Having been raised around here, I mostly recalled the kids of my generation and the Old Ladies. Nyx was a good fourteen years older than me, which put him in a different sphere, but even though I remembered his name, and knew most of the council from memory, the details were vague.
And it irked me to no end that I didn’t want the details to be vague about him.
When Steel’s dinner was ready, I put on extra sauce and muttered, “Will that buy your silence?”
Link snorted. “Yeah. From Nyx. But if you think we’re not telling the rest of the council, you’re dumb.”
When they wandered off, equally sniggering and moaning, my lips twitched.
“What are you smiling at?”
The bark had me jerking in place, and I glowered at Nyx. Mostly because he was a dick, mostly because even though he was glaring right back at me, my stomach was in knots. “Not a crime to smile, is it?” I sniped at him.
He studied Steel and Link’s backs. “What did they want?”
“Food,” I retorted waspishly. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Squinting at me, he folded his arms across his chest. “What are we eating today?”
“Pasta puttanesca,” I mumbled.
When he tapped the floury Kitchen Aid mixer that stood in a place of pride on the counter, he asked, “This what you burst into our council meeting yesterday for?”
I nodded. “It makes it easier to cook.” I’d only bought one in the end, but it was bigger than the one my mom previously had in her kitchen.
“In future, ask me directly. Don’t be bothering the council with that shit.”
“Since when would the Enforcer need to get involved with this stuff?” I retorted.
“Since when does snatch interrupt a council meeting?”
My cheeks burned even as I heard a kernel of truth in his statement. “I wanted an expensive piece of kit. I wanted to go straight to the council to plead my case for it.” With that justified, I glared at him. “Don’t you dare call me that again. I’m not—”
“You’re not what?” he challenged with a smirk that made me want to throat punch him.
“Don’t you dare tar me with the same label you give the other sluts around here.” I sniffed at him as I tossed pasta into the water, then got to work with his sauce. Unlike with Steel and Link, I didn’t bother conversing with the prick. He’d gotten my back up. So why the fuck did I feel hot under the collar? Because I knew he was watching me? Because I could feel his eyes burning into me wherever they touched?
Jesus.
My flush had nothing to do with the heat from the stove.
But I hated that I was so weak. Weak in the face of his insults. How could my body respond to him when my mind rejected everything that he was? Was I just a walking pussy? That fucking weak that I—
I wasn’t like Mom.
I refused to be like her. Attracted to the danger, to the wildness in a brother. Enough that I left sense behind and threw caution to the wind.
When I almost threw the dish at him a couple of minutes later, I twisted instantly around so I was no longer facing him, and asked myself why my eyes were stinging with tears.
God, how stupid was I?
I heard his boots thumping against the floor, and relief filled me that he’d gone.
“Nyx is Cammie’s,” a voice sneered at me. “You need to back the fuck off.”
“She’s welcome to his disease-ridden dick,” I snarled back, twisting to look at the skank I knew was called Peach—the weirdo had dyed her hair that color. “What the fuck do you want anyway?”
“Food. What else, bitch?”
I glared at her. “You can make your own.” My top lip twisted into a snarl. “Unless you want me to spit in yours, that is.” I wouldn’t. I wasn’t that gross, but she didn’t need to know that, and the sweetbutts all knew to act warily around me by now.
She narrowed her eyes on me. “You’ll regret talking to me like this. I’m Rex’s favorite.”
Snorting out a laugh, I scoffed, “I regret nothing, and I regret everything.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I don’t give a shit if you’re his favorite or not. Fuck off.”
And with that, I returned to cooking because I still had a lot of men to feed, but I’d admit, I felt better after sniping at Peach. Nyx’s words had, for some stupid reason, cut deep and that, along with this crazy need to know more about him, was something I had to cauterize now.
Before the damage was too late.
Before I turned into my mom, and was left with a world of regrets.
Four
Nyx
AS I SLAMMED my fist into the punching bag, I tried to imagine it was the weird hold Lizzie’s girl had on me. It needed more than a throttling, that was for fucking sure.
“What do you want?”
I could still hear her disinterested query ringing in my ears, which still stung two fucking hours later. I wasn’t used to being dismissed, and she kept on goddamn doing it. It was not only pissing me off, it was doing something else. Making my faint interest in her morph into something else.
Ever since she’d arrived a few days ago, I’d had this strange awareness of her. I was always on edge anyway, but something about her made me worse. It was like I knew when she walked into a fucking room or something.
Sure, the bitch was hot. And yeah, I’d wanted to fuck her mom when I was a teen who thought only with his prick, and maybe Giulia made her mom look fugly, that was how goddamn gorgeous she was, but I didn’t think with my cock all the time anymore.
Only half the fucking time, and this wasn’t an option. Obsessing on a bitch like this… that wasn’t how I rolled.
Slamming my fist into the heavy piece of leather-covered sand, I let the adrenaline rush through me, as well as the aggression and irritation.
I’d have preferred to be fighting some fucker but no one, save Giulia, had pissed me off today.
“If you missed breakfast, that’s on you. Not me.” Nine words.
Nine. Fucking. Words. And they couldn’t have stunned me more if she’d tried.
No one said ‘no’ to me. No one. Except for her. And she kept on goddamn saying it.
With a couple of jabs that I followed up with an uppercut or two, I pounded on the punching bag some more, trying to figure out what it was about her that got me so riled up. I could feel my sweat flick and bead onto the mat beneath me. All around, the air began to thicken with humidity at the perspiration I was letting fly, and as good as it felt, it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t that I wanted to rain my irritation down on her. It was the fact that she pissed me off, and I still kept on heading into the kitchen for more of her insults. From never going into the damn room to visiting at least twice a day whether or not the clubwhores were starting shit. Things were getting weird.
Even for me.
“What’s got your goat?”
I ignored Rex, who was handling some free weights like they were one of the clubwhore’s tits.
How the fucker’s biceps were that big when he was a pussy around dumbbells was a piece of magic, and he wasn’t willing to share the spell with anyone.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” I muttered, punctuating each word with a jab that made the thwacking noise reverberate around the custom-built gym that ran along the full length of the basement.
“You’re not normally this antsy after a kill.” He cocked a brow at me through the mirror on the back wall as he tightened his stance and began to pull a bicep curl. “Not for a good month or so.”
I scowled at the bag. “I’m not antsy.”
I’d have throat punched him if he wasn’t the Prez.
Antsy?
Six-year-old girls were antsy before a piano recital.
Fifteen-year-old boys were antsy before the homecoming dance they thought their date would put out on.
I did not get antsy.
“Fucking antsy,” I muttered, mo
re pissed about that than Giulia, who was fucking with my head without even uttering more than ten words to me at a time.
What the fuck was that about?
All the bitches wanted my time. They were all vying with Cammie for a place in my bed. But Giulia? Nope. She just ignored me.
“Looks like it to me,” Rex grumbled, then he grunted as he raised the weight, held it a second, then slowly lowered his arm. “And the punch bag attests to it.”
“Who’s been eating the dictionary?” Link called out from the treadmill.
Rex just snorted. “Don’t buy me ‘word a day’ toilet paper for Christmas, and I won’t have a better lexicon than you.”
“Fucking Kendra,” I groused. “No Christmas gifts this year. We’re fucking outlaws. Buying Christmas gifts, my ass.” I gave the punching bag a cross then another jab before I snarled, “Secret Santa was a fucking joke.”
Link laughed. “I kinda liked it.”
“That’s because Sugartits bought you a butt plug,” Rex said dryly.
“Hey, can I help it that I appreciate my G-spot being massaged?”
“Nobody gives a fuck,” I snapped, “until you keep mentioning it all the time.”
“That’s because it’s a revelation. Best orgasm ever.”
“I know. I’m next door. I feel like you’re finding Jesus every time you get off,” Storm retorted as he taped up his wrists. The sound of the tape had my ears pricking up like a bloodhound on the alert for steak.
I stopped smacking the shit out of the punching bag, only grabbing it a hairsbreadth before it connected with me. As I absorbed its momentum, I wondered how the fucker had stayed connected to the ceiling without falling off.
Maybe Rex was right.
I was on edge.
On edge.
Not fucking antsy.
I eyed Storm and asked, “You want to spar?”
“Do I look like I have a death wish?” he responded wryly. “No way in fuck am I fighting with you when you’re in this mood. What’s bitten you on the balls today?”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Nothing.”
Link snorted. “Yeah, nothing my butt plug-filled ass.”
“See? What’s with the fucking references to the butt plug?” I growled, before I scowled. “How the fuck can you run with that shit in there anyway?”
He smirked. “Mini orgasms.”
“Bullshit,” Rex countered, but he eyed him through the mirror. “If I even think that’s true, I’m taking your cut from you. No way do I want to be anywhere near your cum.”
Link chuckled. “You were ten feet from it yesterday when I was boning Lottie on the pool table.”
“That’s different. I expect to be close to way too much DNA in the bar. But in here? Fuck that shit.”
“That’s what I told Lottie last night,” Link replied with a laugh.
“If you’re supposed to be putting me in a better frame of mind, you’re failing. The lot of you,” I grated out.
“What’s wrong with wittle Nyx?” Storm mocked, making me squint at him.
“Be grateful you’re too much of a pussy to spar with me.”
He just grinned, but I turned away with a sniff to beat the punching bag up some more.
I tuned out the fuckers who were chatting in the gym like we were a bunch of chicks getting our hair done at the local salon, and when I was finished, I flipped them the bird and hollered, “Later,” at the group of them. Pussy-assed douchewads. Especially Storm.
Dipshit was too much of a goddamn coward to spar with me.
Fucker.
As I strolled out of the gym, I headed upstairs to the first floor, but I paused when I heard arguing in the kitchen.
For a second, I hesitated over elbowing my way in there. For a bunch of cunts who hated cooking, the snatches were all super territorial over the fact that Giulia had taken their place. That was probably why I’d seen more of her these past few days, now that I came to think of it. It had nothing to do with me wanting to visit her in the kitchen, nope, no sir, it was down to the fact I’d had more of the sweetbutts coming to me over broken noses, pulled hair, and sprained wrists after they’d gotten physical with Giulia and she’d defended herself.
Christ, I’d been dealing with them more than ever before. Most of the whores were bitchy. That was almost a given, and something we dealt with because bitchiness was better than having to fuck our fists. But violent? Not until recently. Giulia might have been pint-sized, but she put Floyd Mayweather to shame when it came down to getting ready to throw a punch.
That the snatches thought I’d chastise her over the shit they pulled was a testament to the fact they knew I hated violence against women. But that meant I had more of the bitches whining at me than anyone else, and when you were the Enforcer, people whined at you a helluva lot. I just preferred it when the brothers complained over the club snatch and not the snatch about our new cook.
The raised voices got even louder, and though Giulia was the last person I wanted to see today, especially after her dismissal this morning, I stormed into the kitchen and glared at the four sluts who were eying Giulia like she was prey.
And they said the males were the deadlier of the species.
Right.
Rubbing my hand over my hair, I took in the fact that though Tink, Lottie, JoJo, and Enya looked on the brink of pouncing, Giulia was handling her knife in a way that told me she wasn’t above slicing and dicing.
Because that made my cock ache, I shoved down the thought of her using that knife with intent, and ground out, “Why the fuck am I having to umpire shit between you again?”
Giulia’s eyes flared wide. “I haven’t done shit! I’m trying to make a fucking pot roast for dinner, and these fucking skanks come in here, acting like the Big. I. Am as though they rule the goddamn roost—”
I held up a hand to stop the tirade which, in fairness, had been somewhat deserved, because I’d sounded as though I was blaming her when I wasn’t. Centering my attention on Tink, I scowled at her. “I want it known that you need to back the fuck off of Giulia, Tink. I’m sick of this shit, and I don’t need you starting crap either.”
“She’s hurting the girls,” the other woman whined, and I only put up with that tone of voice due to the fact that she was the oldest and the de facto leader of the clubwhores.
I hated whiners.
With a fucking passion.
Gripping the back of my neck, and praying for patience, I stated, “No more of this shit. Giulia is defending herself against the sweetbutts who come in here looking for trouble. As far as I’m aware, anyway, you bitches hated cooking, so why the hell you’re arguing over this—”
“It’s the principle,” Enya snapped.
“What principle?” I growled, a tic pinging at the muscles at the side of my mouth. She gulped at the sight, aware I was pissed at being interrupted.
“She gets paid,” Lottie muttered, ducking her head to avoid my scowl.
“So?”
Giulia snorted. “I think they’re pouting that I get paid for my job, whereas they have to suck dick and fuck ugly bastards like you for room and board.”
The other women drew in a breath, but there was anticipation in their eyes, an anticipation that was founded in the belief they thought I was going to ream her a new one.
Instead, I focused on them and explained, “She’s Dog’s daughter. She isn’t a slut like you. Fuck off out of here, and the next time you question the Prez’s word or order, I’ll make sure he knows about it.” When they scampered off, I didn’t watch them go. Even if Enya was wearing a G-string that I knew from experience framed her butt to perfection, I kept my focus on the pain in my ass who’d been getting under my skin since she’d arrived.
What with her scowls, her perfect goddamn food, and an attitude worse than mine, she had no right to be getting under my skin at all.
She eyed me right back as I stared at her, unashamed, unflinching. Fuck, she had balls. Maybe that was why she ha
d mine in a twist.
Every time I thought of her slamming Kendra’s face into the counter or spraining JoJo’s wrist, I’d get a hard-on. How couldn’t I?
The demon in me that liked shedding blood appreciated her willingness to defend herself.
Instead of moaning about the sluts who were trying to make shit difficult for her, instead of coming crying to me like they were, she handled shit.
She didn’t need me to protect her.
And fuck if that didn’t make me want to protect her more.
It was a paradox worthy of a square on Rex’s ‘word of the day’ toilet roll.
“If you’re done staring,” she sneered, “I have vegetables to prep.”
“You have a shitty attitude,” I informed her, careful to keep my tone bland.
She shrugged. “It’s twenty-one years in the making.”
“Can’t teach old dogs new tricks?” I retorted helpfully.
A sniff escaped her. “You wanna call me a bitch, just let it rip.”
I shrugged back at her. “Bitch.” I let the ‘B’ pop. I peered at the counter, saw all the detritus on there, and inquired, “You need help in here?” It was only then that I realized how much work it was to feed us.
Storm had been in charge of scheduling, and I knew for a fact he had four to five girls making meals at any given time, yet here we were, expecting her to do it on her own.
“I prefer to be alone.”
I frowned at that. “There’s no point in doing it all and running yourself—”
She frowned back, and somehow, was still beautiful. But, for all that she was a joy on the eyes, her fucking personality was more like vinegar than honey. It was no wonder the only people I ever saw her talking to were her brothers.
“Have you seen those women?” she demanded, breaking into thoughts I had no right to be having over her. “I floss my teeth with strings bigger than the ones they have between their butt cheeks. It’s a wonder you didn’t have pubes floating around in the food you ate.”
Forgotten & Found: A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Boxset Page 6