The biker Diesel fucked up swore Bash didn’t allow the videos of Harley, Rebel, and Mattie, to be shown at the Scorpions’ clubhouse, but CJ was almost certain the Bart brothers were there and those motherfuckers instigated the entire scheme. No one mentioned what would happen to them for what they’d done. CJ supposed the peace agreement saved their stinking lives.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “How are Willard and Wally?” he asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
DeLuca studied him for a moment, then met his gaze. “Fuckheads.”
“So the usual. Did they hurt Molly?”
“Who didn’t hurt her?” DeLuca said, sighing.
“You didn’t. You helped her.”
“Not all good deeds are so cut and dry.” He glanced away, then looked at CJ again. “I helped her in the only way that was available to me.”
The shame on his face and in his voice hinted at his meaning. CJ withheld his judgment, even if he hated the thought of Molly fucking DeLuca for her release from captivity. “She is probably grateful to you. She’s alive and she’s free.”
“Do you know what I’m saying?”
“I know exactly what you’re telling me,” CJ said flatly. “You fucked her.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Even if I’m not, I see that you aren’t, so whatever my feelings, you’re already beating yourself up. My anger pales in comparison to your fucking guilt and self-loathing. You can choke on that for all I fucking care.”
Giving CJ an unfriendly smile, DeLuca shifted in his seat.
“Who shot her?”
“Does it fucking matter? As you said, she survived.”
Rory hurt CJ so deeply, more than Devon or Ryan ever could. CJ and Rory had been as thick as thieves. True, Harley once consumed most of CJ’s time, but on many occasions Rory was with them. Yet, he couldn’t fucking ruin his life because the cousin he valued so deeply was nothing but a piece of shit.
Leaning against the doorframe, CJ folded his arms. “You saved her, Easton. Tom Harris was a motherfucker. I guess he wanted to humiliate her and use you to do it before he agreed to release her. Imagine what you would’ve done if you’d been given that choice but didn’t take it and she ended up not surviving? How would you feel then?”
DeLuca placed his elbows on his knees and nodded. “That’s what I remind myself of every day. But what’s killing me is she didn’t have a fucking choice. She was so fucking out of it.”
CJ hated the idea that Molly had been assaulted in such a manner. Yet…yet…she was alive. DeLuca’s reprehensible actions had saved her when CJ thought she was lost forever. “What you did was so fucking wrong. There’s no way around that. But the reason you did it wasn’t.”
“If I hadn’t slept with her, not only wouldn’t she have been released, she would’ve been killed. Right in front of me. Each time I declined, she was shot. They had one more.”
“The kill shot,” CJ guessed.
DeLuca raised his head and looked at CJ, then nodded.
“You had a fucked-up choice to make, but it wasn’t the wrong one. No, both fucking options were wrong. One was just better.”
“If you say so.” DeLuca straightened again. “Rory was still the one who asked me to save her.”
“Rory is still a motherfucker.”
“I hate to see my young cousins at each other’s throats.”
CJ absorbed those words but barely reacted. Fuck, if aliens suddenly invaded Earth, it wouldn’t have shocked him. “You’re Bash’s son.”
“I am.”
“Does my dad know?”
“He does. He visited with Diesel this past Saturday.”
