Page 108 of Rebellious

“Good for him. You gave up on him if you divorcing him.”

“I’m not. At least not now.”

“Or ever.”

“I just need a break.”

“Take all the breaks you want. It won’t change shit. Johnnie not a reasonable motherfucker, and won’t ever be. How the fuck you expect Rory to be since he take his cues from him?”

“Don’t hate me for trying to save my husband’s life.”

“If I let him live, you and me can’t be friends anymore.”

“Wha…? Why? No!”

“Fuck off, Kendall. That motherfucker live and Bailey come back to me, he’ll target her again if you and me still close. Fuck him and fuck you. He hurt my woman. My wife. My Bailey. Fuck both you motherfuckers. That fuckhead obsessed with motherfuckers and go after our wives. He want to be Prez, so he target Meggie girl. He stopped liking me months ago, so he target Bailey because of my friendship with you. And you got the motherfucking nerve to ask me to let him live? How fucking dare you? That motherfucker crossed the wrong fucking line.”

Mortician never wanted to hurt Kendall. Yet he couldn’t stop the venom spewing from the well of poison infecting him. Even when he’d fucked up with Bailey while she was still pregnant with Harley, he hadn’t been as hurt.

“Do you want me to leave?” Kendall asked, chillingly subdued, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“Yeah,” he told her, so angry he couldn’t see clearly or think straight.

“I promised Roxy I’d be here for you. Check on you,” she said pitifully.

“I don’t fucking need nothing but my goddamn wife that your motherfucker ran away.”

“That isn’t my fault,” she cried, switching up on him. “I’m not in that motherfucker’s head.”

“Yeah, but you want that motherfucker to keep his fucking head. I want to hang it on my goddamn wall like a fucking trophy.”

“Bailey had some fucking responsibility too, fuckhead,” she yelled, swiping at her tears, rallying as always. That’s what Kendall did. That’s why Mort admired her so much. “She has a responsibility to you. To her children. Roxy. The club. Meggie. She stopped caring long before Johnnie got to her. That was just a convenient fucking excuse for her to go from bad behavior to worse fucking behavior.”

“Get the fuck out, Kendall. Before I say something you won’t like.”

“I’m your friend,” she told him. “We’ve always been honest with each other.”

“I didn’t say one fucking lie to you. You want to plead for your motherfucker’s life? Get the fuck out and don’t fucking come back.”

Her face crumpled and she finally stood. She looked so fucking tragic with her red hair streaming around her, her brown eyes devastated and her entire body wilted.

If he didn’t feel so fucking unsteady sitting down, he would’ve stood and hugged her. Talking wasn’t working. He was being a fuckhead, lashing out at her because she didn’t want him to kill her fucking husband.

She opened the picnic basket and took out the two bottles of wine. “You should eat something,” she told him quietly, nodding to the food she’d brought him, still safely inside the wicker basket.

“Sit down,” he told her.

“You aren’t changing my mind,” she said flatly. “My son hates me already. What kind of a mother would I be if I sanctioned his father’s murder?”

“You don’t have to sanction a motherfucking thing, but you definitely don’t have to beg for that motherfucker’s life. If it was only because of Rory, that would be bad enough.”

Before she sat down again, she dug out the corkscrew and opened both bottles of wine. She swigged from one and handed him the other. “I don’t want to argue with you, Mortician. If you let me stay, we don’t have to discuss Johnnie or Bailey.”

“Fine.”

“Can we play music?”

“I thought we needed to eat.”