Page 15 of Kindness

“She needs to go, and we need to figure out how to get fucking rid of her, especially if I want Slade back in my bed; he hasn’t looked my way since that fucking bitch got here,” Viv spits. Damn, she’s mad as fuck. I listen a little closely because if she decides to act on her words, I need to decide. I can either keep it to myself and see if the new girl can handle herself, or let Zayde and the other guys know that Viv is a snake.

“Yeah, but how? It’s not like you can do anything while she’s sitting with Frankie and Talia. You do anything that puts Talia or her baby in jeopardy, and Spider will have you gone before you can blink an apology,” Leanne tries to caution her.

“Yeah, but she has to go to the bathroom at some point, right?” Viv says. I step out of the corner where I’m standing. Leanne’s eyes go wide as soon as she sees me, and immediately turns on her heels and marches away. “Shit, Noah,” Viv says, gulping, “I was just kidding; I would never do anything to put my place here at risk, you know that”, She tries to backtrack. I don’t say anything; I just observe her body language; she sashays towards me, putting a little more swing in her step than usual.

Running a red-painted finger down my chest, she bats her eyelashes at me, “if you don’t tell anyone, I’ll make it worth your while,” she purrs at me. I grab hold of her hand, pushing it away from me; I look at her with disgust.

“Nah,” I snarl, pushing off the wall and walking away from her; I turn back just in time to see Vivica swipe a tear away from the corner of her eye. I look back towards the cage and see that Jace has knocked Grudge out cold; my brother steps out of the cage, sweat running down his chest and makes his way towards Frankie, who hands him a towel; he grins and says something to Tamara that has her blushing and giggling.

“Damn, she must be drunk if she finds his jokes funny,” Slade says with a chuckle; I look away from my brother and look at my best friend, raising my brow in question, “We all know he isn’t even that funny,” Slade says as he hands me a bottle of beer.

“True.”

We head back towards the bar, “wanna tell me what the hell that was about?” Slade asks, gesturing between Viv and me; I shake my head.

“It’s cool, don’t stress about it; the bitch was just trying to see if she could seduce me. Clearly, it didn’t work,” I say with a grin.

“Okay, who’s getting me a drink?” Jace asks as he approaches us, “did you see him go down?” he asks as he slaps me on the back.

“Nope, missed it, sorry,” I apologise.

“Dick, imagine not seeing the moment I put that fuck on his arse,” Jace grumbles, “he did put up a good fight, though,” he says with a smug grin.

“My whole world does not revolve around you, dickhead,” I say, glaring at my twin; most people can’t tell us apart, but there are subtle differences. For instance, my eyes are steel grey, whereas my brothers are jade green, and our hair is slightly different, mine being lighter than Jace’s. Our emotional scars are different, too; he doesn’t mind talking about our life with our aunt and uncle but, I blocked most of it out. Our parents were killed in a car accident when we were twelve years old, so we had to stay with mum’s brother Jacob and his wife Nora.

Aunt Nora was a nurse, but Jacob was in the army. Initially, it was Aunt Nora who we spent the most time with, but then when Uncle Jacob was discharged from the army, he came home, and she went back to work full time. That’s when I started blocking out my childhood because Jacob was an abusive arsehole who would find any reason to beat the shit out of Jace and me. Aunt Nora would come home and pretend that she couldn’t see the bruises, or on some occasions, she would patch us up without a word, she knew the kind of man her husband was, and yet she stood back and didn’t do a damn thing to stop him.

A hand on my arm makes me cringe.

“Sorry brother, you, okay?” Jace asks me, concern lacing his face. Slade and the others are also focused on me, which makes me feel even more uncomfortable.

“I’m fine,” I snarl as I get up and storm away from everyone. As I pace the outer edge of the lot, I feel myself slowly begin to calm down. My heart rate returned to a semi-normal rhythm, my breaths slowing down as I focused on making them controlled and even. The sound of footsteps approaching stops me in my tracks.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise anyone else was over here,” Tamara’s sweet voice says as she stops walking. I have to squint to be able to see her through the dimly lit area.

Chapter 10

Tamara

Ineedtostretchmy legs, so I decide to take a walk around the compound; for once, no one tries to follow me; I’m so lost in my head that I don’t see someone standing in the shadows until I’m practically right in front of them.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise that anyone was over here,” I say awkwardly as I stare up at Noah; he scares the shit out of me because he never speaks; he just watches; it’s like he’s trying to see into the depths of your soul when he looks at you. His gaze is both captivating and intimidating at the same time; it sends a shiver down my spine, the hair on the back of my neck standing to attention. “I just needed a break from everything,” I continued to talk, and honestly, I had no idea why I felt the need to explain myself to him.

“The company boring you?” he asks, his voice deep with a Scottish brogue to it; it makes me want to listen to him talking all day. I shake my head at his question.

“Nope, just needed to get a walk before my legs fall asleep from sitting so long,” I tell him, my voice low, almost whispering. Noah steps out of the shadows, and I get a better look at him; his arms are practically bulging out of his fitted t-shirt, and his full sleeves of tattoos are on show. He must have the patience of a saint to sit and get all that ink. I have a couple of tattoos, and I’d love a sleeve, but I had to keep mine small and easy to hide from my father.

He clears his throat, and when I look at him, I can see the frown marring his face; he says nothing as he turns on his heel and storms away back towards the party that is now in full swing. Watching Jace beat the shit out of that prospect earlier was hot as fuck, and I was already hot under the collar from the way Slade had his hands on me before I sat down; I shook my head to clear it of the thoughts of these god damn sexy, cocky arseholes.

“You shouldn’t be over here by yourself, princess,” I turn to glare at whoever is behind me coming face to face with Zayde; the arsehole smirks at me as I pin him with what I’m hoping is a ‘don’t mess with me’ look. However, the way he’s struggling not to laugh tells me that it isn’t working.

“It’s not like I’m gonna run away or hurt anyone since there’s no one else here,” I say as I spread my arms out wide and spin in a circle, gesturing to the fact that until he came over here, it was just me, I mean what am I going to do, harm myself?

“Anything is possible,” he says.

“Prez,” one of the prospects says as he approaches us, holding out a phone, “Dax wants to talk to her,” he says, gesturing towards me. Zayde takes the phone from the guy’s outstretched hand.

“What,” Zayde practically barks into the phone, “no shit asshole, what was your first clue that I wasn’t her,” he rants; Zayde seems pissed off that he was interrupted while talking to me, “you can have two fucking minutes,” he hands the phone to me and gestures for the prospect to leave however Zayde remains standing in front of me.

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