Devil's Tango (Running with the Devil Book 1)

by Claire J Monroe

  “No,” he breathed as his logic center finally caught up with her words. “N-n-n-nooo.” He gripped her shoulders and pushed her back to look down at her.

  Her body shook with sobs and her head hung low.

  “You were pregnant?”

  She nodded.

  “And you…,” he trailed off, unable to say it. Couldn’t give voice to it. Couldn’t process everything fast enough to handle the deluge of emotions hitting him.

  Maddie shuddered with another hiccupping sob. “I… lost… it.”

  His brain shut down in shock. It had to. He couldn’t process anymore. She’d been pregnant. He had left her when she’d been pregnant. They’d made a kid. A baby. A mini Maddie and Tango.

  And then… poof. Gone. She’d lost it. Caught it in a freaking cup and… “You caught the baby in a cup.”

  His voice was hollow. Hell, it sounded hollow and lost to his own ears, he couldn’t imagine how it sounded to her.

  Whether she shuddered again or nodded, he didn’t know. And he needed to know. Everything.

  But it’d have to wait. It really did have to wait. Because she needed him. To hold her. Comfort her. To be strong and get over his own shock because her—his wife—the love of his life—his very reason for fucking living—she needed him. To be strong. To hold her. Be with her. To not leave her alone when she was at her most vulnerable and—fuck. His eyes, his gut, his chest burned with emotion as it sunk in. “Pregnant. You were pregnant.”

  Holy shit. She had been pregnant. And he hadn’t been there. It was automatic and he wrapped his arms around her then pulled her in tight.

  She came willingly and shed tears on his bare chest.

  He couldn’t hold her tight enough to ease the ache in his chest. It hurt. Knowing what she’d lost and… he looked over her head at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were solid black, his beast stared back at him through hollow grief filled eyes that swam with impotent rage. At least, in this they were in absolute accord.

  It was his fault.

  His jaw tense, quivered once. Twice. Then his whole body shook with grief and anger directly solely at himself because… he’d left her alone.

  It was his fault.

  She’d been pregnant and alone.

  It was his fault.

  She’d gone to a doctor. About their baby. Probably alone.

  “Fuck,” he breathed desperate to stem the implosion going on inside his head. “Were you alone?”

  She said something into his chest, but he didn’t understand it.

  He moved her back and forced her to look up at him, then bent down closer to her so he could read her lips if he had to. Because he needed to know. “Were you alone,” he demanded.

  “Yes,” she hissed.

  “Why? Baby, why didn’t you have your mother or brothers or—”

  “Because they weren’t there,” she practically yelled at him. “It happened so quickly and….” She trailed off shaking her head.

  He heard her answer and it made his blood run cold. Please, God, don’t let the reason they weren’t available to her be what I think it is. Please, don’t let her say it was two weeks after I left her and went to ground. “When did it happen?”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  “Maddie, baby, I need to know. Please, baby. Tell me when it happened.”

  “What does it matter,” she wailed. “It happened and it’s my fault and—”

  He snapped under the weight of his guilt. “When. Did. It. Happen,” he roared.

  She yanked herself back in his arms. Her eyes went wide. “August twenty-third at 7:43 P.M.”

  He felt the blood drain from his face. He went cold. Numb. It was his fault.

  It. Was. His. Fault.

  That was the exact day her brothers, Ned and Zev, had shown up and beaten his ass into oblivion. He’d let them do it. Taken every hit they delivered, knowing full well it’d never be enough to punish him for what he’d done. For turning his back on his mate. And for what? To protect her from him. To keep her from finding out that the man she’d married was a monster.

  Fuck, he was a selfish sack of shit. While his Maddie had been suffering a loss no woman should have to endure—let alone on her own, alone… fuck. 7:43 P.M. He knew exactly what he’d been doing then. Nursing a split lip, one cracked rib, sitting in a fucking lawn chair drinking beer and watching Zed grill up fucking steaks while strategizing with her brothers about how to keep her safe.

  From him.

  And he’d been the reason she’d been at the doctor’s losing their unborn child and—

  It was his fault.

  Because he hadn’t let his beast mate her. Hadn’t let his darkness out to claim her as his own. Because he’d been a chicken shit. Terrified of his darkness spilling over into her and changing her and making her hate him.

  The way he hated himself.

  Tango’s head dropped to her neck and he clung to her. Silently begging for her to forgive him, for God to forgive him, for a chance to make it all right. To fix things between them. For it not to be too late. He hadn’t been there for her then, something he’d never forgive himself for doing to her. “It matters, baby. It always matters. Everything you go through matters. I wasn’t there.”

  He clenched his eyes shut and refused to fight the burn of tears anymore. “I should have been there. But I wasn’t. God… baby, I am so fucking sorry.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped it. No one could have stopped it.”

  “I could have.” If I’d done the right thing. If I’d just been there. If I’d listened to my beast. If I’d simply not been terrified of the darkness.

  Maddie jerked back in his arms and looked up at him. “No, you couldn’t have! I was at the hospital with doctors and nurses and… they couldn’t stop it. They tried and… said they needed a clean catch specimen and… I was so afraid of the catheter… I begged them to let me try one more time without the catheter and…,” she trailed off then swallowed hard and sniffed back tears. “I knew the minute I finished peeing in the cup. I knew what had happened, Van. I saw it. I caught it. And my brain just… snapped and I shut down.”

  Her eyes were filled with a pain that cut him off at the knees. “I didn’t cry,” she told him. “Not then. I was like a robot. I put the cap on and washed my hands then… handed the doctor the cup. The look on his face… I was so calm… and then he held it up and said…,” she trailed off again and closed her eyes then swallowed hard.

  He wanted to push her. To demand the words. To beg her to hurt him with them. To punish him for his sin. But he couldn’t. He needed to hear everything that she went through, but dreaded forming this memory. But he had to know. Had to take her pain. Carry her burden. To prove his strength. To prove his worthiness.

  It killed him to see the truth. His truth. The one she’d called him on.

  He was a selfish motherfucking bastard and deserved to rot in hell for putting her through everything he’d abandoned her to.

  He didn’t need hindsight to see the truth with perfect clarity. It was staring him back in the mirror. Telling him that it had been all about him. His need to avoid facing his darkness. His want to run from the fear. His choice to abandon her. His fucking decision to divorce her from him so fully that he’d never have to fight his god slayer self from claiming her.

  Something inside him cracked then shattered. The chains tethering the beast back fractured and the darkness didn’t move to swallow him whole. It stayed where it was and allowed him to wallow in his sin to feel the full condemnation that was his due.

  You know what to do.

  Tango dragged in a ragged breath and felt his heart slowly ease back down his throat. He knew what he had to do. The soul rite.

  It didn’t matter that Trace had ordered him not to do it. It didn’t matter that he was scared shitless about the possibility of the outcome. If Maddie changed because of a connection to his darkness, then so be it. As long as she and their babies, their sons live
d.

  Do it and they will live. Make her accept us, Gabriel.

  Make her accept us? How could he do that? She was fractured on the inside just as him. More so because she’d lived through a loss that he felt down to his core had ripped her in two. Made her shut down until she was barely living.

  It shouldn’t be that way. It couldn’t. It needed to be about her. Him. Together. A team. Two halves of one whole. Connected on the inside.

  He’d pushed his will on her back then and made her accept his decision, but he wouldn’t again. Couldn’t. No matter how much he craved to fix what was broken between them. To earn her trust. To… open up and let her in. Fully. Without strings. Without a safety net.

  It was time to own his shit and be the man she needed.

  And pray like hell that she’d take what little he had to offer and accept him as he was.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Tell me, baby. Tell me everything the doctor said.”

  Van’s voice was soft, sincere, and dragged her back from the edge of her worst moment. Her own emotional hell. The memory she couldn’t erase because somehow, someway when she’d recognized what had happened, her brain had shut down and her soul left her body. Hoovered right next to her physical form and witnessed the entire event.

  Van pressed a kiss to her forehead, then leaned back. His eyes were red-rimmed and his cheeks wet with tears. “Tell me, baby. Let me carry this with you. For you. For us.”

  It was what she’d always wanted. Needed. Craved. Him. There for her when she wasn’t strong. When she needed to say the one phrase she hated acknowledging ever happened. The thing that made her feel most like a failure. Her inability to do what God, nature, and science said she was supposed to be able to do. Carry a child to term. She braced herself and whispered, “The doctor said… I’d experienced a… a… spontaneous abortion.”

  There it was out. She’d said it. Exposed her greatest shame.

  “Aw, baby.” He hugged her close again and laid his cheek on her head and just… held her. No fussing. No yelling. No… anger. Just sadness and grief and… she wasn’t alone. Because he was holding her and telling her over and over how sorry he was.

  Hearing him say that was… like a breath of fresh air she hadn’t known she’d been missing. Her shoulders relaxed and dropped as if the weight of the world had somehow left the building and she found the courage to continue in a near whisper. “I lost it after that. Collapsed to my knees and… I never told my mother, Van. Or my brothers. I couldn’t. Not when I hadn’t told you.”

  “Aw, baby, I wish you had, because Zed would have told me and…,” he stopped and his arms tightened around her. “But I understand why you didn’t. You needed me.”

  She nodded and clung to him. “It was ours and I… needed you.”

  He held her and rubbed soothing circles in her back as if he could ease the pain from her soul. “What about after? Did you talk to anyone? The doctor? A therapist?”

  “No, but… yes.” She hesitated before she gave him the truth. “Andrei. I talked to him.”

  Van stiffened and Maddie rushed to stop him before he could respond.

  “Don’t. It’s not what you think. I’ve known Andrei for a long time and he caught me on a bad day and… he was there and I… just blurted it out.”

  He drew in a deep breath and then eased back to look down at her. “We are gonna go back to Ivanov after this and you will explain in what I know will be painful detail just why he was there, but… did it help?”

  “No,” she whispered. “Because he wasn’t you and I wanted—I needed you.”

  “Right answer,” he breathed and relaxed.

  Now that the truth was out of the bag, she couldn’t stop from blurting out the rest that was on her mind. “But talking about it doesn’t change the truth. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t made the Nexus Suit, you wouldn’t have used it, then had to leave and I wouldn’t have… losing our baby was my punishment for having created a device that I intended to be used to protect but instead was used to make you kill twenty-nine targets. Van, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault we’re in this mess and… it’s karma. My karma.”

  He should have seen it coming. But he hadn’t. Because he’d been too wrapped up in the moment, a second away from laying down his soul and carrying her off to the bedroom for some much needed reconnection time that’d have them both closer to doing the soul rite… when she dropped this crazy left field girl logic on him?

  No. “Not only no, but hell fucking no.” He gripped her shoulders and held her away from him. “You do not get to take the blame for this. It is not your karma. Mine, yes. Not yours.”

  Maddie opened her mouth and managed to get a “But, Van—” out, but he nipped that shit in the bud by walking her backwards toward the bedroom.

  “I just found out we had then lost a child and you want to take the blame? Hell no, it doesn’t work that way.”

  Her legs hit the back of the bed. “But, Van, someone wants us dead and it’s just like before. Can’t you see? It’s a cycle of repeat that goes all the way back to the trigger and me making the suit.”

  He shook his head. “You’re reaching.” He nudged her and she fell back on the bed. “It. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”

  “But, Van—”

  “No buts. You didn’t fuck up. I did. I walked out. I made the choice. It’s my fault. Period. End of discussion.”

  “But I made the suit and none of this would have happened if I hadn’t.”

  “Yes, you made the suit and that device fucking rocked. Not one of my targets was an innocent. Had we not had your device, I promise you there’d have been a helluvalot more collateral damage. Now, get naked.”

  “Dammit, Van, I’m not in the mood for sex,” she cried.

  “Who said anything about sex? Your ass is getting spanked for ruining the moment with crazy, left field, girl logic.”

  “It’s not crazy,” she fired back. “And if you’d just listen to me—”

  “Fine.” He folded his arms over his chest and stared down at her. “You have one minute. Talk fast. Then get naked.”

  She groaned in frustration.

  “Time’s ticking.”

  “Fine,” she retorted. “The bounty on me was a setup to lure you and your team into a trap.”

  He didn’t react but to arch a brow.

  “Ohmigod. You already know the Nexus Suit had nothing to do with the attack on me. Don’t you,” she accused.

  “Is the word idiot stamped on my forehead,” he muttered. “No, it’s not. Now, get naked.”

  “I will not,” Maddie declared in a huff. “Because I’m not done and it is my fault and you don’t even know why!”

  “I know exactly why,” Tango ground out. “And it is NOT. YOUR. FAULT!”

  “It is! Because it was my fault that Romeo got shot!”

  His face crumpled into a mask of incredulity. “Romeo didn’t get shot, Maddie. He was interrogated, tortured then beheaded on a fucking video that was sent to his parents and how the hell do you even know about him?”

  “Because I know what he was doing and why,” she yelled right back at him.

  “You don’t know shit. Now quit trying to be a fucking martyr and get naked. NOW!”

  “I will NOT! You need to know what I did!”

  He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Whatever it is, I forgive you. Now get—”

  “So help me, God, Donovan Tatum if you say naked I will hurt you. Badly,” she growled between clenched teeth.

  “Dammit, Maddie, if I can forgive you for making the Nexus Suit to fucking regulate me, then I can damn well forgive you for whatever imaginary sins you think you committed.”

  “Think I committed? I don’t think, Van, I know it’s my fault and if you weren’t so damn pigheaded not to listen to me then you’d know, too. It is my fault because I’m the one who did a favor for AJ that got Bravo to be Bravo and Laurel to disappear and Romeo killed!”

  His jaw went slack and his
brow furrowed with befuddlement. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Maddie exhaled a hard breath and lowered her voice. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I know about your mission. I know about the corruption in your chain of command. I gave Sinclair everything he needed to take care of it. Because, Van, it’s my fault it happened.”

  Another deep breath and she laid it all out there.

  “It’s all my fault because I did a favor for AJ.”

  Tango tried and failed to process the shit she’d just dropped in his lap. By his calculation, there wasn’t any way in hell that Maddie could be even remotely related to the shit that’d gone down with Romeo. That whole shit storm had been because of a mission gone sideways. At least that’s what he’d thought. Believed. Whatever.

  Until now.

  The demon said he’d helped her out of a mess. Maybe this was the mess? His other half offered in a rare display of unprovoked, helpful collaboration.

  Tango scratched his head as he considered the possibility. The beast had a point. Black had mentioned some sort of mess that Maddie had needed help extracting herself from and… if it had anything at all to do with the shit that went down with Romeo… he needed to know. Now.

  Even though he knew he would regret it. Tango nodded and motioned for her to continue. “Fine. You win. What favor did you do for Ivanov?”

  The shocked look on her face was priceless. “You know AJ is Andrei Ivanov?”

  Tango snorted back a sudden laugh. He knew more about Ivanov than she’d probably ever suspect, but damned if he was going to share that. Yet. “Yes. What favor did you do?”

  She bit her lip. “I made two new identities.”

  All trace of laughter within him evaporated. “You did WHAT?”

  She leapt in front of him and put her hands on his chest as if to stop his anger from boiling over. “Wait! Before you get mad,” she said in a rush.

  “Too. Late.”

  “It happened before we met.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? What the hell, Maddie? You swore that you’d given me every detail of every illegal thing you did before we got together. And not a god damn one of those details mentioned anything about you making a fake ID for Andrei fucking Ivanov!”