Blacklisted

by Jay Crownover

  “Ahhh, I found myself a real-life bad boy to play with. How fun.” She grinned as she opened the door. “I bet your girlfriend has no idea what to do with you, which is why you called me. How sad for her. She must be pathetic.”

  More like I had no clue what to do with my pretty doctor. I wanted to give her as much as she’d given me since we started spending time together, and the best way to do that was by finally getting rid of the awful woman standing next to me. But even in doing that, I’d still managed to mess up, and I knew it was going to hurt the one person I promised to keep anything from happening to.

  “You seem pretty interested in the other women in my life.” I knew why, but it was obnoxious regardless. The worse she talked about Presley, the harder it was to bite my tongue. “This is only a one-shot deal.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a one-time thing. My plans might be flexible. I kind of like you, bad boy biker. I think we could have some fun together.” She grabbed the front of my vest and pulled herself up so she could touch her lips to mine. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone interesting to play with.”

  My stomach rolled and I had to bite the tip of my tongue to keep myself from telling her to go straight to hell. She had a special spot reserved just for her, I was sure of it.

  “Where did you say you were from again? And what brings you to Loveless?” They were asinine questions, but I wanted to keep her mouth occupied so she would keep it off of mine. She suddenly seemed like she had more arms than an octopus and the suction of a Hoover. It might’ve been the first time I worked so hard at avoiding the advances of such an attractive woman, but all I could see was her black heart and evil eyes. And that she wasn’t Presley.

  I didn’t want to kiss someone who wasn’t Presley, which made it even more clear that I was no longer falling in love with her—I’d fallen, all the way. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the landing, either. It was a startling revelation that couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  To my surprise, Ashby—or Ashley, as she kept referring to herself—vaguely answered the dumb questions I threw out to buy time.

  “I’m from close by. I used to work in a town between here and Austin, so I’m familiar with the area. I came back to visit a friend.” She slid her hands over my shoulders and under the leather of my cut. I fought to hide a wince as she did her best to work the well-worn leather off my body. “I haven’t seen her in a while and I’m long overdue for a visit.”

  “Oh yeah? Who’s the friend? Everyone in this town knows everyone else. I bet I’m familiar with whoever it is.” If I could get her to admit on tape she was here for Presley, that was the first step in getting some kind of confession to all of her misdeeds.

  I let her take the leather vest off and stood still as she slid her hands up and under the cotton of my plain, black T-shirt. There was a limit to how far I was willing to let her go no matter what she was going to say or not say, and she was getting close to my breaking point. Everywhere her hands touched my skin felt dirty. There was a nasty taste in my mouth, and an unsettling vibration humming underneath my skin. I wanted to put my hands around her throat and squeeze. Again, I’d never be inclined toward violence when it came to women, but she really was the exception.

  “Oh, she’s just a friend I went to school with. We worked together for a bit as well. She isn’t a very nice person, though. She has a bad habit of taking things that don’t belong to her and thinking she’s better than everyone else. I haven’t seen her for some time. I thought it would be a good idea to check and see if she’s changed. I’d like to think she’s learned some hard lessons lately.” A sour look crossed her face even as she tugged my T-shirt off over my head. Some of the pretense she artfully wore slipped just a little. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I would’ve missed it. Under her perfectly normal mask was a layer of maliciousness that gave even me the creeps. I’d seen a lot in my life, but this woman’s warped sense of reality was truly alarming.

  I cleared my throat and grabbed her shoulders in a punishing grip when she touched her lips to the intricate tattoo of a bullet hole that rested right over my heart.

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re actually friends at all.”

  The woman pouted and stepped away from me so she could slither out of her nearly indecently short skirt and skintight top. She was wearing a matching set of lingerie that was so ridiculously wasted on me it was almost funny. It didn’t matter what the package was wrapped in, I knew the stuff on the inside was rotten to the core.

  “We were best friends. I loved her, but she kept hurting me over and over again. Eventually, I had no choice but to hurt her back.” Sharp fingernails dug into my skin and angry lips attacked mine. It was like being caught in a whirling tornado of seduction and anger.

  Prying myself free and struggling to catch my breath and keep my cool, I forcibly pushed the nearly naked woman back onto the messy bed behind her. I lifted an eyebrow and asked, “How did you hurt her back?”

  The woman smirked at me and crooked her finger in a “come closer” gesture. I ignored the command and instead put my hands on my hips and regarded her with a bored expression. I let out a very real yawn because I was tired and, even more so, tired of all this. Being the good guy was so not my bag. It took far more patience than I was blessed with.

  The woman frowned at my apparent disinterest and sat up on the edge of the bed. “She took something that was rightfully mine, so I took something that was hers. Only I got in trouble for making things even, and nothing bad happened to her. Nothing bad ever happens to her. I came back to see her because I deserve an apology. I deserve a lot of things.” She reached for the buckle on my belt just as there was a knock at the door.

  We both turned to look in surprise. For once her shocked expression didn’t seem fake. This wasn’t part of the plan. Mine or hers. I’d barely got her talking. We weren’t anywhere close to a confession.

  Assuming it was Kody, back to chew my ass out, I walked to the door and yanked it open.

  And was pinned in place by a pair of accusing green eyes. Only, they weren’t Kody’s.

  I knew things looked bad.

  I was naked from the waist up in a motel room with another scantily clad woman. There were discarded clothes all over the floor and I was sure I had lipstick smeared across my now slack mouth.

  Unlike Kody, who raged and exploded without thought, Presley simply looked at me like she could see into my very soul…and couldn’t find anything there worth loving anymore.

  Chapter 20

  Presley

  I knew I needed to apologize to Shot.

  I knew that I’d shut him out, both figuratively and literally, burying myself in work instead of dealing with my complicated and confusing emotions. It was all just a misunderstanding, but there were deep-seated issues lurking under the surface of it all. I cared about Shot more than I’d planned on caring about anyone after losing my mother. I trusted him. I relied on him. But I was realizing that as long as we were together I would never come first in his life, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I told him he couldn’t be the center of my world, so did it make any sense that I was starting to want to be the center of his?

  I had to give him credit, though. While I was hiding from everything that felt like it was going wrong, he’d made the effort to make sure I was doing okay. He texted me good morning and good night every single day, and still reminded me to eat and take a break while I was at work. He told me he was going out of town with the club, but I still had a scary biker escort to and from work every single day. He was giving me the space I asked for and respecting the boundaries I told him I would protect with everything I had, which made me feel terrible. He was supposed to be as clueless about relationships as me. But he seemed so much better at all of it than I was.

  I called Kody a few days after the dustup and asked her to meet with me. I needed someone to talk to. Someone who would give it to me straight. She’d already warned being with Shot wo
uld never be easy, but I needed someone to assure me if I decided to put the work in to be with him, it would be worth it. I also needed to hear that I was worth it. That eventually I’d hold as much importance in Shot’s world as his club and members did. Really, I needed Kody to talk me off the edge.

  When Kody answered, she was clearly groggy and almost incoherent. I forgot that she tended to get off work super late and had probably just lain down to go to bed. She mumbled her way through a few sentences before I cut her off and apologized for calling so early and out of the blue. I told her I would call her back at a more reasonable hour and went back to pacing my apartment and trying to figure out how to mend the fence I’d purposely kicked down in a panic over my unchecked emotions.

  My phone rang as I was finishing up getting ready for the day. I was pinning the top part of my hair back and away from my face when she ordered me to meet her at the local diner for a quick breakfast. She still sounded tired, and a little bit cranky, so I didn’t dare argue with her. I rushed through the rest of my routine because I only had a few free hours to spare before leaving for work.

  I was jogging toward the entrance of the diner when I caught sight of Kody angrily pacing back and forth in front of the doors. She seemed to be talking to herself under her breath, and it was easy enough to tell she was not pleased with something, or someone.

  My first thought was that she was mad at me for waking her up and then running late, but as soon as her eyes landed on me, she went pale and all her anger turned to something that looked a lot like sympathy.

  “Sorry I’m late. My mind is a little all over the place today.” I gasped in surprise when she pulled me close and locked her arms around me in a rib-cracking hug. “Oof. Is everything okay?” For a brief moment, I was worried that something bad might’ve happened with the baby or to Hill while he was on assignment. Kody was always touchy and expressive, but this was a lot, even for her.

  Kody squeezed me even tighter, making me squeak in protest. I peeled myself out of her suffocating grip and put my hands on her shoulders.

  “What’s gotten into you this morning?”

  Like a switch had been flipped all her anger was back full force. Her freckled face turned a bright pink, and her green eyes blazed with an intensity that was almost scary. I’d seen her look this way before. She’d had a similar expression when she confronted me about Conrad leaving everything he owned to me in his will. At the time we didn’t know Ashby had been behind that fiasco as well. She was trying to drive a wedge between me and my new siblings before they’d even thought to welcome me to the family. Kody was the one who confronted me, and we almost came to blows. I’d been frightened of her then; now I was terrified to find out exactly where her fury was directed. She only let a handful of people get close to her, and this level of heat and aggravation meant someone important had set her off.

  “You’re not serious about Shot, are you? Please tell me you were calling me this morning to tell me that the two of you broke up because you realized how different you are and it’ll never work out between the two of you.” She grabbed my hands and was practically begging me to confirm her furious rush of words.

  I felt my eyebrows shoot up to nearly my hairline as she clutched my fingers in a painful grip. “Well, no. I did call because Shot and I got into a little squabble recently and I wanted your advice on how to best go about apologizing. I’m not the best at communicating when it comes to my feelings or understanding someone else’s. I’m better about being honest with how I’m feeling with him, but talking to him this time is too important to just wing it and hope for the best.”

  She frowned and dropped my hands so she could shove hers through her unruly curls. She grabbed handfuls of her wild hair, her frustration and anger palpable. “I really am going to kill him. Or I’m going to have Hill do it for me. I’m sure he knows how to get away with murder.”

  Completely confused over the tone and direction of this conversation, I tossed my hands up in the air and demanded, “Can you tell me what in the hell is going on? You’re stressing me out.” And my nerves were already stretched painfully thin.

  Heaving a sigh so deep it sounded like it came from the very depths of her soul, she looked directly at me and told me in a flat tone, “Shot just went into a motel room with some random redheaded woman. I confronted him and he didn’t even deny that he was up to something sketchy. I mean, I know he used to be a player and never really took anyone he was involved with too seriously, but I would’ve put money on the fact that you were different. He seemed…smitten with you. He was so much softer and gentler with you than I’ve ever seen him. I can’t believe he would do this. I thought I knew him better than that.” She looked like she might cry, while I suddenly felt like I was made of ice. “I’m so sorry, Presley. I already plan on having Case and Crew kick his ass for you. And if Case can find a reason to lock him up, I’m all for it. You deserve to be treated so much better than this.”

  Cold.

  Everything inside of me was suddenly frozen.

  I’d been told I was frigid on more than one occasion. But this was the first time the words actually fit. I was winter. My emotions a blizzard whipping through me as arctic winds blasted through my heart.

  “Which room did he go into?” My voice cracked and broke. The words were barely audible. I felt numb, and getting my body to respond to the signal from my screaming brain was difficult.

  Kody blinked in obvious surprise. “You want to confront him?”

  I wasn’t a violent or confrontational person. That was partly how I ended up such an easy target for Ashby in the first place. However, I wanted to see the proof that Shot betrayed me with my own two eyes. I had no clue what I would say to him if Kody’s accusations were truthful. I was holding on to a shred of hope that she’d just misread the situation. As much work and effort as Shot had put into trying to convince me he was serious about being with me, it didn’t make sense that he would throw everything away after one silly argument. He was reckless and dangerous, but he wasn’t careless or thoughtless. In fact, he was probably the most compassionate man I’d ever come across. He definitely understood me better than anyone else ever had, so he had to know what finding him with another woman would do to me.

  He couldn’t be that cruel…could he?

  I had to shake Kody to get her to stop ranting about the bodily harm she was going to inflict on Shot, and to get her to focus long enough to give me the room number. It was another battle when I told her I wanted to go alone. I appreciated her support and the unending sisterhood she was displaying. She’d known Shot longer, had been much closer to him than she was with me, but all of that aside, she was one hundred percent on my side and ready to do battle for me, no questions asked.

  I loved her from the bottom of my heart. Not since I lost my mother had I been so certain of how I felt about another person, but I knew I adored Kody in a way only one sister could feel for another. She was part of me and I was obviously a huge part of her. Finding the space for her had happened when I wasn’t even looking, and I was so glad she claimed it.

  I was shaking from head to toe as I got closer to the motel room door. My head demanded to know if Shot had crossed a line there was no coming back from, but my heart was scared to death of the answer. I couldn’t believe he’d gone from standing guard over me on a regular basis to hooking up with someone else all within the span of a couple of days. It made no sense, and I’d learned there wasn’t much Shot didn’t do without a rock-solid reason.

  I could clearly hear voices on the other side of the door.

  One male. One female.

  That little sliver of hope I was desperately holding on to started to ice over and crystalize like all the rest of my insides.

  Lifting my hand, my fingers curled into a fist and hung in the air for a long moment as I wavered over whether I could face what was on the other side of that door or not. After a brief pep talk, where I reminded myself I had survived losing my mother, find
ing out my father was a terrible person, learning I had a whole new family, and almost going to jail for murder because of my best friend, I let my fist fall. I pounded on the door, imagining it was a vital part of Shot’s anatomy instead.

  The voices on the inside of the room went quiet and a moment later the barrier was jerked open.

  He looked shocked.

  Not guilty.

  Not sad.

  Not afraid.

  Not remorseful.

  Just stunned to see me standing there, almost as if he’d been expecting someone else.

  He didn’t have his leather vest on, or a shirt. He had lipstick smeared across his mouth, and there was a strong floral scent wafting off his bare skin. There was an obviously female body standing behind him and clothes were scattered all over the floor. It was a case of a picture being worth a thousand words, and all of them were incredibly damning.

  He didn’t say anything and neither did I.

  I wasn’t sure if there was anything left to say and I knew I couldn’t find the words even if there was. It felt like he’d reached inside and my chest squeezed my heart. I couldn’t get a solid breath out, and I knew the only reason I wasn’t sobbing and hysterical was because I was frozen on the inside. I’d never been so cold. And I’d never felt as betrayed.

  My best friend tried to frame me for murder and threatened to kill me. A man I viewed as a mentor had looked the other way while my mother was murdered. My long-lost father had wanted nothing to do with me and turned out to be a terrible man. And yet, none of that hurt the way seeing Shot half naked with another woman did.

  I guessed there was no use denying it any longer. I had to be in love with him. There was no other way to explain the way I felt like I was being stripped down and broken apart on the inside.

  My mind was working a mile a minute because it still didn’t compute that he’d switch gears so fast. He was a guy who was all about loyalty and honor, even if he made up his own rules and lived his life his own wild way. But the pain inside my heart was too loud, drowning out any whisper of logic that was trying to be heard.