Page 119 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
It’s almost cute. Almost, because even as he’s cleaning me off, he’s being a rough, controlling dick.
I pull away from him and use the trunk of the tree to get to my feet.
“No other woman will hurt you the way I will,” I tell them both, knowing that I’ve got to run my ass in the house and upstairs to the shower before Reba sees me. “But no other woman will hurt this good either.”
Cade meets my eyes but says nothing, frowning hard as he crosses his arms over his chest.
“You can’t use sex to sway me,” Crown says, and I know that’s true. But I also know that he loves me. He said as much just now—with words as well as actions.
He told me what I needed to know, about Gaz, about the casino, about the drugs.
The Grey Wolfe Mafia really is out to obliterate the club, aren’t they?
I’ll personally see to it that they don’t.
Who knew that I’d be defending something I hate? But also that, in many ways, I love.
Love-hate, what a splendid toxin.
Reba and I sit together in front of the fire later, after the sky has gone dark and a cool chill laces the air outside. Sin is on the balcony, smoking a cigarette and staring up at stars that are remarkably close to the color of his eyes.
I wish he were in here with us, the flames licking at the stone interior of the fireplace and casting dancing shadows over both our faces. Fem yawns, pink tongue stretching out in a curl before he draws it back in and grumbles, rolling onto his side with a dramatic sigh.
“When I close my eyes,” Reba begins, her green gaze focused on the fire, “I can still see ‘em.” She glances over at me, and I turn to look at her. There’s a sadness to her that wasn’t there before, a weight on her shoulders, a flare in her eyes. I recognize it because I’ve been carrying it around with me for so long: pain. One of the reasons I think I feel for these four assholes is because they have it, too, and like calls to like.
I reach out and put my hand over hers.
“Your parents?” I clarify softly, prompting her to continue. I wasn’t ready to hear about Sin’s sister a few weeks ago, but … I think I am now. I’m ready to hear his pain. Reba’s pain. I can handle this.
“My poor mama,” she starts, her eyes darkening as she turns away toward the wall. “She didn’t stand a chance. She opened the front door and there they were, six men and … Grey.” She stares down at our hands, tangled together atop Fem’s thick coat. “They slit her throat like it was nothin’, like you might cut into an apple.” She turns back toward the fire, but there are no tears there.
Reba has, in her own way, always been as strong as I have. Stronger, actually.
“My daddy though,” she starts, and then a harsh, angry laugh escapes her. She swipes a hand down her face. “He was like Lot and his daughters.” Reba looks back at me, as if to discern whether or not I understand the Biblical reference.
“The douchebag who offered up his daughters to be gang-raped?” I query, and her smile gets tight and funny, far-off and twisted. Reba stares at the fire again, as if she’s trying to sink into its greedy orange fingers.
“That guy,” she says, but her voice is thick with a righteous rage. “He offered up his daughters to protect two angels that the citizens of Sodom were threatening to rape.” She scrubs at her face, a tiredness creeping into her gestures that scares me. That isn’t a physical sort of fatigue, but a mental one. “Except my daddy offered me up to protect himself.”
Oh.
Shit.
I grit my teeth against the imagery. Wesley, on his knees, slumped forward onto his face like he’d been praying before they slit his throat. Guess he was just begging the men to take his daughter and leave him be? I can’t even imagine. Okay, well, actually, I can. Cat would … well, I don’t know what Cat would do anymore.
He saved me from the mafia.
He’s abused me my whole life.
It hits me suddenly that I’m just like Crown. I’ve been looking at the world as if it were black and white. As if there’s such a thing as truly good and truly evil. But Beast is right. He’s so fucking right.
This world is painted in shades of gray.
This whole time, I’ve been laboring under the idea that the club was black. In order for that to be true, other parts of the world would have to be white. But that isn’t how things work, not at all. Nobody is perfect. Nobody is a heroine in every scene; nobody is a villain likewise. Sometimes, things are complicated.
