Chapter 6
Gage
It’s apparent that Ami and I agree on one thing and one thing only. That our toxic mix should never be allowed to boil over in public.
When she sent me an email saying that she wanted to meet with me, sit down and talk, I was pissed.
First, at Wraith, for obviously giving her my email, second at the trap I was sure it was.
I gave it a few days, stewed in it like a fucking pickle soaking in brine.
After a few days, some of the rage wore off and I figured that meeting her and talking like adults instead of kids throwing a temper tantrum, might actually get us somewhere.
Before I thought better of it, I told her my house.
Friday night. Eight. I couldn’t very well go over to Wraith and Leena’s and hash it out with Ami while they were right there.
I couldn’t use the clubhouse for that kind of business, even though I have a room there, because my brothers already got involved in my shit one year ago—except it wasn’t really my shit, considering the bitch accused me of attacking her on our wedding night.
I wasn’t gonna let all of Helena in on my business, so any coffee shop and restaurant were out of the question.
Just in case things went down and I had to piss on or burn another set of papers.
Things could get messy and I figured the best place for it to go down was my house.
Now that it’s past eight and Ami is late, I’m having second thoughts.
I actually made a damn effort to clean up the place.
It’s a small house, built in the sixties.
Nothing fancy. Outdated for the most part, though some of the fixtures are so old they’re likely just about back in style.
I’d give a shit if I actually gave a shit about that stuff.
Of course, I don’t. Two bedrooms and a bathroom make up the bungalow.
No basement, no second story. It’s unimpressive and uninspiring, but it suits me just fine.
I check my watch, she’s already half an hour late. Not that I actually care. If she didn’t show up at all it would suit me just fine. At least, I keep trying to tell myself that.
I’m not sure why the caveman voice in my head keeps screaming at me to chain her up and lock her away so that she can’t leave again.
I want to climb onto the roof and beat my fucking chest and yell at the neighborhood that Ami is mine.
That she’s my wife. That she has belonged to me for one fucking year and whether she was here or not, doesn’t change a damn thing.
I want to reason with myself. I want to tell me, tell her, tell the whole fucking world, that she means nothing. That her leaving didn’t wound more than my pride. That it was better when she was gone.
I should have signed her damn papers and sent her on her way.
Because pacing the house like a crazed animal really is not a better alternative.
I’m about to email her and tell her to go fuck herself, and no, not in nicer words, when I watch her little sedan death trap pull up to the curb in front of the house.
I quit the pacing I definitely was not doing and come to a stop in front of the living room window.
It’s a bigger bay window with the curved glass.
My chest tightens up when I watch the small figure emerge from the car.
Fuck. Even just the sight of her with all that glossy black hair, luminous eyes, her pixie face, and her petite little body with all those ripe curves, makes me so hard that it feels like someone just stuffed my whole junk into a door and slammed it a couple times for good measure.
I slowly cross my arms over my chest as I walk towards the door and slap a mask of indifference into place.
I’m not gonna let her see how she affects me.
She won’t see excitement in my eyes and she sure as shit won’t know that my jeans feel like they just shrunk ten sizes and that they’re so tight, they feel like they’re cutting off the circulation to my balls.
I want the fire. It’s easier to deal with her that way, when we’re fighting and sparring.
It’s easier to be an asshole than it is to let her see the chinks in the amour.
She’d just stuff her knives in there, into any weak spot she could until she cracked me wide open and I’m never going to let that happen.
She knocks on the door, a timid little knock that betrays how nervous she is even before I open it to find her standing there.
Dressed in a black cotton tunic that barely hits her knees, and apparently nothing underneath, since there aren’t any visible shorts and sure as hell aren’t any leggings, and a red, thin knit sweater that trails down to her ass, and thigh high black boots, she looks like she’s going out to the bar after to celebrate her victory.
No doubt she thinks she’s going to convince me to sign her stupid papers.
Her hair is long and sleek, so shiny that it glistens blue in the overhead lighting as I wordlessly turn and stalk towards the living room and she follows me, her boots clicking annoyingly on the hardwood floor.
That at least, was part of the house that was updated before I bought it.
It’s shitty though, the kind of hardwood you can buy for a dollar a square foot.
Still. It pisses me off that she didn’t shed her boots at the door like anyone with any decency would have.
I have to remind myself that she’s basically the enemy, when I motion to a leather overstuffed chair.
She’s taken care with her makeup and it’s flawless.
Her eyes are lined, defining just how huge and luminous they are.
Her lashes are thick and long, her lips that blood red shade she seems to prefer.
Her cheeks have just enough of a hint of blush to hide any natural color that might arise.
She’s so beautiful and flawless that I have to fight the urge to knock her down to the floor and fuck her like an animal.
To rip that dress off and suck on her tits until she’s screaming, to do the same to her cunt, to lick and nip and bite her until she’s writhing below me, messing up her straightened hair and her neat clothes.
I want to turn her over until she fucking begs me to let her come and then I won’t let her.
I’d thrust my cock into her mouth instead and watch while she struggles to take me.
Watch as her lipstick smears and her eye makeup runs from the tears.
I want her to be a mess.
I want her to be my mess.
And that pisses me off far more than it should. Because I shouldn’t want her to be anything to me. Mess or no mess. It’s pathetic that after all this time I still have a stupid crush on her, a woman I saw for all of a few seconds before I married her and knew for only a few minutes after that.
“I…” she doesn’t know what to say, so she drops her black tote bag to the ground and it hits the floor with a dull thud.
I sit down slowly, so she can watch every single movement, note the latent power in my limbs and the way I glower at her when my ass is finally planted on the leather couch.
She swallows hard, her throat bobbing with the movement, and I’m glad. I want her to be uncomfortable. I don’t want this to be easy for her. I want it to be hard. I want her to sweat. I don’t want her to sit there looking so goddamn perfect when on the inside, I’m a fucking train wreck.
Because of her.
I slam my hands onto my knees so hard that she nearly jumps. Her eyes flick back up to my face, but I don’t let a shred of emotion slip past the mask I’ve pasted on. She doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t get to look inside and find what’s there below it.
“Why don’t you just tell me why you’re here? We can start with that. It’s probably easier than wading through all the bullshit we don’t need to hear or say.”
The overhead lighting isn’t great, and it highlights Ami’s cheekbones and the other delicate angles of her face, her flawless beauty. I grind my teeth.
“I’m here because I thought we should talk. Get it all out, whatever we need to say, so that we can get on with our lives and put this behind us. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean that we obviously should move on. That’s all I want. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her words are soft and silky, and so at odds with the jarring, bitter laugh that I let pour out of my throat, out of the dark depths of my heart, and spill into the room like an ominous cloud of toxic gas.
“That’s fucking rich, Ami. If you actually cared about that, you’re about one year too late.
When you said that I beat you on our wedding night because I was a drunk asshole, Steel knew it was bullshit.
He knew I wouldn’t have done it. My knuckles didn’t have a mark on them.
My hands. He knew. I couldn’t remember a thing after the dinner, since I drank too fucking much because I was nervous as hell about it all.
So, to atone for my apparent sins, to prevent a war and make things right with your father, Steel asked me to give the go-ahead to your family to punish me, since you were incapable.
It’s club justice. Brutal. Barbaric. Straight and to the point.
When one brother wrongs another, that brother can choose his method of punishment.
It turns out that your family is just as sadistic as you.
Your brother chose to use knuckles. You know what those are, Ami? ”
Her eyes are wide when I glance over at her. I expected to feel some amount of satisfaction at finally being able to tell her, face to face, what her lies cost me. The words ring hollow, though, through the room. All I feel is horror and anger. Neither fills up the empty pit inside of me.
“I’ll tell you. They’re just what they sound like.
Metal that fits over our knuckles so that when your hand strikes flesh or bone, or whatever the fuck else, your skin doesn’t split.
The other guy’s does. That was your brother’s weapon of choice.
I’m not complaining. It could have been much worse.
Your brother might look like a fucking dump truck, but he hits like a bitch.
Still. He managed to break my jaw, my right cheekbone, and my nose.
Still. Could have been worse. I mean, he could have really fucked up some shit beyond any kind of repair.
As it was, it all healed up. The club has a good doctor on the payroll.
He was able to put everything back together.
It’s not like he fucked up any internal organs, which I know he could have.
I should really thank him, though I never have, even though we’ve seen each other at club meetings and whatnot over the years.
We both knew it was club business. I don’t hold it against him.
You know who I do hold it against? You know how it could have been better? ”
I hate the silence that permeates the air between us. The absolutely static bullshit. Ami can’t even look me in the eye. She’s studying her hands, which are clasped in her lap like she has a right to be horrified about any of this.
She fucking doesn’t.
“I’ll tell you that too,” I fill her in, my voice so frigid I’m surprised her bent head doesn’t sprout icicles.
“I hold it against you. If you hadn’t lied, it would have been better, because none of that would have happened.
I paid for your lies with my blood and you have the nerve to sit there and act like you’re entitled to come back here.
Like I fucking owe you something. I don’t owe you a fucking thing.
You want those papers signed? You raise your head and look me in the eye and fucking tell me why you acted like a spoiled fucking brat.
Tracker got to your sisters too, but they didn’t make up shit about their husbands.
Did you want out so badly that you had to ruin my life in the process?
You hated me that much, yet you never knew me? ”
A second passes. Two. Countless more.
My words hang like knives between us. Neither of us moves.
We barely even breathe. Finally she lifts her head, her pride intact, her hair shining all around her face like a gossamer curtain.
Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears, which only fuel my rage.
She has no right to cry. She has no right to feel remorse or pain now.
I’m sure that any emotion displayed on her face is manufactured to get her what she wants.
She’s always seemed like a consummate actress.
She slowly tips her chin and her eyes, black and swimming with moisture, track to mine. I have to grind my teeth to keep from balling my hands into fists and driving one of them into the wall behind me. Beside me. In front of me. Anywhere.
Then I remember I asked her to look me in the eye and tell me. Tell me why she did it. Why she ruined us both so easily with her lies. Why she betrayed me when I’d done absolutely nothing to her.
Her lips part and it’s like time itself stops.
I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want to lean forward, so eager to hear her words, likely more lies.
I don’t want to wait for her any longer.
One year was enough wasted time out of my life.
Her pink tongue darts out to wet her lips. Her hands flex in her lap, over and over again, opening and closing. Grasping at air. Hanging onto the shreds of nothing.
Finally. Finally, after a year of silence, of waiting, of living in agony, she opens her mouth and forms tangible words. Something I can cling to and try and understand.
“I lied because I had to.” The tears pour freely down her cheeks and choke out her voice, but she still churns out her next words. “Because he told me that if I didn’t, he would kill you.”