Unchain My Heart(70)

There wasn’t much I could say to her that hadn’t been said already. All I really could do was to be there for her when she needed a hug or to cry. Finding the right words in these circumstances was more difficult than I’d imagined. We sat in silence, the air thick with sorrow.

Cobra had taken the shovel from Ryder and was filling in the rest of the dirt. He and Ryder were glaring at one another, unable to suppress their anger. Each indirectly blamed the other for their loss. The MC club was being shattered by outside forces, and it was as if neither knew how to fix it.

My head jerked up when I heard a familiar voice cut through the silence. Marcus Masterton. What the hell was he doing here? How did he know where to find me? But it wasn’t me he was concerned with. He stormed straight toward Daddy who was standing under a tree, talking with Ratbag’s brother.

I couldn’t believe the nerve of the man, showing up here. After the fiasco at the restaurant, I hadn’t bumped into him at the office either. Daddy had packed Marcus off to work at the Chicago branch. It was a satellite office, and although Daddy had told Marcus it was a promotion because he’d be second in charge, in actual fact it was very much a demotion from the treatment he’d received at the firm in L.A. where he was treated as the golden boy.

Daddy took his hand off the Australian man’s arm and turned to face Marcus. The surfer dude walked away, leaving Daddy with his former protégé. I couldn’t hear their words, but from their expressions and the way Marcus’s arms were flying about, I realized that it wasn’t a friendly conversation. I quickly wrapped my jacket around Mia’s shoulders and gave her hand a squeeze as I beckoned Cobra over. Luckily he saw me, and passed the shovel back to Ryder before moving toward us.

Making my way over the grass toward the two men, I cursed under my breath as my heels sunk into the soil a few times. I should have gone with the damn flats.

“Marcus, what the hell are you doing here? It's a funeral, for God’s sake,” I scolded. I’d never forgiven the jerk for the way he treated me, but coming at my father here of all places was beyond uncool.

“Jade, keep your nose out of this, okay? It's because of you and your father that my career has taken a fucking nosedive. I don’t need more shit from you; all I want is my position back in L.A.” His eyes were stormy and I could smell alcohol on his breath.

“Don’t you speak to Jade like that, Masterton. You had your chance with her. Hell, you even had my blessing to marry her. You were the one who screwed it up by not keeping it in your pants.” Daddy narrowed his eyes, looking at Marcus with contempt. “You were so close to being my son-in-law.”

“Well, if Jade wasn’t such a prude, refusing to have sex with me, I wouldn’t have needed to do what I did, would I?”

I huffed, pushing my chest out. “Maybe I didn’t have sex with you because I didn’t want to—”

“Right. But you hand it on a platter to a fucking lowlife biker? You’re nothing but a slut. Actually, I should be grateful that I found that out about you before I married you.” He grabbed me by the throat and pulled me against his chest. I could hardly breathe he was squeezing that hard.

“You fool. Let Jade go!” Daddy shouted, his eyes wide with fright. Cold metal against my temple was followed by a click. The gun dug into my skin, hard and unforgiving. Right now, Marcus was just mad enough to pull the goddamn trigger.

Panicked, I looked over at Ryder. He was too far away to see what was going on, his head down as he completed the task at hand. I wanted to scream, but Marcus just squeezed tighter until I was fighting for breath. My lungs burned, and I struggled against Marcus to get free.

“Let’s see how much you love your daughter, old man. Time for negotiating is over. If you don’t meet my demands, I’ll put a bullet through her pretty skull. She’s useless to me now anyway.”

Ryder. Dammit, look up! Harrison. Where are you? He’d been lurking around, trying to stay in the background all afternoon. Where the fuck were they now?

Then I heard Ryder’s voice, ice-cold and unemotional. “Masterton. Put the damn gun down. You won’t get out of this alive.”

“Fuck off, biker. You took my future wife. And now she’s going to pay for that.”

“This slut?” Ryder nodded in my direction, his eyes hooded and his expression guarded. “Fucked her on my bike that night. Was enough. Nah, not interested in this pussy.”

“Then why are you here? If you don’t care, why try to stop me? I'm not stupid.”

“Buried a mutual friend today and not in the mood to fill in another grave. That’s all. What you do with the bitch is none of my concern. Just don’t do it here, okay? There are kids around.”