Devil slapped him on the back, grinning like a fool. “Remind me to never take a bullet for the club. Doesn’t seem like you get much for it except King locking you up and your woman locking her pussy up.”
Kick had been vocal in his pain over not getting fucked for weeks after he was shot. He groaned. “This shit with King needs to fuckin’ end. I’ll get you what you need, Nitro.”
“Not a fucking chance in hell am I going against King,” I said.
Hyde took charge. “I’m with Nitro today. Kick stays here and Devil is on Dragon.” He looked at me. “We good to go?”
Hyde was the last person I wanted to spend the day with. Shit hadn’t settled between us since he spoke his mind about me not being committed to the club. But I nodded and followed him out to our bikes. I just had to get through the day. work with Hyde to fix our supplier issue, and then get back to Tatum’s sweet pussy.
30
Tatum
“Unpack Your Heart” by Phillip Phillips
“A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green. Why that?” Nitro asked as his finger glided over the tattoo on my thigh. He’d just fucked me for two hours, and I was sleepy, but he hadn’t taken his hands off me since I’d returned from the bathroom ten minutes ago and his touch kept me awake.
I stared at the words from Francis Bacon that I’d chosen and swallowed hard. “It’s a warning.”
“For what?”
“That my desire for revenge isn’t good for my mental health.”
His eyes found mine. “Revenge for your brother’s murder?”
“Yeah, for that…” and for so much more.
He shifted so he was lying on his side with one leg over mine, his body propped up on his arm, his head resting against his hand. Running a finger along my collarbone, he said, “What else is running around in that pretty head of yours, Vegas? What other revenge do you want?”
Sharing personal stuff with each other hadn’t been part of our relationship before. He’d pretty much always shut down on me whenever I asked him something, and I hadn’t volunteered much either. But we’d taken a step forward, and although I had no play-by-play guiding me as to what this relationship could be, I sensed the change in him. He was interested. Wanted to know more. And while I felt more fear over sharing my heart than I did over doing things grown men would shrink from, I decided to take a chance on him. “I’ve spent hours plotting my ex-husband’s death. Almost every bad thing that’s happened to me in the last couple of years is a direct result of the shit he put me through. It would be easy to kill him. And to get away with it.”
I held my breath and diverted my eyes from his. I’d already said too much. Nitro would surely get up and walk out the door after that confession. I couldn’t imagine anyone but Monroe choosing to stand by me once they knew the thoughts in my head and the things I’d done.
He tilted my chin so I looked back up at him. “What did he do to you?” There was no judgement in his tone, no repulsion in the way he looked at me.
Letting out the breath I held, I shook my head. “Let’s not talk about this, Nitro. It’s done and in the past and I’m trying to move on from it.” My cheeks heated with the self-disgust I always felt when I thought about Randall. All the disgust I felt towards myself stemmed from him, because every shameful thing I’d done was for him.
He shifted on the bed again, this time to press harder against me and to drape his arm over my chest, almost as if he was trying to pin me down. “I have someone in my life who I want dead, too. The shit he did to my family and me… I want him deader than fucking dead. I want to do it slowly, make him hurt and beg for forgiveness. Forgiveness I’ll never give.”
His declaration came out harshly, his pain still sharp. I heard what he was telling me without saying it out loud. This was a safe place between the two of us.
“I met Randall when I was twenty, when I was a naïve uni student just trying to put myself through a law degree. He was seven years older than me and seemed so sophisticated with his own business, expensive car, flashy house. You name it, he had it. And he used all that shit to fool me. After growing up with nothing, I was determined to have things for myself, nice things. I wanted the big house, the cars, the holidays, everything. A year after we met, he proposed and I said yes. It wasn’t until we’d been married for about five years that I opened my eyes to who I’d really married. But, God, us women are fucking dumb sometimes. I swore I could fix him, change him, make us better. If only I did better, he’d stop lying to me, stop treating me like a fool.”
The pressure in my chest became hard to bear. It was like a heavy weight pressing down on me. I needed out from under Nitro’s hold. Pushing his arm away, I forced myself to a sitting position and drew my legs up so my knees were against my chest. I wrapped my arms around my legs and dropped my head to my knees, allowing my tears to fall.
Sobs racked my body, and I let them. I didn’t try to stop any of it. I just let myself move through the emotions as my therapist had suggested. Anger, hurt, shame—I let it all hit me. Most of all, though, I stopped hiding from my self-hatred. I let it bleed out of me.
Lifting my head, I eyed Nitro through my tears. He watched me silently, his hand placed reassuringly on my back. Wiping at my tears and getting myself together, I continued, “Randall had an importing business and he
did well with it, but he always wanted more. More sales, more income, bigger and flashier everything. Was always looking for the next big thing in business to give him the wealth he craved. He managed to get himself into debt and that’s when he turned nasty and mean towards me. We fought all the time. Nothing I did was ever good enough. So I decided I had to help him somehow.” I paused for a moment, willing the tears to hold off until I got this out. “That was when Billy came to me with an offer. I was working in the DPP, and he needed someone to help get him off some charges. I’d known him for about four years, and although I knew he was dirty, I liked him. He’d always been good to me. Before I started working with the DPP, I’d done some legal work for him so I knew what he was into. Anyway, he offered me good cash to help him. One case led to another, and it just spiralled out of control. I did whatever I needed to do to make his problems go away, including lying for him and forging signatures. I always told myself that once I had the money Randall needed to get himself out of shit our problems would go away and I could stop doing that work for Billy. Turned out that the day Randall had the ninety thousand he needed to clear all his debt was the day that he went away.”
Nitro frowned. “He left you?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said softly. “For his long-term mistress who I never knew about.”
Nitro’s jaw clenched and his shoulders tensed. “So that motherfucker took the cash you’d sold your fucking soul for and did the fucking dirty on you?”
I gulped back a sob. “Yes,” I whispered. “And then it all went to shit after that. My whole life… fucked. I lost everything.”