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The batshit craziest thing was... she was right.
Getting into this lifestyle put everyone around you in jeopardy. They could catch a stray bullet meant for you. They could be kidnapped, beaten, and raped. They could be killed right in front of you.
And doing what I did, choosing the lifestyle I chose meant that Rey would never be safe as long as V was alive. Well, let's face it, she would never be safe again if we continued on. V was an evil, twisted fucking person. But she was just one of many. We dealt almost exclusively with shitheads, lowlives, people who wouldn't think twice about hurting women and children.
I couldn't let someone else get hurt on my watch.
I couldn't handle that.
If I lived through this, if we all teamed up and found a way to get V permanently out of the picture, I had to end it. Before we got any deeper. I had to let her go back to her old, safe life.
It was the fairest thing I could do for her.
Hell, even just tonight.
This was bad enough to have subjected her to.
She had needed to take a gun which she had expressly told me she hated to her core, and run across town in the dead of winter in a cocktail dress and ankle-breaking heels, to get help because someone was going to take me.
What happened after that?
I was sure all the - very few - remaining men at the compound wanted to come looking for me. So did they lock her up somewhere? How fucking scared must she have been to be completely alone during such an insane time?
This was more than enough damage to inflict upon her.
I wouldn't be the cause of any more of it.
"Not everyone can be a heartless robot, V," I said, spitting out the tooth that had been rolling around my gums.
"And that is why not everyone gets to be at the top," she shot back.
She was right.
Everyone had flaws.
For most of us, it was the people we loved.
For her, it was simply her pride.
Don't ask me why, maybe it was the pain I was in, or maybe it was what she said about Rey, or, hell, maybe it was just because I didn't want to fucking talk to this lunatic for another second, but I just kept poking.
"The top, huh? Spent, what? Ten years or so in a cell? Must have sucked, huh? Did you have a mirror? I bet that fuck gave you a mirror so you could watch the years etch into that face of yours. Watch the years slip away. All your old contacts moving on. Your name means nothing. Didn't know who the fuck you were, lady. Not until Reign told us. You're not at the top. You're not even a vague memory for any..."
Yeah.
That was the button.
Because it wasn't her men that came at me this time; it was her.
I learned something new about V right before the crack to my head made everything go black; she kept a gun in her garter. And she could swing it pretty fucking well."Reeve!" Cy's voice screamed into my ear as a slap landed to the side of my face.
"He's fine," Roan's voice rumbled, calm, collected, but just the slightest bit frustrated.
I didn't even need to open my eyes to know that V and her guys must have been long gone by the time they got here.
"He's not fine. He's a fucking breathing bruise," Cy countered, voice nothing like I had ever heard it before. Cy was always calm, laid-back, jovial. This Cy? He was frantic, worried, borderline hysterical.
"But he's breathing," Roan shot back, a bit curt, even for him.
He was angry.
He knew something was going to happen, but he didn't know what. If I knew him at all, and I did a bit, he was beating himself up about what happened to me, about V being on the loose.
Though it was insane for him to take that on himself.
"Fine," I heard my voice say, the sound rough and low. "I'm fine," I tried again, forcing my eyes open, almost immediately ready to suck the words back in. Fine was not something I was right that moment. Everything fucking hurt. Cy was right; I was a breathing bruise. I almost wanted to demand that one of them knock me back out until someone could slip me some pain medicine or something.
"Christ," Cy exhaled, looking down at me, his eyes wide with worry. "Is your mouth full of blood?" he asked. "Doesn't that mean he could be bleeding internally?" he asked, looking toward the others for confirmation.
"Or he got a tooth knocked out," Pagan reasoned, calm, moving over toward me. When it came to injuries, he was the expert. He tucked his gun into his waistband to free his hands which he moved over my face, jaw, my side. "He's fine. Busted rib, some busted facial bones. Tooth is gone. Mostly surface shit. Let's get him out of here."
