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  2. Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

  3. Severed Heart: Chapter 29
Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

Severed Heart: Chapter 29

BASS RATTLES THE bay doors courtesy of Mobb Deep, “Amerikaz Nightmare,” as Dom secures a clip into his Glock. Pride thrums through me, that the act and ease in which he does it now is first nature as he addresses my anxiety. “Don’t think about it.”
“Like that’s fucking possible,” I counter, eyeing the discarded cap and gown lying on the couch behind him in the bay. Dom had rid himself of them not long after crossing the stage today, as did Sean. As he took those steps toward his diploma, I felt his pause before he scanned the crowd. Physically felt his hope in that moment that Tobias was somewhere amongst the families in the small stadium. Delphine, the only blood relative that did show up for Dom, had kept her distance, sitting on the other side of the entirety of the Roberts crew.
Distance I let her maintain once everyone scattered outside the high school to take pictures. Though she looked beautiful, she was nervous enough, and it was visible. But it was her disappointment when Dom barely acknowledged her presence that broke my fucking heart.
My residual anger and resentment towards the brother standing in front of me now morphing into concern as I watch him strap up.
“I need to be there,” I stress as Sean pulls a clean T-shirt from a nearby package after discarding his button-up. While most of the recently graduated are readying themselves for tonight’s parties after their rite of passage, my brothers are strapping up to commit a robbery. With the police busy with the task of answering calls for said parties, we decided it was the perfect time to strike. However, I can’t help shaking my head at the irony of it while real fear sets in.
“If you carry it out just like we planned, a single shell shouldn’t touch ground,” I remind them both, the need to go with them overwhelming as my heart thuds steadily. We’ve pulled a lot off in the last year, but this is by far the fucking riskiest. The fact that I planned this particular grab doesn’t sit well at all. Though the plan is simple enough. Between the crew we’ve assembled and each’s specific skill set—which I assessed and assigned—it should be a cakewalk. It’s the risk of being discovered by who we’re stealing from that has me on edge—the Town of Triple Falls. The chamber’s funds and treasury. Our take—eighteen grand. A few thousand less than Roman’s last contribution so as not to make it too obvious. A contribution in which we’ve decided to reallocate where the money goes.
It’s our first real test, and I would think it idiotic if the cash grab—thanks to Roman’s boasting—wasn’t close to foolproof. Even so, I can’t help the unease skittering up and down my spine.
“Fuck this,” I say, grabbing a vest to suit up. Dom chuckles and jerks it from my grip.
“We get caught,” Dom says, tossing it to the floor, “you don’t get the high and tight haircut, and I’m not missing that. Go find something to distract yourself with.”
I glance around the garage at cars I won’t be focused enough to fix properly. “Not fucking likely.”
“And not our problem,” Dom clips, his tone playful, his eyes the opposite. “You’re too valuable to risk.”
“And you’re not?”
“We’ve been over this,” Sean sighs, drawing a cigarette from his pack and lighting it with the flick of his Zippo. “I have a good feeling about tonight.”
“Well, you’re a fucking nauseating optimist, so that eases none of my worries,” I snap sarcastically.
“Between you two broody assholes, someone has to keep things light. Face it, I’m the yang to your yings, baby,” Sean says, wrapping the Velcro around his chest before double-checking his stash of guns. His own movements now those of an expert in weaponry. A part of his impressive growing skill set.
“It’s the control freak in you”—Dom speaks up—“that’s fretting for nothing. Handle that shit,” he orders me. “We’re going to be doing a lot of this kind of shit solo while you’re doing pushups for Uncle Sam, so get used to it.”
I open my mouth again to protest, and Dom cuts me off with his stare, his eyes just as calculating as his aunt’s. They’re so much alike it’s uncanny, and no doubt why they barely get along.
“You’re about to make the biggest sacrifice of the three of us,” Dom points out in an attempt to put me at ease.
“It isn’t a sacrifice,” I say. “It’s the plan.”
“It’s your freedom,” Sean reminds me. “What about that?” he asks through a plume of smoke. “The US government is about to own your ass for four long years, at the least, and we can’t ever repay you for that. Not in any capacity.”
Jeremy and Russell honk from the van they secured outside as Sean takes one last drag of his cigarette before crushing it under his boot and tousling my hair. “You be a good boy and sit tight. Mommy and Daddy will be right back.”
“Fuck off.”
“Love you too, brother,” Sean says through a chuckle. “If, by some bad luck, I don’t return, I’ll miss you most of all.”
“I’m hurt,” Dom says without an ounce of emotion. “Meet you back at my house after,” he tells me.
“I’ll be there,” I assure him.
As they exit the bay, I give them both a solemn nod, making as much peace as I can with it as I close up the garage. Minutes later, I’m sitting outside a gas station, and just as I’m about to get out, my phone rings.
“Hey T, I was just about to call.”
“Where is your head?” he asks, sensing my state.
“Confident in the party but fucking hating I’m not going,” I say, exiting the truck and walking into the gas station.
“You know, technically, you’ll be the first partygoer,” he gives in a rare compliment.
“That’s not exactly true now, is it? How’s France?” I ask, pulling a soda from the cooler.
“Too much of the same.”
“I thought you’d be here today.” I weigh whether or not to tell him about Dom’s disappointment as he replies.
“I’m boarding now.”
It’s my first genuine smile since I left Delphine on the porch.
“He’s going to be stoked, Sean too.”
“Are they ready?”
“More than,” I assure him, knowing his brother is most of the reason his heart beats. Sean and I are the reason for the rest of them. What I’ve come to realize is that after slowly losing my own family these last few years, I’m with my brothers in totality. Aside from Barrett, who’s been unexpectedly keeping himself occupied with Charlie since the first day he checked on her and Jane in the labor house. Rumor is that Charlie is giving him chase. According to Barrett, not a lot of chase, but he’s declared he’s in it for the long haul. Time will tell. My own long-haul chase is still up in the air as my clock starts to continually tick out. I stare into the cooler as Tobias jars me by speaking up.
“Where did you go?” T prompts.
“Sorry, just thinking of a way to distract myself until the cavalry comes home.” A way that doesn’t include racing to your childhood home and burying myself in your aunt.
In that sense, this situation is a little fucked, but worth it for her. My predicament now is that I was attempting to give Delphine space and time to come to me, but with Dom’s order to meet him at his house, that timer’s been set. The feeling in my chest was not at all one of protest with an excuse to show up. I have to face her and whatever decisions she’s made. However, the fact that my cell phone hasn’t rumbled since that night isn’t a good sign.
“Keep me updated,” he spouts, and not as a request.
“Will do,” I say, “see you soon.”
“Tyler.”
“Yeah, T?”
“Are you telling me everything?”
“I don’t talk personal shit,” I tell him, grabbing a bag of chips and jerky off an end cap.
“Yes, brother, you’ve made yourself very clear on that. But I’m here.”
“I know.” I run my hand through the top of my hair after setting the drink and snacks down on the counter. The cashier stands from where he was perched, reading a paperback on a nearby stool.
“If I’m honest right now, I’m not looking forward to the haircut.”
A deep chuckle sounds over the line. “The payoff, though,” Tobias reminds me.
“Yeah, the fucking payoff.” I half grin, half grimace, knowing that this step will set so many of our plans into motion. “See you soon, brother.” I cut the call a second before a toddler barrels into me.
“Whoa, buddy, where’s the fire?” I ask through a chuckle, bending down to see the little guy’s mouth smeared with ketchup, his tiny fingers covered in it as well as he chews.
“What’re you eating?”
“Shicken nuggets,” the little boy replies, his dark brown eyes wide.
“Oh, yeah? Love chicken nuggets,” I tell him.
“Sorry about that, man,” the cashier says.
“It’s fine,” I say, taking in the little guy’s features as a woman races down the aisles toward us, calling his name.
“That you? You Zach?” I ask.
“I, Zach.” He presses a tiny ketchup-coated finger to his chest.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” the woman says breathlessly as she approaches. “So sorry,” she admonishes, scooping the toddler in her arms as we both stand before she shoots the cashier a glacial side-eye. “I told you I was doing inventory and to watch him.”
“It’s fine,” I tell her, “he’s adorable.”
“That’ll be five fifty-two,” the cashier says.
I hand him a bill as I keep my eyes on the kid who’s reaching for me.
“Hole me,” Zach demands.
“Can’t tonight, buddy, but maybe some other time,” I tell him, ruffling his hair.
“He likes you,” the woman says with a laugh, her eyes meeting mine and roaming over me briefly before she freezes. I frown at her rapidly shifting reaction to me as she opens her mouth and closes it just as quickly, her eyes darting from me to the cashier. A second later, she nods toward the aisle she just raced down as Zach continually reaches for me, wiggling in her arms to get to me.
“Hole me!”
“So, I’m just going to take him back now,” she adds as if she owes me more of an excuse. “I’m really sorry about that,” she says with a pleading look in her eyes. Perplexed, I give her a slow nod in reply before she turns and flees toward the open door at the back of the gas station.
The fuck?
Utterly puzzled by her fast retreat, I turn to the cashier as he deposits my change in my open palm. “Is that your wife?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
I glance back in the direction she fled. “She looks familiar.”
“You go to First Baptist? She sings in the choir.”
“No . . . huh, must be from here.”
“Yeah, she works here most days.” He looks down at the empty silver rungs just next to the register before shouting, “Grace!”
Every hair on my body stands on end, a clear vision filtering in of a bar on one of the worst nights of my life.
“What?” Grace calls from the back.
The night I lost my hero.
“We’re out of plastic bags up front!” he shouts.
The night I lost all sense of security.
“Tim, I’m a little busy back here!”
“I don’t need a bag,” I hear myself say as my veins start to boil. Swiping my haul from the counter, I barely register Tim’s parting wish for me to have a good night. Just before I clear the door, I glance back across the top of the aisles to meet the terrified eyes of the woman standing in the doorway of the back room. Her own eyes already trained on me as she holds her son. A son with the same color hair and eyes as mine and those of my father. The guilt and fear marring her expression due to her part in helping destroy my family. By having an affair with my father and fucking him in my mother’s bed.
My father’s Grace, but the destruction of my own.
* * *
Minutes later, I pull up curbside at Delphine’s to see an unfamiliar truck in the driveway. Blinking at the sight of it, crimson threatens to steal my vision. Vision I just spent long minutes clearing in an effort to get back from the state I was in—to get back to her. Eyeing the storm door, I feel the jealousy snapping me into motion as my heart stutters with the notion of what it could mean.
She wouldn’t.
No, please, no.
Fuck no.
Heart thundering, I barrel out of my truck and make it up the steps just as a man—who looks to be in his late twenties—steps out of the front door. In an instant, I’m gripping his neck, lifting him to his toes as I size him up. Within a second, I recognize just how easy it would be to snap his neck and dispose of him. Easily assessing within the same length of time just how little I would feel if I committed the act. Loosening my grip slightly as his face starts to redden, he instantly starts stuttering as I scan him from head to foot. “Hey man, I don’t know what—”
Regripping his neck, I plaster him to the side of the house, my hand making it clear I don’t want any excuse from him. Instead, I deliver a threat I have every intention of carrying out if he doesn’t heed the warning.
“Leave without another word, or you’ll cease to fucking exist.” When he opens his mouth, I jerk my chin in final warning, knowing there is murder in my eyes. “Just get in your fucking truck”—I drop my eyes to the name stitched on his shirt—“Eric, and drive away.”
He must see his imminent death in my gaze because he manages to keep from so much as brushing me when I release him before scrambling to his truck. Gripping the storm door handle as adrenaline does its thing, I do my best to counteract it, even as her warning months ago reaches my ears and snakes its way into my psyche.
“Look at me. I am a villain.”
Just outside the door, I take long, calming breaths to ease my way out of my fury fog. When I feel I’ve evened out enough, I stalk into the house, the breathing having done absolutely shit to ease the hellfire happening in my chest. Ears perked, I hear the water running. My heart thunders with my footfalls as I stalk down the hall toward her bedroom.
“I sabotage myself and make many unforgivable mistakes.”
Bursting through the bedroom door, I hear a tell-tale slosh of water, knowing I’ve scared her as I scour her bed. The sight of it does nothing to ease the burning, forever the same unmade mess it always is. Inhaling deeply for a few long seconds, when I finally flit my focus to the bathroom, I see Delphine leaning back into her tub, her eyes now closed—a bottle of Smirnoff on the floor next to her.
How long was I breathing?
Taking the few steps over, I glare at her from the doorway as she keeps her eyes closed, purposefully ignoring me. It’s all I can do to keep from jerking her from the tub as I scour the milky water concealing most of her, the tops of her breasts the only thing protruding above the steaming surface. Her silky dark hair is already soaked, droplets of water line her lashes as her lush lips slowly start to curve up and into her signature smirk. “Are you going to keep staring or—”
“Did you fuck him?” I can hear the anguish in my voice and decide I don’t give a fuck if my vulnerability is showing. If this was her attempt to thwart us, she delivered exactly where I am my weakest. She knows her opponent and precisely how to destroy me.
Her shoulders go rigid at my question, and very long seconds pass before her metal eyes open. Inside them resides a glare I haven’t been the recipient of in a very long time.
A look that names me her enemy.
“Tyler,” she sighs as if in disappointment, “I told you—”
“Did. You. Fuck. Him?”
She shakes her head, not as an answer, but in annoyance.
“I told you last week, and I’ll tell you now, no man will ever have claim over me again.”
“Alain,” I state her ex’s name, “never owned you. He just manipulated you, and you let him.”
She lifts and uncaps the waiting vodka bottle, taking a long pull as if I didn’t speak a word. “You don’t know what the hell you’re speaking.”
“I think I do.”
“He was a phase,” she sighs, “a very dangerous phase like I am for you.”
“That’s where you don’t know what you’re speaking,” I snap, mocking her.
“You’re right. I’ll never master my English. Maybe I should go back to France. My job is done,” she whispers.
“You actually think you raised him?”
“Ah hello maskless, Tyler.” She smirks. “There you finally are . . . but save yourself the trouble and your insults, Soldier. They mean nothing to me.” Even as she expels it, her voice shakes with the delivery. “I gave you nothing,” she sighs. “Since the very first time I saw that look in your eyes. Where did I go wrong?”
Her words infuriate me. I should have known she saw it. Always saw it. “Because you fucking looked back,” I say, the shake of rage in my voice clear.
“Haven’t you figured it out yet? You’re so intelligent, Soldier, but these feelings are making you less so. Maybe this is the one thing I have left to teach you.” Her lifeless eyes roll over to me before she stares at the opposite side of the tub. “Love is not kind, is never worth it, and is not worth waiting for.”
I’m already at her side as she finishes.
“Yeah, let’s drink to that.” I snatch her bottle, taking a few long pulls until I know I’m going to feel it.
Now perched on the side of the tub so I’m sitting adjacent to her, I allow myself to feast, the water becoming clearer by the second. In size, she’s tiny. Toned legs, luscious, curvy hips, perfectly full breasts, and mouthwatering dark rose-colored nipples. The sight of her naked in my state is blisteringly painful. It’s my first real eyeful of the body beneath, and despite the fact I want to drown her, I want to drown in her far more.
“Thinking about putting my head underwater?” she prods as I set her bottle out of reach.
“That was one brutal move, General, but this isn’t a fucking game for me, so make up your mind,” I snap.
“Am I still worthy of the love you seek from me?”
“I don’t have to search for the truth when it comes to you. That’s your confusion, not mine. I know who you are beneath your little veil of bullshit.” I run my palm along the top of the water and cut my eyes at her. “Answer me.”
She remains mute, staring back at me without expression, her eyes void of all warmth.
“Jesus.” I shake my head. “You really do play your part so fucking well.”
“I don’t act,” she snaps. “Not for you, not for anyone.”
“Maybe not. Your self-destruction and sabotage is far too fucking messy to be rehearsed. Did. You. Fuck. Him?”
“Go home, Tyler. I should never have entertained this.”
“I am fucking home and just in time to clean up another mess,” I hiss. Leaning in, I slowly grip her neck, sliding my thumb to her pulse point as it pounds at a steady rate—not the accelerated beat of someone who just actively had sex and is coming down from any type of high. Even so, her expression remains calm and defiant as her void, lying eyes roll over me.
“My mess, Tyler, not yours.”
“We’ll see about that.”
She grips my hand and squeezes it, cutting off her own breath. “You don’t have it inside you.”
I cut off her air altogether. “You’re sadly mistaken, but I would never fucking hurt you. You know that. You fucking know that. Physically or otherwise. Not in the ways you’ve been hurt. Not in the same ways he hurt you. But unlike that piece of shit you married, I will fight for you, Delphine. I’ll fight you with everything I have to make you mine and to keep you mine. To keep you smiling and happy. To keep your beautiful face free of fear. To keep you protected and feeling safe for as long as there is breath in me.”
She stares off with me, unflinching as I relax my grip enough for her to breathe and she laughs in my face. “Isn’t it past your bed—”
In an instant, I’m jerking her soaked body out of the tub and pulling her onto my waiting lap. Her back to my chest, she thrashes in my hold as I steady her and keep her in my steel grip.
“Let me go.”
“Such a weak protest, you don’t want that. You’re fighting a man who only wants to show you differently . . . did you fuck him?” I can hear the crack in my voice in the delivery.
“Did he make you come?” I ask, spreading her legs before hooking each one over my knees. She doesn’t at all struggle when I palm her stomach and rest a beat, careful not to cross the fine line I’m walking. When she remains mute, I lower my palm and slide a finger through her pussy, revulsed at the thought of someone else having just touched her.
My chest goes inferno as I force myself to forge on, unsure if I can forgive her, but in the next breath, I do. Knowing I’ll probably have to a thousand more times before this war is over.
“Did he come inside you?” I croak, my heart threatening to give out.
She remains mute, her body pliant as her silence slices into me.
“Did you let him use you to punish yourself for kissing me? For wanting me back?” I push another finger inside her as she starts to writhe in my hold. “Did you imagine it was me as he fucked you?”
“Non,” she snaps, as I widen my thighs to widen her own as she soaks me through my jeans and T-shirt.
“Did he make you feel anything? Because I know I do. That’s what you’re fighting. It’s not me.”
She moans when I add another finger, and I feel her begin to shake in my arms as I glide them in and out. In and out.
“Nah, you’re not capable of that, right? You feel nothing. Just an empty shell, only meant for abuse, or whatever cock you decide on.”
It’s then she snaps, lashing out, clawing at the arms encasing her as I continue to fuck her with my fingers, opening her up, giving just enough pressure on her clit to get her agitated. Stilling her head with my own, I put my lips to her ear.
“What’s wrong, Delphine? You want the fucking conclusions drawn but just don’t want anyone to put a voice to it? It’s the decision you make, over and over, and you expect someone to view you differently? To see you differently. You want to be viewed as more, but act this way.”
Ripping her head from mine, she turns and looks me right in the eyes. “I will never love you.”
“You’re already starting to,” I declare confidently, even as that burn has its way with me. “And you’re fighting it. Have been. That’s why you’re punishing us both. Did you stage this or see it through? That’s where I’m stuck. Guess what? You’ve done your worst, and my feelings haven’t changed. There’s not a fucking thing on earth you could ever do to me to change them. So your little show was all for nothing.”
“I never should have trained you,” she snaps. “I never saw you as anything more. You’re lying to yourself.”
“Now on that, we agree, until it happened, it’s still happening. See, we’re both hungry, but you’re the one starving. Fuck how you need it and how much I’m desperate to give it to you.” I press my fingers in and flick the tips over her G as she bucks her hips against me. “And not just for my touch, but for what’s inside me.”
Her head falls back on my shoulder when I begin to touch her like I want to, caressing her clit with tenderness as I slow my fingers and run them across her swollen flesh, my cock past full mast beneath her. “Should I feed that starving woman?”
“Please . . . s-stop,” she begs, and I instantly do. I withdraw my hand, and she goes limp in my arms.
“I’m sorry,” I rasp out roughly, my heart speaking for me as the rest of me makes the decision that I can’t care what her answer is. Lifting her to stand, I tip her chin up to bring her reinforced steel eyes to mine. “I don’t deserve this. I’ve been nothing but good to you. Please, Delphine,” my stretched, bleeding heart asks, begs her, “tell me. Did you fuck him?”
When she doesn’t answer, I gently push her away from me before stalking toward the bathroom door and stopping.
“I only lied about one thing tonight,” I say, glancing back at her as I bat the burning tear from my jaw. “If you meant to hurt me, well played. I’m bleeding freely, and for you, I will continue to as much as you need me to. I’ll take everything you have to throw at me. Everything. I’ll eat their sins, I’ll bathe in their wrongs, I’ll pay for the way they hurt you. I’ll take it all—for you. I’ll take it all just for the chance to be with you.”
Even if I can forgive her, I can’t move forward with anything I want to give her tonight, the searing in my chest too raw. As I clear the door, she answers. It’s faint, but I hear her soft whisper. “Non.”
I keep idle, my back still to her as breaths start to come easier for the first time since I pulled up. This woman will be the end of me. She already fucking is. I’ve been patient because I’ve had no choice. I turn to face her, my eyes roaming over her dripping body. So goddamn beautiful and so dangerous. Need sieges me, but I go for words over actions.
“Tell me you’ll wait.”
“Non,” she says, clutching a towel to her chest.
“Give me something.”
“It would be a mistake.”
“I wholeheartedly disagree, but since you’re so good and apologetic about making those, make one with me, and I’ll prove you otherwise.”
“Tyler,” she whispers. The curl of my name on her tongue has me snatching the towel and tossing it before yanking her flush to me and staring down at her with everything I feel.
A second later, we’re locked in an explosive kiss, tongues dueling as she greedily kisses me back. Palming her bare ass, I lift her from the floor, her feet dangling. She cradles my head in her arms, fingers digging into my hair as she furiously sucks my tongue. I feed just as greedily, not letting up as needy, urgent moans rumble her throat. Only then do I deposit her on the carpet in front of her mattress.
Taking a step away, I fist my hands at my sides as the last of my control threatens to buckle.
“Get on the bed, spread your legs, leave your hands on your thighs, and don’t take your eyes off mine.”
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