Inked

by Drew Elyse

  Personally, I couldn’t find it in me to give that first fuck what laws were broken, so long as I caught the asshole that was after my goddess.

  A few minutes later, Sketch got the call. “Jager’s got the mailman. We have an address.”

  I readied to head out with everyone else, but Jack grabbed my hand.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “I know that my woman got attacked, and then she was tormented with proof that the asshole that did it is still out there obsessed with her. And on the very day she took a huge step to get past it by going back there, which he probably knew would be the case. I know that I had to see her injuries slowly heal and that shit isn’t even done yet, and then I had to see him bring that fear back into her eyes full force. I know that Andrews is trying, but getting nowhere.”

  Jack held my stare, steady. He was a good guy, a man who loved a woman and would do anything to ensure her safety. “Just be careful.”

  I’d heard that before.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jess

  “Jess, sit down. Eat a cupcake.”

  I looked at Liam. He was worried about me. We’d been coworkers and friends for years, but he’d never seen me have an episode. Few people in my life had up until recently. In fact, only Carson had.

  Though, I wasn’t sure I’d call this an episode. Normally, I was panicking over nothing concrete. It was just the overwhelming force of general anxiety coming down on me. This wasn’t that. This was me freaking out over something concrete.

  He wasn’t done with me.

  That was what those pictures meant.

  I didn’t know what was in the rest, though I’d guess it was just more of the same. When he’d heard my gasp and looked at what I was holding, Braden took them all. I never saw more than the first two shots, but those were enough.

  That he had collected those images and displayed them all, that he’d photographed them and sent that to me now after what he’d already done to me, the message was received.

  And I was—rightfully, to my mind—terrified.

  That all meant that, for probably the first time ever, I didn’t want to sit down and eat a cupcake. It didn’t matter that Liam had gone to Sugar’s Dream—where Kate worked with Avery, who owned it—and got my favorite lemon supreme ones before coming to Park’s. Not even those delicious beauties could tempt me right then.

  “I can’t,” I told him.

  I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t do anything but wonder where he was, if he was watching, when he’d try to get to me again.

  “You’re safe,” Liam tried assuring, but the words only meant so much.

  Everyone in my life was determined to protect me, but he was determined, too. Maybe more so.

  No, that wasn’t fair. Braden was determined. He had been immediately all over those pictures. He’d barely touched them before he was getting them secured so we wouldn’t leave more prints than I already had on them. He’d made a slew of calls while at the same time swearing to me that they would find him and ushering me here to Park’s. And then he’d taken off to put that promise into action.

  It’d been hours that I’d been holed up here. Liam showed not long after Braden dropped me off. I didn’t know if it was for protection or moral support, but even as it got later and later, he’d stayed put.

  That was just one of many things I didn’t know.

  Since I’d been dropped here, I hadn’t heard a thing. I didn’t know what Braden was doing aside from trying to use those pictures to find him. Liam had made mention to the Disciples being on it too, but either knew no more than that or simply wasn’t sharing. It was the same with Park. He’d taken up residence in the seat closest to the door and said very little since.

  As one hour had turned to two, then four, I’d given in and tried calling Braden to no avail. I knew he was busy, but given that what was keeping him busy was about me, I’d thought he could carve out a minute to update me. It seemed I was wrong about that.

  After my third unreturned call, I’d tried Jack. His number had been in my phone since Braden and I became an ‘us.’ Even before our night out with him and Cassie. It had been “just in case,” according to Braden who’d all but commandeered my phone to program it in. Jack, to my dismay and frustration, had also not answered me.

  I’d started spamming Sketch and some of the Disciples as well, and gotten either nothing or some meaningless equivalent of it. One of Sketch’s texts had literally just said “you’re covered.”

  Great. That was super enlightening.

  Frustration, since I’d been dumped here in what had apparently become an information freeze zone, was almost as familiar a feeling as the fear. I’d started to wonder if Park and Liam truly were in the dark as well, being intentionally kept there so that they couldn’t share anything with me.

  With nothing else to do, I kept at the pacing while my two friends watched, neither hiding their concern in the slightest.

  It was another half an hour before my phone went off, and it felt like I was about to crack the screen from the force with which I slammed my finger down on the answer button.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, goddess.” The voice was drained, but it still had the power to send relief flooding through me. I hadn’t admitted it even to myself, but the longer I went without a reply, the more I’d begun to worry that he’d found a lead worth pursuing that led him into trouble.

  Despite that, and even though he sounded so weary, my frustration held on strong. “What’s happening?” I demanded.

  “I’m almost to Park’s,” he evaded.

  “Braden,” I warned.

  “Jess, we’ll talk when I get there. Okay? I’m less than ten minutes out.”

  I didn’t like it, but I could agree to it. “Okay.”

  “If it’s cool with Park, I’d like to stay there tonight,” he went on. “I want to be with you and be sure you’re safe, but my place doesn’t have the same system outfitted as his.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said, and Park, who was already looking at me, gave a jerk of his chin like he already knew what that meant.

  “Okay, I’ll be there soon.”

  He said a short goodbye before hanging up, and I announced, “Braden’s on his way here.”

  “Anything?” Liam asked, his desire for news genuine enough that I felt sure he hadn’t been withholding.

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound like it.” Shifting my attention to Park, I went on, “He wants us to stay here tonight with the security system and all.”

  “Your bed, your guest,” Park replied like I had all the right in the world to do whatever I felt like here. Like it was as much my home as his.

  Rather than tackling that at all, I just said thanks and went into what was at least still my temporary room to make sure I hadn’t piled crap onto the bed since I’d been spending less time here. I heard the footsteps behind me but kept my attention on moving the scattered clothing from the end of the bed.

  “You want to get it out before he gets here?” Liam asked.

  I looked over at him, seeing he’d stopped just inside the doorway, waiting. He usually wasn’t the let-you-have-your-space kind of guy, physically or mentally. When I’d been dealing with the irritation of what I now understood was Braden’s job keeping us apart, Liam had been constantly in my face about talking through what was bothering me. That he was letting me lead now spoke volumes about where he was worried my head was at.

  He was also right, I should at least release some of it. Braden was already shouldering enough of this without me dumping on more.

  “I’m scared,” I admitted.

  “I am, too.” That was Liam. He wasn’t afraid to express emotion like it would make him less of a man to do it.

  “Not just for me,” I explained. “For everyone that’s getting wrapped up in this. It’s not only me that might get hurt.”

  “But it’s only you that already has. You don�
��t think anyone trying to shield you doesn’t know that’s a possibility? It always has been. Everyone would rather take the risk of it being them than having to see it happen to you ever again.”

  I knew that. “And I appreciate it, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about people I love being at risk.” I sighed. “Especially Braden, who seems hell-bent on taking him down himself.”

  Liam’s eyes widened a bit, and it didn’t register to me why. At least, not until I recalled what I’d just said.

  “You’re in that deep?”

  Was I? How did you know something like that?

  “I don’t know.”

  It had freaked me out when he’d implied that he might be feeling that the other day. I knew nothing about that kind of emotion except platonically or secondhand from the people in my life finding love. I suppose I’d always assumed it would be obvious, but now all I could think was that it was too soon, it didn’t make sense.

  Knowing me well, Liam spoke up. “Do you know how long it took me to fall in love with Kate?”

  “First sight?”

  Liam was undoubtedly a romantic. He’d been into Kate from afar for a while but had left her alone to grieve her late husband. The way he’d fawned for her, I wouldn’t be shocked if that was the answer he was going to give.

  He smirked. “No, jackass. It was her second session on that tattoo. That’s it. I’d been interested for a long time, but she’d barely ever spoken to me back then. It only took two opportunities to sit down and get her to talk to me for me to fall.” He shook his head a bit. “I didn’t realize it then. I knew I was in deep, but looking back, I know that’s when it happened.”

  “I don’t know if I’m capable of all that.”

  The asshole actually laughed. “You’re kidding, right? You might not have done it in a relationship before, but you love as fiercely as anyone I know.”

  “It’s different.”

  “Not that different,” he insisted. “Not so different that I could believe for a minute that you weren’t capable of it with what you give everyone else in your life.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe what I was feeling for Braden was more than I’d let myself accept.

  “Don’t torture yourself about that,” Liam ordered. “He’s not going anywhere. You figure it out on your own time.” That was good advice. Right now, there was enough happening. “I’m here whenever you need me to be.”

  He let it be with that, going back into the living room. Not long after, Braden arrived, and Liam took off. Park not so inconspicuously made himself scarce in his own room, leaving the two of us standing across the living room from each other.

  Braden looked as ragged as he’d sounded on the phone and pissed. So pissed.

  “You haven’t found him,” I surmised.

  “Not yet.” It seemed like it almost physically pained him to admit that.

  “Nothing?”

  His jaw clenched, and I knew with just that that he didn’t want to tell me. Well, tough shit. It was my life, and I needed to know.

  “Braden,” I called when he didn’t respond, making it clear I wasn’t giving in.

  “He’s clever.” When he didn’t expand on that, I crossed my arms. Sighing, he went on, “No stamp meant it didn’t go through the actual mail, but there aren’t many people that could get it inside your mailbox. Jager tracked down the mailman that has that route. We thought maybe he’d been bribed into adding it to the delivery, and then he’d have gotten a look at the guy. He didn’t. He remembered there was a letter taped to the outside of the mailbox with a note saying it had been delivered to the wrong unit. He put it inside the box to be helpful. Didn’t even notice there was no postage.”

  So he’d been pursuing a dead end all night. “Why not just mail it normally?”

  Braden rolled his neck like the tension was getting to him. “To make a statement.”

  “What?”

  Finally, he answered without a fight. “Putting it in the mail would be easy. We already know he knows where you live. Making sure you know, that letter without a stamp was a statement that he’d been able to get in the building again, that close to where he probably knows we’re watching, without getting caught.”

  “But I wasn’t there.”

  “Doesn’t matter. If he’s watching, he probably knows Jager is, too.”

  Jager coming up again made me realize. “Why were you working with Jager?” When he’d dropped me off, he’d said he was going to the station.

  He rolled his lips, and that anxiety inside started swirling for a new reason. “I went to the station first, but my captain forced me out. I can’t be part of the investigation when it involves you. Usually, that just means I couldn’t be doing so officially. Our captain doesn’t allow it, period.”

  “So you’ve been…”

  “At the Disciples’ clubhouse.”

  The ease with which he said that worried me. “Why?”

  His brows came down. “Why what?”

  “Why were you with the Disciples?”

  That confusion held strong. “Because the cap kicked me out,” he reiterated.

  “So you went elsewhere to run your own investigation?”

  His face blanked at the censure I couldn’t keep from my tone. “Jess…”

  “No, I want to know. You’re off helping the Disciples track him down instead of letting your department do it?”

  “Jager was able to get that information faster. Andrews won’t be able to get a response until tomorrow. We already know it’s a dead end.”

  Did he even hear himself?

  “You and the Disciples are ‘we,’ but you and a fellow officer aren’t?”

  He didn’t have a reply to that, not that there was a good one.

  “And what happens when you all” —I flicked out a hand toward him— “find the guy that hurt me? You know, the Disciples don’t normally just track someone down and drop them on the police doorstep. Hell, even if they did, we both know that wouldn’t mean a damn thing without evidence.”

  “Jess…” he tried again, like saying my name was somehow going to diffuse this situation.

  “Do you know what the brothers do with someone that harms one of their own?”

  Braden kept quiet because of course he did. Everyone knew.

  “What happens,” I pushed. “When you all find him?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Braden

  I couldn’t answer her.

  It wouldn’t work to say that I didn’t know, but it was true. I knew what working with the Disciples meant. I had from the beginning. Since then, I’d told myself it was a means to an end. They had resources that could point the real investigation in the right direction.

  Then, no one had been able to get anywhere.

  And I’d had to watch Jess deal with the aftermath.

  She’d been so fucking strong. I wouldn’t dream of taking that away from her. A lot of people—men and women alike—might not have gotten through what happened the way she did. They might not ever have been able to go back into that apartment, let alone spend a decent part of an evening in there packing up.

  All while we couldn’t even find the fucker that hurt her.

  The same one that had now issued his promise that he didn’t intend to leave her alone.

  Suddenly, I was drawn by the ability to be sure he did.

  Fed up with my silence, Jess threw her hands up, and I couldn’t keep from focusing in on that goddamn brace she still had to wear.

  “Do you remember our first date?”

  Was she actually asking that? “Of course I do.”

  “Do you remember when you talked to me about why you became a cop?”

  Shit.

  She didn’t wait for me to acknowledge that. My girl, in all her fire that usually turned me the fuck on but had me worried now, kept at me. “You said that you watched your dad do the job, watched him make a difference. You said that even though the system isn’t perfect, that it
was still better to hold up that, to work your ass off within it to make it as good as it can be, than to let it crumble entirely. So was that all bullshit?”

  She remembered all of that, and I knew from how she said it that she might be paraphrasing, but she could probably give me back exactly what I said if I pushed the issue. Because I’d mattered, what I’d said mattered, even then.

  Just like she mattered above everything to me.

  “It wasn’t bullshit,” I defended.

  “But you’re still going to just go against all of that for what?”

  “For you,” I snapped. “To keep you safe.”

  “I am safe!” she shot back. “I never go a damn place by myself. I’ve still got patrols circling wherever I sleep at night. How much more safe do you want me?”

  “I want to know that he isn’t still out there trying to find a way past all of that.”

  “So you want to let the Disciples find him and get rid of him? And what? Stand to the side? Or help them?”

  Honestly, I didn’t know anymore. The thought of putting her through a trial just to have him serve some time and then being released…

  It didn’t feel like enough.

  “You’ve been close with the club for years. You’ve never had an issue with them before.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have an issue with how they do things. Personally, I’m glad they’ve taken care of some of the shit that has come their way, protecting people I care about in the process. What I have an issue with is the fact that you made it clear that isn’t how you do things. You got that badge for a reason instead of being some vigilante biker. I picked you as you are, not one of them.”

  “I’m doing this for you!”

  “No! You aren’t!” she screamed. “That’s the point. I fell in love with you—the cop that loves what he does and wouldn’t betray that badge. This isn’t you.”