Maggs nodded, reaching into her back pocket and pulling out a tiny flask.

“It’s medicinal,” she said gravely. I twisted off the lid and took a quick sniff, which led to a sneezing fit.

“What the hell is that?”

“My own special mix,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “Trust me, it won’t solve a thing, but you know what it will do?”

“What?”

“Distract you,” she said. “You’ll be too busy trying to put out the fire in your throat. Bottoms up!”

I took a swig. Damned if she wasn’t right.

Four hours later, my throat still burned from Maggs’ special medicine. I’d decided not to leave—the girls convinced me that I shouldn’t let him win by running away.

Making sure Ruger didn’t win was extremely high on my list of priorities.

The party was surprisingly fun. Maggs and I stuck together, seeing as both of us were man-free. She wore Bolt’s property patch so guys left her alone. I wore a ring of hickies that darkened and grew nastier as the night progressed, which may or may not have served the same purpose. It would’ve been totally humiliating, except I’d already decided I didn’t give a flying f**k about any of the Reapers or their sluts.

And there were a lot of sluts floating around, including Blondie from the kitchen. She gave me a nasty little one-finger wave. More showed up every minute, multiplying like rabbits. To be fair, most of them seemed like pretty nice people, but I was heavily invested in hating them.

I kept wondering which ones Ruger had f**ked.

The old ladies—there were about ten total—were a different group entirely. I liked them a lot and was sorry I wouldn’t be getting to know them better. Maggs and Marie must’ve spread the word about my situation, because nobody asked me any nosy questions. The girls kept me so busy I hardly had time to think about my humiliation.

I did learn a few interesting things, though.

For one, Maggs shared why Bolt was in jail. It was an ugly story. Apparently he’d been convicted of raping a girl who worked at The Line. We were sitting in a couple of camp chairs over by the playground, watching over the kids, when Maggs started talking about it so matter-of-factly that I thought I hadn’t heard her right at first.

“Um …” I said, desperately searching for some kind of response. What do you say when someone tells you her man’s in jail for rape?

“He didn’t do it,” she said, shrugging. “He got set up.”

I looked away, wondering how a woman who seemed so smart could be so stupid. Who stays with a ra**st? If he’d gone to prison, odds were good he’d done the crime.

“No,” she said, taking my hand and squeezing it. “I can see what you’re thinking. It’s not like that. I was with him when it happened, hon.”

“Didn’t you tell the cops?” I asked, eyes wide.

“Of course,” she replied. “But the girl ID’d him and there was another witness who said they got into a car together. They never tested the DNA, although we’ve got a lawyer working on that. He says it’s just a matter of time before we get him out. It’s not Bolt’s DNA, but the state lab is so far behind it takes a f**king miracle to get them to lift a finger. The cops said I was lying to cover for him. Made me look like a criminal and a whore on the stand.”

“Damn,” I said. “That’s horrible, Maggs.”

“Tell me about it,” she said, her face sober. “I love him so damned much. Bolt is a wonderful man. He’s done some crazy-ass shit, but he’s not a f**king ra**st, you know? But being a biker’s old lady? To the cops, that means you’re nothing more than a club puppet. My testimony meant jack shit by the time they finished with me. He’s up for parole in a year anyway, but I want his name cleared.”

“Why haven’t they processed the DNA?”

“Good question,” she said. “New excuse every day. Fucking prosecutors.”

Huh …

I didn’t know where to put that, so I fell quiet. What I didn’t do was get up or look away, because while I’d only met Maggs recently, I believed her. She wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t weak.

Scary to think the system could be so corrupt.

“They definitely screwed Bolt,” Marie said, plopping down next to us. “But the local prosecutors aren’t all bad. I got off on self-defense last year, after things went down with my brother.”

I glanced over at her, curious, but she seemed lost in thought. That story could wait for another day, I decided. If we had another day. The girls were being supportive, but whether they’d be friends long-term was iffy. I got the impression that once you left the club, you were out … and I was out before I’d even gotten in.

We settled in to talk about other, happier things as the sky darkened. By nine, the kids were all gone and things started getting wilder. The music went up and women’s shirts started coming off, none of which fazed my new friends. Then the guys started a big bonfire and broke out a fresh keg. Couples started disappearing into the darkness. I tried not to look too closely, afraid Ruger had already found someone new to screw. He was free to do whatever the hell he wanted. Didn’t mean I needed to watch.

That seemed like my cue to leave, except I still hadn’t talked to Buck about a job. The more I thought about working at The Line, the less realistic it seemed. Maybe I should just let it go … I mentioned this as I helped Marie, Maggs, and Em clean up the food tables. Dancer had taken her boys to her mom’s house a while ago and hadn’t gotten back yet.

“Why don’t you talk to Buck and decide after that?” Maggs suggested, piling half-eaten bags of chips into a cardboard box. “I’ll help you find him. Let’s get this finished first, though. All this shit needs to go into the kitchen.”

“Here, give me the box,” Marie said, reaching for it. “Sophie, can you grab that other one?”

“Sure,” I said, picking it up. Marie was really sweet—she’d spent half the night talking about her wedding, which was just three weeks away. She’d made it very clear that she wanted me to come, no matter what was up with Ruger.

Now I followed her into the Armory through a back door, leading past a set of bathrooms into the large kitchen area. It wasn’t anything special—not a professional kitchen. Still big, though, like you’d find in a church. Three fridges, lots of counter space, and a big, round garbage can that had overflowed onto the floor.

We both stopped, staring at it.

“Jesus, I cannot believe what pigs these boys can be,” she muttered. “Take the f**king garbage out when it’s full. Doesn’t take a genius.”

“You think we can handle it?” I asked, considering the can. It was packed hard and looked heavy.

“Only one way to find out,” she replied. We set down the food, stuffed in as much of the spilled garbage as possible, and then each grabbed a side. It wasn’t easy, but we wrestled it out through the kitchen and into the main lounge of the Armory, which I hadn’t seen yet.

“Holy shit,” I said to Marie, eyes wide. The place was full of men drinking and women walking around all but naked. There was a bar with a naked chick giving body shots. My eyes skittered away only to land on another girl whose head bobbed up and down over a man’s lap. He sat on a ratty couch, leaning back with his eyes closed, one hand wrapped tight in her hair.

“Just ignore it,” Marie muttered, rolling her eyes. “Bunch of dumbasses. The Dumpster’s out in the front, across from the parking lot. The geniuses who designed this place didn’t put in many external doors. Built to be a fortress. Annoying as hell.”

We lugged the garbage across the room, and I felt my cheeks burning. Then a man came up and grabbed the heavy can on my side.

“You girls should’ve asked for help,” he said, smiling at me. He was kind of cute, I realized. A little older—probably in his thirties. He had a long beard, tattoos (they all had tattoos, I figured it must be in the bylaws or something), and he wore a cut with one of those little diamond 1% patches. His name read “D.C.”

“Thanks,” Marie said brightly. “Grab the door for us, will you, Soph?”

I opened the big main door leading out into the front parking lot. There were more guys out there, sort of standing around—the guys I’d seen earlier, who didn’t have very many patches on their vests.

“Prospects, get your asses over here and take care of this garbage,” D.C. yelled, and two of them jumped up to grab the can.

“It needs to go back in the kitchen when they’re done,” Marie told D.C.

“No prob, babe,” he replied. “Who’s your friend?”

Marie and I exchanged glances. I could tell she didn’t want to introduce me, but neither of us wanted to be rude, either.

“I’m Sophie,” I said, taking the pressure off her. “I’m just visiting. In fact, I’m heading out soon.”

Marie opened her mouth to add something. Suddenly a giant man came up behind her, swinging her up and twirling her around before throwing her over his shoulder.

Horse.

“I need f**ked, woman!” he declared, smacking her ass. Then he carried her back into the building as she shrieked in protest.

I suddenly found myself alone in the dark with D.C. and the prospects. None of the younger guys looked me in the eye, and I thought very hard about the warnings I’d been given earlier.

Yup—I was in the negative on every detail.

“Nice brands,” he said. He reached up to trace the stupid hickies Ruger had given me. “You belong to someone?”

Now that was a loaded question.

“It’s complicated,” I replied, glancing around. I don’t know what I was looking for. Kimber would know what to do at a time like this, I thought darkly. “I need to get back inside, find the girls. I’ll just … go over there,” I added, nodding toward the big gate in the wall to the side of the building. The gate I’d come in before. No way I would be walking back through that clubhouse by myself, not after what I’d seen in there.

“I’ll take you,” D.C. said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and tucking me in tight next to his body. I smelled booze on his breath.

Shit. SHIT. SHIT!

“Hey there!” Em yelled, waving at me from the gate. I’d never been so happy to see someone in my life. She walked over to us, her smile bright and sweet. “Thanks for finding Sophie, D.C. I need to get her back now—Ruger’s up next in the ring, and he’ll be super pissed if she misses his fight. They live together, you know.”

D.C. let me go and I ran over to Em. He frowned at me.

“Told you it was complicated,” I said, my voice wavering. “Sorry?”

He snorted as he turned and walked back into the Armory, slamming the door behind him. The remaining guys looked everywhere but at me and Em.

“Jesus, I could kill Marie for leaving you with him,” Em muttered, grabbing my arm and dragging me across the parking lot toward the gate. “At least she yelled at me to go get you as Horse carried her past. Never leave a sister behind, you know? That could’ve gotten ugly.”

“Um, she didn’t really have much choice,” I said. “Horse just grabbed her and carried her off. It happened really fast.”

“All Horse thinks about is sex,” Em snapped, her voice heavy with a mixture of disgust and what sounded suspiciously like jealousy.

“At least Marie sent you out here,” I said. “Would he have hurt me?”

“Probably not,” she said, her voice smooth. “But odds are good he’s drunk. You get a guy drunk enough, he doesn’t always hear the word ‘no.’”

“Does that happen?’

“Rape?” she asked, bluntly. I nodded.

“It’s not supposed to,” she said. “It’s not like it’s considered okay or anything, but I’m sure it’s happened here. It happened in my college dorm, too. Anytime you put people together, some of them are going to do horrible things. And you get enough horny men drinking enough alcohol, it can lead to bad shit. I’ll tell you one thing—I feel safer here than I have at some frat parties. Reaper parties might get wilder than college ones, but we have rules and trust me, they’re enforced.”

“And you grew up around this?” I asked. “Wasn’t that … scary?”

“I grew up with twenty uncles,” Em said, smiling brightly as we passed through the gate. She raised a hand to the guys standing there and they all waved back. Clearly, Em was loved. “All of them would’ve done anything for me. I had aunties all over, too, and a bunch of kids to play with—kids I’d known all my life. You saw how many children were here earlier, and they were all having a great time. Of course, we send them home before things get too crazy.”

“And what age did you start staying later?” I asked. She rolled her eyes and shrugged.

“Dad told me to leave about half an hour ago,” she admitted. “He doesn’t want me to grow up. Not that any guy here would lay a finger on me. That’s the thing—this is a family. Family takes care of each other.”

“And all these women running around?” I asked. “That D.C. guy wasn’t interested in me as family.”

Her face fell, and she sighed.

“You aren’t family,” she said softly. “I mean, you’re Ruger’s family and you’ll be treated with respect—D.C.’s not from around here, and he had no idea who you were—but if you’re serious about not being Ruger’s property, you’ll never be a real part of the club.”