Chapter 18 #3
“Pull a gun on me again, and it won’t be just me that punishes you a second time,” Skeeter spat, pulling me back to the present to look over at them, and I was so close to throwing up.
For a moment, it was Sasha he was holding by the front of her shirt as she laid on the ground, blood on her eyebrow as her unfocused eyes stared back at him.
She was definitely knocked out for a second, and I blinked hard, Rory’s face coming back into view.
He released her with a small shove, standing at his full height and glancing away, not being able to look at her.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he ordered before stalking past to the office and shutting himself inside.
She got her bearings and got to shaky feet, my voice quiet as I looked at Slash. “Let me take her home. She can’t drive.”
“You can’t, D,” he answered, his eyes focused on her as she stumbled towards the door. Her coordination was terrible, and I almost ignored him until he spoke again. “If you go after her, it shows you care about her more than the crew.”
“I fucking do. You know I never wanted to join in the first place,” I growled, and he looked at me in silence for a moment before shaking his head.
“I know, but if you think the guys want her blood now, just wait to see what happens when you turn on the crew for her too. This is why I tried to scare her away. I fucking knew this shit was coming.”
He wasn’t wrong. The crew would hunt her down if I told them to fuck off and chased after her, so I stood there like a coward, just like I had when it was Sasha.
Skeeter
I watched Rory on the cameras as she managed to get into Tyler’s car. I flexed my fingers, hating myself for what I’d just done. Inflicting pain was like a drug to me, but this was different.
I never wanted to feel her skin on my knuckles like that again, or see the look in her pretty blue eyes as she stared at me, waiting for me to do it. I almost didn’t, but if the guys overruled me, they could’ve taken over and beaten her for as long as they pleased.
“Dammit, Aurora,” I muttered as I watched her drive off, and it was hard not to race after her to make sure she was okay.
She knew I hadn’t wanted to, but I knew how much damage my fists could cause. I’d held back a little, but I couldn’t too much or my guys would know. Taking it easy on her would’ve brought her more pain.
My eyes flicked to the cameras from the other room to see the guys all laughing about it, Slash and Diesel standing off to the side in their own conversation. Sending Diesel after her would have been a good idea, but the guys would notice him missing.
None of us could wander off right now or they’d know we checked on her. I’d need to stay busy here for the next day or two, but someone had to make sure she was okay.
I considered texting Caden, but he’d probably come here to punch me and get a beating of his own.
Diesel got to work behind the bar, probably an order from Slash to keep the peace, and I pulled up the cameras at the Holloways’, waiting until Rory got home so I could breathe a little easier.
It took her a lot longer than normal, but she eventually showed up and parked out front, heading into the house to most likely check her injuries.
She’d definitely have a black eye in the morning, and the cut on her eyebrow shouldn’t need stitches. It was small, thankfully.
Since I knew she’d gotten home in one piece, I shut out of the cameras and pulled up some of the paperwork for the next gun deal, focusing on that instead.
We still had no idea why the Soldiers were in town, but it was fucking with our plans. Some buyers had backed out, too worried about getting caught up in the middle of a crew war, which I couldn’t exactly blame them for.
Slash had tried reaching out to Razor to ask why his men were here, but so far it had been radio silence, which wasn't good.
It took an hour for Slash to enter the office, deciding I’d had enough space.
“You can’t bail to check on her tonight,” he warned, and I shot him a dark look.
“I’m aware.”
“They’ll be expecting you or Diesel to go to her, but they shouldn’t expect me,” he stated, surprising me slightly.
“You’ll check on her?”
“I’ll try to. This is why I didn’t—”
“I know!” I snapped, trying to calm myself when he kept watching me. “I fucking know, okay? This is why I kept walking away from her too.”
“You spend the next few days focused on crew shit, and I’ll make sure she’s okay. Hopefully, she doesn’t pull a stunt like that again. Diesel almost jumped in to stop you.”
“He would’ve made it worse.”
“I told him that, so he backed down. The hard part will be keeping him away from her. Pretty sure he’s drowning in Sasha shit, so he might do something stupid.”
“He needs to mind his fucking business. She’s not Sasha, and she’s not his problem,” I gritted out.
“She’s been a good friend to him, so you can’t be surprised that he cares about her.”
“No, he sees Sasha when he looks at her. That’s it.”
“They don’t even look alike.”
“I know that, but she’s so much like her personality wise. Even I see it,” I replied, raking a hand through my hair. “Keep him busy here. Besides, I’m still mad at him for telling her where I was. This is kind of his fault.”
“Will do,” he sighed, sitting at his desk and pulling his phone out. “I need to work on another meeting with Hendricks since today was a bust. You’ve got fight night shit to plan, and the gun trade. You do that, I’ll handle Hendricks and Diesel. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“It’s a shame I already killed everyone I needed to this week. I could do with some murder therapy right now,” I grumbled, making him scoff.
“Yeah, because that went so well the first time. You know this all started because you offed that quarterback, right?”
“No. It started because the quarterback touched something that didn’t belong to him. Sounds like it’s his fault.”
“Do you know how many strings I had to pull so you didn’t get hauled off to prison? I owe that rookie cop a bunch of favors for destroying evidence. The fucker scratched you and had your DNA under his nails.”
“BG owes me a few favors so I’ll balance them out for you. Who got the blame?” I asked as I reached for a cigarette.
“I had some shit on that prick from Rawson that owes us money. He should be hauled in by now. It didn’t get us our money back, but it worked out well,” he shrugged, and I eyed him suspiciously.
“You’re really happy to just let the debt go?”
“Pretty sure keeping you out of prison is worth every lost penny, don’t you think?”
“Aw, you do love me,” I snorted, earning a dirty look in return.
“Next time, warn me before you go on a rampage. I thought we agreed on making it look like an overdose to avoid suspicion.”
“Yeah, until I realized the asshole wouldn’t suffer for long. I wanted him to know exactly why he was being punished,” I said with a dark smile, making him laugh.
“No more grim reaper shit without a proper plan, understand?”
“Understood.”