Inked

by Drew Elyse

Yes, very romantic.

  My phone went dark and I breathed out a sigh. Everything was such a mess, and I had no idea what to do about it. A minute later, the damn thing lit again. He’d left a voicemail.

  For the moment, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to listen, so I ignored that as well.

  Petty, party of one.

  I busied myself going over the schedule, answering emails, printing off design request details I wanted to present to different people. All to find myself forty minutes later with not a damn thing to do.

  My eyes went to my phone again, tempted by the voicemail that still sat there. Before I could reach for it, the shop phone rang. Usually, I wouldn’t answer until our open hours, but it was an excuse to distract myself and I grabbed onto it like a lifeline.

  “Sailor’s Grave Tattoo, how can I help you?”

  “I saw you got my pictures,” a voice that had been haunting my dreams replied.

  Him.

  He was calling.

  My hand shook violently, and I almost put down the phone when I heard his voice through the headset that was now several inches from my face, “I wouldn’t do that.”

  He could see me.

  “What do you want?”

  I tried to reach for my phone, moving my other arm slowly and hoping I’d be able to hold it in my bad hand.

  “I want you to stop reaching for your fucking cell phone, or I swear to Christ I will fire on the first fucking person that comes up to that door. And don’t think you can call out to that asshole that’s in there with you. You don’t want me to have to kill him.”

  I snatched my hand back like I’d been burned. He couldn’t have seen me. I hadn’t moved enough. Even if he’d been right at my side, he wouldn’t have noticed. It was easy enough to guess what I’d do, though.

  “In fact, why don’t you take that phone and put it on the other end of the counter where I can see it better,” he instructed.

  Swallowing down my nausea, I did as he said, placing my phone at the far end of the desk before me where I could only reach by stretching across the whole surface.

  “Very good,” he praised, and it made my skin crawl.

  “What do you want?” I repeated.

  “What I’ve always wanted, Jessie. Your attention.”

  Jessie.

  Only two people had ever called me that.

  But it couldn’t be.

  “I have to say, I feel like I should be offended you didn’t recognize my voice. Maybe it’s for the better so you couldn’t sic that fucking pig and those cunt bikers on me, but still. Disappointing. I’d never forget yours.”

  Even as I found the strength to say it, I couldn’t believe it was true. “Cade.”

  “Now she remembers.” He laughed, and it sounded like a threat. “Who else did you think it would be?”

  That would terrorize me and hurt me that way? Not someone I considered a friend. Not someone I’d shared a home with for a time, however brief.

  My cell phone buzzed to life again. I couldn’t read the screen from that angle, but I guessed it was Braden. What I wouldn’t give to be able to answer it.

  “Why?”

  “Why what, Jessie?”

  I wanted to tell him to stop calling me that, but I knew it wasn’t good to upset him. Sketch would be on his way any minute. I had no idea when anyone else planned to get in. I didn’t need him any more likely to hurt any of them.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You mean finally coming after what I wanted all along?”

  What he what?

  My phone started ringing again.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Why do you think I went through all the trouble of getting you away from your mom? Why do you think I let you stay with us?”

  “Because you and Beverly were my friends.”

  He scoffed. “My dumb whore of a sister was only your friend because I made her. She gave you the idea to come with us because I made her. Fuck, she talked you into getting that shit done to your body because I thought it’d be sexy.

  “That fucking cunt did whatever I said. She always did, or I’d remind her why. Then she was fucking stupid enough to insist on taking the fuckings I wanted to give you, talking me into giving you time to find you wanted me. The cunning little bitch.”

  Bile burned my throat. He’d assaulted her, and she’d let him…for me.

  “And I fucking listened,” he went on, the self-censure obvious. “I should have just taken you right away, taught you how to behave like I did her. Then you wouldn’t have left.”

  I couldn’t believe the things he was saying, could hardly process it all.

  Then, I heard Parker call out my name. I swung my head around, seeing him step into the hallway with his phone to his ear.

  In the next second, a loud shot rang out, exploding against the glass window in front of me. It fractured to within an inch of shattering.

  “Get him back!” Cade roared into the phone.

  “Park! Get back! Now!” I cried.

  I watched him hesitate but go back into the room when he realized the risk we were both in. I knew it was on me to buy us both time. He’d get us help if it wasn’t already on the line.

  “You fucked up, Jessie. You fucked up,” Cade ranted, and it sounded so like that night.

  “No, he didn’t know.”

  “He fucking well knows now!”

  He did, there was no way to deny that.

  “They’re all going to come, all those fuckers you’ve no doubt been whoring yourself out to when you should have been mine.”

  I bristled but bit down on my tongue to keep the words back. Fuck him. Fuck his accusations. Fuck all of this.

  “And a fucking pig, Jessie? Are you kidding me?”

  I couldn’t wait until Braden found him.

  “I didn’t know you wanted me.” It took all I had in me not to gag at the words.

  “Bullshit. Any man would want you. Every fucking dad, brother, uncle, whoever the fuck used to sit in those crowds at the pageant and get hard to you. I know, I was one of them.”

  My stomach was churning violently. “You should have told me.”

  “I should have ripped your fucking clothes off and taken what I wanted. You’d have figured it out when I wore out that cunt. Maybe once I take care of these motherfuckers, I’ll do it anyway. Maybe if you’re a good girl while I do, I won’t put a bullet in your skull, too.”

  Please, Braden, I thought, find this sick fucker. Find him quick.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Braden

  My phone rang, Sketch’s name on the screen.

  “I know who the fucker is,” I announced as soon as he answered.

  “Someone is fucking shooting at Jess!” he yelled into the line.

  Ice poured through my veins.

  I was already on my feet before I could think to do it, running from my desk where I’d been pulling up everything I could on Cade Strock, hearing Jack on my heels, toward Andrews.

  “Where is she?” I demanded.

  “Sailor’s Grave. She’s at the desk on the phone. Park is farther back. He tried to approach and there was a shot fired at the front glass.”

  “I’m mobilizing units. We’re looking for a guy named Cade Strock, see if Jager can pinpoint him.”

  I’d put the cuffs on the asshole myself if I could manage it. We’d have more than enough to take him in if we found him. If Jager could help us close in before anyone got hurt, then that was a damn good thing. Jess could be pissed at me about that if she wanted as long as she walked away safe.

  Nothing but that mattered.

  “On it,” Sketch shot back, hanging up as a roar of his bike filled the line.

  “Andrews!” I yelled, grabbing his and everyone else’s attention as I approached. “Cade’s got eyes on Sailor’s Grave. He’s got Jess on the phone there, and the fuck just shot at the front of the building.”

  Greg, another officer, yelled through the roo
m, “Just got the call in for shots fired.”

  With that, the precinct became madness.

  Jack drove. I couldn’t fucking do it, no matter how bad I wanted to. I was a fucking wreck not knowing if she was alright.

  Captain Ruxin was on the radio, “They’re triangulating the cell phone signal now.”

  We were less than a minute out. There was no missing the sound of sirens coming with us.

  “All that’s going to give us is he’s on the fucking block somewhere. We already know that.” He could give me shit for my mouth later when we had the asshole in custody.

  “We might get a better hit,” he tried to talk me down from the edge. He didn’t have a prayer of managing it.

  My phone went off in my hand. Jager.

  “Tell me you fucking got something,” I demanded.

  “Can’t see him on the cameras, but the bullet went through the glass, hit inside the shop. Based on the angle, he’s got to be up on the third or fourth floor right across the street.”

  “Got it.”

  I radioed the intel in to the captain, who issued orders out to units to get inside each building.

  As much as I fucking hated the thought, I could only hope Jess kept him focused enough to stay still and give us a shot to grab him.

  Turning off our siren, Jack sped us closer.

  JESS

  “They’re fucking coming,” Cade said, distracted.

  He was right. The sirens were getting closer with every second. They would be here soon, and I grew more nervous the closer they got.

  “You can surrender, Cade.” I only wanted him to in hopes that Braden, Jack, and their fellow officers would be safe. “Fighting them will only make things worse.”

  “Surrender to your pig boyfriend and let him take me to jail for giving you what you fucking deserve?” he demanded.

  “Like you gave your sister what she deserved?”

  I couldn’t hold it in. I couldn’t handle what he said he’d done to her. What he did thinking of me. He deserved anything he got now.

  “She was a cunt just like you! You fucking bitches never learn!”

  “You raped her! You raped your own sister and you attacked me because you’re a fucking sick monster!”

  I heard the sound of a gun cocking as he said, “You’ll fucking learn.”

  The line went dead, and I dropped to the floor as shots broke out. The glass shattered. There was screaming from the street.

  And all I could do was pray.

  BRADEN

  We were approaching the landing for the third floor when the gunshots rang out, but they were distant. Too far.

  Jack and I took off for the stairs, running up another flight. We made it just as the shouts echoed out, “Clear!”

  We came around the corner, guns still in hands, to see Andrews on top of Cade. There was blood starting to pool from a wound in the fucker’s leg. The priority was cuffing the fucker. If he bled out, it was his own damn fault for opening fire on cops.

  Only once he was secure was pressure applied to the wound.

  “Well, look,” Cade taunted. “It’s the cunt that’s fucking my girl.”

  My hand tightened around my gun at him calling her that. She wasn’t his anything.

  “Don’t let him bait you,” Jack warned, low enough for only me to hear.

  “She should have been mine. I should have taken her the first fucking night she was there in my place. I should have claimed her whether she wanted it or not.”

  I was shaking. Fucking consumed by the rage.

  Andrews shifted his weight on top of the asshole’s back, moving onto the leg with the gunshot wound, causing the fucker to cry out in agony. It cleared my head enough to holster my weapon.

  I walked up to him, no one stopping me. I knew I’d be detained if need be, but they were my brothers first.

  “She’s mine, fucker. You’ll never get a chance to touch her again.”

  His eyes went wild, and he started thrashing in the hold on him. Preston’s hands slipped from the wound, more blood spurting. Maybe the stupid fuck would make himself bleed out before EMS got up here.

  I could only be so lucky.

  “Mine. She was meant to be mine.”

  Without giving him the satisfaction of listening to his shit or fighting against his unhinged ramblings, I turned and walked away.

  Jack was still there, radio in hand.

  “Tell me she’s good,” I demanded, knowing he’d be on it for me.

  “She’s fine. Shaken up, but not hurt.” With a nod at my partner, a man who proved more than once he had my back, I took off at a run down the stairs.

  My only priority was getting to my goddess.

  No one stopped me or tried to hold me back as I ran through the cops, paramedics, and firefighters within the blocked off section of the street between the building Cade had taken up in and Sailor’s Grave. I was a man on a mission, and not one person could miss that.

  The windows of the shop were shattered, glass littered everywhere.

  I ran over the mess, through the door that was already propped open, and stopped.

  Because there she was.

  As beautiful as ever in the same place I first saw her.

  But the tears on her cheeks were something I hoped I’d never see again.

  Noticing me charging through the door, she jumped to her feet and ran at me. I met her halfway. She hit me without slowing, jarring me as she made contact. I didn’t give a fuck, just wrapped her up in my arms, breathing the first full breath I’d had since Sketch’s call came in.

  “You’re okay,” she cried into my chest.

  “I’m fine, goddess,” I swore. “I’m fine. I’m right here. And I fucking love you.”

  She choked out a sound between a sob and a laugh. “This is the worst moment to say that.”

  “Worse than yelling it at me in anger?”

  “Yes.”

  It didn’t seem possible. I’d have sworn it fucking wasn’t if someone would ever have asked. But right then, with my woman clinging to me tight, the asshole that wanted to hurt her in custody, in spite of all that just happened…

  I fucking laughed.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jess

  “I can’t believe she’s gone,” I murmured.

  We were home—well, Braden’s home. The day had been a long one. Once everything had calmed down some around the shop, I’d had to give my statement, explaining everything Cade had said on the phone, every threat, every admission of the terrible things he’d done to Beverly.

  Word had come in eventually that Cade was going to be fine. Braden had told me Officer Andrews had shot him in the leg in order to take him down.

  “He got off easy,” Braden had grumbled about it, but I knew the truth. He’d told me the whole story now, so I knew that when he’d finally found evidence to lead him in the right direction, he hadn’t even thought of going to the Disciples first.

  My man, he was a cop first and foremost. Just like I’d known he was.

  After a long, arduous day of dealing with it all, of being coddled by a load of well-meaning bikers, biker chicks, and the Sailor’s Grave team, I’d actually sighed with relief walking through the door to Braden’s house. He’d fed me and dragged me into the shower where he’d helped me wash the day away.

  Now, after all of that, we were curled up on his couch, beneath my blue throw. Braden was leaned back against the arm while I lay between his legs and draped across his torso. He was running a hand through my damp hair soothingly.

  It was only then that the dust really settled and I had the clarity to process all that had happened.

  Beverly was gone. Whether intentionally or not, she’d taken a dangerous cocktail of pills and overdosed. Whatever happened that night, it was Cade that had driven her to that place. His years of torture had broken her, and I hated that I’d had no idea it was happening.

  “I’m sorry, goddess.”

  “I knew she was hur
ting,” I admitted. “I just thought it was all to do with her parents, that they’d been like my mother that way. It’s what she said, though she never wanted to talk about it beyond that.”

  “She probably let you believe that so she could feel close to you, have someone that she connected to, but in a way she felt was safe.”

  Because now I knew, there was no telling what Cade might have been capable of doing to her—and me—if she’d admitted the truth.

  “She protected me.” And I’d never have the chance to thank her now. There was no way to repay her for that, even if she was still with us, but I’d have done everything I could if I had the chance. Now, I never would.

  “She did,” Braden agreed. “I’d give anything to have her here still to see him go away. To be able to give that to her for all she did for you.”

  That he felt that too tightened my throat again. I didn’t want to cry anymore. It wasn’t in my nature to cry over much, and all that had happened today, all I’d learned, it had been too much to fight it, but I was exhausted from it now.

  Instead, I focused on the fact that Beverly was at peace if nothing else, Cade would be punished for all he’d done, and me…I had a wonderful man at my back who appreciated the gift a beautiful, broken woman had given me.

  “I love you,” I whispered, unable to get out more than that.

  Shifting me so I was tilted to my side more, he lifted my chin to look up at him. “I love you, my goddess. I’m sorry for fucking up.”

  I didn’t need the apology. He’d already done things the right way when it counted and that was what mattered. But his willingness to apologize straight out boded well for the future.

  One of us had to own up to our shit sometimes, after all.

  “I think you can find better ways to prove it than words,” I teased anyway.

  There it was, the wild he kept hidden until I brought it out. “You need me?”

  “Always.”

  His hands moved down my body in delicious ways, making the need greater and satisfying it all at once. And he showed me with his lips, tongue, hands, and cock, exactly how much he loved me.