Chapter 3

My right boot hadn't even hit the concrete yet.

Daryl let out a low, guttural grunt. His massive frame hunched forward, his knee slamming hard against the concrete floor of the garage. No one in the room dared to breathe.

I stood over him, my chest heaving.

"That cut on your lip won't scar. You still want to go to her bullshit anniversary tomorrow night? Fine—the ink isn't totally dry on this arrangement yet. We can still back out. I didn't even bite you that hard."

In my past life, it was exactly this sickeningly familiar routine—the feigned vulnerability, the tears, the guilt-tripping with a so-called "anniversary"—that had slowly bled my sister, Serena, dry.

The second Daryl used his silence to coddle that woman's fragility and let his wife be publicly humiliated, the whole thing had gone rotten to the core.

But I wasn't Serena.

She had a gentle sort of backbone; she would bite her tongue, swallow the indignity, and suffer the cold shoulder in silence.

I couldn't do that. I wasn't going to swallow a single drop of this bullshit.

"Isn't it enough that you bit him like a psycho in front of everyone?!" Chloe's shrill voice pierced the dead air. She stepped forward, chin trembling, her tear-filled eyes locked on me in furious accusation. "What kind of wife acts like that? Even if you're just some arranged bride, who the hell do you think you are, going for the Prez's throat on day one?!"

A few patched members in the crowd murmured in agreement. I could feel the room turning on me.

Then Daryl stood up. He brushed the dust off his leather cut, walking right past Chloe.

He stopped in front of me and seized my hand.

"She swung because I let her," his incredibly low voice slammed against the garage floor, carrying a localized, absolute threat. "And I'll gladly take it."

He shot a cold glare at Chloe. "I'm going to that anniversary tomorrow night." He squeezed my hand tighter. "But she's coming with me."

That blunt statement utterly shattered Chloe's fantasy of a private date.

Chloe's face crumbled. "Daryl..." She took a step back in disbelief, her voice shaking. "How can you... throw away everything we had for some arranged bride who just walked through the door?"

Met with zero sympathy to soothe her act, she let out a humiliated, choking sob, covered her mouth, and shoved her way blindly through the crowd out into the night.

Daryl's large hand tightened, his rough calluses scraping heavily against my knuckles. "Let's just get through the rest of this traditional shit. I'll explain everything tonight."

I didn't pull my hand away. But I didn't lean into him, either.

The rest of the toasts and the jeering blurred together. The club brothers came over with cheap beers to clink glasses.

Some looked at me with the crude respect reserved for someone who could hold their own, while others just glared with defensive suspicion. I didn't give a single one of them a smile.

When the heavy door of the second-floor bedroom slammed shut behind us, I yanked the solid steel wrench out of my canvas bag and slammed it onto the metal desk with a loud clang.

"Let's get one thing straight." I turned around, glaring at him. "I just bit your lip until it bled and kicked you in front of your entire club. That wasn't some twisted wedding-night kink, and it sure as hell wasn't a joke."

I took a step closer, backing him up. "If you're the kind of President who wears my ring but is ready to come running the second he's called away by another woman's tears—say it right now. This alliance isn't set in stone. I can hop on my bike right now, throttle up, and roll right back to my turf."

"You're not leaving."

"Excuse me?"

"I said, you're not leaving." He sat heavily on the edge of the mattress, running his thumb over his scabbed lower lip. "I've spent my whole life living on the edge of a blade. I give orders, I lay my life on the line to settle scores... I don't excel at talking about romantic bullshit."

He looked up, those pitch-black eyes locking dead onto mine. "But I let you draw blood tonight because I wanted to. Not for the alliance, and not for a piece of paper. I watched you bare your teeth over a single ounce of disrespect, and my gut knew—you've got the spine for this life. I don't want a quiet wife."

My heart hammered against my ribs. I clenched my jaw, crossing my arms tighter across my chest.

"You've got terrible taste. Ten minutes ago I made you drop to one knee."

His mouth twitched. It was almost a smile. "I know. That's exactly what hooked me."

"...I have an ugly temper. Extremely ugly. If something's wrong, I don't drop hints—I kick doors down. You sure you want someone like that riding by your side?"

"I'm certain."

The pure conviction in his voice made my face burn. I hated the feeling.

I didn't remember who moved first. One second I was standing there with my arms crossed, and the next, his hands were clamped securely around my waist, his heavy breathing brushing against the side of my neck.

My knuckles turned white where I gripped his leather jacket. I tilted my head to boldly meet those dark eyes, showing zero intention of backing down an inch.

"If you don't want to keep going—" his voice was a deep rumble, his throat bobbing, "push me away right now."

I grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked the towering man a few inches closer to me. "Did I say stop?"

Suddenly, panicked shouts erupted from the hallway, followed by violent pounding on the door.

"Boss! We got a situation!" A fist battered desperately against the wood. "Chloe left a damn note! She took that beat-up pickup and drove straight onto the coastal highway! A storm just hit, and she's flooring it right toward the cliffside stretch!"

Daryl went rigid.

His hands didn't drop. Instead, his grip dug harder into my waist for a split second. He looked down at me, a muscle ticking in his clenched jaw as duty warred with heavy reluctance.

"Fuck," he muttered under his breath.

Pulling away with obvious frustration, he finally turned and strode toward the door.

"Stop right there."

I lunged and grabbed a fistful of his cut—right over the club patch on his back—yanking him so hard he stumbled and halted by the doorframe.

"A storm just rolled in out there," he said, not even turning his head, his voice tight and heavy with frustration. "That stretch of the cliff doesn't even have guardrails, I have to—"

"You have to what?" I sneered, slapping the cold, bloody reality right in his face.

"You have fifty patched-in outlaws under your command! You can't put together a fucking search party?! She throws a tantrum, and YOU have to play savior?!"