He moved to the wall, resting his back against it beside me. The guy was massive next to my tiny self, much bigger than I remembered him at the swings all that time ago.

Raking his hand through his shaggy black hair, he said, “My sister, Rita, got close with her.” His sister was Rita? More shock. “We were like family once upon a time, but you probably don’t remember me. Used to watch over you when you were a kid at Felix – I mean, your grandfather’s house.”

Those eyes. Oh, my fucking God. He was the little boy in the pictures with me as a baby. The sharp chin of his, those dark eyes… My breath thinned as I made the connection. All doubt ebbed away as his words solidified. This man had known me all my life. “I don’t gotta know you to know you.” Why did my heart seize in my chest all of a sudden?

“About a year after you left, Joanne returned to us,” he continued, breaking me from all thoughts. “As she and Rita grew close, she asked that we look out for you. It wasn’t easy finding you again after you’d left, but when I did, I stuck around for a while to make sure you were doing alright. Didn’t seem to be going too well, though. Seemed to be trouble in paradise with your man. Had him followed too, just to make sure he wasn’t a fuckhead taking advantage of one of our own. Wasn’t long after that before you disappeared on him. He went to prison, came back out a Scorpion. Men on the inside said he did some heavy shit for Finley, earned himself a free pass into the Scorpions. Which means he must have done some really impressive shit inside those walls. Two peas in a pod now, him and Finley.

“Don’t gotta give you all the answers right now, birdy. I just want you to understand you’re not here to get hurt. Ain’t no one gonna do anything to you while I’m here.” His face leaned down to mine, the intensity in his eyes showing me, once again, how honest he was being.

Still, he frightened me too. How I could feel at peace and yet in fear at the same time in the presence of one man, I didn’t even try to understand it. There was such a hardness about him. The way his jaw ticked, the way his shoulders tensed, how big he was and how puny I felt beside him. At the same time, there was gentleness in his eyes when he wanted to show it. And right now, he wanted to show me it. The softness crept into my being, relaxing the tension in my arms that had been holding tight my knees to my chest.

“Will you let me go?” I asked him.

“Not yet,” he answered.

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

Because he wanted to know about his brother, I figured. How would he feel after I told him? Would he turn back on his word? He was going to lose his shit.

“You’re scared.” His lips flattened as he regarded me. “Whatever you say, birdy, I’m not here to harm you. Understand?” When I didn’t nod, his warm hand took mine.

“You’re frozen,” he murmured. He got up and, to my surprise, took me with him. Wrapping both arms around me, he picked me up effortlessly off the ground and settled me back into the bed, tucking the blue doona around me. The gesture was uncomfortably gentle. I didn’t want to feel good around him.

I warmed up quickly, and he regarded me as though he could see right through me. The only person that ever made me feel so bare was Jaxon; he read me like a book, so watching Remy do the same with equal intensity made me even more uncomfortable. I was falling into a stupid mindset, recalling all those nights as a kid I’d spent envisioning this man. Sometimes I’d been tempted to ask a bikie about him, but of course fear prevailed over desire.

Now here he was; the stranger I’d met for such a brief amount of time that I’d crushed on for years until I became whole with Jaxon. Which was why I was pushing all these unwanted feelings right out of me. I didn’t need a complication. And just thinking about Jaxon made me remember where my loyalty rested. But not even that made any fucking sense. I’d just agreed to let him go on that ride back with – oh, fuck. “Is Damien okay?” I asked.

Remy gave a single nod. “He’s a big guy. Was breathing. Out like a light from impact, but alive nonetheless.”

“Was that…” I couldn’t make eye contact, so I looked down at the square pattern in the doona as I asked the question. “Was that what you intended? For him to survive?”

His hand went under my chin, and he brought it up so that our eyes met. Darkest eyes I’d ever seen stared into my own, once again discerning every thought I’d tried to hide away. “I’m not some kind of monster,” he whispered gently. “Ain’t no life that don’t deserve takin’ is gonna get taken by my hands. Alright?”

I nodded. He rested his hand down and licked his bottom lip before he spoke next. “Sara, it’s time for you to be honest with me. Time to come clean. You know by now I’ve done nothing but protect you your whole life to the best of my abilities. I’m sure I didn’t stop every bad situation, but I’m hoping I helped make things easier on you.

“It’s time for you to give a little back. Trust in me. Trust that I’m not going to go back on my word. That I regard you as a girl with the same innocence I met on those swings all those years ago. I need information. I need your trust, and I need your help. I need to know what happened to my brother. Can you give me that, birdy?”

We sat in silence for a long while after that. He was beyond patient. I half expected him to nudge me for an answer when I was taking too long. But he didn’t. My mind was on overdrive, thinking over everything he said, what it might mean if I came clean about his brother. Trying to determine every element of danger that might arise, trying so damn hard to control this to my advantage.

I wanted to cry from the frustration. The conclusion to my thoughts directed me to a dead end. There really was no way out of this. It couldn’t be controlled. Whatever was going to happen, it was out of my hands. Life is a bitch that way; an unpredictable mess of choices and consequences, and people caught in the middle. I’d been the unlucky one caught in the centre of this bizarre kind of situation, and the more I thought about it, the more hopeless I felt.

This was going to get ugly, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do.

With a deep breath, I made my decision.

Remy

He wanted her something fierce. Had wanted her for years.

Girl was fucking beautiful. Her gentle curves; silky brown hair; auburn eyes that looked on with intensity at everything around her as she observed her small unobstructed world; her slender arms; her round ass; her tanned skin; her gorgeously pouty fucking lips that looked so sinfully tasty; the scowl she wore on her face twenty fucking four seven that only softened when she saw… him.