The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition

by Janine Infante Bosco

  “I remember ordering them every Sunday,” I confess, drumming my nails against the table as I bite my lip. “It’s strange, as much as I’m trying to forget my past, there are certain things I’m desperate to remember.”

  “Like Sunday mornings at the Vegas Diner with your family.”

  “Yeah,” I whisper. “I don’t think it’s sunk in that they’re gone, that my parents are really dead or that they died so tragically.”

  “Cobra told you all the details?”

  I nod, remembering the gruesome picture he painted as he explained Yankovich hired the men who killed my parents in cold blood. From what I understand, my parents had hired a bounty hunter after years of getting nowhere with the NYPD. The bounty hunter connected some dots for them and when he gave them Yankovich’s name, my dad went after him. Days later, having suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head, my parents were found dead.

  Shaking the thoughts from my head, I blink and focus on Deuce.

  “Did you know?”

  “About your parents? Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “It wasn’t my place, Ally, and to be honest, I didn’t want to be the one to break that news to you.”

  “I guess that goes for everyone,” I say pointedly. “It makes sense now. Everyone became quiet anytime I mentioned my parents.”

  “I think we all knew it had to come from Cobra.”

  “It didn’t make it hurt any less.”

  “No, I didn’t expect it would,” he replies, sighing as he leans over the table. “Grief is a fucked up thing, babe. It’ll consume you if you allow it to. It will make you question everything, your beliefs, your purpose…every damn thing.”

  “What about you? Are your parents still alive?”

  Reaching for his drink, he shakes his head.

  “My father died a couple of years back and my mother…well I’m sure she’s dead too,” he says, taking the straw between his teeth. The instant he speaks of his mother, his whole demeanor changes and I decide to give him the same respect he’s given me. I leave it alone and ask about his dad.

  “I’m sorry,” I start. “Your dad…were you close to him?”

  “Sure was,” he admits, placing his cup down. Glancing at the jukebox, he avoids eye contact and continues. “He raised me,” he says hoarsely. “He showed me how to be a man and taught me the most important lessons anyone can learn,” he adds, turning his gaze back to me. “Yeah, grief fucks with you,” he confirms.

  Reaching across the table I lace my fingers with his and lift them slightly off the table.

  “Is that what you overcame?” I ask, diverting my eyes to the letters on his hand.

  “No.”

  Silence stretches between us as he pulls his hands back and shakes his head.

  “I didn’t overcome shit,” he confesses. “When I got the tattoo, I thought it would motivate me to change my ways and push me to move forward.”

  “To overcome,” I add.

  He nods.

  “But these hands, they’ve seen too much blood and no tattoo, no word can change the fact that I see her blood every time I look at them.”

  “Her?”

  Blinking, he stares at me as if I said something outrageous. Catching his mistake, realizing he said more than he intended, he draws in a deep breath and closes his eyes.

  “Your brother is right,” he rasps, finally opening his eyes. “I’m not the guy you get attached to.” He rubs his hands over his face before he drops them over mine. “I’m the guy who will be a small part of your journey, not the one who travels it with you and sees you to the end of it.”

  Awareness settles over me, making my gut clench. Discovering I had my life back, that I had a future, I figured I had all the time in the world, but Deuce either didn’t have much time or he was choosing not to give me much of it. While I was living day by day, Deuce had already put a time stamp on us.

  Again, he pulls back his hands and lifts his hips. Reaching into his pocket he pulls out a few quarters and drops them on the table

  “Have at it, Bonnie,” he says, tipping his chin toward the jukebox.

  “What’s your name?”

  “What?”

  “Your name, your legal name, what is it?”

  “Ally—”

  “I bet you don’t tell many people,” I whisper. “Am I right?”

  Watching his neck, I see him struggle to swallow and then he gives me what I know not many have received.

  “Caleb, my name is Caleb West,” he reveals, sending chills down my spine as his rich baritone voice blankets me.

  “Caleb West,” I repeat, letting his name roll off my tongue. “I’m Alexandria Richardson,” I whisper, giving him a piece of myself.

  A sacred piece I’ve tried to forget.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, darlin’,” he whispers.

  “Now, when it’s over, I’ll have a piece of you not too many have and you’ll have a piece of me I won’t ever give anyone else,” I disclose with a forced smile. “You’ll always remember me and I’ll never forget you.”

  The word over leaves a foul taste in my mouth and I already feel a little bit empty after having said it.

  “I’ll never forget you, Alexandria Richardson,” he whispers and I suddenly feel like crying.

  Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

  Maybe not.

  But I’ve got tonight.

  I’ve got now.

  Swiping the change off the table, I blow him a kiss and turn to the jukebox. Depositing the change into the machine, I flip through the list of songs. Finding the perfect one, I make the selection and turn back to face Deuce. His brows knit together as he peers back, looking just as torn as I feel.

  Jay Z’s voice sounds through the tiny speakers and I force a smile as he recognizes the song.

  “Bonnie and Clyde?” he asks as he raises an eyebrow.

  When you’ve lost so much, you cherish what you’ve got. For however long Deuce is meant to be in my life, I’m going to hang on with all I’ve got.

  Until it’s over.

  Until we’re just a memory.

  Grabbing the fork off the table, I use it as a prop and pretend to know the words.

  Down to ride to the very end.

  I promise to give my life—my love and my trust.

  I’ll be all he needs in this life of sin.

  -Thirty-two-

  ALLY

  An awkward silence fills Dr. Spiegel’s office as I sit across from her and wait for her to ask me questions. I’m starting to think she doesn’t deserve her degree or her paycheck for that matter. She really doesn’t work hard for it. I mean, I’m the one doing all the work here. She literally gets paid to sit there and listen. I guess it’s not a bad gig.

  “How are you today?”

  “Fine,” I mutter.

  “You were very upset during our last visit,” she says, and I’m pretty sure my eyes bulge from their sockets.

  “Yeah, admitting you were raped will do that to you,” I snap.

  “What happened after you left here?”

  Telling her Deuce took me to the shooting range and I fired a gun doesn’t seem like the right thing to say so I tell her another sad truth instead.

  “My parents are dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” she replies evenly.

  I notice then her tone never changes. It’s like no matter what I say she doesn’t have a reaction and it makes me wonder if she’s heard worse troubles than mine.

  “That must’ve been very shocking to learn,” she continues.

  “I’m not sure if shock is what I’d call it,” I admit thoughtfully. “I’ve asked for my parents a lot since I’ve been rescued but every time I asked it was ignored. No one ever told me where they were or what happened to them and so I stopped asking. It’s almost like I knew in my heart I didn’t want to know the answer and I blocked it. I blocked them so I didn’t have to feel the pain of knowing they were gone.”
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  “How did you find out?”

  “My brother told me on our birthday,” I tell her, lifting my eyes to meet her gaze. “Nice, right? The first birthday in twelve years and I find out the two people who gave me life had theirs taken from them because of me.”

  “Because of you?”

  “Yes, because I was stupid enough to get in that car with that evil man. If I hadn’t of followed him, if I hadn’t of believed there were only good people in the world then my parents wouldn’t have spent the rest of their years desperately searching for me. No one would know the name Yankovich. He wouldn’t have ruined so many lives.”

  She stares at me some more before jotting something down and then she does that irritably annoying thing with her hands, crossing one over the other.

  “What happened after you found out about your parents, how did you cope?”

  “Cope? I don’t know how to cope.”

  “Are you sure about that? Look at you, you’re still functioning. You’re here and able to tell me something very traumatic, I’d say you’re coping somehow. There is something that makes you safe, something that makes you keep pushing forward.”

  I don’t have to think about my answer. I understand what she’s saying and I do have something that makes me safe. I have someone pushing me to move forward. Someone in my ear telling me to strike a match and make my life count for more than sadness.

  “It’s him,” I whisper. “It’s Deuce.”

  “Who is Deuce?”

  Everything seems to be the perfect answer and not enough all the same.

  “He’s the man who saved me, the man that’s been saving me ever since,” I say, lifting my gaze back to her. “After my brother told me the truth about our parents he was the first person I called, the only person I wanted. Lying to myself, I thought I needed drugs. I told myself I needed to be numb and was desperate to forget. But I didn’t need them. I needed him. I think my heart knew that and that’s why I called him.”

  “How did Deuce help you get through your pain?”

  “He showed me I didn’t need to be numb and made it okay to feel.”

  Recalling those moments makes me remember how good Deuce felt and I long for more. Not because I’m an addict by default, but because I want to know how it feels to be with Deuce in all the ways that count. I want to know sex, I want to enjoy it, all of it, all of him. I want to rewrite another first time and I want him to be the man who I give myself to.

  “He touched me and I wasn’t afraid,” I blurt. “For the first time in my life I enjoyed being intimate with a man. I was comfortable and in the moment. I wasn’t fading away or using my body. I was just a woman. A woman who consensually got in bed with a man for no other reason other than she was attracted to him. It’s strange, because for my whole life sex has either been a violation or a crime.”

  “Explain that.”

  “When I was with Yankovich, he and those men raped me, they violated me. But when I was with Rush, he never tried to rape me. If I’m being honest, I was the one who initiated sex and I did so because I wanted to be useful, I wanted to be enough so that he wouldn’t send me back to that monster. I used my body, and in a way I feel like I committed a crime on myself.”

  I pause, taking a deep breath I glance down at my hands. Surprised to find I’m not tugging on my sleeves, I continue.

  “Deuce didn’t let me touch him. He didn’t want anything in return all he wanted was to give me that experience, and now all I want is to give him more. I want to give him all of me. The broken pieces and the ones he’s managed to glue back together. I want to feel but I want him to feel too. I want him to feel me, not necessarily Ally but Alexandria. I want to give him the woman I was meant to be and not the one I became.”

  “What’s stopping you then?”

  I didn’t know the answer to that.

  If Deuce didn’t halt the breaks on things, I would have had sex with him, but he was adamant about making it about me. He says I need to be reintroduced to sex, but if he doesn’t make that move how will that happen?

  “Ally?”

  “If I initiate sex with Deuce does that mean I’m reverting back to my old ways?”

  “You said in the past you initiated sex because you wanted to be useful, almost as if having sex was your job.”

  “Yes,” I agree. “But that’s not how I feel with Deuce. I want to have sex with him because it’s him. I want him and I think he wants me too but is afraid he’s going to hurt me or do something to remind me of my past. I can’t guarantee my mind won’t betray me but I don’t want to live my life in limbo because of that either. More than anything I want to be normal. I want to be with a man. I’d like to have a relationship one day too. I want to be someone’s something and not because it will keep me alive but because they care for me. I want it all.”

  My shoulders feel somewhat lighter as the confession leaves me and I draw out a breath as Dr. Spiegel surprises me with a smile.

  A real fucking smile.

  Who knew she had it in her?

  Then as I ask myself that question, I realize she’s probably asking herself the same exact one, only she’s referring to me and that makes me smile too.

  “Our time is up for today, but there is something I want to give you,” she says as she pulls a book from her drawer. She slides it across the desk and I reach for it. Flipping through the pages, I notice they’re all blank and lift my gaze back to her, silently questioning why she’s giving me a blank notebook.

  “It’s a journal,” she explains. “I think you’re doing amazing, Ally, and this journal will only help your healing process. I want you to use it to write the things you are too afraid to say. I want you to fill those pages with the things you discover about yourself as well as when you come to another conclusion of what’s happened to you or if you conjure up a new dream for yourself, I want you to write it down.

  I think I like that idea. I won’t have to worry so much about judgmental eyes or looks of pity—I can write without restraint, allowing the ink to bleed onto the pages and tell all my truths. When all the pages are full and there is nothing left to tell, I’ll bury the book.

  “After you’ve filled those pages you might want to publish your story,” she adds and I instantly shake my head.

  Why would I publish something so heinous? To make people aware of the ugliness I suffered, no thank you. All they have to do is turn on the news and see how ugly the world is. They don’t need my story, a story the world forgot long before the cops ever closed the case on it.

  “Thank you,” I say, tapping the cover of the book. “But I think this will be just for me.”

  Once everything is written and spoken, the nightmare can be what finally fades away.

  Not me.

  I’ll be the girl who moved on.

  The girl who survived.

  The girl who allowed herself to dream again.

  The girl who let those new dreams define who she became.

  I’ll be her.

  I tuck the journal under my arm and rise from my seat. Feeling weightless, I say goodbye to Dr. Spiegel and schedule my next appointment. When I reach the waiting room, I smile brightly at the little girl sitting on her mama’s lap.

  “Ally!” Skylar calls, scrambling off Celeste’s lap. As I kneel down, she runs toward me and I wrap her up in my arms.

  The world may be ugly but there are hidden gems all around.

  Some are right in front of us.

  Others are in our arms.

  -Thirty-three-

  DEUCE

  Fucking hell.

  There are nine layers of hell and as you go down the list they become more and more vile. Right now, I’m sitting at the seventh layer sweating my balls off as I build a fucking ramp off Wolf’s front porch. I would’ve been finished if I had done the job myself but these fools here are fucking everything up. Needles shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a tool, for fuck’s sake he’s a tool himself. He nearly took his own finge
r off nailing down the floorboards, and Bas, he’s been cutting the same piece of wood for the last hour. Stryker, well, he’s somewhat of a help I suppose. He did after all, hand me the hammer a few times. Riggs is useless though. Fucking useless. I swear that guy is just here for shits and giggles.

  Then there’s Wolf.

  The crazy fuck has been hanging over my shoulder the entire time, hollering about his petunias. Heaven forbid I step on one of his fucking flowers while I bust my ass. The world might fucking end.

  “So, a little birdie told me you did fuck up,” Riggs says, dropping his shades from his head. I wipe the sweat from my brow as he crosses his legs at the ankles and tilts his head back to take the fucking sun. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, Cowboy.”

  “Yeah, everyone’s talking about it,” Stryker adds, handing me the hammer. Fucking guy is a real winner.

  “What the fuck are you idiots talking about?”

  “Cobra is plotting your death,” Riggs explains. “Says you took advantage of his sister,” he continues, placing a hand over his heart. “Man, I’m on your side. I feel for you, truly I do. If anyone knows the consequences of shagging someone’s sister it’s me.”

  “Is he now?” I ask, grinding my teeth. “Fuck him too,” I growl. “I didn’t take advantage of Ally.”

  Just saying her name makes me fucking miss her. This morning she threw me for a loop when she revealed she had asked Celeste to take her to her appointments. It was a big step for her and I should have been happy to see her spread her wings and all that shit, but it stung a little. It got me thinking about my purpose in her life and what will happen when she lives independently. When she doesn’t need me anymore.

  “I fucking knew it!” Needles boasts.

  “Knew what?” Stryker asks.

  “Back in Albany, I caught him checking her out,” he says pointedly.

  “I wasn’t checking her out,” I argue, recalling the night Needles was talking about. Albany seems like a lifetime ago, especially since the girl I saw that night is nothing like the girl I sleep next to every night.

  “I saw it too,” Bas chimes in.

  “Fuck you too then,” I sneer. Desperate for this conversation to end, I turn to Wolf. I’m about to ask him how Linc is doing when I notice his jeans are half way down his ass.