Page 183 of Filthy Love

“I hope you can survive blood on your hands. It’s not easy being a Marinos.” - Rider

She was a Marinos.

She was a fuckingMarinos.

You get one shot to be the kind of person who not only wants to do the right thing, but follows through, no matter what. It’s a one shot don’t hesitate moment.

Even if that thing to make everything right was slightly … crap …completelyimmoral and going against every decent strand of her being.

But there was something Gia knew deep in her heart; for love, she was willing to do anything.

Even dirty her soul.

It was that simple.

The truth was devastating.

It was a decision she’d stewed over for days and sleepless nights until finally she’d talked to her brother this morning.

When your heart was no longer your own, it makes decisions much easier. Even the hard-to-face ones. She’d been unable to look herself in the mirror all day. She’d confront her soul another time. First, she needed to see this through.

Rider hadn’t seemed all that surprised. But then he was who he was, she never probed too deeply into what her brother did for his club or the kind of messes he dealt with to stay afloat in his successful businesses. But she could guess his reputation hadn’t come from him baking donuts and being employee of the month.

Her brother knew how to get down dirty in the mud when it was needed.

That’s why she’d come to him.

“He’s my man. We take care of what’s ours before it’s destroyed.” She’d told him, and Rider nodded in somber understanding. Told her to come back later when he’d got the boys together. That’s why she was at the Renegade Souls clubhouse now worrying her lip with her teeth until a piece of skin ripped and blood salted her tongue.

Shit. Her belly wanted to dispel her snack from earlier too.

She was so wound tight with erratic thoughts.

She would live with the guilt of it later.

They’d argued last night. Her and Hawk.

In the middle of a dinner he’d grilled out in the yard his cell phone rang. No guesses who it was when his face turned to granite and he switched off the phone and almost decimated it by slamming it down.

“You are not paying that woman another cent, Colton.” She’d spat vehemently. “Not one more fucking penny goes to her. Over my dead body will she profit from you again.”

He’d growled, told her to leave that shit to him and she’d gone to bed alone. Again.

“You really sure about this, squirt? I can see that it’s done without you involved. I shoulda done something sooner.” Said Rider outside of the large oak door. He rested a comforting hand on her shoulder, blue eyes so like her own somber and wise. Swallowing back her nerves she smiled, and he leaned in and kissed her forehead.

“I can do it. It has to come from me. I need to do this for Hawk.”

“Okay, if you’re sure, let’s get in there then.”

And the two Marinos siblings walked into his sacred church, each set of eyes around the big table turned to look at her with varying stages of surprise and confusion.

Once Rider took his seat, Gia standing at his side, the one seat notably absent.

He got everyone’s attention by merely looking down the table until hush descended. Gia wrung her hands together until the skin protested. Her heart galloped looking at Hawk’s empty seat.

She felt like she was unravelling at the seams.

She truly was a Marinos now, wasn’t she?

---