Page 54 of Riff

I mean, not that any of us expected them to be sitting on that money or anything. But we at least planned on picking them off and leaving them to rot out here in the middle of nowhere, where no one would find them for months or years. If ever.

The front door opened, and Colter walked in, decked out in an impressive amount of winter camo, since his job was to wait in the woods to take out anyone who might get away from us and make a run for it.

“No signs that anyone has moved around the grounds for a long time,” he told us, further confirming what we already knew.

On a growl, I picked up a glass beer bottle with my gloved hand and hauled it at the wall, watching it splinter and fall to the floor.

I never craved violence. I wasn’t someone like Crow, who seemed to enjoy that shit. It was simply a part of the job. Like, in some ways, like those who worked in law enforcement or the military. It wasn’t the job, but it was an aspect of it that you had to learn to compartmentalize.

But I wanted fucking blood.

I wanted to spill it slowly and painfully. I wanted to drag it out for days, for weeks. I wanted to hear him cry and beg for mercy. Then to show him fucking none.

I wanted him to taste a fraction of the pain and fear that he inflicted upon Vienna.

Then, as I was taking his last fucking breath for him, I wanted to tell him he was losing it because of her.

This was the only reason I’d agreed to go on the road again so soon, when I felt she still needed me there with her.

Because I wanted to slay her demon for her.

So she never had to worry about him again.

Especially after, one night, when she woke up from a bad nightmare, and she’d let me into the bed with her, she curled into me, and she spilled a lot of her story, told me what had been done to her.

Fuck, I wanted him to suffer.

Then I wanted him gone.

And now… the chances of that felt a lot fucking slimmer.

“I know,” Raff said, placing a hand on my shoulder and squeezing.

“I don’t think you do,” I said, my teeth aching from clenching my jaw so tight.

“You love her,” Colter said, making me jolt and turn around, ready to object.

But, fuck, he was right.

I loved her.

Of course I did.

Everyone in the clubhouse did.

“We all do,” I agreed, nodding.

“True,” Colter said, but shook his head. “But not the way you do.”

And, fuck if those words didn’t feel like a kick to the gut. Because he was right. It was just a reality I’d been burying because, well, because Vienna didn’t need that shit from me right now. She was still healing, still learning how to trust any man to just be around her, let alone get close to her.

But there was no denying it.

I mean, fuck, the way desire pinged off of every nerve ending when she was nearby was almost upsetting. It was… alarming how much I wanted her. How I couldn’t stop thinking about her. How every time I tried to think of my future, she was right there in it with me.

“It’s not wrong,” Colter said, seeming to read me a little too well for someone who barely knew me.

“Yeah, it is.”

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