18. Verona
18
VERONA
D ays turned into a week, and a week turned into three. Hollywood spent most nights in my bed and most mornings between my legs. There was nothing like getting him off before he left for work, and if I could go about my day with the feel of his mouth still on mine, I considered myself one lucky bitch. But I still held a piece of my heart back, a piece that wasn’t ready to let him all the way in. I could really care for Hollywood if I let myself. I could see myself falling in love with him and having a future, and even though he swore not to see anyone else while we were doing whatever this was, I wasn’t sure he felt the same.
If I let him closer, if I let him in fully, he would have the power to ruin me, and I swore to myself that I would never let that happen. This life was dangerous. He was in a motorcycle club, and like Selene had pointed out, he’d been shot three times already. If he didn’t leave me out of boredom, he’d find an early grave. I wasn’t sure which would hurt worse.
When I woke up the morning that Pollux was released from the hospital, Hollywood wasn’t in bed next to me. He’d had to go check in on Leo before heading to the garage. This did not stop him from being the first person on my mind. I sent him a good morning text as soon as I rolled out of bed, fighting the big smile on my face when he replied.
Hollywood: Good morning, beautiful.
A rush of deep abiding affection went through me at the compliment, and I told myself I had no business feeling that way. Loads of men had called me beautiful in my lifetime, but I became a pile of blushing hormones when he said it.
Ugh.
I ignored the flutter in my stomach and the skip in my heart as I showered and dressed for Pollux’s release day, telling myself it was just stupid hormones. Nothing personal. Nothing emotional.
When I went out to the kitchen, I found Wheels and Castor sitting at the kitchen table. Wheels looked hungover, judging by the glassy eyes and growly disposition. My brother, on the other hand, had my laptop open in front of him while he sucked back his coffee.
“Morning,” I said, leaning down to give my brother a kiss on the cheek before doing the same to Wheels. “How are you two?”
Castor lifted his head and narrowed his eyes. “What’s got your tits in a tizzy?”
Wheels stammered out a laugh. “ Someone got laid last night.”
I gasped, pretending to be offended. “Wheels! How dare you? Roommates are supposed to keep secrets for each other.”
“I saw Hollywood sneaking out two hours ago,” Castor added, raising an eyebrow but not bothering to look at me. “You tell Bear about that yet?”
“It’s not any of his business. Nor is it yours. It’s not ...” I cleared my throat and added cream to my mug, wishing my cheeks didn’t burn as hard as they did. “It’s not anything. Don’t read too much into it.”
Castor made a noise that said he agreed before nodding down to my computer. “I finally found your stalker.”
He’d been working on it diligently since it happened.
“She has a stalker?” That got Wheels’s attention, and he raised his brows halfway up his forehead. “Who?”
“It’s not Curtis,” Castor said. “That motherfucker is currently doing five to ten for attempted rape.”
“Wait ... what?” I couldn’t keep up with only two sips of caffeine.
“He’s not harassing anyone anymore, unless he’s holding someone’s pocket.” Castor pointed to the screen in front of him. “Whoever sent you those messages is in Madison County, right under our noses. It took me fucking forever to find him. He’s good ... but I’m better.”
“Great.” I rubbed a palm over my face. “That makes me feel really awesome.”
“You’ve got a whole motorcycle club looking out for you,” Castor said. “I’ll keep working on a location. Once I know where he’s logging in, I can hack his system and see who it is through the webcam.”
“Cas,” I said, alarm shooting down the center of my chest. I rubbed a hand over my sternum, trying to alleviate the pressure in my scar. “Don’t get yourself hurt.”
“Who said anything about me getting hurt?” Castor balked and raised his eyebrows. “I’m going to line the back forty with this asshole’s guts.”
My phone buzzed with a message from Pollux.
Ugly Twin: Y’all coming or what?
“Our brother is ready for us to pick him up.” Excitement replaced the dread in my stomach at the thought Pollux was finally leaving the hospital. They’d given him strict instructions not to do anything strenuous for the first few weeks since he was barely out of the wheelchair. But Pollux wanted to go out to celebrate, and after these months trapped in a medical prison, I couldn’t fault him for aching to have a bit of fun.
Castor closed my laptop and nodded to Wheels, who set down his coffee and stood.
“You should have told me you had a stalker,” Wheels said while we walked outside to his pickup. “It’s my job to protect you.”
“I thought it was a bot,” I said. “But I promise to keep you in the loop from now on.” He was right. He couldn’t keep me safe if I wasn’t honest with him about these things. It was stupid of me to keep it from him.
Wheels agreed, and the rest of the trip to the hospital passed in amicable small talk. I’d always liked the jovial Rose, and when Dad assigned him to babysit me, I didn’t put up much of a fight because of that.
When we got there, Dad and Pollux were already at the discharge desk, getting the rundown of medications and release recommendations.
“Don’t forget to make the appointment with your physical therapist,” the pretty nurse said. She’d been the one that had given Pollux her number with a blush a few weeks ago.
“Anything for you, gorgeous.” Pollux shot her a wink before grabbing his crutches and tucking them under his arms. “Are we still on for Tuesday night?”
She rolled her eyes, her pink cheeks and girlish smile hinting at her amusement. “Stop it, Montgomery.”
“All right,” Dad said, shaking his salt-and-pepper head at my idiot brother. “That’s enough harassing the nice nurse. C’mon, son.”
Pollux laughed and waved goodbye to the staff that had healed him before turning to face the barrage of family there to take him home.
“Look at you,” Castor said, holding his arms out to hug his twin. “All that surgery and you’re still uglier than hell.”
“At least I don’t look like fresh ground shit.” Pollux punched Castor in the gut before turning to me. “Hey, little sis. You keeping these fuckers in line?”
“You know that’s a full-time job, and I’m a part-time gal.” I turned to Dad and pulled him into a hug, too. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, V.” His growly voice sounded the same as normal, but I saw through the mask. Dad had been stressed for the last year and a half, ever since KC shot Benito Caputi and escalated things with the crime family. They were trying to work out a peace with Leo Caputi, but the constant threat of violence was enough to keep anyone up at night. I wished I could do something, anything, to make it easier on him. But Dad had chosen this mantle himself. He’d wanted to be the president, the patriarch that kept the family together, and with that power came the burden of maintaining it.
We took Pollux back to Castor’s place, where he showered and dressed before announcing he wanted to head to the clubhouse to see everyone. Some of the brothers were still at work as it was only three in the afternoon, but the ole ladies showered him with kisses and the hang-arounds lined up a row of shots to do in his honor.
“Look at what the mangy cat dragged in!” Doc clapped Pollux on the back and shook his head. “Honestly, my dude. I didn’t think you were gonna make it.”
“That woulda been music to your ears, huh?” Pollux teased, joking with the MC’s enforcer.
“One less idiot to keep in line,” Doc said, hugging both Castor and me before nodding at Dad.
“There you are,” Ru said, walking up to throw an arm over my shoulder and guide me toward the bar. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Alba stood on the other side with her curly blond hair up in a bun, her glasses high on her nose. Ru had let her dark hair fall around her shoulders, but that didn’t lessen the intensity in her bright blue stare.
“I thought you’d be at the Beacon.” I furrowed my brows, looking for Saint and KC down at the other end of the clubhouse.
“We took off early to celebrate Pollux coming home.” Alba gave me one of her genuine smiles, radiating happiness and joy like KC’s nickname for her.
“Oh, great,” I said.
“So ...” Ru leaned over the bar, balancing on her elbows, and crossed her hands in front of her, focusing her scrutinizing gaze on me. “You and Hollywood have been spending a lot of time together.”
I glanced up at her, refusing to neither confirm nor deny her allegations, and looked to Alba, who had an equally interested expression on her face.
I wasn’t ready to tell anyone, and I wasn’t sure when I would be. I was a secretive person, in general, but when it came to this whatever it was with Hollywood, I didn’t want anyone else’s judgment to taint it before it could even get off the ground. I didn’t want to see the pity in their eyes when he left me like everyone else did.
“And?” I raised my eyebrows as if to suggest there was nothing wrong with it. Because there wasn’t. “We’re just hanging out.”
“Are you two together?” Alba kept her tone polite and nonchalant, but I could hear the anticipation brewing at the edge of her words.
“How is that your business?” I dodged her question by asking my own.
“It’s not,” Ru cut in. “We’re just ... curious.”
“He’s been helping babysit me while Wheels has the occasional off night. Is that a problem?” I looked between the two of them, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“It’s just—” Alba started, scratching the back of her head before trailing off.
I waited to see what she planned to say. I didn’t want to get defensive with these two. I generally liked them, as far as having female friends went. But digging into my personal life was a hard line, one Ru should know all about. Hadn’t she kept her relationship with Saint a secret for like ten years or some shit?
“I think you two would be really good together,” Ru said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You’d make him more serious, and he’d loosen you up.”
I cleared my throat and rubbed the pain in the center of my chest, now throbbing with her accurate assessment. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that. I still hate him, and he still lives to annoy the hell out of me.”
It wasn’t necessarily a lie, and truthfully, if I dug a little deeper on why I didn’t want anyone else to know about it, I’d probably be able to fund a therapist’s bills for a year. Was it because it was Hollywood? And if it was, what did that say about me and my willingness to have this situationship with him in the first place? Hadn’t I avoided falling into his trap this past decade for a reason? Had he really changed that much in eight months of celibacy? There were too many unknowns, too many reasons to keep it to myself.
He would hurt me, and I wanted to shelter the fallout from that as much as possible.
Alba and Ru moved on to a different topic of conversation, but I caught Chelsea’s gaze from across the room where she’d been eavesdropping. She’d curled her lips into a grimace, her eyes burning with jealousy and perhaps a bit of hatred, too. She had probably made the same assumptions as Ru and Alba. But I didn’t give a shit.
Let her look.
I smirked at her and grabbed the shot glass Ru had placed in front of me, shooting it back and swallowing against the burn.
* * *
By the time we got to the Viper, the place was already packed with Madison County’s finest blue collar shitheads and drunken biker assholes. The run-down dive bar used to be a motorcycle hangout in the ’70s, but time had not been good to the ole girl. It reeked like rancid booze, stale cigarettes, and degraded leather, a homey patina that had taken over fifty years to accumulate.
“I wish the Beacon was reopened,” I groaned.
“You and me both,” Ru said, winking as she headed to the circular booth in the back. Some of the brothers had already arrived, KC, Bear, and Coins having taken up their spot on either side of the table. Alba sat on KC’s lap while Bear talked in a low voice to Coins, the seriousness on his face hinting at whatever had made my brother miss Pollux’s release.
Like my father, Bear had been stressed about the situation with the Caputis. I’d seen him at his worst, and this was more severe than that. He stabbed out a cigarette, only to immediately light another one. In the twenty-three years I’d been alive, Bear had never been a smoker, save for one or two when he’d been drinking. To see him chain-puffing like that meant this was bad.
Should I be worried?
Yeah. All of this should worry me.
I had a babysitter 24/7, someone on the internet was trying to scare the shit out of me, and my family belonged to a dangerous motorcycle club that had a decades long blood feud with the DC mob. Hadn’t this been why I’d gone to college four states away? Hadn’t I tried to remove myself from all this before?
It didn’t matter. For someone like me, the world would be dangerous no matter where I went or what I did. The sins of my family would find me regardless, and when combined with my own debauchery, I was a time bomb waiting to explode.
The scar on my chest ached, and I rubbed my hand across it, trying to soothe it, before I grabbed my jar necklace for comfort and walked over to the booth.
“There she is!” Pollux shouted, limping over to the table with Hollywood trailing behind him, carrying a tray full of shots. Pollux stopped to grab one and hand it to me. “Hey, V, guess what time it is.”
I brought the shot to my nose for a deep inhale, wincing when the sharp scent of a very specific liquor shot up my nostrils. “Tequila thirty?”
“Tequila thirty!” Pollux agreed, grabbing another one for himself. Castor came to stand on the other side of me, followed by Saint and Ru. Once most of the MC had a glass in their hand, we held them up in the center.
“Cheers to a healthy Pollux,” KC said.
“And cheers to hot nurses!” Pollux added, throwing a free arm over the woman next to him, who I realized was the same person from the hospital.
“Cheers to hot nurses!” everyone echoed, clinking our shots together in the middle. I tipped it over my head and gulped it down, ignoring the burn in the best way possible.
I’d just put my glass down to turn my attention to Hollywood when Alba suddenly jumped off her husband’s lap.
“Oh my God, I love this song. V, come dance with me.” She grabbed my arm and dragged me out onto the dance floor before I could stop her, hustling Ru into it as we passed her. The DJ blared Bad Company while we jammed, and even though dancing in big crowds like this wasn’t behavior I normally condoned, I enjoyed Alba’s and Ru’s company. Selene eventually joined us, wrapping her arms around Ru before doing the same to me.
Sure, I looked scary in my chunky black platforms and dark eyeliner, but I liked shaking my ass. When I caught Hollywood’s stare from across the room, I bit my bottom lip and went harder. My heart raced and my knees shook, but I kept going, turning a girls’ group into a show for him.
Some of the other women hopped on to the bar to take off their shirts and flash the crowd while they danced, but I wasn’t into that—especially not with the heinous scar between my tits. No one wanted to see that. No one needed the reminder that bad things could and did happen.
“Hollywood’s staring you down,” Alba said, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Should we start a game of truth or dare?”
“No!” I grabbed her arm and shook my head, remembering the last time we’d played that game at the Viper. Ru had gotten on stage to rile up Saint, who carried her out of the bar over his shoulder. I’d gotten into a fight with a group of randos that had tried to grope me. Hollywood had to pull me off them, kicking and screaming. Truth or dare with this group always ended in bad life choices.
“Don’t be a sourpuss,” Ru said. “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”
Selene narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know that I’d use the word fun, especially when we’re more likely to end up in jail at the end of the night.”
“Stop being such a negative Nancy.” Alba grinned and headed to the bar so she could order another round of shots. Ru went back to the table to tell the others what we were playing, and I headed to the bathroom.
Walking down the hallway, I passed an older man I didn’t know wearing an MC cut that I didn’t recognize from South Carolina. The Hell’s Knights . I got a good look at it because he was leaning against the wall with his forearm, crowding a much younger woman. If I had to guess, he was probably in his late forties, early fifties—my dad’s age. She had to be as young as me, if not younger.
I didn’t think much of it when I went into the bathroom and did my business. I didn’t judge women who slept with older men any more than I judged older women that slept with younger men. But when I came out of the bathroom, she was crying. She shoved at his shoulders and pleaded with him.
“Please, I’m here with my friends. Just leave me alone. Please.”
“Oh, aren’t you the little cocktease,” he growled. “Rubbing your ass all over me only to leave me hanging?”
“It’s not like that,” she said, sniffling.
If there was one thing I learned in my twenty-three years on this earth, it was that girl code didn’t give a shit about strangers. There was no place where that was stronger than in a rowdy MC bar with a bunch of drunk motherfuckers lingering around.
“Hey, there you are,” I said, intruding on the conversation like I already knew her, like I was one of the friends she mentioned. “We’ve been looking for you. Are you crying? What’s wrong?”
I got closer to her, wrapping an arm over her shoulder so I was now in between her and the old greasy dude.
“Fuck off, bitch. We’re talking here,” Old Dude said.
I read the name on his cut—Hoss.
“Yeah, it sounds like you’re making my friend cry.” I hugged the girl closer to me. “Why don’t you back off?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Hoss growled, narrowing his intense gaze on me. “No one asked for your opinion, you ugly fucking freak. Go wash your face before I rearrange it for you.”
I rolled my eyes at his posturing. I’d grown up with three older brothers and learned to defend myself by the time I was six. This ancient piece of shit didn’t scare me. My entire family was out in the other room.
“Oh yeah, real big man, huh ... Hoss?” I laughed as loud as I could, right in his face. “You gotta intimidate women into sleeping with you? Make fun of their friends?”
“Listen here, bitch—” He grabbed my arm to yank me away from the girl, but I grabbed his wrist with my other hand and twisted, breaking his hold on me.
“You put your hands on me again”—I got up in his face, my platforms making me nearly as tall as him—“and I promise you, it’ll be the last time your fingers work.”
“I’m not scared of you.” He grabbed both of my arms and tried to haul me away from the woman, still cowering in the hallway with her hands over her ears. But I kneed him in the nuts, causing him to groan and take a step back from me.
Taking advantage of his distraction, I wrapped my arm over her shoulder again and walked her back toward the main bar area.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Thank you so much,” she said, holding her face while she cried. “I don’t know who that guy is and he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I glanced over the crowd. “Where are your friends? I want to make sure you get back to them.”
“I—I don’t know.” The poor girl shook in my arms, her voice starting to slur. “I’m not really sure where I am ... I feel really fucked-up, much more than I should be after only one drink.”
That infuriated me even more, and once I found this girl’s group, I was going to shove my six-inch shitkicker right up that fucker’s?—
“Hey, you cunt,” came a loud roar before a hand landed firmly on my shoulder to flip me around. “I wasn’t done with you.”