“I think I’ll deal with my old lady as I see fit,” is what he says.
Gaz slams his meaty fist down on the table, making Nellie jump. Again, pretty sure she’s afraid of him. My brother glares at me with rust-colored eyes, so much like mine and Cat’s.
“We’re all just gonna sit here and forget that this asshole,” Gaz starts and then he shakes his head as Cat turns a look on him, “this motherfucker kicked the shit out of me?” Gaz stands up, but Beast ignores him, continuing to eat his food like the polite Southern gentleman that he is. I mean, a polite Southern gentleman that kills people, but eh, we’ve all got flaws.
I ignore the rush of power that I feel.
Cat commands demons. Now, I also command demons. Neither of us is much to look at on our own, but we’re tenacious as fuck. Guess there are some positives to having been born of his wrinkly old balls.
“And now we all know the truth,” Gaz continues, but Cat curls his lip at his son. He’s getting irritated.
“Sit your ass down,” he commands, his words like a dark spell that my brother finds impossible to resist. “Beast here wanted your sister; he got her. I say we wish him luck and pity the poor bastard.” Cat lifts his beer up in salute and then takes a swig. Beast doesn’t say anything at all, but I can feel him tensing beside me. “Frankly, it all makes sense to me now. He was fucking her; you beat her ass. Seems like a fair trade that you got yours kicked, too.” Cat continues to drink his beer, coming to the exact conclusion that I intended for him all along.
I can’t hide a smirk as I take another bite of my food and stare Gaz down across the surface of the table. I most definitely don’t expect him to lunge for me.
He doesn’t make it even halfway across the table before Beast is up and grabbing him around the throat. He drags my brother across the table’s surface, sending dishes and pasta scattering across the floor. Glass breaks; Nellie curses. Cat leans back in his chair with a long-suffering sigh.
This is such a disconnect from those quiet evenings at the mafia palace, where all the violence was hidden beneath silk ties and satin gowns, shark smiles and flawless contouring.
Beast very casually slams my brother into the wall beside the entrance to the foyer. He doesn’t break a sweat. Actually, he also manages not to disturb his food, mine, Cat’s, or Nellie’s. Just Gaz’s meal is scattered. Impressive.
“If you ever lay your hands on my woman again, I’ll kill ya and bury you next to your gram.” Beast releases Gaz. The latter sinks to the floor, choking dramatically and clutching at his neck. I pick up my fork and continue to eat.
Cat looks on impassively as Nellie rushes to get him another beer from the fridge.
“You don’t touch another man’s old lady without his permission,” Cat agrees, and that’s that.
My armor … it’s working.
But Gaz, he’s a wildcard. I’m going to need to tread carefully here. If he even once catches me alone on the compound, I’ll be in big fucking trouble.
Beast follows me up to my grandmother’s room. Not sure how long I’ll be staying here, but for the time being, it’s mine. He waits in the doorway as I move into the room and flop onto the edge of the bed.
“You’re not coming in?” I query, raising an eyebrow. I gesture to a bottle of scotch on the nightstand. “I stole this last night while Cat was sleeping. Pretty sure it was my grandmother’s anyway. He won’t miss it.”
Beast gives me a ghost of a smile but not much more.
I study him in the dim light cast by the antique fixtures near the door. He’s a big guy, muscular and hard, his blond hair shaved on one side then carefully brushed over. Between the septum ring, the eclipse tattoo on his right arm, and the bright blue eyes, he could be a model.
“No thanks, sugar. If I step into that room, and I close this door …” He trails off as he studies me, my heart thundering under the intensity of his gaze. He may as well be fucking me for how he’s staring right now, like his stare is capable of cutting me apart and seeing all the secrets lying underneath. Not that there are any left. Me and Beast, we’re done with secrets. “Well, then I won’t be able to keep my promise.”
I lean back on the bed, shameless as I rub my thighs together. He watches me, but he’s got that ironclad control that’s always pissed me off. I still find myself surprised sometimes that he ever fucked me at all. As much as he’s proud of his self-control, I’m proud of my ability to whittle away at it.
“Suit yourself,” I murmur, turning over and putting my ass in the air as I pretend to strain for the bottle of scotch. Really, it’s in easy reach. Without looking back, I unscrew the top and take a swig.
The sound of boots on the carpet gives me pause, and then there he is, taking a seat in a leather chair across the room from me. He sinks into it the way a jaguar might sink into a hunting crouch, all fluid muscles and well-oiled joints.
The bedroom door, however, is still open.
Intentional, I’m sure.
“I hope Gaz does hit me again,” I say, forcing myself into a sitting position and leaving the bottle between my knees. Whatever this shit is, it’s smooth and it goes down without a hitch when I take another swig, warming up my lower belly. “Then you can kill him, and we can be done with his ass.”
Beast is quiet for several heartbeats, his big, tattooed hands resting on the arms of the chair.
“Don’t wish for that, Gidge,” he drawls, the vowels long and sleepy and warm. I could curl up inside of his words. Instead, I watch him warily, taking another sip of my stolen drink. “Your brother’s a dangerous man, and he’s made himself pretty popular among the other Daybreakers.”
“And you? Don’t tell me you’re not popular,” I admonish, letting the alcohol make me bold. If my life were a game, then clearly the pause button’s been hit. Nothing is happening right now. Soon, the world will shift; I can feel it. Just like the Daybreaker’s logo, the moon will eclipse the sun and usher in darkness.
Death by Daybreak versus Grey Wolfe.
I shift uncomfortably, turning to look out the open balcony doors, a sea of stars beyond.
If I listen carefully, I can almost hear Grey whispering to me in Italian. Fuck, I miss him already. He’s like … like a male Reba. They’re not at all similar in personality or interests of course, but what I mean is that he felt like a friend in a way that only Reba has before. Someone who actually cared about me with little in the way of motive.
No sex, no secrets, no bullshit. Just companionship.
“The other men are afraid of me,” Beast admits finally, when I’d almost forgotten that I asked him a question at all. He thinks about every single syllable. Grainger, on the other hand, can’t keep his damn mouth shut. Another swig, more burning, an even warmer belly. Beast runs his hand over that neatly trimmed beard of his, studying me. “For now, that’s enough. Eventually, it might not be.”
“Gaz?” I say again with a long-suffering sigh. “I always found him pathetic, but are you trying to tell me he’s a real threat?”
Another long, pregnant pause before Beast stands up and heads over to the bedroom door. He closes it and flicks the lock, moving over to the open balcony doors to do the same. Then, he pauses in the corner and plays around with the old gramophone.
I cock a brow.
“I knew you were old, but not that old,” I quip, and Beast actually … well, his shoulders shudder slightly. Is he laughing? He turns on some grainy old music. “And wow, you’re a romantic, too? On top of everything? Is there anything you don’t do?”
“Right now, Gidge?” he asks, throwing a look over his shoulder. “You.”
Ouch.
Beast comes over to the bed, and I swear, there’s a seismic shift in that room. The tension between us is hot and sticky, these long threads that threaten to tangle me up. When he sits down next to me, the mattress dents and I end up sort of tumbling into him.
He lets out a violent exhale and swipes his hand down his face.
This self-i
mposed celibacy isn’t easy on him either, much as he’d like to pretend otherwise.
“Gaz isn’t a threat by himself,” he admits, and I realize that the music and the closed doors and the proximity to me on the bed are all distractions to keep anyone from listening in on us. I mean, I knew that, but it’s still disappointing. “But he’s got a following. He is Cat’s son, after all.”
“And I’m his daughter,” I say, in a tone that brooks no argument.
Me versus Gaz.
Probably about as exciting as the club versus the mafia.
“Mm.” Beast pauses again, his eyes focused on the ceiling and not on me. It’s impossible to ignore the shape of his shoulders beneath his leather cut, the strength in his arms, the snippets of heated memory where he’s rutting between my thighs. I exhale and shove some of my dark hair away from my face. “We gotta be wary, Gidge. Crown spins a good story, but if anyone looks too close, there are parts that don’t add up.”
“We can’t be at war within the club and still fight the mafia,” I muse, and Beast gives a slow, easy nod. Wrapping my fingers around the neck of the bottle, I lift it to my lips, contemplating the questions that I want to ask. How much do I really want to know?
The truth?
Fucking everything.
I turn to Beast.
“Cat came for me,” I say, trying the words out and seeing how they fit. He beats my dog. He burns my clothes. He let my sisters die. I don’t understand. “Why?”
Beast doesn’t smile this time, just watches me from those expressive eyes of his. The song on the gramophone ends, but it continues to make a whirring sound to help fill the silence.
“Cat is your father, sugar,” he tells me carefully. There’s violence coiled inside of this man, just waiting to be unleashed. By … me? I take yet another drink, my head spinning and buzzing with alcohol. “Crown is wrong about the world.” He pauses here and shakes his head. “It ain’t black and white. Your father is as gray as they come.”
I look back down at the rug, imagining Queenie’s surety as she pushed me into the pantry and locked the door. She had faith in me. She sacrificed herself to keep me alive. Because if she’d gone into the pantry, those men would’ve looked for her. They were there for her, and she knew it as surely as she knew all things. The way she always knew there was no boogeyman beneath my bed or in my closet. No, the boogeymen were downstairs, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. At the clubhouse fucking groupies or digging holes behind Gram’s place. They were out in the night, powerful men making powerful deals and not caring who they hurt in the process.
Innocent souls like Queenie, like Posey.
“Kian never raped Queenie.” It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud to anyone. It feels right to say it. My sister carved her name into that baseboard because she was at the Artefact, at a party—with Kian. She was hooking up with him because she loved him. Nobody in her position would take the risk if she didn’t. Kian and Queenie could not have been anymore wrong for one another and yet, they were willing to risk and eventually give their lives for a chance at being together.
“He did not,” Beast growls, like the admission hurts him somehow.
“You killed him.” It’s a guess, but it’s probably true, isn’t it? Because who else but Beast would be there to help with the torture and murder of a rival’s heir?
“I did.” His voice is hollow and dark, devoid of that sweet honeyed Southern drawl.
It’s disturbing to hear him admit it. I glance over, not for the first time realizing how truly fucked-up this situation is. Beast is dangerous as hell. He’s a stranger. He’s sixteen years older than I am. He kills people when Cat tells him to—even if he knows they’re innocent. Well, okay, so I doubt that Kian Wolfe was ever innocent in the most basic sense of the word. “He was ruthless.” That’s what Grey told me.
Still, Kian didn’t hurt Queenie. He loved her. The child inside of her, that was his baby, too.
“Why?” I ask, still staring at the floor, still trying to figure it all out. It could be simple: Cat didn’t want his daughter fucking a mafia brat. Moreover, he didn’t want her leaving with a mafia brat and possibly giving away club secrets. But it’s never that simple.
Kian was supposed to meet Queenie at a park. That’s where the club found him. They planned on running away together.
“The casino …” I start, thinking about Cat’s reaction to it.
Beast leans forward with the creak of leather, putting his elbows on his knees.
“The casino was laundering money for the club,” Beast tells me, in as frank a way as any man has ever spoken to me in my entire life. Since before I can remember, I’ve been toddling around this place like a ghost, a presence that’s tolerated but never acknowledged.
Everything is different now. Today. Because of what I did with Grey. Because of these men and their reaction to it.
“The casino … that the mafia now controls?” I suggest, turning so that my face is just inches from my future husband’s. His gaze drops to my mouth, and I bet he’s fantasizing about what it would feel like were I to wrap these warm lips around his cock. My hand slides over Beast’s inner thigh, tracing his denim with my nails.
His eyes narrow slightly, but otherwise, he doesn’t move.
“The mafia took the casino,” I declare, the realization heightened by the presence of alcohol. “The club wanted retaliation for the casino.”
“Kian told Cat about the mafia’s plans to wipe out the club,” Beast admits, watching my hand on his thigh like it’s a wild animal he might very well need to catch and kill. “He thought that by telling Cat what he knew, it might endear him somehow. Maybe he’d be given Queenie. Shit, the cocky bastard thought he could prospect in.”
I cock a brow at that.
Pretty ballsy on Kian’s part.
“Cat thought he might know more than what he was saying,” Beast finishes, grabbing my hand in a firm grip. He very purposefully puts it back in my lap. “Wedding night, sugar.” And then he’s rising to his feet and leaving me there with a scotch and information induced high.
He opens the door in time to meet Crown, and then steps aside.
They have some sort of murmured conversation, and I see Crown’s eyes narrow before they trade places for the night.
Beast disappears down the stairs as Crown closes the door behind him.
“No wonder Cat was so interested in hearing about the casino,” I offer up and Crown curses. He looks so tired right now, like I’ve stolen his soul and taken it for myself. I will, if given the chance, but I’m pretty sure we’re not quite there yet. “Especially if they backed out of a deal with the intention of sucking the mafia’s dick.”
“You’re really digging into this, aren’t you?” he asks me, his voice dry. He stands over me the way he’s always done, lording and looking and judging. I ignore him, sipping the scotch and mulling Beast’s words over in my head. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough? Maybe it’s time to step back and let us handle things. It’s what we do, Gidge.”
I give him a look that he returns with one of his own. Meanwhile, the gramophone prattles along in the corner, an almost eerie backdrop to our conversation. There’s something wicked about its tinny, scratchy sound as the spinning record comes to a slow stop.
Crown turns to look at it, tilting his head slightly to one side before moving over to reset the needle and crank the handle. The song restarts, the voice of its singer plucked from the cobwebs of lost nostalgia.
“Eddie Morton,” Crown says, which surprises the shit out of me. He stands there, grinning and listening to the oddly appropriate lyrics while I gape at his back. The fuck does this asshole know about gramophones?!
“I hate a moral coward, one who lacks a manly spark; I just detest a man afraid to go home in the dark; I always spend my evening where there’s women wine and song; But like a man, I always bring my little wife along!”
“Um,” I start as Crown very briefly adds his voice
to the recording, singing some line that feels plucked out of the ebony sky like a shard of fate: “Bring your wife and trouble, it will never trouble you; Make her a member of the Midnight Crew!”
“You know this song?” I croak. “It’s like a hundred years old.”
He puts his hands on his hips, staring down at the gramophone like he’s lost in memories.
“My mother collected antiques; she had this exact recording.” He smiles and gestures in that general direction before turning around.
“Jesus, you’re all so old,” I murmur, and Crown sighs dramatically.
“I’m thirty years old, Gidge. I’m sure that feels old to you—sometimes it even feels old to me—but I assure you that I am nowhere near the age where I was listening to a gramophone in my childhood bedroom.”
I cast him a disbelieving look, tapping my nails against the glass neck of the scotch bottle. The French manicure that Giulia’s servant girls gave me is long past its prime with multiple nails chipped and stained, yet another reminder that I very nearly lived a brand-new life in a completely different universe.
“Are you sure about that? You look like you were around when the gramophone was invented.”
Crown comes over to me then, crossing his arms, his gaze this penetrating beam that I do my best to ignore. We sort of had a thing the other night, didn’t we? The bastard isn’t engaged to Amber; he has a ruby ring that matches my eyes; he offered to send me away if I wanted to be with Grey.
Where does any of that leave us now?
“Stop playing games, Gidge. Let’s talk. What do you want out of all this?”
Anger surges through me, as it always does. It’s held my leash for so long that even though I’ve agreed to remove the collar of rage from around my neck, I jump when it tells me to. Crown might be a know-it-all bastard, but he’s asking a legitimate question. Deep breath in, deep breath out.
I Am Dressed in Sin: A Reverse Harem Age Gap Romance (Death By Daybreak Motorcycle Club Book 2) Page 14
