Page 54 of Sinister Red
I nod and twist the strap of my purse in my hands.
“How does it feel to know you abandoned me, lied to me, kept fucking secrets from me—the man who loved you with his whole goddamn heart—when I needed you most, just so you could turn around and play it safe with a fucking prick who cheats on you every chance he gets?”
My anger flairs despite the way his words sting. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? I don’t know the first thing about Dr. Lewis Weston and how he sneaks off to the motel off route six with Stephanie from his office? How they check in under an alias, spend hours in the room naked and horizontal before he goes home to you?” Sam scoffs. “You’re right,Cookie, I don’t know the first goddamn thing about any of that and I definitely don’t have the fucking pictures to prove it.”
I’m so angry—so fucking angry—right now. Angry over Sam’s lies, over his reaction to what I told him and how he’s trying to use his own pain to hurt me too. I don’t need his help to make this hurt, being in the same goddamn town with him did that all on its own, and that hurt is something I’ve dealt with alone for almost seven years. But the pain is amplified by the way the man I love is supporting my suspicions about the man I’m going to marry, and that just pisses me off even more.
“Fuck you, Sam. Fuck you for stooping so low that you’re trying to hurt me like that because— “
“Get out.”
I blink. “What?”
“I said,get out.”
I shake my head and start toward the door becausefuck this. “You know, I’m not sure why I came here, but I’m glad I did. This was exactly what I needed to find closure and move on. I’ll tell you why I did what I did almost seven years ago, tell you I left to protect our baby because I was terrified, and instead of getting any kind of support or even empathy from you, I get some petty bullshit in an attempt to hurt me more than I already do.” I stop and look at him. “Maybe I made you this way, or maybe you were always like this and I was too blind to see it, but the fact that you ignored everything I just said in favor of spitting back spiteful bullshit only confirms I made the right choice.”
Sam’s jaw clenches again but he still doesn’t look at me. “I hope telling yourself that helps you sleep at night. Especially when your fiancé crawls into bed with you smelling like cheap perfume.”
“Go to hell, Sam.”
“Fuck off,Cookie.And get the fuck out of my room.”
So, I do.
I whip the door open, step out into the hall, and the second it clicks shut and I realize I’m alone, I fall apart. I cry harder than I have in ages because I just lost Sam all over again and it hurts far worse the second time.
And this pain, it’s never going to go away.
CHAPTERELEVEN
SAM
Everything about today feels wrong.
The suits we’re all wearing over our cuts.
The new patches nine of us are sporting on those cuts.
The fact that we’re wearing any of it because we’re sitting in Berk Funeral Home after a service that never should have taken place.
The goddamn cane I’m still using to hobble around this fucking funeral home after weeks of physical therapy.
The fact that it’s beenweeks, several of them, since the incident that led to all of us being here right now, and not only did we wait to lay our mentors to rest so everyone could be in attendance for it, but we haven’t been able to get justice for them in any way outside of a good portion of the Demon Seeds getting locked up for an undetermined amount of time, is total bullshit.
All of it is so fucking wrong it makes me sick.
Jackal and Spider—mostly Jackal because his cousin has been even more distant and harder to keep tabs on than normal—made the decision to have their parents cremated as their wills stated, but waited to have the memorial service as well as the ceremony naming us as the EC until everyone was out of the hospital and cleared to go back to life as usual.
I understand their decision and appreciate the fuck out of it because I wanted to be here, but again, all of it makes me sick because we never should have been in this situation in the first place.
We knew the Seeds would be pissed about us taking the deal with the O’Malleys and we thought we were prepared for it. Never in a million years did we anticipate the fuckers infiltrating our clubhouse and attacking us from the inside because it’s an unspoken fucking rule, but they did and we paid for it. Which was probably naive on our part. Beau the Butcher has never followed the rules and took his position as the DSMC president by force, killing the entire executive committee in one shot during the mid-nineties, so thinking we were exempt from that was stupid.
And it proved to be fatal.
Something I will hold myself responsible for, that I will harbor guilt over for the rest of my life.
