by Snow,Jenika
Her heart hurt something fierce.
“But I’ll never be that guy, Lila.” His voice hardened. “I’ll never be the man that was supposed to be in your life.”
She shook her head, the despair filling her coming on so strong she couldn’t breathe. “How can you say that after what we just did, after what we just told each other?”
She didn’t want to hear this from him. What they’d just shared, the fact they’d finally admitted they loved each other, seemed to come crashing down. She knew this wouldn’t end well, not with the vibes Wrath sent off, the coldness coming from him, and the fact he looked so hard and … uncomfortable.
He turned around, facing her fully, and the darkness in his eyes pierced right through her. She grabbed the sheet and pulled it up to her chest, hating this feeling that suddenly surrounded her.
“You’re special, and being with me, having that sweet little girl in my life, would only fucking ruin you both.” He reached out to cup her cheek, but she moved away, her emotions failing her. She was upset, angry, and wanted nothing more than to slap some sense into Wrath.
“What exactly are you trying to say, Wrath?”
Oh, she had a pretty good idea, a sickening feeling, but if he was going there with her then he needed to have the balls to say he didn’t want to be with her.
“You know what it means,” he said, sounding almost defeated.
“You’re in love with me, I’m in love with you, and we just had sex.” Her throat threatened to close again. She stared at him, saw the hardness covering him, a permanent fixture on the man he was. Lila had had a feeling telling him how she felt would have blown up in her face. But then he’d reciprocated those emotions, and she’d had hope that they could be together, that things had finally fallen into place.
“Lila—”
“Just stop.” No, she couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. “If you don’t want to be with me then be a man and tell me so. Don’t blame your upbringing, or what you do in life as an excuse.” She was all but shaking with her anger. “We’ve all had shitty lives at some point, Wrath, and Tank isn’t exactly a choirboy in his MC.” She shook her head. “You don’t get to decide what’s good for me.”
A moment of silence passed, and then she saw the anger morph his face. She wasn’t afraid of him, but whatever he was feeling right now, whatever was happening, was not good.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said in a low, dangerous voice.
“I know what I feel. I know that you want me. We can be together finally.”
He stared at her for long seconds, and then he was off the bed and dressed in a matter of seconds. He grabbed her clothes, tossed them at her, and barked out, “Get dressed, Lila.”
“What?” she stuttered out.
“I want to show you something,” he said in a hard, cold voice.
She didn’t know what was going on, but the atmosphere changed, the awkwardness leveling out what they’d just done.
Whatever was about to happen was not something Lila wanted to be part of. She knew it would tarnish the moment they’d just shared, but she also knew there was no trying to stop it.
****
Something had snapped inside of him. Although Wrath knew how this would end, he hadn’t seen it going down this road.
He felt Lila’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look at her. Instead he tightened his hand on the steering wheel, shifted to accelerate, and took the corners of the road sharply.
But as he drove her to the warehouse, to where his true life and self were, he knew what he was about to show her would ruin everything.
And it would be good for her and Faye. Because having me in their lives will only ruin them.
“Wrath, can you tell me what’s going on?” she asked, but he picked up speed instead of answering. He saw her grip the door handle, and felt like such a motherfucker. “You’re scaring me.”
He looked at her then, just for a second, and wanted to tell her so badly that he was sorry, and that he’d be a better person for her. But the truth was he wasn’t a good man, and never would be. He didn’t want to lie to her, and telling her he’d change for her, that he’d stop the shit he did and give her that two story colonial and white picket fence, would have been a boldfaced lie.
“Good, Lila.” Her eyes widened at his words. He looked back at the road. “I should frighten you, because I’m one scary motherfucker. Your instincts know this.”
“Take me back. I want to go home, Wrath.” She had a kick in her voice, and he would have smiled at how proud he was that she wasn’t taking any shit. But he pushed all of that down.
Right now he needed to be the bastard everyone knew him to be.
“We’re here.” He pulled the car up to the gates that surrounded the warehouse.
“Where are we?” she asked and leaned forward in the seat to get a better look at the warehouse.
“My front.”
He tipped his chin to the guy guarding the gate. What others might not see was the assault rifle he had strapped to his side, or the fact there was a handful of other armed men surrounding the place, slightly hidden in the shadows.
Wrath glanced at Lila as the gate was opened. She was staring up at the warehouse, and he knew tonight was going to be pretty damn hard.
Tonight he’d have to push her away.
When he reached the front of the warehouse and cut the engine, he saw two men come out from the shadows at the sides of the building. They had dark fatigues on, night vision goggles covering their eyes, guns hanging from their shoulders, and earpieces strapped to them. They were like his own SWAT team, but then again he’d need to have them for the operation taking hold inside.
“What’s going on?” she asked again. He didn’t answer, just got out and went to the passenger side door. He opened it before she could, and took her hand in his. He wanted to pull her close, protect her from the ugliness he was about to show her, but she needed to see this.
She needed to know he couldn’t have her in his life. He couldn’t protect her when that fucker had hurt her and Bunny, and he knew being selfish and keeping her as his could end up hurting her.
“You need to see who I really am.” He looked at her. “You need to know the devil you’ve let inside of you.” He saw the surprise on her face, knew it was from his crass words, but he couldn’t sugarcoat any of this. She was confused, he could see it on her face, but she’d find out soon enough what he meant.
He all but pulled her into the building, kept his focus on the task at hand, and felt like a motherfucking bastard.
This has to be done. No matter how painful it is, I have to do this.
The meth lab, coke room, and the place where he did all the rest of the illegal shit were underneath the warehouse. It was an older building, rebuilt after the seventies, and a few renovations had been done. The underground portion had been in disarray, but Wrath had wanted it. It was perfect for his operation, especially with the passageways that were more secret because of the renovations.
She started tugging at his hand, but he didn’t stop until he was to the main door that led to the underground portion.
“You need to see this, Lila,” was all he said. He saw one of his men standing guard, and although it was impossible to know there was a door behind the large broiler system, Wrath wasn’t about to leave any entry or exit vulnerable.
He led her behind the machinery, opened the steel enforced door, and descended the stairs. Wrath found his pulse racing. There had only been a few times in his life he’d been afraid, and they always had to do with Lila’s protection.
She squeezed his hand, but Wrath knew it wasn’t because she wanted reassurance, but more so because she was scared. He hoped she was smart enough to be terrified of him and what he was going to show her.
At the bottom of the stairs there was another short hallway and another steel door. This one not only had a guard on the outside, but one on the inside as well. It also had a keypad, which only a handf
ul people he knew and trusted could access.
Wrath looked back at Lila, saw her eyes were wide, and her chest rising and falling rapidly.
Good, she needed that fear. It was her inner self, her instinct telling her this was bad.
Chapter Ten
Lila pulled her hand free of Wrath’s as soon as he opened the door at the bottom of the stairs. She was scared—not of Wrath—but of the fact he was so serious right now. He seemed unemotional, detached, and she hated seeing this side of him. Although she knew it was a part of him, because she’d seen this part of Wrath aimed at others, Lila hated that right now it was directed at her.
The door shut behind them with this loud, resounding click. She glanced behind her, saw another armed man standing beside the door, a powerful looking gun in his arms, and that fear she held went higher.
“If she wants out, let her,” Wrath said to the man by the door, and she was curious as to why he made a point to mention that. Did he think she’d leave after this? And if so why wouldn’t he be with her to tell the man himself at that time?
“This way,” Wrath said, his voice flat, cold.
She followed him down the almost sterile looking hallway. Where the actual warehouse was industrial, dirty and slightly rundown in appearance, down here, in the basement, everything was clean, with stainless steel doors lining either side of her. There were also severe looking locks on the doors, and exposed brick walls on either side of her.
“Where are we?”
She was greeted with silence.
“What is going on, Wrath?”
Again, silence met her. She clenched her jaw at the annoyance. He was obviously closed off from her, and she couldn’t understand why. They’d shared something so special just a short time ago. But now, this man in front of her was like a stranger.
No, not a stranger. He’s like the man you’ve seen for all these years, but this is now directed at you.
Then he stopped in front of a set of double doors, and she saw the way he clenched his jaw. He took a deep breath, keyed a code into the pad beside the handle, and a second later a lock disengaged. He pushed the door open and moved aside, obviously wanting her to go in first.
Looking at him as she walked forward, he wouldn’t make eye contact with her. This big, powerful man looked so … unsure and nervous all of a sudden. Something she’d never seen in him before.
She stopped right before stepping into the room, looking up at Wrath, and reached out, needing to touch him. But he stepped back, and when he did meet her stare it was cold.
“Look, Lila,” he said in that deep, husky, and demanding voice of his.
She finally turned her head and stared into the room. What she saw wasn’t something that was foreign, not when she’d been living with Spike and his gang. She’d been around drugs, guns, and a lot of violence.
But the operation Wrath had set up here was unlike anything she’d ever seen.
There were a total of four six-foot tables in the room, two on either side. The harsh lighting made everything in the room stand out in stark clarity. And the sterility of the room was a bit shocking. Everything was white.
The walls.
The flooring.
The tablecloths draped over the tables.
There were four people at each table. The women wore only white bras and underwear, and the men were in nothing but formfitting boxer shorts. There were four guards stationed around the room, one in each corner, their guns dark, intimidating.
No one stopped what they were doing: weighing cut cocaine and packaging it in clear plastic baggies. There were small transparent buckets on the tables, and each person weighed the bags, and then put them into the buckets.
She didn’t have to ask what was going on, because it was obvious.
Looking back at Wrath, Lila saw his focus was on her, but the expression on his face had her soul going frigid. It was like he might have been trying to gauge her reaction.
“You deal in drugs,” she said without making it a question. “You don’t think I knew how you were, or how Tank was back in the day? You don’t think I don’t know how my brother used to make ends meet for us when traditional jobs weren’t cutting it at putting food on the table?”
Was he trying to make her afraid? She knew Wrath, knew he was considered a “bad man”, but to her he was the love of her life.
His jaw clenched tightly, and she heard his teeth clash together.
“Come on,” he said with so much frustration and darkness in his voice she felt it deep inside of her.
She followed, hearing the door shut behind her, and the lock engage. He led her down the hallway again, stopped at another secured door, and unlocked it. He pushed the steel door open, glared at her, and tipped his chin for her to look inside.
She moved around the corner, and saw almost an identical set-up as the cocaine room. But this one was dealing with weed.
“It’s just pot,” she whispered. Maybe she was a fool, or numb to the horrors that others might see in this. But it was painfully clear Wrath was trying to shove his gritty life in her face.
He was trying to push her away.
But she loved him too much to care about this.
Maybe she was stupid, but it was the truth.
“Fucking hell, Lila,” he ground out, grabbed her hand, and pulled her down the hallway again. Their footsteps echoed off the walls, and she glanced at the armed men periodically stationed. They didn’t make eye contact, but instead stared straight ahead … like good, obedient soldiers.
When they got to the next room Wrath did the same unlock and door open process.
This one held guns.
The men who handled them were cleaning the dangerous pieces of machinery. The sounds of clicking as they took them apart and put them back together were loud. But before she could say anything, Wrath was pulling her down the hall again. They took a few turns, and when they stopped at the next door, this one seeming more advanced in the security detail, she knew this was where the major production was … whatever that production might be.
He did the whole unlock business, pulled her through the opening, but she saw it was another smaller, closed off room.
“Put this on,” he said gruffly, and handed her this heavy-duty looking facemask. It was then, remembering the shit Spike used to deal with, that Lila knew what was going on.
Once she had the mask on, and he had one on, as well, Wrath unlocked the next door, pulled her through, and that’s when she saw the meth lab that was in front of her. It was impressive, what with the equipment, the tanks, and the refrigerated section off to the side. There were four men in HAZMAT gear, and industrial style masks. They didn’t pay attention to Wrath and Lila as they carried trays of hardened crystal to another section of the room.
“Why are you showing me all of this?” she asked, although she knew the answer. Wrath stood behind her. Lila felt his body heat, felt his presence as if it were her own. When he didn’t answer she turned around. With the mask he wore, as well, she could only see his eyes. They were dark, haunted. She whispered the question again, and watched as he closed his eyes, clearly struggling.
All her life she’d seen Wrath as nothing but strong, solid in his reserve. He never showed weakness, never let anyone in. Even with Tank and her, Wrath was also this mountain of reserve.
When he opened his eyes again gone was the haunted expression, and in its place was this frigid stare. “I needed you to see who I really am,” he finally said.
“I know who you really are,” she said and lifted her arm to place her hand on his chest. But he stepped out of the way and shook his head.
“I am a fucking drug dealer, sell guns to criminals, and have no issues killing people to make my point known.”
“You’re the man I love, the one who would protect me at all costs, and the one who has protected me. I know that, Wrath, and nothing you can say would change how I feel.” Even though she couldn’t see the lower half of his face because of the ma
sk she could assume he was clenching his teeth together.
When he turned to leave she followed. She found herself following him down the same hallway, and in the same direction they’d originally come. He stepped into an office, but it was barren aside from a couple of chairs, and a few miscellaneous things strewn across the top of the wooden desk.
He wouldn’t look at her, and the sight of his big, muscular back took up her entire view. He finally turned and faced her.
“Wrath, talk to me.”
“I can’t be with you, Lila,” he finally said after long seconds of silence. “I can’t have you in my life. You need to leave, find a nice man to take care of you and Faye, and be happy.”
What the hell?
Although he’d shown her all of the grittiness of his life, she still wanted him. She still loved him deeply. The things he’d said to her when he’d been deep in her body, the way he’d touched her, loved her, made all of that now seem weird, strained.
“You and I can’t happen.”
She bit her tongue, not wanting to lash out, but also wanting him to realize that she wasn’t made of glass.
“I’ve been through hell, Wrath. I won’t break.”
“I can’t fucking be with you, Lila,” he shouted.
“Give me a valid fucking reason,” she shouted back.
His jaw was clenched, his stance unyielding. “My reason is you and I won’t work out. You’re better off, and so am I, if you’re not in my life.”
She didn’t want to cry, but dammit, she couldn’t help it. “Liar,” she whispered.
“It’s the motherfucking truth,” he gritted out.
“Why are you doing this?” Lila hated that she was crying, but the tears were from anger, from her emotional struggle that the man she loved was acting so callous to her.
“Lila, you need to just get the fuck out of my life. Believe me, it’s for the best.”
She shook her head, not sure what she was disagreeing with, but so damn pissed she was shaking. “Why in the hell are you saying this shit to me?” She wiped away at her tears angrily. “Just hours ago you were saying things to me, things that I said back to you. I love you, Wrath, and you love me.”