Page 22 of Revenge of a Queen

He smacks my back three times, “Well, go on then, don’t keep all that pussy waiting, boy. The girls always go wild for Donovan dick.”

I nod, then head down the stairs imagining every way I am going to cut into his skin and bleed him out before planting a bullet directly between his eyes. I think about harvesting all of his organs into jars and gifting them to Elle.

Hmm maybe I do need to ‘chill.’ Yeah right. I won’t fucking chill until the only people alive with Donovan blood running through their veins are Cassie and myself.

Chapter 12

MARCUS

The warehouse on Riverside is somewhere my boys and I have frequented regularly for the last few years. It doesn’t have a name or hold any loyalties, it’s a free for all, in terms of the invisible divide in this shitty town. Tonight, I don’t stand with my boys as usual, no the only person on my team tonight is fucking Cherry. And that’s only because she thinks tonight will end with me fucking Cherry. Spoiler alert, it won’t.

I used to love coming here. Indulging in shitty beer and easy pussy. Now, I’d rather shoot myself in the fucking dick than be here but it’s all part of the game. A game of Kings. A game where I don’t understand the rules, the players or what the outcome should be. But still, I play.

I wouldn’t even be here if I didn’t have to be, but I do because they will be, she will be. I heard Jace talking loudly about it as they left school at lunch today. Making plans and sharing jokes, seeing them together does something to me. Something I don’t like. I always hated her friendship with Asher but that was when I was a fucking punk ass kid who would do anything to make her mine. Now I’m jealous for other reasons. I don’t want her lying traitorous ass, but I want back what she has taken from me. My brothers.

They are the only family I have left, and I can’t lose them, regardless of how hard I wanted my fist to meet Jace’s jaw this week every time he touched her. Seeing them with her, protecting her, it burns something inside of me and confuses me. They know her truths just like I do and yet instead of hating her with me and taking my side, they are on hers. Why?

I can’t help but think I am still missing something but what other secrets could she be keeping from me? Nothing as big as a secret fucking love child, I’m sure. That doesn’t make the need to peel back her layers and allow her truths to pour out any fucking less. I feel powerless around her and that’s not a feeling I enjoy.

I have asked myself why I even care, and I am yet to figure out the answer. She lied, more than lied, the secrets she kept from me are fucking astronomical, so why should I care what she does or who she does it with? We aren’t Ells and River anymore; she has made that perfectly clear. She was making that clear from the moment she stepped foot back in this town, I was just blinded by what I thought was fate. It wasn’t fate that brought her back though, it was fucking family, just not mine.

I knock back a piss warm beer and clench my fist around the red cup with the need to feel the burn of whiskey in my throat. I have drank so much in the last few weeks I am surprised my liver is even still fucking intact.

“You want another, baby?” Cherry’s voice comes from my left and I have to fight to cringe when she calls me baby. I am nobody’s fucking baby, least of all her’s.

She hasn’t left my side since we got here and, in all honesty, she is irritating the fuck out of me and is a big reason why I am always a one and done guy. This is the shit I don’t want, a girl hanging off my dick and crowding my every move. The fact she is already like this when I haven’t even let her wet my dick means she never will. Fucking her would take her from a clinger to straight up stalker. I have already got one girl who wants my soul, I don’t need another.

I stand pushing her off my body and tell her to stay there and head over to the makeshift bar to find my own drink. I don’t even know why I am fucking here, she isn’t, my guys aren’t, so what is the fucking point?

I manage to snag a bottle of rum, not my first choice but better than warm beer so I twist off the top and knock some back. When I bring it back from my mouth, I lock eyes with the last person I want to see. Asher fucking Donovan.

He is sipping from a pristine crystal glass and I honestly wonder where the fuck he got it in a place like this, without bringing it himself. I wouldn’t put it past the fucking psycho to do something like that.

He nods his head at me like we are friends and then pushes his glare past me to survey the room. I watch him eye every fucker in here, assessing them, noting their tells, anything that would give him an insight into them. Is this how he did it? How he took Elle from right under my nose without me being any the wiser. I push down my rage as I imagine all the secret rendezvous they must have had, the images of them fucking so much that he knocked her up. I squeeze my fist so tight I am surprised the bottle doesn’t break.

“Fuck you doing here, Donovan?” I spit at him.

He makes a show of wiping his face before responding “Trust me, Marcus, I am asking myself the same thing.”

“Waiting for your girl, I guess,” smiling smugly, but he doesn’t react, so I continue, “Only is she even your girl anymore considering she is now on the arm of a Rebel?”

“What do you want Marcus? I’ve had a long day and I am not in the mood to deal with your petulant childish ways right now,” he replies, knocking back the clear liquid in the glass. Vodka, I’m guessing.

He still hasn’t brought his stare back to mine and it pisses me the fuck off, game on prick. “How's the family today, Donovan?”

Finally, his eyes lock with mine, a look that tells me he would murder me where I stand if I push him too hard and, boy, do I want to fucking push.

“Careful, Riviera, don’t think because of what feelings Elle has for you that I won’t put you in the ground here and now if I felt like it,” he grinds out to me, before looking back out into the room. I watch as the corner of his mouth tilts slightly into a smile and I don’t have to look to know who has drawn that emotion from him. She’s here.

I turn and come to lean on the wall beside him as we both look over to her. If moody and dressed down Elle is hot, well then drunk and happy dressed up Elle is a fucking volcano. She is wearing some form of red netted top that barely holds in her fucking tits. It tucks down into black velvet pants that are so tight they might as well be fucking glued to her. She has forgone her usual combat boots for stilettos and fuck me they make her legs look long and thick. The kind you want wrapped around you. Her hair is long and straight down her back and her lips are painted red. Fucking flawless.

She is holding onto Taylor’s arm as they laugh at some inside joke and Lincoln and Jace come up behind them. When she feels their presence, she looks to them and smiles even bigger like they are her whole world.

“That smile could be yours if you pulled your head out of your ass,” Asher cuts into my appraisal of her and I curse inwardly at being caught.

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t fuck people I hate,” I shrug and take another sip of rum.

He laughs, a rare thing from him, “Hate? Is that what that look was?”

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