Page 128 of Beautifully Shattered
“Jesus, Nate! You couldn’t have done that over there?!”
I barely catch her words through the ringing in my ears, my heart fucking pounding with fear that my unhinged President might turn the gun on her.
“Why hello, sweet Charity,” Smitty drawls, bending to peer in at my furious wife. “So nice to have your opinion. Which Ididn’t fucking ask for!”
“Maybe youshouldask for it, since you clearly need to learn how to read a room!”
“Okay!” I hold my hands up, trying to block Smitty’s view of my wife. “Let’s just calm the fuck down.”
“No,husband. I won’t calm down. He nearly burst your eardrums!”
Smitty simply smirks. “Ha-ha! Never thought I’d see the day someone wrangled your nuts, Ringo. She’s a fucking keeper.”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter as JD chuckles up front, one finger jammed in his ear.
“I like your fire, Charity.” Smitty continues to taunt my wife, who takes the bait.
“How many times do I have to tel—”
“Next time, I think I’ll keep you bymyside.” Smitty continues like she wasn’t just talking. “Let you do the slaughtering for me, since you’ve got a taste for it now.”
“Like fuck,” I snap, while Abbey scoffs.
“I’m notone of your men, Nate. I don’t answer toyou.”
Smitty falls eerily silent, and the moment his head tilts to the side as he studies my wife as she presses her hands back to the gauze, I know I need to get her the fuck out of here.
“Don’t you?” he asks, brows hitched. “Because all of this,” he gestures behind him, “started because ofyou. And let’s not forget, there are fuckingsuitscoming on raids with us now, something fucking unprecedented until you showed up. So, mysweetCharity, if there’sanyonewho should be bowing to me, dear child, it is absolutelyyou.”
“That’s enough!” I snap at Smitty, bracing for his fucking wrath, but all he does is smirk, and when I glance at Abbey, I know why.
She’s feeling the weight of his reminder. Blaming herself for everything that’s happened once again. Her glassy eyes and grim expression say it all.
For fuck’s sake.
It’s like we take one step forward and thirty thousand steps back.
“We gotta go,” JD mutters from the front, his eyes tracking the smoke billowing from the clubhouse.
Smitty, clearly pissed at the way my wife keeps speaking to him like he’s nothing, angles his head towards JD, and then to Jols in the front passenger seat.
“Leave my stepdaughter behind. She’s coming back to the compound with me.”
JD stiffens, and Jols snarls over her shoulder.
“You’re not my dad, Smitty. How many times do—”
“Either get out of that fucking car, Jolene, or stay away frommyclub.”
Smitty’s harsh snap brokers no argument, and he knows it, straightening up as he mutters something to Spud, who starts rounding the car.
Fuck.
“I’ll call you,” Jols whispers to JD, who looks about ready to lose his shit.
“Jols, you don’t have to go with him,” Abbey says urgently, reaching into the front and laying her free hand on Jols’ shoulder.
“Actually, I do.”
