Chapter 1: Rebel Revenge: Chapter 1

The nightmares always came.

Fingers on my skin, biting and tearing, taking what hadn’t been offered. Taunts in my ears, reminding me I deserved this because I was trailer-park trash.

Darkness wrapped itself around me, pulling me down, stealing everything good, until there was nothing left except the shell of a woman who woke in twisted, sweaty, fear-soaked sheets.

I had no tears left. For days after, I’d lain in this bed, crying for everything they’d stolen from me. Sniffling while texting my boss to tell her I was sick and couldn’t come into the club. Sobbing in pain while I sat in the shower, water running over the filth I couldn’t scrub clean.

They hadn’t killed me, but they may as well have.

I was dead inside. Used. My spirit broken.

How many days would it be until my body just gave up too?

It was taking too long.

I dragged myself from bed, wobbling on unsteady legs in the dark. For the first time since I’d been dumped back in Saint View and forced to stumble my way home or lie in the gutter and die, I left my apartment. The filthy carpeted stairs in the hallway reeked of piss and left a sticky residue on the bottoms of my bare feet. It was two in the morning, but music still played from behind the door of my downstairs neighbor, and I slumped against the frame to bang my fist against the wall. “Robbie!”

The music paused, and a second later, the door swung open, my neighbor blinking at me through squinty, bloodshot eyes.

“I need a gun.”

Robbie leaned on the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest in suspicion, but not particularly surprised by my demand. “Do you know what time it is? Also, what the fuck happened to you?”

I could guess at what he saw. Short hair wild. Bare legs and arms scratched and torn with half-healed injuries. Eyes black with bruises. “Doesn’t matter. Do you have a gun or not?”

“Depends on if you’re gonna pay?”

I had no money. Nothing more than the few dollars left in my bank account at the end of the pay week. I had no property of any value, nothing to sell or trade for, and there was an eviction notice pinned to my door because my rent was overdue. I shook my head desperately. “Please, Robbie. Just give me one.”

“You can pay in other ways.” He leered at me, running his disgusting, thick tongue over chapped lips.

I backed off so quick my hip hit the railing of the staircase behind me.

For half a second, I imagined toppling over it. Free-falling through the air. Snapping my neck on impact with the ground-level floor.

Seemed like bliss compared to the pain and fear that had plagued me since that night.

Robbie held his hands up. “Whoa, shit. Settle down. I didn’t mean it. What do you want a gun for?”

I didn’t answer his question and deflected with a comment of my own. “I could tell the cops all about what you’re growing in there. I saw you bringing in another set of lights last weekend.”

His eyes widened. “I need those lights for tanning!”

I snorted. “Yeah, and I need a gun so I can use it as a flower vase. Just give me one.” I held my hand out, palm up, waiting.

Robbie scowled but disappeared into his home. I peeked around the corner of the doorframe and raised an eyebrow at the hydroponic setup he had going on in his living room. There was a small farm of mid-size marijuana plants growing happily in the middle of it. “Seriously, Rob? Not even in a bedroom?”

He reappeared and flipped me the bird with one hand, the other clutching a small black handgun. “It’s a loan, Rebel. I want it back.”

I snatched it from his fingers before he could change his mind and hightailed it back up the stairs, hugging it to my chest and hoping none of our other neighbors would decide to take a late-night stroll and catch me with it.

“Hey,” Robbie called after me. “If you kill someone, can you at least wipe my fingerprints off it?”

I shut the door behind me, double-checking it was locked, and then leaned back against it, breathing harder than necessary after the short sprint up the stairs.

One bullet in the chamber.

Not enough for all three men who needed to die.

But enough for me.

I stared down at the gun, a tear rolling down my face. With a hiccuping sob, I put it in my mouth.

One tiny pull on the trigger and this could all be over. The dreams at night. The terror during the day. The constant self-loathing and misery, all gone in an instant.

I just wanted it all to stop.

Two framed photos sat on a wall shelf directly opposite where I stood, familiar faces smiling out from behind the glass. In one, my boss and best friend, Bethany-Melissa, or Bliss as we all called her, slung her arm around my neck. On my other side, one of her guys, Nash, rested his arm on the top of my head. The three of us beamed at the camera. It had been taken one day at work when we’d been bored, but I’d loved it so much I’d had copies printed for all of us. Nash had hung his on a wall in his office at Psychos. Bliss had taken hers home to the house she shared with Nash and her two other guys. I’d put mine there on the shelf beside the photo of me and my mom, the only other person I truly cared about.

Now I wondered if I’d put them there specifically for this moment. So I would see them while I held a gun and contemplated ending it all.

Slowly, I lowered the weapon, sobs turning to gut-wrenching cries ripped straight from my soul. I stumbled back to my bed, tucking the gun beneath my pillow. With the safety back on, touching it was the only way I could stop myself from shaking.

The nightmares resumed, but this time, they were almost welcome. They were better than the one I lived while I was awake.

At least I couldn’t put a bullet through my brain while I slept.

The disengaging of the lock on my front door woke me. My will to die instantly forgotten as instinct and self-preservation kicked in.

I was out of bed, gun in my hand, fingers trembling over the trigger before the handle even turned.

“I’ve got a gun,” I announced as the door swung open. “I’ll—”

The woman in the doorway propped one hand on her hip and stared me down with a look that somehow bordered on amusement, even though there was a deadly weapon pointed at her. “You’ll what, Bel? Shoot your dear old mom?”

I dropped my arm in relief, letting the gun clatter to the floor.

That had Mom flinching, but nothing happened. The gun lay silent.

Mom stepped inside, her stiletto heels sinking into the carpet. She squatted gracefully, keeping her knees together despite wearing formfitting cream slacks, and scooped the gun up from the floor. “What on earth are you doing with a Glock, Bel?”

I cringed at the nickname I’d always despised. “Please don’t call me that. You know I hate it.”

Mom acted like I hadn’t spoken. Just dangled the gun from one of her perfectly manicured, talon-length fingernails.

I snatched it from her and spun on my heel, stomping back to my bed. I tucked the gun beneath my pillow once more then curled up on the lumpy mattress and pulled a blanket over me.

She followed more slowly, perching on the edge of the bed, the springs squeaking beneath her weight. She brushed back a strand of my crazy hair, her fingers returning to hover over my messed-up face. “Who did that to you?”

I burrowed farther into the blankets. “Does it matter?”

She sighed heavily in defeat. “I suppose not. This is where I should probably tell you to go to the police—”

I snorted beneath the covers. “I went to a clinic and made sure I wasn’t pregnant. But the men who did it? They’re from Providence.”

“Oh.”

The understanding was there in that one-syllable word. It was all that needed to be said. I was a woman from Saint View, the wrong side of the tracks. They were rich white men from the nearby upper-class neighborhood. The cops would sooner dress in drag and do a hula than take my word over theirs. Everyone from Saint View knew how it was. We handled our own business here, because the cops always came down on the side of the rich pricks who called Providence home.

There would be no justice for what they’d done. Not unless I kept myself alive long enough to carry it out.

I wasn’t making any promises on that one.

Mother dearest had other ideas. The covers were yanked off me, and bright sunlight flooded in once more. “Nope. You ain’t moping. That’s not what we do.”

I glared at her. “It’s not? How many times did I pick you up off the bathroom floor after you wrote yourself off because some jackass dumped you?”

My anger bounced right off her, and she booped me on the nose. “Rich jackass, Bel. They were always rich. And I wasn’t crying over them. I was crying because I missed their Porsches.”

It wasn’t true. She thought I’d been too young to truly remember the assholes she’d dated when I was a teen. The men who’d used her for her pretty face and tiny, perfect body. The men who’d promised her a better life, then reneged on the deal when they found out she had a daughter. The ones who’d left her as beaten and broken and violated as I was now.

My face and the things those men had done to me were nothing new to Miranda. She’d seen it all before, in her own reflection. She knew it was just the way of the world for women like us.

“Anyway.” She bounced on the edge of the bed. “You haven’t been answering your phone, so I decided to just come tell you my big news in person.”

I sat up and pulled a pillow over my lap. “Big news, huh? Did your doctor run out of Botox?”

“No, but clearly yours did. Seriously, Belly, you’re getting crow’s feet.”

She poked at the corners of my eyes, which hadn’t had any wrinkles last time I’d checked, but I was about to turn thirty, and after the last few days, it wouldn’t have surprised me if I’d developed a few.

I batted her hand away. “Just tell me.”

As much as my mother and I picked at each other, it was our love language. At only thirteen years apart, we’d always been more like sisters than mother and daughter. Miranda wasn’t truly capable of being anyone’s parent. She’d kept me alive, but once I’d turned six, I’d had to fend for myself. It hadn’t dulled my love for her any though. She was a hot mess, but she was my hot mess.

Her face smiling out at me from that photo this morning was the only reason I was still here.

She clutched my fingers in her hand, stabbing me with her nails in her excitement. “I’m getting married! Eeeep!”

I squinted at her, wondering if she was still drunk from the night before, though she didn’t look it. “Married?”

“Married! Me! An honorable woman!”

I laughed at the thought of my mother, who had a penchant for drunk dancing on tables and flashing the room her panties, as an honorable woman.

She didn’t laugh with me.

I sobered quickly. “Oh, shit. You’re serious?”

She shoved me in the arm. “Of course I am.”

“You don’t even have a boyfriend!”

She tutted at me in disapproval. “Well, not anymore. He’s my fiancé now.” She held up her hand to flash a rock the size of Texas at me.

I grabbed her arm. “Get the fuck out. What is that? It’s fake, right?”

She gasped in outrage. “Hush your mouth!” Then she grinned at me. “It’s totally legit. I had it checked!”

I let go of her hand and sat back against the headboard. “Who is he?”

Her excitement disappeared and was replaced with a calm matureness I didn’t often see on my mother’s face. “His name is Bart Weston. We’ve been dating for months. He’s tall and handsome and the literal sweetest man on earth.”

“And rich?” Because they always were with her.

Which always made me wary of them and maybe why my mother hadn’t mentioned him to me. She knew my feelings on men with money. I’d seen too much of their ugly. As a result, I’d always kept my own interests to this side of the Saint View-Providence border.

She laughed. “So freaking rich, Belly. You should see his house! It has wings!”

“So do bats, but that doesn’t make me want to get into bed with them.”

She shushed me, her expression sobering as she picked up my phone, unlocked it, and aimlessly scrolled through. “He’s a good one, Bel. I promise. You’ll like him.”

I dredged up a smile for her because I knew she desperately wanted my approval. “As long as you don’t make me call him Daddy.”

“Oh, no. That’s what I call him, so that would be weird.”

I crinkled my nose at her in disgust. “Too much information.”

Her laughter was a joyful tinkle in a room that had seen too much misery the last few days. A little of my darkness slipped away with her light surrounding me.

It was nice. The warmth of her. The reminder that outside these walls, people were actually happy, even if I’d forgotten what that felt like.

I clutched my pillow a little tighter. “So. When is this wedding? Summer? You always wanted a beach wedding.”

She tossed me back my phone. “I already put it in your calendar for you.”

I glanced down at the screen, searching for the entry, and then back up at her, wide-eyed. “This weekend? Are you insane? I haven’t even met him yet!”

“Nope! We don’t want to wait. He’s been married before. I’m old enough to know what I want, so we’re just going to the courthouse and getting ourselves hitched.”

I blinked at her. She’d always been a whirlwind, but this seemed impulsive, even for her. I eyed her stomach. “Are you pregnant?”

She shoved her hands on her hips and frowned at me. “No, young lady, I am not.”

“Then what’s the rush?”

She shrugged. “I love him.”

I stopped in my list of objections. Of all the men my mother had dated, I couldn’t remember her ever saying she loved one.

She squeezed my fingers. “Please, Bel. I really need you to be on board with this. I don’t want to marry him without you there by my side.”

Her words got right into my chest and strangled my heart. “You want me to be your bridesmaid?”

“Maid of honor. And witness, actually. We’re planning a big party for after, but the ceremony itself is strictly immediate family. So say yes, because you’re my only family, and it would be too sad to have no one on my side.”

I swallowed thickly, choking up on the emotion. “Of course I will. I’d be honored.”

Miranda let out a cheer of excitement and flung herself at me, both of us flopping sideways on the bed in a tangle of legs and arms. “Thank God for that. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to convince you to wear a pretty dress when your style is normally ripped jeans and acid-washed T-shirts. But I really need you there. His best man is actually a best woman. And his ex, no less. So I need backup.”

“Repeat that, please?” I asked with big eyes. “His ex-wife is going to be his person at his wedding to his new wife?”

“I know!” Miranda shouted dramatically. “That’s exactly what I said! It’s weird!”

“So weird.”

“He says they stayed close after their divorce.”

Alarm bells rang in my head. “Is she in love with him still? Or vice versa?”

But Mom shook her head quickly. “Oh, no. I don’t think it’s anything like that. She’s happily remarried to this very handsome man. Has been for something like twenty years. And Bart has never given me any reason to be jealous. I really think they’re just good friends. They sent us the sweetest gift.”

I shrugged. “I guess that’s nice then?”

She nodded. “She’s who he wants, and I want him to have the best day ever.”

“Very mature of you. Where’s the Miranda who stormed into the law office of an ex-boyfriend and accused every woman there of having the hots for him?”

She cringed. “I was on pain medication, Bel! I didn’t know what I was doing.”

I chuckled at her. “Sure you were.”

She laughed back. “Anyway. It’s not like that this time. He’s…changed me. He doesn’t give me a reason to storm his office when I’m half high on Vicodin. He doesn’t get off on my jealousy.”

I smiled at her. “He sounds great, Mom. I can’t wait to meet him.”

“Good. You’ll love him.”

“If he treats you well, and has you feeling this secure and happy, then I already do.” The man got top marks just for not making my mother crazier than she already was.

She beamed. “That’s perfect, because I have a favor to ask you. You’re still friends with that motorbike man who comes into your scary clown club, right?”

I froze. “There’s a lot of men from the Saint View Slayers MC who come into Psychos, yes.”

She frowned at me. “I meant the tall one you introduced me to once. What was his name? Frog? Fluff?”

I cleared my throat of the lump building in it. “Fang.”

She clapped her hands together. “That’s it!

If she noticed how his name got to me, then she didn’t comment on it.

But all I could think of was the last time I’d seen him.

He’d been at Psychos the night of my attack.

It had been him I’d wanted to go home with that night. Fang with his towering presence and ice-blue eyes. Fang who had taken me to bed on many occasions and shown me everything I’d been missing with any other man.

But not that night. That night he’d seen me chatting with a stranger, gotten jealous, and walked out without a word to me.

That stranger had taken me to his home, where he’d had friends waiting for me. The three of them trapped me inside, blocking the exits, and held me down while I screamed. Until I’d let the painful reality take over.

Fang hadn’t come to rescue me, and neither had anyone else.

I swallowed painfully. “What do you want with Fang?”

“Well, Bart has this obsession with motorcycles. He loves them. But he has no idea how to ride one. It’s so cute, Belly. He’s such a computer dork.”

I forced a smile, but the mention of Fang had me unsettled all over again. I’d replayed that look he’d given me as he’d walked out of the club over and over. I rewound that night in my head and changed the outcome until he came over, told Caleb to fuck off, and took me home on the back of his bike.

He’d have worshipped every inch of my body and then tucked me into his bed to sleep.

I wanted that to have been my truth.

And yet it could never be.

Everything good between us had been ruined in that moment.

Mom still babbled on, not noticing I’d stopped properly paying attention. “So, I want to surprise him. Can you ask Fang and some of his friends to pick us up from the courthouse after the ceremony and drive us to the reception venue?”

I cleared my throat. “Mom, they’re bikers. Not the clean-cut nice guys with shiny bikes you hire for a wedding.”

“No, that’s exactly what I need! I don’t want Bart to know about it. I really want it to be a surprise, but if I pay someone, he’ll know instantly. He’ll see it on my credit card.”

She never asked for much. She wasn’t the type to hit me up for money, though that was probably because I had none. The most she ever needed from me was emotional support when her men dumped her ass.

This one sounded like he wanted to stick around.

“Okay, fine, I’ll ask him.”

But I was not going to be getting on the back of Fang’s bike. I’d go with Hawk or Ice or War or any of the guys.

But not Fang. I couldn’t be near him right now. His rejection had caused me way too much pain.

Mom cheered and threw herself at me in another tackle hug, holding on for longer than necessary, squeezing me tight. She pressed her face into my shoulder and mumbled, “You’re going to be okay, baby. I promise.”

She couldn’t promise that. No one could.

She pulled back and pushed to her feet. “Well, now that all of that is settled, I need to get a move on. I’ve got a dress fitting, cake testing, a meeting with the judge who’ll be marrying us since we need them to open the court on a Saturday. All the things!” She trotted toward the door in her high heels, before she paused to look back at me. “Oh! And we’re having a dinner on Friday night at the hotel restaurant. So you can meet Bart. He wants to meet his new daughter before the day of the wedding. You’ll be there, right?”

I’d never been any man’s daughter and I wasn’t about to start being Bart’s, not at twenty-nine. But I didn’t need to poop on my mother’s parade either. “Fine. I’ll come.”

She kissed my cheek. “Thank you. Truly, baby. You’re gonna like this one.”

It was the kiss of death, those five little words. Because every other time in my life she’d said them, it ended in her back on that bathroom floor, crying her eyes out, while I picked up the pieces.

But today she’d said it with such hope in her voice that I couldn’t let her down.

So all I did was smile and nod and promise to meet my new daddy. Whoop-de-fucking-do.