Just like I am now, apparently.
“You’re risking prison time,” he spits.
I don’t even bother trying to control the tremble that has settled in my body. “I-I haven’t done anything.”
“The fire in Andover started itself then?” He tsks. “How easily you forget I always have eyes on you.”
Does he have eyes on me inside the clubhouse? Does he know about the depraved things I’ve done? I’ve always walked on eggshells around him, but there’s always that little hope that one day the little girl in me will make her daddy proud. Shame washes over me again.
“I haven’t seen anything,” I confess.
I honestly haven’t. All of their business is handled behind closed doors. I’ve heard threats. Lynch has issued enough, but I’ve never seen him lay a finger on anyone. His growl seems to be enough to keep people in line.
“You better hope that changes, and fucking quickly.” He shoves a cell phone into the front pocket of my jeans. “Contact me with that when you have something I can use.”
The lights flip back off, and he shoves me back out the bathroom door.
Smalls is still standing guard at the end of the short hallway. I don’t look back. I know my father will wait to leave until the coast is clear. Smalls follows me into the store where we find Molly paying at the counter.
“That was fast,” I say hoping she can’t hear the tremble in my voice.
“What’s wrong?” she asks the second she turns away from the counter and sees my face.
So much for trying to fool her.
“Nothing,” I mutter.
“My brother should be shot for making you feel this way.”
Her arm swings around my shoulder as she guides me out of the mall. Smalls goes ahead of us to open the back doors on the SUV, and somehow, I drop the cell phone, kicking it under the vehicle, without either one of them noticing.Chapter 31Lynch
“Want to explain what the fuck happened back there?”
“Want to give me a little fucking privacy?” I counter.
Briar stands in the hotel bathroom doorway, refusing to leave, even after I begin stripping out of my clothes.
“I expect that kind of shit from TJ,” he growls.
I ignore him, more focused on the blood swirling in the sink as I wash my hands and forearms.
“Lynch!”
“I’ve killed dozens of men before,” I remind him, emotionless.
“You’ve hung dozens of men. Gutting them isn’t the same as leaving them swinging at the end of a rope,” he clarifies. “That was a fucking massacre.”
My eyes meet his in the mirror. “Was there one single innocent man in that room tonight? One who didn’t have a part in betraying the club?”
“You already know the answer to that,” he seethes. “This has to do with Candi. I know it, and you know it.”
“Not everything revolves around pussy for me.”
At least it didn’t until recently.
“You were sloppy tonight.” He’s resigned. He knows better than to expect anything else from me. We don’t chit-chat about petty shit, and short of asking him to find a new girl to sink inside of, we never talk about women. “Get a handle on your shit before we get back to the clubhouse. We have enough to worry about without the chance of your ass getting sent back to prison on a murder charge.”
I turn to plant my newly cleaned fist in his face, but he’s gone from the doorway. The door leading to the parking lot slams a second later.
This has to do with Candi.
I sneer as I reach for the shower nozzles.
Of course, it fucking does.
She’s infected my brain like a metastasized cancer.
She’s the throbbing in my chest, the irregular heartbeat that shows up every time I see a flash of brown hair or get a whiff of flowery perfume.
She’s the reason I can’t eat anything sweet because everything is bitter in comparison to the honey dripping from her cunt.
It doesn’t matter that I took off from the clubhouse minutes after she and Molly left for the mall, or that I’ve been gone for nearly a fucking week. Geographically, we could be on opposite sides of the fucking earth, in different fucking galaxies, and everything would still be about her.
With punishing hands, I scrub the blood of numerous faceless men from my body. It’s everywhere, in my hair and on my biceps even though I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. My skin is burning, rubbed raw in anger and frustration. Pain is my friend, coming along for the ride no matter how many miles I put between myself and Sutton, Massachusetts. Its brother, regret, has also tagged along for the damn ride.
Denial has also been trying to rear its ugly fucking head. More than once I’ve almost let that excuse of an emotion creep in. Most people live in it, revel in the ease it brings, but I’ve always been a self-aware person. That trait, or flaw as it feels in recent days, is what’s fucking with me the most.