“She was the only one there for me, you know that?” He said in response to my attempt to manipulate his vulnerability.
He continued spilling over with his remorse, giving me even more weakness to work with.
“At first, I only saw her as my kid sister’s best friend, but there was something real special about her, real special – ”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Natalie was cheating on me? With you?” I saw red, my breathing immediately quickened as I fought against totally losing my temper.
I looked up at Teddy one last time.
“No, she never did. She said her heart belonged to you and that wouldnever change. She loved you, Dallas. She loved you and only you.” I noticed tears starting to form in his eyes. He shifted his gaze to the ground and went on.
“But, I loved her and I accepted that I would probably never have her. You had her heart and you let her walk away that night, you let her leave and YOU let her die.” His words came quickly like daggers, piercing my heart and shattering it to pieces again, the wound that I can never heal.
“You took her from me, and now, I’ll take everything from you, DALLAS KINGSTON!” His jaw tightened as he raised his head to make eye contact with me, rage behind his glare.
“Poor Delaney, she didn’t see it coming. It was easy to set all this up.” He waved his hand around in a grand gesture.
“You really should be careful who you trust. Not everyone in thatfamilyof yours is trustworthy.” He spoke with disdain and jealousy.
“Even with me sending in my spies they didn’t get me nearly as much information as your very ownfamilyspilled the beans about.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” My mind reeled trying to figure out who he could possibly be referring to. I trusted everyone in my small circle. There was not one person I’ve allowed close to me that I could ever imagine turning their back on me like that.
He’s trying to get into my head.
“You’re a liar!” I snarled, taking a step closer toward him with my fists clenched. He was lucky that the big bastard still stood between us and that gun was still stuck in my side.
“Ha! You can’t possibly believe that everyone in that club of yours is loyal to only you? How incredibly naïve of you, silly silly Dallas.”
My mind went back to a few months ago when one of the dancers Juliet started to get a little pushy with her flirtatious behavior towards me. It was no secret that I wasn’t interested in crossing lines with my staff, especially those I’d grown close to over the years. Shewouldn’t take a gentle, ‘no’ so I had to get more stern than I usually do in those types of situations.
She was upset and embarrassed. I heard she was making friends with one of the other big wigs in town but I didn’t see an issue with it, as long as she didn’t bring any drama into my club or allow what she did outside of there affect my establishment.
The next time I saw Juliet, she apologized for being so aggressive and asked that we forget it even happened. I’m not the type to let things like that linger so of course I agreed and moved past it, but what was strange was that she kept showing up, in different parts of the club, rooms she had never shown interest in before. I noticed her behavior and felt uneasy about it. Soon after that, I had Miss Rice implement a new employee rule that she announced at our monthly employee meeting.
Juliet was the only one to become angered by the new rule that prohibited dancers in the specialty rooms without a guard or member of staff. It was a necessary precaution anyway for their safety but also for me to ensure there were no lines crossed. When her name slipped from my lips and Teddy’s smile grew wide, I knew I had it right.
“So all this time, all this effort for what?” I said in a condescending tone, switching off my anger to make my point with this idiot once and for all.
“You deserve everything coming to you Dallas, I wont stop until I have everything you want and the whole world knows that Dallas Fucking Kingston is a sorry piece of shit. I’ll avenge Natalie’s death until my last breath.” He snarled, his words filled with so much hate and anger,
Natalie was truly special, and her death was my downfall and the reason I gave up on myself. But the memory of us and of her smile is the reason I am the man I am today. Natalie taught me how important it was to be honest, and honesty starts with being honest with yourself.She taught me to always find the good in every situation and to project positivity. If she knew I planned to deprive myself of love because of guilt that I harbored over losing her, she would disapprove and dammit, if she knew what I planned to do to Teddy today, that would be a whole other thing of its own.
I shook my head at the image that played in my mind, her giving me one of her infamous pointed looks.
I stepped back and raised my hands in surrender when the gun dug deeper into my side, causing me to wince this time. I knew he wasn’t going to kill me because then Teddy wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing me suffer after he thought I signed over my entire life to him. I would be damned if I let him have what I’ve worked so hard for but I knew in my heart that killing him wasn’t right either, but scaring him a little, now that’s something I could get behind.
This is my life…
Delaney
“You can’t just hold me against my will, Jackson.” I huffed when he told me we were going back to Club Crawl. I begged him to take me home. He ignored my request, informing me that Dallas had strict orders.
“He doesn’t own me, Jackson.” I snapped in one last attempt to sway him before the guard lifted the gate to let us through to enter the underground car park. He shook his head slightly and gave me a pointed look.
“Okay, what if I just walked off? Then it technically wouldn’t be your fault.” I pushed. I had absolutely no desire to be at the club or in Dallas’s presence. Despite all that had happened, I didn’t forget about the photos, and I had no intention of just letting it go.
I felt so betrayed and blind. I felt silly because it wasn’t the fact that there was another woman close to him; it was the fact that he was clearly without his mask. He hid from me but openly exposed himselfto this other woman. I wished I could have seen who she was. I didn’t even know what I would do with that information or if that was even really something I wanted. I knew one thing for certain. I was done with Dallas Kingston.
