by Eve R. Hart
I left that box and rode back to the compound. I had told Iron what I was going to do but I let him know I needed to do it alone. Luckily, he respected that and said nothing other than to come see him when I was done.
I wondered if it ever got to him.
If it would ever get to me.
I hadn’t felt guilty or bad about any of the people I’d ended for my club. I hadn’t felt bad at the hand I’d had in torturing people either.
Was it right for me to play God?
I’m shrugging here, just to let you know.
I didn’t really understand the concept of God so I wasn’t even sure it applied to me.
But nah, I didn’t feel like I should feel bad about the shit I’d been involved in.
I wasn’t good, never would claim to be. Sure I’d be going to the bad place when this shit was all over for me. That said, all I wanted to do was save people that needed saving. And if killing these fucks would save just one person in the future, then it was worth it. I definitely didn’t mind handing my soul over to the fiery pits of Hell then. I’d do it with a fuckin’ smile on my face.
Back at the compound, I slipped into the back and headed up the stairs. It was late and I wanted to get this over with. I had no idea if I was going to lose my shit and I didn’t want to be near anyone if I did. I felt pretty numb, but that didn’t mean shit couldn’t change in the blink of an eye.
I didn’t think anyone would be around, at least not the people I might not want seeing me like this. The brothers, yeah, they knew what was up so none of them would have even blinked an eye. But the women, they’d had to see and deal with enough lately. Lucky for me, they were probably tucked away with their men getting it on or some shit.
The office was empty, which wasn’t a huge surprise, so I knocked on Iron’s apartment door.
It wasn’t but a second later he opened it looking much like he’d been waiting on me. Didn’t think I’d been gone that long, then again, I might have taken the long way back. I guess I’d ended up riding around the city a lot longer than I’d meant to.
Behind Prez, Petra rose gracefully off the couch. Nah, that wasn’t the right word for her. She moved like a damn panther, all smooth and stealthy and deadly.
Fuck, she scared the shit outta me.
She looked me up and down and she stalked forward. Then her eyes met mine and there was a flash of something there. For once, I felt like she didn’t want to bash my face in. It was almost like she respected me.
Hey, don’t go getting all excited, it was only there for a second.
She placed her hand on Iron’s shoulder, then leaned over and lightly kissed his cheek— which weirded me the fuck out. Her showing any kind of affection was just strange. Prez was happy and Petra was on our side, so shit was all good then. Without a word, she turned and walked further into the apartment. A moment later, I heard the bedroom door close softly.
“Come in,” he said and I shuffled in as he held the door open for me. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Sure.” I shrugged.
He moved to the kitchen and I stood there waiting.
What was I supposed to say? It was done and I kind of was feeling that way too. I was ready to hit the bed and pass out.
“Here,” he said holding out a glass of whiskey in my direction. I took it, we both downed ours quickly, and then he took the glass back. “It’s finished?”
“Yeah. He ain’t ever takin’ another breath again.”
“It could have waited.”
Yeah, I knew I still looked like a hot pile of shit run over. Was moving around like it too, though I was tryin’ my hardest not to let it show.
“No, it couldn’t have. I needed to get it done for the club. Need everyone to be able to rest easy… well, easier. Guessing you already dusted the other fuckhead?”
I hadn’t talked to Iron much. I hadn’t talked to anyone, really. Been holed up in my room with Melissa healing up. Okay, and yeah, I was avoiding shit for a long minute. Knew I couldn’t do it forever, and I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t quite ready to hear all the shit they had to say to me. I was sure none of it was going to be good. At least Iron could tell that I couldn’t handle it tonight. He didn’t look like he was gonna light my ass on fire right now, so I hoped that was a good thing. And he did give me my moment with Monty, so that was something. Maybe he didn’t hate me completely.
“Yeah,” he told me. “He didn’t get it as good as his brother, but he won’t be a problem any longer. Found out he did a lot of hacking and covering his brother’s tracks. The way he went on, it sounded like he might have been the brains behind it all. But apparently he had been laying low in Croatia the last few years because he’d pissed off the wrong people. So he didn’t know about a lot of what went down when we went after Keften. Guessin’ that was why Keften started working with Steve, he needed someone with computer skills.”
“Took him a long ass time to catch up,” I said with a shake of my head.
“This wasn’t something we could have seen coming.”
“Maybe not him… but Monty…” I couldn’t meet his eyes as I attempted to shrug like a disappointed kid trying to put on a tough act.
It was my fuck up and I damn well knew it.
“Sketch—”
“Nah, I know it. You ain’t gotta say it. I’ll take my judgment when it comes and I won’t hold a grudge. I’m not like him.” I looked up then, meeting his eyes so he could see the truth. “I’d never hurt this club. I’d never hurt anyone I care about no matter what. So, if you gotta let me go, I get it. If you gotta put me in the ground too, I won’t fight it.”
“I wanna say somethin’ here, I really do. But you know how it goes, I gotta take it to the table.”
Damn.
Iron was always full of words saying it would be alright.
He couldn’t even give me that now.
This shit was bad.
I mean, I knew it was, but with Iron, I always held out some hope that he’d give me something to take a little of the sting away.
And I just got nothing.
“I’ll be ready for whatever you decide,” I said and made my exit.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sketch
I opened my door and was shocked as fuck to see Melissa sitting on my bed looking like a stressed-out mess.
I’d convinced her to go back to the beach earlier. Told her I had some stuff to take care of and that I’d call her tomorrow. It might have come off like I was dismissing her, but I didn’t think she took it that way. She just looked at me like she’d known I needed some time alone. Then she kissed me and left. So the last thing I expected was to see her here waiting for me.
“Sketch,” she breathed out as she saw my face. Then she was jumping off the bed and throwing herself in my arms.
Didn’t want this shit to touch her. Never wanted that for anyone I cared about. So her doing this, her getting that fucker’s blood on her, had me going real hard.
It was bad enough she’d seen what she had. Bad enough that she’d sat at the compound waiting to hear if I was alive. And if her son would come back to her. And it sure as fuck wasn’t okay that she’d seen how bad off I’d been and stayed by my side the whole time.
But this…
It was too much.
“I had this feeling…” She shook her head like she couldn’t explain it. “I was worried about you, so I came back. What happened?”
I opened my mouth to toss out that fuckin’ saying that everyone told their woman. Club business. It really hit me how much I got it right now. They didn’t say it to keep the woman out of shit. They said it because they didn’t want it to touch them. They didn’t want to taint the beauty they had in their lives.
Damn, I was just like every fucking one of those sappy motherfuckers in the club now.
“Lis, I can’t,” I said flatly, my hands gripping her forearms to hold her away from me. I wasn’t mean about it, but I was pretty emotionally shut down rig
ht now.
Her eyes blinked up at me, now all wet and shining in the low light.
“I think we have a winner,” she whispered. It was almost as if she hadn’t heard me.
“What you talkin’ about?” I asked her because… what the fuck?!
“You called me Lis.”
“Huh?” There was confusion there as I took a moment to replay what I’d just said. So I had. I didn’t even realize it. The name had just kinda rolled off my tongue.
“Don’t push me away,” she said. “Please, Sketch. I don’t know what happened tonight, but I know that I felt something. My stomach has been in knots because I was worried about you. I was so scared that you took off and I’d never see you again.”
Her words came out calm, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t hit with those feelings hard.
When I finally let myself look into her eyes, I could see the truth. That she’d really been worried about me and scared that I’d leave her behind.
But I wasn’t sure that I could give her what she needed right now.
How was I supposed to comfort her and tell her it was alright when I hadn’t even processed what had just happened?
How was I supposed to explain to her that I’d just killed someone that I’d spent years of my life with? Someone I’d left behind to find a better life. Someone that I’d silently begged to have a second chance even after he fucked over my club.
And how did I tell her that I was so close to losing that club? It wasn’t just a club, it was my fuckin’ family. That wasn’t something I wanted to admit because it would mean it was one step closer to being the truth.
I was hurt and ashamed.
And a shit-ton of other fucked up shit that I couldn’t go into right now.
“I need a shower,” I told her, my voice losing its flat tone slightly. Maybe I was hanging on by a thread. I suppose that could have had a lot to do with her. “I ain’t gonna talk about it. I never will.”
“Okay,” she said like she was letting go and accepting how shit was gonna be. “I’m not asking you to tell me. I’m only asking that you let me be there when you need me.”
Fuck, I needed her.
But not like this.
“Come on,” she said as she took my hand in hers.
There were no more questions as she led me to the bathroom.
There weren’t any more words as she stripped me down, leaving my clothes in a dirty, bloody mess in the corner of the bathroom floor.
There wasn’t anything other than love and acceptance as she pulled me into the warm spray.
Now, if you’re wondering, there wasn’t anything sexy that happened in the shower. We were naked and it was the perfect opportunity, but that wasn’t what it was about.
And yeah, I could be naked with a bitch and not get it on.
Well, okay, fine. I was realizing that just now as she lathered the soap up in her hands and washed me down.
There was something that mattered more than my dick and need to prove that I could be a man.
My Lis had done that for me.
How did you tell a woman so special that she was the fuckin’ world?
Like really tell her. Leave all the jokes aside and open the fuck up.
How did I say that shit so she knew I meant it?
I didn’t have a damn clue.
Which might have been why I’d quietly blurted that shit out as she ran her hands over my body, making sure I was clean.
“I love you.”
Everything was stripped away from me right now. All of it, fuckin’ gone. I was dead fuckin’ serious and I wanted her to know it.
Her hands paused flat against my chest and her pretty eyes blinked up at me as if she was having to process if she’d heard me right.
“Yeah, baby, you heard me.” Every word I spoke was soft and I held her eyes the entire time. “I love you, like for real. Didn’t think I knew how to, but you’ve opened up many things that I didn’t know were possible. You make me feel like it’s okay to want things. Make me feel like I’m good enough even though I ain’t got nothing to offer. I… I want to give you the world, whatever that is.”
She was silent for a long moment. It hurt a bit ‘cause I’d just cut myself open and bled for her. But, for once, my insecurities weren’t there snickering in the back of my mind. I knew she wouldn’t let me down. She wouldn’t leave me out in the cold. Guess that was why I felt like I could tell her these things, she made me feel safe.
“I’m not sure what to say here,” she finally said. “I want to tell you I love you too, but I’m not sure that’s what you need. I’ve been holding it back, you know? I felt it a while ago. I think I finally admitted it to myself a few days ago. I wanted to tell you so badly but I was terrified that I’d lose you. I was scared that you wouldn’t believe me if I said it. That you would really see that I truly mean it.”
“I want you, as long as you’ll have me. You…” I took a long moment to collect myself. I wasn’t good with this shit. And while I didn’t think she expected it, she sure as fuck deserved it. “You are everything. I know that’s not right to say because my club should be everything to me. And they are. I’d kill for them… clearly. But you are more. I gotta be honest, I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Who said you can’t have both?” she asked like she was right there in the middle of my thoughts.
“I can’t,” I told her with a shake of my head. Her body drew closer to mine, and a second later, her arms were wrapped around my neck and there wasn’t a breath of space between our bodies. “I can’t let this shit touch you. I got blood on me. You haven’t asked, but you know it’s not mine. How can I keep you when I’m like I am? How can I keep you when I just killed a man and didn’t blink about doing it?”
“You’ve lived in a world of gray your entire life, yet you see things in black and white,” she said to me. “I’ve lived in a world of black and white, yet I see you in brilliant shades of gray.”
My head cocked to the side. I couldn’t understand what she was saying with all that.
If I took a moment to process, I’d have seen she was right— at least about me. From the moment I was born, I was thrust into the area of gray. But I hadn’t known it, just thought it was the way things were supposed to be. But the moment she walked into my life, the world shifted. I saw her as good and me as anything but.
Was she telling me I had to let go of that?
Was she trying to explain that things weren’t always as they seemed? But what the hell was I supposed to do with that?
“You killed a man tonight.” It wasn’t a question, at least it didn’t sound like it as the words rolled off her tongue. “Can you live with that?”
“Yeah,” I told her with no hesitation in my tone.
“Then I can too,” she whispered, her eyes staring up into mine so that I could see the truth in them. “Because you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t feel you had to. If you didn’t feel like it was the only way.”
Damn, she got me.
Like really, truly got me.
I didn’t even have to try and explain it to her.
I kissed her because I couldn’t say all the things I was feeling.
I hoped to fuck she got it because this was me.
It was the best I could do to show her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Melissa
Sketch had gone off to work and I found myself not wanting to leave the compound.
I couldn’t tell you why.
Sketch told me I was welcome to stay if I wanted to and that I’d probably find at least one of the Old Ladies down in the kitchen. I’d picked up enough to know what that meant. At first, I was offended by that title. Who wouldn’t be when you were from a very different world and didn’t know much about the club life? But then I took a moment, stepped back, and saw that it wasn’t meant to be offensive or demeaning. In fact, I could see that most of them were proud to hold that title.
While Sketch h
ad been healing over the last few days, I’d had a chance to get to know the ladies a little bit more. Actually, I’d gotten to know the club as a whole more. Despite everything that had happened, I felt safe here. I found myself not wanting to leave. I wasn’t saying I wanted to live here, but I did have this flutter in my heart that told me I wasn’t so lost anymore.
So, in a sense, I was home.
I’d found a place to start over and a life I wanted to take on.
I still didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I’d found a place to plant my feet while I tried to sort that all out. I simply had to find something I was good at first and then go from there. It wasn’t too late to start over and possibly build a career, if that was what I wanted.
But all that was for another day.
I’d come down here to seek out a little distraction and maybe even some comfort.
While I didn’t think Sketch was ready to be up and about, he told me he needed to work. I suspected it was because he was going crazy sitting around. I knew it didn’t have anything to do with being around me pretty much all the time. He’d even told me so when he noticed the worry on my face. The last thing I wanted to do was smother him. However, I sensed he didn’t mind being smothered by me.
He was worried. He’d told me a little about it, but he was holding back a lot. It was almost as if he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words out loud because then it might make the thing he feared come true.
It had to do with the club, I sensed that much.
What was he afraid of?
I didn’t know enough to speculate anything, not when it came to the ins and outs of how things ran around here. I was sure there were rules in place and consequences if you broke those rules. But I had a huge feeling it was more about breaking trust. If that was lost, it wasn’t easily given back. Only, I couldn’t figure out how Sketch had broken that trust.
Again, I didn’t know enough of the story and Sketch wasn’t ready to talk about it.
