Page 76 of Vengeance

“Like what?”

Taking a deep breath, he looks at her. “I should probably start at the beginning.”

“That’s where most of the best stories start, yes. You’re kind of scaring me, Grayson.”

“Don’t be scared,” he says and kisses her softly. “We got to the house, and we heard Billy confessing his other kills to her. Said she was going to be his tenth.”

Ashley’s jaw drops, and she blinks a few times at him as though waiting for him to tell her the punchline to a joke. “You’re kidding.”

“No, and then we heard him... he hurt her. He had her strapped naked to plywood, and he whipped her with an electrical cord.”

“What?”

“I gave her my shirt because I had no idea where he put her clothes, and she was exposed and bleeding. I just... I can’t fathom how a man could do that to a woman. To anyone, but especially a woman.”

Dropping her hands from his face, she asks, “Is he... is he dead?”

Grayson shakes his head. “No.”

“Really? Ty let him live?”

“I made him.”

“You were a cop...” It doesn’t take a mind reader to know she disagrees with the decision.

Looking down, he takes her hands in his. “Yeah, I was. And at first, I believed he needed to be alive because his other victims deserve justice. And they do, but the moment I saw Tara, my mind changed. I understand now. I understood a little when your ex, Bane, kidnapped you and Lex, and I gave him to the club, but this is different. This is... senseless abuse and sick and twisted thinking.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” he asks and looks up into her eyes, his hands still holding hers.

“Because you’re seeing a different side of things. The bad side. You’re good, and the club is bad.”

He chuckles. “That’s a very black and white way to look at it, but I don’t think the club is all bad. They do bad things, but the way Ty switched from wanting to murder that asshole to caring for Tara and helping her outside... that’s not a bad man. That’s a good man who does bad things. The only reason I’m glad he let me call in the Sheriff is because there wasn’t enough time to do to that man what he deserved and get Tara the medical attention she needed.”

“It was that bad?”

“I don’t know everything he did to her, and she didn’t offer it up, but she was bloody and beaten. And naked. He deserves the worst possible death, and we wouldn’t have had time to do it before the cops came.”

“Grayson, you’re a good man, and you do good things. You wouldn’t have let Ty-”

“I would’ve helped Ty,” he says, his eyes locked on hers. “Seeing what I saw and hearing what I heard, I would’ve helped him. And I’m not sure I would have felt guilt. Maybe a little, but justice would have prevailed. And I understand why Julian and Travis had the relationship they had with the club. How to get things done where the law screwed us.”

Julian Black and Travis Hall, the heads of the Griffin’s Beach Police Department and the men who fired Grayson, have had an arrangement with the club for decades. They’d work the system and help the club out where possible, and the club did the dirty work the cops couldn’t. Like taking care of an abuser who was let off on a technicality. It makes so much sense to him now, and he wonders if things might’ve been different if he truly understood the impact each had on the other.

“Grayson-”

His lips crashing onto hers stop her words, and she seems to find the same comfort in him as he does her when she opens her mouth and tangles tongues with him. Her legs shift to straddle his lap, and he pulls her shirt over her head, loving the fact she wears no bra underneath.

“Nothing calms me like you do, Ashley. Being with you and touching you puts my entire body at ease like nothing else,” he says and kisses down her neck to her right breast, sucking her nipple into his mouth.

Her hand cups the back of his head, and she arches her back, grinding her hips against his. “Being with you does the opposite for me. It gives me a high I’ve only ever found in drugs before, and I feel like I might die without you. That’s why the thought of losing you makes me crazy.”

His mouth releases her, and he looks up into her eyes. “Baby, you’re never losing me. Never.”

“You say that, but-”

“Life is short. Seeing Ty almost lose the woman he loves tonight reminded me how short it is. Colt almost lost Lex, and I’m sure there have been a hundred other situations in the past similar to that. You almost got shot. I had to kill an asshole attempting to break into our house to hurt you. Life is so damn short.”

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