RACHEL #2
“But Mav ain’t the same Mav. Every moment he’s on the computer, it’s shitty for his health. The MC needs him for more than just me getting my rocks off. This way, I figured, I’d have a new source for when Harlow and I go off on a hunt together.”
“You did this to spare Maverick?”
He hunched his shoulders. “Do you know what Mav used to do for me?”
“No. I mean, I can imagine,” I said uneasily.
“He used to verify each case. That meant scouring their computers for proof. Maverick’s done more for me than even Rex has. It’s no wonder his brain’s fucked up. I probably didn’t help.”
“That isn’t how CTE works.”
His gaze remained fixed on my desk. “Who knows how brains really work. They can’t cure him. They can’t make him better. They can just make him find a base level and stick to that.”
There were many things he could have said that wouldn’t have soothed my temper, but his genuine guilt worked a miracle on his behalf.
These men were so fucking sensitive.
“He got blown up and shot at, Nyx. Then the clubhouse fell on his head.” My hands flopped onto the desk. “I mean, that’s why he’s like this. The other stuff, it was bad, not going to say it wasn’t. But that was more emotional, I’d guess?”
“Maybe that was why he kept his ass glued to a wheelchair for all that fucking time.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Any-fucking-way, I thought I found an alternative.”
“You did,” I grumbled. “That’s exactly what O’Donnelly wants. He’ll provide you with the names and now, he’s tied you in so you can’t say no.”
Nyx shrugged. “Don’t need to say no. Harlow’s gotta learn somehow.”
My brow puckered. “You don’t mind being exploited?”
“It was a power play. I knew that when I got on my bike to head into the city.” He stared at me. “O’Donnelly told me that he could guarantee I wouldn’t spend a night in jail. Looks like he means it when he doles out promises.”
“You trust him?”
“We talked a few times. Texted a lot. He was always cagey, but he told me that someone in his family was molested.” Nyx’s jaw clenched. “I believe him.”
I thought about the man I’d met last night and, slowly, nodded. “I can see that. He wanted righteous kills. Nothing less would suit. He’s old school.”
“Eye for an eye?”
“Yes.”
“From the outside looking in, I know what he did seems fucked up. But from the inside, I wouldn’t have believed him if he hadn’t made it happen.
“Rach, I killed a man. Sure, I got arrested for it, and the police were clearly sent to that location to find me. But I’m free—”
“You weren’t arrested for murder, Nyx. If you’d listened at the time you’d know that.”
“Didn’t think I needed to. Knew you’d get me out.”
Of all the lazy…
“You were arrested for reckless driving and excessive speeding, Nyx.”
“That’s fucking power.”
“Don’t you dare sound impressed,” I hissed.
He just smirked at me.
I narrowed my eyes back at him. “Rex isn’t happy about any of this.”
“No. Didn’t think he would be. Doesn’t like being outmaneuvered. You gonna tell Giulia about last night?”
“That’s what concerns you?”
“She’s my only concern,” he said, and it was so effortlessly uttered that my pique of before faded.
Goddamn these Sinners and their devotion.
Despite my softening, I still had to call him out on his BS. “If she was, then you wouldn’t want to go on the prowl, would you?”
“I would,” he disregarded. “If her happiness hinges on my sanity, then my sanity is on the fritz.” He reached up and rubbed his temple. “I can fucking feel it, Rachel. I don’t want… Giulia should have a man worthy of her. I can never be that but the least I can fucking do is stay sane.”
Concerned, I rasped, “This isn’t the way forward, Nyx.” Sanity couldn’t be found in butchering pedophiles, for God’s sake.
“It is.” His tone was desperate. “It’s always kept me steady. It’s only once I went cold turkey that shit got bad.”
Sighing, his desperation getting to me like little else could, I informed him, “I told Rex, and that’s it.”
“Why? Thought you and Giulia were friends now.”
I blinked at his reasoning.
It was, dear God, sound.
Was I really friends with the raving lunatic that was Giulia Fontaine?
I didn’t realize I’d zoned out until Nyx clicked his fingers in front of my face. The second he did, I jerked back then blurted out, “We are.”
He snorted. “She gets you like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like heroin.”
“I’m not addicted to her,” I drawled.
“I am,” he said glumly. “Treated a lot of women like shit over the years, I know that. Know I was a jerk and that I deserved an ass-whooping, but I figure I’m being paid back with an ornery bitch for an Old Lady.”
“She’d give you that ass-whooping you deserve if she heard you call her an ornery bitch.”
“Naw, she’s proud of it.” His grin was sheepish. “Damn thing is, I love her for it. She won’t take my bullshit without doling me some back. Needed a woman like her, you know? Someone to go head-to-head with me. Someone who wasn’t afraid of me.”
I pondered my next words, unsure if I should even utter them, but Giulia wasn’t the kind of woman who cried and that she had, for this man, put me on edge.
“She isn’t afraid of you,” I agreed, the words falling from my lips slowly. “But of losing you? That scares her.”
“She isn’t going to lose me.”
“I told her that.”
His brows rose. “You told her that?”
“I did. When she was crying because Kendra said you’d been sleeping together.”
I watched as his hands tightened around the armrests on his chair. “I’ll deal with it.”
“I’ll deal with you if you cheat on her,” I warned, but satisfaction filled me at how Kendra would be dealt with if she dared show her sorry fucking face at the compound again.
Something gleamed in his eyes, and it took me a moment to understand what it was—appreciation.
“I hear your warning and will be mindful of it,” he said, his words beyond formal for a man who probably hadn’t read a book since before he’d stopped bothering to worry about graduation.
“Good.”
“I don’t wanna scare her with what happened last night, Rachel. That’s a different kind of fear. I won’t have her thinking she’s gonna lose me to a jail cell, either, because she ain’t, is she?”
“I’m not going to say anything,” I said easily. “And no, she isn’t going to lose you because you’re going nowhere. Not that I had any hand in that. It was all O’Donnelly Sr.’s handiwork. You’ve gotten entangled with the wrong man, Nyx.”
“We’re already entangled with him. We’re allies,” he pointed out.
“Then why did he approach this differently? Why lead you into a trap, get you arrested, then free you all in the same night?”
“Because he’s a twisted fucker.”
“He wanted leverage, and being allies isn’t enough.” I pursed my lips. “I know Harlow wants in on this hunting business of yours, and I think O’Donnelly Sr. will accept him as a willing tribute.”
“So long as the fuckers die by someone who’s earned the right to take their lives,” Nyx drawled, a soft satisfaction lacing the words.
It rammed home what Giulia had told me back at the beginning of the year—Nyx’s need wasn’t dormant. It was there, beneath the surface, just waiting to burst free.
Like it had last night.
You’d never know that he’d killed a man.
You’d never tell that he had more blood on his hands.
I rubbed my forehead. “You need to make sure Harlow doesn’t tell Giulia if that’s a concern for you.”
“That’s dealt with. He won’t say anything. He’s not exactly fitting in, and what he did was stupid, so he knows he’s lucky I’m not throwing him out.”
“Why the hell was he there?”
“Wanted to hunt too.”
If that wasn’t disturbing, I didn’t know what was.
“Wonder how this is going to work.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Is he gonna send names via snail mail? Is he going to give us cut off dates?”
‘Cut off’ being the appropriate words, I figured.
“I don’t know.”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
“I’m sure we will, but don’t think it’ll be easy. He’s got you tied to him now,” I warned.
Nyx shrugged. “I’m not afraid. This isn’t business, Rachel. This is a different kind of vendetta.
“Even after everything that happened to you, I don’t think you understand it. Rex might if you told him what you went through.”
“I’ve shared that part of my past—”
“Then he’ll get it.”
Annoyed, I sniped, “So the victim wouldn’t get it but a victim’s loved one would?”
“Yeah. You endured it. It’s your right to process that however you need to. But a loved one ain’t got no horse in that race. We just sit by that person’s side, try to make shit better, regretting that we weren’t good enough to have kept them safe.
“We know that we’re the reason victims were hurt. We know that we let them down—”
“That’s ridiculous,” I countered. “It wasn’t your fault that Kevin hurt your sisters, Nyx.”
A darkness overset his eyes. A flatness that would have disturbed a lesser woman. “One time, I told my father that Kevin was a creeper. Didn’t say what he did. Didn’t go into details. Just wanted to know what his reaction would be. Guess what it was?”
“Can’t imagine it was anything good if you were the one who ended up blowing Kevin’s head off, Nyx.”
He nodded. “You’d be right. I got the beating, not Kevin. I should have made him listen—”
“You were a kid. That wasn’t on you. Just like it wasn’t on Rex that his uncle did that to me.
Just like it’s not on Giulia that her dad hurt me.
” I braced myself and, deciding to keep Rex out of it, confessed, “I overheard you talking with Bear at Carly’s wake, Nyx. I, more than anyone, know you tried.”
He jolted in shock at my admission, but his expression remained as frigid as ever. “Too little, too late.”
Goddammit.
“You’re all so busy taking the blame that you don’t see that we don’t need you to. That we’re not asking you to. We want acceptance, kindness, understanding, not for you to avenge us.
“Not all of us want to look to the past. Some of us try to focus on the future because while the past can’t be unwritten, that doesn’t mean we have to lead our lives by it as if it were the gospel truth.
“I’ve let what happened to me define me for too long.
I didn’t even realize that was the case, Nyx.
I thought I was…” I sighed. “I’ve attained all my career goals.
After Grizzly and Dog raped me—” He had no idea how difficult that was to say out loud to him.
“I determined that I’d never be in that position again.
Never allow my station in the MC to dictate what other people might believe of me.
“I became a lawyer. I got power. I got riches. I made myself respectable, Nyx. I was so focused on never being that again that I didn’t realize what I was missing out on—my friends.
My family. Rex. My daughter.” I blew out a breath.
“Maybe that doesn’t mean much to you because I’m not Carly or Indy and I’m not Giulia, but I wish you’d hear me on their behalf.
“You are enough, Nyx. Just as you are. You don’t need to do anything else other than be their brother, their friend, their lover. That’s all they need from you.”
His jaw was clenched so hard that I was surprised his teeth didn’t fall out. “So many Old Ladies have been—”
“Over forty percent of women in the US have encountered sexual violence, Nyx. Ninety-eight percent of rapists walk free without any accountability or consequences. America’s a dangerous place for women. The council’s just unfortunate that their Old Ladies are stacked against the odds.”
My stats didn’t ease him any. If anything, dammit, they made him more troubled.
“Some days, I think I’m gonna lose my mind,” he rasped.
“What’s sanity look like, Nyx? You going around the country killing people who belong in jail?”
His head bowed. “Waste of taxpayer money.”
“That’s why you do it, huh?” I mocked, amused despite myself. “Nyx, go and hang out with Giulia before that baby of yours pops out and causes me more trouble down the line.”
“Can’t cause all that much trouble as a baby,” he groused.
“With parents like his, I wouldn’t put it past him. Indy and Giulia will never hear from me what happened. Rex won’t say a word. Last night was either a lucky break or something you let define you. It’s your choice which road you take.”
When he stalked off, the pressure in the room lightened as if there’d been a storm that broke the stuffy heat in here.
Reaching for the ring box Lily had given me, I twirled it between my thumb and pointer finger before I went to the kitchen to gather Rex’s things.
As I took them upstairs to my room, what I hoped would become our room, I tucked the ring box back in his socks where Lily had found it then shook my head, accepting that I already knew which path Nyx would take.
Some men couldn’t help themselves.
Some men were born to exist in the darkness.