Stephanie Tyler - Vipers Run

“Go. Just goddamn go.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Get the fuck away from me, Cage. I don’t want you here. I don’t want to see you or talk to you. What don’t you understand? Get out.”

He stared at me hard, but he complied. He didn’t fight, just told me, “The guys are at the door. No one’s getting through them.”

And then he left me alone in his apartment.

“Cage, you look like shit.”

Rocco came up the stairs—he never took the elevator. “What’s up?”

“I need you to make sure the building’s secure as fuck.”

“Threats?”

“Against Calla, yes.”

Rocco nodded. “Want me to stand guard here?”

“I’m not leaving the front of this door.”

He turned away, but not before Rocco said, “We do what we have to, brother.”

Brother . How easily Vipers had accepted him into the fold, once, twice, and back again. Each time, he’d expected anger, and each time, he got understanding.

But his anger—that could swallow him. Engulf him. It already choked him so hard he was like a mad dog straining on a leash.

He’d survived more than his fair share of accidents and not so accidental things. He’d been born into violence—it surrounded him, followed him when he tried to leave and sucked him back in.

The Heathens lived by the concept of an eye for an eye. Blood for blood. But the problem with vengeance was that it was a never-ending lineup of death and more death. Cage didn’t want to find himself simply surviving in between taking revenge on anyone who hurt the club or Calla.

Surviving in between trying to stop his family from ruining his life and the lives of everyone he cared about.

Christian Cage Owens had come to Skulls by way of the goddamned motherfucking Army, which had promised to make him a man but actually ended up making him a better criminal. He’d been a Viper for ten-plus years, bred to that MC life as surely as he’d been born to it.

Except he’d been born a Heathen, not a Viper. And while it had taken the Vipers a long time to believe him or trust him completely, once they had, they’d had his back completely.

Now the woman who’d kept him from dying, the one he swore pulled him back from the dead with her Don’t go into the light voice and her fucking sweetness—a sweetness he swore he didn’t deserve—was in front of him. And she was scared to death of him.

Which was, of course, the way it would go down for him. Why he’d expected it to be any different was beyond him.

He’d been born a Heathen, uncivilized in every sense of the word. But knowing what happened to Calla was something he could never, ever stand for. He figured that sometimes being uncivilized might be the best thing going for him in a time like this.

He didn’t know how he was going to get through to Calla, but he had to try. He had to get through to himself too. They were both in traps of their own making and he had to figure out a way they could free themselves.

I woke with a start. I’d fallen asleep, half slumped on the couch, and the sun was blaring through the open shades. I didn’t have to look in the mirror to know my face was swollen from crying, and my head throbbed from the stress and worry.

Cage wasn’t here. Because I’d kicked him out.

And what, you secretly wanted him to break back into his own apartment for you? I’d even put the chains and dead bolts on. I’d locked him out in so many ways.

And by doing that, I was the one letting Jeffrey Harris win.

I padded to the door and peered out. Rocco was sitting on a chair diagonally from the door, reading a magazine. I unlocked and opened the door and glanced at him, but he was looking down at my feet instead.

“Careful,” he mouthed, and I looked down to see Cage.

Cage, at my feet. He’d slept in the doorway. He’d slept in the hall, on the floor, against the door of his own apartment, because I’d asked him to leave. And then I’d felt betrayed that he hadn’t come back.

But he’d never left. I stared down at him. He was asleep, but the man across the hall put a finger against his lips, whispered, “He’s been up all night.”

“Me too.” I knelt down and curled around him in that small space. He woke with a start, then held me against him. When I nuzzled his neck and said, “Take me to bed,” we were up and I was in his arms, reveling in his strength.

He kicked the door closed behind us, hit the alarm, cradling me all the while.

I was only wearing one of his old T-shirts, which landed on the floor when we hit the bedroom. But he didn’t try anything—he just held me. His skin was warm against mine. I just kept picturing how he’d guarded me all night.

“I hate seeing you suffer, Calla. I hate it. That’s why you need to let me fix it,” he murmured fiercely.

“I’m sorry I freaked out on you. It’s just . . . I’ve never told anyone this.”

He brushed my cheek with a knuckle. “I knew there was shit there after our first phone call, babe.”

“I was the golden child. I was going to make something of myself. Raise myself out of the working class. Why? So I could use money to shove things under the rug with money?”

Cage stroked my back. “I always had plenty of cash. Doesn’t do much good if you’re not happy.”

I never realized how between two worlds I was. The people involved were paid to shut their mouths and transfer to boarding schools out of the country. Of course, rumors lingered, but there was no denying my status, thanks to my father. Even if I refused to recognize it, the others couldn’t. Their parents wouldn’t let them. Jameson Bradley was too powerful a force in their lives. “I’m an imposter.”

Cage cupped my hip with his hand to drag our bodies closer. “Not to me.”

“I didn’t want a better life. I wanted my life, whatever that entailed.” I shrugged. “I spent a lot of time pretending and not a lot of time living.”

“How long were you working for Bernie?”

“A little over a year. I came home after Grams died and found out I had nothing left. Only the bit in my checking account. I was so angry. I’d been groomed to be this other persona and now I was left with that sham. Because even though my father’s name got me into those schools, and even though he insisted on paying the tuition, that’s all my mother accepted from him. She’d given me everything else, thanks to the bar, to what she and Grams had worked for. But hey, it’s not the first time a man had taken their life savings.”

I heard the anger in my voice. I’d thought I was over it. “I should’ve gotten to know my father. Not for the money, because that’s been there the whole time. But we missed a lot.”

“It’s not too late, Calla. Last I saw, he was waiting for you. Sounds like he’d do anything for you.”

“Just like you,” I whispered.

“Believe that.”

“Some battles I have to fight on my own.”

“Not this one,” he told me. “Your walls are back up, but I’m already inside. Don’t you get that? You walled us in together.”

The next night, Cage waited until Calla fell asleep and then he grabbed the keys to the door at the end of the far hallway. Behind the door was an entire world he’d tried to ignore, but finally, that night, it became clear to him that in this space he might find the answers he sought.

He hadn’t been here in years. The last time was the week before he’d shipped out for the first time, and when the familiar pull tugged at him, he almost didn’t recognize it.

He made sure to alarm the door behind him so Calla would remain safe in the apartment alone—and the Vipers guys continued to guard the front door to the apartment. Then he took the freight elevator down to the private space on the basement level, but separate from the garage. He was the only one who had access to this space, from above and below.