by Reid, B. B.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and I knew she was sincere even though she despised Exiled and everything we stood for. What did we stand for? I’d forgotten a long time ago.
“Me too.”
“Were you close with them?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter. They died under my watch.”
“You can’t take responsibility for everything bad that happens in the world.”
“No? Well, what about the bad that I cause?”
“It doesn’t have to be this way. You can leave it all behind.”
“There’s no such thing as leaving Exiled. My father learned that the hard way.” Fox had called him a deserter. My father wanted out and was willing to kill for it.
“Tell me his name.”
I counted to ten before speaking. This wasn’t our first time having this conversation. “I can’t.”
“Because it hurts?”
“Because it won’t change a goddamn thing.” I turned my head, which was a mistake because it brought our mouths impossibly close. “And because I don’t want his name on your lips.”
My heart thundered in my chest, and I stopped breathing entirely when she threw her leg over my waist and straddled me. I wondered if she felt it under her small hands. Though they were planted on my chest, it was her burning gaze that held me hostage. “Don’t treat me like china,” she ordered through clenched teeth. “I’m not one of those girls.”
“Which girls are those?”
“The delicate flowers easily trampled. The girls who clutch their pearls and faint at any sign of distress. I don’t even own pearls.”
“You don’t? We’ll have to fix that.”
She viciously dug her nails into my bare chest, and I wondered if she could feel my cock hardening beneath her. “Don’t you dare buy me pearls.”
My hands found her barely-there hips, intending to return her gift of pain, but instead, I explored. She’d certainly filled out in the two years since I had met her, but I usually liked my girls with a little more curve. If she only stayed off the fucking streets, I was sure she’d have more meat on her bones. Somehow it hadn’t mattered. My cock only answered to Louchana fucking Valentine.
“Who’s going to stop me? You?” I lifted a brow.
“Buy them, and I’ll trade them for a happy meal the next time I run away.”
My hand shot out and found its way around her neck, and then she was on her stomach underneath me, shooting a smile over her shoulder that pissed me off and turned me on at the same time. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to her ear, careful not to let any other part of me touch her. “That spanking I promised is still on the table.”
The smile on her face disappeared. “You’re not my father.”
“Damn straight and do you know why?” I was already answering by the time she shook her head. “Because I wouldn’t let you leave me no more than I would leave you.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“You already do.”
She snorted, flipped onto her back, and when she held up her pinky finger, there was a vulnerable glimmer in her eyes. “Best friends forever?”
I stared back at her pinky with a raised brow and slid my fingers through hers instead until our palms met. “Yeah.”
The next morning, I jerked awake, but a soft, warm body pressed against mine hindered my ability to move. Blinking until my vision cleared, I frowned when I confirmed it was Lou barely clothed and curled around me like a second skin. I’d sent her back to her bed last night, and like a thief in the night, she’d climbed back into mine.
It had taken a lot of begging and reasoning to get her from under me and back where she was safe from me, but as usual, Lou had to push back. I lay perfectly still as her breathing changed and she began to stir, and by the time she was fully lucid, my expression was blank and carefree.
“You snore,” I said before she could have the first word. At least now I could direct the conversation into a safe zone.
“You never minded before,” she replied with zero shame as she stretched lazily before snuggling deeper under my arm.
I had trouble swallowing as I wondered how the hell it had gotten around her in the first place. Had I sought her out even while unconscious as she had done me?
“Because you never snored directly in my ear before.”
“Ugh! You’re such a grump this morning. What’s the matter? Didn’t get enough beauty sleep?” She peeked up at me from under naturally long lashes. I hated how much more innocent it made her look.
“You’re not in your bed.”
“It’s uncomfortable,” she whined. The sound went straight to my dick.
“Funny,” I said with a sarcastic curl of my lips. “That’s not what you said six months ago when you claimed the new one hurt your back.”
“I was wrong to let it go. It knew just what my body needed, and if only I had given it a chance, I know it would have made me feel so very good.”
I jackknifed into a sitting position and was quickly on my feet. There was no way in hell she had been talking about mattresses just now.
No. Fucking. Way.
“Wren?”
“Get dressed for school.”
She checked the time and frowned. “It’s still early. Besides, it’s only the second day. No one cares enough yet.”
“Yet you already have one tardy. Or did you think I wouldn’t know about that?”
“You need to get some business, and stay out of mine,” she grumbled.
I chose to ignore her as I pulled on my shirt and boots. I should have been the one with the fucking attitude. Lou was becoming about as subtle as a nuclear bomb, and it all started the night of my birthday. I’d brought her home after dinner, and out of the blue, she asked me if I knew the age of consent in New York. I could still remember her slow, sensual smile when I answered her.
Lou was seventeen. Which meant that at this very moment, I could lock the door, throw her down on that bed two feet away, and no one would be able to do anything about it.
I wouldn’t. No matter how hard it was getting to hide the fact that I wanted to.
She was still too goddamn innocent. Too innocent to understand or accept the things I had to do. The trespasses I made against her and so many others. No matter the need keeping me awake most nights, I couldn’t use her that way. So I used her another.
Lou was my onus. My light. The very last tether to my soul.
I couldn’t risk losing her. It was out of the question. She meant so much more to me than a hot, dirty fuck. I needed her, more than she needed me.
I’d been echoing that fact so much lately that it was becoming my mantra. The reminder I needed to keep my hands to myself.
Out of the corner of her eye, I watched her check her phone and curse. “Cathleen and Dan are already up. You’re going to have to go out of the window.”
I didn’t miss the way her skin flushed or the way her teeth sank into her bottom lip. The last time I came through that window, my first attempt to scale the side of the home ended with me fucking up my knee. I couldn’t even blame it on alcohol because I hadn’t been drinking. I had just been that eager to get inside. It had only been a day since I’d seen my little Valentine, but I couldn’t wait until morning.
Lou had sweetly knelt between my legs, pushing my control to its breaking point, and iced my knee with a frozen bag of peas even after I growled and told her not to fuss. I was trying to hide how fucking much I’d missed her. I was able to see the anger and hurt in her eyes, but her concern for me won out. Spending even a few hours away from her always left me feeling hollow and the hole only grew the longer I stayed away.
“Fine.” I checked my watch and cursed as she had a moment ago, earning her a giggle. I long ago stopped being surprised at how much we rubbed off on one another. “I’ve got a run to make, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Her smile fell. “What kind of run?”
Hearing the panic in her tone,
I stopped mid-stride in my trek to the window and whipped around. “What?”
She shifted nervously but held my gaze. “You aren’t going to seek some kind of vengeance for last night, are you?”
I felt my nostrils flare and regretted my loose lips. Lou wasn’t the type to learn her place. “Why is that your business?”
“Are you kidding me? You’re in mine all the time!”
“Yours won’t get me or you killed.” I made it to the window before she spoke again.
“Don’t you think last night was a sign that you should walk away from Exiled?”
I slammed my hand against the wall, not giving a fuck about her foster parents catching me in her bedroom, and faced her one last time. No matter what, I was jumping out of that goddamn window.
“Give it up, Lou. It’s not happening.”
“But it is! Sooner or later, you’re going to have to choose!”
“Choose?” I didn’t realize that I’d taken a step toward her until she stepped back.
“Yes. Between Exiled and your soul, Wren. You won’t be able to hold onto them both forever.”
“What do you know about my soul, Lou?”
“I know it doesn’t belong to Fox.”
“Yeah? Then who does it belong to? You?” I wanted to fling myself out of that window when I caught wind of the quiet rage building inside me. She didn’t deserve my anger, but there was no one else around to take my frustrations out on.
She flinched but quickly recovered as her shoulders squared and confidence entered her gaze. “Stay.”
My fingers dug into the molding around the window, keeping me in place when I felt my body—no, the very soul she was so desperate to save—gearing to lunge toward her.
My gaze slowly traveled over every inch of her, not sexually but desperately, taking in her beauty and innocence, and I wished I had her camera so I could capture how fierce and how ‘mine’ she looked right now before meeting her gaze. I knew it would be a while before I saw those arresting blues again. I didn’t kid myself into thinking I’d ever stay away. I was a moth, and she was the flame burning only for me.
Without another word spoken, I turned and launched myself out of her window but not before I heard her cry of alarm. I landed on my feet, and the shock that shot up my legs hurt like hell, but I didn’t look back as I walked away from the blue home and Lou.
At least for now.
Deep within the mountains, I walked through the front door of a secluded cabin and found him already waiting for my arrival. He stood on the balcony overlooking the foyer with his hands braced on the railing and a tight expression. Shane stood off to the side, looking like he’d just gargled piss. I knew they’d be pissed that we’d lost the score, but I was pissed that we’d lost brothers. Last night had been a setup, and I wouldn’t stop until I found out who was responsible. It was my job, after all, so I’d start with Harry, the goddamn mole who’d sold us the information. Shane enforced Fox’s rule while I posed as just another lieutenant, someone who only called shots on a mission when, in fact, I was so much more. I was Fox’s eyes and ears and, ultimately, the person solely responsible for keeping him alive. Most of Exiled would be foaming at the mouth for that honor, but Fox giving it to me was a stroke of cruelty, not generosity.
“I hope you’re well rested,” Fox greeted in his signature calm tone that I knew better than to trust. “I, on the other hand, don’t recall sleeping a wink. How could I?” he continued when I wisely remained silent. “My workers aren’t flooding the streets with the cocaine I was promised.”
“It was a double cross. The informant—”
“The informant has already been dealt with.” At that moment, not a single ray of light could be found in his eyes.
I scowled, forgetting who stood before me…or maybe I no longer cared. “Before I could question him?”
“You might have been granted the chance had you been present. Care to share what kept you?”
“Not really.” There was no way in hell I was telling him about Lou. Fox didn’t view any threat as idle, and I prayed he never knew just how dangerous Lou was for him. Every second I spent with her was a temptation to become the man she naïvely thought me to be.
He glanced at Shane with amusement that I knew was a ruse and muttered, “Kids.”
The blood in my veins boiled though I gave no visible reaction. It was true Fox had taken an active part in making me who I was today, but I hated the idea of him thinking that he’d been an actual father to me. My mother had played the most important role before she died. She was the reason I was so torn between this life that came with money and power and the life that could be, a life filled with normalcy and peace.
I remembered feeling alone and confused, especially when her accidental death became a murder the second the driver of the car that hit her kept going. The case was all too quickly reduced to just another file discarded in a dark, overflowing basement. Eight years later, I was still restless with thoughts of her death. I’d been too young at the time, but as I grew older, the less I’d come to accept the explanations of her death. It felt too much like it was swept under the rug.
When Fox’s focus returned to me, he paused, and I quickly shoved the thoughts of my mother aside. “Where are my drugs, son?”
The deceptive calm in his voice was gone and in its place a pitch that warned me to tread carefully. “We never got to them. It was too risky to try.”
“You made this decision?”
I hesitated, and no doubt Fox noticed, but I couldn’t open my mouth to tell him it was Danny Boy who decided to leave the coke behind. Fox would only insist I present the kid to him for questioning. And for some reason, I didn’t want him on Fox’s radar any more than I did Lou. I couldn’t explain or understand the feeling of being bound to that prick. I’d become aware of it the second we met. Had he felt it, too?
I might have asked except I didn’t trust him. The men I called my brothers have always been easy to read. With a single meeting, sometimes a glance, I’d know what it was they desired most in the world, but Danny Boy? He was a steel vault that I couldn’t crack.
“It was my call,” I confirmed.
“Then I’m making you personally responsible for recouping our losses and evening the score.”
I wanted to point out that the drugs hadn’t actually been ours to consider a loss, but I knew it would only get me a bullet in my kneecap. Just last month some wise-ass recruit had learned that lesson for all of us.
“It’s done,” I vowed despite my uncertainty. I hadn’t fucked up a mission in five years. Not since my initiation. My fingers flexed as I imagined driving my fist into Danny Boy’s face again. I had him to thank for this fuckup, but since he was also the reason I was still breathing, I’d spare him this once.
Not for the first time, I considered Danny Boy as the culprit who tipped off Thirteen. The surprise and anger I glimpsed from him had been genuine but so had the other emotion I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Sorrow? Regret? Guilt? I figured it had to do with him leaving Eddie and Siko behind, which was why I hit him. He didn’t get to make those kinds of decisions and then regret them.
He made his bed. We all did.
Anger that I didn’t anticipate surged through me at the thought. Something pulled at my mind, tugging on a distant memory, telling me he didn’t belong in this world. I itched to get him far away from it, and I told myself it was for the sake of Exiled.
“Good. We have other matters to discuss,” Fox demanded. He was about to order me into his office when a vision in cream satin cascading down her slight figure and flowing around her ankles appeared next to Fox. The long, dark hair that had barely kissed her shoulders when she arrived four years ago was clipped high on her head while her olive skin glistened in the morning light.
Fox eyed her lustfully while she held her shoulders back and pretended not to notice. Brown eyes so light they were almost gold landed on me and softened although they remained wary. I don’t think I�
�ve seen her look anything else since arriving.
“It’s good to see you, Wren.”
“Grace.”
“You’re well?” she quizzed, and then her gaze cut warningly toward the man at her side as if she would protect me from him if necessary. As if he weren’t her captor as much as her lover. It made me wish I had been there to warn her that day she’d crossed his path. No one walked away from Nathaniel Fox.
“As expected.”
She studied me carefully before saying, “I was just about to make breakfast. What would you like?” It wasn’t a request but an expectation that I share a meal with them. A demand only a mother would dare make. It made me wonder where she’d come from and who she might have left behind. No one knew anything about her other than the fact that Fox never let her stray far from his sight. I also wasn’t convinced that it was infatuation that made her his prisoner. Maybe she was his prize, the spoils of some secret war he’d waged.
“He won’t be joining you,” Fox dictated before I could politely turn down her offer. “But I can never resist your cooking. Save a plate for me, will you?”
I watched her wince and then stiffen when he grabbed her ass. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before between them, but what made it strange this time was when I found his gaze firmly fixed on me. It’s true, I wanted to roar and rip his arms from their sockets, but for whatever reason, I knew he was expecting that. Grace was as good as a stranger to me, but it didn’t stop me from wanting her far away from him. Defending her honor, however, would be a grave mistake for both of us.
None of it mattered a moment later when she tactfully kissed his cheek and stepped from his embrace with a teasing smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She could have frozen hell over with that icy gaze of hers. Luckily, Fox hadn’t noticed because he still only had eyes for me as I stood stoic and silent as the ever-loyal soldier. I knew he was baiting me, and I knew his anger over the failed mission last night had nothing to do with it.
