Page 59 of Vengeance

“I have kids, too, and I’m not leaving. Tell me, how is this different for me than you, Felicity?” Lily snaps.

As the brunette opens her mouth to speak, Lex stands and climbs onto the top of the picnic table. She’s done. “Everyone, sit down.”

Felicity pales, her eyes wide as she looks at her. “Lex-”

“There are multiple errors in your thinking that you might want to consider before you decide to make a drastic decision like this,” Lex says, not even looking at her. “First, there’s no such thing as untraceable. This friend of yours, Summer, could easily be bought. Or hacked. And as far as Brock goes, I think you underestimate your husband. Especially if he loses you and his daughter, he will find you. Plus, we now have Grayson to help. So, untraceable isn’t really a thing.”

Reagan sighs. “She’s right. We want to believe that, but it’s not true. Not really.”

“Second, say you were able to disappear and not be found by the club. That doesn’t mean you won’t find yourself in trouble where you need the very men you’re talking about turning your backs on. Only, they won’t know you’re in trouble, and if you need to be rescued. No, you’d be shit out of luck. They wouldn’t even know to save you because they won’t know where you fucking are.” Looking at Felicity, she narrows her eyes. “And if that enemy kills your kids, that’s on you, not the club because you walked away from their protection.”

“Karmen left the club and still had protection,” Autumn argues.

Is she really this stupid?

“I got my ass kicked to the curb because I sought out attention in the worst way possible, but I never left. And I sure as hell didn’t take my kid away from her father.”

Autumn shakes her head. “I thought you, of all people, Lex, would understand. You have kids, and you were with us being tortured in that basement-”

“Oh, for the love of God, Autumn, shut the fuck up,” Lex interrupts and shakes her head. “Seriously, you weren’t tortured. We were tortured.”

“Lex-”

“But forget that. Let’s talk about the last time you walked away from the club. That didn’t work out so well for you, did it?”

Tess claps her hands while Autumn grinds her teeth, staring at Lex with pure hatred. “That’s not the same.”

“But it is. And no, it didn’t work well for you because you came crawling back with your tail between your legs to have them help you with the stalker that almost killed my husband.”

Tears fill her eyes. “I never thought you could be so cruel.”

“Cruel? You’re the one playing the victim when you barely experienced anything. Instead, you were willing to roll over and let them kill you and the rest of us. But it sucks being used as an example without your consent, doesn’t it? No one here gets to use what happened to us in that basement to fit whatever fucking narrative you want, especially when talking about leaving the men who would take bullets for you. No, the three of us you want to use to justify your stupid idea are the three that should be talking about running. Instead, we’re staying. We’re what strength looks like. You’re what a coward looks like.”

“I was down there, too!”

“I swear, if you don’t stop talking about the basement, I’ll give you a reason to bitch and moan. I’ll show you what real torture feels like. And I can promise, you’ll bitch out before you go through half of what we did. Shut the fuck up, Autumn, or I will shut you up. I mean it.”

Felicity laughs. “Coming from the woman who left the club as many times as her mother did, that’s real rich.”

Tess gasps, and Lex jumps down, walking up to her. “I left because there was no other way for Colt to see the destruction he was creating. Because the club let me down. They haven’t let you down, and it had nothing to do with me not being cut out for the club. In case you forgot, I was born into this club. You married into it. We are not the same, and if you want to fuck, I’ll fuck. All damn day.”

“Lex-”

“And for the record, if anyone, including Lane, says anything disrespectful to my mother again, I don’t care who you are or who you’re married to. I will kick your ass and put you in the hospital. Oh, and Lane? Don’t forget this club raised money to pay for your cancer treatments. You had a chance to walk, and you stayed. This is on you, and if you choose to walk away from Zane now, you better never come back because I’ll give you another lengthy hospital stay.”

Avery stands. “You don’t think we have a right to be scared?”

“You have every right to be scared. And Avery, I’m going to be completely honest with you. You are the only woman here who could walk away, and I wouldn’t hold it against you. The one woman who could call me five years from now for help, and I’d come to you without any hesitation. You are the only person here who could arguably say the club cost you the things that are the most important to you.”

Avery was not only pregnant and lost her baby when the Devils set her on fire and drove her car off the bluffs, but she also lost the ability to ever conceive and carry a child of her own because of it. The only thing she ever wanted in life was to be a mom, and an enemy of the club took that away from her.

“I also want to point out that most of you are safe. The attempts on you were just to scare you. The Slashers don’t want you because if they did, they’d have you. I’m the target they want. The game piece they think will get them what they want even though they’re batshit crazy. You’re talking about an extreme solution that will have extreme consequences when it’s all said and done.”

Tess looks at her. “You aren’t thinking about running?”

“Sure. I’m thinking about running the Slashers over with my car. But I’m not stupid. I’m not going to take my kids and leave my husband when we’re in the most danger. Shedding that protection, let alone my fucking husband, would make me an idiot. And considering the rest of you aren’t in as much danger because you haven’t gained the affection of a scar-faced sociopath, leaving and doing what you’re talking about would make you all morons.”

“That’s my girl,” Lily says.

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