His Twisted Heart by Ellie R Hunter
Chapter Eight
Victoria
I’ve been sitting in the corner of the kitchen, listening to the old ladies dissect Lily’s arrest all afternoon, and I’m bored.
“Has Cas told you anything?” my mom asks Alannah.
Picking up her coffee mug, she shakes her head. “He tried talking to me last night, but I wasn’t interested in hearing him out, so he went back over to the bar.”
Bonnie tops her mug and takes her seat back at the table. “Lily’s covering for Harper.”
I’ve spent my whole life knowing that the old ladies know as much as the guys in the club. It’s how they survive when the men are busy or away on a run, or like now, when there’s trouble. But they don’t usually share this kind of information in front of us “kids.”
I keep my mouth shut, wishing I was anywhere else but here.
“Apparently, this guy was beating on Lily, and Harper helped her by stabbing the guy until he died. From what Sparky said, they burned down their house so his blood couldn’t be found.”
For once, the old ladies go quiet. I don’t need to be told to keep what I’ve heard to myself—it goes without saying. I’m pretty sure it was engrained in us from the moment we learned to talk. It isn’t only the brothers who live by the club laws, it’s everyone connected to them.
You never know who’s a killer these days. You think men are the vicious species, but women are just as capable.
I remember people thinking it was weird when Lily and Harper just randomly showed up in town, but I guess Willow’s Peak was a place they could lie low.
Standing, Alannah announces, “I’m going to speak to Cas,” and walks out.
I slide off my chair and follow her over to the bar. Not because I want to be nosy or get into her business, but because I can’t listen to one more conversation about Harper and Lily.
Spotting Grandpa sitting at his usual table, I make my way over to him, ignoring Luca slouched on the couch by the pool table.
“Hey, darlin’. What are you doing over here?” he asks me once I’ve taken the seat beside him.
“It’s driving me crazy over at the house. I need a change of scenery, and since I can’t go home, here’s the next best place,” I mutter.
“You’ll be home soon enough, I promise.”
Kicking my feet up on the empty chair next to me, I inquire, “Grandpa? What would’ve happened if the twins didn’t want to join the club?”
His snort rumbles through his chest, it’s so deep.
“That never would’ve happened.”
“Just pretend for a minute. Would you have supported them in whatever they wanted to do?”
He at least respects me enough to think over his answer.
“I’d have supported them, but I wouldn’t have liked it. And I would’ve voiced it till I couldn’t speak no more,” he declares. “Why do you ask?”
I can’t tell him that Luca doesn’t want to join the club, so I opt for the noncommittal reply and shrug.
“What do you expect me to do once I’ve finished school?”
Which isn’t that far off. With lockdown, and the fact that I’ve crushed every one of my classes, I’m not worried about missing days at a time for school.
“You, my sweet girl, can do whatever you wish to do.”
As much as I love the club, the different set of rules for sons and daughters isn’t lost on me.
“Why?” he questions hesitantly. “Are you thinking about the world outside of Willow’s Peak?”
I’m not, but Luca is. Since he spoke of leaving to see what’s out there, it’s made me think of what I’m going to do here. There aren’t many options when it comes to money making careers, but I’m not interested in being a lawyer or a doctor, or anything like that. I just want to be able to survive, to live happy and peacefully.
“Willow’s Peak is my home. I can’t see me being anywhere else,” I tell him, and he smiles, happy with my answer.
“But if I wanted to leave, you wouldn’t try to stop me?”
“Of course I wouldn’t, but I’d have you watched over.”
I giggle when he winks at me. I wouldn’t expect anything less from him.
We’re interrupted when Cas’s phone rings. He puts it on speaker, and I shut my mouth so Grandpa can hear the conversation.
I listen in to the new President of the Black Crows, barking out his demands for Leo and Harper to be handed over.
“Oh, and I’ve left you a gift behind the diner in town so you know how fucking serious I am. Harper has twenty-four hours to come to me if she doesn’t want to visit her mom in prison for the rest of her life.”
The call ends, and brothers start muttering their opinions about it being a trap, until Aunt Alannah steps through the doorway and says, “What if you’re not the ones walking into it?”
She’s always been strong and has never been afraid to voice her opinions with conviction. But today, she can barely meet Cas’s eyes as she goes to stand by Sparky.
“Care to explain?” Cas asks her.
“I have a friend in town who has reached out to me to ask for the club’s help.”
“As if I don’t have enough shit going on.”
The fire in her eyes ignites. “And that’s why you’re only hearing about it now.”
I’m starting to really see where Luca gets his asshole attitude from.
“She works at the diner. She’d be able to go about her business unnoticed if the place is being watched. She can find out anything without looking suspicious or out of place.”
I tune out of the deliberation and kiss Grandpa on the cheek, leaving the brothers to sort out yet another problem.
Heading outside, I walk along the club boundaries under the black sky. There’s no music coming from the bar tonight, only the sound of grown, frustrated men yelling and cursing up a storm, my dad being one of them. He’s usually the laid back one, but at the moment, he’s on tenterhooks like everyone else.
When I hear a car coming close from over the wall surrounding the club, I frown, wondering who it could possibly be at this hour. I don’t know why, because there’s always someone up no matter the hour, with brothers coming and going at all times of the day and night.
By the time I walk back around to the front, the car has rolled through the gates and is parking up by the bar.
It’s Lily.
Watching as she climbs out of the passenger side door and walks into the bar, I figure I may as well follow her and see what’s going on now. I’m getting so bored with all this. I just want this lockdown to be over. I want to be at home, tending to my plants and flowers in the greenhouse. Hell, I even want to be at school because it’s something to do.
I can’t believe I’m even saying that.
The first thing I notice when I enter is Luca, glaring at Lily from where he stands at the end of the bar.
When she informs everyone that she’s been released without charge, Luca grinds his teeth so hard, I fear some of them will crack. It’s obvious this isn’t the news he wanted to hear. Before I can casually walk over to him, he’s slipping through the crowd and heading up the stairs to his room.
I don’t debate for long on whether or not to follow him.
No one notices me disappear from the bar. As I walk down the hall to his room, I run my fingertips along the wall. There’ll be two ways this ends. One, with me in his bed, or two, him being an ass and ordering me to leave, blabbering on about how I’m not his friend or his girlfriend, and how I’m most certainly not his precious Sara.
Not bothering with knocking, I twist the doorknob, letting myself in, and find him pacing the short length of his room.
“What are you planning?”
Coming to a halt, he growls, “What are you talking about?”
Taking a seat on his bed, I lean back on my hands and stretch out my legs.
“I saw the way you reacted down in the bar when Lily came back.”
“You didn’t see anything,” he argues, and begins pacing again.
Slipping off the old mattress, I block his way at every turn when he tries to move around me.
“I’m not stupid. Tell me what you’re planning to do to Lily.”
He finally stops and looks me in the eye, seeming intrigued.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Maybe I can help?”
“And why would you want to help?”
Always answering with a damn question of his own.
Lowering my eyes to his chest, I run my finger down his shirt and hook my finger inside his waistband.
“Friends help friends. And as much as you keep telling yourself we’re not there, we both know we are. Whatever you want to do to her, I’m in.”
I gasp in surprise when he grabs onto my hips and hoists me up around his waist.
With the strength he uses to throw me onto the bed, I have to admit, it makes me hot.
“Take your clothes off, Tor. You won’t be needing them tonight.”
I don’t know who undresses faster, but by the time I look up, Luca’s as naked as the day he was born, and climbing up my body.
“This ain’t a joke, Tor. Are you sure you’re in? You don’t even know what you’re getting into yet.”
His lips brush across mine and I smile. “I’m not as nice as you think. I can be naughty when I want to be.”
He inserts his finger inside me with ease. I doubt there’ll ever be a time that I’m not ready for him.
“How far are you willing to go?”
Pulling his finger out, he runs it slowly over my clit.
“How far would you push me?”
Pinching my clit sends a sharp jolt of pleasure through every nerve ending, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from crying out.
“All the way.”
“Then fuck me while you fill me in. I want to know everything.”
I wrap my legs around his waist as he lines himself up at my entrance. My favourite thing in the world is being wrapped around Luca Jackson’s dick.
With every thrust, he tells me how much he hates Lily. Between my pussy and his hatred for her, he’s as hard as a rock, taking his anger out on my body in the most delicious way.
He may not realise it, but I’ve knocked out a shitload of bricks from his carefully built wall, and I couldn’t be happier.