Make Me Your Villain (Battle Crows MC 2)

Who was this man, and how did I keep him forever?

CHAPTER 5

Two artists had an art contest. It ended in a draw.

-Text from Price to Shine

SHINE

Looking at her on the pallet of blankets across the room, I wondered idly what it would take to get her into my bed.

Last night—or early this morning—I’d offered to have her share the bed with me, and she’d declined.

Her hands had been clenched, and she looked like she’d rather jump into my arms and stay there for life.

How anyone could break up with her, or allow her to leave, was fool’s work.

See, as the night had progressed, I could see the desperation that Teller, her ex-boyfriend, was going through to get her to come back.

I’d want her back. And I’d do anything, even stalk her ass, to make sure that happened.

Something in which I did not share with her, seeing as she was so frustrated about her ex doing it that she was downright distraught.

Probably wasn’t the best thing in the world to let the person that’s spending the night with you—one you barely know—learn that you’d stalk her, too, if she left.

I already knew that when we were rested from riding all night long and I had to return her, I wasn’t going to like it.

Last night had been the best night of my life, and that was saying something because I had a really fuckin’ good life.

At least I did now that everyone was home and where they were supposed to be.

Thinking of that one really dark part of my life, that time when my sister had been missing and presumed dead, wasn’t so good.

I’d spent a year searching to no avail, my every waking moment was consumed with her.

When she was returned home, healthy but mentally scarred, that had been the happiest day of my life.

“If I didn’t know you so well after the night we spent together talking nonstop, I’d be running for the hills right now.”

The soft, sleepy voice had me blinking and turning my head to stare at the woman across the room from me.

She was on the floor, in a cocoon of blankets, staring at me with wide eyes.

“Want to talk about it?” she asked carefully.

Did I?

I didn’t really know.

That year wasn’t talked about.

Mostly because my sister couldn’t handle talking about it.

And since we wanted her to love us, and not run away from us like she had every time we broached the subject, we’d allowed her to retreat and not talk about that part of her life.

But it didn’t matter.

At this point, everyone knew what happened to her.

We’d found the man responsible and made him talk.

Every last fuckin’ day had been accounted for, and what we knew was that she’d spent the majority of her year with him, being controlled in every way you could be controlled.

The one saving grace was that Cannel had never been raped.

“Scary.”

I tried to pull myself out of the fog of anger and focused on Iris’s beautiful face as I did.

“A few years ago, my sister was kidnapped out of a grocery store parking lot and held captive for a year by a swanky businessman who had the money to buy my sister from human traffickers.” I paused. “It took a year for her to be rescued, and in the years it’s been since she was taken and returned to us, my sister has struggled. It was only when she met her now-husband, Will, that she started to return to us for real. Become the sister we once knew, and not the victim that she turned into.”

Iris sat up. “That was your sister?”

Cannel’s life wasn’t a secret. Everyone knew of her and her situation because we hadn’t been quiet in our attempts to find her. Any information was enough, and if we had to tell Cannel’s life story to get even a single scrap, then it was worth it.

Sadly, now that meant that everyone who watched the news at least once in that year that Cannel was missing knew her entire story.

“When I lived in Tennessee, I heard about her. I also kind of followed the story for a while.” She paused. “I had my own kidnapping attempt, and it was somewhat of an obsession for me—helping victims.”

“You were nearly hurt in that way?” I asked.

The casualness in my voice hid the anger that was rolling through me at the thought of this beautiful, bubbly girl having to face what my sister faced.

Women should never have to worry about that kind of stuff.

Never.

Yet, every day I witnessed a woman in some sort of fear.

It didn’t matter if they were taking a walk with their kid in my neighborhood or walking out to their car from the mall. Women were always in danger, and they knew it. It showed in their body language.