by Amo Jones
“What!” I snap, annoyed that I‘m sitting in the middle of a makeshift stage in my bra and panties while they’re all staring at me like they’ve never seen it before.
He throws my phone across the room and takes three angry strides to me, yanking me up by my arms and tearing off my mask.
I gasp, my eyes furious. “What the fuck!”
He pulls off the bandana that’s around his face and my world stops. My stomach falls to the ground and solidifies at my feet.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Duchess?” Royce’s face comes into full view, and I blink a few times to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
Reaching up to the rim of his hoodie, I shove it off his head until it falls around his tattooed neck.
“Oh shit,” I whisper, my blood turning as cold as ice.
He backs me up until I’m colliding into the chest of the guy who is behind me. Royce’s eyes furiously fly over my shoulder, and I watch as his jaw sets to stone, his eyes burning up all the energy in the room. “Get. The fuck. Away from her.” His tone is low, dangerous, and a thousand levels above the temperature of Hell. The music cuts off in the background as Royce gathers up my clothes from around my feet and shoves them into my chest. “Get changed. Fucking now!”
I do as I’m told. What is happening? Shoving on my crop top and yanking my skirt back down, panic seizes my muscles as I furiously search around the room. Royce pulls at his hair in frustration as he sits on the sofa, a cigarette between his two fingers.
“Roy, what the fuck?”
“Shiiit,” one of the others murmur, removing his bandana.
I still. “Orson!”
Orson shakes his head, running his hands over his mouth. “‘Sup, Duchess.”
I pale, walking over to him and wrapping my arms around the back of his neck. “You’re married! What the fuck are you doing here?”
“We have a different kind of marriage.”
My muscles tense. “L’artisaniant, it’s French…” Putting the pieces together about Orson being part French. He flashes me a sad smile. “Yeah, Dutch. We—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Royce growls without looking up at us. When I turn to see the final two guys have removed their bandanas and masks, I’m not even slightly surprised to see one is Storm, but I am to see the other is Wicked.
I gulp, my eyes falling down his body. Judging by the fact that Storm is too lean and Orson too tall, I’m gathering it was him and Royce who I had sex with the first night.
Oh god.
I fucked my foster brother without even realizing.
The room tilts as I drop down onto the stage, disbelief rendering me speechless.
“Royce,” I whisper, willing him to look at me.
He doesn’t move, his shoulders rolling up and down as he takes deep breaths. When I don’t think he’s going to say anything and Orson disappears to the bar to grab a few bottles of top-shelf whiskey, I crawl across the floor until I’m in front of him, my hands on his knees.
“Royce…” I repeat. “Look at me.”
The muscles in his thighs tense. He whacks my hands off his knees, leans back on the sofa while placing the cigarette between his lips, and pinches his eyes closed. The scowl that’s etched into his brows carve enough fear into my marrow that my feet twitch to run, but I stay. Because I need to do this. Because I know that he’s going to lash out, and he’s going to try to hurt me, it’s how he deals with his emotions. He deals with his manic emotions by pretending that he doesn’t have any, but he forgets that our souls were one once upon a time. I feel what he feels.
I straighten my shoulders, willing the tears to not escape.
I will not look weak.
I didn’t go through all that I have over the past four years all to crumble at the hands of Royce.
He glares at me through new eyes, the very same that he showed me when he first came home. This time feels different, though. Shame flushes through me in waves of heat.
“Answer me this,” he mutters around his smoke. I reach for his pack on the ground and blaze my own. I know I’m going to need it for the next question that he’s going to ask me. And all the others that will come after. He sucks in deeply, all the tense muscles in his face smoothing, and then I watch as he blows smoke rings out from his curled lips. “Was it you here the other night? With the same man?”
I clench my teeth. “Yes.”
His lip curls in a snarl as he leans forward, grabbing me by my chin and tilting my face up to his. The position I’m in now isn’t in my favor, like his perfect little pet sitting at his feet. Just when I think he’s about to say something, he squeezes my chin, pushing me away from him, before standing tall.
“Royce,” Wicked scolds from behind me, and when the door slams in his retreat, the first tear drops. I don’t even fight them anymore, the emotion that’s rolling around inside of me is uncontainable.
I bring my knees up to my chest and rest my forehead on the top. My cheeks burn with shame, my shoulders hunching protectively.
“Duchess,” Storm says, his hand on my shoulder. “You know how h—”
“Shut the fuck up, Storm.” Orson scoops me up from the ground, bringing me to the sofa with him. I swipe the tears from my face as Orson dips out of the room on the other side, bringing me back a woolen blanket.
He covers my body and hands me the bottle of whiskey. “Figure you might need it.”
I nod, wrapping my lips around the rim as I feel Wicked move in behind me, his arm spreading out over the rim of the sofa. “It was you?” I ask through cracked lips, after the whiskey long since departs, leaving its stain in my throat. I run the tip of my index finger over his flawless skin, tracing the deep blue lines of his veins in his arms. So pale.
Wicked’s other hand comes to my outer hip, tucking me under him. “Yeah.”
I swallow roughly. “Well, I’m relieved it wasn’t one of these fuckers.”
“Hey!” Storm laughs, taking a seat on the stage as Orson comes to the other side of me. “But true.” He and Orson laugh sadly before I feel both of their eyes on mine.
“Duchess,” Orson says gently. “Who is that man that you were with? What are you doing here?”
“Mmmm,” Royce ponders from the other side of the room and my spine snaps straight. “What are you doing here, Dutch, and who the fuck is that man?” When he enters into the room with half a bottle of whiskey gone and hanging from his fingers, he takes a seat on the stage while leaning against the pole, drawing his leg up to his chest while dangling his arm off it.
“I can’t answer that,” I explain, ignoring Royce’s eyes. He’s hurt me more times than I can count, but before tonight, it all seemed superficial. Like when a friend would hurt you in elementary school, and you’d get over it in a few days.
This is different now. I’m afraid that he won’t see me the same way now that he knows that not only have we already had sex, but I’ve also had sex with Wicked.
“What are you thinking, Duchess?” Royce taunts, and I swipe the next tear that falls down my cheek quickly. “Everyone get out. Now.”
“Me?” Wicked asks, his arm tensing in my peripheral.
Royce’s heavy chuckle cracks down the center of my spine. “Especially you.”
Orson and Storm move out first before Wicked begrudgingly pulls away from me and leaves the same way they did. When the door closes and the noise is cut out, I notice the music still playing, it’s just quieter now.
“Jade,” Royce demands my attention, and I finally bring myself to face him. Fatigue seizes my muscles. I’m drained. My eyelids are damp and sticky from all of my tears and my throat aches, right down to the burning fire in my lungs. “Who is he?”
My lip trembles. “Roy, I can—”
“Fuck, Jade!” he barks, hurling the half-empty bottle across the room until it smashes against the wall and shards of glass dipped in amber-colored liquid spray against the opaque walls. “Don’t keep shit from me!”
“I c
an’t!” I scream, but my goddamn stupid emotions make me hiccup around each syllable. “I just can’t—” hiccup “—tell you, Royce!”
He stands from his position, strutting toward me. He slides his finger into my mouth. “Do I need to slide my cock between these lips to remind them that bad things can come out of them?” he gloats, leaning down until his lips are a whisper away from mine. “Or maybe I just need to fill your cunt with my cock and fuck you so hard that your secrets beg to run from me.”
I still, the fist he’s punched into my gut throbs with unbearable pain. Cool air blows through my blood, my body shivering with frost. He is already judging me. “Fuck you!”
His hand is at my chin and his nose pressing against mine. “Tell me who the fuck your little boyfriend is, Jade, and I promise I won’t make you watch as I cut him up into little tiny pieces and scatter his limbs all over the fucking Pacific Ocean.”
I push away from his grip. “He’s not my boyfriend. I can’t tell you anything else, Roy. You can’t make me talk.”
He exhales, pulling out another cigarette and putting it between his lips, just as the door opens in the background and Wicked waltzes back in, now with his MC vest over his hoodie.
“We got a problem,” Wicked interrupts, doing a quick scan of me before going to Royce. “The boyfriend heard us talking about what just happened. Before I could get my hands around his neck, he bolted.”
I watch in horror as the color drains from Royce’s face and his thick black brows curve in around his eyes. His pupils dilate, baring his sharp teeth. His anger crackles through the room like a thunderstorm.
“Royce…” I reach for his hand. I need him. I need to feel his forgiveness even if he technically doesn’t want to give it right now.
He recoils away from me. “You are coming back to my fuckin’ house, and you are not leaving unless it’s on the back of my goddamn bike, or in my car.” He turns his face toward me completely. His sharp jaw twitches, the tattoos beneath the skin on his neck stretching. I’m momentarily lost in how much he has changed over the years. His skin remained soft and features still too pretty, but the tattoos and muscles douse his looks in something deadly and flammable. “Do I make myself fucking clear?”
The room comes back into real time as I nod. “Yes, okay.” I don’t want to agree to this, but there’s a little bit of me that wants to be near him right now, another part of me that is hoping to calm him down, but the biggest part of the fight that’s happening inside of me right now is fear. I’m genuinely afraid of what James might do to me now that he knows I know that Royce is in here.
Did he know that this was Royce?
The muscles in my face instantly release, my mouth falling open slightly.
“What?” Royce snaps. “What the fuck is going on in your head right now?”
I clear my throat. “Nothing.”
Lying never felt so wrong.
I scowl at Wicked as I go back to Jade. She’s fucking hiding shit from me, I know it. Orson knows it, Storm knows it, and most annoyingly of all, Wicked fucking knows it.
Jade stands from the sofa, and all eyes are on her when she moves. “Bathroom?”
I nudge my head over my shoulder. “Back room. If you’re not out in four minutes, I’m kicking down the fucking door.”
Jade ignores me, brushing past and disappearing through the door.
“Are you always this hard on her?” Wicked asks.
I cock my head, studying him closely. I have two options right now. I can put him back into the place he so conveniently seemed to have crawled out of, while still being able to salvage what’s left of our friendship, or I can play the trick.
“Oh, you’re clearly new here.” Storm snickers from behind the bar. “That’s timid compared to what she’s used to.”
Orson is quiet on the other side of the room, but my focus hasn’t waned from Wicked. I’m like a shark sensing blood now, and that blood spilled from Wicked.
“You notice the dismissive nature that girl throws at him?” Orson finally adds. “That comes from years and years of built up resilience after putting up with Royce Kane’s straight-up bullshit.”
I flip him off. He ain’t wrong.
“She’s hiding something,” Wicked points out, leaning against the wall. “We need to find out what that is.”
“I know that,” I hiss, a little too quickly. I know why I’m more threatened by Wicked than I am of any of the others here, and that’s because the other two have always looked at Jade as their own sister. None of them have ever tried to get with her, nor would they. Jade Olivia Kane had my name stamped over her fucking ass as a newborn baby, and there wasn’t a damn fucking thing she could do to remove it. I knew it. Our friends knew it. Hell, our fucking parents knew it. “No one knows Jade better than I do.”
“Really.” Wicked tests the waters he really shouldn’t be treading into. “Then why don’t you know what she’s hiding?”
“Simple, really.” Jade drifts in from behind me, but I don’t shift. I mentally count to twenty in my head to stop me from rearing forward and ripping Wicked’s throat right out of his neck. Breathe in and out. Jade continues. “I know how to keep secrets from him now.”
She picks up her phone from the sofa, and I watch as her fingers grasp around the black case.
Perfect white manicure. Simple, clean, yet knowing exactly what to do with it. The only thing worse than an innocent woman is one who knows exactly how to use it to bring evil to their knees. I don’t know why the white sticks to me, but it does. It catches my attention mainly because Jade is anything but the purity she’s trying to proclaim painted on her nails. It’s a statement.
“Shall we go?” she adds, and I finally stand, making my way to Wicked.
When everyone is out of earshot, I grind my teeth and lock him with my glare. Wicked is a tank, and he knows how to fight and hold his own, but make no mistake, I can fucking take him. You give a man something worth fighting for and he’ll fight to the death. Jade is fight bait for me. You hang her sexy ass up in front of me and I’ll kill anyone who dares come near her.
“If we’re going to have a problem where she is concerned.” I smirk as I lean into his ear, my eyes falling to his shoulder. “Tell me now. I’d rather get blood in this room than at my house.”
Wicked steps backward, his dark brown eyes searching mine. He nudges his head out of the room. “Chat.”
I bring up my fingers to stop the rest of the room. “Give us a second.”
Once we’re out in the foyer, Wicked turns to face me. “First of all, fuck you. I never do anything without a fucking reason, you know that, second of all, you’re fucking blind when it comes to her. She is your blind spot. Anywhere she is, everywhere else, no longer exists Royce. It makes you fucking dumb. She makes you fucking dumb. I am here to make sure you’re not always fucking dumb.” I watch as his mouth moves and have to physically hold myself back from punching him square in the jaw.
“Not blind, brother, I’m fucking focused. You hang that girl over anything that you think I can’t kill, fuck, or fight, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I will slaughter, wreck, and knock out. She isn’t my blind spot.” I chuckle, running my finger over my bottom lip. “She’s the fucking switch to my rage. She is what makes me fucking crazy. She is what I rip for. So I’ll ask you one more time, and brother or not, I will fucking murder you.”
Wicked shakes his head, running his hands over the back of his neck while clenching his jaw. “Royce. I am not your enemy. You trust me. It’s why you all let me into L’artisaniant.”
I pause and think over his words. Mainly truth. I do trust him. I trust him a lot. “Trust isn’t something that I can negotiate where Jade is concerned.”
“Damn.” Wicked’s brows shoot up in surprise. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man not want, but need a girl so bad in my entire life.”
“You must be new here.” It was a joke, but it was mainly true. Though I have known Wicked for years
, he has never witnessed how I am with Jade.
His hand comes to my shoulder. “Brother, trust me. Anything I do with her, or for her, is for your benefit.”
My eyes narrow. “Don’t go near her.”
“So, you want her?” he tests.
I chuckle arrogantly. “Motherfucker, you are asking the wrong questions.”
“Well, what am I supposed to ask?” If anyone else had said those words, I would have smacked the shit out of them, but it’s Wicked. I have to warm to him being around Jade.
“Not that.”
“Why?” he asks, and now I know he wants to get hit.
“Because there’s no do I want her or does she want me.” I drag a puff of my cigarette until smoke drifts out of my nostrils. “There’s just her and I and no one else.”
Wicked nods. “Noted. I won’t go near her like that, but I do want to find out what she’s hiding.”
He isn’t alone with that.
Later that night, after we rode back to my house and I made sure Jade was in bed—fucking asleep—I called church in my living room. I need to vent about what I found out tonight, and maybe while airing out the new facts, I piece some of the puzzle back together.
“Why don’t you just tie her to the bed, and either fuck her to tell you, or torture her?” Gypsy states.
He’s young. I know that. I constantly have to fucking remind myself of this fact or I’d kill him and then have a problem with Lion. “Because that’s not her.”
Gypsy runs his fingers through his One Direction styled hair and shrugs. “Just a suggestion.”
I shake my head. I’m proud of how much he’s growing and adapting to the life he’s surrounded by. He was shit out of luck the second he left Lion’s ball sac, though.
Lion leans over, resting his elbows on his knees. “She needs to tell you who he is. There’s a reason why he is bringing her to your sex club.”
“Why you gotta say it like that?” I jest, winking at Lion. He’s never seen the details of L’artisaniant that most see. With Lion, it’s black and white. You either fuck or kill.
Lion chuckles low, running his hand over the thick stubble on his jaw. “Because that’s what the fuck it is.”
