Page 97 of Whips and Chains
I sent a mental punch straight to Doc’s groin. “Would you be so quick to make Kara the sacrificial lamb?” I couldn’t help but ask him.
We all knew he wouldn’t.
But he didn’t even get to answer because Violet answered for him, “Kara has two girls who need their mom.” She swallowed thickly. “I don’t have anyone who needs me like that.”
“I do,” I muttered.
She glanced at me. “Not like that, you don’t.”
I might not have been a little girl who needed her mom, but I was a grown fucking man who very much did need her.
She just didn’t know how much, because until that moment, I hadn’t even really admitted it to myself. I breathed out a long, slow stream of air, trying to get my shit under control.
Trigger’s team was all nodding, in full approval of this new plan Violet was proposing. And slowly, X and Levi nodded, too.
Which left me.
Her gaze locked with mine, and there was a fire in it. One I knew was fueled by what Paul Jeddersen had done to her. What that trapped warehouse had taken from her. And from the shitty childhood that had stamped her down, beating her into the ground time and time again.
She needed this.
And I was never going to say no to anything she needed. Whether that be food or affection or sex.
Or murder.
I sighed. “I guess we’re setting a trap for a psychopath.”
23
VIOLET
Grayson eventually called the meeting over, and all nine of us filed out. Grayson strode ahead along the road with Scythe, the middle row made up of Ace, Trigger, and Torch, who were planning how best to take out their next victim from the list.
I walked in the last group, flanked by Whip and Levi, while X jogged in circles around the three of us, spouting the benefits of heart-healthy cardio and complaining we’d been sitting too long and we should all be working on getting our ten thousand steps in each day.
I suspected X probably did more than double that amount daily, considering the man really couldn’t sit still for any extended period of time. That meeting had felt like it had dragged on for a lifetime. Even I felt like I had some energy to burn.
Though I was definitely not about to join X while he buzzed around us like a fly that needed swatting.
Even still, tension crackled through my body. Pent-up energy and leftover adrenaline from doing a very un-Violet-like thing and storming a meeting of men and demanding to be heard.
They’d listened.
They’d agreed.
And that was going to my head.
Music and laughter filtered back from the Slayers’ clubhouse. The evening air and being out in nature felt good. When was the last time I’d been surrounded by trees and open skies? I suddenly envied Levi for the fact he got to live here. It was a hell of a lot nicer than my shitty apartment in Saint View.
Levi’s arm brushed mine. “Do you need to go back to work?”
“No. The bar was quiet, and when Fang told me there was a meeting happening, I asked for the rest of the night off. Nash told me to go, that he had it under control. Saves them on my wages when I really wasn’t doing much of anything, other than wiping down bar tops that were already clean.”
Levi’s little finger linked around mine. “Stay here tonight then? We’re having a party up at the clubhouse.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A Slayers party? I’ve heard they’re a bit…wild.”
He chuckled. “They can be, if you want them to be. Or we can just go to my room and watch TV in bed.”
