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Chapter Sixteen

Griffin’s Beach Venom

S tanding against the wall outside the Chapel, Venom watches Undertaker. He knows firsthand what it feels like to learn someone he loves was brutally murdered. Even more, he knows and understands the drive for revenge, and he’ll be here for whatever Undertaker needs.

The way Undertaker looked stoic, even as his hands shook, worried Venom. The reaction came across as though his current love was targeted, not someone from his past. Which will only create problems for him.

“What’s wrong?” Jamie asks, hurrying over to her boyfriend.

She’s a larger woman, but she’s attractive. A little young for Undertaker, but as long as they’re happy, who’s he to judge? And it’s clear she’s in love with the giant.

Love looks good on her. There’s a different air about her than the first time she stepped foot in this clubhouse.

She’s not Venom’s type, but he can appreciate a beautiful woman. His type comes in the form of a round-faced brunette who shattered his heart into a million pieces.

Marnie Banks is everything Venom never knew he wanted until the day he met her.

If he’s honest with himself, which he does his best to avoid these days, she still is everything he wants.

But hearing her agree with her father that he’s not good enough caused him more pain than anyone else has ever managed to inflict before.

Years ago, he would have agreed he wasn’t good for her. Hell, he probably still will, but he’s not nothing. He doesn’t believe that anymore. He has something to offer, and the right woman will see it and accept him.

I may not be for everyone, but I’m not worthless. Not anymore. I just wish I could trust that she truly believes that now.

“I found out some bad news,” Undertaker tells Jamie.

Venom wonders how he plans to tell his girlfriend that the woman he’s still in love with was murdered. The woman he’s not sure Jamie knows about.

“What?”

He runs his hand over his hair. “You can’t say anything to anyone.”

“I barely talk to the people who are in here, let alone outside of here. Even at work, the most personal conversation topics touched revolve around food. Mostly what was made the night before.”

“You remember my ex? Aaron’s sister?”

Ah, so he has told her. That’s something.

“Nina, right?”

“She was the most recent victim they found at the gas station.”

Her jaw drops. “How… Are you sure? I mean, he’s called the De-Identifier—”

“Her tattoo. There’s enough intact to know that it matches mine.”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

He looks lost, and Venom feels terrible for him. When Venom learned his sister had been murdered by her crazed ex-boyfriend, he went through the various states of feeling nothing but pure hatred to feeling so numb he didn’t know how he managed to move.

It took him years to find the asshole who hurt his little sister, but he finally got his revenge.

As much as he thought taking the man’s life would ease the pain in Venom, it was only momentarily sidelined.

He felt vindicated, but even as he watched his sister’s killer take his last breath, he knew it wouldn’t bring Samantha back.

Nothing would, and he had to learn how to move on.

“Hey, Undertaker,” Brock says. “Any chance you still have a photo of Nina? I can run it through my recognition programs to see if I can find her on any of the surveillance we have access to.”

Pulling out his phone, Undertaker sends a text to Brock quickly. “There you go.”

“How long has it been since you last saw her?”

“Just over thirteen years.”

The look of shock on Jamie’s face matches the way Venom feels. The picture was right there and readily available. No searching needed for someone he hasn’t seen in thirteen years.

Buddy, I don’t think this will end well for you tonight.

“Let’s go talk in my apartment,” Undertaker says.

She says nothing but follows. Whatever fun time he’d been looking forward to tonight isn’t happening anymore. Especially if they’re staying here.

“I know he doesn’t date much,” Brock says, catching Venom’s eye, “but that should’ve taken a lot longer to find, right? Especially with his girl standing right there.”

“Read my mind. I don’t think he’s getting lucky tonight.”

Marnie Banks walks into the clubhouse, and Venom hates the butterflies that kick up in his stomach at the sight of her. She looks a little pale with some weight loss, but she’s still gorgeous.

She moved to Griffin’s Beach claiming she was wrong and wants to prove her love for him, but he can’t allow himself to open up to her again.

In Summerville, she ripped his heart out and stomped on it, and if her dad ever caught wind they were together again, he suspects he’ll either be left alone or become a dirty little secret again. Neither of which sounds enticing.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, hoping he sounds indifferent rather than excited to see her.

Two months ago, he told her he didn’t love her, and it’s the biggest lie he’s ever told to anyone in his life. He thought she’d have booked it out of town by now, but she’s still here.

“I need to talk to you. There was a woman who came into the restaurant a few weeks ago, I think,” Marnie says. “She asked me about the Drifters.”

Her eyes won’t quite meet his, and he knows she’s still hurt. It kills him, but he needs her to leave town if he has any hope of moving on.

“I told her I know you guys, and she asked me to get her in touch with someone named Frances. She didn’t know a road name, but is there a Frances here? Or maybe in Black Valley?”

Brock shakes his head. “Nope. Never had one try to prospect, either.”

“You’re sure? She seemed pretty adamant she had the right club. I told her I was new to this charter, but I definitely know road names.”

“Positive. That’s a name I’d definitely remember,” he says with a chuckle. “I do background checks on everyone. Grayson only helped with Summerville when we patched them over.”

“And I know all of them,” she says. “She looked scared. The guy she was with gave me really bad vibes, but he looked familiar, too. I can’t place him, but then… never mind.”

This isn’t just a ploy to talk to Venom. At first, he was positive she came in here making this up, but she looks genuinely concerned. “No, what were you going to say, Marnie?”

“This is going to sound really weird, and Emme and Gavin thought I was nuts, but I got this feeling when I saw her walk back to the guy she came in with. It was… It felt like I might be one of the last people who would see her alive. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and this cold feeling washed over me. There’s no other way I can describe it. ”

“Why didn’t you come here sooner?” Venom asks.

If she was so worried, she should have come in here weeks ago.

Swallowing, she looks at the ground. “I got a really bad case of food poisoning. Landed me in the hospital for a few days because I was so dehydrated. Honestly, I thought I was going to die myself. I was also a little scared you’d turn me away without talking to me.”

Marnie was sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, and she had no one with her? Who am I kidding? She probably had her parents with her.

“You could have called.”

“No, I couldn’t,” she says, finally looking him in the eyes. The pain he inflicted when he confronted her in the parking lot after finding her gift basket still lives in her pretty eyes, and it takes his breath away. “You made that pretty clear.”

“Marnie—”

“I’m sorry I bothered you. Thought maybe it was important, but she must’ve gotten the guy confused with another club.”

She’s gone before Venom can say anything, and he wants to run after her. He wants to tell her he’s sorry and didn’t mean it, but he stays planted where he is. What good would it do? They can’t be together.

Griffin’s Beach Jamie

L ying in bed with Undertaker, Jamie feels a mixture of emotions. Mostly, she feels sad for him. He admitted a while ago who Nina was and what she meant to him. How she’s the only other woman who’s had his heart besides Jamie.

He’s been so obsessed with Jamie that she never really worried about it. Until now.

The evening was one she’d been excited to plan for them.

She’d gone shopping with Lex and Melanie to get an outfit and various toys for them to try out.

Something about being with this man makes her feel bolder than she’s ever felt before, and she wanted to show him how much he means to her.

How confident he makes her when she’s been nothing but insecure her entire life.

He’d been excited when she called to tell him she had something special planned for them, and he tried to get her to give him hints.

And seeing him anxious to get Church over with made her feel like a sex goddess.

He gave her a look she’s only ever seen others give their women, and she fell even more in love with him.

Instead of going home and carrying out her plans, they’re lying in his clubhouse apartment. The one place they haven’t had sex and won’t because he doesn’t want anyone to hear. Fucking against the bar the night they nearly broke up was a onetime thing.

His breathing evened out half an hour ago, and she knows he’s asleep. Jamie, however, can’t stop her mind from spinning. First, she has to deal with the unfulfilled feeling because she didn’t get the release she’s craved all day. Something she never thought she’d experience with him.

I could slip my fingers into my panties and take care of things myself. But it doesn’t feel right with him here. It’s also the first night we haven’t had sex since I moved into his house.

He hasn’t called her baby doll once since before Church, and then he recapped what he learned about Nina with more emotion than she expected. He also didn’t tell her he loves her before he fell asleep.

Tears fall freely now, and she wonders what this all means. Which brings her to the biggest thought in her head: Nina. The picture Undertaker sent to Brock was found pretty quickly for someone he hasn’t seen in over ten years.

Maybe he doesn’t love me as much as he loved her. Or worse—does he still love her?

Undertaker knows all about Jamie’s abandonment issues, so she can’t stop herself from thinking he’s only with her because he doesn’t want to hurt her. That maybe he doesn’t love her as much as she believes. It can’t all be in her head, right?

And now I’m the default consolation prize. Nina’s dead, so he really can’t have her.

Reaching over, Jamie takes his phone and can’t believe what she’s about to do. The last thing she ever expected was to be that girl. The one who looks through her boyfriend’s phone while he sleeps, but she has to know what’s hidden in there.

The text messages prove to be nothing out of the ordinary. Or what she assumes is ordinary. Mostly because he doesn’t text unless he has to.

The call log shows Lex and Jamie as the only females he calls. And Undertaker doesn’t strike her as the type to mislabel a woman under a man’s name to throw off suspicion.

She opens the picture from the text he sent Brock, and the image of Nina burns into her mind. She’s the complete opposite of Jamie. Short, skinny, small chested, and twig legs. But worse, she has blonde hair and blue eyes.

His ex looks like Lex! I know I don’t have to worry about Lex, but what does this mean for me? Am I an experiment? A big girl trial run?

Clicking on his gallery, she sees the picture she forced him to take of the two of them, followed by a few shots of his motorcycle from different angles. That’s not too bad, but picture seven is Nina. And eight, nine, and ten. The eleventh picture takes her breath away.

Nina lies completely naked on the bed, her tattoo just above her left breast with a wicked smile on her face. Like she knew he’d lust after the image long after she’d left him.

He kept a naked picture of her on his phone, and I had to win a competition to make him come in my mouth to get him to take one of us together.

She can’t breathe, and she clicks out to see the full grid of pictures. There are at least a hundred pictures of Nina, some with Undertaker looking younger and smiling like he’s the happiest man in the world. Then she sees the video icon.

Jamie moves to the bathroom and shuts the door. Hitting play, she lowers the volume and gasps.

“You like that?”

“Fuck me, Frances. Oh, yes, fuck!”

“I love you, baby doll.”

Pausing it, she takes inventory of what she’s just learned in a couple of seconds. First, the angle of the video of them fucking is one that wouldn’t be flattering with Jamie. There’d be too much bouncing around to be considered sexy.

Second, he didn’t want a picture of Jamie on his phone that could possibly show her boobs, but it’s not an issue for Nina.

But the worst realization feels like a punch to the gut. He called Nina baby doll .

“I’m nothing like her,” she whispers and hits play again, regretting her decision as they both come.

It ends with Undertaker falling next to Nina, the phone held at an angle that proves he was the videographer, and he kisses her.

“I’ll love you forever, Nina.”

“One day, you’ll meet someone you love more than me.”

“Never. I’ll never love anyone else. Only you.”

Because she’s a glutton for punishment, she sends the video to herself and deletes it from their chat.

She’d normally say she can’t hold something he told his ex while they were together over a decade ago against him, but there’s something to be said for keeping a sex tape of the two of them. Not to mention how many photos he has of her in various stages of undress.

“He doesn’t love me,” Jamie mutters as she sobs into a towel. “Not like he loved her.”