by Nina Levine
Two cops come my way and start spitting words at me. Words that signal my arrest, but that I have trouble focussing on because the only thing I can focus on is the smug smile plastered across Mark Novak’s face.
“Dad, what’s going on?” Chelsea demands, but I know from the fear in her eyes that she knows exactly what’s going on.
Her father knows about us and is going down a dangerous path in order to keep us apart.
The only thing I can fucking hope for now is that Chelsea doesn’t cave and give him what he wants.
“Dad! Tell me what you’ve done!” she begs as he stares at me like he’s won a fucking war.
It’s that look that does it.
And the hysterical plea in my woman’s voice.
History is repeating itself.
This time, though, I won’t survive it.
I’ve given my heart to Chelsea this time. Every last piece of it. If she does what he wants, there’s no way my body will ever accept it back.
“Chelsea.” I demand her attention. “Don’t do anything, baby. Not until you speak to me again.”
She stares at me in silence.
“Chelsea! Promise me you won’t let him fucking bully you into shit this time.” When she doesn’t respond, I bark, “Fucking promise me!”
She blinks, and it’s in that hesitation that I fucking know.
She’s going to fucking annihilate me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Gunnar
3 months later
I stare at the guy lying dead at my feet before looking up and meeting Griff’s gaze. He didn’t give me strict instructions not to kill the motherfucker, but by the look on his face, he maybe should have.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “This complicates shit.”
“Why?” I shrug. “He wasn’t going to do what Moss wanted anyway.”
“He’s got a point,” J says.
“Yeah,” Griff agrees, “but I would have rather given Moss the opportunity to make this call. Now we have a fucking mess to clean up that we don’t have time for.” He checks his watch before looking at me again. “You and J wrap the body and clean the scene while I get the van. Work fast because we have another job to take care of tonight after we deal with this.”
I nod and get to work with J while Griff leaves to swap his bike for one of the club vans.
Forty minutes later, I’m a sweaty mess after cleaning up and getting the body ready to dispose of. October in Brisbane, in a house without air conditioning, is hell.
“You ready?” Griff asks when he arrives back.
J nods. “Yeah. Just give me a minute to finish wiping the room down.”
Griff and I load the body into the van while J does the room. My vice president is pissed at me, but he’s keeping it to himself. Griff’s patience always fucking astounds me.
“You should get it out,” I say as we close the back of the van.
He looks at me. “Get what out?”
“Your anger. I fucked up.”
He exhales. “Yeah, you did.” He pauses, watching me thoughtfully for a moment. “You’ve been fucking up a bit lately, brother. What’s going on?”
The last thing Griff wants to hear is the truth, so I don’t give it to him. “I’ve got a lot of family shit on my mind.” This isn’t a lie. I do have shit going on with my family.
“You need some time off to deal with that?”
“The last thing the club needs is me taking time off.”
“That’s the fucking truth, but what we really don’t fucking need are dead bodies when the cops are watching us like they are. So if you need the time, take it.”
J exits the house and joins us as I say, “I don’t need time off. I’ll get my shit together.”
Griff’s eyes bore into me. “Make sure you do.” He looks between J and me. “We’ll dump the body in the usual spot, and then we’ll need to stop off and see Moss so I can let him know what’s happened.”
Since the cops cracked down on the club three months ago, Griff prefers to discuss as much business as possible with our clients in person rather than over the phone. Especially any business that has to do with Dwayne Moss. We’ve been cleaning up his messes for years now, but his connections to Premier Novak caused the club to sever ties with him just after the crackdown. Somehow, though, he’s managed to worm his way back in, and here we are handling shit for him again. We’re just a lot more careful about how we do that now. This time he asked us to strong-arm some government official who has been blocking an approval Moss needs to help push his mine development ahead. Fuck knows how he’ll take the news the guy’s dead, but it can’t be a good look when one of the guys holding up a multi-billion-dollar mining project suddenly disappears.
Two hours later, we’re finished with the body and have made our way to Moss’s home.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” J mutters, staring at the house that’s lit up with a party. “The last thing we need is to be seen here.”
He’s right, there has to be hundreds of guests at this party.
“Moss told me to go around the back. He doesn’t want to be seen with us either,” Griff says.
Griff texts Moss to let him know we’ve arrived, and then we head around the back as directed. Moss’s home is like a huge fucking resort with multiple residences, two pools, a tennis court, landscaped gardens, and a pool house, which is where he meets us, motioning us in.
“I take it from the fact you’re here that we’ve had a hiccup?” Moss says, looking at Griff.
“That guy was never going to do what you want,” Griff says. “We sorted the problem permanently.”
Moss stares at Griff. “He’s dead?”
Griff nods.
“Fucking hell.” Moss rakes his fingers through his hair, looking anything but pleased. “I didn’t fucking ask you to kill the asshole. I asked you to—”
“You asked us to handle the situation. We fucking handled it,” Griff says darkly.
“No, you fucking screwed it up. This is going to cause me the kind of heat I don’t need.”
Griff steps forward and grabs a handful of Moss’s shirt before forcing him back against the wall. Pushing his face close to Moss’s, he says, “This is going to get you your fucking mine. All you need to do is stop fucking choking on your balls and have a little faith.” He lets him go. “A fucking thank you wouldn’t go astray either.”
Moss pulls an envelope from his suit jacket and shoves it at Griff. He opens his mouth to speak but is interrupted when Mark Novak joins us.
“Griff,” Novak says, walking our way. He’s talking to my VP, but his eyes are firmly on me.
Every fibre in my being tenses with hatred as I stare at the man I despise more than I know what to do with. I want to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze every last breath of life from him for what he’s done to me.
“Mason,” he says, fucking baiting me with that smug fucking smile of his.
Griff glances between Novak and me. He knows the history there and is rightfully concerned about what I might do. Stepping in, he says, “What the fuck are you doing here, Novak?” He also can’t stand the motherfucker, but is better able to control his emotions than me.
Novak continues watching me for a long moment before turning his gaze to Griff. “Who do you think you’re working for here?”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I say as my mind connects the dots right the fuck in front of me.
That smug smile of Novak’s grows. “That’s right, Mason. You’ll do what I say going forward.”
I jab my finger at him. “Like fucking hell I will.” I swing my face around to look at Griff. “We need to get the fuck out of here and never take another job from these assholes.”
Moss cuts in before Griff can respond. “That won’t be happening. Not when we’ve got a fucking dead body sitting between us.”
Novak’s brows lift. “A dead body?”
“Yeah,” Moss says. “Instead of threatening Ji
mmy, they killed him.”
Novak whistles low and looks at Griff. “It looks like your club will be doing my dirty work for a long time now.”
How Griff manages to keep his cool I don’t fucking know, but he does. “You’ve been trying to shut us down for three months, Novak, and now you want to work with us? I’m not buying it.”
“It seems I may have been hasty when I brought those laws in,” Novak says. “I think we can come to a compromise.”
Novak managed to push laws through when he discovered my relationship with his daughter. Laws that threatened to tear my club apart. I was arrested, along with six other club members on bullshit charges that didn’t land any of us in jail, but that fucked with us enough to be a constant reminder of what the state could do to us if they pushed the point. We’ve spent the last three months watching our back and being cautious as fuck in everything we do. I don’t know what Novak’s game is here, but it can’t be anything good.
“What kind of compromise?” Griff asks.
“The kind where you take care of my dirty work and I make sure your club stays safe.”
“That’s the kind of compromise my president will have to okay,” Griff says.
Novak nods. “I expect it is. You take it to him and get him to reach out.” His voice drops low and threatening when he adds, “The only acceptable answer is yes, though. Make sure you tell him that.”
Novak eyes me again before turning and exiting the pool house.
My fists clench by my side, itching like fuck to beat the hell out of him. One fucking day I will.
“I’ll be in touch tomorrow,” Moss says. “We’ve got a few things that need taking care of.”
Griff works his jaw but doesn’t respond. His ability to keep his mouth shut in times like this is why he’s the VP. The rest of us wouldn’t be able to fucking hold ourselves back.
I follow Griff and J out to where our bikes and van are parked down the street. I’ve almost reached my bike when I run into Joe fucking Hearst. He’s standing beside a limousine talking on his phone. When he sees me, he stills and trains his eyes on me in the same way mine are on him.
This fucking night just keeps getting worse.
My stride slows as I take in the man who has everything I ever wanted.
Jealousy claws at me in ways I never knew until he entered my life.
It’s eaten me alive for the past three months, but standing right in front of him is proving to be a whole new level of torment.
And then the limousine door opens and Chelsea exits, and my jealousy collides with hate in a shitshow of feelings I wish didn’t exist inside me.
Her eyes meet mine, and the entire world falls away as I stare at the woman I used to love.
“Mason.” My name falls from her lips in a hushed tone. It also falls by accident if the way her eyes instantly cut to her husband is anything to go by.
Joe’s lips pinch together as he reaches for her hand. I don’t miss the possessiveness in his action and struggle to take my eyes off her hand clasped tightly in his.
Fuck.
Forcing my attention from Chelsea back to what I’m doing, I stalk away from her and her fucking husband. No way can I afford to get tied up with her again. She made her decision three months ago and didn’t stop to look back at me once.
Chelsea Novak is fucking dead to me and I don’t ever intend to resurrect her.
2
Chelsea
“Friday night is the fundraiser dinner for the Brain Foundation. Robyn will organise a dress for you. Just make sure you’re available from six for an interview with Society One,” my husband says over lunch the day after we ran into Mason outside Dwayne Moss’s house. I’ve spent almost every minute since seeing Mason thinking about him, so I’m having trouble focussing on what Joe’s saying. Something he doesn’t fail to notice. “Chelsea, are you listening to me?”
My eyes snap to his. Joe doesn’t handle it well when I don’t give him my full attention. Usually I don’t care to give him what he wants, but my mind is all over the place today and I’m feeling highly strung. That’s making me do things out of character, like pandering to my husband. “Sorry, yes. Friday night. Robyn will get me a dress, and I have an interview at six.” I frown. “What’s the interview for?”
Joe’s lips purse together, a sign of his displeasure. “You really need to focus on what we’re trying to achieve here. Your father is preparing for re-election. This is a family interview.”
Of course.
Dad has given my husband a whole range of responsibilities going into this next election. One of them is handling the media. Essentially, he’s in charge of the spin, and he uses our family to achieve his and dad’s goals.
I finish eating the sandwich Joe’s assistant brought in and stand. “Right, got it. Friday night is all about playing happy fucking families.”
“Fuck, Chelsea, what’s with the attitude today?”
If Joe thinks this is attitude, he’s got a lot more to learn about me. But then again, we have only been married for a month, so there’s a whole lot of stuff he still has to discover about me. My fondness for throwing attitude when someone’s being an asshole is only one of those things.
I don’t bother to answer him. “I’m going to clean up and get going. I have a busy afternoon with clients ahead of me.”
“You need to think about quitting your job,” Joe says as I head towards his private bathroom. His office is practically a self-contained apartment with all its facilities. Maybe he’ll choose to use it as an apartment one day. A girl couldn’t be so lucky.
Shutting myself in the bathroom, I take a deep breath and rest my hands on the vanity.
You can do this.
You can do this.
You can do this.
I look at myself in the mirror, taking in the dark circles under my eyes.
I can’t fucking do this.
I need out.
Oh, my darling, there is no out. You made your bed and now you shall lie in it.
The scream that’s been trapped inside me for the last three months sits in my throat, desperate to be heard by the world.
I suck in another deep breath.
When I made my choice, I decided I would never allow myself to engage in pity parties. I won’t ever be that girl who wallows in feeling sorry for herself. Shit happens, and we pick our path in life, and then we need to stick to it, standing strong every step of the way.
I retrieve my lipstick from my bag and reapply it. Russian Red. My favourite shade of red that always makes me feel able to take on the world.
I then tidy my hair and powder my face.
By the time I exit the bathroom, I’ve gathered myself enough to deal with my husband and his never-ending demands.
I’m surprised to find his office empty, but that doesn’t bother me. I told him I have a busy afternoon, so I have a reason for leaving without waiting for him to return.
I sling my bag over my shoulder, straighten my suit jacket, and exit Joe’s office.
I’m a few steps out of the office when I spot him.
Leather and jeans.
Attitude and ink.
Rolling in like the storm he is.
My breathing instantly slows.
Hell, my lungs stop working for a good three seconds.
Mason.
The man I never stopped loving even though all I want to feel for him now is hate for what he did to me after we broke up.
He’s coming my way, his shoulders tense like stone, his eyes hard, and his expression closed off in the way it has been since the day I made it clear to him we were done. That awful fateful day I wish I could rip from my soul and never remember again.
Somehow I keep putting one foot in front of the other and continue making my way towards the lift even though this is bringing me closer to Mason. Seeing him last night killed me, but what truly slayed me was the way he looked at me and then looked away and kept going, like seeing me didn’t affect him at a
ll. I want to do the same to him today, but the way I’m finding it hard to even breathe, let alone not look at him, tells me I’m going to fail.
His eyes don’t meet mine once.
He keeps them glued to something beyond me.
I know this because mine are on him.
It’s like I’m begging for pain. Like I want the ache that sits deep in my heart to be dragged up and given a beating. If I didn’t, I’d look straight ahead and keep walking. I surely wouldn’t stop as he walks straight past me, turn to him, and demand, “Really?”
His legs falter, and after he takes a couple more steps, he finally stops and faces me. “Really what?”
His words are so cold they stab into my heart like shards of ice. Add to that the way his dark eyes stare at me with burning hatred and my own feelings of hostility rage to the surface. Feelings that make no sense to me after loving Mason for so long.
Mason is the boy I’ve loved since forever. Our families run in the same social circle, and we grew up together. I remember our first day of year one. I was scared and Mason sat with me and made sure I was okay. He looked out for me from that day on, keeping bullies like Samuel Hash away. In grade seven, when Samuel made fun of my chest still being flat, Mason got in a fight with him to shut him up. In grade ten, when Samuel spread lies about me sucking his dick on school camp (because I’d rejected him and he wanted to humiliate me like I’d apparently humiliated him), Mason once again got in a fight with him. And then when I was sixteen and he discovered my father hit me sometimes, he took on the role of my protector in a whole new way.
I’d planned to tell him I loved him when I was seventeen, but that plan went out the window the night Mason and I were at a party that got busted by the cops for drugs. Neither of us were found with drugs, but the publicity wasn’t great for my father at a time when he was getting everything in line to one day run for premier. When my father threatened to ruin Mason after that party, I knew he meant it, so I’d done the only thing I thought I could do: I cut all ties to the boy I loved and pretended I didn’t want him in my life anymore. I’ll never forget the hurt in Mason’s eyes every time we passed each other at school after that. Most people would have only seen hate, but I knew it was hurt that sat deeper and more keenly.