She came back and handed him a bottle of beer. Her own, he saw, was half gone already. So he put his to his lips and caught up.

Instead of sitting next to him on the sofa, she sat on the table in front of him. Her golden eyes were serious and sad. "Connor, what do you want?"

"What do you mean?"

"From me? Or us? I'm not giving you what you want, or need, I guess. I need to know if I even can. Because what we've been doing these past couple of weeks...I can't anymore."

"I need you." Even being sure that they should end, he couldn't get around that bald truth.

But she shook her head. "I don't know what that means. What is it you need? A scapegoat? An emotional punching bag? Because I can't be that anymore. I'm sorry for my part in all of this, and I've been tearing myself up about it. But the truth is, all I did was ask for help. I didn't drag you into it. I didn't force you or even manipulate you. I was honest about all of it."

He knew that, and he knew he should say so. But all he could do was stare into her eyes.

After a minute, she made a dry noise, like the opposite of a laugh. "And you know what? I need you. My family fell apart, too, Connor. I know you don't care about my brother. But don't you care about me?"

"I love you." Another bald truth that was lately more pain than anything else.

She finished her beer and set the empty bottle next to her on the table. Then she leaned in, resting her elbows on her knees. "Connor, I'm hurting. Whatever you feel about Hugo, he was my little brother. I loved him. I love Nana. And I'm hurting. But I'm afraid to feel it, because I'm doing it alone. You won't get out of your head and help me."

"You're not doing it alone. You're never f.u.c.king alone."

She made a violent, growing sound and raked both hands through her wavy hair. "MOTHERf.u.c.kER. If you don't let that go, and I mean right now, then you need to f.u.c.king leave. Because I can't-I won't-fight about that with you ever again. I'm not giving up my best friend because you're an insecure s.h.i.thead. I've told you a hundred times that he is not a threat to you."

There was a part of him that hated Kyle Moore even more intensely then he hated Hugo. He knew they weren't f.u.c.king. She said it, and he believed it. But that didn't even matter. His jealousy wasn't about that at all. Moore was always there, always at her side. She spent so much more time with her best friend than she ever would with Connor. And as the distance grew between them, Moore was filling it. Being a hero with her, being a hero for her.

And that was the thing, wasn't it? That was it.

That was it.

Moore was a f.u.c.king hero. Pilar was a hero. They spent their lives saving people, undoing other people's wrongs, their mistakes and their evils. Undoing even acts of G.o.d. What was Connor? A man who beefed with gangsters, who sat down with drug lords. Who planned a.s.sa.s.sinations. A killer. A drug runner. An outlaw. A man who brought violence into the world.

And that was all he'd ever wanted to be.

He could never be her hero.

Leaning forward, he set his half-finished beer next to her empty. Then he picked her hands up in his. "I love you. I've never felt like this about anybody, either. If there's such a thing as soulmates, I think you're probably mine. But I can't be what I need to be for you."

"I don't even know what that means."

There was no point in explaining. So he lifted one of her hands-so small to be so strong-to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "I'm gonna go. Take care."

He stood and crossed the room to pick up his jacket. As he reached the door, clasping his hand around the k.n.o.b, she grabbed his arm in both hands and yanked him back. He was too big for her to turn like that, but he looked over his shoulder, and he let her keep hold of his arm.

She was crying. Yanking on his arm again, she said through her tears, "f.u.c.k you! Just f.u.c.k you! You don't get to tell me I'm your G.o.dd.a.m.n soulmate and then just walk out of my life. I let you know me. I let you in! How do you just f.u.c.king walk away from that?"

"Cordero..."

At that, she went ballistic, shoving and punching, even going for his face. "Pilar! I'm Pilar! f.u.c.k you!"

Acting on the instinct of self-protection, he fought through her whirling fists and grabbed her shoulders. Then he spun and shoved her against the wall, fighting until he had her pinned. Their s.e.x had not infrequently begun in such a way, and his c.o.c.k took notice, despite his mind's need to get clear of all of this.

They stared furiously at each other while the painful confusion of needing her and needing to be away ripped him up. Finally, he roared and punched the wall he'd shoved her into.

She didn't flinch. Instead, she turned her head toward the fist that was still pressed to the wall, and then she turned back.

"Hurt me."

His brain wouldn't make sense of that. "What?"

Tears had made her eyeliner or whatever it was run, and the effect made her look vulnerable. "You need to hurt me. So hurt me. I need it, too. But my body, not my feelings. I can't take that anymore."

"What? No!"

He'd let go of one of her shoulders when he'd punched the wall, and now her left arm was free. She hit him in the chest with the flat of her hand. "Yes! We can't talk it out, so let's f.u.c.k it out. Hurt me."

"Jesus! No!" He shoved away from her and crossed to the other side of the room.

But she was right on him, hitting him again, shoving him. "Yes! Come on! I know you want it. You're hard. So let's go."

Again, he grabbed her. This time, instead of putting her on the wall, he closed her up in a bear hug. "I don't want to hurt you. Stop."

She fought his hold. "All you've done since it happened is hurt me, a.s.shole. I just want you to do it honestly." Her arm slipped free of his grip, and she slapped him. Hard. The whole side of his face stung.

For the past weeks, his control over anything going on inside him had been tenuous at best. At that slap, it broke entirely. "You want me to hurt you? You want to f.u.c.k it out?" he snarled, and then, almost literally, he threw her into the little side room off her living room, a tiny s.p.a.ce she called her library.

She wheeled backward and landed on the worn area rug, and he followed after her, dropping most of his weight on her. She fought him, but he overpowered her, grabbing her arms and clasping them together, then tearing at her clothes, yanking her pants down and then flipping her over onto her stomach.

s.n.a.t.c.hing at his belt and jeans, he released his c.o.c.k and then lifted her hips and shoved into her. It had been weeks since they'd f.u.c.ked, and he shouted at the intensity of feeling as her wet p.u.s.s.y closed around him.

He f.u.c.ked her furious and fast, his hands clenched hard around the parts of her body they held, his hips slamming brutally against her a.s.s.

She came hard, silently, her body tightening fiercely around him, and he followed right after her, the o.r.g.a.s.m ripping through his body and brain until he thought he'd die.

And then he did feel a little better.

But as he came back into the moment, as his clenched body began to relax, he realized that he had his hand around her throat. Then he saw that her face, pressed hard, sideways, into the rug, was an angry, dangerous shade of purplish red.

"Jesus f.u.c.k!" He let her go and nearly jumped away, pulling out and falling back and away from her. She took a huge, strangled breath and rolled to her side, curling her body into a fetal ball.

He stared down at his hand as if it were a stranger, a parasite attached to his body. Then he looked back at Pilar. She was still in that ball, still taking big breaths.

"Baby. Baby, I'm sorry."

She didn't answer or even indicate that she'd heard him.

"Are you okay?"

After a second, she nodded. But she didn't unfurl her body.

That wasn't what she'd meant when she'd asked-demanded-that he hurt her. He knew that. He hadn't meant to do anything like that. He hadn't wanted to hurt her at all.

But he was a man of violence. He was no hero.

"I'm so sorry. Can I do anything?"

She shook her head.

"Should I go?"

After a beat, she nodded.

Of course he should. He should get far away. He stood and put his c.o.c.k away.

Grabbing his jacket off the back of her chair, he stopped at the door. Without turning around, needing...something-just needing, he said, "I love you."

And then he left.

"Hey, Mom." Connor stepped into his mother's hospital room and shut the door. She was looking better, off the oxygen again. She still didn't look like herself-she looked old and pale and weary-but there was a light in her eyes he hadn't seen since before he'd left for Vegas. Three weeks ago. He'd seen her primary nurse at the station outside and knew that her temperature was down, too. "You look good."

"Liar," she rasped. But she smiled. "Did you see your dad?"

He nodded. There had been some improvement in his father's condition since the fire. The swelling in his brain was down. But he hadn't woken yet. "No change. Faith's with him." Though Hoosier was still in the ICU, they'd given up trying to keep visitors to five minutes. Somebody was in his room about twenty hours of every twenty-four. And somebody was in the hospital every f.u.c.king second.

She nodded-of course she knew that Faith was with him. Demon was sitting with her now. "Hey, Deme."

"Hey, brother." Demon stood up and leaned over the railing to kiss Connor's mother's forehead. "I'll get outta here. You need anything, Mama?"

Bibi put her free hand over Demon's. "No, baby. Thanks."

"You bet." As he headed toward the door, he stopped and put his hand on Connor's shoulder. "I'm gonna hang out in the waiting room awhile. Can we talk?"

Connor frowned. "Problem?"

"No. Just...want to talk."

Demon was not someone Connor had heart-to-hearts with. But he gave him a shrugging nod. "Yeah. I'll come out in a bit."

"Cool."

Curious, Connor watched Demon go, then turned back to his mother and smiled. "Hey, Bedelia Beth. You do look better."

There was an enormous new floral arrangement sitting on the table in the corner next to her bed. "Wow. These are gorgeous." He checked the card, which read: Wishing you strength and health. Best regards, Dora.

He chuckled, feeling cynical and tired. La Zorra was sitting pretty after all of this. The Horde had wiped an entire crew right off the map-not only crippled them but taken them completely out. The Fuentes cartel was now beholden to the guilas cartel to get anything into Southern California-and that meant anywhere north of the border at all. Dora Vega now owned Mexico. Hers was the only game north of Colombia. And even Colombia had to go through her to get the western U.S.

If she wanted, she could declare herself Queen of Mexico, and Connor didn't think anyone in that country had the power to deny her.

The Night Horde SoCal had been powerfully instrumental in her success, and she was well pleased with them. She had sat down with Bart, Connor, and Muse, and they had formalized the agreement that Hoosier had wanted-they were partners, not employees, and they now had a vote and a profit share that reflected a partnership.

In only two years, the Horde had gone from a quiet, law-abiding club to reclaim the status the members had known as an outlaw powerhouse. They had wiped out a whole charter of the Dirty Rats, an infamous outlaw MC, and forced a truce, and now they had destroyed a decades-old gang and hamstrung the cartel that gang had been allied with.

And the price they'd paid for that power lay in two beds in this hospital.

Connor thought that price was far too high.

When he leaned down to kiss her cheek, his mother's arm came up and held him close. "I want to be with your dad," she whispered against his ear, her voice rough and breaking. She let herself be weaker for him than for anyone else.

He leaned back a little and brushed her hair back from her face. Then he caught a tear on his thumb. "I know. So kick this c.r.a.p out of your lungs, then. You can't bring your germs around him. He was already sick when all this happened."

"I don't want him to die alone."

"Mom, shut the f.u.c.k up. He's not dying. He's going to get better. He just needs time."

She sniffed and nodded, then started on a coughing jag. He held her through it, then gave her some water and her breathing device.

f.u.c.k, he hated seeing her like this, so wrinkled and weak. Gasping for air, looking like she'd blow away in a breeze. Her brown hair, shorter than he'd ever known it, since Faith had cut it to compensate for what had been burned away, was growing out, showing a line of white along her part. He hated it all, and he hated more that she didn't seem to notice. She had always cared about her appearance, and the thought that she'd given up now scared the s.h.i.t out of him.

When she had collected herself, she patted the bed, and he dropped the side rail and sat next to her. He put his arm around her, and she leaned on his chest.

Connor sat like that, holding her, until she fell asleep. This old woman who used to be his mother.

He wanted his family back.

When Connor went out to the waiting room, Demon was sitting alone, staring up at the television on the wall. He stood when he saw Connor.

"What's up?"

Demon's face pinked up, which usually meant he was getting angry. Not knowing why he would be, Connor's adrenaline spiked a little. Had something happened with the club? No-he would know. Wouldn't he?

"Con, I...uh...f.u.c.k."

"Jesus, Deme. What?"

"Faith..." Demon huffed and started again. "Faith wanted me to talk to you."

"She okay? The kids?"

"Yeah, yeah. They're good. She's worried about you."

"What?"

"Yeah. You want to sit?"

He shrugged, and they sat.