Page 56 of Perdition
“Em,” Nadia began, her voice gentle, “are you sure that Sarah isn’t just doing what bitches do and lying about her and Frost?”
Stephie nodded. “Sarah has been stirring up trouble between the unclaimed brothers—and even the claimed ones, obviously. She was even all over Locust before he and Nadia got together.”
Nadia’s eyes flashed anger before she smoothed out her expression.
“She’s not as bad as Jaime and Sasha were?—”
“Ursula the Sea Witch isn’t as bad as those hoes,” Cilla interrupted to add, having personally dealt with the two club women who’d made it their life’s mission to ruin her relationship with Patriot.
“But she’s had an agenda since she set foot in the Unchained clubhouse,” Nadia finished.
“Yeah, she took one look at Frost and wanted him—everyone could see that, even if she was playing with Tiburon, Malo, and Cluster. She fucked those dudes because they were easy dick, but she’d had her eye on the prez from the beginning.”
Throat thick with tears and sore from crying, Em rasped, “How come he didn’t see it? How come he didn’t stop it?”
Waving her hand flippantly, Vicki rolled her eyes. “Pfft, there’s a reason men die young; they’re about as self-aware as a slug—and sometimes just as slimy, too. With my ex, it started off with late nights at the office, touches that went on too long,texts that weren’t about work, and then the compliments and the chest stroking. It wasn’t until he rolled off her that first time that he realized he’d fucked up.”
Shocked, Em asked, “He told you all that?”
“It was part of the court-ordered marital counseling we had to undergo before the judge would sign off on the divorce.” She snorted. “It didn’t work, obviously, but that doesn’t mean our situations are the same. My ex wasn’t really a piece of shit—at first; he just sort of walked into it sideways, one bumbling foot fall at a time.”
“What makes that different from what Frost did?”
Vicki met Em’s seeking gaze, offering a sympathetic smile. “I don’t think Frost has actually crossed the line of no return yet.”
Em opened her mouth to argue, but Stephie stopped her.
“Honestly, I don’t trust Sarah. I think she’d lie to you to fuck with you, and to ultimately do exactly what she’s doing—breaking your marriage so she can be Frost’s old lady.”
“She’s a club slut; he wouldn’t make her his old lady, even if we weren’t together,” Em challenged, incredulous.
“We know that, the brothers know that, but for every woman in the club that knows her place, there’s another one who is so vain and delusional, she thinks her pussy is so good, she can change a brother’s mind,” Stephie remarked. Stephie had been only the second official old lady in the Unchained MC, having locked down Horde after their one-night stand to friends-with-benefits situation deepened into genuine love. So, she’d been around the club just a bit longer than the other women, and had seen more of the club dynamic.
Nadia cringed at Stephie’s words. “That’s gross. I’m absolutely, devastatingly in love with Locust, but even his body count gives me the ick when I think about it. I couldn’t imagine getting with a man who’d fucked all of my friends. It would make his dick a no ride zone. It’s the same for the club brothers.”
Em knew that, and she knew that the brothers, for the most part, were loyal men. Some were loyal for the wrong things—like Locust following Frost’s orders to seduce Nadia—but they were all in with their women.
As Frost had once been.
Still was?
Em couldn’t get her mind straight, and her heart was desperate for some clarity.
Finally, she asked what she was terrified of asking but knew she needed to know, even if it meant agony.
“Would Frost cheat?”
A chorus of “nos” rang out, making Em sag in her seat.
“But…I heard them, in his office. He said…he said he had options.”
Cilla squeezed Em’s thigh. “He said that? Those exact words?”
Em pushed the fog of pain aside to think back…to pinpoint that moment in Frost’s conversation with Sarah. Then, she replied, “No. She said it, but he grunted, which is Frost speak for ‘yeah.’” Em curled her lip in disgust.
Nadia hummed, and Vicki tsked, saying, “Is that agreement, though, or is that just him half-listening and doing what men do when they’re distracted or bored, making a noise of assent just to get the conversation over with?”
“Horde does that, especially now when I bring up having sex while he’s reading one of his many baby books.” Stephie crossed her arms petulantly, obviously put out that her man wasn’t putting out. “He’s not really listening, but he knows I’m talking, so he grunts or ‘uh huhs’ every few minutes.”