Page 44 of Boy of Ruin
I wonder what my own breath smells like.
I can still taste iron in my mouth.
Probably not great, but right now I’m barely fucking breathing so I guess it doesn’t matter.
“Get the fuck up. Get a fucking shower, get dressed, and meet me downstairs.” He glares at me for a long moment, then shoves me away, releases his grip on my throat and gets off the bed, ignoring Ophelia completely. Instead, he turns away, his huge Unsaints tattoo on his back facing me, smoke through one eye, a U through the other.
I sit up slowly, my hand going to my throat as I massage it, flexing my jaw, my blood pounding in my temple.
Just as he walks through the doorway, barely clearing it, he glances over his shoulder at me.
“If you’d get your goddamn head out of your fucking ass, you’d know that you’ve got a long drive ahead of you.”
I narrow my eyes, swallowing hard. I’m not fit to drive. I’m not going to drive, unless it’s to my baby girl, and I’m pretty fucking sure she doesn’t want me around. If it was up to me I’d go anyway, but the 6 have other plans. They don’t want to start a war, so apparently, I can’t go burn down his house and drag Sid out by her hair.
Mav’s voice breaks through those thoughts. “Julie called. Someone’s been fucking around her property.”
I freeze, drop my hand as my throat tightens. I haven’t been to Julie’s in a long, long time. Not since Sid and I got married. I wanted to give her space, to let her adjust to the idea that I was financially supporting a kid that wasn’t fucking mine from a girl I fucked that meant nothing to me.
Sid never did seem to warm up to the idea. Still, she never asked me to stop paying, either.
“She got Finn a kitten?” Maverick is saying, arching a brow, his tattooed face particularly sinister like that.
He scrubs a hand over his face like he’s tired, drops it by his side, and I catch sight of my wife’s fucking name on his hand.
I swear to God, one day I just might cut it off.
I nod, vaguely remembering Julie texting me some shit about that. A white kitten. There was a photo.
I didn’t give a fuck.
“What about it?” I ask, waiting for him to get to the goddamn point. I can’t even take care of my wife, no way in fuck am I taking in a kitten.
“It’s dead,” Mav says, his tone emotionless. “The head was found on her doorstep.”
Ophelia gasps, her hands flying to her face as Mav turns on his heel and walks down the hallway, and I hear his heavy footsteps on the stairs.
My blood runs cold, my eyes closed tight as I think about it.
The possibilities.
Could be a fucking coincidence. Nothing at all.
Except for the fact Julie lives in Acid City, which is the middle of fucking nowhere Virginia. She keeps to herself since her break up with Finley. I don’t know much about her anymore, but I know she’s a good mom.
She wouldn’t make enemies that would do something like that.
But me? The Unsaints? The 6? We fucking would.
I can’t breathe.
All I can see is the letter in my head.
We both know that as of now, I’m the best place for her and the child.
Oh, you thought Lucifer’s psychotic break was a 6 secret?
I have eyes everywhere.
