Revenge (24 page)

“Have you talked?” Eva asked.

“Not much. We’re in separate bedrooms at the moment.
There’s nothing I can do or say to reach her.”

“Was she worth it?”

“Who?”

“The sweet-butt you fucked. Was she worth it?”

“No, she wasn’t worth it at all.” He laughed even
though the emotion didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m completely, absolutely in love
with that woman, and yet I fucked up. We’re never going to get past this.”

“Will you cheat on her again?”

He shook his head. “I won’t look at another woman.
I’ve seen the sweet-butts trying to have a go to see if I’d go with them. It’s
not going to happen. I love Rose. I made one mistake. I’m not going to make it
again.”

Hardy walked away, leaving her alone.

She looked over toward the table to see the women were
still laughing and giggling. Butch was typing something on his cell phone, and
Tiny was watching him. Eva didn’t want to know what was going on between them. She
didn’t believe what they were doing. It was too dangerous.

Leaving the clubhouse, she walked toward Rose.

“Hi,” Rose said.

“Hi,” Eva replied, sitting on the swing beside her.
“How are you doing?”

“I’m doing okay. I’m going to get there. It’s just
going to take time.” Rose held onto the swing and started to move backward and
forwards.

“Do you love Hardy?”

“Yes. I love him. I love him so much that it hurts to
know what he did.” Rose stopped talking.

She watched the other woman take a few indrawn
breaths.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want. I
won’t hold it against you.”

“No, it’s okay. I know Hardy is worried about me. This
is the longest time I’ve kept him at arms’-length. I moved into the spare
bedroom.”

“You were both strong. What happened?”

Eva had admired the strong connection between the
couple. Rose was completely devoted to Hardy and vice versa. Finding out it
wasn’t the case, shocked Eva.

“With everything that’s been happening with the girls
losing kids and the attacks, I started to think about everything that happened
before. It opened up a wound I thought had healed over, the wound he created. I
guess I was wrong.”

Kicking off the pavement, Eva started to swing
backward and forward. Rose followed suit.

“Do you think you’re going to divorce him?”

“I don’t know. Part of me thinks
it’s
best, and another part of me hates the thought of leaving him. I love him. It
has been ten years. I shouldn’t be holding it against him.”

Watching the children play, Eva waited for the other
woman to talk.

“What do you think I should do?” Rose asked.

Glancing at her, Eva shook her head. “No, this is not
my decision. I’m not going to tell you what to do. Hardy is your man. This
decision is yours to make.”

“You’re not helping me.”

Eva chuckled. “This is not something to help you with.
This is between you and Hardy. It may have been ten years since it happened,
but it’s still raw. You’re going to have to decide what to do.”

For several moments neither of them talked.

“I’m scared,” Rose said.

“Of what?”

“Making the
wrong decision and living to regret it.
There
are times we’re together that I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else but
him. I love him, Eva.”

“Then you’re going to have to make it work. I know
it’s difficult. Love and life are always difficult.”

Stopping the swing from moving, Eva saw Hardy making
his way toward them.

“They’re waiting for you,” he said.

Nodding, she gave Rose a smile then turned away. “Take
care of her,” she said as she passed Hardy.

Entering the clubhouse, she found
Tiny
waiting for her.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

She went into his arms, loving the heat and warmth of
him as he surrounded her. “I honestly don’t know. They’ve got a lot of pain to
live through. She may divorce him.”

“It seems crazy, doesn’t it? Two people we thought
were deeply in love are slowly crumbling around us.”

Eva couldn’t argue with him. “Come on, let’s go and
finish making wedding plans.”

“These plans can be put into effect after we kill
Gonzalez.”

“I know.”

“You’re not angry with what we’re doing?” he asked.

Glancing behind her to see Hardy embracing his woman,
Eva knew Tiny had a lot to deal with. “No, I don’t have a problem. You’ll do
what is good for the club, and I’ll trust what you do rather than anyone else.”

She pushed past him walking into the club to finish
making plans. When was Gonzalez going to make his move? She was getting tired
of waiting.

Chapter Ten

Butch pushed past Dalton to make his way toward the
sitting room. Lacey was looking out of the window, and Danny was sat at a table
rolling a cigarette.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Butch asked.

The other men in the room grew quiet as he directed
his anger at Lacey. She turned around to glare at him. “What?”

“Whizz, he’s not part of this. I’ve agreed to feed you
fucking information, and this is how you repay me?
By going
to him, giving him hope.”

“This is none of your business,” she said, folding her
arms.

He’d been trying to get hold of Danny all day long.
The bastard wasn’t responding to any texts, and he’d not been able to get away
from the club until Cheryl went to work. This was his first chance since
finding out that Whizz had met a girl known as Lacey. He was pissed. The Savage
Brothers were only supposed to be in town for as long as Gonzalez was in their
lives.

“None of my
business?
Whizz is one of my brothers. He’s been through enough,
and he doesn’t need you to open up old wounds. What are you doing playing with
him?”

“What the fuck is he talking about?” Danny asked,
getting to his feet.

“She’s been meeting up with Whizz in the café in
town,” Butch said without breaking eye contact with her. “We had a deal. I’ll
feed you Gonzalez information, but The Skulls are off the record. You do
nothing to them.”

“What’s going on, Lacey?” Danny asked.

“I went out for a walk. I got thirsty and stopped in a
café, end of story.” She didn’t look away from him either.

“No, it’s not end of story. Whizz is not part of the
deal. You stay away from him. He’s been through enough already. Having you
there, it’s only going to hurt and confuse him.”

Butch saw the pain in her eyes.

“I’m not doing anything wrong, and you need to back
off before you get someone hurt. This is no concern of yours. I’m not part of
your club, so don’t think you can order me the fuck around.”

He stared at her. Lacey’s arms were folded over her
chest showing off her ink covered arms. Whizz and Lacey were two people with
damaged pasts. He didn’t trust her, no matter who she was.

“Do you know about this shit?” Danny asked, voicing
his question to Dalton.

“Yes. I followed her. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

Lacey glanced at Dalton, shooting him a glare. What
was she upset about?

“I don’t care what happens. You stay away from Whizz
or I’m done. I’m not feeding information for you to hurt my club.” Butch
pointed a finger at Lacey.

“We were your club once,” Danny said.

“All of us know I’ve not been a Savage Brother in a
long time. I gave up that title when I started working for Tiny. I’m helping
you because you deserve the chance to take your revenge. I’m not helping any
more than that.”

Butch stared at her for several more seconds before
pulling away and going outside. His cell phone buzzed the moment he exited the
building. Seeing Gonzalez’s name light up the screen, his gut dropped. The
Skulls were slowly gaining ground over men Gonzalez had put in place to hurt
them. He couldn’t wait until it was all over.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hey. I’ve got a job for you and The Skulls. It’s
important and requires a delivery.” Listening to the instructions, Butch didn’t
like it.
One delivery before the wedding.
What was the
catch? Butch didn’t know what the catch was.

“Why are you phoning me and not Tiny?” Butch asked.

“Tiny knows about the delivery. He’s agreed, and the
Chaos Bleeds crew is going with him. What I want for you to do is make sure
they stay away. I don’t want them back in Fort Wills for the night.”

Butch didn’t like this.

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Good man. You see, Butch, we’re going to be good
together. You’ll see it in no time.”

“What are you going to do?” Butch asked.

“I’m making plans, Butch. I can’t trust you completely
yet, but there’ll be time for that soon. I know we can’t meet each other until
I come down for the wedding. Don’t
worry,
I’ll bring
you up to speed with what I’ve got going on when we see each other next.”
Gonzalez hung up the phone.

Gritting his teeth, Butch hated Gonzalez’s voice. The
Italian accent was really starting to grate on his nerves.

Typing in Alex’s number, he pressed the cell to his
ear and waited for the other man to answer.

“What’s going on?”

“Gonzalez wants me to keep the crew out of Fort Wills
overnight. He didn’t say why.”

“What did he say?”

“That he couldn’t trust me with what he has planned.
He’s coming for the wedding, and he’s going to bring me up to speed on
everything he’s got planned. I don’t like this, Alex. He’s going to do
something while we’re out of town.”

Alex cursed. “I knew this wasn’t an easy fucking run.”

Walking in the direction of the florist, Butch
listened as Alex cursed down the line.

“I’ll deal with it.”

In the next moment, Alex hung up.

Entering the florist, Butch watched his woman serve a
customer. What the hell was he going to do? Between working for Alex against
Gonzalez and feeding the Savage Brothers information, he was slowly losing
himself. He didn’t know what to say or do. His club was starting to notice that
he was falling apart.

Hearing Whizz say Lacey’s name, he’d started to feel
his world shatter around him. He couldn’t let anything bad happen, no matter
what.

****

“What the fuck was that?” Danny asked, yelling.

Lacey was shaking inside. She couldn’t let anyone see
what was going on. For the last couple of days she’d forced herself not to go
to Whizz. It was breaking her apart, but she made sure not to leave the house.

“It’s nothing.”

“It sure as fuck doesn’t sound like nothing to me.”
Danny stood right in front of her. His entire body shook with rage. “We’re here
for revenge, Lacey. We’re not here to make a fucking family and settle down to
become part of the shit—”

“I know that. You don’t think I know how important
this entire fucking operation to you is? This is all you’ve been working
toward, Danny. Getting revenge on Gonzalez is all you care about.”

“There was a time it mattered to you,” Dalton said.

Turning to look at her friend, she saw the pain in his
eyes.

“It doesn’t matter what we all want. The real man who
set about hurting and killing us is dead. We’re still only accepting second
best in taking out his son.” She pushed past them.

“Where are you going?” Danny asked, following her. The
rest of the club stayed seated.

She ignored all of them, heading toward the door.
“Out!”

“
You going
to see Whizz
again?”

Grabbing the jacket, she placed her hand on the door.
Danny caught hold of her making her yelp. No one touched her apart from Dalton
and Whizz.

“Danny, let her go,” Dalton said.

“No, I’m not letting her go until she answers our
fucking questions. I’m done with letting shit slide. We’re here for one thing
and that’s to get revenge on the bastard who tried to destroy us. We’re not
dead, and I’m not going to let you get away with ruining our chance.”

“Get the fuck off me,” Lacey said.

He tightened his grip around her wrists.

She panicked and then focused on the pain he was inflicting.

“Danny!”

Drawing her knee up, she slammed him in the balls.
Danny dropped her hands instantly. Bringing her hand back into a fist, she
punched him in the face. “
Don’t
fucking touch me
again,” she said, yelling.

“Lacey?” Dalton asked.