Released (Devil's Blaze MC #3)(5)

“I… what are you talking about?” I’m definitely annoyed and defensive now.

“Well, I mean you allowed yourself to get pregnant by a man who you obviously thought would be a horrible father,” she says, as if it was completely simple.

My heart stalls in my chest. “I didn’t,” I stutter. “I mean, I didn’t think I did. I got the note and it seemed…”

“With everything you had been through with your father and with Colin and Matthew—not to mention your grandfather—it didn’t occur you to even question the letter? It didn’t occur to your sister?”

My breath stops. It’s not like I haven’t asked the same questions Nicole’s asking. I have. Katie did. It’s just that I’ve never had a third party hit me with the questions. I’ve never had someone ask me pointblank before about my choices.

I find a chair and sit down, looking at this woman. I should hate her, but instead I am swamped with this horrible feeling that I f*cked up. It’s one thing to feel it, but another to acknowledge it completely.

“I was scared,” I whisper, my feeble reason.

Nicole’s face changes and she sits down across from me now. “Do you know what you were afraid of?”

I do, but saying it out loud will just sound lame. Because it is.

“I think if there was even the faintest possibility that Dragon had moved on without me, that he was in love with another woman, I would want to run away from ever seeing it.”

I swallow, because that’s it in a nutshell. “You would?”

“Definitely. It would kill me to confront that.”

“But you would. Confront it, I mean.”

I know I’m right. She’s too confident, too self-assured. She’s everything I’ve never been.

“Probably. But then again, I wasn’t pregnant and alone at the age of nineteen. Betrayed by my father, who I thought was dead, then confronted by a sister that, again, I thought was dead.”

“You know everything?”

“I know everything Skull told Dragon. It’s just that I’m not a man, so I see things they miss, or they don’t understand.”

“You’re on my side?”

She studies me carefully. “Skull is my friend. I want to see him happy.”

“I see, so you don’t—”

“I happen to think having his family together would achieve that.”

My heart speeds up. But then, why? There’s no way that’s going to happen and I don’t know if I want it to, now. This Skull is not the man I remember. Plus, he has moved on…

“It doesn’t matter. It’s too late,” I tell Nicole, occupying myself with playing with my daughter’s beautiful hair. She’s smiling and playing with her little set of plastic keys. She looks so much like her father that it physically hurts sometimes.

“I guess it is. Especially if you’re not willing to fight for your family. Like I said, disappointing.”

“You would fight to be with someone who hates you?” I question her, disbelieving.

“I think any woman would, if she cares about her daughter.”

“It’s not good for my child to be around people who hate each other,” I tell her, getting pissed. She may have some valid points, but she doesn’t get to tell me I don’t know what is best for my daughter.

“True. But if there’s a chance those parents could find their way back…”

“There’s not. I respect what you’re trying to do,” I tell her, even though I’m lying, “but this is not your business, and since you haven’t walked in my shoes, you can’t really tell me what you would do.”

“Point made,” Nicole says, standing up with her baby. “But I’ll tell you what I do know, Beth. I know that I would fight like hell to keep my man. It wouldn’t matter how long we were apart, or what was between us. I’d fight.”

“How nice for you,” I tell her, getting up to leave. I definitely need to take Gabby and go back to my room.

“I just have one more thing to leave with you, Beth, then I’m done.”

I sigh hearing her say that, but resign myself to listen. “Please just say it and get it over with, because I’m kind of done here.”

“Will you be able to live with the fact that you didn’t even try? Will it ever bother you to know that you basically just handed the man you love over to another woman?”

I swallow hard and turn away from her. I don’t want her to see my face when I lie.

“I … don’t love Skull.”

“Then I guess it won’t bother you at all when he finds someone else.”

“No, it … it won’t bother me,” I whisper brokenly, walking towards my room and ignoring the tears that again threaten to fall. It won’t bother me at all.

It will kill me.





I hold my fist up in the air to tell my men to hold tight. I’m not about to ruin shit when I’m so close to getting Colin Donahue in my hands. He’s the first step to my revenge. Pistol is a barely-breathing dead man. When I have Colin chained up beside him, maybe I’ll be able to finish Pistol off. I’ll center my rage on Colin, the f*cker who truly deserves it.