Page 563 of Hell Hath No Fury
And as much as I wish it weren’t true, he probably never will be.
CHAPTER TWO
Crackers
Hooch won’t kill him. The motherfucker took a life, and he gets to walk.
I wish I could understand why.
Shoulder braced against the doorframe, I watch Beth sleep. She clutched my hand like it was a fucking cuddly toy until her shakes lessened and exhaustion took her out.
I spent the following fifteen minutes picking as much of Heather’s blood and tissue out of Beth’s golden hair as best I could. I didn’t want her to face that before—right after it happened. She’s too fragile to stomach that type of mind-fuckery. Too sweet.
I never understood why she chose to stay here. Why, after a fucking joke played by one of our nomads, she figured this was it for her.
A shitty, shoebox room in a ramshackle house full of heathens.
Beth doesn’t talk much about life before the Aces, and I often wonder why. But like begets like, and when I don’t let on fuck all either, then why should she?
“You’re needed, brother.” Murphy comes to a stop behind me, peering over my shoulder. “She okay?”
“Not really.” I run my fingers through my hair, focusing on the sting as my rings catch a few strands. “Where’s Dagne? Hooch lookin’ after her?”
His woman took most of Heather’s anger, I’m told. Prints around her throat, and scratch marks on her arms. She was there, just like Beth, when Digits fucking silenced Heather. It was a coward’s way out, shooting the bitch before she could talk.
Before she fucking nailed him to the wall with the bullshit he’d done to her.
None of us saw it. I mean, wesawit, but who the fuck second-guesses why a woman kept around for her body chooses to lose some weight? So, the woman wanted to be skinny—don’t all the girls ‘round here?
“I took Dagne to Beth’s room,” Murphy answers in his mixed Irish-American brogue. “Thought that’s where you’d have her.” He nods toward Beth, curled on her side beneath my blankets.
I don’t have the heart to move her. “Dagne awake?”
Murphy nods.
“Do me a favor and bring her in here too, yeah? Beth doesn’t want to be alone.”
“Sure thing.” His gaze lingers a little long on our blonde beauty for my liking, but I let it slide.
After all, if it weren’t for his birthday celebrations, Johnny Luck wouldn’t have had a reason to bring us the woman. I’ve got both the old fuckers to thank for why I get to hold an angel in my arms some nights—only to remind myself by morning why we’re so goddamn different.
“Boss-man wants me to keep an eye on the girlies,” Murphy explains. “She won’t be alone.”
I don’t doubt it, but that’s not what I really want. What I itch for is to bundle Beth in my blankets and hold her tight. To wrap myself around her to make sure that nothing can touch her. To assure her, as much as me, that she has nothing to fear.
But it wouldn’t be fair on either of us if I did that.
So, I don’t.
I turn heel and walk my ass downstairs to join the rest of our officers at the table while we debate what happens to Digits. And why.
* * *
“It’s you and me, first up,” Hooch explains, huddled against the end of the bar with me. “I’ve got a suspicion that this fucker has something to do with our coke trouble.” He glares across the parlor to where Digits sits with Jo-Jo standing sentry behind the seat.
One false move and a fucker with no conscience will take his ass down.
“How?” I knew there was grief between Pres and Digits, but I thought it all stemmed from the bullshit with the DEA agent that’s been on Hooch’s ass.
