Page 159 of Savage Hearts

I didn’t know, and at this point, I didn’t really want to analyze the state of my mind too deeply.

A quick glance at the clock on display on the nightstand told me it was past one in the morning. The only light was the moonlight and an outdoor lamp set a little distance away from my bedroom window. Enough to know there weren’t any monsters coming for me.

I blinked slowly and took in my surroundings once more. I used to be afraid of the dark, before I realized whatever fictitious monsters I had made up in my mind could never compare to the very real monsters that were my own dad and the men under him.

I wasn’t even sure why I was thinking about him right now. Him and my mom. She was probably trying to reach me, but couldn’t. Killian had stepped on my phone outside the motel the day they took me, crushing it into a million little pieces.

Or perhaps that was my daydream as a daughter—that Mom would really try to contact me, worried I wasn’t responding. More likely, she had forgotten about me, glad I wasn’t bothering her anymore.

Or maybe she somehow realized I had known about the attack and hadn’t warned Dad and his men.

I closed my eyes. Dad’s eyes—eyes similar to my own—flashed in my head.

No one ever doubted I was his. They might have questioned Mom’s fidelity, but never that he was my father. I was his spitting image. Which made me question how the brothers could look at me and see anything but the man who’d attacked their home when they were kids.

I didn’t know when I fell asleep. But I must have because I was dreaming now.

I dreamt of the night of the attack. Only in this nightmare, I hadn’t been able to escape in time. I was in the living room, in the thick of it. Men I had known my entire life, slaughtered into nothing, and leading the charge were Maverick, Killian, and Silas.

Destruction surrounded me, bloodshed and screams—most of them familiar to me.

My heart pounded faster in my chest as I looked around the chaos, unsure of what my eyes were searching for until?—

“Please.”

I gasped as I stared down at my father. He had always seemed so big, so imposing, even when his mind was clouded with drugs and alcohol.

Not now.

Now, he looked broken. Half the man he once was, broken and bloody.

“Mila, help me,” he begged.

I shook my head and tried to back away. My feet were stuck frozen to the floor, and no matter how badly I wanted to move, to run away, I couldn’t.

His eyes turned hard, a look I was familiar with.

Even broken on the floor, he still managed to evoke the same fear in me. “You bitch. I should have killed you when I had the chance. You betrayed the club. Betrayed me. And for what? To whore yourself out to three fucking savages? I fucking hope they break you.”

My breathing grew erratic, and Dad no longer seemed weak. In fact, the worse I felt, the better he looked, as if he was sucking everything good there was about me and taking it for himself.

He grew taller.

No longer on his knees, he stood strong.

“You’d better run,” he threatened. It had been a while since I’d heard his voice, but it was as clear as I remembered it, haunting my thoughts.

My eyes roamed the room, looking for the brothers. They had just been here. Where were they?

I shook my head when Dad took a step toward me.

My hands balled into fists, the nails digging into the skin of my palms. Wetness seeped out, and I didn’t need to look down to know I was bleeding.

“When I get my hands on you, I’m going to make good on my word and kill you, girl.”

I needed Maverick or Killian or Silas to appear and slaughter my dad again.

I begged… I prayed… Ihoped…

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