Page 30 of Gunner

The music cut off sometime during that shit. I don’t know when, but it’s so silent in here that I can hear myself breathing like an animal hunted and chased down. Every set of eyes in the place is on me.

Not just because of my rabid attack on a man I consider my closest friend, if I ever could truly have one or be one, but because I’m stripped right down to my jeans. Every inch of my skin is on display. I have never allowed that to happen. No one here knows that I look like a human candle, melted and lumped back together.

Ella’s reaction from across the room, her hands cupped over her mouth, eyes wide and burning, pretty much says it all.

Everyone knew I was ugly, but now theyknow.

I’ve always kept a leash on the violence, using it only in favor of the club and for my brothers, but I’m like the dog that turned against its own and needs to be put down.

Bullet is getting his shit together over at the wall. He’s retching and gasping, rubbing at his throat, but he’s already straightening and coming right for me. The three men holding me tighten up, but Bullet doesn’t take a swing at me. He doesn’t pummel his revenge into my unguarded face and torso.

I have never considered any of these men blood until I watch him shed his cut and t-shirt in front of me. “Let him go,” he rasps through his bruised throat. “Now.”

As my arms are free, he passes his t-shirt. We’re not the same size, but it’s cover, and I’ll take it. Anything to get the heat of all those eyes off me.

I’ve never known greater shame than the silent forgiveness of a good man who I just tried to kill for no reason other than he was in the line of fire.

“Gunner.” The quiet, trembling voice behind me freezes that heat inside of me. My blood goes from fire to jagged ice crystals in an instant.

I can’t look at her. I can’t move. No one is holding me down now. It’s just me in a sea of men who don’t really know me because I’ve made it that way. Men who were borderline afraid of what I could be before, and that’s before I just assaulted one of our own.

“We good here?” Tyrant walks over and puts a hand on Bullet’s shoulder.

“It’s my own fault,” Bullet admits, even though he’s done nothing wrong. “I was looking at his woman.”

That causes a low murmur to rush through the crowd. “For fuck’s sake, turn the music back on,” Tyrant calls out and a few seconds later, some nineties rap song drowns out thehushed mutters. He lowers his forehead to mine, getting closer than most people would dare. It smacks down hard and then his back hand clamps over my shoulder. “You can’t try to kill your own brothers, Gun, whether you’re leaving or not. You have something you want to have out, you do it fair, you got it?”

“Prez, it was my own—”

He shoots a hand at Bullet, cutting him off. He hovers like an anxious old lady at my shoulder. I still can’t see Diletta. All I heard was her soft whisper at my back.

“You feel me?” Tyrant grinds out again.

“Yeah. I- don’t know what happened. I just blacked the fuck out.”

“It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last time we’ve had a fight in here.”

I’m let off far too easy. Our Prez steps back and it’s over. By rights, Bullet should beat the shit out of me. His mercy feels far worse than a thousand blows. I’ve wronged him. We don’t have a law about that like some clubs do, but in my books, he has every right for retribution.

“She really your old lady?” Tyrant asks, staring at someone behind me.

Fuck. The red rises up again, the haze coating my vision. I half want to rip his face off. Tyrant. My Prez. A good, honest, salt of the earth man who would die for this place and any one of us in an instant, which would be a thousand times more than a fucker like me deserves.

I clench my hands into fists at my side and breathe like a stampeding bull, but I keep myself under control. Music or not,everyone in the room is still studying me. The heat of all those eyes pierces through my skin and bone like sharp knives.

I turn around slowly, meaning to take in Diletta’s soft gold brown eyes, to beg her forgiveness with a single look before I claim her, at least in front of these men. Once I do that, she’s mine. Off limits to anyone here. Respected in an entirely different way. As part of the club, she’d have the safety and status as belonging to it, through me.

I’m leaving.

Now. I need to get my bag.

She’s mine…

The word is right there, mine. the first letter ready to roll off my tongue.

“Yes!” Diletta surges forward and crashes into me. She throws her arms around my shoulders, her small frame trembling violently. “He belongs to me. He’s mine.”

Mine.

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