Unbeautifully (22 page)

“You hate our family, Danny,” Deuce yelled, “you can get the fuck out of it!”

Looking up at his father, Cage’s eyes went wide with rage. “How about you get the fuck out of your bullshit club!”

Eva sighed. This was quickly spiraling out of control.

“You little shit,” Deuce yelled, reaching around Danny to slap the name patch on the front of Cage’s cut. “Talkin’ shit to me is one thing but talkin’ shit about the club? This is your fuckin’ club too!”

“Fuck you,” Cage spat. “I had a fuckin’ club long before this one! It was called the Dad ain’t never home, Mom’s drunk and cryin’ in her room, and Cage and Danny only have each other club!”

Okay, this was no longer spiraling, the West family was now well past any sort of control.

“Mick,” Eva called out, quickly crossing the room toward the chaos. “Grab one of them.” She pointed at Bucket. “You, grab another! And someone please grab Danny!”

“Let your sister go,” Mick said, grabbing Cage’s arm.

“This ain’t your business,” Cage growled.

“No,” Eva said, stopping beside Deuce. “It isn’t his business but it’s mine, and Cage, you need to let her go.”

“Not until she takes that bullshit about hatin’ me back!”

“What are you?” Eva yelled. “Five years old? This isn’t helping!”

“Fuck you, Eva!” Danny screamed. “We are not your business!”

“Shut your mouth!” Deuce bellowed just as Cage jerked out of Mick’s hold and slammed his fist into the guy’s face.

“I said this ain’t your business, Mick!”

“You little fuckin’ shit!” Deuce roared, lunging for Cage.

“Someone get Danny out of here!” Eva yelled, scrambling backward as father and son went barreling into each other.

ZZ got to Danny first, swept her off her feet, and tossed her up over his shoulder.

“Take her to her room!” Eva demanded. “And keep her there!”

She waited until ZZ disappeared around the corner, then turned to Mick. “You okay?”

Rubbing his jaw, Mick snorted. “Foxy, you know it ain’t the first time one of those assholes has punched me. Ain’t gonna be the last either. Runs in their blood.”

Sighing, she turned back to the father-and-son leather-clad ball of flying limbs and pained grunts. “Anyone want to help me out here?”

Not surprisingly, no one answered.

For the second time, I slapped my palms against ZZ’s chest and tried to push him out of my way. “Let me out of my room!” I demanded.

He gave my hands an amused glance before looking up at me. “Sorry, Danny, lady of the house said to keep you here and that’s what I’m doin’.”

“Fuck you!” I yelled, spinning around, sweeping my arm across my dresser as I did, sending everything on it flying across the room. “I need to get out of here!”

And I did. I wanted out of my family, out of the club, out of Montana, out of the never-ending depression and nightmares. But the more I daydreamed about running away, the harder it seemed to find the energy to do anything about it.

“Where you gonna go?” ZZ asked quietly. “How you gonna get there?”

“Shut up!” I hissed as I grabbed one of my ridiculous pink throw pillows and whipped it across the room. “Do you really think I need you telling me how pathetic I am?”

“Don’t think you’re pathetic, Danny. Think you’re hurtin’ somethin’ fierce.”

The next pillow I threw, this one purple and fuzzy, hit him square in the face. He picked it up off the floor and examined it closely. “Why’s it fuzzy?” he asked. “What’s the point?”

Cursing, I flung myself facedown on my bed. “Just go away!”

“Can’t. Orders are orders.”

I turned my head so he could see me glaring at him. “Orders are orders,” I mimicked. “Aren’t you a good little sheep.”

To my annoyance, ZZ burst out laughing, shaking his head as he reached into his cut and pulled out his cigarettes. He was still laughing when he took his first drag and ended up choking on it.

“Ha,” I spat, smiling nastily at him.

“You know,” he said, watching me with dark, knowing eyes, eyes I felt like gouging out of his head with a fork. “You could always talk to me. Tell me why you’re actin’ like a fuckin’ maniac. Seems to me like you need someone to talk to.”

“You know what you could do?” I shot back. “You could get the fuck out of my room!”

“Sorry, baby,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothin’ is gonna make me leave until either your old man or Foxy gives me the go-ahead.”

I stared at him, my thoughts a violent mess, only able to focus on what was wrong with my life and how I could make it worse. I was on autopilot, destined to destruction without a return ticket. No matter how desperately I wanted to turn this fucked-up ride around, to head back to what was good, to when I was happy, I didn’t know how.

“Nothing?” I sneered, pushing up off my bed. “Nothing at all, huh?”

I deliberately ran my eyes up and down his body. And it was an impressive body. ZZ was six feet of solid, toned muscle that showed underneath his plain white tee and formfitting leathers. On his right bicep hell’s was tattooed in big, bold lettering, and below it, on his forearm, read horsemen.

His dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, showing off his small hoop earrings, and wrapped around his neck was a black leather strip, identical to the ones on each of his wrists. All in all, ZZ was a big, sexy man package that I was about to try and exploit.

But however sexy ZZ might be, he wasn’t dumb. Far from it. He watched me eye-fuck him, his lips twitching.

“Ain’t gonna work,” he said.

“Why? You don’t think I’m pretty?”

He snorted. “I’d have to be blind or just straight up dumb not to, but I like my women a little less…ripe.”

I shrugged off the insult even as it cut me. I wanted to shower. No, I wanted to want to shower. I wanted to want a lot of things. I just…couldn’t figure out how.

“Okay,” I said, shrugging nonchalantly, grabbing the bottom of my T-shirt and lifting it over my head. I tossed it across my room and watched ZZ’s eyes drop to my bare breasts.

“Put your shirt back on,” he said, his tone blasé but the subtle tightening in his jaw gave him away.

“How about I do this instead?” I shoved down my jeans and underwear and kicked them aside. Naked, I glared at ZZ. “Still nothing I can do?”

He took an extra long drag off his cigarette before answering. “No,” he said tightly. “Put your fuckin’ clothes on before your old man walks in here and see’s you actin’ like this.”

“Like I care!”

“Do you care about me?” he shot back. “If someone walks in on this shit, they’re gonna get the wrong idea and I’m gonna be takin’ the blame for it. You want your old man to shoot me? Thanks a lot.”

If your old man caps me, you better be front and center at my fuckin’ funeral, cryin’ your goddamn eyes out.

I squeezed my eyes shut, shuddering through the painful memory ZZ’s similar words had stirred up inside me, and fought back my rising emotions.

“Then you better hurry,” I hissed. “And fuck me before anyone walks in.”

Muttering curses, ZZ dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it with the toe of his boot. Next, he reached behind him and pulled his gun from his leathers. After setting it down on my desk, he started for me, already unzipping his leathers.

My anger turned to panic. Oh god, why was I doing this? Why was I acting like a crazy slut? What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stop it? Just shut it off? I didn’t want to have sex with ZZ any more than I wanted to be lashing out at my family.

But everything hurt. Every heartbeat a knife to my chest, every breath more painful than the last. It hurt straight to my bones, freezing my blood and straining my muscles, making me ache…so…bad.

And I couldn’t make it stop.

“You want to fuck,” ZZ hissed, grabbing my biceps and pushing me. I stumbled, trying to keep up with him as he began forcing me backward. “I’ll fuck you, Danny. That body of yours is worth an ass kickin’ or two.”

I wanted to scream,
NO
, that I didn’t want this to happen but I couldn’t, my pain keeping my mouth shut, demanding that I continue to hurt myself, my pain telling me that I deserved this, I deserved worse than this.

“But first,” he muttered. “Your ass is takin’ a shower.”

I shrieked as cold water spiked against my skin, not realizing until that very moment he’d backed me into my bathroom and straight into the shower.

“Let me out of here!” I screamed, violently thrashing as he held me under the spray of water, now lukewarm. But he didn’t. ZZ held fast, my punches, slaps, and kicks not fazing him in the least. And still I continued, hitting him harder and harder until I was crying, sobbing uncontrollably, relentlessly beating on him and the worst thing was…

He let me.

He just stood there and took it.

And when it was over, when I’d wrung the last tear from my exhausted body, when I could no longer stand on my own two feet, he wrapped me in a towel, picked me up, and tucked me into bed.

“You were never going to have sex with me,” I whispered, blinking sleepily up at him. “Were you?”

“No,” he whispered back, brushing a lock of wet hair out of my eyes. “I wasn’t.”

Seven months later…

Blasting Cannibal Corpse, Ripper pulled his truck off the Harbor Freeway and onto Wilshire Boulevard. Shit was going good. He’d quit drinking hard liquor, stopped smoking green, and work was solid. He’d done a couple of hits for Deuce on the side, earning him a nice bankroll, and he was fucking some airheaded bitch named Colleen or Colette or whatever, that he liked well enough. Liked as in she had a pussy, he had a dick, and if he kept the lights off he didn’t have to see a face that wasn’t the one he wanted to see. You put two and two together and it added up to him not feeling the need to scope out other pussy for the time being.

Yeah, he was an asshole. But a dude’s gotta do what a dude’s gotta do, yeah?

Yeah. Whatever. He was so full of shit, it wasn’t even shit anymore; he was straight up pissing out of his asshole.

Shit wasn’t going good. Shit was just…going.

Barely.

The more time that passed, the more Ripper found himself thinking about a lot of things. About his life before the club, his life with the club, Frankie. Even Eva.

All this free time away from everything he’d known had put a lot of shit into perspective for him. Like how he’d been able to get away from Frankie.

“
Eva’s blowin’ up my fuckin’ phone, brother.”

Ripper heard Frankie jump to his feet, heard his heavy booted steps crossing the floor, heard a door creak open, then slam shut.

It took a moment to realize that he was alone.

Eva had saved his life and he’d done nothing but blame her. Maybe subconsciously he’d always known it was Eva who’d saved him, maybe saving his life was what he’d been blaming her for.

Either way, he was a first class asshole.

But mostly he thought about Danny and why she’d stopped calling him.

It bothered him at first. He’d thought something might have happened to her, and he didn’t know how to ask anyone without making them suspicious of why he was asking. But then Deuce had casually mentioned her a few times, so he knew she was still breathing. And like everything else when it came to Danny, he let it drop.

And moved the fuck on.

It was for the best that she’d forgotten about him and what had happened.

Yeah, it was for the best. He just had to keep telling himself that.

Hitting his turn signal, he made a right onto his parents’ street and—

Cox, that stupid motherfucker, was standing in the middle of his driveway, grinning at him.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he said, laughing.

He’d barely cleared the truck when Cox surprised the hell out of him and pulled him into a hard hug.

“Fuck you,” Cox growled, squeezing him hard. “Fuck you for makin’ me look for you.”

They pulled apart.

“Dude. Nice hair.”

Laughing, Ripper rubbed his hand over his shaved head and shrugged. “Don’t gotta shower as much.”

Cox snorted. “Nice.”

“Yeah, and what about you? Nice fuckin’ tat,” he said, nodding at the new tattoo of Kami that Cox had on his neck. “What’s that now, your third one of her?”

Cox shrugged. “What can I say? She likes to look at herself.”

He started laughing. “Brother, I need a drink. You want a drink?”

“Depends,” Cox said. “I can’t do strip clubs. Kami fuckin’ knew last time. The bitch can smell a lie a mile away and I ain’t gettin’ locked out of pussy that I fuckin’ own for two whole weeks again. I swear, Ripper, the bitch is psychic. Psychic and crazy and—”

Ripper held his hand up.

“Thanks for sharin’ ’cause, really, I give two fucks about your crazy old lady, but I was only talkin’ brews that I got sittin’ on ice in the kitchen.”

Cox laughed. “Let’s do it.”

Once they both had a drink and were seated, Cox slapped his hand down on the table and grinned at Ripper. “Reason I’m here, brother, is Prez is gettin’ married next week.”

“So?”

“So? That’s your fuckin’ prez and I know you been talkin’ to him. I know he hasn’t said jack shit about you comin’ home for the weddin’, but we both know Prez and you fuckin’ know he wants you there.”

At the thought of seeing Danny again, Ripper’s stomach tightened in anticipation. Even so, he shook his head. “Naw, I already explained this shit to you—”

Cox’s fist came down hard on the table. “You didn’t explain shit! You said you were fucked-up and left. You ain’t lookin’ all that fucked-up to me, and I’m tellin’ you, it’s time to come the fuck home.”

Ripper couldn’t help but grin. “Miss me, huh? Or does Kami miss me?”

For the first time since Cox and Kami got serious, Cox actually smiled at one of his Kami jabs.

“Brother,” Cox said. “Shit has smoothed out back home. Things are good between Prez and Foxy, and whatever the fuck you think you’re goin’ through, you can come back home and go through it there. Where we are. Your fuckin’ family. Havin’ your back.”

“So…everyone is good?” he asked slowly, only really caring about one person in particular.