Raging Heart On_ Friends to Lovers Romance(153)

“You need to sit down, boy,” Marcum says. I ignore him too, and remain standing there—just waiting. He crosses his arms and matches me stare for stare. It’s a battle of wills, but I’m too fucking exhausted to wait him out. I cave and sit down.

“Jenna.”

My blood runs cold. That fucking bitch. “Where the fuck is she?”

“I have Ride and a couple of the boys out trying to locate her. She’s hiding.”

“She better be hiding deep,” I growl.

“Boy, you need to learn to control your shit. You can’t end every fucker that messes with you. That’s what got you into this mess to begin with.”

“Fuck off, Marcum.”

The old man stands up in front of me. I know what’s coming, and I could fight it, but I’m not going to. I want the fucking pain. It’ll give me something to worry about besides letting go of Tess. I wasn’t expecting Dusty and Bramble to grab me from behind though and drag me out of the chair. There’s a look in Marcum’s eyes that I’ve only seen one other time. The day they closed me up at the pen, and I told him not to visit me or have anything to do with me again. I blamed him for Renee. I shouldn’t have. I’m a sad ass fucker. Hell, a part of me is blaming Marcum for Tess being shot.

“I allow you to do shit I’d kill other men for, Dawg. I love you, boy. You’re my blood, but you need to get your head out of your fucking ass,” he says, and the hush in the room is huge.

He’s claiming me as his, even after I told him never to do that shit. The secret is out, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m too messed up in the head right now. His fist comes in contact with my jaw and my head jerks back violently. It’s a fucking loaded hit, and I stagger against my captives as a result. I’m unsteady as hell from the direct hit, but even I can tell he held back. There’s a reason Marcum leads the roughest bunch of bastards in the South.

“Leave us alone,” Marcum says, sitting back down. Dusty and Bramble let me go, and it takes everything I have not to fall to the ground like an untried pup and embarrass myself. I manage to sit down and breathe through the pain.

The room clears quickly. When Marcum demands something, there aren’t a lot of men who wait around and question it—none that are alive anyway. He sits there with his fingers tapping against the table. His fingers are large and beefy; they are covered in ink, and he has huge rings on three fingers. One is of a skull, the other an insignia, and the third an eagle. The man is intimidating as hell, but his hands are fucking scary. They would make a lesser man tremble and probably have; too times to count.

He relaxes in his chair and pulls out his smokes. He doesn’t speak but motions with the pack. Right now, it sounds like an excellent fucking idea, and I take one. He pulls out his silver lighter. The cap flipping back and clicking into place is the only sound in the room. He holds the flame out for me. I lean in and toke as he lights. The nicotine blasts my senses, as I watch him light his own and close his lighter, putting it away.

“You’re being a stupid fool,” he eventually says.

“Probably.”

“Fucking hell, at least own it. Goddamn! Did that rotten blood on your mother’s side destroy you? Son, you need to start thinking with your head.”

“Lay the fuck off, Marcum. You’re the one who put your dick where it shouldn’t have been.”

“That doesn’t mean you follow my path. Jesus H. Christ.”

“I fucked up. I get it. But there was no way that motherfucking piece of shit was going to draw another breath after taking my child from me. I squeezed the life out of him and rejoiced while I fucking did it. You can’t tell me you would have done it differently.”

“I would have done everything different!” he growls, and he barely gets it out before I interrupt him.

“No, you wouldn’t have. You would have…”

“I would have sent that son of a bitch to hell piece by piece! What I wouldn’t have done was ended my own fucking life in the process! Always cover your ass, Maxwell. You do not leave your ass swinging in the trees.”

“I…”

“You went off half-cocked, like a stupid motherfucker and…”

“And did what a man does!”

“Really, asshole? My way, you’d be with the woman who is in the other room crying her heart out over you. The kind of woman who supports a man and makes him strong. Not tears his ass down.”

“Like you are an expert on women,” I come back at him, but it’s weak. I know it is, and he knows it is.

“Are you done blubbering out of your asshole and finally ready to listen to your old man?”