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He rose to his feet. “We’re done here.” He looked at her like a piece of gum stuck to his shoe. “I expect you won’t be returning the money.”
The money? After everything she’d just told him? Fuck him. “You expect right.” It wasn’t about the money; it was about him. About her bowing and scraping to him, trying again to fill his bottomless well of need—for attention, adulation, obedience. A fool’s errand, and she was done being a fool. She’d figure out some other way to keep Kane safe from his threats.
“Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost me?” he hissed.
She turned on her heel and paused at the office door, looking back at him over her shoulder. “I know exactly what it cost you. It cost you your daughter.”
He didn’t say another word as she resumed her path out of the room and out of his life.
***
Kane
The I-95 route to Jacksonville took a little longer thanks to the detour along Highway 17, but the view made up for the delay. Cue Ball said all road trips were the same, but something about being close to the water on his bike made hours on the road go by in half the time.
Though he’d never really minded making gun runs for the club, getting away from all the drug garbage, even if for only a day, came as a downright relief. He and Frank left right after dawn to make it for the lunchtime meeting with Sergei. Frank drove the SUV, and Kane escorted him on his Harley. They could have ridden together, but Kane was in no mood to hear about who the man fucked last night. He struggled more and more to fake any enthusiasm about his friends’ sexual conquests or even to jump in on singing the praises of the club. It seemed like those were the only things anyone wanted to talk about anymore.
Had it ever been any different?
He let his memory stretch as his body relaxed into the rhythm of the open road. When he had tried to exorcize Mandy from his life, his brothers provided an endless string of distractions to keep him from going crazy. If he got too sad, someone—usually Scott—would drive him to the strip club down the street from the clubhouse and slap a Bud in his hand.
At the time, the club provided security for Bottoms Up, so they never had to pay a cover. Most of the guys would’ve said the free admission was payment enough, but the job also brought in a few extra bucks.
Those first few years after the break-up blurred into a loop of lap dances, benders, blowjobs, and even a few three-ways. They were bitter and broken years, where he intentionally scraped the bottom of the society barrel as a big fuck you to the woman who would have been devastated to see him sunk so low. After a while, it simply became the reality of his life.
He stopped shaving or cutting his hair. He used the money he’d saved for Mandy’s ring as a down payment on his bike. And visited the tattoo parlor more times than anyone else in his club.
Only his first tattoo had any real meaning, Mandy’s name inked large and proud across his back, spanning shoulder to shoulder. He’d lied and told the other guys he got it before the break-up, but she would’ve hated him marking his skin with her name or anything else. No, he’d gotten the tat right after she left him. He’d told himself it was so he would never forget how completely she fucked him over, a reminder to never fall for another woman again. Another lie. She’d branded herself on his fucking soul; the tat only made it visible to the world.
The next one came a year later. He got another every few months, all with the same themes: skulls in honor of the club and an array of female demons and angels. After all, he considered women both heaven and hell, so it made sense.
Now, he bore little resemblance to the clean-cut guy who went to night school and picnicked with his girlfriend under the stars. Mandy’s willingness to let him kiss her the other night was a fucking miracle. And not only because of the way he looked. He gave up the dream of winning her back years ago, but he’d convinced himself she’d never loved him…she left because she didn’t care.
Could he believe her explanation now?
Yes. Maybe that made him a fucking idiot, but he didn’t doubt her for a second. Her abrupt change of heart about their relationship had never made sense. He would’ve bet his life she’d loved him every bit as much as he’d loved her, and her version of events gave him a lifeline. It said he hadn’t misjudged her; she did love him—so much she gave him up to protect him.
The gray waves churned in the corner of his stinging eyes as he considered her father’s bullshit extortion story. It had a thousand holes in it, but the important thing was, he believedshe believedit. She didn’t just break his heart, she broke her own.
How was he supposed to feel about that? His gut tangled in knots. He wanted to shake her for her naivety and for carrying the weight of it all on her shoulders. He would have never allowed a threat to tear them apart, but then again, she probably knew that from the beginning. She didn’t give him a choice.
She thought she was saving him, but even if all Beau’s shit about the cop was real, hell yeah, he would have gladly done some time, knowing she was waiting on the other side. It would have been better than the endless emptiness he got instead.
He could examine it a thousand times, ask himselfwhat if.He could rage about it, mourn over it, question it. Truthfully, though, the moment he could tell himself it wasn’t her fault, he’d grabbed onto it with both hands. He’d grabbed on toher.
Mandy was the only thing he truly ever wanted in his life, and if he could find a way to have her now, his tattered soul still yearned for it. The question was whether she could ever want the man he had become. Dirty and used and jaded.
Arriving at his destination gave him a much-needed break from his thoughts. Sergei stood outside the warehouse, his thick arms folded over his black wool coat, his white-blond hair slicked back from his face.
Kane climbed from his bike, his legs like Jell-O after the long ride. Ignoring the sign of weakness, he approached his contact and shook his hand. He only wanted a nice, easy exchange. “Hope you weren’t waiting too long.” He couldn’t read the Russian’s impassive face.
“No. You are right on time.”
Even after five years of working with the man, he still enjoyed listening to the unusual cadence of his accent. Unfortunately, Sergei was a man of few words. He led Kane and Frank, who had pulled up right behind him, into the warehouse where twenty-five AR-15s waited inside a parked black van. Frank walked straight to the guns to examine them.
Sergei firmed his jaw, then turned to Kane. “Rumors are circulating about your club dipping into the drug trade.”
Shit.
