Where Souls Spoil (22 page)

Chapter 25

Love has its place, as does hate. Peace has its place, as does war. Mercy has its place, as do cruelty and revenge.

Meir Kahane

“IT’S NOT FUNNY,” she whines through a scowl, but the smile on her face is bright.

“Oh yes it is,” I say, with a grin. “What kind of mafia princess doesn’t learn how to shoot a gun?”

“The passive kind,” she grumbles, looking at my .38 she’s holding with both hands. I force myself to keep grinning, avoiding the impending anxiety that’s creeping up. When I first handed the gun over to her, I was nervous as fuck. I mean, I’d never given a chick I was fucking my piece before. But Cub doesn’t know how to shoot, and with everything going on, she has to learn. I don’t give a fuck how difficult she’s being about it. Hell, even if Junior wasn’t on his way here, I’d still teach her how to shoot. Yesterday, I gave up being pissed that her fucktard of a father didn’t teach her sooner.

It’s been days since I’ve spent more than ten minutes without Cub by my side. I’m getting way too comfortable falling asleep with her curled into my side, and waking up with her half on top of me. The longer it takes for something fucked to happen, the more on edge I get. Despite spending pretty much every minute with Cub and her pussy, which I swear is made out of unicorns or some shit, I can feel the tension in my bones. She walks around acting like she doesn’t really care what’s going on or the sacrifices the club is making to keep her tight little ass safe. I’m trying not to let her piss me off, but damn it, she’s working my last nerve. It doesn’t help that I haven’t had a drink or any bud since before Church the other day.

“You’re doing it again,” she says, handing the gun back to me. Her smiles falls, giving way to a grimace. I click the safety lock and shove it in the back of my waist.

“Doing what?” I ask, trying to keep the strain out of my voice.

“That thing with your neck. You keep tensing your jaw, and it makes the veins in your neck pop out. It’s creepy.”

“I’m on edge,” I say and blow out a deep breath. Pussy or not, she’s driving me nuts with all of her observations. The only time I seem to be able to keep from snapping is when I’ve got my dick inside her. “It’d be nice if you acted like you fucking got it. This shit isn’t a game. It’s a big fucking deal.”

She puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head. Her chest heaves, straining her tits against her top, and I find myself thinking of sucking on them again. Fucking unicorn pussy, I’m telling you. “Oh, I get it, you stupid jerk. My brother’s on his way to kill me. You don’t think I get it?”

“No, I don’t think you do,” I snap back. She steps forward, narrowing her eyes and huffing. Having watched her for days now, months even, I can tell when she’s about to cry. She’s always about to cry. I want to tell her to suck it the fuck up and chill out, but that goes against what I’m trying to do here. I need her to clue in to the reality of the situation.

“You’re an idiot,” she hisses and spins around, swaying her ass as she goes. The night sky is settling in, and it’s getting too dark for her to be outside anyway. The air is getting chilly out here in the field. The farther she gets away from me, the worse the tightening in my chest gets. I don’t like her being so far out of reach. Thankfully, we’ve doubled security on the house since the boys returned from Nevada, and we have brand new firepower that came with them. As much as I’m attached to my .38, there’s no denying the power from the altered semi’s the boys have outside.

Walking fast to catch up to her, I get halfway to the house before I realize what I’m doing. I’m chasing some chick like a sad fucking puppy. Fuck. This shit ain’t me. I’ve seen this shit with Ma and Pop for years. She gets upset and, no matter how tough he tries to act, he fucking follows her. Doesn’t matter how much posturing goes on around the table with the brothers, I see them with their Old Ladies. Fucking pussies, all of them. It fucks them up.

We all heard about it before we were patched. Hell, even before we were prospects—the club comes first. It’s always supposed to come first. But put some bitch with the right smile, a tight ass, at the exact right time in front of a brother, and he’s a fucking goner. And that shit bleeds over into everything he does, inside the club, outside the club. It doesn’t fucking matter. All the loyalty and promises made to the club are forgotten when a brother hooks up.

That misbegotten loyalty and fucking diversion from the club is exactly why we’re in this mess right now. Pop met Ma, and as much as I’m fucking glad he did, he made promises to her that could get his brothers killed. And because those fucking morons believe in the cause and the old bastard, they didn’t vote against him when it came time for his ass to cash that check he promised her so many years ago.

Storming into the house, my shoulders tense, my neck muscles ready to pop, I stop dead in my tracks at the sight before me. Ma and Pop stand in the middle of the living room, her arms around his waist and his hands cupping her jaw. He places a kiss to her forehead. Pulling back, he smiles down at her, his graying black hair tucked behind his ears.

“Love you, Mama,” he whispers. I’ve seen him look at her like that more than a thousand times, but never thought much of it. When they hooked up, he was a single dad raising his whore’s kid, and she was a fucking mess with a kid of her own and a whole lot of baggage. And he took her on, made her a home. He protected her, promised to protect what matters most to her, and has held up his promise. Even after nearly two decades together, they’re still in love. It’s so sweet, I think I might have to fucking puke.

Leaving the room unnoticed, I turn and head down the hall to Cub’s room, but before I can make it very far, I stop. Standing in the hallway, Cub has her arms folded over her chest and she’s giving me a soft and dreamy smile. Fuck. This can’t be good.

“What are you looking at?” I ask, walking toward her and taking the sharp detour into her room where I flop down on her bed and place my hands on my knees. She comes to stand before me, wiggling in between my legs. Lifting my chin, she cups my jaw. It’s so fucking similar to Ma and Pop and I don’t want any of it. She looks down at me with a look on her face that I hope to never see again. She’s not just smiling. She’s glowing or some shit.

“I see you,” she says softly.

“See what?” I ask, knowing damn well this is a conversation we shouldn’t be having. It’s too real, too fucking raw. She needs to stop.

“I see you even though you don’t want me to. The way you watch them—Jim and Ruby. You want what they have. I know you do.” I huff and go to stand up, but she pushes me back down on the bed with a strength I didn’t think possible. I knew this conversation was a bad fucking idea. Once again, my dick’s got me into one hell of a bad situation.

“Why are you fighting this?” she asks, practically begging for an answer.

“I ain’t fighting shit, Cub.”

“You call me Cub, and that means something. And no matter how much you want to tell me you don’t care, I know you do.” Tears spring to her eyes, and the grip on my jaw tightens. “I believe in us.”

“There is no us,” I say. Fighting off the gnawing panic in my gut, I steel my body like it can protect me from her words. Everything I’ve been fighting since I first saw her feels like acid in my veins, destroying every defense I have. “We’re just fucking around. Don’t read into it.”

The look on her face morphs from hopeful to gut-wrenching sorrow as she holds my jaw tighter. Her hands feel like a clammy vice around my mouth, making it hard to talk. Her scent, cool and airy, engulfs me. Just like it’s been for the past three days, there’s no escaping her. Only now is the first time I’ve wanted to. My chest constricts like I can’t suck in any oxygen.

“You’re a liar,” she says.

A long silence stretches out. Leaning down, she places a soft kiss to my cheek. “This is my respect.”

My mouth waters, my jaw tenses, and my hands ball into fists. I let my eyes close, trying so fucking hard to block everything out. But it’s impossible. She’s everywhere, consuming me. She raises up and places a kiss on my forehead and says, “And this is a promise of protection. I’ll protect your heart because I love you.”

The words rattle in my brain before they sink into my soul—what’s left of it anyway. The panic consumes me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to fuck around, have fun, rebel a little. She wasn’t supposed to start spouting bullshit about loving and protecting me. She has no fucking clue what I’ve done in the name of the club, and she has no fucking clue who she’s promising to protect.

Without thinking, I push her off me and move to storm out of the room. Her finger catches mine as she slams into the wall behind her, wide-eyed and shocked. The tears trailing down her face are too fucking much to take. Crazy fucking woman. Walking out of the house and into the field, I let out a frustrated scream. Two of my brothers come running before they see what’s going on. I’m just losing my shit—again. It’s nothing to worry about. Really. It isn’t until Grady threatens to shoot me in my dick that I stop screaming and kicking at the ground.

When I think I have my wits about me, I make the walk back to the house. I need to have Duke sit with Alex in her room while I stand guard outside. I can’t look at her right now. This is all way too fucked up. Stepping onto the back deck, I spot Ma sitting on the porch swing near the front door. She gives a loud, overly dramatized sigh and pats the seat next to her. In her lap is the hand gun Pop gave her for Christmas one year. I go to pass her when I hear the cocking of her gun.

“Sit down, Punk,” she says. Turning around, I see her gun pointed at me.

“You won’t shoot me,” I say, shaking my head.

“Alex is in her room crying. Try me.”

Feeling defeated, I sit down beside her and raise my hands. “What do you want, Crazy?”

“Do you love me?” she asks. I go to stand up when she smacks me with the hand holding the gun. I don’t care how good she is with a gun, a woman waving around a firearm is never a good thing. My heart skips several beats.

“You know I do,” I say. Just like Pop, this woman has me fucking whipped. No matter how painful it is to talk about this, I try to give her the respect she’s due for every night she stayed up late to help me with my homework and for every dinner she fixed up, and every time she’s the mother my own didn’t want to be.

“So, why’s it so fucking hard to say it to Cub?” she asks. I don’t answer, because whether she’s my mother or not, fuck her. “You think you don’t love her, but you do. You’re just too fucking stupid to see it. Now grow a fucking pair and stop hurting her.”

“I’m going to hurt her just by being with her,” I mutter. Giving her a brutal glare, I tap my foot on the ground beneath me. “I’m an asshole, and she’s too fucking stupid to let herself see it.”

“One of you is fucking stupid, Punk, but it ain’t her. She picked you, and you picked her. Let yourself enjoy it. You father, the club, they’ll get over it.”

“Whatever,” I mutter. “You’re just nuts.”

“You want to know what love is? Love is that thing that happens when you least expect it. Love isn’t about changing who you are, it’s about being a better version of yourself. I see you with her, and it’s like looking at your father twenty years ago. Cub makes you a better person. I didn’t like it at first, but I see it now. She’s good for you.”

Leaning forward, I shove my head into my hands and yank at my hair. I don’t want to listen to this, but I don’t know how much more fight I have left in me. It’s like she’s been yanking away at every defense, at every hardened piece of me, fighting her way into a place I long ago thought dead. Relentless, determined, and even stupidly, she made me feel. I scrunch up my eyes and jam the balls of my hands into my sockets, trading one pain for another.

Loud shots ring out at the back of the property from behind the trees. In an instant, Ma and I are both standing, guns at the ready.  My brothers rush toward the shots, keeping their guns up, trained on the tree line. I trail behind them, alert as ever. Ma rushes to the fuse box beside the front door and flips the switch just below it, basking the field in the flood lights. Whoever’s back there won’t get far with so much light on them.

I follow the sound, realizing only too late where I’m supposed to be. All of the fucking feelings bring thrown around screwed with my head. In a split second, I turn around as high-pitched screams ring out from the house. Lowering my gun, I take off in a sprint. Ma’s nowhere to be found. More shots ring out, this time from the front of the house. My heart drops. Cub.

Out of nowhere, PJ shows up, running beside me. She pants, sprinting through the tall grass. She’s so focused and trained—the perfect dog for protection. I was her pack leader once, but now it’s Cub. As we sprint toward the house, I’m not sure who’s more determined to get to Cub—me or PJ.

Leaping onto the deck, we rush into the house, turn right and run through the kitchen then down the hall and into Cub’s room. The framed pictures on the wall have either fallen off or are in disarray. The bedspread is half off the bed, and all of Cub’s valuables are tossed on the floor. A sick feeling washes over me as I eye the open sliding glass door. PJ whimpers from the corner, but I ignore it and rush out the door.

The flood lights are on, basking the front yard in a harsh light. A figure lies in the grass, coughing. It’s a deep cough. I race across the deck and into the grass. Taking long strides, I reach the figure in no time. Sliding down beside the figure, I breathe a sick sigh of relief that it’s not Cub.