Razor The Wild Ones - Jessie Cooke Page 0,25

thing was, I didn’t have no business messing with her. She was the girlfriend of this guy in New Orleans…this guy, he owns card rooms and has a lot of money and power. He treated her like shit, physically hurt her…I tried talking her into leaving him, but because I wouldn’t commit to being in love with her, she said she wouldn’t. I confronted him once when I found her all busted up. I should have left it alone, but I couldn’t. Now I feel like shit about it every day. If I’d just told her I loved her, or if I’d stayed out of it altogether, she might have left and none of this would have ever happened.”

“Who killed her?”

Razor laughed, but not happily and said, “I’m 100% sure it was him. I don’t know if he found out about me and that’s why, or if it was because I confronted him, or one of their fights just went too far…When I found out about it, I went ballistic on him, and a few of his guys. I put two of them in the hospital. Suddenly, there was all this ‘evidence’ that I was the one that killed her, and ‘witnesses.’ So, like I said, I’m not innocent, but I’m no killer either. I should have done more to help her. If I had, she’d still be alive.”

Kayleigh surprised him then. She laid her hand back on his arm and said, “Look at me.” Razor looked down into her pretty eyes and she said, “I’m living proof that you wouldn’t hurt a woman. If anyone ever asked for it, I did…and you never lay a hand on me even when I was kicking the shit out of you that day. I don’t believe for a second that any of that was your fault. It would have been wrong for you to lie to her and tell her you loved her, and she made the choice to stay with an abusive man…not you. I’m not judging her, not at all. Bobby didn’t abuse me, not physically anyway…but he gave me so many reasons to leave and I just wouldn’t because I was so terrified of being alone. Adults make choices and sometimes the consequences of those choices leave a lot to be desired. If the Vipers catch up to me, and kill me…”

“They won’t,” he said.

She gave him a small smile and said, “If they do, it won’t be your fault for trying to help me, or even Bobby’s fault. I’m a grownup and I’ve made all the decisions that have led me to this place. That’s what you need to remember when you’re beating yourself up over what happened to that woman. She obviously didn’t deserve to die…but you didn’t put her in that situation, and you didn’t kill her…so you are innocent.”

Razor could hardly swallow the lump that had accumulated in his throat. Without thinking about what he was doing, he slipped his big arm around her and they turned and started back toward the cabins. It was the first time since Lisbeth died that he’d told anyone, even Blackheart, the full story. Blackheart knew he’d been messing with her. He knew that Razor had confronted Bandit about the way he treated her, but he didn’t know that Lisbeth was in love with him and wanted to leave Bandit for him. Razor hated himself when he found out she was dead, because he knew that had he only given in to her terms and said the words…the words he didn’t mean…she might still be alive. Kayleigh hadn’t fully convinced him that he was “innocent,” but her compassion alone was at least like a salve to his battered conscience.

When they got back to the cabin, they spent the rest of the evening, sipping a few beers and talking like old friends. Razor told her stories about growing up with a voodoo priestess in the family and had her laughing. Kayleigh told him about losing her mother at a young age, and life with a father who was overprotective while at the same time emotionally unavailable. It was late before she finally stood up and said, “I think I need to get some sleep now. Thank you, Razor, for everything.”

He smiled at her. “No problem,” he said. “It’s been nice having the company. Who would have thought being on the run would be fun?”

She chuckled at that and headed over to the bed. While she did that, he went over