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She has me by the balls. That’s the only way I can describe the fact that she is still fucking breathing right now. No one shoots a Cruz King and lives to tell the tale. Not for long, anyway. Yet here she is, her blonde hair wild from our struggles, her blue eyes wide with fear, and those cheeks of hers tinted with the red of her anger.
Fuck!
To say I lost my mind after Zoe disappeared is an understatement. It took me a whole fucking week to finally find her. I’d been worried that the Reapers managed to get to her first, but luckily for her, I found her before they did.
And what a fucking explosive reunion it was. My shoulder took the brunt of Zoe’s wrath, and I welcome the pain throbbing from the wound as I take in her fearful gaze. She thinksI’mthe enemy, and in a way, I fucking am, but I’m the better of two evils, and eventually, she will understand that.
Her harsh words managed to penetrate my stone-cold heart, an unfamiliar feeling throwing me off a little.
I fucking hate knowing that she has spread her thighs for others before me, but fuck, knowing I’m the only one she’s taken into her hot little mouth has me ready to beat my chest like a fucking caveman.
The fact that I coerced her while she was drunk doesn’t bother me. If she didn’t want to suck my cock, she wouldn’t have. But forcing her at gunpoint has really done a fucking number on me, and I’m sick of feeling the unfamiliar feeling of self-loathing. I’m not that fucking person.
Well… I never used to be.
Now?
Fuck. I don’t know. The only time I’ve hated myself this much was the day I let my dad die, and I’ve learned over the years that what happened back when I was a teenager wasn’t my fault.
The incident at Dirty Diamonds when I forced Zoe to her knees and choked her on my cock in front of an audience is a different story. That was one hundred percent on me, and I know I need to make things right, but how?
How the fuck do I ever make up for that?
With my hand pressed to the bullet wound in my shoulder, I consider what I said to her.
“I would never hurt you on purpose, Zoe. You have to know that.”
I meant it. I know she doesn’t believe it after what I did to her at Dirty Diamonds, but I don’t know how to explain to her that the man on that stage holding that gun to her head wasn’t fucking me.
Well, I mean it was, but I had no control over that version of myself, and while I know I should let her run, I already know too fucking well that I’m not strong enough to let her go.
Not fucking ever.
Jesus fucking Christ. How did I get here?
The version of me at Zoe’s age wouldn’t have shoved her to her knees and made her accept my cock into her mouth when she came home drunk.
No.
Eighteen-year-old Grayson Black would have helped her get the damn shoe from the mud and carried her into her house to clean up. I probably would have even put her to fucking bed without so much as copping a feel.
I’m only twenty-fucking-six for fuck’s sake. How have I changed so much?
I already know the answer. It’s this life. The MC. The darkness that follows you when you live life as a career criminal. You do shit you never imagined you would do, and eventually, you forget that once, there was a version of yourself that was fucking good. Decent.
“Grab your stuff and get your ass on my fucking bike,” I hiss as I inspect my shoulder. It’s throbbing like a bitch, and I can feel the sleeve of my black t-shirt clinging to the blood soaking through.
Zoe rears back at my words, a look of confusion furrowing her brow. “But you said I can leave.” She shakes her head. “Yeah, you said if I leave you would track me down, but now you aren’t even giving me the chance to run?”
“You had your chance. I told you to run, and you didn’t, so now it’s too fucking late.” I mutter, taking the hand towel slung over the chair and wrapping it around my shoulder to try to bind the fucking wound.
Her face falls. “If you aren’t going to kill me, then one of your MC brothers will. I shot you. I’m not dumb enough to think that I can get away with that. If you take me back to the clubhouse, I’m as good as dead.”
Sighing, I finish up my bad attempt at patching my shoulder before I snatch up her bag from the sticky carpet of her motel room and shove it at her chest. She automatically takes hold of it, while I try to hide the sharp jolt of pain coming from my shoulder after trying to fucking move it.
“You’re right. Club bylaw means since you shot a member, you are owed the same. Usually point blank to the back of your head.” I lean in closer, Zoe remaining in place, but she arches back a little to try to keep the distance between us. “Which is why we aren’t going back to the clubhouse.”
As if she thinks I’ve offered her a golden nugget, her blue eyes light up.
