The Ruthless

by Jaci J.

  “What’d you do?” I cry, my voice rising to the level of panic as I look around for King.

  He snorts a humorless laugh, lifting his head to look up at me. “Handled business.” I want to hit him.

  “Handled business? What? What does that mean?” But I know what it means. It’s not good.

  I feel myself swaying, my head swimming. I sit down before I fall down. Choking on my tears, I ask, “What’d you do to him? Where is he? Where’s Dad?” I’m scared to hear his answer. I love my brother, but if he did something to King, I’ll never be able to forgive him.

  “Not your fucking business, Sammy.”

  I start to spiral, hard and fast. “It is my fucking business. Whatever happened between King and I is between us. Not you, not anyone!” I scream, my throat aching as I jump out of my seat.

  Ty’s up and off the couch in an instant too, and in my face. T’s never been one to take shit, but I don’t care, I’m dishing it. “It’s none of your goddamn business. It’s club business,” he sneers, his voice deadly. “Take your ass back home.” He points at the door, sending me on my way without so much as a second glance.

  Balling up my fist, I swing and connect, hitting him in his already bloody face. I’m so mad, rage coursing through me. “I fucking hate you for this.”

  Someone grabs me—could be Rocky or it could be Buck—but I fight back. Hard. “Calm the fuck down, Sammy,” Rocky growls in my ear, his arms wrapped around my middle.

  “Fuck you,” I sneer, throwing my head back and connecting with something hard.

  Rock grunts, but doesn’t let me go. “Jesus, Sam. Shut the fuck up and calm down.”

  “No.”

  I struggle and fight until my dad comes in like thunder. He’s mad. Livid. “Put her down!” He nods at Rock, his face murderous.

  Striding across the room and up to me, he grabs my shoulders. “Calm down,” he says slowly, carefully. “It’s club business.” I open my mouth to argue, so beyond fired up, I’m delirious. “But,” he adds slowly, watching me carefully. “King’s outside.”

  I don’t say anything. I don’t care how crazy I look. Tears and the tantrum be damned. I haul ass out the door and find King. Relief like I’ve never felt before overwhelms me.

  He’s okay.

  King’s alive.

  Sitting in a metal camping chair, in the middle of lot, I nurse my drink, savoring it, enjoying it. Drinking straight from the fucking bottle, the only way to do it after the day I’ve had. I’ve been through a lot in my shitty life, but this motherfucker takes the goddamn cake. The best of the worst days.

  Was the princess worth it? Worth the broken jaw? Worth the blood? Worth the pain? Worth the fight? I’d die for that girl, if that means any-goddamn-thing.

  Watching the back door, I watch Samantha walk out of the club. Knew she’d come. I can’t see her face, but I can read her—she’s scared. Worried. Frantic. She’s worried I’m dead, buried out back of this place. Should be dead and buried, but here I am, still kickin’.

  Getting out of my chair, I make the long and painful hike across the lot. I have a slight limp. Every part of my goddamn body is hurtin’ like a motherfucker. I’m sure more than my jaw is broken, but it’s all part of the game.

  Jesus, she looks crazy, like she’s lost her fucking mind.

  Her eyes find mine and she staggers, sobbing.

  “You’re okay?” The princess asks me, touching my lip when I reach her. Her hands are on my face, searching me. “Why? Why’d you do this?” she asks, looking at my bloody mouth and black eye.

  “For the baby.” I didn’t do this shit for Samantha. As much as I love the bitch and want every goddamn inch of her for the rest of my life, this fight wasn’t for her.

  “What?” she breathes, confused, tracing the cut under my eye.

  “This wasn’t about you,” I tell her, pulling her hands away from my skin.

  “King, I don’t understand.” And she wouldn’t.

  “If I have the baby then I’ve got you.” It’s fucking simple. They’re a package deal now. Months ago, it was just Samantha, but now it’s the two of them. That baby might be my blood, but she’s carried it, loved it, cared for it. The baby is hers. If I don’t have the baby, I’ll never have Samantha. I can talk and tell her until I’m fucking blue in the face, but actions speak louder than words. It’s all about the goddamn proof. She said it—she needs proof.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There isn’t shit to say.” This is what it is. Shit fell apart and I’m picking up the pieces.

  “You’re still bleeding.”

  Shrugging, I move her hand, the one wiping the blood from my cheek. She loves me, I can tell, but it’s not enough. Not anymore. “I’m fine. Go home, Samantha.”

  She blinks a few times, eyes wide. “You want me to leave? You and my brother just beat the shit out of each other and that’s it? You want me to leave?” Her voice is rising, panic washing over her pretty face.

  She’s telling me shit I already know. Shit she shouldn’t be worried about. “Club business.”

  Running a hand through her hair, she frowns, growling, “I wish everyone would stop sayin’ that.”

  I wish I was more than I am, better for her, but right now, I’m not. I have nothing for her. Words, possessions, a life. I don’t have shit. I’m a fucking loser.

  “Go home, baby. Go home, eat somethin’ and go to bed.” She’s tired, I can see it in her eyes. I want her and my baby good and healthy. She can’t stand here and worry about something she has no control over. Worry about someone not worth worrying over.

  Taking a step back, away from me, she crosses her arms and looks at her feet, kicking at the rocks. “But are we okay?” Vulnerable and scared, she won’t look at me anymore. I don’t want to hurt her more than I already have, but I don’t have the answer she’s looking for right now. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” she whispers, her voice small.

  “I don’t fucking know, Samantha. Right now, I’m just survivin’. Just found out I’m about to be a fucking dad. I don’t know where my head’s at. So no, I don’t fucking know if we’ll be okay. All I know is I’m here. I fucking love you and I’m trying to work that shit out.”

  “You l–love me?” she stutters, tripping over the words.

  “Would look like it. I’m here, takin’ the beating of a goddamn lifetime, baby. Must be love. Either that, or I’m the stupidest man alive.”

  “You love me,” she repeats, and this time it isn’t a question. She says it with conviction. With resolution. “Fuck, King. That’s heavy.”

  “But that’s not what this shit’s about,” I tell her, erasing any hope she had. Am I here because I love her? Yeah. But there’s more. A bigger fucking issue. “Go home, baby.”

  I hate that look on her face. She looks like I’ve broken her, stepped on her. Kicked her to the curb. When in reality, all I fucking want is for her to be okay, and for that to happen, she needs to go home. She needs to stay the fuck away from me right now.

  She nods, accepting my words. “You’re right. We need time.”

  Time. We need more than that shit. But it’s what we’ve got. What we get.

  Grabbing her jaw, I tip her head back and kiss her. I kiss her like I missed her. “There’s something wrong with the both of us, yeah?” I ask, her lips soft and pliant against mine. Jesus, she fucking kills me. Melting. Molding. We need space, but in this moment, it’s the last goddamn thing I want.

  Sam laughs around her tears. “We’re fucked.”

  Touching her stomach, my baby, I tell her, “Beyond fucked, but we did one thing right.”

  “Yeah,” she agrees, smiling.

  I might never have her the way I want her, but at the very fucking least, I’ll have our baby, and right now, I’ll be okay with that.

  “Go home.”

  “Are you leavin’?” she asks quickly, panicked. This is why she needs time. She doesn’t trust me. An
d she won’t, not until I prove her wrong.

  “No.”

  Sam nods, but doesn’t trust my words and I don’t blame her. “I’ll see you later?”

  “I’ll be around.”

  I watch her walk away, and it’s the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done—letting her go.

  Eight Weeks Later

  Sitting in my car, staring through my rain streaked windshield on the side of the road, I stare at a medium sized house. It’s white. Two stories, with a brick fireplace and a stone sidewalk up to the black front door. There are windows everywhere, and a single car garage. It’s older, the paint weathered and grass in need of a cut, but it’s adorable. Homey. Lived in. Memories were made here. Christmas’s and birthdays were celebrated here. Barbeques in the back yard during the summers and snowball fights in the winter. It’s a home.

  The cute little house on second street belongs to King. He bought a house. It’s his home, a place to put down roots. A place to sleep at night. A place to live and a place to stay.

  Just looking at it brings tears to my eyes. I can’t stop them, as much as I want to. I’m an emotional fucking wreck. It makes me so mad and so happy to see that damn house.

  Damn, King.

  I haven’t seen him in two weeks. The last time I saw him, he was sitting on my porch waiting for me, a big box next to him. A crib. He bought his baby a crib. I let him in and he set it up while I watched from the doorway. He bought us dinner and ate next to me on the couch. Then he left, and it killed me. I hated watching him go, and I wish I’d asked him to stay.

  Looking at the house, daydreaming, my phone rings.

  “Hello?” I answer, watching the house like it might get up and walk away.

  “Where are you?” Remi asks, huffing into the phone. “You’re late.”

  “I’m at King’s,” I whisper, feeling stupid for being here.

  “Excuse me?” She coughs into the phone. “I think I misheard you,” she sputters, shocked.

  Good God.

  I can hear Lennon in the background, shouting, “Hurry up! We’re ready,” into the phone.

  “You heard me right. I’m at King’s.”

  “At King’s? He has a house? Are you, like, standing next to him?” Now she’s rambling, getting worked up, and it’s hard to keep up. “Since when does he have a house? Did you sell it to him? What’s it look like?”

  “No, and I don’t know. I overheard my dad telling Twinks he bought a house.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Old town, second street.”

  “Damn,” she breaths into the phone, sighing. “That’s the nice part of town.”

  “I know,” I whisper, watching the house. Picturing him inside, living a life without me. It kills me. “It’s a really nice house.”

  “Drive away,” she instructs sternly. “Stop doin’ that to yourself. He bought a house, so fucking what? He’s here to stay? Good. Stop torturing yourself.”

  “You’re right,” I concede.

  “Damn right I am. Now, put your car in drive and get over here. Tonight, we party.”

  Putting my car in drive, like she told to me to, I pull away from the side of the road and give the house one final look before replying with, “We party tonight” into the phone.

  I put King and his house out of my head. Lennon deserves a good night, and I’m going to give it to her.

  “One ’ore,” Lennon slurs, practically falling off her stool, grabbing my arm for support. I hold her up. Barely.

  Laughing, I shout, “One more,” over to the cute bartender, the one watching us, because Lord knows, the guy’s not going to understand a word Lennon’s saying.

  He nods, grabbing a couple glasses from the shelf behind him.

  Lennon gets her drink. Emerson gets her drink. I get a glass of ice water, with a little lemon on the side. No booze. No sweet, sweet booze for this girl. It’s sad, and a little depressing.

  I can’t drink, but I can dance.

  “My song!” I shout over at El and Remi, sliding my pregnant ass off the stool, heading toward the dance floor. My bump is a fun dance accessory. Man repellant at its finest. I could be naked and no one would bother. The bump keeps them at bay.

  Twirling around Remi, my ass shaking to a techno bass, I feel a hand slide around my middle, grabbing my hip and pulling me back into them.

  “Hey, dancing queen.”

  Snorting out a laugh, I keep dancing. “Tags.”

  Tags takes my hand, spinning me like any gentleman would. Letting me go and pulling me back.

  Hands on my hips, my back to his front, he rocks with me, laughing when I bend over and pretend to grind on him. I’m having fun, enjoying myself. It doesn’t last long.

  “Get the fuck away from my pregnant old lady,” King snarls, coming out of nowhere.

  I want to be mad that he’s here. But he’s here. Still in town. Still in my life. “Jesus, King. We’re just dancin’,” I sigh, walking off the dance floor.

  “You wanna dance, you call me.”

  “If I want to dance, I call you?” I ask, confused. King dances? He dances with me. “So, if I call you with a dance emergency, you’d come?”

  Scrubbing at the beard on his cheek, he shakes his head, eyes hard. “You got any emergency, you fuckin’ call me.”

  I’m pushing my luck, testing my limits when I say, “A fashion emergency?”

  King’s pissed and my words don’t help because he growls, grabbing my hand. “Any. Fucking. Emergency.” He punctuates each word with his body, crowding me.

  “Out of gas? You call. Broke a nail, baby? You call me. You want some attention,” he growls, eyes cutting to Tags. “Some dick. You call me and only fucking me.”

  He’s got a hold of me, his fingers wrapped around my wrist. Tight. Hard. Holding me close. I want to be scared. Hell, I’d take mad at this point. I feel none of it. I feel none of it because King’s got his hands on me.

  In the middle of the dance floor, eyes full of fire, he tugs on me, pulling me close, bringing us face to face. “You want anything, need anything, you call me.”

  “I call you.”

  He grunts, liking my words, but I go and ruin it. “But what about Tags?” I know I’m playing with fire, but I’ve missed King. Missed his heat. Missed his burn.

  “Not a goddamn thing about him. It’s me.”

  “Yeah?”

  Hand in his, he pulls me down a back hall, feet eating up the distance. “Fuck yeah.”

  I want this. I need this. It’s King.

  “You want some dick, baby, you know goddamn well I’ll give it to you,” I tell her, caging her ass back against the wall of the bathroom she tried to hide from me in. “Not some other motherfucker, you hear me?”

  Not Tags.

  She looks at me then to the side, looking for an escape—something she’s not getting. Not this time. “King—” She starts to argue, but I shut that shit down as quick as it starts.

  Samantha doesn’t want me in her life. Fine. Doesn’t want shit to do with me. Okay. But if she wants someone to fuck her, then her options are limited because the only one touching that body, getting inside of that body, is me. Even more so when she’s carrying my baby inside of her.

  “I’m the only motherfucker, Samantha.”

  “We’re in a fuckin’ bar,” she sneers, looking at the stall a few feet to our right when I tug the top of her dress down, exposing her tits.

  “Jesus.”

  “Just the King.”

  “It’s kinda gross in here.”

  Is it classy to fuck my pregnant baby mama in the bathroom at some sleazy bar in town? Fuck no. But I couldn’t give a fuck less. That body, that pussy are mine, and I’ll do what I want with them wherever the fuck I want.

  “What’s your goddamn point?” I slip a hand up the short little dress she’s wearing, the dress that doesn’t hide the fact that she’s pregnant with my baby. “Lace,” I note, running my knuckles over the wet material of her panties. My
dick’s so goddamn hard, it hurts. The bitch turns me inside out.

  “King,” she moans when I pull her panties to the side and slip a finger inside of her wet cunt. The Princess’s head lulls, falling onto the arm I’ve got up against the wall for support. “We’re gonna do this in a bathroom?”

  “Fuck yeah we are,” I tell her, capturing her soft lips in a kiss I can feel in my fucking balls. Samantha sucks on my tongue, riding my hand, and it’s the first time in a long goddamn time shit feels right—as wrong as it is.

  “King,” She moans, biting my lip, her hand twisting in my cut, holding on to me. “King.”

  Pulling my hand out of her panties, I turn her ass around and jerk her dress up around her hips. Freeing my cock from my jeans, I push her panties to the side again and drive home, going deep.

  “Oh fuck,” she squeals, her pussy tightening.

  “Put your hands on the wall, baby.” She does, and I slide one hand to her ass, squeezing the soft skin while I fuck her hard in a dirty bathroom in some shit bar in the slums. I don’t feel bad about it either. “This pussy is mine, yeah?”

  She nods, leaning her head against the hands braced on the wall.

  “You want some dick, you call me,” I tell her, thrusting into her from behind. Hard. “You need that pussy licked, you call me,” I add, reaching my other hand around and rubbing her clit. “You need any-fucking-thing, you fucking call me.”

  “I’ll call you,” she moans, pushing back against me, begging me for more. “Only you.”

  I don’t remember the last time something felt this fucking right in my life. I feel whole, as fucking stupid as it sounds.

  “Only me,” I affirm, fucking her hard, her ass bouncing off me and her pussy sliding up and down my cock. It’s heaven. Maybe it’s hell. Either way. “You’re mine, baby.”

  Samantha tightens, her head nodding and thighs shaking. “I’m yours,” she says, breathing hard. “Only yours.”

  I know it’s the sex. The fact that I’m balls deep inside of her and she’s chasing an orgasm, but I take it. She’s mine. Always has been, and always will be.