I stopped to take a few short breaths. Remembering that time in our lives was difficult as fuck. I’d thought my sister was dead. It was why I’d been so angry the day I’d found her passed out on my couch recently. And why I’d pushed for her to be admitted to the hospital. I couldn’t lose Lynny.

Tatum’s battle stance softened as she listened to me. “What happened between them?”

“You ever see Billy date?”

She shook her head. “No, he keeps his women separate to work. Doesn’t bring them to the clubs ever.”

“Figures. Marilyn thought she was special to him, thought they were exclusive. Turned out Billy didn’t do exclusive and was seeing another woman at the same time.”

“Nitro, from what I know, Billy is up front about that when he dates. Women know where they stand with him.”

My eyes widened. “Are you fucking defending that motherfucker?”

She reached for my arm, gripping it. “No,” she said calmly. “I’m not saying what I think either way, but I would imagine that Marilyn would have been made aware of what their relationship really was.”

I ripped my arm out of her grasp. “Fuck, Tatum, she tried to kill herself over him. She had a fucking breakdown after that. You’re a woman—how the hell can you stand there and defend a man who treats women that way?”

“So, you’re telling me that you’ve never used women before? Never dated casually or simply screwed random women as you pleased?”

“Don’t fucking turn this around on me! I’m not the one we’re talking about right now.”

“That is true, but can’t you see that you’re being a hypocrite about this?”

I grabbed the back of my neck and rubbed it. Glaring at her, I said, “I’m standing here telling you that he ruined her and all you can say is that I’m a fucking hypocrite? Every woman I’ve ever slept with knew what the score was. I don’t lie about that shit.”

She’d been calm up until that point, but she was beginning to lose her cool. “No, you’re not listening to me. I’m sorry that his actions hurt her and that she harmed herself. You have every right to feel hurt and angry for her too. But Billy didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t hold him responsible for her overdosing. That choice was completely hers.” She moved close to me and placed her hand on my arm again. “Nitro, I get it. I totally get it. I wanted to blame everyone for all the bad shit that happened to me, but in the end, I chose how I reacted to what people did to me. Randall treated me so badly, but it was me who chose to ruin my life over him. He never made me do any of it. Just like Billy never made Marilyn take those pills and swallow them. At some point, we have to take ownership of our choices in life.”

I stared at her in silence. I believed in owning your actions, but I’d never looked at Marilyn like that. I’d always felt the need to protect her. Something had fucked her up at a young age, I was sure of it. She always fobbed me off whenever I asked her. Told me I was wrong. But I wasn’t convinced. As a result, I had always held others accountable when Marilyn was hurt. Looking at it from Tatum’s point of view, it made me consider a different side to the argument.

Scrubbing a hand over my face, I said, “You’re right, we do have to take ownership of our choices, but fuck, Tatum, I find it hard to force that kind of responsibility on Lynny.”

She nodded. “I know,” she said softly.

“That Silver Hell biker? You wanna know what he did to her?”

She closed her eyes and held her breath for a beat. I felt her pain right along with her. That fucking biker stole something from both of us. When she opened her eyes, she nodded. “Yes, but we need to sit for this.”

When we were both sitting on her couch, I said, “Back at the beginning of the year, King took revenge on one of their bikers for shit he did to King’s sister. Killed the asshole. When the club found out, they started a war against our club. We didn’t realise for a while, though, because it wasn’t in-your-face shit that they did to begin with. They eventually escalated it, hurting our families and killing club members.”

“What did they do?”

“They started off with things we didn’t realise came from them. Break-ins, assault, theft, shit like that. They targeted Dustin, causing him to lose his job and the place where he lived. He’d been in share accommodation for ages and they got to the woman he rented the room from. Bribed her to report false rape charges to the police against Dustin. That all got sorted out by a cop friend, but he was left homeless and still hasn’t found a permanent place to live.”

“That’s why he lives with you now,” she said as she worked it out.

“Yeah. It was a low fucking act what they did to him, but what they did to Marilyn was worse.”

Her lips flattened. “I hate them, and you haven’t even told me what it was yet.”

“Four of them held up the bank where she works. That in itself was bad enough, because her nerves are shot and that would have been a lot for her to cope with on its own. But while three of them robbed the bank, one of them dragged her out the back and raped her. He then randomly showed up every now and then when she did her groceries, taunting her and threatening to rape her again. After he did it three times, she stopped going out in public. She’d already stopped going to work, but after that, she completely shut down and stopped living her life.”

Tears tracked Tatum’s cheeks and her hand covered her mouth. And then the heaving sobs came. I pulled her into my arms and we held each other for a long time.

When she let me go, I said, “So you see why I protect the fuck out of her? Why I have trouble letting people like Billy off the hook for their careless actions?”

She nodded as she took hold of my face. “I do. And I’m so sorry for everything you’ve both been through.”

“Yeah. Marilyn’s had more shit happen to her than any person deserves in their lifetime.”

“I’m sorry I organised that job for Dustin without running it by you first.”

I wrapped my hand around her forearm. “No, I was a prick about that. I shouldn’t have come over here throwing my weight around. There was nothing for you to run by me. I appreciate you looking out for him.”

She pulled a pained face. “Yeah, but now he’s working for the guy you hate.”