Page 13 of Ruptured

“You want to meet with CJ? Talk to him at the club. You’re there, pretending to want to patch in. Otherwise?Fuck. You.” He spat the words slowly and succinctly, so DeLuca wouldn’t miss his derision. “Fuck you. Understand?”

“Even if you’re risking your Aunt Meggie?”

“You’re not playing that fucking game with me, asshole. I’m already risking her trying to save my father. I’m not throwing CJ to the fucking wolves with sick fucking games.”

DeLuca shrugged. “Your choice.”

Rory thought about his mother and how, at one point, it seemed as if she would break, before she looked at the camera and basically told his father to fuck himself. “I love my dad,” he reiterated evenly. “I want to save him. For me. For Mom. I’m deserting my aunt, a woman I love, respect, and admire, for a man who seems as if he no longer has a brain or a heart. I’m deserting CJ, a cousin I’ve looked up to my entire life for a man who doesn’t value anyone’s life, even his own. You don’t know how that makes me feel.”

“As if you carry a great burden. One you shouldn’t have to bear at your age.”

“I’m days away from fifteen, yet sometimes I feel fifty,” Rory confirmed.

“When I was fifteen, my predominant thought was school, football, and girls. Not these life and death decisions.”

“Lucky you,” Rory said with biting sarcasm. “You had the fucking choice. I don’t. And, motherfucker, you still have a choice. You didn’t have to stick around once you found out who Bash was.”

“Easy for you to say, you little prick. My entire life was a fucking lie.”

“Boohoo for you. Now, your entire life is a fucking charade. Either you’re pretending to be so tortured about the women Bash kills or you’re a self-pitying pussy who can’t stand on his own two feet.”

DeLuca stiffened. “I take umbrage to that.”

“Kill me then. Throw me in the fucking creek. But you aren’t intimidating me into backing down. I was born into this life, Easton. Mom tried to steer me in a different direction by dressing me in suits, but Dad’s a biker. Our entire family. The cousin I love the most emulated his father. We were weaned on club life. You, though? You were normal.”

“What’s your fucking point?”

“Work for Bash. Run circles around Dad. But if you really do like and admire Aunt Meggie, help me to protect her. Please. I can’t do both. I can’t safeguard her and my father on my own. I might still lose both of them. Bash is unstable.”

“Even if I agree, how do you know I’m telling the truth?” DeLuca asked after a moment.

“I don’t,” Rory admitted. “But I can see in your eyes that you want things to be different.”

“You still don’t know that for sure.”

Swallowing, Rory turned and looked out over the horizon. Even days away from March, it was cold, although the frost was relenting, and the days grew longer. Waning sunlight gleamed off the water’s surface. On the opposite shore, the evergreens made up for the sparsity of leaves on the other trees interspersed through the landscape.

DeLuca stepped next to him and leaned against the concrete. He laughed softly. “Turn Creek, right?”

Finding no amusement, Rory nodded.

“Infamous at the club house. Didn’t some twins push Bash over?”

Rory smiled. “The Terrible Triplets.”

“Oh,thoselittle motherfuckers.”

“Don’t feel bad.” He explained what Axel, Ransom, and Ryder had done to his father. “Anarchy and revenge are their thing.”

“Fuck.” DeLuca chuckled. “My parents would never overlook that shit.”

“Dude, most parents wouldn’t, but the Caldwell boys are a breed of their own.”

“We’re Caldwell boys,” DeLuca pointed out.

“Dad gave up his Caldwell card years ago. He’s a Donovan to the bone. If everything I’ve discovered is true, that makes him an inherent enemy of our grandfather. Cee Cee despised Logan.”

“Don’t give a shit. Johnnie’s still a Caldwell and so are you.”