Page 15 of All's Fair in Love & Wrath

“Thanks for the fuck. I’ll see you around, gotta get some work in.” I don’t wait for a response, instead leaving the kitchen and stomping off back to my room, coffee long forgotten. I don’t stop until I’ve torn my sweats off and the scorching hot water of my shower is beating down on my shoulders. I scrub all over twice before I start to feel somewhat like myself again.

“That’s not going to fucking work. Sex is what we do. That’s our stress reliever. That’s how we have fun. Get your shit together,” I say to my dick, looking down at my soft shaft with irritation. I don’t even want to attempt to dissect whatever the hell just happened in the kitchen, and I definitely don’t want a repeat of it.

Instead, I towel off, throw on some clean sweats, and wake up my computer with only one thing on my mind. Finding out everything I can about Sienna. While I wait for my computer to boot up, my mind wanders to her, wondering where she is, if she’s safe, and what she’s doing. I stare at the burner phone,willing it to fucking chime, but it never comes. I’m chalking it up to finding a woman who clearly has been abused, scared out of her mind, and knowing that she holds information that could help my club find the assholes responsible for taking Rolo from us. It has absolutely nothing to do with how enthralling and addictive she is. Nothing at all.

Last year, when our road sergeant, Rogue, had some shit go down with his old lady, Kinsey, I got to work hand in hand with one of the best hackers and private investigators in the country. Wes Draven lives a quiet, unassuming life with his little wife, Lily, in Aspen Ridge—who’s half his age, and also his son’s ex-girlfriend, but that’s a story for a different day. When we need him, he drops everything to help, including giving me access and a crash course on how to look up what I need on my own. I’m not nearly as good as him, but I can hunt some shit down when I need it, and I’m getting better and better at it.

The program opens, and without much to go off of, I type in the only information I have—her name and the damn town, hoping for fucking anything.

The results populate, and the breath is stolen from my lungs. I’m not easily surprised, but this shocks the shit out of me. It’s a fucking gold mine of information, when I expected a single hitifI was lucky. Link after link. I click on the first news article when my stomach bottoms out. I scan the document with furrowed brows and a knot in my throat.

No wonder Sienna wears her fear like armor.

Nausea rolls through me as I read her recount of exactly what that fucking monster did to her. How he held her down against her will, how she was too drugged to fight back, the details of how he raped her repeatedly, then the burns, the things he said.I force myself to read every single word.

I’ve never felt the need for violence so strongly before, theneed to get revenge. But that’s exactly what it is.Men have a fucking superpower to be the calm in a woman’s storm, to be her safe harbor, a place where she can go to let her brain turn off, but instead, there are men like fucking Cain out there abusing them, harming them, giving them a reason to fear us all, when they should be fucking worshiped and cherished. It’s not all men, but it’s always a man. And they ruin a good thing for the rest of us.

Needing to take the edge off, I open the small stash box that sits on my desk and pull out a joint, lighting it up. The earthly scent of marijuana floats around my head as I take my first inhale, letting it fill my lungs and spread through my veins.

The strength she must have to keep going, to push forward every day knowing that he’s out there somewhere. If it’s the last thing I do, I will kill Cain, rid the earth of his evil and pestilence.

I’m sworn by my club, and they’ll always have my loyalty above all else, but I won’t be giving them this information on her. Instead, I continue my deep dive, sticking to what’s readily available, what Chaos is expecting, and what we need to know to move forward. I copy all the major facts about Sienna and her brother, Maddox, who we know as Saint, where they were born, raised, and went to school. I pull anything and everything, keeping the private facts to myself like little puzzle pieces of her that I can hide away.

I know she’s never had a boyfriend after what happened to her, and I don’t know whether that is her decision or Saint’s, but I’d wager it’s probably his doing. It’s exactly how Rogue treated his sister, Lena, and how any of my other brothers would treat their little sisters. Like they’re made of glass. But I get the sense that Sienna isn’t the fragile glass made from a storm. She is the fucking storm; she just may not know it yet.

If I had the opportunity, Sienna would see her strength and realize what a fighter she already is. And I’d be the one to show her.

Days go by,and my burner phone stays silent. Every hour that passes, I get more and more restless. My head wars with the worst-case scenario, that she’s with Cain, and all the terrible things he could be doing to her. Then I flip, pissed off that the one lead at more information for finding Garrett’s whereabouts is slipping through my fingers, and I’m letting the club down.

I sit reclined in my chair, a cigarette between my fingers, listening to Chaos practically abandon this lead, ready to search for a new one.

“They aren’t our problem. Our goal is to get retribution for Rolo’s death. That means finding that piece of shit, Garrett. That’s our focus.”

I can’t believe Chaos is seriously considering not helping them. It doesn’t help my fucking case that neither Sienna nor her brother has reached out to me. Now I’m sitting here looking like a fucking madman arguing to help some goddamn strangers and only going off of a hunch and some basic information.

“We need to take the fight to them. You didn’t hear how terrified she was, Chaos. And she’s just one person. Autumn Bay is a small town, just like Amberwood, and they’re running it into the ground, controlling everyone by terrorizing the people who live there. You heard that prospect, they aren’t feeding their men! What do you think they’re doing to the women? We can’t just stand by knowing what we know now.”What do you think Cain has done to fucking Sienna? What he could be doing right fucking now.I bounce my knee, takinganother long drag of my smoke. I’m always cool and collected, but every day, a creeping anxiety has wound its way through me, tightening its grasp. I’m on edge, and I can’t take much more of this. I don’t know what it is about this girl that has me so wound up. I just need to know she’s okay.

“No offense, Wrath, you’re a good man, but I’ve never seen you feel so strongly before. You know what you’re asking goes deeper than just retribution for Rolo’s murder. Going after another club, whether they deserve it or not, is a big deal. And we’ve taken hit after hit for too long now.” Trust me, brother, I fucking know. But I’m going on pure instinct here, and something tells me she’s the key.

“You didn’t see the fear in her eyes.”

I watch as each man in the room lets my words fall over them. The Hell’s Heathens have always stood up for what’s right. We protect those who can’t protect themselves, and we make damn sure that no woman has to live in fear.

“We don’t have anything solid to go off of, Wrath. Get me more concrete information. Where’s their compound? How many men? Weapons? Who are they aligned with? You and Sin work on getting it together, and then we’ll talk. We all want vengeance for Rolo’s murder, but not at the risk of our lives. Not like this. We do it smart, just like we always have.” All the shit I was hoping to already have before coming in here. Chaos storms off, Saige jogging to catch up to him. My knee bounces as I look down at the burner phone in my lap, willing it to go off. We need to get vengeance for Rolo, and I need to know she’s safe.Come on, sweetheart, give me something. Anything.

A hard slap pats my back, and I shrug him off, not wanting to be fucked with right now. “Good news is that we’ve at least got a solid lead,” Malice says.

“And if we don’t hear from her brother? Saint?”

“We find a different way, just as we always do. You get a legal name?”

I’m no liar, so I’m grateful for the moment that Sienna only gave me her first name, because I don’t want anyone here, Malice especially, looking into her and finding what I did. With no last name, he wouldn’t bother. The club doesn’t need the details of what happened to Sienna, and I want to protect her privacy, even if I invaded it.

I shake my head. “Just her first name. She wouldn’t tell me more than that, and I didn’t want to press.” I run my hands through my slicked-back hair. It’s not a habit I have, but I need something to do with my damn hands. Is she okay? Did they somehow find out she spoke to me? I’m sure news traveled that bikers were on the edge of town, that close to their territory. There’s no way she ratted us out, she was way too fucking terrified. An image of the scars on her body flashes behind my eyes, and I have to swallow hard. “How can anyone hurt an innocent woman?” I say out loud without meaning to.

“I don’t know how to answer that, but I do know I look forward to the day I can teach them a lesson.”

“You and me both, brother.” Malice’s phone vibrates a moment later, and he pulls it out, looking down at it like a fucking fool. He’s been distracted lately, and I know it’s because he’s got his sights on the pretty little mortician he met while setting up Rolo’s funeral service and burial.