Released (Devil's Blaze MC #3)(43)

“I thought nothing could be worse than that, querida. I thought that was the worst f*cking thing I would ever live through. Then I find out almost two years later that you’re alive. That you have my daughter and you’re out there somewhere. I hated you, Beth. I wanted to make you suffer. I wanted to destroy you, just like you… destroyed me…”

“Skull…”

“Do you know how I found out you were alive?”

“Skull, maybe…” I start, wanting him to stop, not sure I can take what comes next.

“I was in bed with another woman. With Teena. I had been alone for a year and a half, and I just wanted to feel… alive again. I was starting to feel normal, and then I get this call, and once again, you singlehandedly destroyed my world.”

And I thought I was crying before. His words rip what’s left of my heart out. I get up and take off running back the way we came. I don’t know where I’m going; I only know that I need to get away, that I have to get away from his words, from what they mean, from the… pain.

He grabs me from behind, not letting me escape. I yank my body away from him, taking a few steps away. His face is right there in front of me and I can see his own pain and he has tears shining in his eyes.

“You can’t run away from me! You wanted me to tell you the truth!” he growls.

“I was wrong!” I scream. “I don’t want to hear about you with her. I don’t want to hear this! I don’t want to hear how you fell in love with someone else! I can’t hear that!”

“It’s been almost three years, Beth! Our daughter is two years old! What did you expect from me?”

“I don’t know!” I scream again, so loud that the frogs that had been croaking in the hot Kentucky air go silent. “I don’t know,” I cry out, quieter this time, but so much more broken. “Not once in that time did I ever look at another man. You were it for me. You were… it,” I cry at the unfairness of it all.

“I thought you were dead! You knew I was out there! You can’t be mad because you started this whole series of events! Christo! You think I don’t hate myself, Beth? You think that I don’t despise myself for ever touching Teena when you were out there somewhere? She isn’t a bad woman. She tried to bring me comfort even knowing I was in love with another woman. And yet after one phone call, I push her away and set about trying to find you… even while hating you, even while wishing you had f*cking stayed dead!” he yells, and what was left of my heart breaks with those words.

There’s nothing left to say… That says it all.





The words leave before I can stop them. I see her visibly jerk with them. See the exact moment they cut her open, just like they were meant to. The monster is loose. He got to strike out, except it doesn’t bring satisfaction. Seeing her tears, feeling the pain between us, it doesn’t help the scars from the past; it’s just making new ones. What the f*ck am I doing?

“You need to let me go, Skull. When we get back to the club, just let me go. Put me and Gabby in one of your safe houses until you find Colin. I don’t care, just please set me free.”

“I can’t. Don’t you even get it, Beth? I can’t release you even if I wanted to. You’re in my blood, buried in the f*cking bones of me. Jesus, cutting out my heart would be easier than releasing you.”

“You have Teena…”

“I have no one! I don’t want anyone. Mierda!” I growl.

“Then what do you want, Skull?”

“To go back. Go back to the night we pledged our love to each other. The night I was sure I had slipped inside of you as deep as you are rooted in me. The night I thought I got through to you…”

She looks up at me, her tears still flowing down her cheeks unchecked.

“I lie in bed and think of that night. I want that too, Skull. I do. I want to go back and never have to make the decision I made. I tried every way I could not to. I didn’t have a choice, Skull. If I hadn’t gone with him, he would have killed Katie. He wouldn’t have stopped. I had already cost your club so much. Poor Beast… I couldn’t risk more happening. I couldn’t let my sister die. But, if it had just been me, Skull… If it had just been the two of us, I would have taken my last breath never leaving your side. Even if that breath was just a moment more, I would have chosen you. You have to know that,” she whispers sadly.

If it was just the two of us.

“It’s just us here, now.”

“But there’s more involved when we leave here.”

“Torch would die before he let anything happen to your sister, and Gabby can only be happier if the two of us are together.”

“There’s more involved now,” I repeated. “There’s your club. I have nightmares about what happened with Jan and that sweet baby… and Beast… That’s all my fault…”

I walk to her now and cup the side of her face. “Mi cielo, no one is responsible for that except the Donahues and Jan. You did not have any control with her stealing the keys from Bull. You could not control the actions of your father or any of the other culos in that family.”

Her hand trembles as it comes up and lies over mine. She squeezes gently as my thumb absently brushes the silent tears still falling from her face.