Page 70 of Biker's Prisoner: Property of Bucky

His silence is intentional and his fury palpable enough that Zeus whines and runs to curl up on the dog bed in the bedroom. I hear her nails clicking against the wooden floorboards as he makes the escape that I wish I could get away with myself.

Lucky dog.

"I love you, Ruger."

He looks up at me.

"Don't saythat shit to me unless you mean it. I want his life."

He gets upand storms off to the bedroom. Meat on the plate. No seconds. This man is out of his mind…

Doeshe think it was easy for me to say that?

Chapter Thirty-Two

Ruger

There’s not a fucking soul in this world capable of real, pure love. That’s the first lesson my mother taught me. I never remember her holding me. My first memory of getting anywhere near her arms was when I reached out for a hug at three years old, accidentally knocking over a half-finished bottle of whatever beer she was drinking back then. She smacked me across the face so hard, Doc had to take me for stitches.

Men have always felt safer than women. Easier to be around. Less unpredictable. Less emotional.

Zayna has me completely fucked up. I’m the unpredictable one in this situation. My emotions are bouncing off the walls. Walls. Walls surrounding my heart that are over ten feet high. I tried being married. I tried convincing myself that the highs and lows of chasing after Darlene while she fucked around and got her ass sent to prisonand liedabout a million fucking times was me doing the right thing.

I have no regrets over killing her. No doubts she would have smacked away a hug from Eden over half a bottle of piss-flavored beer. No doubt she would have created a monster with the same fucked up blend of neglect and hysteria that created me. I know what I am completely. I understand it.

What hurts is seeing Zayna’s face and coming to the realization that she thinks the same thing as everyone else. It doesn’t matter if I kill just for her, just to prove my love and devotion. She will always see me with blood on my hands. Thick red blood.

Zayna knocks on the bedroom door. I don’t want to let her in. I want to strip her clothes off and chain her up until shegives me her ex-boyfriend’s life.My urges wrestle against the commitment to her that I already made. I have to kill one more of the men who hurt her. Then what? She made herself clear.

No killing her ex-boyfriend.

I don’t wantto face it. Or her.

“Ruger, let me in.”

“No.”

She keeps pounding on the door. I got my food already. No point in going out there. I have my bed and Zeus. I don’t need Zayna. She can sleep on the couch for all I fucking care. Or Zeus’s bed if she needs to curl up. I don’t give a shit about her.

Zeus gets up and runs toward the door, barking like he wants to have a conversation with Zayna. Is there a single person in this fucking house aside from Eden with any loyalty to me? Zayna keeps knocking.

“I can stand here all night.”

“Go ahead,” I call out to her. “I don’t care.”

“RUGER!” she yells. “UGH!”

I hearher feet falling against the wooden planks as she walks away. Good. She ought to get used to sleeping alone. I certainly will. I close my eyes and whistle for Zeus to come back to bedwith me. Reluctantly, he obeys, but he shows me his big pink asshole before sitting at the foot of the bed away from me.

Message received. With my eyes closed, I just picture Zayna. Her hair. Her smell. What life will be like without her. A single tear pierces the corner of my eye. The only one I willeverallow myself to shed for her or any woman. I havedefinitelylearned my lesson this time. If I keep choosing the wrong fucking women, maybe the best thing to do is stop choosing.

Priests do it all the time.

I reach downfor Zeus’s back. He whines bitterly as I stroke his fur. Whatever, asshole. Your ass is stuck with me for the long haul… My fingers sink into my semi-loyal dog’s fur and then I hear a loud cracking sound and a thud.

What the fuck?

I sit straight up in bed. There’s a large split through the bedroom door and the head of my good wood splitting ax stuck in the door. Zayna grunts loudly and before I can yell her name she swings again and splits the middle of the door with another big cut.

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