“I’m Ice.”
“I heard you were fucking my wife.”
Wife? The word cut James like the sharpest knife. Had she married the bastard? Was he sleeping with another man’s wife? She knew how he felt about marriage and she’d slept with him anyway? Betrayal hit him like a punch to the gut. She’d lied like Christine had lied.
“I didn’t know she was your wife.” His low, cold voice betrayed no emotion as he turned his gaze to Lana. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She didn’t look up. Instead, she moaned softly, and the utter despair and hopelessness in her voice diluted his bitterness to a dull ache.
“Answer him.” The icy tone of Levi’s words stung James’s flesh. “Tell him what a bad wife you were, running away and hiding from me all these years.” Levi yanked Lana’s head back and James looked at her aghast. Eyes swollen, lip split, face covered with cuts and bruises. But what made his heart ache most was the desolation in her eyes, dark without hope and bleak without her fire.
“Answer him, dammit.” Levi struck Lana across the face and her head snapped to the side.
Protectiveness surged through him. How could he condemn her for running away from Levi? He suspected she’d only touched on the abuse she’d suffered during her years with him. Theirs wasn’t a marriage to be saved; it was a marriage that should never have happened. A marriage to be forgotten. Abandoned. Just as she had done. She’d left Levi to start a new life, heal the scars…and James had just added another.
“Fucking bitch.” Levi kicked her thigh. “I’ll make you talk when we get home. Or, better yet, I’ll let the brothers convince you to talk.”
Hot, hard rage suffused every cell in James’s body. Suddenly it didn’t matter that she was married, or that she hadn’t told him the truth. He was done with rules and rigid, meaningless personal codes. He’d been so focused on the past he couldn’t see his future standing in front of him. It was time to leave the path and follow his heart. Follow his fire.
“You’re not looking very apologetic.” Levi turned his gaze on James. “Maybe you don’t understand. Not only did you fuck my wife, you fucked the property of the Wolverines.”
He lifted Lana by the hair and spun her around. She moved like a rag doll, limbs limp, body swaying. Levi yanked up her shirt and shoved her jeans low enough to give James a clear view of her tattoo. The tattoo she hated. The tattoo he had kissed.
“Same mark we use on all Wolverine property,” Levi said. “Equipment, furniture…slaves.” He kicked Lana’s knees and she dropped to the floor.
James’s vision sheeted red. He yanked at the cuffs, pulled against the hands gripping his arms, his body shaking with the effort to get free. Two minutes. That’s all he needed to wrap his fingers around the throat of that soulless bastard and make sure he never hurt Lana again.
“Looking at her now, you wouldn’t believe it took eight guys to hold her down,” Levi said with a smirk. “She fought like a fucking wildcat. Bit a chunk out of one guy’s arm and nearly tore the balls of another one. But they finally got her pinned and I marked her myself. My initiation into the Wolverines.”
Rex motioned Bones over to the side and blood pounded through James’s veins as he sensed an opportunity to escape. Frantic, he looked over his shoulder. He’d never asked for help, but he was asking now. Voice cracking, he rasped, “Ryder.”
“Son of a bitch,” Ryder muttered behind him. James felt a tug on the handcuffs and the soft scrape of metal on metal as Ryder worked the lock, stepping between James and the rest of the inner circle to keep his activity hidden from view.
Levi spun Lana around again and pushed her to her knees. She wilted to the floor, her hair drooping over her shoulders.
She’s lost hope.
Because of me.
Fury poured from James’s heart, his rage directed not just at Rex and Levi, but at himself and his inability to see what really mattered.
Levi thanked Rex for finding his property and directed one of the Wolverines to hand over several packages of neatly stacked bills to Bones. “American dollars,” Levi said. “They’re worth more than your plastic play money.”
While Bones counted the money, James motioned Kickstand over and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Something happens to me, I need you to give Roxie a message. Go grab a pen and get back here quick.”
Kickstand dashed away and Levi announced an affiliation between the Wolverines and Hades, and the establishing of a new drug-trading route between the two clubs. James’s heart pounded. He was having a hard time concentrating. All he could think about was getting free of the goddamn handcuffs and getting Lana out of Hades. Once they were on his bike, he would drive until he ran out of road. And then he would keep her safe until the last breath left his body.