Page 96 of Merciless

~Dealer~

“FUCK!”

Ax’s irate roar tears through the backyard of his home, echoing almost painfully through the otherwise still night.

He spins and slams his right fist into the brick wall of the house, taking a chunk out of his knuckles, his hand coming away bloodied. He’s so worked up, he doesn’t even notice.

No wonder he insisted we take this out of the house. If he fucked up the walls inside his and Roxana’s house, she’d be livid, he’d never hear the end of it.

“Let’s take a breath, yeah?” I urge, stepping up close to him. Most people wouldn’t risk it when his infamous temper is out in full force like this. But I ain’t most people.

He rounds on me, snarling, “You don’t get to tell me to tone it down right now!”

“I’m just saying—”

“Do you know what that felt like?” he thunders. “Having her in so much danger and being nowhere near to be able to help her? My wife! The mother of my child! Your daughter!” He spins around and scrubs his hand over his face, smearing some blood over it in the process. “I mean, shit, it ain’t good enough. It’s bullshit, is what it is, and I can’t be having that! Fucking ever, Dealer!” He spins back to me, then gets right in my face. “You feel me?” he basically snarls. “Do you?”

“She’s my daughter, Ax. Of course I feel you,” I return, calmly.

“You should’ve told me! Instead, you gave me scraps. You told Runner you’d call if you needed help, but that call never came. Next thing I know, my wife’s in the crosshairs of the Gatekeepers, the fuckers trying to damn well kidnap her!”

“You mean, like you told me that you had Runner in position to backup Roxana? Nah, instead you left me twisting in the wind, freaking out that she was out there alone dealing with them. Bringing him in without telling us could’ve fucked up our plan back there.”

“Me doing that guaranteed its success!”

I shake my head. “She never should’ve been out there in the first place.”

“I can’t lock down Rox!”

“It would’ve kept her safe, especially with this situation developing right now.”

“Because of you, as far as I knew, it was at a standstill, in a holding pattern!”

“She should always have club protection on her, Ax.”

He thrusts his boot into a patio chair, kicking it several feet across the space, before it smacks into the fence. “The day that happens, Rox will be gone, you dumbass! I already gotta risk closing in security around her when this war gets going! That ain’t so bad, because she knows it’s a one-off. I do it consistently and she’ll be out the door! She ain’t gonna stand for that! Rox needs to run wild, she needs to feel like she’s free! It’s right at the heart of who she is. Getting her to accept the tracer thing was bad enough.” He brings his fists to his mouth and gnaws down on one of them. “Jesus Christ, I’m doing everything I can to work around all of that and keep her safe at the same time! You pulling this has fucked all over that now! You got no idea how much of a balancing act it really is—to keep her happy and protected! Now, after this, she’s so scared I’m gonna bring the hammer down and go back on my word on it all. How can I not, right? But if I do, our marriage ain’t gonna recover from it! It ain’t what she signed up for and it’ll have me breaking my vow about never clipping her wings, never damn well taming her.”

“All right,” I say, nodding. “I hear you.”

“Do you?” he demands. “Don’t seem like it, because I’m hardly seeing a reaction.”

“What do you want? You want me to lose it? Like you?”

“The reaction should justify the situation. You showing none is telling me you don’t get it, don’t feel, don’t damn well care.”

“Don’t care?” I snap, his words stoking a fire I’m always keeping buried down deep.

“That’s right, old man.”

“We’re talking about my baby girl, my grandbaby, you. Anybody who means something to me.”

“Yeah, we are.”

My hand shoots out, fisting in his t-shirt.

His eyes widen, his surprise obvious.

I use my hold to jerk him into me, then I snarl, “The day I react, is the day hell runs right over us all. What I did to those Gatekeepers at the motel ain’t nothing. That’s why I keep my shit on the downlow, why I school my emotions. To spare the likes of you, the people I fucking well love. You think your temper is devastating? You ain’t never seen mine.” I release him roughly, making him stumble back a step. “You should be hoping to God that you never do, not trying to give it breath.”

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