Yes, he decided after some reflection. He really could leave them hanging. He really could turn his back on them. They would find a way to handle their business without him; no one was irreplaceable. They would just have to make do without the Viper. And if they ever felt betrayed, that was their problem. They should try some of this non-being themselves, Lind thought; they would feel better instantly.
He chuckled to himself at the stream of consciousness within his mind. He wasn’t sure that it was because of the stupor he had been living in for four months, one week, and four days. Maybe it was just a result of finally realizing that there were things bigger than him. Bigger than the Viper and the Diamondbacks and Alec Moore. Like love, for example.
Shaking his head, he was hit with the enormity of just how far down he had fallen. So, Lind made a turn and headed to his favorite pub. It was 3:30 in the afternoon, and it was time for a pint.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Alan was becoming more and more suspicious, which in turn made Eve more and more uncomfortable. He began asking questions about where Eve was all those nights when she’d claimed she was busy or needed time alone to unwind to meet with him. He was convinced there had been and that there still was another man. As much as Eve wanted to purge that idea from his mind, she knew he would react even worse if she told him that she had been at a nightclub, pole dancing under the very fake name of Trinity.
Still, it was becoming unbearable. Almost every time they would spend time together, he would end up giving her the third degree. Eve piled lie after lie, so much so that even she was losing track of them all, but nothing she said seemed to put Alan’s mind at rest.
They never had a very active sex life, but lately she had taken to initiating intercourse just to shut him up. He never rejected her, and she would always fake her orgasms or pretend that she was making love to Lind. It wasn’t really working, though, because Alan’s mounting frustration resulted in him becoming rougher and rougher in bed, and Lind had always been gentle.
“So, I was thinking tomorrow we might go and visit that Van Gogh exhibition at the County Museum, what do you say?”
Eve looked up from her plate of creamy linguine with prawns. The restaurant was a fancy one, as it always was whenever Alan was involved. High ceilings, vault arcs, and a menu where no dish came at a lower price than $50. She didn’t know whether it was because of her current situation or not, but she found herself increasingly averse to unnecessary luxury.
“Huh?” she said, honestly not having a word of what Alan had just said.
He took a calming breath. “I said, I was thinking tomorrow we might visit that Van Gogh exhibition,” he repeated. “Maybe we could go out for a nice dinner afterwards. What do you say?”
Another nice dinner? The thought alone made Eve’s stomach churn.
“Actually, tomorrow is no good,” she said, picking distractedly at her pasta.
Alan narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “And why’s that?”
“I have to help Mom organize her charity lunch for next month.” The lie came to her easily and rolled just as smoothly off her tongue. “But we can do Thursday if you’d like.”
Alan watched her carefully. “I’ll let you know,” he said curtly.
Eve nodded. She put a forkful of food into her mouth. It suddenly tasted like cardboard. She swallowed with difficulty and put her napkin from her lap on to the table.
“Excuse me one moment,” she said. “I need to make a trip to the bathroom.”
Alan gave a very ungentlemanly grunt in response, and Eve had to physically restrain herself from slapping him. Was he ever going to let up? She bit her tongue in order to keep in every unpleasant word that was bubbling to the surface and walked away, her heels clicking on the marble-like floor.
Once in the restroom, Eve splashed some cool water on her face and redid the makeup that she ruined in the process. The water didn’t have the rejuvenating effect that she was hoping for. Then again, nothing really seemed to be able to refresh her and shake her out of the slump of perpetual dissatisfaction she seemed to have hit. She thought of the angry man waiting for her in the main room of the restaurant, and she felt like she could start to cry right then and there in that luxury bathroom.
Technically speaking, she could break off the engagement. Technically speaking, she could quit her job. Technically speaking, she could start from scratch somewhere else. But the more she thought about actually doing it, the more she panicked. She just could not bring herself to let her family down again. She wished she could just escape this glittery, overly formal world that she felt so hopelessly trapped in, but she knew she had obligations.
Taking a deep breath, Eve forced herself to walk out of the restroom and rejoin her fiancé for dinner. She froze in her track once she got to the table and noticed the dark, dark look on Alan’s face. If he had appeared angry before, now he looked downright furious.
Eve frowned in confusion as she resumed her seat. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“You tell me.” Alan’s voice was steely, and his stare was scathing.
Eve suppressed the urge to squirm in her seat. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“I called your mother. It turns out she has everything already sorted for her charity lunch. In fact, she has never asked for your help.”
It was Eve’s turn to be angry. She felt a surge of red-hot rage at the unfairness of it all. “You called my mother?” she said, incredulous. “How dare you? How dare you check in on me? How fucking dare you?”
Alan’s expression was cold. “Calm down, sweetheart. You really have no right to be upset.”
“I have no right?” Eve stood, appalled. “I have every right, you pompous son of a bitch!”
Alan looked around. “Sit back down. You’re making a scene.”
Eve could actually feel her eyes flash in utter fury. “I don’t give a fuck—”
Alan reached out and grabbed her wrist. She tugged her back down onto the chair. Even after she had landed hard on her butt, he didn’t let go. “I said, sit down,” he hissed.
Eve stared at him, as if she were looking at a stranger—in fact, that was exactly what she felt. She had never seen Alan so angry. She didn’t even suspect he could get to this stage. His grip around her wrist was fierce and strong as iron, and she could already feel a bruise forming. Quickly, her anger changed into fear, squeezing her stomach.
“You’re hurting me,” she said quietly, carefully.
Alan smiled cruelly at her. “To quote you, my dear, I don’t give a fuck.” He gave her one final squeeze and finally released her.
Eve automatically rubbed her wrist with her other hand.
“You lied me,” he said. “Again. Why? Where are you going tomorrow? Who is he?”
Eve swallowed. “Alan, I told you, there is no one.”
And here they went again.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
It was a day like any other when Alan finally snapped. Eve told herself that it had most likely only been a matter of time. She told herself she should have seen it coming. And yet she was incredulous as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. There was a bruise on her right cheekbone, and it was getting redder and angrier by the minute.
She had refused him one more time. She didn’t make up any lie or excuse this time. She told him the closest thing to the truth: she needed some time alone. She needed a night to herself. She had pushed him away for the umpteenth time, and Alan had finally snapped.
“WHO IS HE?” he had all but roared.
She told him, again, there was no one.
“STOP LYING TO ME!” Alan had screamed, and he had struck her. A full-on, backhanded slap to her face. Then, he had stormed out of her apartment.
Now, Eve stared at her reflection in the mirror, completely unable to make sense of it. How did she get into this? How could she let things get so out of hand? Tears welled unbidden in her eyes, but she bit her lip and swallowed past the lump in her throat, a
nd she refused to let them fall. She was not going to cry because of the likes of Alan.
One thing was certain, she was never going to let him do this to her again. He would never lay a hand on her again, violently or otherwise. This was it. She was going to leave him. She was going to—
And that’s when she realized, Alan had the keys to her place. The doorman knew him. He had complete access to her building, to her home. To her.
Fear twisted in her belly, and her mind started working frantically, looking for the next step to take. She couldn’t go to her parents. She couldn’t bring herself to tell them what happened. Not only did her father adore Alan, but she had given them enough of a scare when she had disappeared for almost a month.
A thought struck her then. The Diamondbacks. Lind. She would be safe with them. She felt dizzy and nauseous from the nerves at the prospect, but the more she thought about it the more it made sense. If anything, Lind could probably advise her on what to do, how to handle the situation. If he didn’t know about violence, then who else could she go to?
Eve took a deep, calming breath. She needed her wits about her for this. She gave her battered reflection one last look, then she turned off the light to the bathroom mirror. She walked to the living room and picked up her phone from the coffee table. She sat down heavily on the couch, but she sprung back to her feet the minute the beeping sound of the line came to her ear. Before she knew it, she was pacing.
“’lo?”
Eve’s heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t even a full word, but just hearing the sound of Lind’s voice was enough to almost have those tears that she barely had under control overwhelm her. She bit back a sob and took a deep, shaking breath.
“Lind?”
There was a pause. “What?” Another pause. “Who’s this?”
Eve’s heart broke. Could he really not recognize her? “It’s Eve,” she said quietly, incredulous that she even had to clarify. “Eve Robinson.”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line for so long that Eve even pulled the phone away from her ear for a moment and checked whether the connection was still there. It was.
“Lind?” she called again. “Are you there?”
He gave a low chuckle. “Sorta.”
Eve frowned. Something was off. She hadn’t noticed right away due to the wave of emotion at hearing his voice, but something was definitely not right. He didn’t sound like Lind—at least, not like the Lind she had known for that brief, intense month. His voice sounded rough, and not the kind of sexy rough that had been able to send shivers down her spine. It was a ragged sort of rough, the kind of sound that tells you that the person it’s coming from is broken.
“Are you ok?” she asked, her stomach twisting for entirely different reasons than the initial excitement at hearing from him.
“I’m perfect, sweet cheeks.”
He was drawling. Eve checked her watch. It was 2:45 in the afternoon.
“Are you drunk?”
He laughed fully this time, and the sound chilled her to her bones. “Maybe. What’s it to you?” Before Eve could recover from her shock and think of what to say, he went on. “What is it that you need?”
“Some help,” Eve said after a moment’s hesitation. Was he even in any condition to help her, or anyone else—like himself—for that matter?
“With what?”
“Alan. My fiancé. He—”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Lind cut her off abruptly. Despite the use of the word “sweetheart,” his tone was icy. “You’ll have to deal with your relationship issues by yourself. I ain’t no Doctor Phil.”
The next sound Eve heard was that of the call being disconnected. She stood in her living room with the phone still stuck to her ear for quite some time. She was dumbfounded. She was used to other people letting her down, but she never thought Lind would be one of those people.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
He hung up before she could say anything else. Before she could persuade him. Before he got sucked further into it. The anger that had bubbled to the surface before mounted up to a fury, and he sat up and threw the phone across the room with all the strength he had. He watched in satisfaction as it hit the wall and smashed into pieces.
How dare she? Lind thought again, fuming. How fucking dare she call him up and ask him for help to fix her relationship? Didn’t she know how hard he was having it? Didn’t she know that the only reason he was rarely—if ever—sober was so as he wouldn’t have to think about her? So that he wouldn’t have to feel?
He was feeling it all now, and he hated it. Hearing her voice brought it all back. His love for her and his pain at having lost her rushed back and conquered it all—the daze brought on by the drugs, the sluggishness brought on by alcohol. He was being again, for the first time after four months, three weeks—two weeks? Whatever. He was feeling again, and he did not like it one bit. He had to put a stop to it, and he had to do it quickly.
It was funny, he thought as he got out of bed and stumbled over to the bathroom and then into the shower, how his self-destructive nature always came through for him, saving him from the pain of life. People always condemned a self-destructive nature, but Lind thought it was the salvation of men. It certainly was his salvation.
He let the hot water run down his back and let his mind drift and his thoughts wander. They always seemed to wander back to Eve, and he hated that. He still could not believe her phone call. He had longed to hear her voice again for however long it had been since he had last heard it. However, when he had pictured it, she would talk to him about them. About what they could have together. About their bodies and what they did to each other. She did not talk to him about another man. She did not ask him to fix her love life for her.
Lind’s closed his fists tightly and took a few deep breaths, trying to keep a renewed surge of anger under control.
How dare she? How fucking dare she?
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Alec Moore rubbed his temples with slow, circular movements that were supposed to soothe his headache but really didn’t. He was tired, worried, and incredibly cranky. The others were steering clear of him today, and he didn’t blame them. In fact, he was very grateful; the last thing he wanted at the moment was to deal with people. Any people. He wished he could hole up somewhere and not emerge for a while.
The twins had kept him up all night. He didn’t know how Linda did it. She said they were quieter during the day, but Alec had not had the chance to see them on their best behavior yet. He had been so busy with the club lately that he was barely spending any time at home, which was another reason he was fiercely mad at his best friend. Lind’s absence was taking a toll on the Diamondbacks. They all used to rely on him, and his not being around threw them. It threw Alec, too. He missed being able to count on his best friend, and he also missed the Viper. Handling club business without his second in command was proving to be a very tough task.
But there really seemed to be no other option. Lind’s behavior had gotten so intolerable that he had been forced to kick him out of his room at the club’s headquarters and send him to fuck his whores and drink himself into a stupor elsewhere. He did appear from time to time, but it was always a short visit and he was never the Lind they all knew. The others were getting more and more restless, and Alec wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to play for time and stop them from voting Lind out of the club.
There was a knock at the door and Alec suppressed a groan. He wished he could pretend he wasn’t in, but everyone had seen him come in earlier that afternoon.
“Come in,” he called out in spite of his strongest wishes.
Lucas poked his head in. “Are you busy, boss?”
Alec shook his head and motioned for the youngest member of their gang to walk in.
Lucas stepped into the small office and closed the door behind him. Twenty-four years old, he was taller than most of the men in the club. He was a fidgety kind of lad, due more to an excess of energy th
an to any nervousness. During an operation, Lucas had proven to possess nerves of steel. He was one of the very few members of the MC that Alec trusted with his life. The kid had potential, and Alec had all intentions to make sure he would climb the ladder.
“What is it, Lucas?” he asked.
Without waiting for an invitation, Lucas settled himself on the chair on the other side of the table that Alec used as his desk.
Untouchable: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Page 35
