She stiffened, staring at him dazedly. “Why? Why would you betray your brothers?”
“Because Joker was about to do something terrible,” he said. “He was going to hand over some of the brothers to the Raptors. I overheard him talkin’ about it.”
She backed further away from him, eventually hitting the wall behind her. “What the hell are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he send them to be slaughtered?”
Fuck. He had to tell her everything, or she wouldn’t believe him. “Because he was in love,” he muttered.
“Yeah!” she shouted. “With me, and our boys, and the life we had together here in this house.”
“No, he fell for someone else. I’m sorry, Eddie, but it’s true.”
“No.” She winced, the corners of her mouth turning down. Then, placed a hand on her heart. “No, I don’t believe you. He would never to do that to or his boys. He loved us.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“He would never—”
“He did,” Captain said, firmly, trying to make her understand. “He fell for Loretta Beauregard.”
“Loretta,” she whispered. Then, cupped her hands around her ears, trying to block his voice out. “No! You’re lying. You have to be lying.”
“Listen to me, Eddie. Her father was a Raptor, that’s how the Beauregards and the Raptors started to business together in the first place. And to prove his loyalty, and that he’d actually turned his back on the Horsemen, the Raptors demanded Joker sacrifice some of his own brothers. He had to do it to prove he was worthy of her.”
“Shut up!” she shouted at him. “Just shut up. He loved me. He would never cheat on me and he’d never sell out his brothers.”
He tried to touch her, but she slapped his hands away.
“Get out!” she hissed at him. “Get out and never come back here.”
“Can’t we at least talk about this?”
“No! Don’t say another word. Get out!” she screamed.
Captain swallowed the lump in his throat. His instinct was to comfort her, she was losing it, but he was the last person she’d let near her. “Okay, I’m going. I’ll send Shepherd over to check on you.” She shouldn’t be alone with this kind of news and she needed a bodyguard. Someone should stay with her. “Goodnight, Eddie.”
“Goodbye, Captain.”
There was a finality in those words he couldn’t deny. And it was exactly what he deserve— hatred, rejection. This night had been coming for a long time. Slowly, he walked outside to his bike, started it up, and took off for the lonely ride home.
Chapter Seventeen
Joker didn’t do it.
No, he couldn’t do it. Captain made this shit up. There’s no way Joker could be screwing around on her and she wouldn’t know, right? No way. He wouldn’t do that to her, or their family. Or to his club.
But what if she was wrong? The thought stopped her cold.
Captain wasn’t one for tall tales. Unlike most of the brothers, he didn’t sit around telling stories about guys he’d fought or women he’d loved and left. So where did this crazy shit come from? A misunderstanding?
It didn’t make sense! None of it.
Since she’d ordered him out of her house, she’d been pacing, muttering to herself, and she couldn’t calm down. If she were being honest, she had to admit something about his accusation hit home, bothered her on some level. Chilled her.
Admittedly, she didn’t really see Joker the way he’d actually been anymore. He’d died and she’d granted him sainthood in her own mind. It was only natural, because he’d been murdered. She only remembered the good things about him as a way of honoring his memory.
But Joker had been a man, not a saint.
They’d gotten married when they were kids. Hell, the first year was rough. Marriage was about putting the other person first and they’d both been young and selfish. She’d always known she wanted to be a mother. She’d been iffy on the wife part, but motherhood always suited her. Not so with Joker. He’d gone along, but he hadn’t been excited about fatherhood. On some level, maybe he’d never wanted to grow up, have the responsibilities of a wife and children, a mortgage, and all those trappings of the adult world. But they’d made it work somehow. Eddie had just stepped up and taken on the caretaking responsibilities, while Joker had been the provider.
Captain had raised some questions she had to answer and she needed to get in touch with some bad memories. She cracked open a bottle of Maker’s Mark. Maybe that would help her get closer to Joker. She poured herself a couple of fingers and sprawled on the couch, searching her mind for clues.
But nothing came.
She downed the shots and poured a couple more. The warmth of the liquor settled into her belly, spread through her limbs like liquid fire, relaxing her a bit and taking the edge off. Eddie took a few sips and then lay down again, closed her eyes and tried to conjure an image of Joker in her mind.
And when she opened them again, she saw him, sitting on the coffee table across from her.
“Hey there,” she said, rolling over on her side.
“Hey, sweetness.” He took a sip of the bourbon. “Damn, that’s good.” His eyes flicked to her. “But you didn’t just invite me over for a drink. What’s going on?”
True to form, she launched right into it, without preamble. “Were you screwing around on me?”
Eddie remembered a lot of missing hours from those times. Both during the day and night. Of course, he’d been running drugs and guns, too. It wasn’t like any of the brothers kept banking hours.
“What do you think?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.
That was the problem with projections. They were infuriatingly rhetorical, non-existent bastards. This was pointless! She shook her head and his image disappeared from her mind.
She thought back to that wild time, centered herself.
And she could only conclude there were signs. Sometimes, the phone would ring and he’d lunge for it before she had a chance to answer it. If it were club business, he would have taken the call at one of the payphones in town. No cells phones in the eighties and they never discussed anything at home, in case of a wiretap.
And right before he went to prison, he’d started to dress better. He’d bought new jeans, new shirts, and she usually had to drag his ass to the store. And he’d cut his hair, shaved those god-awful sideburns she’d bugged him about for months.
Okay. Yeah, so maybe he’d been fucking someone else.
And yes, it bothered her.
Even though, he’d been dead for years. No woman wanted to think about her husband sleeping with another woman, but fucking a girl and falling for her were two different things, at least as far as men were concerned. What really crawled under her skin? Captain said Joker was going to leave her for Loretta, so he’d been in love with her.
And that was devastating.
“Oh my God,” she said. She thought about the fact that Loretta’s husband had killed her for a supposed infidelity. Joker must have been the other man!
She quickly poured herself another couple shots and downed them. Then, pulled an afghan from the back of the sofa over her shoulders. She suddenly felt cold inside. All this time, she’d been mourning a man who had intended to abandon her and their children.
And she had no fucking clue how to handle it.
***
I need my head examined.
He’d been carrying the burden for years and he’d finally told someone. Sure, now he had a whole new problem. Namely, the club. But he didn’t have to choke on the guilt anymore.
He felt free somehow. A weight had been lifted.
But it had cost Eddie dearly. The look on her face…fuck.
Captain grabbed his cell and pulled up Shep’s number in his contact list. He hit the green button and the VP answered on the second ring.
“What’s up, Cap?”
“I need you to go over to Eddie’s place and check on he
r.” He doubted she’d say anything to his VP. But even if she did, Shep would make sure he got a fair shake. Right now, he was more worried about her than himself.
Shep’s voice was urgent. “What happened? Did Beauregard do something? She wasn’t at Perdition today and she never takes time off.”
“No. Nothing like that,” he said quickly. “She’s having a shitty day and could use a friend.”
“And you aren’t going over?”
He heaved a sigh. “No, because I’m not welcome there right now.”
“What the fuck did you do?” Shep asked.
He could hear the jingle of the keys on the line. He had to tread lightly, tell enough of the truth to be believable, but not too much. He still had to see Lex before he turned himself in. “I told her about Joker fooling around on her back in the day.”
While Joker had been serious about Loretta, he’d been known to fuck a hellion or two when the urge struck him. It’d been mostly blow jobs in the back room of their clubhouse at the time, according to club gossip. Shep had asked him about it not long after he’d become VP and he’d confirmed the rumors.
“Why the fuck would you do that?” He could hear a couple of muttered expletives and the sound of wind bracketing the phone’s microphone, making whistling noises.
“Look, I’m not explaining my personal life to you. I need you to go over there and make sure she’s okay.”
“Yeah, well, now that I’m goin’ over there to be a shoulder to cry on, because you done fucked up, you can see how I’d feel like I’m a part of your personal life.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed for patience. “Just get over there! Now!”
“On my way, Cap.”
He flipped the phone shut. Now, he had to see Lex and somehow say goodbye.
***
Eddie sat on the porch swing with an open mason jar of peach moonshine from the fridge. This particular batch she’d doctored up especially for home use. She’d added a touch of cinnamon, a little honey, and some nutmeg to the freshly squeezed peach juice she’d cooked down until was syrupy.
She’d been saving the shine for a special occasion and finding out your dead husband had been fucking a mobster’s wife felt like an occasion. Maybe not a special one, but an occasion nonetheless.
Plus, finding out your new love interest had been a rat back in the day…well, let’s just say tonight called for a lot of alcohol. The only good thing to come out of this was, she wasn’t scared of Beauregard or his threats anymore. Nothing could compare to this kind of pain.
She was in the grips of a much-needed mental breakdown. She’d been on the verge of one before when her husband had been convicted, but she’d held it together. This time, she didn’t have small children to mind, her home was paid for, and the business was covered.
And she was going to take this time to lose her shit.
The way she figured it, she was long overdue. She still didn’t know what to think, what to feel. All of this time she’d hated Viper, blamed him for bringing this shit storm down on all of their heads, but it hadn’t been him. Sure, he’d rolled over for the feds and started spilling secrets, but none of this would have gone down if Captain hadn’t set everything in motion.
Damn, if her momma could see her now.
Her mother been more interested in appearances than what was actually going on in her marriage. She’d show up to church on Sundays, freshly scrubbed and smilin’ at all the folks, to let them know nothin’ got her down. Not even the vicious rumors.
Who knew she’d end up in a sham of a marriage like her parents?
Now, that she knew, it was glaringly obvious. Why the hell had she seen it?
Maybe she hadn’t wanted to.
At the time, she and Joker hadn’t had sex in weeks, but she’d chalked that up to both of them being exhausted. They had two small children and he worked long hours doing God knows what. Both of them were stressed out and they’d had several screaming matches, but it wasn’t unusual.
Both she and Joker were passionate people and together they were even more volatile. It never, ever got physical, but they’d gotten in each other’s face more than once, screaming, cursing, and generally having it out. Sometimes, with dishes flying. It wasn’t the healthiest thing, ever, but she thought they always got things out in the open.
Apparently, she’d been wrong.
The roar of an engine caught her attention, pulled her way from the dark thoughts. A familiar bike coasted up the driveway.
“Shep! What are you doing here?!” Eddie called as he hopped off.
He swung his helmet from the handlebars and then sprinted up the stairs. “Captain said you could use some company tonight.”
She took a swig of ‘shine. “Did he? That’s nice of him. Yeah, Captain’s real nice,” she said. “I love it when someone drops a bomb on me, and explodes my life into fucking smithereens.”
Rationally, she knew she was blaming him for everything. Yeah, he was on the line for the RICO shit, but ee wasn’t the one who’d cheated on her and kept it to himself. But part of her wished he’d never told her. She could’ve gone to the grave not knowing about Joker’s betrayal.
He let out a whistle. “That bad, huh?”
“He didn’t tell you, then?” she said, narrowing her eyes.
Shep shook his head. “Not everythin’.”
That made sense. If Captain had told the brothers, they’d have hauled him off to the clubhouse by now. For now, she’d hold her tongue. He deserved the chance to come clean on his own.
And she honestly couldn’t deal with all of it right now. She wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.
“He gave me the big picture.” He sat down beside her and lit a menthol. She passed him the ‘shine and he took a sip. “Um, do you have an engagement ring on your finger?” Shep asked, eying her hand.
She scowled at him. “Shut up. And I don’t want to discuss it.” Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to her to take the damned thing off. And she really didn’t want to fucking analyze that right now either.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, firing off a salute.
“This has got to be one of the shittiest nights ever and Shepherd? I’ve had some shitty ones,” she said, slurring a little bit. The moonshine and bourbon had pleasantly anesthetized from the brunt of the pain. “I mean really bad, stinky nights.” Eddie hiccupped. “But this one is a real fucking turd.”
He laughed. “Walk me through what happened.”
She gave him the nutshell version, carefully omitting the FBI portion of the tale. And then, to conclude, she said, “So, Joker was a slut.”
“I see. And he was slutty with who?” he asked carefully.
“Loretta Beauregard,” she said as she absently rubbed the back of her wrist. She’d actually gotten that asshole’s name tattooed on her body and now it felt like a fucking brand. She made a mental note to have it removed. “Joker was literally in fucking bed with the fucking Beauregards.” She sighed. “My slutty husband and his mafia whore were screwing before he went on the inside.” Her face crumpled. “But wait. It gets worse. They were in love!”
“What the fuck?” Shep asked. “How did Captain know it wasn’t a fuck buddy thing?”
Yet another omission. “Yeah, Captain, uh, overheard them on the phone. Apparently, he wanted to leave me for her. He was going to walk away from me and the boys.”
“What a dickhead. And how does that work? They’d be on the run from the Dixie Mafia?” Shepherd blew out a smoke ring and leaned back in the swing.
“Damn straight.” Yeah, the sane, rational Eddie was clearly on vacation right now. She’d never felt like this before. Dangerous. Untethered. “Maybe they had some kind of stupid, star-crossed Romeo and Juliet thing.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad he’s dead. If he were alive, I’d kill the bastard, after cutting his balls off.”
Yeah, that sounded really good to her right now. “You know what we should do?” she said
, grabbing him by the lapels, with a sudden burst of energy. “We should go to the graveyard so I can yell at Joker.”
The VP shook his head and then carefully uncurled her fingers from the leather. “Beauregard’s got a hard-on for you, the fucking feds are swarming all over Hell like locusts, and you want to let your crazy out in a boneyard? Let me see…no ma’am, no ham, no turkey.”
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I need to yell at the bastard and I can’t because he’s dead. How unfair is that shit?!” She took a long drink of the ‘shine. She could barely taste the alcohol now and everything was a bit hazy, almost swirly.
“Yeah, it sucks the big one. But sorry. No can do.”
She snorted. “Kill joy.”
“It’s my middle name, actually.” He smirked. “What’s yours? Crazy?”
Eddie laughed.
She tried to think of how her life might be different if she’d known. “Mine should be Martyr. Or maybe I made Joker into one. Honey, I practically nailed him to the cross. I worshipped the idea of him for years. My poor dead, brave husband.” She tried to laugh, but her throat was too sore. “He certainly didn’t mind using me for money in prison or fucking me in a government-issued trailer during conjugal visits. How disgusting is that shit?”
He flinched. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “When did he stop loving me? I don’t understand. I never thought he’d fuck around on me.”
Eddie couldn’t wrap her head around it. At one time, they’d been desperately in love. Early on, even being separated small amounts of time felt like agony. How do you go from love to indifference?
“I don’t know, Eddie. I honestly don’t.”
“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”
“And this is probably a bad time to tell you, but I heard rumors from back in the day.”
She stilled. “What kind of fucking rumors?”
“The hellion variety. Apparently, Joker liked a blow job now and then.”
“Oh, fuck that.” She slapped her palms against her thighs. “I can’t even fucking deal with that now. I hope you’re hungry, because I feel like baking.” She gestured to the door.
Devil May Care (Four Horsemen MC Book 4) Page 18