by Avril Ashton
Reggie watched him calmly.
They’d never been the couple who kept secrets. Israel didn’t want them to be that now.
“Won’t happen again,” he said softly. “I can promise you that.”
Reggie wasn’t speaking, he simply watched Israel with that calm expression on his face. Israel tugged on his fingers.
“I love you.”
“I know you love me, Is. Just let that be the only lie you tell me, got it?”
Fuck, yeah. He got it. Israel nodded. “Yeah.”
“I love you, too.” Reggie’s lips quirked. “Now, pass that fucking loud.”
Israel did, but he kept Reggie’s hand in his. No way was he letting that man go.
Epilogue
Van got his grown man on one more time.
Suit and tie.
He stood in the backyard of the house Levi had bought for them in Seattle and slid a familiar gold band on his husband’s finger under bright moon light. The last time he’d done this, there’d been secrets weighing him down, tearing him up.
Fuck. This free feeling was the best aphrodisiac. It got him high as fuck.
Levi kissed his knuckles, grinned at him as he reciprocated. A push and the ring settled on Van’s finger like it belonged.
Which it did.
Same rings.
Different men. Still the same…but different.
“By the power—”
He pitched forward, putting his mouth on Levi’s, licking him nice and fast and deep. Kissing him hard while their small group of witnesses laughed and the minister sputtered. If only he knew how long and how much Van had suffered for this. How much he’d bled for this.
He deserved this, the man taking control of his mouth. The ring on his finger. The son cheering them on while making gagging sounds. He deserved it and he would never feel bad for having it.
He pulled away, caught Levi by the chin. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Just like that, a renewal of vows and they were back on a continuation of that forever they’d embarked on all those years prior.
They partied, loud noises, liquor and Van hand in hand with Levi. They kept their shit small. Israel and Reggie. Izek and his girlfriend. They didn’t really need anybody else. In a few months Izek would be moving on to a new phase of his life. College. Levi was a wreck. Van, too, but he was way better at hiding it.
Van had made his exit from Dutch’s motley crew. It hadn’t been hard at all. Fact was, he’d been looking forward to throwing Dutch the finger for the past seven years. So he stayed home, helped Levi do his CPA thing. It worked for now. Maybe later down the road he’d think about doing something else, like the work he’d been doing before when they lived in Cali and he was undercover repairing motorcycles. For now, he was staying close to home. With his family. Where he was needed.
The other good thing in his life was Israel. They’d grown incredibly close since all that shit went down in New York. Close enough for his brother to stand there with him as he pledged himself to Levi once again. Who’d have thought it, huh?
He still called up Mel, though not as frequently as he used to. Mostly he talked to Levi when the nightmares roused him from sleep, when he woke covered in sweat, screaming for light, and breath.
But Mel’s phone remained on. He appreciated it, but couldn’t bring himself to thank Dutch for the gesture. He didn’t grieve for his father, didn’t even try. He didn’t know what was happening with Israel and Seraphina. If they were in contact, he didn’t care. They didn’t talk about it, and Van was good with that.
His brother deserved better. At least he was happier now, with Reggie. Those two loved each other as fiercely as Van loved Levi, so his big brother was good. Still a drug dealer and a gun runner. Still terrifyingly dangerous, but not to Van or his family.
“Hey.” Levi tugged on Van’s arm, brought him out of his head.
“Hey.” Van grinned at him, bent and licked his cheek.
“Follow me.”
Levi pulled him along, into the house and straight to the front door. Van frowned when they walked right out the front door and over to a dark sedan parked in the driveway. A car that didn’t belong to anyone partying in their backyard.
“What’s—”
“Get in.” Levi motioned for Van to go ahead of him.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Levi said softly. He glanced around. “Please.”
Okay. Van opened the driver’s side door and Levi got in the back. The windows had been blacked out so Van hadn’t been able to make out the vehicle’s passengers. As he slid into the car, inhaling the supple leather, he noticed the driver, nobody he recognized. He twisted around to the back.
“Daniel Nieto, I’d like you to meet my husband, Van.”
Well shit.
The skinny man sat back, shadows obscuring his face. Van squinted.
“Mr. Cintron.”
That fucking voice was the worst. Shredded. It jacked up the hair at Van’s nape, on his arms. Damn.
“My brother is the only reason you’re alive this long. Hurt him again, and your body won’t be found.”
“You can chill with the threats. Levi is safe with me.”
“His heart as well?”
Van couldn’t even be mad at the dude. He did suppress a grin, though. Dutch would shit himself if he knew how close Van actually were to Daniel Nieto right now. He’d been hunting the man for so many years, always getting close yet not close enough.
“Levi’s heart is safe with me. I promise,” he told Daniel.
“I will hold you to it.” Leather creaked when Daniel turned to Levi. He was still shadowed, in profile, but Van saw him touch Levi’s cheek. Pat it once. “Be happy, hermanito.” He moved closer, pressed his lips to Levi’s forehead quickly then sat back, waved a hand. “Get out now. I must go.”
Van couldn’t get over his voice. Dang. They’d known he’d had some kinda trauma, something that happened the same night his wife had been killed, but no one knew for sure what happened to Daniel Nieto’s voice to turn it into something so ravaged.
Waiting until Levi got out of the car, Van followed and went over to stand next to his husband. He grasped Levi’s hand, and his man gripped him tightly as Daniel’s car pulled out the driveway then disappeared down their tree-lined street.
“You okay?” He didn’t take his eyes off the taillights.
“Yeah.” But Levi sounded a little bit sad. “Do you know what happened to his voice?”
“No.”
“I was always too scared to ask.” Levis rugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“He loves you.” Van hugged Levi close. “You love him.”
Levi turned into Van’s embrace, putting his face in Van’s neck. “Yeah.” He pressed a kiss to Van’s neck before lifting his head. “Okay. This is our wedding night, no time or place for sadness.”
“No, you feel whatever you feel.” Van caught his chin, tilted his face up. “I love you. We’re good.”
They were good.
“Hey, you gonna tell me why you called Dutch Hunter?” Levi asked.
“Yep.” Van nodded. “But not now.”
Someone slapped him on the back, and he glanced behind him to see Israel grinning at him, Reggie at his side. Izek was kissing his girlfriend over in the corner.
Yeah. They were good.
THE END
Author’s Note
Scars and Secrets has gone through at least four reincarnations. I’ve lived with these characters in my head for four years. And I’ve tried to write their book for four years. Never could get it right. Never could find the right words. When I began this final try, I had an idea of what the story should be about. I had an idea of where the Loose Ends series would go.
The characters had other ideas.
In the middle of writing Scars and Secrets, I had a medical crisis that threw everything in flux, including my writing. Once ag
ain, I saw the story— as I had originally thought to write it—wasn’t working. I scrapped the 30k words I had written so far and tried again. Which put the version count by then at about three or four. There are parts of this final version written as far back as four years ago, and as recent as last night.
The series as a whole has changed, and I hope you’re right there with me as I discover just where we’re headed next.
Thank you for being the inspiration I needed to get this book finished when I thought it would never happen. Thank you for reading.
Please rate/review
Turn the page for sneak peeks at Call the Coroner, and book two in the Loose Ends series, Scars and Ruin.
CALL THE CORONER
He’s been living underground for a long time, but the only thing guaranteed to bring Daniel Nieto back to the surface is the identity of his wife’s killer. With the whisper of one name, he puts it all on the line for vengeance. He’s got plans for Stavros Konstantinou.
The title of monster fits too well for Stavros to want to be anything other than what he is. Time spent in Daniel Nieto’s dungeon, chained and tortured, will never change that. Starved of food, sunlight and freedom, Stav refuses to apologize for who he is. Instead he bides his time, waiting for an opening to turn the tables on the only man who’s ever come close enough to scare him.
In a battle of wills between predators, and in a war this bloodied, what do you do when the bodies start hitting the floor?
Call the Coroner
* * * *
Violence.
It settled over Daniel Nieto’s shoulders like a warm blanket. Worn. Comforting. Familiar. He let himself smile, allowed his eyes to close for a moment as he savored it. He’d come straight from the States, back to this place where it lived.
The violence.
Where he waited, the man chained in the cold underground bunker Daniel had procured just for this.
The naked man’s eyes were closed, face calm and arrogant, even in this place. Even in his position. But Daniel hadn’t expected or thought this would wipe the arrogance from his captive. In fact, he didn’t wish it to. Not yet.
He’d waited a long time for this. He possessed the patience, the time, and the resources to wait however long it took to make Stavros Konstantinou pay most thoroughly for the crimes he’d committed against Daniel.
“Sir.” Boyd stood next to him, medical supplies in hand as he awaited Daniel’s instructions. Despite the lab coat turned from white to a light brown with dirt, and the stethoscope hanging around his neck, Boyd wasn’t an MD. Just a man from the village a couple hundred miles away who’d taught himself some things. He was also a man who owed Daniel a favor or three.
He’d called in all his markers for this.
His prisoner shifted on the slap of cold metal meant to be a floor, head lifting to peer through the bars that caged him. Daniel took a little pleasure in seeing the man trapped there, though he made no assumptions that the Greek would accept this.
He hadn’t so far.
He’d fought. The chains. The cage. The needles.
He hadn’t fought Daniel yet.
“Back so soon?” Stavros sat up slowly, in deference, maybe, to the broken ribs he’d suffered in the days before Daniel left to visit his brother, witness his wedding.
But of course, Levi didn’t belong here with the violence, and the dried blood on the floor. This was Daniel’s world. The Greek’s, too. They were so alike, it was comforting. Daniel would kill him. Or perhaps Stavros would get what he’d tried to take those years ago when he’d taken Daniel’s wife instead. He’d take Daniel’s life.
Both men already agreed, silently of course, that this only ended with death.
“You missed me, yes?” Stavros smiled. He looked…unconcerned. “It is okay to admit it. I have it, that effect on people.” The wink was almost jovial.
In the aftermath of Petra’s death, Daniel had thought the person who’d dared to come after him had to have been insane to bring his ire down on them. He’d been right. But losing his love had sent him there, to insanity, so now they played on an even field.
“Sir.”
Boyd broke Daniel’s close, narrow-eyed study of Stavros.
“He has been fed?”
Boyd nodded. “To your specifications.”
Bread and water. Once a day.
“Come then.” Daniel walked to the cage, opened it with the key on the rosary beads. Petra’s rosary beads. He’d wrapped them around his wrist, a crude bracelet. Her blood was still on it. He’d never bothered to wash it off. Years had gone by, so one would have to really search for those droplets.
Daniel saw them every time he gazed at his wrist.
The cage door swung open with a loud, grating sound and Stavros threw his head back and laughed.
“Come inside…” he murmured, staring at Daniel from under long lashes, tugging on the chains around his wrists.
Daniel did go inside. Three strides brought him to Stavros’s side, and he knelt, caught the man’s chin.
Stavros watched him with his patented sneer, daring Daniel. He was a reckless man, courting death with the company he kept. Daniel had watched Stavros long before he’d had the confirmation that the Greek had been responsible for his loss. His gut had told him Stavros had been too dangerous to write off, so Daniel made sure to keep him in his sights. One of the reasons it had been so easy to capture him.
But before that he’d seen enough to know just how to jolt his prisoner.
As if his thoughts conjured her, footsteps clacked onto the metals stairs leading down to the bunker. If he heard them, Stavros gave no indication. He kept his gaze on Daniel, watching, waiting.
He might have an idea of what was next, but Daniel had never been the predictable sort. The reason he remained alive and breathing today. The clicking of heels brought their visitor closer, and Daniel shifted away from Stavros, dropping his hold on the man’s chin.
Deliberately bringing his gaze to the door of the cage, Daniel watched her as she pressed against the bars. Cocoa skin, doe eyes, clad in black, body-hugging leather showing off her chest. Her thighs.
Stavros turned to her.
Froze.
And she smiled. Lips painted red, expression coy as she stepped inside, swayed toward him. She was captivating, and Daniel watched Stavros watch her with eyes that got wider when she finally reached him, dropped to her knees to straddle him.
“Annika.”
His sister. Daniel had watched long enough to know Stavros had loved her. Siblings not by blood, just marriage. He’d loved her like a man loved a woman.
Yet he’d never had her.
“Annika.” Her name was a breath of sound as Stavros tried to touch her, hug her, except the chains wouldn’t let him.
Daniel wouldn’t let him.
She writhed on the naked Greek. Kissed him, leaving smudges of red behind. Not even an inch away, close enough to hear the breath rattle in Stavros’s chest, Daniel sat and watched. The woman stroked Stavros’s back, buried her fingers in his hair while he kissed her back, hungry.
Greedy.
Then she touched his neck. Both hands. Gentle at first. Like a lover would.
Boyd stepped into the cage for the first time.
Her touch got heavier, more insistent around the Greek’s neck. Except the man didn’t take heed. Too busy taking what he’d never had before. Like the professional she was, the woman didn’t stop, nor did she falter.
She wrapped her hands around Stavros’s neck and squeezed. When he finally figured out what was happening, she head-butted him. His naked body jerked, but her hands remained at his neck.
Daniel didn’t take his gaze away, watching as the beautiful woman took the Greek’s life with delicate hands. She squeezed it out of him, and Daniel was jealous. Irrationally jealous that she knew how it felt, taking Stavros’s life. But he’d wanted this.
He accepted it.
When the body stopped moving, she finally li
fted both hands. A kind of surrender. She flexed her fingers, closed her hands into fists then opened them before she met Daniel’s eyes with a small smile, and a shine of sexual lust in there.
“Done.”
“Boyd.” Daniel waved the man over as the woman got off Stavros’s naked body and walked to the door of the cage.
“When you need me,” she purred. “You know where I am.”
Daniel nodded. She’d already been paid so he dismissed her. “Goodbye, Wilhelmina.”
Her heels sounded, but he’d already brought his attention to Boyd, watching dispassionately as Boyd performed CPR, working to bring Stavros back to life.
He wasn’t allowed to stay dead. Not yet. Daniel kept his face impassive, fingers laced, both indexes touching his lips as Boyd chanted, counting under his breath, sweating. Because he knew, if Stavros didn’t wake up, Boyd would die with him.
Stavros’s body arched off the floor.
His lashes fluttered. Opened as he coughed and groaned. His skin was gray, eyes bloodshot and unfocused. Boyd straightened from his kneeling position and stepped back, heaving a loud sigh. Stavros’s head turned, clouded eyes zeroing in on Daniel as his throat worked.
Daniel smiled, saluted him. “Welcome back. The fun starts now.”
SCARS AND RUIN
Dutch held on to the steering wheel with both hands. He stared at his fingers then lifted his gaze, brought his attention to the townhouse before him, the one whose driveway he sat in.
A lone light illuminated the house from within. The light in the den, with the window that looked out over the driveway.
Five minutes. Dutch had five minutes, and he planned to use up every last second of that precious time. Because he needed it, although he would ever admit it out loud. And because it pissed off the man waiting so eagerly for him behind those shifting curtains.
