“Behave,” I snarl.

She scoffs, “When the fuck do I ever behave? Now hurry your big ass up and get home, I’m fucking bored, and who knows what I’ll do.”

She hangs up, snickering. I pocket my phone again, but I feel calmer now. More relaxed and in control. I feel the guys looking at me, so I turn my head and narrow my eyes. “Do not even think about her, look at her, or go near her, or I will fucking smash your faces in.”

They all turn away instantly, and I smirk, even as Tony chuckles from the front. The next safe house is an apartment above a coffee shop, so after we check it and find it trashed, I decide to take a break. I didn’t eat this morning, and I find myself missing our usual breakfast dates. When I hated her, or at least tried to, they were the only real times I could be around her without the others catching on to my desire. I could stare at her without them noticing.

Sighing, I head inside. One of my guards stays in the car, another stands outside the shop, and the third sits and waits, his eyes scanning everyone. But I do it anyway, it’s a habit, and that’s when I see her.

Her.

Here, staring right back at me.

She has on a hood, hiding half of her face, but it’s her. I would recognise her anywhere. Her lips are turned up in a knowing smirk, her one cornflower blue eye locked on me. I used to stare into her eyes for hours, wondering if she was my forever, and now she’s here.

My whole body freezes, my chest and muscles burning as fear and fury pour through me. “Sir?” the woman behind the counter calls in confusion. I’m at the front of the queue, it’s my turn, but I can’t look away from her.

Daphne.

The bitch who tried to kill me, who stripped the skin from my chest. My ex-girlfriend. She’s sitting in the corner with an untouched mug before her, watching me the same fucking way she used to. An expression I didn’t realise was so cold and calculating, the greedy cunt, until it was too late. Until she had her blade in my chest, carving me to pieces while she laughed.

When I woke in the private hospital, the guys were there. They knew where she had run to, she had never gotten far enough to escape us. No place would ever be far enough. I didn’t ask, I just told them to take care of it. To make it hurt.

To make her suffer for what she did.

Because when I peeled those bandages away, I gagged at the sight of my own chest, and I couldn’t let the nurses help me wash it. Diesel had to. I couldn’t stand their hands on me, and when one tried, I snapped her wrist. This woman tried to kill me, ruin me.

Even managed it for many years. Only now, with Roxy, am I finally starting to live again, yet she’s here, staring at me like nothing happened.

How is she alive?

“Sir?” comes again, but I turn away and storm right up to her. I want to ring her neck, to snap it, but that would be too fast. How did she survive whatever the guys did? It had to be bad, they assured me she was dead.

How is she fucking alive?

And why do my hands shake? I hide them behind my back as I tower over her table. She tries to play it cool, her hand reaching for her mug, but I see the tremble in them, the fear in her eye. Unlike Roxy, she was always slightly scared of me for what I could do. She was disgusted at my fighting, yet the cold fucking bitch had no issue with my blood.

Cunt.

My gaze catches on her wrist as her hoodie pulls up with her movement, revealing mottled, burnt flesh. She gasps and yanks her hand under the table, her one eye narrowing on me.

“Gar,” she breathes. “You look good…almost fully healed.” She smirks.

“How are you alive?” I seethe, holding myself back from attacking her. It wouldn’t do us any good, but fuck, it’s hard. I want to snap every bone in her traitorous body. To make her feel the pain I felt, and not just at her betrayal.

“It wasn’t easy.” She shrugs. “But I had things to survive for.”

“Like a fucking cockroach you can’t get rid of,” I snarl, and she laughs, the annoying, high-pitched tittering sound that used to make Diesel threaten to stab her. That should have been warning enough. They didn’t like her, but I was blind.

I even protected her from him, let her pull me away from my brothers when she was scared of them. I hurt them, not that they will ever say it. I know that’s why Ryder is so panicked about Roxy, because I couldn’t just walk away from them for her.

I would do anything she asked.

I used to think Daphne would be it for me, that we would settle down and get married. It seemed like the right thing to do, since she was expecting it, dropping hints. Even though I wasn’t sure, I got the ring anyway. How was I ever this fucking blind?

She is cold, cunning, and a gold-digging cunt.

Roxy is so alive, so full of laughter, and if I ever tried to give her money, she would throw it in my face. Her hate, her anger matches mine, her scars mirroring my own. She is my world now, and it only shows me how desperate for love I was to not only fuck this woman, but propose.

“Gar, I remember when you didn’t want to get rid of me,” she purrs falsely.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” I growl. “Why are you here? In my city? You had to know I would find out and fucking kill you.”

I sense people staring now, fucking let them. Let them watch as I wipe this cunt from the face of the planet, let them fear me, I don’t care what they think. There are only five people I care about, and they would stand behind me, fuck, they would hand me the blade.

“I hear you have a new little toy, she’s cute. Does she know your penchant for pain? Or how you like to fuck hard and fast…” Her eyes drop hungrily to my chest, and I slam my fists onto the table. “I bet she doesn’t. I wonder, can she even bear to look at your chest?”

My lungs are heaving, and I can almost feel the blade carving into me again, flaying me open. Darkness circles me, my demons growing and demanding to be let free. “Answer me now.”

She grins and leans back, and I get sick of the games. I grab the hood and yank it back. My eyes widen as she quickly stands, pulling it over her head. But she’s not fast enough. I saw what she was trying to hide.

Half of her face is gone, melted—no hair, no eye, and her skin looks like dripping wax. No doubt Diesel’s handiwork. It makes me grin, and it’s not a nice one. “Oh, poor little Daphne, can’t use your looks to get your way anymore? It’s not like you have any other moves, you stupid cunt. Why are you here?” I sneer for the last time.

I’m a string pulled too tight, ready to snap, faced with the woman I once cared for, the one who almost took everything, and I find myself craving her death. I feel like Diesel, wanting to bathe in it, to watch her blood cover my skin and then storm back to my girl and fuck her with it across my body.

“I have unfinished business, Garrett. With you and your fucking Vipers,” she snarls, and pushes closer until she invades my space. I don’t move back, even as my head roars at me, my hands itching to grab her and kill her. “You will pay for what you did. I’m going to be there to watch you fall,” she whispers as she leans closer, her red tipped nails running down my chest.

I stiffen at that, my head blurring with anger, and I’m moving before I know it. Grabbing her wrist, I thrust her away, and she hits the wall hard, laughing. I’m on her in a moment, my hand wrapping around her throat. Her eye widens in fear. For all her bravado, she’s afraid.