Page 22 of Bully's Darkness
“Because you blame them for me going inside?” She nods. I take a breath and look her in the eye. “I know you want to believe they made me do that shit,” I tell her, “but you know me, Liv. You know it was me.” She shakes her head again, this time breaking eye contact. “I beat him, and if I hadn’t been stopped by Hawk, I’d have finished the job.”
“No,” she whispers.
“You know deep down and you’re trying to find reasons to justify it. But youknowthis is me. I amthatguy. I live on a very thin line between good and bad, and let’s not pretend that’s not the reason you fell for me in the first place.”
“If you weren’t loyal to this club—”
“I’d be inside for murder,” I tell her. “This club gives me a reason to live. It keeps me on that line instead of letting me crossover and living my life on the dark side. Hawk didn’t ask me to go after Pearce. I did that because it was the right thing to do. He didn’t deserve to breathe after what he did to your sister, and I did what I did for that reason, not because the club ordered it or I wanted to prove myself.”
“Bria wanted him to pay.”
“And he did pay.”
“By the proper channels,” she screams. “She wanted justice.”
I stand abruptly and round the desk, standing close so she has to crane her neck back to look at me. “I gave her that because he was gonna walk from prison, Liv.”
“You don’t know that.”
I groan in annoyance. “He was gonna walk, I promise.”
“The whole trial collapsed because of you.”
I grip her shoulders, gently shaking her. “The judge was corrupt. He was going to walk free. I had to give him a clear message.” She shakes her head and tears slip down her cheeks. “I want to protect you. I like that you don’t see the darkness in this world, Liv. It’s why I let you look at the world through innocent eyes. But I know different, and I am telling you to trust me on this. He was going to get off. Stop blaming the club. It was on me.” I release her. “I think you were looking for any excuse to hate this place,” I add, my tone gentler.
“If I hadn’t been involved in this club, I never would have introduced Bria to that monster.”
I nod in understanding. “And that’s the real issue,youfeel guilty,” I mutter. “Why did you wait for me, Liv?”
She glances up. “Because I love you.”
“If that’s true, you wouldn’t ask me to choose. You’re looking for reasons. You know damn well I won’t leave this club, and I don’t think you even want that. You want a reason to walk away so you can tell everyone I wouldn’t choose you. Deep down, you blame me, but you can’t openly say that because everyone willtell you you’re wrong. You’ll look unreasonable, and we all know how you hate to be the one to blame for anything.”
She glances away. “That’s not true.”
“We all lost out the day Bria got attacked,” I snap. “I lost a brother, and Hawk lost a nephew. My dad lost a son. But we put you and Bria before the club.” She opens her mouth to speak, but I don’t give her a chance. “Not only because we loved you, but because it was the right thing to do. You both turned your backs, and I sat back and let that happen because I felt guilty. But I’ve had five long years to think shit over, Liv, and I realise it’s not my fault. It’s not the club’s fault. It’s not yours either. The blame is on him. Pearce. He did what he did, and he faced the consequences. And if I could, I’d kill him, but he even took that away from us.”
Chapter Seven
Olivia
The moment Bria had set her eyes on Pearce, she’d fallen head over heels. He wasn’t interested. He hadn’t so much as glanced in her direction, and it turned out to be the topic of many of our conversations. The fact I was with his older brother made it easier for her to hang around and watch him through puppy dog eyes.
Pearce and Bully were brothers. Not like club brothers, but real blood-related. And they were inseparable.Mostly. I still remember the way Bria lit up the second Pearce asked her to go for a ride on his bike. It had been a weird day, with most of the bikers out on a secret run they couldn’t tell us about. That wasn’t unusual—club business was always private. But when they returned, something in the air felt off, like charged electricity bouncing around aimlessly.
I’d just assumed something had gone wrong and I left Bully alone. He always needed time to himself when he got like that.
I’d arrived home and gone straight to bed, not thinking too much about Bria because I knew she was in safe hands. Everything about the club felt safe and protective then.
It was the early hours when I heard her in the shower sobbing. I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to find in there. She was standing under the water, and the entire bathroom was full of steam. Her skin was red raw from the heat, and I immediately turned it off, which brought her from whatever nightmare she was lost in. Her eyes found mine, and the pain shining in hers almost broke me there and then. Her hair was matted, sticking to her face, and I noticed bruises appearing right before my eyes. And her feet were dirty, like she’d run barefoot through the depths of hell.
I’d held her until she stopped sobbing, and it was only when she began to shiver from the cold that she stepped from the shower and allowed me to wrap her in her dressing gown.
Some of the details stick in my mind as fresh as the day I witnessed them. Others have faded over time.
“You’re right,” I admit, finally meeting Bully’s eyes. “I do feel guilty. I do blame you, and I blame the club. And I’ve tried to move forward. Lord knows, Bria wants that. But all those bad memories, they originate from here, from being in this club.”
“Yet Bria is coping just fine,” he snaps, looking past me and through the office window. Bria is sitting at the bar, chatting with Lords, the club’s Chaplain.
