There's a naked bombshell standing at Waylon's door.

The sight of her hits me hard. Like a stone thrown straight at my heart.

It shouldn't, though.

Waylon’s woman…. I’ve been correcting people who called me that all week. But, I guess somewhere in my foolish head, I started to believe it a little bit.

All his talk about how I belonged to him. Him acting like he really wanted me and only me in his bed even though he had easy access to all the women he could want. Of course, that had been a pile of lies.

He was an MC. A criminal. All the things I'd vowed to stay away from.

Of course, he'd talk about me, belonging to him in one breath, and cheat on—No, no, that’s not correct, Amira.

Make that simply sleep with somebody else. He’d sleep with someone else while claiming to want me in his bed. But he wasn't cheating on me because we weren’t together. Just like I’ve been telling him all along, I don’t belong to him. No matter what he claimed to me and everybody else in this town.

Remembering that, I push my shoulders back and stand up straighter.

“Is Waylon home?” I ask, keeping my voice as blasé as I could while talking to a mostly naked person. I refuse to let her or the guy she spent the night with see that I'm shaken.

She looks me up and down with a considering twist of her lips. “No, he's not here, babe. Anything I can do for you?”

I grit my teeth. “Do you know where he is? I have to order some supplies, and apparently, he has to give the okay. Maybe you have some way of reaching him?”

“Sorry, babe, Reapers aren’t in the habit of giving out their numbers. But why don't you come inside and wait for him to get back? How surprised will he be when he finds the both of us here, ready to please him? I know it’s been a while since he asked me for a threesome, and I’m sure a Black girl would be a treat for him.”

Was she serious? Waylon kidnapped me, burned all my things to punish me for the perceived crime of trying to leave like anyone who wasn’t part of his weirdly obedient cult would, conspired with the entire town to keep me resourceless so that I couldn’t easily get away. And now she’s asking if I want to give him a special threesome treat?

Anger surges through me. I’d call it the old anger, but this is new. I’ve never been so pissed off in my life—not even when I woke up on my wedding day to recall that my fiancé had pushed me down the stairs.

It feels like there’s a volcano about to go off inside of me.