Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

13. Eden

THIRTEEN

EDEN

Tonight, working the club passed in a blur. A blur of nerves and energy and worry.

Music thrummed and the lights were dimmed. It felt as if I’d fallen into a daze of the beating bass and rumbling floors and calls for refills.

Cash would be left on my tables, trapped under empties, while most tips were added to credit cards. Alcohol made people loose with their money, which was the whole purpose I was there, but each time I grabbed a twenty stuffed beneath a drink it didn’t have the same impact as it normally would.

Tonight, I couldn’t seem to concentrate on the debt. My goal. My purpose. The only thing I could focus on was the fact that for the first night since I’d started working at Absolution, Trent Lawson was nowhere to be found.

No sight or intonation.

No wash of that energy or heat from that stare.

I’d drifted through the foggy hours in a state of stupor, my stomach twisted in regret over the way I’d acted toward him earlier that afternoon. I should have been kind…openminded…asked him what was wrong…if there was anything I could do to help, rather than throwing insults and accusations at him.

Now, that was the only thing on my mind.

Was he okay?

Was he in trouble?

Was there an issue with Gage?

My heart stuttered at the thought of that, and my eyes continually tracked the thriving, roiling space.

Searching the darkness.

Wanting to go darker.

Deeper.

Of course, it didn’t help at all that in Trent’s place was his brother, Jud, the man standing against the far wall with those massive arms crossed over his chest.

A sentry standing guard.

Fierce.

Intimidating.

Every bit as menacing as his brother, though in a different way.

He was sheer size and strength and brute force.

But there was something softer about Jud than Trent. Something playful in the way his mouth twitched beneath his thick beard, though he kept watching me in a way that left me unsettled.

Like he knew something.

Like he was assessing.

Like I was a part of the reason Trent didn’t show.

Narcissist, much?

But I couldn’t help it. I had to stop myself at least fifteen times from sneaking onto my phone and sending Trent a message. From telling him I was sorry. That I was scared. That I needed to see his face.

That I…missed him.

Awareness slipped across my skin in a wash of chills.

I missed him.

God, I really was in trouble.

I cast another longing look around the bar as the last of my tables left for the night. The hour was late, the club now closed, so I quickly cleaned my area, grabbed my tips from Sage, and started for the locker room so I could change into my regular clothes.

Just before I ducked into the hall, a gruff voice hit me from the side and stopped me in my tracks. “Good night?”

A quiver of nerves slaked through me, and I froze, swiveling around to again find Jud leaning against the wall, hidden in the shadows.

The man this hulking fortress as he stood guard over the bar.

“Yeah, I think so.” I lifted the envelope stuffed with my tips as if it were proof. What had to be close to five-hundred dollars was tucked inside. I was never going to get used to the type of cash that flowed through this club.

“Not a lot to complain about when you work in a place like this,” he said, inky eyes appraising.

I huffed out a short laugh. “No. There isn’t much to complain about.”

“Yet, you look upset.”

My laughter shifted to disbelief, and I glanced around, trying to gauge his point. What he was getting at. I returned my attention to him and gave him the honesty he was looking for. “I might have hurt someone I didn’t mean to earlier today.”

Jud lifted his bearded chin. “Didn’t mean to?” It was only a partial question, words meant to sift around inside my head for my intentions because he was protective, too.

“Sometimes when we’re scared, we say things we don’t mean as a way to protect ourselves,” I answered.

“And sometimes that’s all we can do…protect ourselves. Ones we love.” There was a message hidden in his words.

My throat thickened. “I understand that.”

Jud angled his head to the side. “Do you?”

My mouth trembled at the edge, and I fiddled with the envelope, my questions floating out on the murky atmosphere. “I want to, but I might be at a disadvantage.”

He studied me, warring, before he gave me a little insight. “Guess all you need to know is sometimes good people have to do bad things.”

Right.

Okay.

Another warning.

As vague as it was bleak, though it wasn’t like I was surprised. It was clear things went so much deeper here at Absolution than the facade of the walls.

The enchantment of this world had convinced me of make-believe things. But this was no fairytale, and Trent Lawson was no knight in shining armor.

“I see.”

“Not sure you can handle it, darlin’.”

I didn’t know if he was looking out for me or his brother.

“I don’t break as easily as I look.”

His eyes raked me, head to toe. “Not always the physical wounds that do the breaking, though they’ve been known to cut just as deep.”

Everything shivered.

My soul and my mind.

What was I getting myself into? But I’d already known I was straddling that line from the get-go. Teetering a razor-sharp edge that could slice me in two.

Corruption clear. Unquestionable. And still, I was trying to figure out where I might fit.

“Do you include yourself in that company?”

He blew out a sigh. “Think this is a conversation that needs to be had between you and Trent.”

“I doubt your brother is going to offer up details.” Besides, Jud was the one who’d brought it up.

“Try him. Think he’s feeling as confused as you.” His expression turned sincere. As if he saw the turmoil burning within.

“I doubt that,” I told him, not sure I could believe Trent could ever be as confused as I was right then.

He huffed a soft sound. “You don’t strike me as a doubter, Miss Murphy. You strike me as someone who believes. As someone who shines.” He gestured back toward the club. “You’d do well not to let this place dim that.”

Another warning.

I couldn’t tell if this guy was sweet and caring or terrifying. If his advice was meant to give me comfort or drive me away.

Emotion clogged my throat. “I don’t have any intention of that.”

“Good girl.”

I gave him a tight nod and started to walk away, only to slow when his voice called to me from behind. “He deserves someone who will see him for who he really is, Eden. Not for what he’s done.”

Warily, I shifted to look at Jud from over my shoulder.

Fear spiraled through, twined with the knowledge that Jud was affording.

“I’m worried he’s becoming the only thing I can see,” I whispered.

His head dipped, and we stared at each other for a moment. A silent understanding weaving between the two of us.

Finally, I tore myself away and rushed the rest of the way into the locker room.

I changed quickly, ridding myself of the leather shorts and knee-high boots, the Absolution tee that felt like some sort of branding, almost sighing out in relief when I pulled on the dress I’d had on earlier that day and slipped into my flats.

I stuffed everything into my bag and headed out through the side door, smiling softly at Milo who was again standing his post. “Goodnight, Milo.”

“Drive safe, little dove.” His voice was a deep, masculine rumble. The man a burly, brutal monster with the kindest eyes.

Nervously, I glanced around, still unsure, wishing there was a way to go back to this afternoon and handle it differently. With kindness and compassion rather than with knives and whips.

The only other person in the lot was Leann, and she waved goodbye like I was her oldest friend. I gave her a wave in return before I darted in the direction of my car parked across the lot.

The soles of my shoes clacked on the loose gravel pavement, the night all around, the air chilly as it brushed across the flesh of my arms. I increased my pace, almost to the rear of my car when I heard the low grumble of a bike come to life where it’d been hidden at the far end of the lot.

My pulse jumped into a frenzy, and I froze, compelled to turn that way, only to be blinded by the headlight that shined through the darkness.

I didn’t need to be able to see to know who it was.

Intensity sliced through the air.

That dark, provocative aura shivering through the heavens. Twisting me in chains and wrapping me in bows.

The bike eased forward, chugging like a beast chained and on the prowl, held back from the hunt. It slowly rolled forward until it came to a stop behind my car. Trent stretched out his legs to keep himself balanced, tattooed hands wrapped around the handlebars and boots planted on the ground as he straddled the powerful machine.

The bike and the man looked like they’d been forged together. Cut of the same steel. Sewn of the same leather.

Peril and power.

I was a prisoner to the awestriking beauty of it.

Held in a trance that made my mouth water and my knees knock.

Tessa was right. I wanted a taste. God, I wanted a taste, and I was terrified of the cost.

The way I lost my breath as those intense eyes took me in, the ferocity that raved verging between anger and that apology.

He was looking at me like I was the only reason he was there.

His purpose right then.

The man on a mission to devour.

Ravage and decimate.

And still, there was nothing I could do but murmur his name in relief. “Trent.”

He grunted, no softness about it. “Get on.”

Um, what?

My brows shot for the sky as panic took me over. “Are you crazy?” I hissed.

He chuckled a rough sound. “Some would say.”

“I’m not getting on that thing,” I rasped, taking a step back as if it would keep me safe.

“Oh, come on, Kitten, live a little.” It wasn’t playful. Not even a little bit.

It was a challenge.

A demand.

My heart raced and my stomach revolted.

“It’s not the living I’m worried about. It’s the whole splattered across the pavement thing.” I tried to keep it as light as I could and not expose just how out of my element I actually was.

I might have even laughed had that dark face not flashed something ferocious. “You really think I’d let something bad happen to you?”

My spirit flailed. A full out war. Because I did—I did trust that he wouldn’t let anything harm me, which was crazy considering he was the most dangerous man I’d ever met.

“Need to talk to you.”

I wavered, looked left to right as if they’d offer a better solution. “My car is here,” I argued.

“And I’ll be sure your car gets back to you. Just need you to get on.” He seemed to be fighting his own war.

Torn.

This territory unfamiliar because the next thing that came out of his mouth was a grunted, “Please, Eden. Get on my bike.”

Those eyes cut me down to nothing.

Daggers and fire.

Wavering, I looked back at my car.

“Give me your keys, and we’ll take care of it. Promise to get you home safe.”

Flustered, I slammed the keys into his outstretched hand. “Okay.”

Then I stared.

Like, I was supposed to just get on?

“Never ridden on a bike before?”

I let out a self-deprecating sound. “I’m not exactly one for danger. Aren’t you the one who’s been saying I don’t fit in?”

“I think the back of my bike might be exactly where you belong.” Trent extended his hand as if he were asking me to join him in it.

Hazard and risk.

While my mind spun with what he’d just said. With the implication of his words.

I guessed the first time I’d stepped into his club was the first time I’d truly stepped into danger.

Now I was willingly diving into it.

Leaping into depravity.

I slung the long strap of my bag over my shoulder, inhaled a shaky breath, and took his hand.

Fire flashed.

I gasped a needy sound.

His arm tensed, too.

I tried to breathe through it as I let this viper of a man guide me onto the back, fighting the heated rush that blistered through my body at his touch.

At the proximity.

God. What was happening to me? Whatever it was, it felt…good.

I relished the warmth that blasted through my senses when I wrapped my arms around his waist. Loved the racing of my pulse, this unfound beat that drummed somewhere out of time. Loved the way my thighs shook when he tucked me closer to all the rippling strength of his body. The way desire quivered in my belly and everything felt as if it was climbing.

Higher and higher.

This need was something I hadn’t experienced in so long, and never quite like this.

Because it was different. This wasn’t safe. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t a tender love that had slowly been fallen into.

It was reckless and rash.

My heart on the line and my building belief in this bad boy’s hands.

My arms were trembling twigs when I tightened them around his narrow waist, and I pressed my hands to his abdomen that was every bit as hard and strong as I had imagined.

“Hold onto me and keep your feet on the pegs. Don’t fight the flow, just follow my lead. Let me do the work and you follow me through it. That’s all you’ve got to do.” His hand clenched down on my bare thigh where the fabric of my dress had bunched.

I tried to bury the moan.

His voice was a gruff whisper in the wind. “That’s all you’ve gotta do, Eden. Follow me.”

Hugging him tighter, I was struck with the realization that I might follow him anywhere. I sent up a silent prayer that I would make it through this. That I wasn’t being foolish. That this wasn’t the worst mistake I’d ever made.

Climbing onto his bike as if that was what I’d been made to do. Formed and fashioned to mold to the shape of his gorgeous body.

Like we might become one.

Trent eased the motorcycle through the lot and took to the street. The engine rumbled and growled.

No question he was keeping it bridled. The slow pace he’d taken meant for me. The man trying to offer comfort when I’d never been so far out of my element.

Still, I held tight, completely vulnerable to the open road. The air was cold where it whipped across my face, across the bare flesh of my arms and legs, where it stirred the skirt of my dress and whipped my hair into disorder, but in it…in it I finally understood what so many were looking for.

Freedom.

A feeling of being unchained.

Alive.

Trent only made two turns before we were pulling into another bar.

Though this one was entirely different than the club we’d just left.

It was a small, old brick building with Milly’s Place painted on the exterior wall. It was the epitome of a dive. The parking lot out front was darkened save for a few dim lights and the neon beer lights that blinked from the blackened windows. It was long since passed last call, but there were still a long row of bikes parked out front in a symmetrical line and a few cars dotting the lot.

Nerves rattled through my senses, and I clung to him tighter as he eased his way through and swung his bike around. He used his feet to guide us back into a spot right at the front.

He killed the engine.

It suddenly felt too quiet. Only the sound of our hearts and the faint classic rock that seeped through the walls.

“What are we doing here?” I whispered, still clinging to his back, sure I couldn’t let go.

I didn’t want to.

He grumbled a sound, and the vibration of it rolled through my body. “I’m starving, and Milly makes the best after-hours breakfasts in the city.”

He shifted so he could give me his hand again, and he started to help me off. “Keep your legs away from any metal.”

I nodded warily, and I fumbled off the bike like a floundering fish. With the slightest smirk teasing at the corner of his decadent mouth, he kept hold of my hand as he swung off the bike and came to tower over me.

This dark, dark fortress that would swallow me whole.

He stared at me through the lapping night before he reached out and ran the pad of his thumb down the angle of my jaw.

So soft.

So right.

“We should go inside.”

My nod was jerky.

He tightened his hold on my hand and led me through the double swinging doors. Just like at Absolution, everyone took note of him, dipped their heads as he walked through as if they were kneeling to a king.

It seemed wherever he went, people took note of him.

Compelled.

Fearful and intrigued.

There were only a few of the dingy booths taken, and Trent led us to one at the back. He helped me slide in one side before he slipped into the other.

A woman immediately showed at our table. Her face was weathered and worn, and her gray hair was tied back in a low ponytail. She wore a tight tank with a Harley on the chest, the tattoos on her skin faded with time.

She looked like she’d faced a harder life than anyone should have to. Or maybe she’d just lived it to its fullest.

“Well, if it isn’t The Law,” she said with pure affection.

The Law?

I had to hide a smile behind the menu she set in front of me.

“How’s it tonight, Milly?” Trent asked her. For the first time, his tone was casual.

“Better now that my favorite boy is here.”

Trent chuckled and smiled at her. “Sweet talker.”

“Not sweet talkin’ when it’s the truth.”

My chest felt light, watching this, seeing the softer side of Trent.

The way he was with his son, though different of course, as if he’d found ease in an old friend.

Milly turned her regard to me, her aged eyes edged in curiosity and a bit of speculation. I got the sense she was calculating, adding up to see if I was worthy to be sitting across from a man she clearly admired. “And who might this be?”

I swore it was affection in Trent’s tone when he sat back in the booth and gazed at me as he said, “This is Eden, Milly.”

Her questioning gaze turned soft. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Eden.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I murmured.

“Think we’re gonna need a couple coffees here, Milly,” Trent said without looking away from me.

“Sure thing. Be right back.”

She walked away, and the air shifted, the man’s nerves real and alive, almost as intense as mine. I was trapped in it. His stare. His trepidation. His fear over trusting me when it was clear he needed it.

A friend.

A confidant.

Maybe…maybe what he needed was me, kind of the way I was coming to need him.

Regret clung to my throat, the words mottled as I whispered, “I’m so sorry about this afternoon, Trent. I?—”

Milly was already back with our coffees, sliding them in front of us and placing a bowl of creamers in the middle. “Here we go. Are we eating tonight?”

Trent glanced at her. “Two of tonight’s specials.”

“Sounds good, sweetheart. They’ll be right out.”

“Thank you,” he gruffed, his familiarity with her clear.

Respect poured out of the woman. I got the sense she watched him like a hero. As if she owed him something.

We watched her go.

Trent was already speaking by the time our attention returned to each other. No doubt, he could feel the questions coming off me.

“Milly got herself into some trouble a couple years back. We fixed it for her.”

A shiver rushed at the way he used the word fixed .

“I see,” I said, the admission quieted like a secret, and I realized why we were here. Trent was opening up. Giving me something I wasn’t sure I was ready to hold.

He slung himself back in the booth, an arm over the top, so calm and cool in the midst of what he’d all but just declared.

A jaundiced, yellow light hung above the booth, and a red neon light that hung on the wall blinked against the blunt, severe lines of his cheeks.

It made him appear ethereal. Deadly. Devine.

He cocked his head to the side. “Do you?”

I huffed a muted, disbelieving laugh. “I honestly have no idea what to make of you, Mr. Lawson.”

“I think we’re passed the Mr. Lawson bit, don’t you, Kitten? You should probably call me Trent.”

“Not The Law?” Somehow, I managed the tease. Maybe it was the only way I’d make it through this.

He grunted a laugh. “No, not The Law. Not for you.”

“And why am I any different?”

Trent shot forward, that wide chest exposed, the words marked there clear.

Live to Ride, Ride to Die.

“What’s different about you, Eden? Everything is different about you. Something better. Something good. Something I’m not sure how to ignore.”

I gulped, his aura spearing me. Gripping me. Gutting me. “What if I don’t want you to ignore it?”

He sat back, disgust lining his words. “Told you I don’t have anything else to offer.”

“I think that’s an excuse. A defense.”

“A defense for you. You should welcome it.”

My heart wobbled with emotion. I fiddled with the paper napkin on the table, desperate for a diversion, barely brave enough to peek at him from the side. “Yet I’m sitting here.”

Trent gave a tight nod. “Need you to understand something.”

I lifted my gaze, waiting.

His eyes dimmed and swam and bled. “About Gage.”

Anxiety clutched my spirit. The affection I had for that child was so overwhelming I thought it might crush me. “About today?”

Trent dipped his chin. “What you said…implied,” he corrected. A wave of severity rushed. “Kid means everything to me, Eden. He’s my world. My reason .”

“He’s why you were late?” I chanced, sure it went much deeper than simply getting caught up in an issue at the club.

“Yeah.” Rage bristled beneath his flesh. Something he could hardly contain.

Still, I pressed, “What happened?”

“His mother.” He cast the words like a millstone.

A thousand questions raced as I realized how little I actually knew about their situation.

Protectiveness surged. “Does he…have contact with her?”

Guilt flashed. So, I’d peeked at Gage’s records on the school system, unable to stop myself from digging around in areas I shouldn’t. I was the fool who’d felt relief when Trent and his brothers were the only people listed with permission to pick up Gage.

“No,” he shot out. “Plan to keep it that way.”

It sounded of his own threat.

“And you were…” I trailed off.

“Dealing with her,” he supplied.

I blinked, searching his face, trying to understand.

“Some people are driven by greed, Kitten. Throw a little money at it, and the problem disappears.”

I dropped my attention to the worn table to gather myself.

Right.

Okay.

“You paid her off…to stay away from Gage?” I clarified as I looked up.

He stared across at me, needing to see how I’d react. “Once a year. She gets the money, I get the kid. We both get what we want. It’s a win/win.”

Except his voice was disdain. Hostility and hate.

“She doesn’t care about him? Want to see him?”

Trent scoffed out a contemptuous laugh. “She doesn’t care about anything but herself. She plays it off, asking questions like she’s concerned about how he is, but the second she gets the money, she’s gone.”

Sadness blanketed my spirit. Unable to fathom it. The idea of turning my back on my child. To me, it was the greatest gift that could be given.

Trent must have mistaken it as my judging him because he draped his arms over the back of the booth, way too casual considering his voice was a low crush of animosity. “Don’t worry, Kitten, she was the first to draw the knife. Blade’s still in my back.”

“She hurt you.” It wasn’t a question.

He laughed, zero amusement in the sound, the words shards when he grated, “She fuckin’ destroyed me, Eden.”

I blanched. Jealousy thick. Something I had no right to but couldn’t keep from slithering like poison beneath the surface of my skin.

He felt it, those eyes on me, consuming me in their truth. “Not in the way you’re thinking. She betrayed me. Sold me out. At the last minute, she got scared and tried to backpedal, but not before it cost my brother’s life.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, unprepared for that. I blinked, trying to read through the lines and terrified to see.

But his grief and guilt were all that I could see. The way those dark eyes dimmed, and his jaw clenched tight, sorrow bound with the rage, the two together becoming something vicious and vile.

A metal rope that twisted and twisted, chains that bound him in misery.

An eternity of it.

So deep and vast I felt as if I was going under, sucked beneath the waves of despair that radiated from his being.

“Your brother?” I choked over the words, trying to make sense but fearful of pushing it. Of pushing him. But that was why we were here, wasn’t it?

“There were four of us, now there’s three.” His teeth ground as he forced out the explanation. “Nathan.”

He broke at that. The word a barb of love and loss.

Those fierce eyes dropped closed when he whispered, “He was my twin.”

My entire body pitched with the impact.

“Oh, Trent…I’m so sorry.”

The owl on his throat tremored when he swallowed. “The best of us. Always giving and giving. He got in the middle of what I thought was supposed to have just been another job, only turned out this one’s end purpose was to take me out.”

It left him like a confession. The man might as well have been on his knees praying for forgiveness with the guilt that oozed from his flesh. With the horror and the shame.

I wanted to reach out and touch him. Hold him. Tell him I understood. That I’d lost so many of the ones I cared most about, too.

All while the undercurrent of what he’d said swirled around my feet. Dragging me out into the depths of who he was. A place where I couldn’t stand or swim or call out for help.

A job.

A job. I knew what he’d meant because normal jobs didn’t leave people dead.

His chin lifted in challenge. “You can stop looking at me like you’re surprised, Eden. Already told you I’m no good. Left behind a life that you don’t wanna know about.”

Milly was suddenly there, allowing me the respite of a breath as she set our plates in front of us, a mountain of biscuits and gravy and eggs and sausage.

“Anything else?” she rushed, shifting on her feet, feeling the strain that blistered between us.

“No, we’re fine,” Trent said, not even glancing her way.

“Thank you, Milly,” I mumbled through a trembling voice, wary as I peeked back at Trent when she disappeared.

I could only take one bite of food before I set my fork aside, my brow curling when I hedged, “The tattoo…”

I let my gaze dip to the words forever imprinted on his chest.

“Was my way of life before I came here.”

“You were a biker.”

Like, a biker, biker. Like the 1% kind that lived outside the law? That’s what they labeled themselves, right? How they were distinguished from everyone else?

Set apart.

A prideful title claiming they did horrible things.

“When I found out I was going to be a father, knew it was time to get out. Get my brothers out from under the life that we’d been forced into.”

“Forced into?”

His nod was tight. “Our father was the President of a small but vicious club back in LA. We were raised in the life. Conformed into it. Coerced into it. We were all in deep before we realized it wasn’t a good life. But we didn’t know anything different. Just seemed our lot. But the thought about bringing a kid into that world?”

His head shook with the severity. “Knew it was time to get gone. Take my brothers and my child with me where we could start a new life. A better life. We had been heading nowhere good, and all of us were gonna end up dead or behind bars if we didn’t make a change.”

The sound that came from his throat was close to a growl. “Of course, our father wasn’t going to be so keen about that. We’d made a plan that we were just going to go. Pack up and split. Get lost in some no-name town and disappear forever. Made a deal with Gage’s mom, Juna.”

He paused, maybe seeing me gasping. Hanging onto every word. Trying to keep up.

“She’d hooked up with the President of a rival MC, right about the same time she was hooking up with me. She’d be buried if they knew who her baby’s daddy really was, so I gave her a solution. A big payoff for the kid. She’d never have to think about money again. She agreed, except what she’d really done was sell me out to our father. Went to him with the plan and earned herself some extra cash.” He spat the words, venom in his voice and loathing in his eyes.

My insides withered. Curling with the horror of his past.

This dark, ominous man who held so much pain.

“An ambush was waiting to take me out. She woulda got the cash and the kid and me dead. Except she got cold feet at the last minute—went to my house. My brother, Nathan, was there. She confessed and he came running to stop it. He got caught in the crossfire.”

Trent itched. Coming out of his skin as the admission left him, pure misery on his tongue.

Sorrow.

Shame.

Guilt.

They bled and wept from his flesh.

My breaths were shallow and short. Stricken and hurting for this man. Scared, too. There was no question now that I’d crossed onto unstable, shaky ground. Ground that would crack wide open and gobble me up. Where I’d lose myself. Who I was and who I wanted to be.

Everything Trent Lawson had said from the beginning was true. He was dangerous and I didn’t belong. But still, my mouth was moving, whispering, “I’m so sorry.”

His hands shot to the edge of the table like he needed the support when the devastation fell from his mouth. “My fault.”

My head shook. “You said you didn’t know what you were getting into.”

He chuckled a menacing sound, a snarl wrapped around the words. “Might not have as a kid, Eden, but a man’s soul knows. Knows when his deeds have him destined for Hell. Right where he belongs.”

My mouth felt dry, my appetite gone. My gaze darted everywhere but at him, knowing I was pushing through a boundary I shouldn’t. That I didn’t want to know, but I had to.

“But you…still paid her off? After what she did?”

My head spun. Too much to process. This world something I didn’t understand. The one thing I did know was this woman’s face had become something vile in my mind.

Wicked, evil, and cruel.

Trent swallowed hard. “She warned us, got the rest of us out of there before it was too late, carried my son to term and signed him over to me the way we’d agreed, so I spared her.”

Spared her.

There was no more denying it. No more diverting or pretending.

No more blissful oblivion.

And still, I needed him to say it. Admit how dark it went. I didn’t want some vague foreshadowing. Didn’t want to be kept in the shadows. Didn’t want him to hide from me.

I needed to know.

Know his truth.

“You’ve…killed people?” I didn’t even know how I’d managed to push out the hushed plea. Praying for a different answer than the one I was sure to get.

Vengeance flashed through his fierce eyes, and he gave me a tight, short nod.

My guts revolted. Nausea twisted through my stomach and bile rose in my throat.

Oh god.

I hitched forward, clinging to the table the same way as Trent had done.

I wondered if we did it for the same reasons?

If he was haunted the way this would haunt me?

This man who I’d come to crave.

My knees trembled and my spirit warred.

From deep within, I had the urge to get up and bolt. Turn my back. Hide away before I got any deeper.

Before I saw any clearer.

While the other part felt frozen. Chained to the spot. Like I couldn’t get away from this man if I tried.

Jud’s words flooded my mind. “He deserves someone who will see him for who he really is, Eden. Not for what he’s done.”

Did this change anything?

I’d already known, hadn’t I? Sensed the aura of iniquity? Knew he had blood on his hands?

And still, I was sitting across from him tonight and seeing something different than the man he was describing.

My eyes squeezed tight as I forced out, “How many?” I peeled my lids back open like I could handle his response.

He scoffed a disbelieving sound, demons playing as shadows over the sharp edges of his face. “Not gonna answer that, Eden.”

Everything stung. Tears building and my throat full and the world spinning.

Trent hardened. Stone ridging his spine. “Know what you’re thinking right now, Eden. Told you I didn’t have anything else. That I’m no good. Warned you. But there is a piece inside me that needed you to understand this. See this. Know that I’ve got one reason. My son. Everything I have, I have for him. Every choice I make, I’m making it for him. And I’m trying, Eden…I’m fucking trying to be the father he deserves. To leave the man I’ve been in the past. That’s all I’ve got to give, and I will do anything, absolutely anything, to ensure he is safe. To see to it that he gets a good life.”

He inhaled a long, pained breath.

“And with the way you reacted this afternoon? Seemed I couldn’t go on without you really understanding why I went missing earlier today, and I won’t apologize for that.”

I felt numb.

Floating through a nightmare.

This couldn’t be real.

Because I’d guess there was this stupid part of me that’d started to hope. To hope in this feeling. To hope for something better.

For something simple and beautiful.

A chance at a new life. To experience something big and bright and unanticipated with him.

But a man like Trent Lawson was anything but simple.

He would only bring destruction.

The promise of pain.

I’d thought he was dangerous the first time I met him, the ruler of that wicked kingdom, and now, I knew the truth.

I needed to stand up and go.

Run as far as I could.

Miles and space and an eternity.

But I sat there, unable to move. Unable to see anything but this menacing man who had steadily wormed his way into my heart.

I sat there terrified but unafraid.

Sickened but undaunted.

Because I wasn’t sure how to want it any other way.

How to run from this man who was looking for his second chance.