About twenty minutes later I feel Luke’s phone vibrate on the couch where he put it. Picking it up he looks at the screen before busting out laughing.
“What’s funny?” I ask him.
He tilts the phone my way so I can read the message.
Mack: We’re here. Using Ash’s key.
Mack: Ash says that's your warning to have your dick put away.
Fucking Ash. I’ve loved that woman since the first time I met her at Hell’s Desire.
A couple of minutes later, there’s a quick knock on the door, before I hear the key in the keyhole. Ash doesn’t hesitate whenshe sees me on the couch. She crosses the room, dropping down beside me and pulls me into a tight hug.
When we finally separate, she tilts her head toward the hallway.
“Come on. Let’s go to your room and talk in private. Let these two catch up on club business.”
She takes my hands, helping me to stand and we head down the hallway to my bedroom. Once we’re inside, she shuts the door behind me. Her eyes drift to where I’m sitting on the unmade bed, and she wrinkles her nose.
“What?”
She just points at the bed. “I don’t want to sit in anyone’s bodily fluids.”
I shake my head, laughing at her. “It was just me. I just woke up not long ago.”
Happy with my answer she moves across the room dropping down on the bed beside me. She pulls her legs up and for a second neither of us speaks as I shift my body so I can face her.
Then the question bursts out of me.
“How did you do it?”
Her brow furrows slightly.
“How did I do what?”
“What you did,” I say quietly. “When you… killed him. You know.”
She studies me carefully before answering. It’s like she’s thinking about how she’s going to respond.
“It wasn’t really a choice in the moment it happened,” she says after a pause. “I knew I needed to do it if I wanted to feel safe again. And for me, being part of killing him is what I neeed.”
“Do you think about it all the time?” I ask. “I know you never mention it. Not since you shared it with me and Arizona.”
She shakes her head slowly.
“No. But I do live with the knowledge that I took someone’s life.” Her gaze holds mine as she tilts her head to the side, pulling her bottom lip into her mouth. “At the same time,” she continues, “I know I couldn’t live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder either.”
I just let what she’s telling me sink in.
“For me,” she says quietly, “it was the right choice. I know you have a choice to make. What I did might not be the right one for you. And that’s okay.”
“I know.”
She reaches over, taking my hands in hers.
“You need to do what you feel comfortable with, Vee.”
I feel the tear sliding down my face, and I let go of one of her hands so I can wipe it away.
