She just needs space.
I kept telling myself that as I thundered into the night back to Rosewood. The humid, cold air lay heavy on my face and lungs as I reached South Beach. The bay looked dead on this moonless night, and the hills deader.
The salty wind retracted as I rode farther through the hills. I rounded an unmarked turn that lead straight to a dirt road flanked by untamed greenery. The hidden path to what was supposed to behome.
Except that Rosewood never felt like home for me. Ever.
I only knew the meaning of that word in Cameron’s arms.
I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have let her leave. Should’ve stopped her. Kidnapped her if I had to.
Shit. What the fuck is happening to me?
Maybe she was right. The gang was really messing with my head or worse.
Maybe I was my father’s son after all.
No!I kicked the thought out of my head. The bright lights and rock music from the estate greeted me as I killed the engine of my Harley.
It was after three a.m. and the party was still going. A bonfire in the front yard. Hammered brothers in beach chairs barely lifting their hands to wave at me. Fucking sounds came from inside the house as I climbed the patio stairs. ‘Hey, boss’ low murmurs accompanied me as I walked through spilled beer, side-stepped naked bodies strewn all around, and turned down the stereo behind the bar.
“All right. Party is over, Skulls,” I commanded, grabbing a bottle of tequila from the liquor cabinet.
The slightly-sober men started to ease out of the living room and the halls. The others would be dead till the afternoon. I wouldn’t bother wake them.
I grabbed a glass and poured myself a shot and downed it. Then I decided to take the bottle to my room. If I walked into Mama or that fucker Rush now, I’d wage another war. My rage had caused me a lot tonight. Damage that I didn’t know how to fix.
Whether it could be fixed.
Enough damage for one night.
I dragged myself and the tequila upstairs to my room, men and women still spilling out to their own or outside where they would continue the party somewhere else.
Rosewood was a huge estate. A mansion of sorts with plenty of room for the Skulls and their fucktoys. Secluded and swallowed by a small forest. Perfect for the gang. Roar had got it in exchange for some ass gambler’s debt and life.
It was pretty before, but now it was a dump. The pool drained. The garden a disaster. Even the paint and wallpaper inside washed out.
Finally, I reached mychambers.The only clean place here. Nobody ever bothered with cleaning in Rosewood, and if I hadn’t told them to keep my room nice, it would have been a dump, too.
I locked the door and plopped down on the bed. Then I downed three more shots in quick succession. The look Cameron gave me before she left wouldn’t quit haunting me.
With the patch on my back and the tattoos spread on my body, people always had looked at me as a Night Skull, assuming the worst, whether I’d done it or not.
Sure, I’d broken laws. A fucking lot of them. But I wasn’t a rapist.
Or a murderer.
I’d never taken a life before. Not even by accident or order.
That didn’t stop everyone from thinking I was.
But not my Cammie.
She always looked at me without the fear in everybody else’s eyes. Even in the bunker. She saw me. Dustin not Dusty.
I never wanted to lose that. Now it was all gone. It didn’t matter that I was defending her. She still looked at me like I was the monster she dreaded.
Maybe I should’ve told her I’d never killed before, but with the way I was thinking, the new logic imposing itself on me the longer I stayed in the gang, it didn’t matter. Murder was an inevitable crime I was bound to commit sooner or later.
