He barely dodged my blows as I rained punch after punch to his body. One solid one to his ribs, another to his chest. He grabbed my arms and tried to calm me down, but I was too far gone to be placated.
“Fucking touch me again, Dante, and I swear to god I’ll see you buried in the ground next to your useless fucking dad and brother!” I swore at him, kicking his shins.
All I could do was remember the times he had hit me in the past. Starting from the very first day we had met, all the way up to now, he had laid his hands on me one too many fucking times!
I clawed at the arms that tried to pin me down and lashed out, cracking my fist against his jaw, earning myself a punch to the face in response. My head flew to the side once more as pain exploded along my jaw and my mouth filled with blood.
I spat the blood in his direction before wiping it with the back of my hand. And then I was retaliating again. I knew my blows were weak and ineffective. Dante sparred with the rest of the bikers on a weekly basis. He took harder punches from them than anything I could hope to deliver, but that didn’t mean I was going to give up. I continued kicking, hitting, scratching, pushing… Fuck, I even clawed at whatever skin my fingernails could sink into.
I was through being a punching bag. Both verbally and physically. I was so fucking sick and tired of being treated with such little respect.
So I fought with everything I had, taking great satisfaction in seeing the bloody welts down his arms from my nails, or the darkening of skin around his eyes as a bruise formed from my punches.
It was only when I grabbed a bottle off the bar and threw it at him that I knew I had taken it too far.
“That’s fucking enough!” Vienna yelled, attempting to step between us. I picked up one of the pint glasses and lobbed it at him, taking another dive towards Dante. Vienna caught me by my shoulders and shoved me backwards, making me stumble and trip over my own feet, but I didn’t care. I recovered instantly, my rage awarding me more grace than I would have had otherwise.
I flew forwards again and this time Vienna seized me by my waist, picking me up and hurling me over his shoulder in one smooth move.
“Put me fucking down!” I screamed at him, my anger making me burn from the inside out. The cool air hit my skin before I had even realised that Vienna had carried me towards the door. I placed my hands on the small of his back and pushed myself up until I was looking at Dante’s snarling face as he spat words at me. Not that I heard them. I was too far gone. The only noise I could hear was the blood roaring through my veins, demanding I make him pay.
I screamed words in his direction and spat blood at him, hating him with every fibre of my being. Vienna set me on my feet and turned me away from Dante, shoving me out of the door and slamming it behind us. I made a move to go back inside, and he seized my arm and dragged me down the street and away from the beast he had caged inside the bar.
Chapter 57
Rachel
“Where are we going?” I snapped as Vienna dragged me out of the clubhouse and down the quiet, dark streets of the compound.
“I’m putting some fucking space between the two of you before you kill each other,” he gritted out, tightening his grip on my arm as though he sensed my thoughts and knew I was getting ready to bolt.
He continued manhandling me—sometimes pushing me in front, other times dragging me if I fell behind. He had never been this rough with me before, and I knew he was at his limit. I didn’t even know Vienna had a limit, but it didn’t stop me from fighting back.
I shoved him, I kicked at him, I rained my fists down on his chest and at one point even tried tackling him to get back to Dante and finish what I had started.
He was a fucking cunt, and I wasn’t going to let him speak to me like that. Contract or no contract, there had to be fucking ground rules, and he was breaking every single one of them.
Vienna wasn’t at all deterred by my attempts to escape, and simply responded by picking me up and hauling me over his shoulder again, carrying me to one of the bars like a sack of flour.
“I hate you,” I snapped at him, punching his back.
“Hate me all you want. At least you’re fucking alive! Do you have a goddamn death wish?” He snapped, kicking open the door to the bar and glaring at everyone inside. “Out!” He barked, jutting his chin towards the entrance we had just walked through.
Or carried, in my case.
Only a few people got up from their seats, so Vienna’s reasonable reaction was to pull the gun from his pocket and aim it at them. “Out! Now! Make me ask a third time and I’ll empty the entire fucking barrel into whichever unlucky cunt happens to be in my way. Now!” He yelled in a ferocious voice, making me jump slightly.
As everyone scrambled to get out of the bar, finally remembering where they were and who they were dealing with, Vienna deposited me on one of the barstools and glared down at me. “I’m going to get us a drink. Maybe five drinks. You’re going to sit there and not budge a fucking inch, Rachel. Do you hear me? You and Dante need some distance right now. If you go back there, hewillfucking kill you.”
“So that’s it, is it?” I sneered at him. “The mask is well and truly off, and Vienna is showing his true colours.”
“I never hid them,” he responded, flicking me on the forehead. “I just never had a reason to treat you that way before. Now sit. Please,” he added as an afterthought after a brief pause, and then went behind the bar, grabbing an entire bottle of vodka.
“The way you swung at him,” Vienna laughed, shaking his head.
It was an hour later, and the original bottle of vodka was long gone, and we were working our way through some god-awful cocktail pitcher Vienna had thrown together. I watched him when he was pouring the alcohol in, and there was no way this was a legitimate cocktail. But it was strong, and it did the trick.
I was no longer mad at Dante and was instead laughing my ass off as we reminisced about some of our worst arguments.
