Page 14 of Out for Blood

She shrugged. “I didn’t want you to know about them because of the way you’re looking at me right now. I don’t know…I just wanted to spend time with you again, like it was before. Before my life got shit. I didn’t actually think you’d want more than a tumble anyway.”

She wasmarried.

To the fucking police chief.

It hurt. There was no denying that. A pain I’d never known possible levelled the breath from me to the point I couldn’t form the words to respond. She’d heard what I said…that I wanted her, that I was going to make her mine. Then she ghosted me, and now I find out she was married to the fucking police chief when she knows how bad that could get for the club.

“Take them home,” I told her, defeated.

“Cooper,” she tried to reach out, but I shrugged her off before her touch melted the ice forming in my chest. “Please.”

“I think it’s best you don’t come back here,” I said, anger lacing my tone. “You aren’t meant for the biker life.”

Sheridan nodded, tears falling down her cheeks silently. I wanted to reach out to her, but something pulled me back. I watched as she backed up and left the clubhouse.

I headed back to the room I had in the clubhouse for times when I was too drunk to ride home, and slammed the door. I leaned against the door, my breathing laboured with anger and hurt. Turning around, I swept everything off the top of the chest of drawers, letting it crash to the ground. My fist made its way into the wall, punching through the plywood. I pulled it out, blood dripping down to the ground as I moved back, and fell on the bed. My knuckles hurt, throbbed actually, but I didn’t care.

Sheridan had used me.

And I’d fucking let her.

SHERIDAN

“We’re sorry, mama,” Ryleigh said after I drove them out of the compound. I saw the tears running down their cheeks, and I felt my heart break for them. I’d been a dumb kid too, and probably did a lot worse than what they’d done. In fact, I spent many nights there, drinking with Cooper, Casey and Orla.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re teenagers, you need to act out. I just wish you didn’t act out on the week your dad has you. You know he’s really angry about this. Of all places to go, why would you go there?”

“Do you know those guys?” Shauna asked me. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw both of them looking at me with their innocent eyes and confusion.

“Yes, baby, I do,” I said. “I grew up with them, we went to school together.”

The way they looked at each other as if they had a silent, secret language had always freaked me out. Even as babies, they did it.

“That guy…he looked so confused when he saw you.”

“He didn’t know I had kids,” I told her, a pang of pain spreading throughout my chest. I hadn’t wanted him to know, because I didn’t want him to tell me he would take care of us and make all my problems go away. He couldn’t do that, so I didn’t want to feel that hope. Being with him had made me feel safe, it always did. Even back then before I knew about the deep, dark shit in the world. “I think he was just confused.”

“You must be really great friends, then,” Ryleigh scoffed. The two of them laughed, and I let them. I didn’t want them to think about the trouble they were about to be in when I got to Neal’s house. I dreaded to think what was about to happen, not to them, but to me. He never touched them, thankfully, but there was no way in hell I would escape without a little pain.

I grit my teeth and pushed forward. For them, I would take on every man in the town. For my babies, I would take every pain away from them.

I turned into the street Neal lived on, and I caught the glances between Ryleigh and Shauna in the backseat. They didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be here either, but I knew I had no choice. He was powerful, and even if I ran from Kilkenny, he’d find me and bring the girls back.

It was better to confront Neal straight on than run and hide. I’d learned that the hard way.

“Maybe he’s not home,” Ryleigh said, her voice all but a whisper. When I turned into the driveway, we all looked over at his car, the Kilkenny Police Department insignia on the side.

“He’s home,” I said.

“You don’t have to come in,” Shauna said, leaning forward. “Just drop us off.”

I hated that she knew what was about to happen. There was only so much I could hide behind closed doors, especially when he got high and drank rum. He would start in the bedroom, and the punishment would continue everywhere else.

“Girls, you go inside and go to your rooms. Understand?” I said, grabbing my bag and opening the door to my car.

“Mama.”

“No,” I said, firmly. “You go straight upstairs and leave your father to me.”

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