Page 26 of Perdition (Unchained Hearts #4)

SIXTEEN

“Seriously, Nads, you’ve got to tell us if Locust is as much of a freak as he looks,” Stephie proclaimed, her eyes bright and wild from the sheer number of Twizzlers she’d consumed over the last forty-five minutes.

Stephie and sugar didn’t mix. “He looks like he’d tie you to the bed and fuck you into the mattress. We need to know deets!”

Em choked on her spit, coughing violently. Those were things she did not need to know about men she considered brothers.

“Oh, no we don’t,” Vicki interjected, waving her can of mango flavored Bubly in the air. “I see that man more than I’d like to, so putting those thoughts into my head would make it near impossible to look him in the eye.”

“Why are you looking at his eyes when there’s all that sexy biker man meat to look at?

Have you seen the size of his hands?” Stephie exclaimed.

“Besides, I’m just curious…and a lot horny.

” She pouted, making Em shake her head, exasperated.

“Ever since Horde found out about the baby, he’s been hoarding that dick, talkin’ about how he’s scared to hurt the baby, and that there’s too much of a risk until after the first trimester.

” Her pout turned feral. “He should be more worried about me, keeping that big, talented dick from me—I’ll fucking get him in his sleep, and he’ll wake up too late to stop me!

” Stephie punctuated her statement with a round of maniacal laughter that would put Yzma to shame.

Oh, Lord, it was time to take that bag of candy from her.

Thinking the same thing, Nadia reached over Cilla to grab Stephie’s bag of candy, which made Cilla giggle and Stephie growl.

Unfazed, Nadia deadpanned, “None of your business, you hussy—and don’t call me ‘Nads’; it makes me think of testicles.”

Em snorted, chuckling, thankful for the cranberry infused wine she was drinking. Her third glass went down smooth…as did number four.

Currently, her glass was empty, but she meant to remedy that…just as soon as the room stopped spinning.

“Okay, enough about Locust and Horde, I want to know what’s going on with you, Emily,” Nadia said, her voice soft but no-nonsense, like an older sister who’d had it up to her eyeballs, waiting for her obviously conflicted sibling to spill her guts.

“The men talk, Em, so we know there’s something shitty happening. ”

“Yeah,” Cilla agreed. “Patriot is VP, so he’s been front and center to the drama of Frost and that bitch, Sarah—and not just that. The patch over has been brutal for Frost…and that hasn’t helped things.”

Apparently, Cilla knew more about what was going on than Em did…and she only had herself to blame. She could have been more involved in the club, spent more time there, but her business was important to her, too.

Would it have really been so bad to put off business emails for one evening just to spend time with her man at the clubhouse?

No. She could admit that. But what would that had gotten her, really?

Frost would have spent a few minutes with her, drank a beer with the brothers, then headed into his office to grind away on that patch over that she, obviously, had no real freaking clue about.

She knew it was overwhelming him, that he wasn’t sharing the burden with his brothers, and that was leading him to make shitty decisions.

But that was it. She didn’t know what exactly was weighing on him, why it was bothering him so much, or what he planned to do about it so she could help him finish.

You haven’t asked, either.

Damn, but that inner voice made sense. Em just glared at it. She was too up in her feels, right then, to care about what she could have done differently; she could only focus on what Frost had done wrong.

And how she was supposed to deal with it.

Around her, the conversation continued.

“Horde isn’t an officer, so he isn’t in that circle of bros enough to know all that much, but he has eyes, and he’s seen Frost and Sarah….” Stephie snapped her mouth shut, a flush coloring her cheeks, and pity filling her already sad eyes.

Pity for Em.

Sad for Em.

“I’m not even a part of the club, but from what I’ve heard from Nadia, and what I saw with my own eyes at that party at Emerald Greens, there’s definitely some tension between you and Frost.”

Again and again, Em heard things she already knew, felt the strike of them against her heart like her own heartbeat.

Suddenly sober as a nun, Em crossed her arms and pressed herself back into Cilla’s couch.

“So, is this some kind of intervention?” Em asked, acidly.

She knew she was being unfair; those women were good women, they cared about Em and Frost, and they were great partners to their men, and they’d all experienced their own heartache—especially Nadia, who was still wary of Frost whenever the two were near each other.

Em didn’t blame her; she was still sour from what her own husband had done to such a good woman. How could a man who’d adored his little girl and his wife order a man he loved and respected to seduce and use an innocent woman for his own purposes?

Oh, he said it was for the good of the club, but Frost could have gone about it without dragging Nadia into it.

He could have utilized Redtube’s considerable skill with the computer to get the information he wanted—hell, he could have just hired a PI to find Elijah Tate, Nadia’s stepbrother, who’d stolen money from the Bone Dogz, the MC Frost was so determined to fold into the Unchained MC.

Then again, if he hadn’t, Nadia and Locust wouldn’t currently be “relationship goals,” if Frost hadn’t pulled what he pulled.

“Not an intervention, Emily,” Cilla said, placing a gentle hand against Em’s thigh. “We just know that you need someone to talk to, and that you don’t have many female friends outside of us who actually understand the club.”

That was true. Cheri was a kick ass best friend, but she had no clue about the ins and out and ups and downs of club life.

She’d rather give herself a colonoscopy with an impact wrench than spend any amount of time at the clubhouse.

And she’d always been a little distant from Frost, claiming she didn’t like how he always seemed on the cusp of becoming dangerous.

Em had always assumed it was because Cheri was there when Mads had enlisted, and then again when he started forming the MC—two lifestyles that screamed, “risk” and “deadly force.”

Moving her gaze from face to face, seeing nothing but concern and love in each set of eyes, Em let the tears break free from the dam that had already begun to fail catastrophically.

“You’re right,” she cried, “I can’t do this on my own.”

Cilla, cooing, pulled Em into her arms. Stephie sat down on Em’s other side, and Nadia and Vicki took up spots on the floor—all of them placing comforting hands on Em’s arms and legs.

With that, wrapped up in warmth and unconditional support, Em let the flood flow, spilling everything—from how things had started to go wrong once the kids left, to how she felt Mads pulling away, to how she pulled away in response as a way to protect herself.

Then she shared about Sarah, what she’d overheard between Frost and Sarah that morning from outside Frost’s office, and then she shared about the phone call the night before.

Then she told them about the kutte, the note, and… the tree.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house once Em was done sharing.

Though the words had been heavy, she could admit she felt…lighter after having spoken them.

They were no longer locked up tight inside her, clawing at the walls, roaring and growling and keening to be let out.

They were free.

Too bad she wasn’t. She was still caught in the consequences of Frost’s poor decisions, her own poor response, and the possible infidelity.

After Em finished speaking, there was a silence so profound, she could feel it pressing down on her.

Beside her, Cilla was shaking with quiet sobs.

The woman was all heart.

Em brushed a kiss against Cilla’s head, her own heart driving her to comfort the younger woman.

Finally, Vicki broke the silence. “Speaking as someone whose been there with a cheating spouse, and dealing with the aftermath of it—especially with kids…you’ve got the strength to do whatever needs doing, even if that means cutting your losses or forgiving him and trying to find a new normal.”

God, what did that look like—a new normal?

The old normal hadn’t even been normal for over a year, and even then, her life with Mads and the kids had never been what one would call “typically domestic.” The man was a soldier, then an MC president; there was no guidebook for being married to an all-around badass, at least not one that didn’t come with a trigger warning for morally gray men and unhinged smut.

“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?”