I ground my teeth as agony speared me in the chest.
Holy fuck, it hurt.
It hurt so fucking bad.
More than when she'd made the suggestion in the first place. More than when I'd sunk my dick into a pussy I didn't even want, but had used to alleviate some of my frustrations at a situation I hadn't even proposed.
I couldn't stop myself from sinking down into a crouch, because suddenly, the world just felt like it was all too much, and my life was crashing in around me without me even being able to do anything about it.
"Storm, go to her, man. Stop this shit."
Link's earnestness rang true then. He'd been trying to help. All along, that had been his intent.
But...
"It's too late for that," I rasped.
"It's never too late, and if you don't do something now, then you're a bigger fucking asshole than I already thought." From being earnest to being disgusted, it hadn't taken much to morph Link's opinion.
But I ignored it and him and just focused on the perspiration-dotted mat around the punchbag Nyx had been reaming a new one. The same urge hit me.
Nyx had been working off his frustrations of feelings he didn't understand. I knew my brother. Nyx and emotions weren't alien, but where a woman was concerned, they were. He was used to saving their butts, keeping them secured and out of danger, but that was easy. He didn't have to care about the individual woman. Didn't need to think about her hopes and dreams, her wants and needs.
He could be selfish.
Could lock himself down and never let anyone in.
But, for all the pain in the ass that she was, Giulia wasn't like that.
I knew because I knew what it felt like to fall. I knew the signs, and I was seeing them in Nyx and Giulia. In the sniping and the bitching, in the glares and hot stares when they didn't think the other was looking.
That had been me and Keira back in the day. Back before it had all gone wrong.
Heart in my throat, I got my equilibrium back, but the second I could stand without falling over, I toddled over to the punch bag on shaky legs and, ignoring the weakness in my bones, beat the shit out of the equipment.
It didn't help, but it was better than hunting down the fucker Keira was trying to replace me with and gutting him.
❖
GIULIA
FUCK, I hated this place.
I really, truly did.
It was everything I remembered loving as a kid, but it was somehow worse as an adult.
As a little girl, it had been somewhere to escape my mom and dad’s constant arguing. There’d been a play area, and I’d been able to hang around with my friends all the time.
As a woman, I just saw everything my mom had despised about the clubhouse, and understood, totally, why she’d left. Seeing my brothers get absorbed in everything, exactly like my father, made me glad Mom couldn’t see them, and it made me regret all the times I’d given her shit for making us leave.
Nyx had been spot on.
I had been a pain in the ass to my mom. I’d railed and rebelled and given her nothing but shit. Fuck, no wonder...
My throat closed as I thought about her heart attack. About how we’d argued the day before, and I’d slammed the fucking phone down on her like the bitch I was.
My last words to my mom were hateful, and there was no getting away from that. No getting over it either.
I pulled in a breath because I felt like I was suffocating, felt like I couldn’t get any air into my lungs, and then, he was there.
Awkward, but there.
I wanted to pull back, jerk out of his hold. I’d heard him head out of the kitchen, had thought I had some privacy, but no. He was there. The scent of him was overwhelming.
Sure, it was sweat, but it was clean sweat. And, unlike a lot of the bastards around here, he didn’t stink of the beer that was seeping out of his pores in the aftermath of a heavy drinking session the night before.
When his arm slipped around my shoulders, I didn’t think anything of turning into him. I didn’t know why, wasn’t even sure why I hadn’t slammed my foot into his instep... okay, so I knew.
Because it was Nyx.
I knew it without having to look.
Anyone else, and I’d have done worse than slam my heel into their instep. I’d have kneed them in the fucking balls.
But...
Nyx...
He was the one who tended to come into the kitchen when the harpies from hell were whimpering over my attacks. He never shouted at me, just shot me an impatient glare, and usually sided with me in the end. He called me out on my shit, but he never got nasty. Not even when I talked crap and gave him more snark than I should.
There was something about him.
Something hot, sure, but more than that. Something that I liked.
He was a dick.
I’d seen his cock already because that fucking Cammie slut was always chewing on it like a dog with a goddamn bone, and he was mean and snarled a lot, but— But what?
I didn’t know, but it didn’t stop me from turning into him, sweat be damned, and pressing my face into the tee he’d donned since he’d left the kitchen the first time. I appreciated the gesture, but when my tears soaked into the fabric, I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t reply. I didn’t expect him to. He was a man of few words, and that was something I’d seen from not just watching him around the place, but also from his forays into the kitchen too.
He got more done with a glare than most guys did with a yell, and I appreciated that. After a childhood of hearing my parents shout at one another, I hated guys who yelled. It was an instant red card to a boyfriend who, during a fight, raised his voice.
I shuddered, thinking about how cruel I was with words because of that. I didn’t even raise the volume when I wanted to be cutting. I just said the meanest shit.
“Mom died thinking I hated her,” I murmured, not wanting to explain, and also not wanting him to think I was a pussy.
I got the vibe that he appreciated how strong I was, and sure, I was, but I was a pathetic priss too sometimes.
“We’d argued the day before she had her heart attack, and—”
“She didn’t die thinking you hated her,” he replied, his voice gravelly but free from expression. Hell, his entire being was free from expression. He wasn’t even holding me. Not really. He was standing there and letting me drape myself over him.
And, God help me, I appreciated that he was letting me be his scarf, because I was literally clinging to his neck.
I’d be ashamed tomorrow, as it was, I could hear my mom’s voice in my ear, and I just felt like a bitch.
“How do you know that?” I whispered.
“Because when she was here, Lizzie did nothing but raise hell. I highly doubt that changed in death.”
“We were mean to each other,” I admitted.
“What about?” He hesitated. “You don’t have to tell me that.”
I sensed he regretted his curiosity getting the better of him, and because he regretted it, and being the contrary bitch that I was, I muttered, “She was giving me shit.”
“About what?”
“She said by my age, she had a man and my brothers.”
He snorted. “That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” I pulled back so I could scowl at him. “This isn’t nineteen eighty-five. A woman doesn’t have to be shackled at fucking eighteen to feel like she’s hit the peak of her life.”