Page 15 of Perdition (Unchained Hearts #4)

Sarah pouted, wrapping her arms around her waist, her eyes going wide and doe-like.

This wasn’t the first time he’d seen this sequence of reactions.

The first time, she’d just been rejected by Tornado who’d been strangely distant from club women lately.

She’d climbed into his lap, he’d removed her, and she’d pouted, and he’d promised to find her the next night.

The second time, she’d been trying to start a threesome with Tiburon and Malo, two of the brothers from Bone Dogz that she’d transferred with.

They’d turned her down because they were headed out that night on a run.

She’d given them the big eyes and pout, and they’d taken her to the picnic tables out back and fucked her.

The third time was when she’d come on to him that first night, and he’d turned her down.

She’d pouted, but he didn’t relent. He could remember how shocked she’d looked, like she couldn’t believe he didn’t change his mind.

And now that he was thinking clearly after treading through mucky water for so long, he could finally see it for what it was.

Same lippy pout. Same vulnerable body language. Same doe-eyed look.

Practiced.

Fake.

It was all fake.

How had he not seen that before?

In voices that sounded like Patriot, Locust, and Redtube, he heard, “Because you liked being wanted by someone who could have anyone she wanted. You liked the attention without the responsibility that came with acting on it. You liked that she fed your need for validation, polished your pride, and was offering you something you thought you were missing.”

But he hadn’t been missing anything, not really—he’d walked away from it, slowly, in purposeful steps in the opposite direction.

And Emily had stayed behind, steady, steadfast, rock solid.

An anchor in their home, keeping the home fires burning, yet still building and sustaining a thriving business.

No, she hadn’t been around the club a lot over the last year, but that wasn’t because she’d lost interest in the club, it was because she felt her family and her dream business were more important.

The MC was Frost’s dream, his baby, so why couldn’t Emily have her own?

And now you realize that, shit for brains? Now when things have already gotten so bad you’re living out of the clubhouse like a bachelor?

What a fool he’d been.

He needed to find his wife.

She’d be at work, so he’d go to Flower’s Blooms and talk to her.

She probably won’t listen; she’ll be mad.

But he had no other options; she wasn’t answering his calls or texting back, and she fucking locked him out of his own house, putting all his shit into his truck.

She’d kicked him out of his own life, and he had only himself to blame.

“Come on, Frost, you can’t blame us for that. If she overheard us it was because she was eavesdropping on our private conversation. Besides, it was only the truth, right?” Sarah replied, her tone flippant.

“We shouldn’t have been having a private conversation, Sarah,” Frost admitted, scrubbing a frustrated hand down his face. “It isn’t like that between us—it shouldn’t be, anyway. I’m married, and I let things go too far.”

He’d taken another woman to his and Em’s sacred place, for fuck’s sake!

Fuck, he was exhausted, and he didn’t have the energy to deal with Sarah and her accompanying bullshit.

“Too far? We’re friends—close friends. I was hurting and you helped me…and I wanted to help you.” She shrugged. “Is that so wrong?”

He snorted a humorless laugh. “You didn’t help me, Sarah…but that wasn’t your fault; it was mine. What was said in that office, what we’ve been doing over the last couple of months…it shouldn’t be happening.”

Sarah gasped, throwing her hands out to grasp Frost’s forearm in a tight grip, like she was trying to claw back something that was slipping through her fingers.

“Don’t say that—we didn’t do anything wrong! I could tell you were hurting, that your marriage is?—”

“None of your goddamn business, Sarah,” Frost finished for her, his voice gravel on a sheet of steel. “You need to let this go.”

Taking her wrists in his grip, he threw her hands from his body. Her touch burned his skin, and not in the way Emily’s touch did, like she was branding him as hers alone.

“You don’t mean that, Frost!” she bleated, her blue eyes filling with tears.

God, he felt like shit. He never should have let things get this bad; guilt and ego-greed were poison, and he’d been drinking it down, drop by drop.

“Emily’s just jealous!” Sarah snapped. “She can’t be what you need so she’s being a bitch?—”

Frost let out a growl so menacing it made the clubhouse vibrate.

“You keep my wife’s name out of your mouth,” he snarled, making Sarah’s face pale.

But she wasn’t done saying dumb shit. “Why not? It’s the truth! She’s mad that we’re friends because she knows that what I said was true—you have options, and you chose?—”

“To end this fucking conversation before I shame my grandda and lay my hands on a woman in anger.” Once again, Frost finished for her.

And it was finished. All of it. Every disgraceful, disappointing thing he’d allowed happen over the last year…. He was done with it all.

And the first step was putting the clubwhore in her place.

Taking Sarah by the shoulders, he pushed her into the hallway, away from his room, and pointed toward the common room.

“They may have done things different in the Bone Dogz, but here, the clubwhores get three strikes. So far, you’ve disrespected my ol’ lady—and that’s strike one.

I’m a fair man, so instead of kicking you to the curb, I’m gonna give you two more shots.

You keep your ass clean, keep things respectful, you can stay.

But you keep comin’ ‘round me when I tell you to step the fuck away, or you speak my wife’s name in anyway other than how you would speak to a queen, that’s a strike against you—and if you get a third strike, you’re not just out of here, you’re done in every way possible. ”

Leaning down to get in her face, his expression hard as iron, waves of rage and authority pouring from him, he bit out, “You get me?”

Sarah nodded frantically, her eyes still wide, her mouth in a thin, ugly line.

“Get gone,” he ordered, pulling back to cross his arms in a way that conveyed that he meant exactly what he said.

Turning on her heel, Sarah hurried down the hallway to the stairs leading up into the attic bedroom that all the clubwhores shared.

Slamming the door behind him, Frost snatched Em’s kutte off the bed, shoved his cell into his pocket, and headed out to get his woman back.