Chapter 14 #2
She calls every day, leaving a message about Hudson, but I haven’t yet answered.
She allowed me to be blindsided when I always had her back. Space is just what we both need right now, what I need right now, especially when I know she doesn’t agree with my revenge.
Venom groans when I don’t say anything and admits, “She got in my head, kitten. She told me she found you with Hayden, and I let it fester. She accused you of trying to sell Ivy just like she did, and fuck, I’m not proud of it, but years of growing up in the club, I let my insecurities get the better of me despite knowing Mama was talking out of her ass to try and get a reaction out of me, and I fucked Angel. ”
I flinch, hating his words as more tears fall, and I hate it, but I understand, which makes me pathetic.
“I’m so sorry for all the hurt and pain I’ve caused you, Raya.
I had no proof of you using my sister, yet I treated you like shit.
I couldn’t understand how a woman who came from money, a shit load of it, could make friends with a club brat, and I was a dick,” he mutters, and I turn my head a little.
Every night I’ve been here, this is what he’s like, remorseful, regretful, but maybe he’s too late to feel like this, to open his eyes and see the error of his ways.
I need to focus on work, school, and my revenge, not a guy who treated me like shit growing up, all because I befriended his little sister and couldn’t look him in the eye because I fell for him.
“Kitten,” he rasps after a few minutes of silence, “I know I don’t deserve to know, but I, fuck, growing up, you were joined at my sisters hip, always by her side and I know right now things are hard for you both.
I know I’m at the root of that but I just…
Three months you disappeared after your father died.
Everyone said you were on a trip, but you didn’t keep in contact with her, and I was wondering why? ”
I chew my bottom lip. I have a choice here, I can keep my mouth shut and act like I’m not here like I have been.
My resolve strong even when he brought up me kneeing him between his legs after he got me kicked out of my apartment when he knocked out my old landlord, Dean, after I accepted a date for the first time in years of him asking.
Or I can tell him the truth and open up like Lake wanted me to.
The memory of hurting him hits me, making me smile.
I scowl as Venom storms into my friend's accountant's office, where I was hiding from him, and without looking my way, he snaps at his friend, “Seriously, Fury?”
Guess he realized I was here after Fury tried to deny it five minutes ago on the phone.
I knew I should have run somewhere else.
The idiot got me kicked out, all because I said yes to a date, and yeah, okay, Dean is a sleazy jackass of a landlord who has tried to access my apartment several times because he wants me.
But his rent was cheap, and now, I have two weeks to get my stuff out before he changes the locks.
I can’t exactly go home because the Hyenas are watching Mama’s house to see if I’ll return there, and I won't put her in danger.
Venom side-eyes me, and the memory of the fact that I’m now homeless and the only option I have at this short notice is an apartment building he’ll have access to because the club owns it hits me, and anger rises again.
Fury shrugs and admits, “Trust me, brother, you were safer not being here,” as I storm over to Venom, and while he’s distracted, I ram my knee between his legs, causing him to cough and grunt as he bends, holding his junk, and I snap, “That is for losing me my lease, jackass!”
These past few months, he hasn’t taken the fact that he has a master key for the building I now live in for granted. I’m just surprised he hasn’t tried to enter my apartment again since Ivy told him I knew about Angel.
I sigh as I close my eyes again, and he pleads, “Please, kitten, I just, I need to know why you’d cut her out after years of ignoring my jabs, especially when you would have needed her the most.”
Tears build, those three months hitting me hard as the denial I felt for those months runs through me.
“I was hospitalized, Cale,” I finally choke out as the doctors holding me down as they sedated me blinds me and I admit, “I couldn’t accept that my best friend, my hero, was dead and I lashed out every time it hit me so they sedated me.
In my mind, he was coming back to celebrate the birthday meal that him and Mama planned with Ivy, the only thing I asked for,” my tears fall fast and hard and I sob, “It was my birthday, Cale, he died on my birthday and even now, ten years later, I can’t celebrate because it hurts too much… ”
“Fuck!” Venom chokes out, and I silently sob, the memories destroying me bit by bit, and the urge to go hunting consumes me.
There’s no saving me, and there is certainly no future for him and I.
He broke me along the way over the years with his evilness and his nasty words.
Losing my dad killed the only good thing deep inside me and that goodness will never return, not even for the man I fell madly in love with when I was a kid.