“This town is ours!” Bullet exclaimed.
Over our dead fucking bodies.
Then, Bullet turned to face me. “Now, get your grimy fucking feet off my god damn cement steps before I shoot you for trespassing on private property. Go!”
My men left without me on their bikes and the Devil’s Rage broke down laughing. They pointed and guffawed, holding their stomachs and barking with laughter until they couldn’t breathe. I watched them drive off into the sunset without me. I mean, I knew they were pissed, but I didn’t know that they were pissed enough to leave me behind.
Still, I ignored their laughter as I made my way to my bike and kicked my leg over it.
“I’ll see you all in hell after I kill each and every one of you,” I murmured beneath my breath.
By the time I pulled up to the clubhouse, all of the guys were inside. I knew there would be hell to pay, but whatever I faced I knew I made the right decision. They would have killed Aria, or worse, and I would have never forgiven myself for it. The club was a small price to pay, in my mind, for a woman that had wiggled her way beneath my skin.
For a woman that consumed my waking mind every second of every fucking day since we had first locked eyes.
“So,” Fangs said the second I walked through the front door, “did you just forget about the fact that you took a pledge? Or does pussy mesmerize you that much nowadays?”
I choked down my own anger and tried to see things from his point of view. “I was only concerned with—”
“With saving the woman you’re fucking, yes. I know. My question, however, is what in the ACTUAL FUCK WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU THREW YOUR BROTHERS UNDER THE BUS FOR A BITCH YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW!?”
The second he got into my face and started screaming, I shoved him backward. Angel and Reaper caught him before he tumbled to the ground, but it took Viper holding me back to keep from beating his fucking face in.
“I don’t give a shit if you don’t understand what I had to do in there!” I barked at him. “But I did what any of you fuckers would’ve done if someone you cared about were in the clutches of that god damn maniac!”
Fangs stood back on his feet. “You’re pathetic. You fuck a girl once and then you’re willing to hand over everything we ALL have worked so god damn HARD for!? You choose some chick you just met over the men you consider to be family? Is that how you treat family, Bender!?”
“If you had just waited two minutes,” Angel said as he held up two fingers, “just two fucking minutes more, we would’ve been in that room with you and we could’ve taken them all down. We were all the way up the side fucking steps before we heard you two scurrying out of the room.”
“And now,” Fangs said as he approached me, “our biggest money-maker is gone because of you and your selfishness. You’re lucky I haven’t snatched that cut right off your god damn back for betraying us the way you have. I’m still not sure that I won’t.”
Reaper shook his head. “Things will never work with you and Aria. Not when it comes to this club. If it’s so easy for you to choose her over us already, then you hold no loyalty to us at all. You never did. And not only that, but all you’ll do is put her in constant danger. We’re officially at war with that club, and they know she’s attached to you. She’s nothing but a target at this point, and you’re to blame for that.”
His words hung heavily in the air, pregnant with a truth that made me sick. They were all right. I had betrayed my brothers in black. I had betrayed the very oath I took when I pledged my soul to this club. To the only family I had ever known.
I wrenched myself away from Viper and stepped out onto the porch, trying to swallow the bile working its way up the back of my throat. And after the world stopped tilting on its own axis, I pulled my cell phone out.
Only to find that Aria had called me twice already.
Guess I can’t do much more damage.
I called her back and the phone didn’t even ring on my end before I heard her voice. “Bender, are you okay? Is everyone all right?”
I smiled softly at the worry evident in her voice. “The question is, are you okay? Sounds like you’re pretty worked up.”
She scoffed. “Save it for another time. Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Well, so am I, so that’s good.”
Silence fell between us for a few beats before she spoke again.
“You think we might have time tonight to finish our conversation?” she asked.
Her voice was so soft, and so vulnerable, and I hated myself for what I was about to do. But Reaper was right. So long as she was attached to me, she was in danger.
“Listen, Aria…”
