Page 571 of Hell Hath No Fury
I can’t eat. I fucking waved Dagne off believing that she’d made the right choice for her, and now she’s God knows where with Digits doing God knows what to her. Again? How could I fail one of my sisters, again? So soon. Did I not learn a fucking thing?
The rooms are quiet, barely a soul here. From what I understand, the call was put out and anyone and everyone within distance dropped what they were doing to help.
The irony is, the one ruthless bastard I would have expected to ride after Hooch with bloodlust on the tip of his tongue, now sits across the parlor from me. Jo-Jo.
“Even in a crisis, you don’t talk much, do you?”
He shifts his gaze my way and smiles.
It’s creepy as all hell. I was told when I first came here thathewas the man you never caught yourself alone with. And I almost believed it after our first run-in. What bullshit that ended up to be, though. It was the guy who made me feel at home in the clubhouse with a joke and his easy smile who ended up killing my best friend. Fucking Digits.
“You know,” I say, determined to hear something other than the incessant tick of the old clock on the mantle. “I thought you were quiet because you didn’t like crowds or something like that. That maybe you were more of an observer.”
He shrugs, nodding with a twist of his mouth that reminds me of Robert De Niro.
“But it’s not that, is it?”
He shuffles in his seat, leaning forward and balancing both elbows on his knees. His hands hang, rings catching the flickering firelight.
“Do you know if they’ve found her yet?”
Jo-Jo shakes his head.
He’s Hispanic, with a shock of black hair trimmed short at the sides and a little longer on top. The guy isn’t much taller than I am, but he has a presence that dwarfs anyone in the room. I’ve heard rumors that he ended up here, on the run from a cartel. Not that I know how true that is. Guys like him tend to keep people guessing. Like letting the rumor mill do the work for them so that their reputation grows without having to actually do much.
But I’ve seen Jo-Jo come inside after a run, blood on his arms, or sporting a split lip and black eye.
I don’t think there’s much false about his reputation at all.
“Can you ask anyone?”
He takes me surprise, rising from his seat and crossing to where I sit tucked under a mink blanket in the wingback by the fire. Our enforcer drops to his haunches and brings his phone between us, offering it for me to see.
A message thread with Murphy sits idle, as though he waits for updates also. The last bubble says that they were roadside waiting on information from one of the associates of our Nebraska chapter.
My gaze falls to his tattooed hands, cupping the device. “How did you get those scars?” I nod to the puckered circles in the middle of his palm. They match either side, as though something went straight through his hands.
A sigh escapes his nose, and he sets the phone down on the floor so that we can both see it. Jo-Jo shifts, settling with his back against the arm of my chair, his denim-clad legs straight out before him. “It was a reminder.”
My chest stops moving, breath held in my lungs. In all the years I’ve been here, I’ve never heard him speak. Just believed Crackers when he assured me the guy does.
“Of what?”
He cradles one palm in his lap, pressing the scars on either side with his thumb and forefinger. “To obey.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s not my place to ask him to recount his trauma. Not my privilege to know. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“We all have them, Beth.”
My name on his lips sends a shiver down my spine. “Scars?”
He nods, still facing away from me. “Mine are for all to see, though. Yours,” he says as he points toward the phone, “are hidden.”
“I don’t have scars,” I say with a tense laugh. “There’s nothing that’s happened to me that can compare to what you men go through.”
“Are you sure?” He turns his head to the side yet keeps his gaze downcast. “Tell me, girl. Are you wounded right now? Does it hurt when you think about Heather’s blood on the wall?”
Panic spikes hard and fast, a burn that spreads from the center of my chest and races down my limbs leaving a chill in its wake. “Of course.”
