Unbeautifully (Undeniable, #2)(34)
Fucking shit, thinking about his old man, his mother, and his dead little brother was making it hard to breathe. Deuce rubbed the heel of his palm over his chest in a large circle.
“You had the club,” Preacher said. “And you took the mess your old man left behind and you turned that shit into a brotherhood. You tossed out the garbage, you had your boys pull their shit together, and then you started pulling in more strays then any MC I’ve ever known. Done my homework on all your boys; I know Dirty and Hawk were starvin’ on street corners before you found ’em. Know Cox was stealin’ cars for his next meal, and Ripper, seventeen, no family, didn’t know jack shit about bikes, and what’d you do? Brought them all home with you and gave ’em all a family. You leave them, you’ll be rippin’ out the rug from underneath them all and your kids won’t even have the club to fall back on. Nobody will have nothin’.”
With his arms folded across his chest, Deuce gave Preacher a half-lidded glare. “I really f*ckin’ hate you,” he growled.
His knowing eyes trained on him, Preacher pulled a smoke out from behind his ear and lit it.
“Deuce,” he said, exhaling. “The feelin’s mutual. Now, I’m gonna tell you what I tell all my boys when they’re actin’ like fools. Go grab a bottle and a bitch and f*ck all that poisonous bullshit outta your system. Then you go home to my daughter and my grandbaby and your kids and your boys, and you fix whatever the f*ck is broken. And if you don’t, I’m gonna come collect my girls, maybe grab Kami away from that dirty f*ckin’ spic she married while I’m at it, but as for the rest of ’em, brother, that’s your problem.”
“Yeah?” he said dryly. “And while I’m drinkin’ and f*ckin’, what the f*ck are you gonna be doin’ ’bout Big Jay?”
Preacher took another drag off his smoke and shook his head. “I’m postin’ the hit tonight. You don’t gotta do a damn thing.”
? ? ?
With her sleeping toddler straddling her hip, Eva attempted navigating through the front of the club toward the back hall, wanting to leave behind the din of several ongoing conversations, the children crying or complaining, men laughing, women giggling. After five days, the constant noise was painfully bouncing around inside her skull, making her head ache for peace and quiet, and making her stomach churn with constant anxiety.
She’d never before minded lockdowns. In New York, she’d usually spent them in her bedroom, listening to music with Frankie or later, when they were older…
Her eyes started to burn and her grip tightened on Ivy.
Frankie.
Turning away from everyone, she closed her eyes…
Leaning back against the outside of the Demons’ brownstone, tall and broad, his thickly muscled, heavily tattooed arms folded over his chest, stretching the material of his black T-shirt, his long brown hair pulled tightly back, his head cocked to one side, his dark hungry eyes focused on her, a smile playing on his lips.
“Baby,” he said in a low, harsh voice as he crooked two fingers. “Come here.”
A cry bubbled up from her aching heart and lodged painfully in her throat. She covered her mouth with her hand, stifling the loud release of air.
No. She wasn’t going to think about Frankie. That chapter of her life was over. She’d made sure of that when she’d put a knife through his throat. There hadn’t been any other option. Frankie had been too far gone, causing too much pain to everyone he came into contact with; he’d been a walking time bomb.
Somehow Eva had managed to overcome the crippling guilt that killing him had caused. She’d pulled herself out of her pain, and taken control of her life again.
It was Deuce that was refusing to let it go.
Frankie had done the worst thing he could possibly do to a man like Deuce; a man who would have taken any sort of physical punishment Frankie could have meted out, preferred it actually. But Frankie had known that and instead had rendered Deuce immobile, forced him to watch the woman he loved being f*cked by another man, then to take her, leaving him wondering if he was ever going to see her alive again.
To a man like Deuce, what Frankie had done was a punishment far worse than death.
It was also something a man like Deuce wasn’t going to forget.
She’d tried…
And tried…
But she couldn’t do it anymore. When it came to Deuce, it felt as if she’d been running in circles her entire life.
It wasn’t just her anymore; she couldn’t afford to be selfish, to do as she pleased, to let the man in her life do as he pleased. To keep waiting on something that might never happen. She had a daughter who deserved the very best life Eva could give her.
She was leaving.
The decision had been made the night Deuce had left for New York. She was going home, back to her father and the Demons, back to what she’d thought she’d left behind for good in exchange for a life of happiness with the man she loved. She hadn’t told anyone yet, hadn’t had a chance to. The very next night the club had gone on lockdown and now she was stuck here.
“Do you want me to take her for a while?”
Dorothy appeared beside her and held her arms out. Grateful, Eva smiled as she passed Ivy, who blinked sleepily as she was shifted between them but settled instantly back to sleep on Dorothy’s shoulder.