Forty-Seven
As I watched everything unfold, and so close to getting my hands on the woman who took great pleasure in destroying lives. It makes me giddy, and I don’t do giddy. The satisfaction of watching Beverly Berlusconi-Ferrari show everyone who and what she has had my body releasing a tension I’ve held onto for two decades. The conniving bitch is nearly in the palm of my hands, and it has my heart beating in a way it hasn’t for years.
Do I wish there would have been more blood guts and less of this civilized shit that my godson is so fond of? Of course, I’m the motherfucking Widow Maker. Blood and guts are what I do, what I’m known for, but this will do. A more personal touch. I smirk at myself. By night's end, her blood will be on my hands and her eyes on mine while she realizes just how much she’s lost. There is so much that Gunner, her children, and mine do not know about Beverly. So much she needs to atone for. I’m more than happy to be a judge and jury. Unfortunately, she still has a long life of misery to live. So she will not be executed by my hand.
As we all stand in the compound's parking lot, I look at my daughter as she happily smiles at her man as he holds her close. She is so in love and at peace, which is the icing on the cake. Fate had a plan for my girl; I just hope that bitch doesn’t get too froggy. My girl deserves a future filled with love and happiness.
Even though my life until now has been filled with heartbreak and pain, I know it will not be my children's or grandchildren's fate. I will not allow it. And because of everything I’ve been through in my life, that is a promise I can keep. At the end of this night, it will be a promise I will guarantee.
As the vehicles approach, I watch as Gunner instinctively knows which one holds his daughter, heading to it anxiously. I chuckle to myself. From what I hear and have seen, that daughter of his is not much better than the mother, trying to force herself into a man's life who didn’t want her. Their circumstances were a little different. Taz never wanted Paisley, so there was no competition for my Bell. Either way, I know my daughter has found her forever and does not have to deal with the constant ache of missing the other half of her soul. Like the kids, say that shit is for the birds.
When Gunner pulls his crying daughter into his arms, I watch them. He and I still have a lot to work through and talk about. Everyone thinks we’ve been having some super-secret friends-with-benefits situation when we disappear into his office. That is not the case, nor was it for lack of trying on his part. Unlike Gunner, I can’t just snap out of it and forgive the way everyone seems to think that I have. The word “sorry” doesn’t do it for me. It isn’t enough, not for what was done to me. I know deep down in my cold, dead heart that he made the best choice he could at the moment, but I still ended up shattered and broken and had to be rebuilt into who and what I am.
Looking around, I turn and walk back into the clubhouse. My heart ceases to beat as I prepare for what is to come.
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GUNNER
Thank fuck, this shit is over; now I need to get my woman's forgiveness.
?
That motherfucking snake is going to get everything coming to her. Every fucking tear my baby girl has shed, that bitch will pay for if it is the last motherfucking thing I do. By the end of this day, my children will be rid of the cancer that is their mother, and I don’t feel a goddamned ounce of sorry for it. Although she won’t be dead, she sure will wish she were.
My mind goes to my woman and how one mistake has turned our lives into what they are today. I know I’ve fucked up in more ways than I can count. I have a shit ton of apologizing and groveling to do with Savvy and our daughter Bellamy. As I told Blaze and Bell before, shit won't happen overnight. Do I feel like an utter dick for making my Bell feel like she was beneath her sister and not an equal in my heart? Fuck yeah, I do. But as a father, and in the heat of the moment, I had one daughter here, and the other gone. I didn’t half the shit I’ve said, especially not in the way Bellamy took it. I really fucking didn’t.
When Bellamy left the office, my VP followed her, and I knew he would take care of my girl until she and he both calmed down. Soon after, the rest of the brothers followed behind my VP, at the request of my woman. She and Blaze let me have it and accepted it because I deserved it. My head was all fucked up and had me speaking before thinking. Which is what I told them earnestly. That is something my VP has been on my ass about lately. It is not usually an issue, but fuck me again. I’m blaming it on the heat of the moment. Thank fuck my Blaze was willing to hear me out and understand to an extent.
Blaze and I rehashed the history of me putting my foot in my mouth to his mother. telling her about what happened the first night. And then he begrudgingly gave me advice and explained that Bellamy was still on edge and thought I saw her as a lesser. Taz was right in saying my mouth can sometimes get away with me, and I know fuck, I see that shit. But fuck me. A man can only take so much shit blowing up in his face, unable to grasp what's up from down.
I have been drowning in my shit for the last month. I’ve been grasping for far longer if I sit and think about it. Meeting my kids, Savvy coming back into my life, and the shit with Beverly. Put a cherry on the proverbial shit pie of my life. Admitting my mistakes to them and myself was hard, but it needed to be done. As a father and president, I’ve not been the best at either lately. After tonight, I’ll work damn hard to fix the shit I’ve allowed to be broken and that I’ve failed to see. The three women in my life deserve nothing less than me at my best, as did my club.
Fuck, I need a damn drink.
Standing in the parking lot, I watch several SUVs pull in before the clubhouse doors. I can hear Beverly and her fucking mouth spouting off shit. I may not have put my hands on a woman before, but that bitch is begging to meet her maker at the end of one of my fists.
Shuffling behind me has me turning around. Savvy walks out of the clubhouse, and like she always does, she quiets the storm. Damn, that woman takes my breath away. Before my youngest daughter nearly tackles me, I make a promise.
Svetlana Petrov will be mine again, come hell or high water.
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PRINCESS
The life I wanted was never meant to be.
?
The man I was supposed to marry was… is a monster. The anger I feel is all-consuming. I was so stupid not to see it sooner. I mean, I don’t think I could have. We only talked a few times on the phone I borrowed from the club girls. I initially called my mother to find out what was going on. My dad and the club were too quick to accept every word and explanation they were given. I didn’t know what proof they had that my mother was doing them wrong, only what Bellamy said. And she was an utter bitch, thinking she was better than everyone. Acting like her shit doesn’t stink. So yes, I called my mother to find out if what was being said was true and what I should do or could do to stop it, to stop her.
I should have listened to my brothers and father, but I truly believed that Bellamy and her mother had them snowed. I mean, come on, a woman he dumped over twenty years ago becomes some assassin because she has a broken heart and miraculously comes to save the day. I wasn’t buying it. That was until I discovered that my mother was manipulating me into believing she wanted what was best for me. She and Marco made me think I was finally going to be someone other than Gunner, the feared leader of LSMC’s daughter. I was going to have time to be something more. It was all a fucking lie. Savvy and Bellamy, who I still don’t like, weren’t the bad guys in this story. I can’t reconcile that with who they are and how they have treated me, and I guess I never will, or at least not right now. Things are too raw and confusing.
I know what everyone thinks of me, and I’m not disputing it. I’m spoiled, I’m entitled, and I’m a bitch. Growing up, I had to be. I will not act as if who I am and how people see me isn’t a choice I made. I choose to be who I am, and I won’t apologize. But this, to be bartered as if I am nothing. I don’t know what to do or say.
I don’t know what to do with these feelings of betrayal.
Marco scared me when he spoke to me, showing me his true colors. Him admitting to all the lies he and my mother concocted made me feel shame for the first time in my life. The thing he planned to do to me when we were married? The reality of what could have been had more tears being shed. The fact my mother knew all of this and didn’t care. The fact that she lied to me repeatedly, and I was dumb enough to believe her–trust her. Made me realize I was expendable to her. My life hopes and dreams were so expendable that she would sell me off for a bigger piece of the pie and keep her breathing. I do not doubt that if that man who came to save me hadn’t, or even if I hadn’t gone to her, she would be dead. And as much as I want to feel something. I don’t feel even a sliver of remorse for what awaits her at my father’s compound. I hate who she became and what she was willing to do.
I guess it’s true that what they say, you reap what you sow.