“This is another way of our world, Red, and if you keep control on that attitude long enough, when I have time, I’ll explain it to you,” Tack replied.

I’d heard that before.

Way, way, way too often.

And just then, with that brunette’s catty, knowing smile burned on my brain, I’d had enough.

“Would that time be later?” I asked sarcastically.

“Uh… yeah.”

“Seems you’re going to explain a lot of things later and it seems you avoiding doing that, that means those things are like that brunette. Shit you aren’t explaining because you don’t actually want me to know.”

“Tyra –”

“Ignorance is not bliss, Tack.”

“Red –”

“Sometimes it’s lies in the form of keeping something from someone with bullshit promises of ‘later’,” I kept ranting.

“Darlin’ –”

“And in the end, any lie is a hurt that burns and sometimes that burn can kill.”

Tack was silent.

I was not.

“Call Tug. Tell him I’m getting a taxi. And as for you, you need to send someone else to get that envelope. I’m thinking I need a little time so I’d prefer to wake up alone tomorrow. When I’m ready to talk, I’ll call you. But you need to know, whenever I’m ready, it’ll be later.”

“Goddamn it, Tyra –” I heard him ground out but I flipped my phone closed.

This time we would talk my later.

I yanked open the door and stomped down the hall. I didn’t look into Hop’s room and I avoided it so studiously, I didn’t even know if the door was open.

I would discover Hop was done when I walked out of the Compound, my phone open in preparation to make a call to the taxi company, and I saw him on his bike.

When he saw me, he lifted his chin and called, “Cherry! Yo!”

I didn’t know if, when I saw him in his room, he was so in the throes of what was happening he didn’t see me. Or if he didn’t care. Or if he expected me to get the way of their world and not care because he didn’t look embarrassed or, indeed, anything except Hop.

I gave him a chin lift as his bike roared then he roared off with another flick of the wrist to me.

I glared after his bike, spared some time thinking about poor, cheated on Mitzi while I called a cab then I stood outside the Compound knowing exactly what that edgy meant.

Chaos, f**k, most MCs, women don’t factor.

What? Do you pass her around?

We don’t but she does.

Crap.

Truth be told, it hurt when I fell in love with Tack over tequila and he kicked me out of bed. But until that moment, I didn’t realize the hurt that burned deeper was seeing him with the brunette only a day later. He’d explained it. I hadn’t made an impression on him and clearly that had changed since.

But every girl, or at least the ones I knew, hoped like everything that when they met the one, they’d make an impression. And thus they wouldn’t ever be replaced and certainly not the very next night.

And as ridiculous as it was, as inflated an expectation, as admittedly unrealistic and even stupid, that didn’t mean it wasn’t downright true.

I didn’t know how Mitzi felt about Hopper. Maybe she understood this. Seeing the hard in her face, the tough in her manner, I suspected she did.

But I didn’t.

And I might not watch TV and I might have lived in black and white but I wasn’t literally unconscious all my life. I might not be savvy to the ways of the world like Tack but I wasn’t an idiot.

Bikers chose their lifestyles for a reason. And men became members of motorcycle clubs for deeper reasons. And it wasn’t a secret sect of society that lived quiet and kept clandestine.

Fire and Wind. Riding free. That was their motto.

Free.

Free.

Tack was avoiding all the “laters” because rivers of blood and the Russian mob freaked me out. But also because he knew this wasn’t my world and he wanted me mired in it before he lowered the boom.

Unfortunately, shit happened and he couldn’t control when the boom lowered.

And, damn it all to hell, that boom f**king hurt.

And unfortunately, that boom wasn’t near done with me.

“You got your place with the Club, I got mine.”

I jumped, twisted at the waist, tearing my eyes from their angry contemplation of the forecourt to see the brunette standing two feet outside the door to the Compound. She was dressed, fortunately, though she didn’t wear a lot of clothes. Unfortunately, seeing her and processing all that was her, not only was she gorgeous in her skanky, slutty way, she also had a great body. Making matters worse, she was standing, one hand on her hitched hip which every woman knew meant she was prepared for our upcoming verbal smackdown. And last, she was also wearing her catty, knowing smile.

I didn’t reply and turned back to the forecourt. Weirdly, my mind conjured up the image of us, two exact opposites standing in front of an MC’s compound, me in my tight skirt, cute but smart blouse and sex kitten heels and her in her cutoff, ragged-edged, very short jean skirt, barely-there, skintight top and platform slut sandals.

And it wasn’t lost on me which one of us didn’t fit.

I heard her heels clicking to me and I kept my eyes glued to the tarmac but I felt and heard her stop close.

“Had ‘em all, ‘cept the recruits. Don’t f**k recruits. They get their cut, that’s when I break ‘em in.”

Something for Roscoe, Tug and Shy to look forward to.

I pulled in breath and kept my eyes on the forecourt.

“Tack’s my favorite,” she whispered and that was when I turned to her.

“He’s also mine.”

Her catty, knowing smile got bigger, cattier and more knowing.

“As you can tell, girl, I don’t mind sharing.”

My hand itched to slap her. No, actually, my hand itched to slap someone else. Her, I wanted to know why she did what she did to the sisterhood but worse, what she did to herself. But instead of asking, I again turned my gaze to the tarmac, willing the cab to show the f**k up already.

“You’re up for it, we can share together. Tack likes it like that. Won’t be the first time I gave it to him like that so I know.”

I took that blow and while I did it took everything else not to react visibly to it.

But inside it burned deep.

He wasn’t a choirboy. He was a biker. But I didn’t need some skanky brunette reminding me of that.

What I needed was a man who knew I didn’t need it and shielding me from it. Not setting me up by sending me into a Compound that contained it to get a mysterious envelope.