“Sharper threatened to take Meggie when she waseight.”
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
Had she known? Probably, but her head was pounding and her heart was broken. The last thing she wanted to think about were those fucked up letters detailing mayhem, murder, and misery. “You can’t excuse your behavior because of what Sharper Banks planned.”
“It wasn’t my fucking behavior that caused what happened. That’s all on Wally.”
Kendall had no response. It was too painful to think of one. She accepted the reality of Rory’s future while staying willfully blind to what lay ahead for Mattie.
“I know you’re upset with me, gorgeous, and I wish I didn’t give a fuck. I do, babe. I hate your tears and your pain. Why don’t you talk to Mattie about setting a different course for her life? Send her off to college so she can meet a good motherfucker, unconnected to the life? Let her be club affiliated not club adjacent.”
“She wants to get into cybersecurity.” Something Johnnie didn’t know because he wouldn’t agree. “Val and Stretch taught her so much and she does the rest. She’s so brilliant.”
“Like you, Kendall. You should be proud of her.”
“Johnnie doesn’t know,” she rambled. “He…I don’t think he’d like her choices.”
“What the fuck does that motherfucker like?”
“Not much,” Kendall admitted.
Bash grunted. “Now, gorgeous, what do you want me to do to Wally, Jr. when Cleaner brings him to me?”
“Cut his goddamn hands off and then chop his cock into tiny pieces,” she snarled, pulling ideas from her anger and pain. “Then…then…then…” She couldn’t imagine a punishment vile enough to match what he did. “I hate him so fucking much.”
“Anything else?”
She shook her head. Somewhere, on the fringes of her mind, she knew she should speak since Bash couldn’t see her.
“Got my notes on your wishes, gorgeous. What do you think of hot oil in his eyes? Or do you think shoving his cock in hot oil would hurt more?”
Kendall removed the phone from her ear to frown at it. “I don’t want to consider either option.”
“That’s fine. You and I have created an outstanding menu. Do you want photos of the finished product?”
“No, asshole. And, if I were your attorney, I’d tell you not to text pictures of a motherfucking corpse. Evidence.”
“Can you be my attorney? We can role play sometimes. Prosecutor and defendant. I’ll even let you spank me.”
“This conversation is unacceptable.”
“Once I kill Johnnie, it will be wholly acceptable, gorgeous.”
“Kill Johnnie?”
“I take it you don’t like that idea,” he said sourly.
“Fuck no! You can’t kill my husband. That’s my fucking job. Otherwise, leave him the fuck alone.”
“Do you know why I love you so much? You’re so fucking loyal, even to a motherfucker who doesn’t deserve it.”
“You don’t fucking know me, Bash, so you can’t possibly love me.”
“Tops and Bottomsby Daria Munroe is about insta-love. Never believed in it until I read that book. Do you want to borrow it?”
Hysteria rose in Kendall. She didn’t care about his fucking romance novels. “Don’t kill Johnnie.”
