I hear the pain and regret in his voice.
“How’s Razor?” I ask, looking away from the man I had to kill and back to my friend and president.
Ash’s jaw shifts. “On the goddamn warpath and out for blood. That’s why I couldn’t be here for…” He gestures to Grinder. “Bane is keeping a close eye on him now.”
“That club law needs to be changed,” Tats says. “Even though I’m not all for helping people cheat, this is a shit way to lose a good brother. We live with the threat of that in so many other ways, it’s ridiculous we’d do it to ourselves.”
“I don’t disagree,” Ash grits. “And I’m working on it.”
“And what are the repercussions for Angelica?” Tats demands.
Ash’s jaw shifts again. “We don’t touch the old ladies; not unless they betray the Havoc Guardians.”
“It’s bullshit,” he says in frustration. “This entire law is fucking bullshit.”
Ash clamps a tattooed hand on his shoulder, the silver rings he wears flashing in the light. “Again, you’re not wrong, and I’m working on it.”
Tats relaxes and nods. “I know you are, prez. I wasn’t challenging you. It’s just…”
“Fucked up the ass with a spiked hammer,” I offer.
They both chuckle, breaking the growing tension, and Ash says to me, “You good?”
“I’m fine.”
He jerks his chin toward the door. “Get out of here and go clean up. I’ll help Tats.”
After I give him Grinder’s necklace that he wanted his mother to have—since I know Ash will insist on being the one to break the news that her son died protecting the club—I decide to take him up on his offer. I need to lose myself and forget this, even if it’s temporary.
Some people turn to violence and fighting to cope. Others, drugs or alcohol.
I turn to sex. Sex where I live out myfilthiestfantasies. The kind of sex I always fought like hell to resist fantasizing about with Leeva, my pure and innocent little dove.
Never would I taint my best friend, the only woman I’ve ever loved, with my filth.
I’ve lived in pain for years—sometimes so raw and potent I don’t think I’ll survive, other times it’s a numb ache. I walk around like I’m not a ticking time bomb, not choking on the pain of losing her.
And tonight, with what I’ve done, it’s the brutal reminder that I canneverhave the woman I love—even if, on the slim chance, she wanted me and forgave me—because this would be me lying on the Cell’s floor with a bullet embedded in my brain. And that makes the pain pulse through me like a living monster.
So I leave the Cell and all the regret, sorrow, and death behind to head to Hedon, our sex club, where I can, for a short time, forget.
Forget what I’ve done tonight.
Forget the memory of kneeling on a hospital room floor, strangled by my betrayal and the pain I caused to the woman I loved. I never chased Leeva when she ran that day. I let her go.
Knowing it was the right thing to do for her, but for me…
That day took her from me completely and was the punishment for my sins, and my damnation.
Chapter 3
Army
WheneverIgotoHedon, I take my truck instead of my Harley. I also trade my leather cut, jeans, and boots for a suit, black button-up, and Oxfords. When I walk through Hedon’s doors, I’m no longer Army; I’m not even really Hayes Cartwright. I’m just a man with filthy kinks, looking for casual, meaningless sex.
And each time I come here, it’s the same. I sit in the back parking lot of the nondescript building that houses our sex club, gripping my steering wheel, staring at the door.
Because each time, I have to convince myself that I’m not cheating on Leeva, even though it feels like it.
