Page 2 of Vengeance

“Don’t lie to me.”

How could he forget that she knows him better than anyone in the world? She’s his lie detector. “Revenge.”

“What’d you do?”

Chicago laughs. He can’t blame her for assuming the worst of him. “It wasn’t us. We’re just affiliated with the guy these assholes want. And they think if they attack us enough and hurt our women, we’ll give them the man they want.”

Two gunshots surprise them both, and she jumps. His arms wrap around her as his body shifts to shield her out of instinct. “What the fuck was that?” she whispers.

Psycho hurries out, his hands in the air, while his right hand grips his gun. “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”

Kimberly pushes away from Chicago, and he feels a pang of loneliness. “Hey, Larry.”

“How’s it hanging, Kimberly?”

Even though a small twinge of jealousy hits him, Chicago laughs. Kimberly gave Psycho the name Larry after refusing to call him by his club name. He refused to tell her his real name because it’s reserved for only his wife. Not even his best friend, Lex, calls him Carson. It’s been the running joke his ex-wife has with another man, and it feels so surreal. Like it’s not his life but something he watches from the outside instead.

“Not too bad. I see you wear the President patch now, Larry.”

“Do you hate me for it?” Psycho asks.

“I don’t know that I could hate you, Larry. But what the fuck was that?”

He points over his shoulder towards the bedroom. “The gunshots?”

“No, the line dancing I heard you guys doing in there. Yes, the gunshots.”

Chicago knows Kimberly feels safer now. She shifted from scared and shaking to sarcastic with ease, and it’s one of the reasons Chicago always thought she’d be one of the old ladies to stick it out. Her ability to overcome the fear so quickly was enviable by so many, including him. Looking at her now, wondering what she wears underneath the robe, has him wishing she had stuck it out with him instead of leaving him in the dust.

“He wasn’t dead,” Psycho says. “Is now, though.”

Her eyebrows lift, and she looks to Chicago before looking back at Psycho. “I shot him in the chest. With a .38.”

“I shot his President in the face with a .45, and he’s still alive and kicking,” Psycho says and shrugs. “These guys are fucking determined.”

“What?”

“Yeah, if you see a dude wearing the Slasher logo rocking a fucked-up right side of his face, that’s the guy. Also, get the fuck away from him as fast as you can.”

Closing his eyes, Chicago can’t look at either of them as he remembers the beaten wife of Colt Nichols being carried into the clubhouse on the last night he wore the President patch. His stubbornness and pride took over all reason, and not only did they almost lose the daughter of the mother charter’s VP, it was all his fault it happened. All because he was cocky and proud.

“Why, exactly?”

“You could get waterboarded, electrocuted, beaten, starved, and threatened. One other got choked while another got burned.”

Kimberly turns, and Chicago can feel her staring at him even with his eyes closed. “Choked? Burned? Waterboarded?”

“Lex. It’s the main reason he’s the one wearing the Pres patch, and I’m not,” he says, hoping she doesn’t make him repeat that he’s the one who almost got Lex killed. “These guys are sadistic bastards, and I want you to stay as far away from them as possible, Kimmy.” He opens his eyes and looks into hers. “Please.”

“They broke into my house!” she shouts and points towards the hallway to her bedroom. The bedroom they used to share. “Where am I supposed to go, Dallas? They seem pretty fucking close.”

“I’ll pay for a hotel. Wherever you want to go, I’ll take care of it. The kids, too.”

She shakes her head. “The kids are fine. Not even I know where they are. You’re not the only one they cut off.”

“We’ll take care of him,” Waylon says as he walks out with the dead man in his large arms, the body dripping blood down the hallway.

Derek hurries after him, and he grabs his feet. “Fuck, man, we wrapped him in the shower curtain to stop from tracking blood all through the house, and you did it anyway.”

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