Page 22 of Nightmare’s Playground

“When she came home…” Denali shook his head slowly. “She wasn’t the same kid.”

I’m sure she wasn’t.

“She was always talking after that,” Ruthless added, his voice barely above a whisper. “Before, she’d been really shy.” He smiled sadly. “Hid behind our Momma’s legs when company came over. But, after?” He let out a humorless laugh before his hard eyes locked on mine. “It was like they’d taken her voice from her, and when she got it back, she decided she was never gonna stop using it.”

Pure rage coursed through my veins.

God. I felt like such a bastard.

How many times had I walked away from her when she’d tried to say hello?

Or when she’d tried to make conversation?

How many times had I prayed to the Gods that she’d be quiet for five fucking minutes?

“Does she remember any of it?” I wondered. If she’d only been five, maybe that was a blessing.

“Bits and pieces,” Denali answered. “Thankfully she was only five when it happened.”

Setting my beer down on the table, I pushed it back to keep from launching it across the god damn room.

“Please, for the love of the Gods, tell me they tracked down those fuckers and slit every one of their throats.”

If not, I was willing to do the job myself.

Denali exhaled heavily before shaking his head in the negative. “Afraid not.”

I know my jaw had to of hit the fucking floor. There was no way he said they didn’t get justice for Joy.

“They didn’t want to risk a war,” he explained.

“A war?” I snorted as the rage grew hotter at the injustice of it all. “They declared war the minute they put their fucking hands on her.”

“We know that,” Denali said, eyeing me like he just figured something out. What the fuck ever. I didn’t care. Joy was their sister. If it’d been my sister those cocksuckers took, heads woulda’ fuckin’ rolled.

“Then why the fuck didn’t anybody do shit about it?”

“I was seventeen, Nightmare,” Denali growled, narrowing his eyes.

Good. He should be pissed.

“Ruthless and me didn’t have a vote.” He threw out a hand. “Pop went to Rogue and asked for the club to take a stand. Rogue did what a good president would do, and took it to the table.”

“And?”

Denali scrubbed his hands over his face. “The club voted that our sister wasn’t worth the risk of losing a brother.”

Ruthless drained his beer and slammed the empty on the table. “We were gonna handle it ourselves. Me and Drew.” He nodded at his brother. “We had it all planned out.”

“What happened?”

“Pop told us to let it go.” Ruthless shrugged one shoulder. “Said if we did it, we’d have the whole club on our backs, and Joy would lose two brothers on top of everything else.”

Didn’t sound like much of a choice to me.

Then again, I was a firm believer in an eye for a fuckin’ eye. I didn’t give a fuck if the whole world went blind.

Joy’d been just a little girl, no bigger than JJ.