Page 73 of Bitter Desire
Chapter Twenty-Eight
LAW
“What the fuck was that?” I asked Connie. We were in the elevator and the doors had just slid just behind us. The one button of the elevator glowed a deep purple, the same color of suit that Zeus had worn. I frowned at the stupid button. I wanted to punch it, to rip it out of the fucking wall and shove it down Zeus’s throat.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Connie demurred, but I saw her hands were shaking. Without the warm glow of the fireplace she looked paler under the light of the elevator.
She hadn’t known any of this shit was going down. Not until it had been forced on her, same as me.
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” I told her, flicking the papers up at her in front of her face, making her flinch. “You didn’t know.”
“I-”
“You didn’t know, so why are you pretending you did?”
Connie cleared her throat. “I know what Zeus allows. You know that.”
“Then admit you didn’t know he was going to fuck me over and take my girl.”
“Law, listen, I-”
“No, you listen, Connie. I never wanted this. Honey was a job, but just for the night, we all know that.” Everyone but Honey knew it. I held up the partial ownership deed and pointed a finger at her. “What the fuck was that with her mother. Why was that woman there?”
Connie licked her lips and her eyes darted to the elevator doors. I knew she wanted to be anywhere but here, but the doors remained closed, the elevator in motion. Connie was stuck.
Stuck just like I had been in that room while the bullshit web of lies was spun tighter and tighter around Honey and me.
I knew Zeus wanted her, could see the lust and want in the piece of shit’s eyes when he looked at Honey, but what I didn’t know was how her mother played into it. How had she gotten linked up with Zeus? How had all of this come together with someone grabbing Honey? If her mother was working with Zeus, lying that they’d hired me to keep her safe while someone was out there after her–that someone that seemed dangerously fucking close to being the two of them–the why still didn’t make sense.
The letter was proof this had all been planned. That second I had seen that letter, realized Honey wasn’t going to come with me, I’d known I had to leave. Get out and regroup. Focus and come back when I understood more of what was happening.
If I didn’t, I ran the risk of things moving too far in the direction that kept Honey from me forever.
This whole time? This whole time I was a job to you?
I could still see her staring at me, tears filling her eyes, hear the crack in her voice that told me she was close to losing it. That she believed the shit about her being a job—one that I had been carrying out since the night we met. I loved that woman. I’d never loved a fucking person, but I knew what it felt like, and that it was all hers. Only for her.
The feel of her struggling to get free of me still burned against my palms. That couldn’t be the last time I touched Honey.
I refused that. The next time I touched her, she was going to be soft and willing. She’d come back to me, but I was going to have to figure out how deep this went.
“Rosario is a long time member of the club,” she said quietly.
“I’ve never seen that bitch.”
“I didn’t know she was Honey’s mother.” Her mouth turned up slightly at the corners. “Sheisa bitch.”
We were silent for a second and then Connie looked at me. She took in a deep breath and the doors behind us dinged lightly before they slid open. She turned and walked out of the elevator, but I was on her heels.
“Connie, I swear to Christ that-”
She stepped in closer to me, her lips near my ear. “I’m worried for Honey. Don’t let her stay in this place alone. Please.” Her voice was low, she didn’t want anyone to hear us which meant there were probably cameras on us and someone listening in. “I didn’t know any of this was going to happen, Law.”
I kept walking, my head bent low to her. “What the fuck is going on, Connie?”
“I don’t know. Zeus, he...things have changed,” she said, and I heard her voice break. “But she isn’t safe here.”
Connie’s words made my blood run cold. The woman wasn’t playing me. She hadn’t known what was going on, I could read that on her plain as day. She looked tired, was off. There was something happening in the club. The club that I now had a share of, and whatever that something was if it had Connie spooked, it was dangerous.
