Unbeautifully (Undeniable, #2)(11)

“Why couldn’t you have just let me die?” he whispered to a god that obviously didn’t give two f*cks about him.

He’d been ready to die.

But God hadn’t granted him peace; the f*cker had given him hell on earth instead. And the face of a demon to match.

Ripper gasped as Frankie swiped his blade across his chest, tearing open his skin. Again.

Naked. Hog-tied on the floor of an old warehouse, bleeding from too many wounds to count, Ripper knew he was going to die and silently, albeit a little angrily, made his peace with God.

“Not lookin’ so pretty anymore, Horseman,” Frankie said, laughing. “Lookin’ pretty f*ckin’ f*cked-up.”

He blinked, trying to see through the blood and tears. “Fuck you,” he rasped. “Fuck you.”

“Sorry, f*ckwad, you ain’t my type. But I’ll make a deal with you. You tell me what f*ckin’ deal Deuce worked out with Bannon’s crew, how much profit he’s skimmin’, and I’ll let you jerk off before I slit yer f*ckin’ throat.”

He choked back a sob. He didn’t want to die and he definitely didn’t want to die like this, at the hands of a madman who got off making people bleed and scream before he did them in. But there was no way in hell he would ever give up his club or his prez. No f*cking way.

“Do your f*ckin’ worst, you cock-suckin’ piece of shit,” he choked out, cringing as he said it. You don’t tell a man like Franklin “Crazy Frankie” Deluva to do his worst and then expect anything but his absolute worst and Frankie’s worst was…

Ripper screamed as Frankie’s blade pierced his eyeball.

Sitting on top of his bound body, stopping him from thrashing, Frankie slowly twisted his blade.

Pure.

Scalding.

Fire.

He screamed and sobbed until, thankfully, his brain chose that moment to shut the f*ck down and he passed out cold.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve what Frankie had done to him; he knew he did. When you’d taken as many lives as he had taken over the years, inflicted as much pain as he had, without giving what he’d been doing so much as a second thought…well then, you didn’t have a right to be surprised when God decided to let karma f*ck you up the ass with a pitchfork.

But that didn’t mean he was happy about it.

In fact, with each passing year he was growing angrier, more and more miserable, unable to forget but desperately trying. He was drinking more, tapping into shit he shouldn’t, doing whatever or whoever he felt like because…really…who gave a f*ck what he did?

Ripper didn’t have any family left, didn’t have a girlfriend he gave two f*cks about, and if his brothers knew what had really happened with Frankie, the real reason he’d been able to get away, they’d lose all respect for him.

So, yeah, that amounted to him having a whole lot of jack-f*cking-shit.

And now he could add Danny to the long list of f*ckups he’d made in his life.

Danny.

Deuce’s f*cking daughter.

He’d f*cked Deuce’s f*cking daughter.

He was f*cked.

He was so f*cking f*cked.

Maybe this was how his miserable life was finally going to end: death by *.

Which, when he thought about it, made sense. It was because of * that you came screaming into this world; might as well be * that took you out of it.

Staring at his reflection, Ripper started laughing, because, what the f*ck, this shit wasn’t real. This couldn’t be his life.

And then he had to look away, because what grown f*cking man wanted to watch himself cry.

CHAPTER FIVE
Deuce leaned forward on his handlebars, scanning the park playground until he found what he was looking for. Standing beside Kami, near the sandbox Ivy was playing in, was Eva.

Cox was about twenty feet away, tossing a ball around with Devin and Mary Catherine, looking every inch the devoted father to both his daughter and the son he hadn’t known he’d had up until…Jesus, had it been two years already?

Deuce had never been a devoted father.

He’d been a shit father.

Never home, always losing his temper, not giving a shit about what their bitch of a mother was doing, never knowing what the f*ck was going on in either Cage or Danny’s lives.

He’d promised himself it was going to be different with Ivy, with Eva. And it had been. Shit had been real good.

And then…

In his peripheral vision, Deuce saw Frankie get up on his knees and lift Eva’s hips. Frankie’s hand snaked around her waist and dipped between her thighs. Eva lost her battle. Her breath caught, her eyes rolled back, even as tears streamed down her face. Her legs quaking, she went face first into the pillow, crying out softly through her orgasm. Frankie followed her down, groaning loudly, his body jerking. Then Frankie turned to him. And grinned.

Deuce’s chest went tight. Fuck him, he couldn’t even think about it without wanting to kill someone. He’d been helpless. Him. Frankie had taken what was his, right in front of him. And laughed about it. And Eva, goddamned motherf*cking Eva, had gotten off with another man’s cock inside her. Raping her. In front of him.

The whole f*cking shebang made him sick to his stomach.

He couldn’t get past it.

He couldn’t forget it.

He’d stayed by Eva’s side through all her bullshit. Grieving Frankie, blaming herself, then shock had set in, followed by depression the likes of which he’d never seen before. For a while he thought she’d never shake herself out of it, and he was scared shitless because of it. Because, f*ck him, he’d never loved a woman like he loved this woman, and the thought of losing her was unthinkable to him.