20. Venom
20
VENOM
E ven saying the words, aware as I am that our break up will be fake and hopefully short lived, kills me. The only thing that helps ease the pain is seeing the same emotion reflected back at me as devastation immediately invades Lily’s expression. It was cruel to lay it on her like that, but I needed to know what’s in her heart of hearts. The entire plan hinges on her ability to put her feelings for the dad she once thought she knew aside. I need her to play the part of the scorned ex-lover, to distract her father and to take the heat off me, while Hunter and Cub work through Brutus’ personal records and I try to ingratiate myself with the rebel faction I believe Brutus is cultivating.
In the end, everything comes down to one question.
Can Lily deceive her father to save the Shamrocks and our relationship?
“No,” she cries out. Her voice echoes off the walls as she takes hold of my cut and attempts to shake me. “I know I’ve been crazy. I know I said mean stuff… but I don’t want us to break up. Not like this. Not because of my father. Because of Alex. Because of a bunch of stupid lies we could work through if we truly tried.”
When she blinks, and twin streams of tears run down her cheeks, I brush them away with my thumbs. Confusion ripples over her face at my tenderness, then Lily bites down on her bottom lip and sniffs. As understanding settles into her beautiful face, I brace for the explosion.
“Did you just test me?” I swallow deep, uncertain if I should answer her. This time when she tightens her grip on my cut, it’s not to plead with me, it’s to berate me. “I can’t fucking believe you did that.”
“Needed to?—”
“No, you didn’t,” she screams. Landing a harsh slap to my cheek, Lily tries to push me out of her way. I refuse to budge, catching her wrist when she swings at me again. “Do you ever listen to what I say, or do you just run with what you think I’m going to say?”
“I listen,” I tell her. “Unfortunately, you have a history of lyin’ to me then runnin’ when the chips are down. Can’t risk that happenin’ again. Needed to know from the start if you were gonna go behind my back and take things into your own hands this time.”
“I don’t lie to you!” Her shriek is loud enough to wake the dead.
Thankfully, I planned this ambush well, and have ensured we have the space to hash this out in peace. This showdown is long overdue. More than five years too late. Now, it’s up to me to force us to wipe the slate clean and map out a clear path forward.
“Yes, you do.”
Lily’s tone is filled with bitterness when she says, “How long are you goin’ to hold what I said at my eighteenth birthday party over my head? It was one mistake. One fuckup that I’ve paid for, over and over again.”
“No, metukà shelì ,” I remind her in a harsh voice. “It wasn’t one fuckup. It’s been six years of lies. Six years of you lyin’ to me, to yourself, to everyone who loves you.”
“One fuckup,” Lily retorts. She raises her free hand to take another swipe at my face. I catch her arm, then secure her wrists together above her head by pinning them to the cold steel wall with one hand. Her blue eyes pool with angry tears when she digs her metaphorical heels in and snaps, “ One mistake that I’ve more than paid for.”
“Six years of lies.”
“Bullshit.”
“Do you want me to start?” When Lily presses her lips into a tight line and shakes her head, I ignore her, “Let’s start with the lie you’ll admit—the night of your birthday party. Surely you remember promisin’ me that you weren’t keepin’ secrets about Alex’s threats?” My tone is brittle as I snarl, “You let me take you to my hotel room, let me tell you that I love you, let me make love to you. All the while you were lying to me... I took your virginity based on a lie.”
“No,” she pleads. “It wasn’t like that.”
“How was it then?”
“I can’t—I can’t tell you.”
“It’s not negotiable, sweet thing. We needa lay it all out—my shit, your shit—so we can trust each other enough to do what needs to be done to save the club and us . You want the truth, well here it is… I can admit that I lie to you, mostly to protect you, sometimes to protect my ego, but you’re incapable of facin’ the fact that you purposely deceive me every single fuckin’ day.”
“Fuck. You. Not everything is your business.”
As she curses, Lily struggles in my grip, fighting to free her arms. I use my weight to hold her in place, flexing my fingers around her wrists to ensure I don’t add to the damage Alex has already created. Breathing as steadily as I can, despite my own irritation at her refusal to be honest, I lay down an ultimatum. “You have two ways outta this, sweet thing. We either hash out the past so we can go into the future with everythin’ out in the open, or you call carnage, and I let you go… forever . This breakup can be real if that’s what you want?”
“No,” she whimpers. “I’ll die without you.”
“Then talk. It’s the only way you can have me.”
“You’ll hate me.”
“That’ll never happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I tell her. “With my heart and my head.”
Lowering my face to hers, I capture her trembling bottom lip between my teeth. As I softly sink my incisors into the plump flesh, Lily arches her back and her tits press into my chest. I allow myself one kiss, a single taste of the woman who owns my soul before I force myself to pull back from her.
Forehead to forehead, we stare at each other. Breathe each other in. Wait each other out.
Normally, I’d break first.
This time, I can’t.
She needs to stand on her own two feet without me holding her up.
Lily needs to face a reality that wasn’t built on half-truths and lies.
“I lied to you about Alex...” Lily trails off, her throat working as she struggles to say the words. “He threatened to kill you if I didn’t comply with him.”
“Okay.” I lightly shrug, fighting to hide my reaction to her truth. “But why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I didn’t want you to lose your temper and make things worse. I knew there would be a massacre if I told you the complete truth. Saving Sander’s career. Stopping you from getting hurt. Avoiding my father’s disappointment. They were my goals, and it made sense at the time—it was better to have you think it was a club versus mob issue instead of a Sander problem. I thought... I thought I could fix everything before you found out.”
“Because you didn’t trust me?”
“No.” Lily’s face drains of colour, but she keeps her eyes on mine as she admits, “Yes. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t trust you.”
Her honesty makes my chest hurt. It also lifts some of the weight that’s been weighing me down for more than four years. I’ve asked her, more than once, why she didn’t tell me the complete truth that night. None of her answers have satisfied me. Her excuses all rang hollow. Because I never would’ve let her leave with Alex if I’d known the full extent of his threats.
Now, I always understood why she wanted to protect Sander. That came from her vow to her mother and her need to shield the innate vulnerability that Sander tries to hide from the world.
But lying to me didn’t make sense.
She should’ve known explicitly that I’d die to save her.
Turns out that what I thought was an obvious fact didn’t matter to her.
Lily didn’t trust me not to make things worse that night.
The saddest part is that she’s probably right.
I’d touched her, tasted her, felt her body convulse around mine.
Inadale would’ve been swamped with blood the moment I knew Alex was threatening her directly.
“Does it feel good to know that I don’t fully trust you?” Lily asks in a tone laced with snark. “I hope you’re happy with yourself?”
She pushes against my chest.
I step back, but I don’t give her the space to leave.
We’re not done yet.
“Does it feel good, sweet thing, to finally tell the truth?”
“No.” Lily shakes her head then hisses. I scan my eyes over her battered face to see what’s hurting. She’s too bruised to narrow it down to one injury, so I do my best to ignore the damage and concentrate on her expressive gaze. “How can it feel good when it fixes nothing?”
“I disagree. I think it’s a step in the right direction.”
“Good for you.”
“It’ll be good for me to know everything else you’ve kept from me.”
Ghosts of past trauma flicker in her eyes in the wake of my challenge. Her gaze darkens. Lily breathes too fast, and her body seems to fold in on itself. It takes her a moment to regain control, but when she does, it’s my turn to shatter.
“The truth is that I hated you that night and for months afterwards. Even as I healed, and you stood by me every step of the way, I resented you. I blamed you.” The frown that creases my forehead is a sign of my confusion. My woman sees it, and it makes her anger expand into a living entity. She practically shouts at me, “If you’d come to see me on New year’s Eve like you’d promised, none of this would’ve happened. I wouldn’t have met Alex. I wouldn’t have?—”
“You told me not to come.”
We lapse into silence. Separated by a mere half a foot, yet isolated like deserted islands by shock. Our chests heave as we breathe heavily. My gaze searches Lily’s face for signs of deceit, battling bewilderment the entire time, as she does the same to me.
I can’t find an ounce of pretence.
Over and over, I hear Sander’s voice that night telling me that Anna had asked him to tell me not to come to the New Year’s Eve party. He followed up the gut punch with an excuse that could’ve only come from my Lily.
At the time, I didn’t question it.
Now…
“Sander told me?—”
We both speak the same words.
Our rebuttal is voiced at the same time.
In unison, we fall silent.
“Sander told you what exactly?” I ask with delicate precision.
Lily shifts from one foot to the other, then she replies in a lifeless tone. “Sander told me that you phoned to tell him that you weren’t coming—he said you said that you wanted to give me space to grow up .” The emphasis she puts on those two preceding words tells me that they cut her deep. “He said that you thought I should find myself, work out what I wanted from life before signing my life away to you and the Shamrocks.”
“I didn’t—I never.” My touch is uncertain as I cup the nape of her neck again. When I try to pull her forehead to mine, she shakes her head. “Lily, I never said that.”
“Yes, you did.” My woman’s voice quavers as she adds. “You said it when I was fifteen, and you said it again that night.”
“Sweet thing.” Sliding a hand down her back, I grip her arse and haul her against me. One hand in her hair, the other propelling her upright, I force her to wrap her legs around my waist. “I pushed you away when you were fifteen because it was the right thing to do… not because I wanted to. But I promise you that I didn’t come on New Year’s Eve because Sander told me that you didn’t want me there. He called me while I was in the middle of a job—told me that you wanted freedom from me to find yourself.”
Lily circles her arms around my neck and brings our heads closer. Forehead to forehead, gazes locked, she says with a whimper, “You stayed away for weeks. Wouldn’t take my calls. Wouldn’t answer my texts.”
“I was a pussy, sweet thing. I didn’t fight for you.”
“But then you came to Inadale—why?”
“Heard you were seein’ someone. Had to make sure he was worthy of you.”
“The only person I’ve ever wanted to date is you.”
“Then why…” Trailing off when I realise that I’m straying into victim blaming territory, I break our connection to stare at the tip of her nose. “It’s just… you and Alex. You let me think.”
The laughter that leaves Lily’s lips contains zero humour. “Nadia talked me into using Alex to make you jealous.”
“Well, it fuckin’ worked.”
“No,” my woman clings to me. “It fucked everything up. If I hadn’t… If Sander hadn’t… none of this would’ve?—”
“If, if, if, sweet thing.” Surging forward two steps, I trap her between the steel wall and my body. The hand gripping her arse squeezes. “If Brutus hadn’t forbidden everyone from tellin’ you the truth about Alex. If I hadn’t made that stupid comment about not bein’ worthy of you. If I’d pulled my head outta my arse and answered your calls. So many things had to go wrong for Alex to find his way into your life.” A half-sob, half whimper falls from Lily’s lips when I grind against her. “We still woulda ended up here, metukà shelì , ’cause we’re meant to be. We’re unbreakable. Fuckin’ destiny on steroids.”
Even as I make excuses, every atom of my body pulses with regret. My chest is tight. My gut twists and turns. I handled her supposed rejection like a pussy. Lashed out at Slash. Poked Toker’s soft spots to get him to fight me. Ignored that Lily’s use of a middleman wasn’t normal behaviour.
My reaction was immature.
Beneath me.
Fear driven.
And I’ve spent every minute since hating myself for being so weak.
“I’m sorry. I fucked up. I know that.”
“You loved me,” Lily states. She nips at my chin with sharp teeth. “I loved you.”
“Yes.”
“Only it wasn’t enough because we didn’t have trust.”
“I know, sweet thing.”
The air around us is electrified by our confessions. We’re panting. Chests rising and falling in unison. Eyes locked on the other’s. Filled with love and sorrow. We cling to each other. Move together. Our touch is frenetic. Determined to make up for past hurts that can never be fixed. Unable to comprehend the magnitude of the what-ifs we’ll need to live with forever.
I’m on the cusp of telling Lily that it’s enough—that she doesn’t have to go on.
Until I realise that I’ll be repeating old patterns.
Patterns that need to be broken.
We need to bleed. We need to purge. We need to excise Alex from our psyches if we’re to defeat him. Seems like the only way forward is by going backward for a while.
“You still let me take your virginity,” I prompt. “Why?”
“That was my biggest mistake, my most enduring regret,” Lily reveals in a rush. She screws her nose up like the memory that’s popped into her head smells bad. “I knew that by sneaking off with you that I’d be putting you in danger, but I didn’t care because I needed you. Needed to touch you. Needed to make sure you still loved me. Needed to be sure that you’d fight for me this time. Discovering Dad’s arrangement with Kristoff Maddison broke me, so I went with you, even though I wasn’t ready to go that far with you, because I knew you were the only person who’d let me use you like that. I was selfish… I lied and took what I needed from you without an ounce of regret.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I tell her. “You let me make you bleed, let me make you a woman, then you went with him under false pretences.”
Lily offers me the most heartbreakingly real smile I’ve ever seen on her face. “Your anger at him, at me, was exactly what I needed. Seeing both sides of you in one night reminded me there was a way out—that Alex wasn’t the scariest man on earth. Once I was positive you still loved me, I went through with my plan to negotiate with Alex. I knew you’d swoop in to rescue me if I asked. I could save Sander from himself and save the Shamrocks from a shootout they were ill-equipped to deal with. It was a win-win… until it wasn’t. I failed. I made things worse.”
“Fucking hell, Lil. Why would you think that way? It was never your problem to fix.”
This time her smile is wry. “Over five years of therapy hasn’t been able to answer that question… not sure how you expect me to come up with an adequate response just because you have me pinned between your body and a wall.” I follow her gaze down as it settles on the spot where our lower bodies meet. “Can’t say I’m not a fan of this position, though.”
Chuckling, I bop her nose with my index finger. “Mentionin’ sex won’t get you out of explainin’ why you chose cuttin’ over talkin’.”
“Damn it,” Lily feigns annoyance. “That was my trump card, too.”
“Talk, metukà shelì, and I might let you play it again.”
A pinkish blush settles in her bruised cheeks only to be chased away by the red hue of embarrassment. “The cutting was accidental—I didn’t even mean for it to start. I met a girl at therapy, and we got to talking… the second she told me why she was seeing Dr. Louise, I knew I’d hit the mother-load. Back then, I spent every day battling the feel of him on my skin, in my head, in my veins… I could hear him, feel him, smell him, taste him. It was like I was infected with Alex and the only way to get rid of him was to make myself bleed. By the time I realised I couldn’t stop, it was too late…. I couldn’t—I didn’t want to—burden you with another problem of mine, so I kept you at arm’s length to stop you finding out.”
“Why did you cut here?” Shifting our position to give me enough space, I trail my hand between her denim covered inner thighs and lightly squeeze the soft flesh on either side of her pussy. “Why not your arms or lower on your legs?” After cupping her heat, I brush my hand over her belly. “Why your stomach? Why only those two spots?”
Lily makes a whining sound of protest when I return my hand to her arse.
“Come on, sweet thing. The truth’ll set us free.”
Screwing her eyes shut, she tells me in a frantic rush, “That’s where I felt him the most. That’s where he got inside me. It’s how he stole my womanhood. Destroyed my ability to conceive. In my broken head, it made sense. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I see how stupid it was?—”
“Not stupid, desperate .”
“Okay,” Lily concedes with a slow blink. “I was desperate for peace… and that was the only way I could get it.”
“And now?”
She smirks, most of the agony that has been etched on her face is replaced with unfettered affection. “Now I have you and your magic cock to heal me.”
“Hope you know flattery like that will get you anythin’ you want?”
“Will it get me the truth?”
Closing my eyes, I softly nudge her forehead with mine. “You’ve already got it, sweet thing. My regrets. My lies. My excuses. I’ve told you everythin’. The hospital ambush. The prison beatings. The letters. Hiding his early release from you. Nads and the drugs. I don’t know what else I can give you. You already have my PIN and my phone code?—”
“I want your true thoughts about my father.”
“I told you… we think he’s?—”
“All you’ve given me is your opinion on what everyone else thinks.” Lily captures my face with her hands.
When I meet her penetrating gaze, I understand why she’s spent all these years running from honesty. Lies are easy. The truth has the potential to ruin everything. My heart is in my throat as I contemplate the harsh words that push to the forefront of my mind at her request. Telling her what I think about Brutus is risky. Admitting that I’ve felt it for longer than a few months is even riskier still.
“Come on, Zeke. Fair play. You got my truth… now I want yours.”
“Your father is a piece of shit. Scum. Beyond redemption,” I snarl as every ounce of resentment I’ve kept balled up in my gut bubbles to the surface and out of my mouth. “A bad fuckin’ father. A terrible president. A bloody disgrace to our brotherhood. Always has been, the only difference is that he doesn’t bother to hide his contempt for us anymore. He never deserved Scarlett, ain’t worthy of Charlie, and he certainly doesn’t merit a drop of the love his kids have for him.”
The way Lily’s throat works as she drops her hands from my cheeks to hug herself instantly fills me with regret. I press my lips together, gently lower her back to her feet, giving her space to react. I wait, breath held, regret imminent, for her to arc up at my assessment of the man she calls Dad. Mentioning her mother was a low blow. I have no excuse for throwing Scarlett in her face, even if my feelings about the way he treated the woman who helped raise me during my mum’s many absences are at the crux of my hatred for him.
“He’s mean. He’s irrational. He scares me sometimes,” Lily whispers. “But I still love him.”
“ Metukà shelì ,” I murmur as softly as I can. My body is vibrating with barely contained rage at her admission, but I know losing my temper will only make this worse. Especially when I have to consolidate the new plan with her before we run out of time. “That’s not an indictment on you—if anythin’, it’s completely natural. He’s your dad. Once upon a time, you believed he was perfect. That he was your protector.”
“But he’s not, is he?” After I gently pull her arms away from her midsection, Lily allows me to clutch her close. Her voice is close to inaudible as she says, “How can he be my protector if he’s working with Joseph Kingsley? He knows Alex hurt me… why would he betray the Shamrocks, and me, by joining forces with the man who helped his son get the lowest sentence possible?”
“We don’t know… that’s what we needa find out.”
“How?” Her expression is earnest when she steps away to press her back to the steel wall behind her. “When?”
“By followin’ Hunter’s plan to root out Brutus’ deception, then exposin’ him and the brothers he’s turned into rats to the entire club.”
I leave unsaid the side-scheme I’m working on that takes advantage of our familial connection to the Trinity. Slash bit my head off when I suggested it to him, but I’ll go directly to Crystal with my idea if it comes to it.
Crystal Hudson loves Lily like a daughter.
Here’s hoping that love is strong enough to come out of hiding after thirty-five years.
“And we achieve that by breaking up?” My woman drags me back to the here and now with her question. “Doesn’t make sense.”
“By fakin’ a break up,” I correct her. “Hunt has thought it through, and he believes your dad is havin’ second thoughts about working with Joseph and the Maddison’s. ’Specially now Alex has hurt you a second time.”
“He hardly seemed to care.”
“I know.” With a shrug, I tell her, “Nothing’s settled, although you know what the kid’s like… he was onto this long before I was. He’s worked the angles, questioned Gabriel about the club’s constitution, and had Cub look into things.”
The space between us seems to grow wider when Lily asks, “What did they find?”
I drag in a ragged breath and hold it until my lungs burn. Lily’s expectant gaze scans my face as she tries to decipher my hesitation. Deciding to trust she can handle our suspicions, I lay it out straight. “Nothin’ concrete… just a bunch’a barely connected clues that lead us to believe Brutus is tryna take the Shamrocks into the hard drugs trade and, then eventually, sex traffickin’ by joinin’ fuckin’ forces with the Maddison Clan, and potentially, the Bishops… there’s some new synthetic drug that the Maddison’s have created that Brutus is interested in helping’ them distribute.”
“No.” Even as she protests, I can hear the acceptance in her voice.
Lily believes me.
“Like I said, it’s all up in the air right now, but that’s what it looks like.”
Arms folded across her chest, Lily scowls as well as she can with one eye still bruised and slightly swollen. “How do we stop him?”
“Hunter says our relationship is Brutus’ weak spot… that it’s one of the reasons why your dad’s tryna consolidate power in his faction and cut me out. I don’t know the details—none of the old-timers are tellin’ me shit, but it appears there’s an old grudge between my dad and yours that’s behind Brutus’ inability to accept me as your fiancé and as his second-in-command.”
Scepticism enters Lily’s gaze. “Hunter’s wrong. Dad didn’t like the idea of us at the beginning, then he came around. There must be another reason.”
“Think about it… when he found out the truth about Alex, he blamed you and me. Said he was the only one who could fix it. Tried to get between us. That sound like a man who’s on board with our engagement?” Although I pose my last statement as a question, I don’t allow Lily time to respond. “Doesn’t matter, anyhow. The reason for our breakup is threefold, Cherub. You can’t stay in the compound. It’s compromised. Joseph has been allowed in twice in two days… how long before Alex sneaks inside too? So, we pretend to break up to get you out of here. That gets you on your father’s good side. It gets me out of his crosshairs. It keeps you safe.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I’m not askin’ you to like it… what I’m askin’ is for you to trust me with this.”
“What if Alex comes after?—”
Hearing the worry in her voice as she asks about her crazy ex snaps the tenuous hold I have on my control. I lurch forward, trapping her between me and the cold wall as I seize hold of her shoulders to keep her in place. She swallows deep, averting her gaze when my eyes seek out hers.
“What did I say about worryin’ over Alex and me?”
Eyes darting anywhere but at mine, Lily paraphrases my assertion from yesterday, “That the only way he can hurt you is to hurt me.”
“Exactly.”
“I can’t help it.”
“All you have to do is trust me to keep you safe. To end your nightmare like I shoulda done five years ago.”
“I’ll try.”
“Try harder, please.”
“I will.” The belief in Lily’s expression when she finally locks eyes with me warms my chest. I didn’t realise how much it hurt to not possess her full faith until this moment. The crack in my heart, one that I’ve been ignoring for too long, begins to heal. All that remains is the tiniest fissure when she demands, “Promise me this is going to end with him dead and you in one piece.”
“I promise. He’s gonna die the bloodiest death possible, metukà shelì . Then you can sleep at night without fear that he’s comin’ to take you away from me.”
Although I give her the guarantee she seeks, I can’t help but find the words hollow.
I’ve let her down before.
What if it happens again?