Page 54 of Beautiful Scars

The voice is calm but deadly serious. Benny—the club owner I spent some time talking to earlier. He seemed reasonable enough then, but now he's planted in front of me like a wall, flanked by the two VIP bouncers. His command hangs in the air, absolute and non-negotiable.

"She was here. Angel was here." I plead. "You have to tell me where she is."

Benny's eyes turn to steel. "I don'thaveto tell you shit. Even if I knew where she was, hell would freeze over before I'd tell you. You're done here." He doesn't flinch as he nods to the bouncers, who close ranks, cutting me off from the dressing room completely.

"You don't understand—" I start, but my words crash against his resolve like waves on concrete.

"Oh, I understandplenty." Benny's voice slices through mine.

"When I met Angel, she was a goddamned mess. Half-starved, scared of her own shadow, fresh out of the hospital." His lip curls in disgust. "Running fromsomeonewho'd beaten her half to death. Now you show up, ripping through my club like a fucking maniac. I don't know if you're the one who did that to her, and I don't care. You're not getting anywhere near her. If you come within twenty feet of her again, it won't be because anyone here helped you. We clear?"

"She's mine." The words escape before I can stop them, rough and primal. Despair claws its way up my throat, but Benny's expression doesn't waver.

"Maybe you think that's true. What I know is Angel's fought like hell to put whatever happened behind her. She doesn't need you showing up and dragging her back down into it. Don't come back here." His voice drops to deep in his throat. "Leave. Now."

The bouncers move in, and for the first time in years, I let someone else dictate my actions. They escort me out the back entrance, shoving me into the cool night air.

She's alive. She was here.And just like that, she's gone again.

And there's not a damn thing I can do about it right now.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Levi

Myhandswon'tstopshaking.

Sunny's alive. Up until an hour ago, I would've thought that was impossible.

There hasn’t been even one second, in all these years, I’ve doubted what I saw or felt that night. I'd been so positive. So sure that she'd been taken away from me.

Everything I've built. Everything I've created. All of it was for her. An attempt to balance the scales. To make at least one part of it right somehow. And this whole time…

Angel. The fact that she’s been using the nickname I gave her, a memory from the first day we met, to hide behind all this time makes me want to put my fist through something.

The drive back to the safehouse is endless, each mile dragging. Colt and Z are behind me in their own cars. They deserve answers. They deserve the whole truth. Even the parts I don’t know if I’m ready to face again.

That truth feels destructive. Like it’s waiting to tear apart everything we've built.

When we pull into the gravel drive, our crew takes one look at Z's face and vanishes. Smart.

I stalk into the dark house, my body humming with the need to break something, to hurt something. To make something on the outside match the chaos ripping through me. My fist clenches, aching to put it through the nearest wall, but I force myself to the bar instead. Seven years of trying to maintain control, of waiting, of planning—I won't let myself slip now. Not even for this.

The whiskey bottle is steady in my grip even though nothing else about me is. The first shot burns as it goes down, but it doesn't come close to matching the acid that's already burning a hole in my gut. The glass hits the wooden surface too hard when I set it down, the sharp crack echoing in the dark.

"Start talking."

Z's voice comes from the shadows. He doesn't move from where he’s standing in the door frame, arms crossed, but there's violence in his stillness. Those ice-blue eyes of his cut through the darkness and lock onto mine.

I've seen that look on his face before, plenty of times. I never thought I'd see it aimed at me.

"That night was the worst night of my life. I found her covered in blood, Z." My voice comes out steady, rehearsed. "No pulse. I called 911 and—"

"And what?" Zane steps into the room and flips on the lights, his movement fluid, predatory. Colt follows behind him.

"You dialed the phone and walked away? Didn't you wait for the ambulance? For the cops? Please tell me you waited. Tell me you weren't that stupid."

"I couldn't stay!" The reasoning, the certainty that I've clung to for the past seven years starts to crack. "My mother was dead. Garrett killed her that same night. I had to—"

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