Page 144 of Broken

A text rudely interrupts my concentration. It’s been a while and Calli hasn’t come back. She’s probably making breakfast. She spends a lot of time here. It’s easy enough when she lives across the hall.

Yeah, that happened. When she moved back to Baltimore, she was anxious about going to her apartment.

Caleb doesn’t live in the building anymore. He moved to campus housing, on polite, yet insistent persuasion of the Blackhawk Disciples. With neither of us ready to move in together, I offered my second apartment.

It shocked the shit out of everyone finding out I own the building. Even Phoenix didn’t know. I never gave an explanation about why I’d kept it a secret. When Calli agreed, I cleared out all the equipment so she could make the place her own.

We’re in separate apartments, but she’s only across the hall. That suits me fine. Lucky calls us both delusional. Saying it’s one big building so we do live together. Neither Calli nor I comment on that. We like what we have.

Phoenix:

Your client is here.

Phoenix:

Stop fucking Calli get down here and do your job

Phoenix:

If she is making waffles ask her if I can please have some

Phoenix:

Shane said him too

I snort a laugh. I know my appointment book, my first client isn’t due for another three hours. I deliberately booked it that way. Calli is going to San Antonio for a few days and I intend to make the most of our time before she leaves.

A few months ago, I would have kicked Phoenix’s ass for a comment like that about Calli. I’ve got a reputation to maintain after all. As far as everyone else is concerned, I’ve not changed a bit since officially dating Calli.

She’s the only one who sees the other side of me, and that is the way it’s going to stay. Her friends ask her how she puts up with my surliness. She won’t tell them how we are in private either.

Calli loves the whole idea of them wondering how we don’t kill each other. Although she admitted everyone knows I’ve got dick piercings, which is kind of off-putting.

I guess everyone knowing her nipples are pierced means we’re even.

The smell of the waffles hits me before I even make it to the kitchen. Fuck, she’s wearing one of my T-shirts. A smaller one that barely covers her ass, while cooking breakfast for my staff. There is an entire stack of them ready to go.

How did I end up here?

I lost my shit when I found out she’d gone back to Texas. It was a real head fuck to deal with. On the one hand, she was going back to follow her dream, to finish the job she started, doing what she had always loved. Together with getting away from the terrifying ordeal she went through at her apartment.

Which also meant getting away from me. I warred with myself for weeks about what to do. She had every right to hate me, and for a while, I didn’t know if thatwashow she felt about me.

Sin wouldn’t give me her number. Lucky didn’t have it. I only believed that because she was so sad about it. Sin kept Lucky updated. Which meant it didn’t take long for me to get it out of her. I knew where she was and that she was safe, and doing well.

It stung like hell. If ever there was a way for an asshole like me to admit his true feelings, it was having the person you want,need, the most walking away.

When it got to the point of losing my shit, even Phoenix begged Sin to give me something. It was begrudging, but she met me and mentioned Calli was intending to come back, or at least that was what Sin believed.

I let her have the time to figure things out. Which also gave me the time to figure out my own shit. If Calli was going to be mine, and my arrogant ass believed from the start she would, then I needed to be a better man.

Cutting ties with the Disciples was something I had to do. Not just for Calli. For me. Nero summoned me to his house two days after what went down at Calli’s.

To this day, he hasn’t told me what got Dutton on the Disciples radar, but he uncovered his involvement in Gwen’s death while doing it. Nero was one of the few people who knew I’d been searching for the man who killed my sister. When he figured out Dutton was the one who did it, he knew I had to be told.

Looking back on the situation through a sane lens, I’m grateful Nero kept him from me. Killing someone would be a black stain on my heart I could never get over. Calli didn’t deserve to be stuck with a man who had that kind of darkness inside of him.

Dutton is dead. Nero told me that at least. The issue with the club was not something he needed to be put down for. He did it for me. Which shocked the hell out of me.

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