Chapter Thirty-Four
OCEAN
My hand was fucking killing me.
I’d refused the pain medication because I wanted to remain lucid and had opted for whisky instead.
Right now, I needed a drink for a different reason.
“What did you do to my brother?” Coby demanded as I was taking a piss. She stood inside the bathroom with her arms crossed, ready for a fight after I iced her out all night.
“Nothing yet.” I moved over to the sink to wash my hands. It was awkward as fuck doing everything with my left hand. I still had use of the fingers on my right hand, but that was it.
I waited for Coby to plead for her brother’s life, but she was surprisingly silent as I shut off the water and moved over to the running shower, dropping the shorts I’d slept in while I went.
“Don’t kill him,” she finally begged once I was naked. There it is.
I stepped into the shower without a word. Coby flung her arms up and tried to storm out, but I reached out and grabbed her wrist, forcing her into the shower with me. Thankfully, my cast was made of fiberglass, so it was waterproof.
“Ocean, my hair!” Coby squealed.
Cursing, I leaned out to grab her shower cap from the hook by the glass door and quickly covered her short ginger curls.
The hot water had already soaked through the t-shirt that she was wearing. I could see her nipples and taut stomach clinging to the cotton. She smelled like her usual green apple perfume, but another, heavier scent clung to her wet skin, too.
It was jasmine.
“Ocean—”
I shoved my sponge in her hand, and Coby pursed her lips into a pout and grabbed my body wash. Once it was good and lathered, she started washing my chest, so I curved my hands around her hips as I watched her. “So, what did you and Hunter get up to last night?”
The sponge paused on my chest as Coby looked up at me. “Not much. Why?”
“Because I smell her on you.”
Coby dropped the sponge and then rushed to pick it up from the shower floor. “What are you asking me, Ocean?”
I placed my hand around her neck and drove her into the wall. “Did you fuck her?”
“Yup!” she said, popping the p with her smart ass. “I got all up in that pussy just like you did, and it was the best I ever had. Of course, I’ve only had hers, but who’s counting?” Finally, she met my gaze and smiled, but it wasn’t a nice one. “Want to compare notes?”
“Sure.” I smirked back. “You start.”
Coby rolled her eyes at me for not taking the bait. She still wanted to fight because she thought it would save her brother, but I was done with all that.
Once Coby and I finished showering, we went downstairs to eat the breakfast the chef had prepared. Hunter was nowhere to be found, which meant she was blowing off steam with Abel in the gym.
“Why did you risk your life going to see him?” I asked.
We hadn’t talked about it last night. I just told Coby and Hunter I’d deal with them in the morning before passing out from the pain and booze.
“Because he’s the only family I have left and I wanted to see for myself that he was still in one piece.”
Not anymore.
When Roshaun eventually woke up, he was going to find himself without the hand he used to slap my wife. I didn’t kill him. Not yet. But I had taken great pleasure in causing him a shitload of pain.
“You’re wrong, mo aingeal. He’s not your only family. You have people who love and adore you so much that they’d never raise a hand to you.”
“Like you?” she said with no real ire.
“Exactly.”
Coby sighed but didn’t agree with my point. How could she?
“I think…” Coby mused out loud, drawing my attention.
My eyes fell to her left hand resting on the table.
She was deep in thought as she toyed with her custom engagement ring.
“I think if we get married, Hunter will leave. She won’t stay.
” When I simply stared at Coby for an explanation, she obliged.
“Last night, she kept talking about balance—about jealousy, ownership, and making things fair. I think if we want her to be us, you and I can’t get married.
I know the position this puts you in, so what I guess I’m saying is…
give it some thought because you may have to choose. ”
I frowned at that. “Between you and Hunter?”
Coby shook her head and then squared her shoulders. “Between being Boss or being with us.”
Staring off, I didn’t say anything for a long while as I considered all that Coby had said.
I felt her gaze on me, and she looked sort of desperate for an answer that I wasn’t ready to give.
It’s not that I wanted to be Boss that badly.
It’s that I knew in my gut there had to be a way I could have both, so I nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Coby sighed and pouted, resigned to having to wait for my answer. I almost smiled because her brattiness had always amused me. We finished eating, and then I pulled her into my arms to say goodbye properly before I headed out.
“I almost had her, you know,” Coby said after we finished kissing slowly like we had all the time in the world. “She was about to say yes before you came in with your moodiness and fucked everything up.”
I snorted. “You did not.”
“I did!” she squealed in delight.
I pursed my lips skeptically, and she punched my arm.
“She’s not coming,” Abel grumbled for the third time.
“She’s fucking coming,” I snapped back as we stood by the elevators dressed in all black.
“I don’t know what you said or did, but she actually almost kicked my ass this morning. She’s not coming.”
I didn’t respond as I stared at the stairs, waiting for her to appear. I didn’t want to admit that Abel might be right. I’d texted Hunter the time and place to meet tonight, but I didn’t tell her why.
Another five minutes rolled by—three minutes past our meeting time—and still no Hunter. She was supposed to meet us at midnight, and she was always prompt, so I knew there was a good chance she wouldn’t show.
I grappled with either leaving without her or dragging her out of bed, but since waking Coby would ruin the mission before it started, I refrained.
Just as I was about to say fuck it and leave without her, Hunter appeared at the top of the stairs dressed in dark clothing as I’d instructed. Her long hair was braided back, and her face was blank as she approached us.
“You’re late,” Abel couldn’t help complaining.
“Sorry, I thought you’d learned how to change your own diaper by now,” Hunter retorted.
“Ignore him,” I said as I stabbed the button for the elevator.
Hunter chose not to speak to either of us as we climbed inside and rode it down. Abel found that hilarious, silently laughing at my expense behind Hunter’s back.
I swear to God, I almost shot him.
I’d given Paul the night off, wanting as few witnesses to what we were about to do as possible, so Abel hopped into the front seat of the Denali while Hunter and I climbed into the back.
I watched her while she stared out the window.
We rode south for an hour until we reached a secluded road, where we found a fleet of cars blocking our path. Abel flicked his lights so we wouldn’t be shot the fuck up as soon as we stepped out.
“This feels familiar,” Hunter said, the first words she’d spoken since we left.
“Yeah, well, it’ll feel even realer in a second.”
The three of us climbed out and walked toward the cars parked up ahead. I stopped Hunter just before we reached them while Abel kept walking, leaving us to talk alone.
“What’s up?” Hunter asked me.
“You once mentioned a friend you trusted who tried to take more from you than you were willing to give. Tell me who he was.”
Her brows rose as she cut her gaze toward all the men waiting for us a few feet away. “You want to talk about this now?”
“A name,” I demanded.
Still resistant as ever, Hunter sighed. “Why does it matter, Ocean?”
“Because tonight will go one of two ways. Your answer will determine which path we take, but only one of them is irreversible. The only has lasting consequences.”
“Wow, so mysterious.” She looked toward the cars, all facing one way and blocking her view. I swear she paled a little when it dawned on her why I brought her here. “And what if I don’t want that? Whatever it is?”
Using my good hand, I pulled her closer until she had no choice but to lean into me. “Don’t you?”
Hunter gulped and then squeezed her eyes closed. “It was so long ago, Ocean. I’m fine now.”
“But it still happened, Hunter. Who. Was. He?”
“I can’t.” Her eyes flew open as her breathing increased until she was hyperventilating. “I can’t kill him. I can’t. She’ll never forgive me.”
“Shhh. Calm, Vengeance. Calm.” I tucked her face into my chest and rubbed her back, whispering sweet nothings until she went lax against me. “What do you want to do? I’ll take your lead, but Hunter… he can’t come anywhere near you or Coby again. One way or another, Roshaun has to go.”
“Not that I’m torn up about it, but why can’t he see Coby? He’s a piece of shit, but he is her brother.”
I released a heavy sigh. Of course, Coby hadn’t told her.
“Because he put his fucking hands on her. He slapped her so hard, her fucking head hit the window. I’m not giving him a chance to do something like that ever again.”
Hunter stiffened, and then she slowly lifted her head from my chest.
The last time I’d seen that look in her eyes was when she nearly succeeded in sticking a hunting knife in my heart.
One moment, I was holding her.
Next, she was gone.