Weak. That’s what I feel right now — many variations of it. I’m not ashamed, just not sure how to handle it.
“Ellie isn’t safe from me, from the people I’ve trained, from things I’ve done. I appreciate you preaching about guilt. We both know that will never go away.” I barely squeeze all those words past my lips.
They leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Toxic.
That’s what I felt drip into my blood when I heard Ellie mention something about searching for information. The longer I sat with her, the more I knew she wasn’t searching me, if she had, she would have gotten up and came at me with what she would have found. All it’ll take is typing my name, and a whole slew of shit will come up. Including that goddamn secret.
She was seeking out Shadow. Bet my life on it.
I lied to her again too. I don’t have anyone covering up my sins. Sinning is what made me rich. Hell, I had women coming at me from all over the world. Traveled everywhere at their expense just to teach them how to keep a man happy. I’ve fucked single, engaged, and married women. Not once did I give a shit about who I slept with.
Until Ellie Wynn.
“The fuck are you going on about?”
“This life we chose. You got women you fuck on the regular here. I have them back in New Orleans. Word travels fast, fairly certain they know by now I’m off limits. Some will stop at nothing to destroy Ellie, which means getting word to Shadow. You get what I’m saying now?”
I don’t have to remind him of my secret. He knows. That’s part of what’s troubling me. The worst is some woman or Shadow doing what happened to Rocco.
Thinking they own someone in ways no one should be owned. Women want me for my money. Shadow wants Ellie out of some sick obsession. It’s enough to twist my gut.
The scrutiny and sadness in his eyes tells me he understands. A few years ago, Rocco had given up this lifestyle, was ready to walk away from managing even when his woman Sofia trusted him, a woman he’d met in the grocery store of all places. They fell in love. Had it all and then the next thing we knew Sofia was killed right in front of him by a woman from Rocco’s past. Bitch wanted Rocco to herself. It’s the weirdest thing how I’m sitting in the same boat today. I'll guarantee a few of them are on the ready to strike the first chance they get.
A thousand scenarios cross my mind as I began to sink with dread and the need to get back to Ellie. That memory though, the one where I witnessed something that will haunt me forever, it hits me as if it was yesterday.
Lane and I flew here when Seth called to tell us what went down. For days I watched Rocco fall apart behind closed doors. The minute I thought he was starting to pull out of his funk, was the minute he wanted to end his life. Long story short, I went into the very pit I’m gazing at to check on things. I came back to find Rocco with a loaded gun to his head. The hardest thing I ever had to do was talk my friend down. He ended up giving me the weapon, lowered his head and broke down in my arms. I talked him into moving in with me for six months while Seth moved here and ran the place. Taking over this place brought Seth his own kind of hell. One my troubled mind can’t even think about.
Suffering and regret. Misery, so much of it, I can feel it—the grief and guilt Rocco will always hold onto radiating off of him. The emotions winding him up.
Jesus Christ, Ellie is in more danger than anyone should be. It’s all around her, and she has no goddamn clue, and like the asshole I am, I sat there and gave her my word.
Pathetic. Yeah, I’m beginning to believe I’m just that.
“Hold up a minute and sign this for me, and I’m all yours.” Meaning, he’s about to tell me how it’s going to be.
I need it. Need it because I’m not even close to stable right now. I’m teetering on the border of insane.
“You could have faxed or emailed this shit.” I grab a pen, smirking as I do, knowing full well I needed to get my ass here and take care of business. I scratch my name on the doc for a building in New York we’ve invested in together and move across the room to stand in front of the window. The scenery is one of the best I’ve seen. It’s what happens around it that has me shaking my head.
This club in Georgia is a hell of a lot different from the one we own because it’s off the beaten path, about thirty miles south of Atlanta in the middle of a peach grove owned by Rocco’s family and unsuspecting to the thousands of people who come by every year to pick or buy peaches.
Most people drive up the long winding driveway and figure the big white farmhouse is where the owners live. It’s partially true, Rocco does live here. What they don’t realize is what goes down inside this house once the gates leading up to the place open for a whole other type of clientele. Shit goes down here that the Devil might even question.
Debauchery at its fullest.
Sex and heavy into the glorified BDSM on the inside, murder and chaos on the outside, I call it the Devil’s playground. There’s some fucked up shit that goes down on this four-hundred and eighty-seven acres. Stuff I’m not even privy to. I’d rather keep it that way. Might have done some things to prove I was trustful to get in with certain people who have my back, but the things they do here make what I’ve done look like child’s play.
It was one of the first clubs I ever walked into where the action was nothing but one big giant orgy. I jumped right into the lion’s den way before I was old enough to fuck. My mother telling me the more I practiced, the better I’d get. It was fucked up, but I did it because she would have forced it on Lane if I hadn’t. I feasted, and the women ate me up. Greedy pussy like you’ve never seen. That’s when I met Rocco. We became instant friends. Brothers for life and I’d take a bullet for him, same as he’d do me.
I used to love this place about as much as Seth does. After meeting Ellie, the thought of having her anywhere near any of my clubs is enough to make me go blind with fury.
“If we’d have talked on the phone, I wouldn’t be the friend you need, would I? Do you want to talk about Ellie or Shadow first?” Rocco hands me a drink and takes a seat in front of the blacked out windows surrounding the main room of the club.
My anger and hatred grow more significant as the thought of Shadow becoming a free man sticks me in one hell of a place. Not like I can stand outside a federal prison and blow his head off the minute he passes through the gate. That isn’t how prisoners are released anymore. When the time comes, the rapist could be sitting in the back seat of any car pulling out of there. Following him isn’t an option either. He might be bat shit crazy, but he knows I want him dead as much as he does me. Bastard has a plan, someone he wrapped around his dick while inside. Wish like fuck I could have found a way to have him killed while he slept in his cell. The thing was, my greedy twitchy hands wanted to snuff his life myself. It’s a mistake I’ll live with the rest of my life.
Not sure why the memory of a particular day while hanging with Shadow stirs a cold hollow memory inside of me. It just does.
“I’m going to own that girl, going to make her the queen to my whores. Teach them how to be elegant in whatever circumstance they are in. I want to move up in the world. High-class prostitutes.”
“Man, you’ll never own her.” A girl like Ellie should be worshipped to go along with that owning. Shadow doesn’t want that with her. No, he wants to ruin her. Surprised he hasn’t crept up on Ellie and messed her up before now.
Shadow’s eye twitches, I’d noticed he did that a lot when he talked about Ellie. The guy was getting on my last nerve with his crazy talk about a chick who obviously hated his guts. That’s the thing when you become obsessed with someone. You believe what you want to and to hell with everyone else. I’m beginning to wonder if my friend isn’t a borderline psychopath.
My mind was in a constant scramble to keep track of his every movement. I didn’t trust Shadow as far as I could spit, and every time we drove so he could scratch his itch and see Ellie, I had my trigger finger ready to shoot him in the back if he tried stepping out of
his car and going into Ellie’s house. Didn’t give as many fucks as I’d let slip with this crazy lunatic if killing a man with his back turned to me was wrong or not. The guy was straight up stalking the girl.
“I will, and I’ll kill every motherfucker who stands in my way.” He didn’t even smile, didn’t bat a lash, no emotion whatsoever.
Yeah, straight up psycho.
Flames of outrage lick me from all sides. Setting me ablaze, engulfing me in guilt and fury. No matter what happens between Ellie and me, I will never forgive myself for putting this life before hers. Walking away when I knew he’d take something from her one day.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and breathe.
“Tell me what you found out from your guy on the inside.” There’s venom in my voice, so much of it, I feel a new surge of emotions burning in my veins — a little more of that corruption and how Shadow can get people to do what he wants. Fucker is a smooth talking son of a bitch in the literal sense.
I take a seat next to Rocco, doing my best to remain calm, inhaling as I wait for him to answer me. I put him on finding out everything he could about Shadow over the years. Several years have gone by, and we don’t have shit. Now we need information more than ever to find out what’s running through his head.
“Not a damn thing. As always, Shadow’s remaining tight-lipped, walking the straight and narrow. My guy is doing life, and he still can’t get him to open up. You know as well as me Shadow doesn’t trust anyone. Not even that bitch of a sister of his. We know he won’t be staying with her. Whitney can’t even stand on her own two feet, let alone put his ass up. You made sure of that.”
True, I did. That woman is as crafty and as cunning as her brother. She’s spreading her legs for shelter, food, and water, that I’m sure.
“You let me take care of Shadow, and you worry about Ellie and everything else you got going on. If I find out anything, you’ll be the first to know. You have months, man, seems you should be focusing on taming the bitches before they get out of control.”
Motherfucker. Like daggers straight in my gut, his words cut deep.
“Had I known you’d guilt-tripped me, I’d never have come.”
“Guilt will ruin a man. If I recall, you saved my ass, Logan. I wouldn’t be sitting here watching my friend go all soft over a woman if you wouldn’t have talked me down. Not saying what you did with Ellie was wrong or right. Knowing you as I do, if you hadn't run into her, you would have stayed away and made sure she stayed safe for the rest of her life. I’m not going to sit here and say you messed up with her, not after what went down between us a few years ago. You do it right, and having someone care in spite of the things you’ve done. Seeing beyond the flesh and looking inside, it’s the best feeling in the world. You slip, and she’ll be gone. That happens, and there’s no coming back from the hardness.”
I’m soft alright, everywhere except my dick, and it isn’t from the show happening below us. Not anymore.
The thought I’d be down there in the middle of it if it weren’t for Ellie doesn’t even stir my cock. The good I have waiting does. Ellie’s enough to make me comfortable as I watch an orgy like none other.
“I didn’t realize it was her at first. Kept hearing this faint laugh over the music. The minute I caught her eye, it knocked the air out of me. There’s a connection there, Rocco. I want it. I’ve never been hard up for a woman like I am her. It wasn’t part of the job to fuck women. I did it because I was a greedy man. I did it because I could. She knows who I am, but she doesn’t know half the shit I’ve done. From my first kiss with Ellie, it felt like more. I’m going to hurt her and yet, I can’t make myself stay away.” For a moment I’m afraid I’ve said something that will prompt Rocco to slip back in time, but as he said, I need his friendship, his advice even if it dredges up memories we’d both soon forget.
“It would be messed up if you went after her and continued fucking others. This is one of the instances where I don’t wish I were in your shoes. I can’t tell you what to do when it comes to opening up to her. It’s eating away at you. It’s going to rot you from the inside out and eat your conscience, the more you get to know her. We all have pasts, Logan. It’s what we learn from them that matters.”
And my past could cost me something I never knew I wanted.
“These women you’re talking about, if any of them come near Ellie, you let me know. No hesitation, man, you hear me? Bitches piss me off, give them the dick they go all territorial. If they cared, they’d be doing more than spreading their legs.” He laughs sarcastically. “They would dish out of kindness. They would show and not tell. Same as a man would. Nah, brother, I don’t have a heart when it comes to women who don’t give a fuck about anyone or thing except themselves.”
I exhale, doing my best to shutter my past down and think of a way to come clean to Ellie. The woman is someone I’m determined to keep.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Decisions.
They are going to be like flipping a coin, choosing one side or the other, all the while realizing no matter what side you choose, you’re going to lose.
Chapter 7
Ellie
“So, tell me, baby girl, this man on your mind, did you sleep with him?”
It’s a good thing I finished my water, or I’d have spit it all over the table from Renita’s blunt question.
I swallow and turn my head toward the window remembering how Logan basically said we were going to happen so convincingly it scares me. I want it though, at least I think I do. At least my body’s reaction to him does, but it’s more than that. There has to be, and it’s figuring that part out that’s as confusing to me as the effect he has on me.
I can’t seem to stop daydreaming about what my life could be like and the possibilities of a wonderful one if he were mine. That is if I can learn to trust the man.
“Isn’t that one of those for me to know and you do not ask kind of questions? How do you know it’s a man?” I shift to face her, forcing a laugh. That’s all we’ve been doing all night is giggling over nonsense. Tonight I needed it. Exhaustion has been weighing me down. I don’t think I’ve slept more than two hours straight since Logan’s party. I’m ready to crash.
“Mother’s intuition, Ellie.”
I tear up around the emotion filling my heart. Renita is the type of person to pick up on just about anything. It’s one of the many reasons why I love her so much.
Once I moved in with Renita, she kept Norah and me in fits and giggles. One of the many fond memories of my mother she kept instilled in me. It was Renita’s way of reminding that even though it hurt my mother was gone, it was good for my soul to keep her spirit alive inside of me by remembering to laugh. My mother always found a way to laugh and smile every day. Renita, she accomplished that and much more.
She’s irreplaceable.
Several times we’d laugh so hard we peed our pants. That made us break out in hysterics until our stomachs hurt. We’d dance and sing in the kitchen, each of us with wooden spoons in our hands belting out lyrics to eighties music, laughing back then was and still is the best medicine for the soul, and it’s the most freeing thing in the world there is to me.
I need to do it more often.
Renita keeps her eyes on the receipt she’s already signed in front of her, red cat-eye reading glasses nearly falling off the tip of her mousey little nose.
She looks ridiculous and couldn’t care less — adding on another reason why I love her.
Her lips quirk, a sure sign my fairy godmother knew the answer before she asked, expressing those curious eyes with a side eye indicating she wants me to spill my confession all over this table.
“You’ve been distracted these past few days. If this man hurts you, I’ll kick his ass. Simple as that. Men say they protect what’s theirs, well so do I. You’re mine in all the ways that count in here.” She places her hand over her big and caring heart. “I’m lucky to have you. You can talk to
me about anything, Ellie, I don’t need to remind you of that.”
If I weren’t happy over having her all to myself today, she’d have me bursting in tears.
I draw in a freeing breath, debating on how much to tell her. Too much will have her kicking Logan’s ass. Not enough and she’ll hound me just like her daughter.
There aren’t many people in this world like Renita. A woman who would have fought until the last breath left her lungs to get me out of the system. The woman gave me a family, hope, and love when I thought I had no one. I love her fiercely, and I wish I had it in me to tell her all about Logan. I can’t. Not until I have answers.
I want to share the news about Elizabeth with Renita too. Her death would have us laughing like two hyenas.
“I’m the lucky one, Renita. His name is Logan. We’ve just started seeing each other. He, um, owns the sex club where Eric works. It’s way past your bedtime, isn’t it?” I speak with a tease, lean in, whispering my next words, feeling a flush creep at my cheeks and doing my best not to spill the truth all over our table. “I did sleep with him. I’m not ashamed either. Do you think this is the place to talk about it?” I sigh, think back to the day when all I wanted to do was give up on finding a man who would make me feel something besides disdain for everyone I dated. What happened to me wasn’t their fault, and yet every time they touched me, I went home and showered.
I scrubbed until I was excruciatingly red and raw. There were times I split my skin open, and still, I kept on cleansing until blood pooled around my feet.
Funny how when I showered after leaving Logan’s, the last thing on my mind was erasing his scent. I still haven’t washed the dress I wore.
“Look at you trying to crack a joke about my age. And there’s nothing to feel ashamed about, Ellie. What you do is your business, no one else. We don’t have to talk about it at all if you don’t want to. I wanted to make sure you were okay, but…” She shoves a copy of the receipt and her glasses in her purse and lifts those caring eyes to mine. “That’s quite a leap for you. The man is a—”
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