Page 65 of Ruptured

“What’s Tío’s excuse?” Easton blurted. “Forget I said that.”

Aunt Celia merely smiled. “Tío has no soul. You do. I’m asking you to try and talk to Bash for me.”

“I don’t know if he’ll listen.”

Her mouth tightened, but she nodded. “I love my brother, unreasonable motherfucker that he can be. He saved me when no one else would. I remember Big Joe Foy, though. He didn’t know Daddy kicked me out. I didn’t know Daddy refused to let him see me. I have vague memories of my Aunt Kimber. They don’t deserve what Bash is trying to do to Big Joe’s daughter. He’s better than that. He needs money for his drugs. I want to intervene before…” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “From everything I’ve heard about Outlaw, he can be as brutal as Bash when provoked.”

Aunt Celia was exceedingly loyal to Bash. In the three weeks since they’d moved into this house, her every move was to help her brother. Easton wasn’t sure if Bash put her up to this speech to test him or if she truly feared for Bash’s safety.

“What are you two whispering about?” Tío asked, creeping up behind them.

Aunt Celia shrieked. Startled, Easton jerked around and widened his eyes. Grinning, Tío held a decapitated head as if it were a basketball, intestines hanging from his wretched neck.

“Get the fuck out of here, dickhead,” Easton yelled, shoving the crazy motherfucker.

Bloodlust brightened his hazel eyes. “Suppose I say this could be your head,sapo?”

Easton curled his lip at the threat. “Suppose I fuck you up right now and call it self-defense?” he growled, so fucking over Tío.Hewould send Easton away quicker than Bash’s antics. Bash hated most women. Tío hated everybody. “And I’m not a snitch or a toady, so stop calling mesapo, fuckhead.”

“Enough!” Aunt Celia ordered, walking between the two of them as the doorbell ring. “Neither one of you will do anything to the other. Tío, if I call your father and tell him you’vetrailed blood and shit through my goddamn house, he won’t be pleased.”

The one person Tío feared was Bash. Aunt Celia’s threat got Tío into line. He might not have liked her calling him down, but he’d never act, though she’d stood up to him on more than one occasion. Bash’s love for Aunt Celia was never in question, and it was that love, and Bash’s willingness to protect her at all costs, that saved her from Tío’s retribution. She was the onlypersonhe’d kill Tío over.

“And if any harm befalls your brother—” She nodded to Easton and folded her arms, still refusing to look at Tío because of that fucking head. The intestines resembled a length of sausages around his neck. “I will tell Bash to fuck you up. I love both of you.”

“You knew me first!” Tío huffed.

The doorbell rang again. “Both of you clean up,” she said briskly. “That’s your cousin. She needs to talk to us.”

Listening to motherfucking Tabitha whine would be the goddamn icing on the crazy cake.

Twenty minutes later, Easton sat at the kitchen table with Tabitha and Aunt Celia. She loved the gray and white kitchen with windows on each side of the sink. She’d told Easton that she never saw such a big stove or owned a double-sided refrigerator/freezer and an ice maker and dispensers for ice and water. Her awe that she owned the type of appliances he’d taken for granted in the DeLuca household seemed inordinately sweet, considering her relations.

Thankfully, the clean-up crew had arrived and Tío chose to help them with disposal. More blood and gore to wallow in.

“I’m still sorry we’re cousins,” Tabitha cooed, grinning at him.

Aunt Celia snorted; Easton grunted.

Tabitha took a delicate sip of her bottled water. “But you do need to step up your flirting game with me, cousin. It makes you suspicious since you’re about the only red-blooded male in the club who hasn’t tried to get into my panties.”

Keeping his opinion to himself, Easton gulped beer. He needed a fuck. Instead, he was sitting here listening toher.

“What do you want, Tabi?” Aunt Celia asked sternly. “You know it’s a risk coming here. You could’ve been followed.”

“I wasn’t, Aunt.” Tabitha was the daughter of one of Bash’s half-brothers—one of the motherfuckers Outlaw killed because they’d had the bright idea to kidnap him.

Easton always forgot which one, since five of those idiots got themselves fucked up and several more were scattered around the world. Many of them lost their appetite for the biker lifestyle. At least the ones not in prison because of Outlaw’s machinations.

“But I do have news.” While she styled herself as Tabitha Caldwell, using Diesel’s adopted last name, when she hyphenated it, it was Tabitha Caldwell-Rivers. She made a face, before her eyes lit up. “Both good and bad.”

Leaning back, Aunt Celia lifted her brow.

“Which do you want first, Aunt?”

“Whichever one suits your fancy,” Aunt Celia responded.

“Okay, then the bad.” Clearing her throat and patting her chest, Tabitha leaned forward. “Diesel has filed for legal separation.” Her eyes watered and her nose reddened. Easton doubted her honesty. She could manufacture sadness on a dime. “That’s one step away from a divorce, Aunt. I love him so much. I know Uncle Bash said not to call him unless absolutely necessary, but I need him to force Diesel to stay married to me.”