“Nothing happened with me and Vienna last night,” I snapped, ripping my arm away from him. “And if—”
“Here,” he said, shoving his phone at me. I looked down and immediately closed my eyes as dread filled my veins. He had the video. He was in charge of the fucking cameras.
How had we been so bloody stupid?
“Now I need to know what to do about this. Because, as far as I’m aware, this negates your little contract, doesn’t it?” He gave me an evil smile that chilled me all the way to my fucking bones. “Bye-bye Dante, bye-bye club, bye-bye babies.”
“Show him,” I shrugged, refusing to let this cunt intimidate me. “Go ahead and show him. And then you can explain whyyou kept it a secret the entire fucking day. You can explain why you took matters into your own hands and tried to intimate me, rather than let him deal with it. We all know Dante doesn’t think rationally when it comes to me. Look what he did to Greg when I first arrived and he thought I’d kissed him. So, go ahead. Show him. I dare you. Because I guarantee you, I might be going down, but you sure as hell will be coming down with me.”
“You think you’re so fucking smart, don’t you?” He snarled.
No. I think I was a fucking moron, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. My heart was pounding out of my chest, I was sweating in places I didn’t even realise a person could sweat from, and my breathing was reaching that rapid, fucked up state that veered towards a panic attack.
But I’d be damned if I let Hacksaw see any of that. All I had was my mouth, and it had been my strongest weapon so far.
“I think I was stupid. And I know I’ve fucked up. But I also think you’re fucking deluded and deranged if you think I’m going to stand here and have you threaten me. Tell him,” I said, rising to my tiptoes and pressing my nose against his. “Tell him. Because when he beats me to a pulp, that only works in my favour for getting the kids miles away from the fucking lot of you. Especially as Bambi has already taken the blame for Hayley’s death. Your little dossier of information is fast losing the advantage,” I grinned at him and placed a kiss to his cheek before I walked away.
I rounded the corner without looking back and then leant against the wall, expelling a deep puff of air. My entire body was sweating, my heart was hammering at dangerous levels, and if I lived a million lives, I’d never understand how I managed to muster up enough bravado to face him down.
“Rachel?” Dante said from a doorway, looking at me with concern.
“Coming,” I called, plastering a fake smile on my face.
Hacksaw wasn’t going to say anything. Not today. I knew that as surely as I knew the sky was blue.
Unfortunately, I also knew this was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, and I don’t think any of us would be able to survive the wreckage.
Chapter 62
Rachel
After an hour or so, Jenna turned up at the hospital with huge bags under her red-rimmed eyes. She looked as though she had aged decades in the space of a few days.
As soon as she saw me, she threw herself into my arms and let go of years' worth of tears, sobbing into my shoulder as though she was never going to recover from the heartbreak.
I soothed her the best I could, stroking her hair and murmuring soft noises, comforting noises in her ear.
At some point, Dante had slipped out of the room to give us some privacy, although neither of us noticed at the time. It’s only when Jenna came up for air that we both looked around and smiled sadly at each other.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed, angrily wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “I didn’t mean to break down on you like that.”
“You’ve nothing to apologise for,” I assured her, picking some tissues out of the box next to Shark’s bed and took over cleaning her face. “This is a shit time, and I’d be surprised if it didn’t make you cry. Together, we can mend the broken pieces, and we can get through this.”
“How do you do this?” She asked, her chin wobbling as she looked back at Shark. “How do you do this day after day?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, pushing the hair back from her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“It’s just… God!” she sighed heavily and ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “I think I get it now. I think I understand why you wanted to run, why you wanted away from this fucking place. Why did you come back, Rachel? How can you do this?”
“Wedo it because we are the old ladies of the Devil’s Disciples. We are strong, and we are powerful. We run sin. We keep those men in check. We can do this becausewehave each other. Never forget that, Jenna. I haven’t always been the greatest friend, especially running away without so much as a goodbye, but I promise you, I will help you get through this. I’ll be around so much, Shark will be begging you to send me home.”
“If he comes home,” she said, her voice shaking.
“You can’t think like that. Hewillcome home. Both Shark and Vienna. They’ll be back at the bar in no time, trying to interrupt our sin meetings and acting as though they run the place. Vienna will be dunking his disgusting beard in people’s drinks and Shark will be trying to kick our asses at pool. I guarantee it.”
“He really does fucking suck at pool,” she half laughed, half sobbed, wiping some stray tears with her index fingers. “You’re right. I’ll look back at this in a few months’ time and long for the break away from him, with no one clogging my toilet or leaving bike parts all over my house.”
“Exactly,” I grinned back. “You’ll soon forget being scared of him dying and go back to wanting to kill him yourself. The nurses have already said he’s responding really well to the treatment. He’s a tough cookie.”
