The bitch who tried to kill me, who stripped the skin from my chest. My ex-girlfriend. She’s sitting in the corner with an untouched mug before her, watching me the same fucking way she used to. An expression I didn’t realise was so cold and calculating, the greedy cunt, until it was too late. Until she had her blade in my chest, carving me to pieces while she laughed.
When I woke in the private hospital, the guys were there. They knew where she had run to, she had never gotten far enough to escape us. No place would ever be far enough. I didn’t ask, I just told them to take care of it. To make it hurt.
To make her suffer for what she did.
Because when I peeled those bandages away, I gagged at the sight of my own chest, and I couldn’t let the nurses help me wash it. Diesel had to. I couldn’t stand their hands on me, and when one tried, I snapped her wrist. This woman tried to kill me, ruin me.
Even managed it for many years. Only now, with Roxy, am I finally starting to live again, yet she’s here, staring at me like nothing happened.
How is she alive?
“Sir?” comes again, but I turn away and storm right up to her. I want to ring her neck, to snap it, but that would be too fast. How did she survive whatever the guys did? It had to be bad, they assured me she was dead.
How is she fucking alive?
And why do my hands shake? I hide them behind my back as I tower over her table. She tries to play it cool, her hand reaching for her mug, but I see the tremble in them, the fear in her eye. Unlike Roxy, she was always slightly scared of me for what I could do. She was disgusted at my fighting, yet the cold fucking bitch had no issue with my blood.
Cunt.
My gaze catches on her wrist as her hoodie pulls up with her movement, revealing mottled, burnt flesh. She gasps and yanks her hand under the table, her one eye narrowing on me.
“Gar,” she breathes. “You look good…almost fully healed.” She smirks.
“How are you alive?” I seethe, holding myself back from attacking her. It wouldn’t do us any good, but fuck, it’s hard. I want to snap every bone in her traitorous body. To make her feel the pain I felt, and not just at her betrayal.
“It wasn’t easy.” She shrugs. “But I had things to survive for.”
“Like a fucking cockroach you can’t get rid of,” I snarl, and she laughs, the annoying, high-pitched tittering sound that used to make Diesel threaten to stab her. That should have been warning enough. They didn’t like her, but I was blind.
I even protected her from him, let her pull me away from my brothers when she was scared of them. I hurt them, not that they will ever say it. I know that’s why Ryder is so panicked about Roxy, because I couldn’t just walk away from them for her.
I would do anything she asked.
I used to think Daphne would be it for me, that we would settle down and get married. It seemed like the right thing to do, since she was expecting it, dropping hints. Even though I wasn’t sure, I got the ring anyway. How was I ever this fucking blind?
She is cold, cunning, and a gold-digging cunt.
Roxy is so alive, so full of laughter, and if I ever tried to give her money, she would throw it in my face. Her hate, her anger matches mine, her scars mirroring my own. She is my world now, and it only shows me how desperate for love I was to not only fuck this woman, but propose.
“Gar, I remember when you didn’t want to get rid of me,” she purrs falsely.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” I growl. “Why are you here? In my city? You had to know I would find out and fucking kill you.”
I sense people staring now, fucking let them. Let them watch as I wipe this cunt from the face of the planet, let them fear me, I don’t care what they think. There are only five people I care about, and they would stand behind me, fuck, they would hand me the blade.
“I hear you have a new little toy, she’s cute. Does she know your penchant for pain? Or how you like to fuck hard and fast…” Her eyes drop hungrily to my chest, and I slam my fists onto the table. “I bet she doesn’t. I wonder, can she even bear to look at your chest?”
My lungs are heaving, and I can almost feel the blade carving into me again, flaying me open. Darkness circles me, my demons growing and demanding to be let free. “Answer me now.”
She grins and leans back, and I get sick of the games. I grab the hood and yank it back. My eyes widen as she quickly stands, pulling it over her head. But she’s not fast enough. I saw what she was trying to hide.
Half of her face is gone, melted—no hair, no eye, and her skin looks like dripping wax. No doubt Diesel’s handiwork. It makes me grin, and it’s not a nice one. “Oh, poor little Daphne, can’t use your looks to get your way anymore? It’s not like you have any other moves, you stupid cunt. Why are you here?” I sneer for the last time.
I’m a string pulled too tight, ready to snap, faced with the woman I once cared for, the one who almost took everything, and I find myself craving her death. I feel like Diesel, wanting to bathe in it, to watch her blood cover my skin and then storm back to my girl and fuck her with it across my body.
“I have unfinished business, Garrett. With you and your fucking Vipers,” she snarls, and pushes closer until she invades my space. I don’t move back, even as my head roars at me, my hands itching to grab her and kill her. “You will pay for what you did. I’m going to be there to watch you fall,” she whispers as she leans closer, her red tipped nails running down my chest.
I stiffen at that, my head blurring with anger, and I’m moving before I know it. Grabbing her wrist, I thrust her away, and she hits the wall hard, laughing. I’m on her in a moment, my hand wrapping around her throat. Her eye widens in fear. For all her bravado, she’s afraid.
Deathly afraid. Of me. Of us. Of what we will do to her.
She isn’t pulling the strings, she’s a puppet…for who? The Triad? Is it possible we have more than one enemy coming at us? No, they have to be working together. They were looking for a weakness, a way to get to us, and they thought they had it with her.
But she was never really one of us. She never stayed in our home, never saw our business. She saw what we wanted her to, nothing more. I squeeze tighter, not even using my full strength to hold her in place. I let her see it in my eyes, how easily I could kill her, end her, and no one would care.
No one could stop me.
But it would be too quick.
The noise of the shop around us comes back. People are screaming, and I hear them on the phone when a tap comes at my shoulder. Turning with a snarl, I throw her to the floor and meet my guard’s eyes. “Unless you want to spend hours talking to the police, we need to leave. If you want her taken or dead, say the word, we’ll organise it and call Ryder to clean up.”
He doesn’t question who she is, doesn’t even blink as he says it. I look back at her, but she’s scrambling to her feet and straightening her hoodie. She blows me a kiss. “Be seeing you soon, Garrett, and say hello to your girlfriend for me.” Then she’s gone, rushing into the scrambling crowd and blending.
“No, follow her though,” I snap.
He rushes off, and I stomp through the shop, the patrons falling as they try to get out of my way. Their faces are pale and scared as I rip open the coffee shop door and head outside.
I grab my phone to dial Ryder and tell him I know who the mole is, but when I dip my hand into my pocket, it’s gone. I have a flash of her sidling close to me, her hand stroking down my chest…I was so panicked, so angry, I didn’t even think anything of it when I shoved her away.
Fuck.
She has my phone.
Chapter Forty-Two
ROXY
I’m fucking bored. The only reason I don’t leave is because they asked so sweetly. They were not demanding or authoritative, they genuinely needed me to stay. So I do.
I never said I would behave, just that I would stay. They should have known better. I do some work. Ryder left me with the contracts and information for the bars he wants to buy or build, so I flip through them, noting which will be good and discarding those that won’t be. He also included Roxers’ earnings and his investments with the money. It’s doing good, more than fucking good. Ryder has an eye for money and investments—the profit has tripled.
I have money.
More than I know what to do with or need.
He knew it would keep me busy for a while, the sneaky bastard, and it does, I’m excited to do something I love. Something good. I make a plan to only hire ex-cons and runaways. People who need it. They will get a good wage, and we can build some accommodations, give them a second chance at life. Like Rich gave me. That’s what I’m going to call it, the Rich Fund.
For him…the man who saved my life, the opportunity to create the fund given to me by the men who love me.