Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(84)

Because this?

What I was feeling right now?

This was excruciating.

My phone buzzed in my hand, so I looked down at it.

It was a call from Archie.

She was the single coolest chick I knew.

And she was brainwashed with this shit.

I got that.

Boy, did I.

They sucked you in with sweet talk and great sex, so by the time you realize you’ve agreed not to ask any questions about the shit they get up to with their brothers, realize you’ve thrown yourself into a life you don’t know dick about, you’re so addicted to that life, to them, you can’t get loose.

I went to my car, and I’d give myself shit for this later, but I drove to Core’s without taking a second to get my head together. I was in such a fog of pain and betrayal, I could have hurt myself or someone else.

But I made it.

I hit the garage door opener on my visor, and the act of doing that felt like a knife sinking into my flesh.

I parked, shut down my Mini, nabbed the opener and took a minute to take Core’s key off my ring before I left my purse and briefcase where they were and went into the house.

The first thing I saw was that I had laundry folded on his dryer. I hadn’t put it away yet.

My laundry folded and mingled with his.

Just like everything else between us, it had happened naturally.

He did the cooking, so he also did the grocery shopping.

Without a word, I’d started to do our laundry.

He had a cleaning service, so that wasn’t a thing.

After he cooked, for the most part, we did the dishes together.

Sometimes, he’d be off doing something with his club (and at this point, I knew that “something” could be more anything than the anything I already knew it to be). If he was, I’d do the dishes. Sometimes, I’d be off for drinks with the girls or need to check a scheduled post went out, and track its progress, so he’d do them.

We’d just clicked in like we were meant to be.

In everything, we’d done that.

Clicked in like we were meant to be.

I made it to the kitchen and put the opener and his key on the island, seeing the steaks out, already seasoned.

There it was. Allowing them to come to room temperature.

He said it produced a better result.

He was right.

I saw movement and watched him walk in from the back, probably out checking the grill, and I did this having to completely ignore Nanook bounding in with him, coming straight to me. I needed to get this done, and I was broken, but taking a second to come to the understanding I was losing both my boys, that would shatter me.

And anyway, taking in Core was enough.

God, he was gorgeous, that tall, hard body. That hair. Those eyes.

That smile which started to falter after he caught sight of me and then processed the state of me.

“You ran late,” he said guardedly.

“Did you and your brothers beat up Rosalie Kavanagh?”

I knew they did on the word “beat.”

I knew it because he didn’t turn awkward or defensive. He didn’t shut down or appear wily.

His eyes went dead.

Completely dead.

Somewhere deep, deep down inside of me, I registered that look in his eyes with alarm.

However, the prevailing emotion was keeping my feet, due to the fact my heart had exploded.

My tone was suffocated when I pushed, “You, all of you, beat up a single woman?”

“Yes.”

I stood there, silently dying as I stared at him, waiting for more.

But that was it.

Yes.

If that was true, then everything else Eleanor said was too.

No mercy.

“You told me you weren’t good for me,” I whispered.

He didn’t wince, reach out to me, move my way.

He stood there, his lifeless eyes locked on me, and that was it.

“You didn’t lie.”

With one last look at him, I did the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.

I turned my back on Dustin “Hardcore” Cutler and walked away.





20





HOURS





Hellen





Within twenty-four hours, I knew it wasn’t a club, it also wasn’t a gang.

It was a cult.

And cults never let you get away easy.

Archie texted seven times, and called three.

Jagger called twice.

Dutch and Rush both called once. They did this even though I’d never had any direct communication from them before. I only knew it was them because they identified themselves before I stopped listening and deleted their voicemails.

Janna, who I liked a whole lot, she seemed sweet, I was considering asking her if she wanted to hang with us during our Fortnum’s Sundays, but we had yet to exchange that first phone communication, texted once and called twice.

She was the only one I responded to.

I didn’t read her text, but I returned one, politely requesting that she communicate with Core then tell me when it would be a good time for me to go to his house and get my things, without him there.

I worked from home and spent an hour and a half drafting an email to Web about how I’d need to give them thirty days’ notice because I was voiding our contract.