at him, pouring M&Ms into a mug. “How does this have anything to do with you?”

Kace stopped pacing to stare at me. “Because, the Sons are legit now. The Amber chapter doesn’t have the kind of enemies who go after Old Ladies. Who’d do this fucked up shit. My old chapter... we did. Thought I’d cut ties. Thought I could come here to start a new life. But fuck!” he yelled the last word. I jumped, not expecting the outburst. The violence in it.

I was also jumpy because, well, there were fucking snakes in my underwear drawer this morning.

“You think that someone or something has not only followed you, but stalked you for long enough to see that you were in a relationship with me? And then stalked me for long enough to know my routines and then do cowardly things like cutting my brakes or putting fucking snakes in my underwear drawer?” I asked. “No, that’s not exactly the style of any guy in the MC life.”

Kace stared at me. I could tell he wanted to argue because he wanted to take the blame for this, wanted to shoulder all of the responsibility, even if it didn’t make sense. That’s who Kace was. That’s who all of these men were. They appreciated their women. They knew our strength, but they’d never want us to have to use it.

“Yeah, but you don’t exactly live the life of someone who has secret enemies who like to torment them and attempt to murder them,” he retorted.

He wasn’t wrong.

“If this doesn’t have anything to do with me or the club, and that’s a big fucking if, babe, it was that lawyer fucker, I know it,” he hissed.

The club had already sufficiently scared the shit out of Edmond. Lucky had given me the play-by-play in a tone that had told me Edmond had embarrassed the shit out of himself. Much like I’d expected him to.

Then again, he wasn’t scared enough by the looks of our interaction today. But he also wasn’t the one to put the snakes in my drawers, considering I was punching him in the face around the time someone was doing that.

But Cade had been convinced that he was not the one who cut my brakes, and on the slim chance he had, he had far too much self-preservation to try anything else.

Kace, on the other hand, had not let it go.

I rubbed my arms without thinking, trying to figure out how in the fuck I was going to hide the bruises—that would only grow darker—from him. The time was long passed where I could push him away. Where I could reject his touch. Ignore my need for him. Sure, if I really meant it, he wouldn’t touch me.

The problem was, I could never mean it. Couldn’t even pretend to mean it.

Kace noticed the way I rubbed my arms, the way my face looked when I did it.