So I kept going.
“Just to say, I wouldn’t admit it to myself, but when yourefused to listen to my concerns about where the club was going and what thatmeant to our lives and our future, it ended with us.Long before you left mebleeding and passed out on a cement floor.”
He shook his head.“You drop the charges, Rosie, and I’lltalk to Web and the guys about letting this shit end here with you.”
I nodded my head.“You’regonnatalk to Web and the guys and you’re allgonnaleaveme alone.”
“You need to drop the charges, Rose.”
“If I have to sit in a box and look every one of you in theeye before I put you behind bars, I’ll do it.”
“Babe—”
I yanked the paper out of my purse and flattened it on theglass.
“My mother saw me like that, Beck.”
He turned his head away.
He loved my mom.Practically doted on her.An old ladywithout her biker.All of Bounty treated her like a dowager queen.
“Shesawthat,” I pushed.“Youmade hersee me like that.”
He turned back to me.“Rosie, we got serious problemsbecause of your bullshit.”
I shoved the picture back in my purse, saying, “Iwasn’t caught transporting drugs.Ididn’t abduct my girlfriend fromher place of business and deliver her to a warehouse wheremeand themen I call my brothers beat her to shit.Youandyour brothersdid that.”
“You know the code,” he bit.
“I do.My father was a biker and he taught me.Woman.Kids.Bike.Freedom.In that order.Where are you now with all of that, Beck?”
“You did it for Cage,” he clipped, not letting that stupidcrap go.
“No.But I will say, in the beginning, I did it for you, butin the end, I didn’t.”
His brows shot together.“What the fuck does that mean?”
I wasn’t about to explain that one.
“Leave me and Mom alone.”
“Boys’dnever touch your ma,” hemuttered.
That was delivered in a mutter but I believed it.
Thank God.
I believed it.
I fought back heaving a gigantic sigh of relief and insteaddemanded, “Leavemealone.”
He leaned deeper toward me and got a look on his face thatwhat now seemed long ago would have had me dropping to my knees or flat on myback in a split second.
“Baby, I’mbeggin’ you,dropthe charges.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“Rosalie—”
