Unbeautifully (Undeniable, #2)(51)

“DON’T LOOK AT HER!” Nikki screamed. “YOU LOOK AT ME! I DESERVE THAT MUCH!”

His eyes shot back to Nikki, whose shaking hand was two seconds away from accidentally blowing a hole in the woman he loved. So he did what he had to do, to get the focus of that gun off Danny and on him.

“You’re f*ckin’ crazy, thinkin’ whatever you’re thinkin’. Yeah, Danny ain’t no whore but that don’t mean I give a f*ck. She’s hot * and, bitch, you’re shot. Fuckin’ used up and lookin’ old.” He shrugged. “Ain’t feelin’ you no more.”

Both women sucked in sharp breaths but he kept his gaze on Nikki and forced out a hard laugh. “Fuckin’ crazy bitches, thinkin’ I give a f*ck about either one of you.”

Just as he’d expected, any remaining shred of sanity left inside Nikki fled. Her arm shot forward and…

Ripper leaped off the bed and to the left, hoping to avoid the bullet but he wasn’t fast enough and searing pain sliced through his side. He stumbled sideways, slamming into the wall just as two more shots rang out.

He whipped around, expecting to find Danny shot, or worse, but instead found Nikki crumpled in a heap on the floor, choking as blood gurgled up out of her mouth.

And standing above her was Danny, Nikki’s gun in her hands.

CHAPTER TWENTY
Ripper pushed open the door to Deuce’s office where he found his prez sitting behind his desk, Cox was perched on the side of it, and across the room Mick and ZZ were at opposite ends of a leather sofa.

His stomach firmly lodged in his throat, Ripper closed the door behind him and crossed his arms over his chest.

Deuce’s eyes fixed on him. “Freebird said you needed to talk to me?”

He nodded, feeling like an * for what he was about to do to Deuce and the club. But he didn’t have much of a choice.

He’d given it a shitload of thought. Sat on the bathroom floor for twelve straight hours, just smoking and thinking.

This needed to be done.

For Danny’s sake.

For Danny’s future’s sake.

Eventually she’d get over it, without him hanging around like a dark cloud, reminding her every other second that she’d killed a woman. Because of him. She’d grow to hate him and the thought of those icy blue eyes looking at him with anything but love in them made him sick to his stomach.

Clearing his throat, he said, “This ain’t f*ckin’ easy for me, Prez. Known you since I was seventeen, been with the club a long time now—”

Cox shot to his feet. “What the f*ck you doin’, Ripper?”

He looked at his friend. His brother.

“I gotta go,” he said quietly.

“Fuck that!” Cox yelled. “You tell me why you gotta go, ’cause I ain’t seein’ it!”

As if he’d been kicked in the balls, his breath caught, nausea powered through him and his vision swam. Christ, Cox wasn’t going to let him go easy. There was too much history, they’d been friends too long, f*cked a lot of shit up together…hell, they’d f*cked a lot of girls together too. Cox wasn’t just his brother, Cox was his best friend, for f*ck’s sake.

“Prez,” he gritted out through clenched teeth, ignoring Cox. “I can’t do my f*ckin’ job, I’m not right in the f*ckin’ head, and… I gotta go. I gotta get my shit under control.”

“Ripper,” Mick said, leaning forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “You haven’t exactly been right since Frankie f*cked you up. Why are you decidin’ this now?”

He didn’t say anything. What could he say? He couldn’t tell them about being with Danny; Deuce would kill him on the spot, and no one but Cox knew about Nikki. Either way, if anyone found out about either, it wouldn’t take them very long to realize the events were related and he could absolutely not let that happen. He would not let that shit fall on Danny in any way. This shit was on him, all of it; just another f*cking check mark on his long list of sins.

The through and through on his side burning like a motherf*cker, Ripper grunted in pain as he gently set Danny down on his bed. He knelt in front of her and she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

“I…I…I killed her,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes wide, her expression a mixture of utter disbelief and horror.

“No!” he yelled, grabbing her arms. “No, you did not! This shit was my fault, baby! I shoulda ended shit with her a long time ago. Me bein’ stupid killed her! Do you understand me?”

She shook her head. “No…I shot her…she—”

“No!” he roared. “Fuckin’ listen to me! I. Killed. Her. Me. Not you.”

She didn’t say anything, just stared at him, violently trembling.

Cursing, he got to his feet and grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand.

Cox answered immediately.

“Got a problem,” he said.

“Got one of my own,” Cox said and Ripper could hear Kami yelling nonsense in the background.

“Cox, brother, I wouldn’t ask but I got a dead Nikki on my bedroom floor and a hole in my side.”

Silence.

Then, “Gimme an hour and I’ll be there. You need Z?”

ZZ, the only brother who could sew them up nice and neat when shit got ugly.