Chapter 25: The Devils Inside

Vince nodded at Kai, as she passed him another Corona. As their fingers touched, he couldn't help but relish the chill that ran up his arm as he thought about the last time he saw her. He cocked a small smile, and she returned it, blushing brightly, as if she could read his very thoughts.

Kai cleared her throat, wiping down the bar in front of him. "So there's this rumor... that you have a girl," she said, lingering on the last part of the sentence. Vince cocked his head to the side, trying to decipher where this conversation was going. He didn't know Kai well enough to know if this conversation was about to lead to more drama in his life.

"Yeah... I do now," he said, purposely leaving the last past vague. He technically had slept with Kai after him and Jackie had broken up and a couple of days before they had gotten back together. But he knew that the omission would destroy whatever amount of trust Jackie had in him. "So what does that mean for us?"

V leaned back in his chair and exhaled deeply. Something in the bottom of his stomach stirred as he realized that Kai was ripe for the taking. He took a swig of his beer and eyed her. She stared at him dead on and smirked.

As the devils inside egged him on.

Letty knew the guilt was most likely eating him alive. That's why he drank every night and was holing himself up at Lou's when he wasn't at the garage. His relationship with Dom was on the rocks and being around Mia and Brian was driving him insane. Hell, even she was disgusted by the two of them. Mia throwing herself all over Vince; Brian was throwing himself all over Mia. It took all of her self-control to not bash their heads in to stop herself from gauging her eyes out.

She plopped down in the open recliner in the dark corner of V's room, glad for the dark, cool confines of the quiet basement. Letty needed to get away from Dom's desperation, Mia's anger and Jesse's loneliness. Everyone in the house was slowly falling apart, including her.

At some point, she fell asleep on the recliner and did a double take when she woke up. The sun was coming up in the far distance when Letty opened her eyes and came face to face with Vince and Kai half-dressed in his bed. She groaned and rolled her eyes, before climbing off of the recliner and exiting his room.

Letty climbed the basement stairs and came face to face with Dom. They stared awkwardly at each other for a few moments before she opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. "So he's down there with her?" Dom asked, breaking the silence. Let nodded, motioning to the stairs. "Yeah. I don't know what he's doing anymore. He has his head up his ass," she replied.

"Maybe I should talk to him," he said, leaning against the kitchen counter. She scoffed and shrugged her shoulders sarcastically. "Sure. Why not? He could learn a lot from you," she countered. Dom shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest. "I'm trying here, Let. But I'm getting kind of tired of hiding out in the garage from you. I'm getting tired of hearing your mouth everytime I try to fix things between us!"

Letty slapped her arms down on her side and faced him. "Maybe I'm not trying to fix anything, Dom. Maybe I want to just be left alone." The words tumbled out so effortlessly, but she had been thinking them all along. Letty was just happy she stopped there and didn't let anything else slip out. He stepped towards her and stood still. "Then go. Be alone."

Her breath caught in her throat as she processed his words. Dom and the team was her everything. She had constantly thought about leaving, but now that the time was here, she was at a loss of words. Letty nodded and exited the kitchen, in search of another dark corner to hide out in and plan her next move.

She was finally ready to let the devils inside, out.

They all sat around the picnic table, holding hands as they said their version of grace. Vince didn't know how he had gotten there, sitting next to her with this guilty smile on his face. He loved her, he couldn't lie about that, but what he could lie about was the fact that he had been frequenting Lou's lately. After hours. After all the years he had been silently hating Dom for the way he treated Letty, here he was doing the same thing to Jackie. But unlike everything else in his life, it came easy, so he went with it.

Everything was going on in a blur around him, as he was consumed with all his thoughts. The team conversated around Vince, laughing and carrying on like he wasn't sticking out like a sore thumb right now. "So are you riding with Hector or us to Race Wars tomorrow?" Dom asked, passing Coronas around the table.

Jackie accepted one and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not really into cars. Usually go to the races to check out what the girls are wearing nowadays. Gotta keep my eyes on the latest trends if I want to make sure my store is going to stay in business," she said, "I wouldn't even know the first thing about Race Wars."

"Come on, you're the boss, girl! You can take a few days off to hang with us. I'll teach you everything you need to know. Plus I could use another girl around," Letty chimed in, scooping some more food onto her plate. Vince placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed it, smiling gently at her. "Come on, it'll be fun. I can sit out some races. We can just enjoy the different parties," he said.

Jackie shrugged and nodded in response, not wanting to spend any more time on the subject. "You'll be fine. You're a big boy. Plus, I can use the extra time to put in some extra hours at the shop," she replied. Vince felt the scowl forming on his face as his hand gripped tightly around the Corona bottle in his hand. He wasn't a fan of begging and he wasn't about to start begging to a girl. His mind thought back to Kai and how willing she always was. How eager she always was to make him smile.

As his mind drifted off and created an awkward silence on his table, Vince felt a sharp pain on his knee, as someone kicked him. He glanced up and found Letty glaring at him, her eyebrows knitted together. He released the grip he had had on the bottle, and sat back in his chair, continuing to stuff his face in order to keep his mouth busy and unable to say anything stupid. The team tried to lighten the mood but found it futile when Vince disappeared into the basement.

Letty sighed, motioning towards the basement door. "He's just being... typical Vince. He really wanted you to go," she said. Jackie nodded. "Yeah, but he also needs to understand that I run a business with a skeletal staff. I can't just take off whenever I want. I wish I could, but I can't," Jackie replied, helping her put away clean dishes.

After they cleaned the kitchen, Jackie said her goodbyes and promised to stop by the next day with some new sample clothes from the store for Letty, so she could turn heads at Race Wars. As she exited the house, closing the front door behind her, she found Mia on the dark, front porch nursing a beer. She smiled at her weakly, cocking an eyebrow up at her.

Jackie stopped briefly, wondering if she should even bothering having a conversation with Mia. She decided against it, glancing over her shoulder as she stepped off of the front porch. "Good night," Jackie said. As she finished her descent, she heard Mia's reply. "How stupid can you be?"

Jackie froze, her blood rushing to her ears as she processed what Mia had just said. Jackie rearranged the purse she was carrying on her shoulder and stepped back onto the porch, looking into the dark corner that Mia was currently sitting in. "What did you say?" She asked, preparing herself for any conversation that could possibly turn physical.

"You treat him like a king and he's running around town with her," Mia replied. Jackie felt her heart drop to the bottom of her stomach as she processed Mia's words. "Oh really?" She responded, feigning indifference but on the inside she was dying slowly.

"Go ahead, ask Letty. The same Letty you clothe with your precious hard work. She knows all about them. Her name is Kai."

The devils inside were closer than friends and enemies.

R&R

{Thanks TheChemist20 for the support.}