I scowled. “Doesn’t excuse his behaviour. Call me the next time it happens, okay?”

She sighed. “Nash, you’ll only make things worse. I think I’ll just call the police next time.”

“Fuck that, Erika. They’ll do jack shit. You let me talk to him once and he won’t give you grief again.”

She raised a brow. “So you’ll talk to him? Or will you resort to your favourite way of dealing with stuff?”

“Babe, my favourite way of doing stuff is with my mouth.” I winked at her. She was far too uptight.

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I’ll only punch the motherfucker if he needs it. He listens to what I have to say, and promises not to annoy you anymore, then we’ll all be happy and no-one will end up with broken bones.”

She slung her bag over her shoulder and murmured, “Something tells me he won’t listen to you so I still think it’s best if I just call the police. I don’t want you to end up back in prison.”

Fuck, why did my sister have to be so headstrong? “I’m not going to end up in prison again. Just promise me you’ll call me.”

She’d already started walking towards the front door and yelled out over her shoulder, “Promise.”

I followed her out, with Mum, Jamison and Carla on my heels. Even though I didn’t believe her promise, I kept my mouth shut. There was no way she was going to agree to what I wanted so I simply decided to follow it up at some point during the week and sort the asshole out myself.

As she said her goodbyes to everyone, I received a text message.

Gabriella: Happy Mother’s Day, asshole.

Fuck.

The red rage blinded me again. It reached into my chest and threatened to squeeze the life out of me. At the same time, the pain engulfed me. Ten fucking years and the pain never left. It tore through me, lacerating my heart; the cold, patched together heart I still had even though I’d done my best to rip it out and throw it the fuck away.

“Nash!” My attention was drawn back to my family around me.

“What?” I snapped, looking wildly at them; my mind unable to focus clearly on what they were saying as it tried to process jumbled thoughts and the relentless anguish that wouldn’t let me out of its grip. The anguish that on most days I dealt with, but on this fucking day, I struggled with. No fucking thanks to Gabriella.

My mother looked at my phone and then back at my face. “Gabriella?” she whispered.

My voice was caught somewhere in my chest so I simply nodded.

“You need to change your phone number,” she suggested, her kind eyes watchful over me. Hesitation was clear in her eyes too; she knew from experience that I wasn’t good at taking advice.

I fought the urge to ignore them all, jump on the back of my bike and get the hell out of here. That would be a lot easier than dealing with this shit. Again. I blew out a long breath. “No.” I was emphatic. I’d never do that. As hard as it was to negotiate this pain, I needed to remember what we’d done; what I’d done.

Annoyance flared on my mother’s face. “It’s been ten years since Aaron -”

“No!” I roared, anger pumping furiously through my body. That was it; I was done. I pushed past them all and stalked to my bike. Voices floated through the air but I had no idea what was being said; the only thing that mattered to me in that instant was getting the fuck out of here. Getting the fuck away from the memories and the pain, and finding a reprieve from the living hell I was in.

Chapter 3

Hard To Love ~ Lee Brice

Velvet

“See how that colour brings your eyes out?” I asked.

Harlow leaned forward and assessed herself in the mirror as I packed up the eyeshadows and makeup I’d used on her. She smiled and I knew I’d achieved my goal. “You’re right!” she exclaimed, and eyed me with excitement. “I’m not sure why I’ve never experimented with that colour before.”

“It’s easy to get stuck in a rut with your makeup; we all do it.”

“Thank you so much for forcing me to let you play with my makeup.”

“You make me sound like a bossy bitch.”

A voice boomed from behind us. “If the shoe fits.”

I turned and glared at Scott.

He shrugged. “What? You are a bossy bitch, Velvet.”

“I have to be where you and the guys are concerned, but I’m not usually bossy with Harlow.”

Harlow backed me up. “Yeah, she doesn’t boss me around but I’m glad she did on this because I love what she’s done with my makeup.”

Scott walked to where Harlow was and grabbed her around the waist. He kissed her and then murmured, “I’m heading out but I’ll be back at the end of your shift to pick you up. You all good?”

I tuned them out; watching lovestruck couples together was not something I enjoyed doing. Instead, I packed away my makeup and finished getting ready for work. It was a longer shift than usual tonight because one of the other strippers was sick, and Cody had asked me to cover for her. Fortunately for Cody, I liked him, so I’d said yes. Hell, in the four years I’d worked at Indigo, Cody was the best manager they’d ever employed so I was doing everything I could to make sure he stayed.

Scott’s voice pulled me back into their conversation. “Nash is out front, Velvet. Something’s pissed him off. You got five minutes to check on him?”