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I scramble backward while wiping my eyes clean with my hand. As I open my eyes, I look straight into a pair of blue eyes.
“Sorry I couldn’t be here until now, Sugar.”
Zoe
Icompletely forget about the vomit clinging to my skin and hair as I look at the man I thought to be dead. My lips open and close so many times I lose count. Words fail me as I gawk at…
“Breathe, Sugar,” he urges.
I think I nod, but I can’t be sure. I feel like I’m in a stupor. My mind’s racing to figure out if this is really happening, or if I passed out. Maybe I’m dead… having an out of body ghostly experience. That would make so much more sense than seeing Gunner here—alive and well, I might add.
“Am I dead?” I finally whisper.
Gunner laughs, his eyes sparkle with mirth and for once, his bushy beard doesn’t hide the corners of his lips as they turn up. “No, Sugar. But Irina is.” The last part comes out as a growl.
He moves so quickly I have to blink several times before my vision clears enough that I see him throw her down on the ground. She lands in the pool of my vomit, and like she did to me, he holds her down.
“How do you like that?” he growls, fisting her wild red curls. “Maybe I should makeyoulick it up for daring totouch what’smine.”
“Gunner,” Rusty says, admonishingly. “Settle down. You can deal with Irina later. For now, let us welcome you back home.”
Even though they speak in English, it might as well have been a foreign language for how little sense the words make. I open my mouth again, intending to ask some of the many questions filling my mind, but again, nothing comes out.
“Look, I know she’s your sister and the Mama of our club. But what she did…” Gunner breaks off when Rusty shoves him out of the way and pulls Irina up.
“I know,” Rusty says. Then he looks at Irina. “Apologize, now.”
She folds her arms across her chest and cocks her hip. “No.”
“Irina!” Rusty growls her name. “If you won’t, I’ll send you to one of the other houses.”
The words have the desired impact. Irina drops her bitch stance and says, “I’m sorry, Gunner. My temper got the better of me.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not me you need to apologize to.” Pointing at me, he adds, “Say sorry to Zoe. And you better fucking mean it.”
Irina takes a shuddering breath and turns toward me. “Sorry,” she says, not sounding it at all.
“I said you need to mean it,” Gunner warns, taking a step closer to her.
“I’m so sorry, Zoe,” Irina blurts out. “I lost my cool. Please, can you forgive me?”
When our eyes meet, I’m glad looks can’t kill. If they could, she’d slice me open with the daggers in her glare.
“No,” I say, refusing to play any games.
Gunner laughs heartily. “It’s good to see you still have your spark.” He winks like this is all some big elaborate joke, and not… not…
Fuck.
While my mind breaks and my brain plays the Jack-in-the-box song on an endless loop, Gunner’s being greeted by the Reapers. They slap each other on the back,smile, and share a few laughs. The way they interact makes it clear that they know each other. That they’re close.
Some of the women saunter up to him, but he doesn’t pay them any attention—even pushes a few of them away when they get too close.
I choke on my breath as my eyes land on the VP badge on his cut. My hand flies to my throat, and I think I claw at the skin, but I can’t feel anything apart from the overwhelming dread unfurling in my stomach.
Gunner is the fucking VP of the Reapers… that means… why can’t I think straight? Every time I pull at a memory, it slips further away, and the fucking song in my head blares louder.
I barely feel my body moving as I stand up and walk toward the door. As my feet automatically carry me, I feel like an outsider—an intruder—looking in. Like it isn’t my body, but someone else’s.
