Page 52 of The Bonds We Break
“What?” I grab King’s shoulder so quickly, he doesn’t have time to stop the chair from spinning to face me. “You’re going to cut a tattoo off his back? One you forced him to get?”
King is struggling to meet my eyes. I don’t know if his men can see it, but I can. Because shit lay or not, in those moments when it was just me and him, he waswithme. And the reason I know he was with me was because he had the capacity to look me in the eye.
Now he’d rather look anywhere than right at me.
“Look at me, you piece of shit.”
He finally does, only he’s wearing a fake leer. There’s pain in his eyes. I’m not even sure I care. “Finally, the unflappable Rae Miller loses her cool.”
I reach deep inside myself. My calm is shriveled into the size of a walnut, but I cling to it. I breathe. I work my way through my body, relaxing my jaw, my tongue, my shoulders.
“I’ll stay,” I manage to say.
“No, Raester, we’ll go,” Ike says. “The cost doesn’t matter.”
“You’re not letting anyone carve into your skin. Not for me.” I turn to King. “Here are my terms.”
“She has fucking terms?” Bates asks.
I look at him from the corner of my eye. “Of course I have terms.”
“That’s not how this goes, duchess,” King says.
Niro and Bates grin, and I want to punch their faces.
“Rae. Don’t do this,” Ryker pleads.
I look up at my brother. The look of pure anguish is so familiar, it almost triggers flashbacks that I have to bury. I mentally slam a lid down on the thoughts. “The majority of the club wanted you to stay. You took your punishment.” I tip my head to the paperwork in front of Clutch on the table. “You are prepared to pay to return. That makes you honorable.” I see a number of heads nod in agreement. It bolsters me, fueling the anger I have for King right now. The man who could so easily discard ... us. “King is the one changing the rules to make you leave by using me as leverage. If you leave because of me, he wins. Not because he’s actually right, or a good leader, or truly cares about this club. He’s doing this because he hasn’t figured out how to lead. He’s doing this because he can’t think of another way to win, beyond his archaic and misogynistic view of the world that having sex with me is the very worst thing he can do to either of us. And it isn’t—because we lived through worse. He’s doing this because he hasn’t figured out how to build trust amongst you men.” I look around the table, to Clutch and Spark. “He’s doing it because he hasn’t figured out what wearing the mantle of this club really means. We are not going to let him win, Ryker. I’m fine.”
The room has gone silent. Men look from one to another.
King’s head is down.
I’ve gone too far, even though it’s the truth.
“Everyone get the fuck out of this room,” King says. The words come out like a rumble of thunder, each word louder and louder until he’s yelling. On the final word, he stands and slams the table.
“Not without my sister,” Ryker says.
King pulls his weapon from his holster and aims it at my brother. “Tell him to leave, duchess. Or I’ll kill him right now.”
I look at my brother’s bereft features. “Dying right now will solve nothing, Ike, and you’re outnumbered. Don’t die for this. Let me try to make this right.”
Spark puts his hand around my brother’s chest as others leave the room. “C’mon, brother. She’s right.”
“Go with Spark,” I encourage. “He’s not let you down before.”
“Rae-bear, please.”
“Trust me. I know how to deal with this.”
“For fuck’s sake,” King yells. “Just get the fuck out.”
More chairs shuffle. Footsteps do the same. Then the door clicks shut.
“What the fuck was that?” King asks, his eyes firmly on me. His dark hair falls over his face, and I take in the small scar over his eyebrow, the tattoo that ekes out from his hairline, telling me he once shaved his head for a skull tattoo. Is there really a redemption arc for this man? I want to believe there is. But isn’t this the biggest trap women put themselves in, to try to reform the man they’re with and then settle for a lifetime with a man who won’t change?
I hold my head high. “That was me responding appropriately to your behavior.”
