“Who the fuck is Joey?” Casa said, cutting the tension like a chainsaw through butter: messy and completely unnecessary.
“The prospect,” Rider said.
“No fuckin’ shit!” he returned with a grin. “Well, Joey, prospect, kid that almost got his ass whooped into oblivion, I suggest you go do some errands before Beast breaks out of whatever fuckin’ stupor he’s in and decides to tear you motherfuckin’ apart.”
“I was just trying to help. She looked sad,” Joey tried to explain.
Beast broke our fickle bond to glower at Joey, and the poor kid paled before moving quickly out of his reach.
“Fill the bikes up,” Rider said as Joey left without another word. He turned to me. “Shit’s about to get real dark, darlin’.”
My heart stuttered in my chest.
This was it.
They were still going to kill me, despite everything I’d said.
I braced myself for his wrath, yet welcomed the end.
“Just get it over with,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Belle,” Beast uttered my name, sounding pained as he took a step toward me.
I moved away from him as if he were a virus and I could catch him.
“You don’t get to say my name ever again,” I replied without looking at him.
“Belle—”
“Never!” I yelled, finally looking at him.
His expression caught me off guard; it was somewhere between grief and shame, and I swallowed and looked away, knowing I’d back down if I looked at him any longer.
“So what happens now?” I asked, my gaze going between Shooter, Rider, Gauge, Casa…anyone but Beast.
Shooter sighed and I felt his weary sigh all the way to my bones. “Not entirely sure anymore,” he admitted, running a hand down his beard. He shook his head. “Seems this fuckhead here is in love with you and doesn’t want you to die, the person we thought you’d been talking to you haven’t, and the people we thought were long gone are anything but. I need a fuckin’ beer.”
He stormed toward the bar and headed behind it, and we all followed him with our eyes as he pulled out a cold bottle and popped the lid before downing it, his previous half-drunk one now forgotten. When he finished that beer he set the empty bottle on the bar and pulled out a glass before pouring himself a neat whiskey. He pulled out his cigarettes, lit one, and then went and sat back on his bar stool, glass of whiskey in one hand, cigarette in the other, and his eyes closed in deep contemplation.
I looked around at the bikers in the room, all looking as confused as I was. I wanted to go home and crawl into bed. I wanted to sleep for a year. I wanted to call Jenna and explain everything to her. There were a lot of things that I wanted in that moment, but all I could think about was that Shooter had said Beast was in love with me.
I hated him—Beast—with every fiber of my being, and yet a part of me still longed for him. A part of me, despite hating him, loved him too. Why does that happen? Why do you always want what is so bad for you? Why do we surround ourselves with narcissists and bullies, users and abusers, the people that if we saw our friends in a relationship with we’d drag them away… and yet when it was our turn, we still fell in love with them.
What was it about these people that could capture a heart as easily as a butterfly?
Was it those glimpses of good that tormented us? The taunts of what could be that kept us there letting them hurt us? Or was it that we were just gluttons for punishment, because deep down we had some deep-rooted dislike of ourselves?
I headed to Shooter and picked up the bottle from the bar. He raised an eyebrow but handed me a glass regardless, and I poured myself a whiskey. Taking a sip, I winced as it burned all the way down into my stomach and lay there warming my insides. And then I went and sat next to Shooter—the man who had wanted me dead thirty minutes earlier—and we sat in silence together.
Eventually the other men came over too, smoking and drinking, all of us in deep contemplation. But Beast, he just stared and watched, and I could see the misery and torture on his face more blatant than the scars that ran down it. I refused to put him out of his misery though, despite what Shooter had just said and despite what I felt. After what we’d shared last night, he’d still intended to kill me. I let that sink in, hoping that would be enough to cut him out of my heart, but it didn’t.
When I finished my whiskey, I chanced a glance at Shooter. His eyes were open now and he was staring down into his glass. He was so deep in thought I could practically hear the cogs working in his brain like he was putting a puzzle together.
He threw the rest of his whiskey to the back of his throat and rolled his shoulders before standing up. “How do Mateo and Carlos contact you?” he said to me, and the whole room froze as they listened.
“They just turn up.” I shrugged. “Once it was the middle of the night and I was sleeping. I woke up to find Carlos standing in the doorway and Mateo on top of me, his hand over my mouth.”
A low growl like an animal rose up from Beast, and I chanced a look at him. He looked furious, like he wanted to tear something apart. The irony had me shaking my head.
“Another time,” I continued, “I got home after being here all day and they were waiting for me inside. Another time they grabbed me while I was grocery shopping and threw me in the back of their van. They drove me to the woods. They had me strip naked and told me they were going to rape me and then cut off my head before leaving it on Jenna’s doorstep.”
Another growl from Beast.
He started to pace the room, his hard stomps echoing through the clubhouse.
“I think they just enjoyed terrorizing me,” I said, my voice low so as not to infuriate Beast any further. “They wanted me to be too scared to say anything.”
“And Lorenzo,” Rider asked, coming closer. “You said he treated you badly?”
I looked away, my cheeks flaming with shame. “Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it. It was probably just me being overly sensitive.”
“Need to know, Belle,” Shooter said, sounding regretful. “Not to be a dick, but you don’t seem the best judge of character. He was supposed to have cut all ties with his family years ago—it’s the only reason we’ve allowed him to operate here. His business, his home, it’s all been left alone because he said he had nothing to do with his family.”
“Has he hurt you?” Casa asked, coming closer.
I looked up, noticing that all of them were close now, like they wanted to protect me. Only Beast remained outside of the little circle they had formed, pacing and glaring, his hands clenching and unclenching.
I swallowed. “He…he forced me to do things.” I shook my head, feeling ridiculous.
“He raped you?” Gauge asked, sounding furious.
I shook my head no. “No, not really. I mean, I didn’t want to, but he made me feel like I couldn’t say no. And it was different—”
“Different?” Shooter asked.
“Aggressive. Violent. Forceful.” As soon as I said the words, I felt sick. The memories of Lorenzo and the way he’d treated me, the things he’d made me do.
Beast lost it.
He just lost it.
He picked up a heavy armchair and threw it against the wall. It smashed with such force as he roared and picked up the coffee table and threw that. Anything within arm’s reach he grabbed and threw, roaring through his anger. Violence surging through him as he lost control. Gauge and Casa ran to him, grabbing him in an attempt to control him, and I stared on in total shock.