and reached for the door handle, but I was faster and wedged myself between the door and his body. “No!” I snapped. “You’re done pushing me away. I gave you space, I stayed out of it, I tried not to take it personally, but this pussy-footing ends now. Fuck where we are, I don’t give a shit about that patch right now. I’m talking to my goddamn husband, not the club’s VP.”
“As your goddamn husband and the VP of this club, I’m telling you it’s being taken care of. Back the fuck off,” he growled.
As he tensed his jaw and took a step back, I noticed his hands were balled into fists. Fuck that, I wasn’t backing down. It was one thing for him to need some time to process what was happening to the man he saw as a father, it was another to completely shut me out about a threat and try to intimidate me into submission.
“Or what? Huh? You’ll hit me?” I held my arms out. “Go ahead, fucking hit me. It’ll probably be the most honest thing you’ve done in a while.”
Torch angrily stared me down for a second, before walking away and slamming a fist into the mirror on top of the dresser. Shattered glass flew in all directions. He turned back around and pointed a finger at me. “You’ve lost your fucking mind. You know damn well I’d never lay a hand on you. Christ!”
“Yeah, I do know that. What I can’t figure out is why the fuck you’re keeping shit from me when it’s obvious I need to be watching my back.”
“Babe, I can’t—”
“Why?”
“Because I have orders. That’s all I’m gonna say right now.”
“From who? Buddha?” I stretched out my arm and held it up to his face. “Is this Buddha’s ink?” I demanded. “Is Buddha the one who almost got flattened by a fucking sedan? Just because the man’s sick doesn’t mean he gets to be the third person in this marriage. If you think I’ll just roll over and let you railroad me now that it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, you’re fucking mistaken. Newsflash, baby, you married the wrong bitch for that to work. Should I start doing my own research? I overheard one of the guys at the hospital talking about somebody named Cora, maybe I’ll start there.”
“Don’t you fucking think about it,” he warned. “This is club business, you need to trust me.”
“Why the hell should I when you’re flipping the script on a whim?” I asked, in utter disbelief that we were even having this conversation after everything we’d already gone through. “This wasn’t what I agreed to, Torch. Trust is a two-way street. I mean, fuck, what more do I need to do to prove myself? And if it doesn’t mean anything, why should I bother trying? I love you. But I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life catering to your self-serving bullshit in the hopes that you’ll eventually… maybe… show the respect you say you have for me.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you fucking saying?”
“I’m saying if you don’t trust me, there’s really no point in doing this. I want a partner, somebody who has my back just like he knows I have his. I want a man who won’t start resenting me for always having to choose between his old lady and his club. I’ve never given you a reason to think I’d spill your secrets or go over your head. We’re supposed to be in this together.”
He smirked. “You’ve never given me a reason to think you’d go over my head, huh? What the hell do you call making a deal with the Feds while I was in a coma?”
I stared at him with disgust. “Are you fucking kidding me? If I hadn’t done that, you’d be doing a thirty-year stint behind bars right now and half of this chapter would’ve been right there with you. Don’t you dare throw that shit in my face and twist it into something you damn well know it wasn’t. And fuck you for using the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make as a cheap shot. You would’ve done exactly the same thing, you are doing the same thing. If you think back, I was the one who told you to do it, to focus on the club and your duty to it. You think I just pulled that out of my ass? You’re acting like I’m asking you to