“What happens next?” she asked, her voice so soft it sounded like a whisper in my head. I turned back to her.
“We’re just going to talk,” I said, my words devoid of emotion.
To her credit, she didn’t cry, even though she knew I was lying. She knew what was coming and she was trying to make peace with it. Fuck, I hadn’t realized how strong she was. I’d had grown men on their knees begging for their lives by this point. But I could see by the look on her face that she was done crying, and she was not going to beg.
“Beast.” She said my name, and I realized that I’d been looking over her shoulder instead of at her. “Look at me,” she said, so I did.
I looked at Belle, summoning the man I used to be. The enforcer. The human weapon. The Devil’s best friend. I summoned him to help me through this as I looked down at Belle, and then she did something I hadn’t expected.
She fucking smiled at me.
Not anaha, fuck youkind of smile either, but a smile that said she understood.
“Don’t do that,” I growled, hating her for smiling. Hating her for not begging. Hating her for putting me in this position in the first place. “Why the fuck did you get yourself mixed up in all of this, Belle? Why couldn’t you just do your job, get me healthy, and then go back to your life?”
I felt the rage that had lived inside of me for the past year crawl out of its hole, breathing new life into me. She stared up at me helplessly, her eyes wide, her smile falling, and I just wanted to fucking shake her. Hit her. Slap her. Fuck her. I wanted her to know what a fucking waste her life had been because of all of this. How she’d screwed everything up for herself. Everything that could have been, and everything that should have been.
The anger grew and grew, wrapping tendrils of fury around my heart with every breath I took until I couldn’t look at her anymore, I had to get away, but the moment I stepped outside that door it was over, so I just stood there, burning away in a vat of boiling rage as she stared up at me, looking fucking perfect.
“It’s not how it seems, Beast,” she replied, a frown pulling between her eyebrows. She shrugged and looked away. “It’s not always so black and white.”
I grabbed her then, one hand on either arm, and I shook her, my fury bursting at the seams. “It is always black and fuckin’ white, Belle. Always!” I roared, infuriated by her naivety. “The fact that you can’t see that is exactly how you got yourself in this position in the first place.”
I shoved her away from me, her skin under my hands feeling like fire. Like I was being burned alive all over again. My body itched and ached, my muscles throbbed and my head pounded. And the gun in my waistband felt like molten lava as it touched my skin.
She was fucking stupid. So motherfucking stupid.
“Beast,” she started, but I glared back at her and her jaw snapped shut.
“We need to go,” I bit out, hating her for making me do this.
I wished she would beg so I could hate her some more.
I wished she would plead with me so I could tell her no.
I wished she would cry so I could laugh in her face.
I wanted her to hate me like I hated her right now.
But she didn’t do any of those things, despite the fact that I could see her jaw was clenched as she tried to stop her teeth from chattering and I could see that her knees were knocking together as she tried her best to contain the tremble in them. No, Belle took a deep breath and looked down at the ground and I turned from her and opened the door, ready to take her to meet her maker.
Out in the clubhouse, my brothers were sitting, waiting.
There was no anger or resentment with them. If anything, there was sadness in all of them. None of them liked this outcome any more than I did, but it was the way of our world and it had to be done. Traitors had to pay.
Shooter stood up when he saw us, and Gauge and Rider and Dom all did the same. They had beers open in front of them, but no one had been drinking. The sweetbutts and the old ladies had been sent home and told not to come back, and most of my brothers were out on jobs. So it was just us and Belle and no way out.
I heard her stop momentarily and I thought,This is it. This is where she freaks out and tries to run, tries to fight back. She’ll start begging and crying and pleading. She’ll try to explain her way out of this, but there’s no explaining. She’s a fucking traitor and she’s going to get what’s coming to her.
Death.
It comes for us all in the end.
Death was inevitable.
Belle started to walk again, passing me and heading toward Shooter. Gauge watched her, his dark eyes full of the same coldness I no doubt held in mine.
“So,” Belle said to Shooter, “what happens now?”
