“Fuck,” Wrath mutters.
“My money’s on the P.O. He’s been a dick from the jump,” Z says.
“Do people ever recognize you from your videos, Serena?” Rock asks.
“Not really.”
“We need to put a ‘no celebrity girlfriends’ clause in the by-laws,” Wrath jokes. “First Shelby, now Serena. No names that start with ‘S,’ either.”
“Don’t be an asshole.” Z smacks the back of Wrath’s head.
I can’t help laughing, which makes my head hurt. “Ow.” I touch the lump on the back of my head.
“How bad is it?” Z frowns and comes closer.
Gray carefully moves my hair and shows him the goose egg.
Z hisses out a pained breath. “Damn. Are you all right?”
Tonight’s brought back some really awful memories. And Z’s question scrapes the scab all the way off. I stare him straight in the eyes. “I’ve taken much worse hits.”
His jaw twitches.
Gray swings his gaze between Z and me. “What are you talking about? From who? When? What’s she talking about?”
“Shadow?” Z asks me.
“Who else?”
“Jesus Christ,” Rock mutters.
Z blows out a breath. “Motherfucker.”
“You said he wasn’t nice to her,” Grayson grits out each word like a slow accusation.
I curl my arms around my middle and lean over, trying to force away those memories. Not nice is woefully inadequate. But Z probably never guessed at the details. No one knew. Not Amanda. Not anyone.
After all the club has done for Gray since he was released, I don’t want my past to be the reason they’re at odds.
“He didn’t know, Grayson,” I whisper.
“The clubs weren’t as close when Sway was president,” Wrath explains.
“Gray, I swear, the first time I saw him put hands on her, I shut it down,” Z says. “That’s never what our club was supposed to be about.”
“After he got even with me, I heard he paid you back with a knife in the leg later,” I say, forcing a smile.
Z brushes it off. “Doesn’t matter. Wait, he came after you again? After that night?”
Unable to make my mouth work, I nod quickly.
“I’m so sorry, Serena.” Z stops and meets my eyes. “I should’ve understood how pissed he was. Showing him up in front of the whole club that night was a bad move.”
“You saved me from a painful night,” I mumble. Or postponed it.
Gray wraps his arms around me, as if his body has the power to protect me from the whole world.
“When you didn’t show up to the clubhouse again, everyone assumed you were done with us,” Z says. “We got updates through your friend here and there. No one wanted to bother you if you’d moved on. If I’d known—”
“I was done,” I whisper.
Gray squeezes my hand.
“How’d he find you?” Wrath asks.
“We had unfinished business.” I slick my tongue over my dry lips but it doesn’t help.
“What?” Rock asks, sitting forward.
“Nothing to do with the club.”
Everyone’s quiet. Waiting.
They’re going to force me to spill every sordid detail, aren’t they?
I catch Grayson’s eyes, silently pleading with him to let this go.
“What happened?” he asks quietly.
Rage bubbles up my throat and my jaw tightens.
Fine. Except for my therapist, I wasn’t able to tell anyone when it happened.
Maybe it’ll alleviate some of my heartache to blast them with the truth about what a monster their “brother” truly was.
“He wanted to make sure I’d had the abortion he’d been trying to talk me into,” I spit out, stabbing a furious glare at each one of them, even Grayson. “And when I told him no, he decided to solve the problem with his fists.”
All the pain and terror of that afternoon pulses to life, threatening to swallow me whole. “He didn’t want his wife to find out.”
And hadn’t discovering he was married been the extra-rotten cherry on top of an already shitty sundae?
“I’m still paying off the fucking hospital bills.” I want them to understand what happened without me having to say the actual words.
“Serena, I’m so sorry…” Rock says.
Wrath’s pained eyes meet mine. “We never would have…none of us knew he was that bad.”
Z’s face is a mask of horror, almost worse than Gray’s. He kneels in front of me, taking my uninjured hand in both of his. “He will never hurt you again, Serena. I can promise you that.”
The realization of what Z’s actually telling me sinks in.
Maybe he didn’t say the exact words—I killed Shadow. But the certainty in Z’s tone is unmistakable.
Out of guilt or respect for Grayson, Z trusts me with information that could harm the whole club and I don’t take that responsibility lightly. “Thank you.”
“Did Sway know?” Rock’s eyes glitter with deadly interest.
“About the last beating?”
“Any of it.”
“I…I don’t think so. Shadow always tried to isolate me at the club. And Tawny was…well, I tried to steer clear of Sway as much as possible.” A rough sob tears out of my throat. I was done with this.
I tucked all that pain and anger away in a box and buried it in my heart with all my other misery to deal with when I felt stronger. A day I assumed I could avoid forever, as I gained distance and changed my life.