Exposed

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “I promise,” he rasped. “I’m with you forever.”

  I nodded as tears welled in my eyes.

  The waves left us.

  The beach was gone.

  It was just the two or us alone in that bedroom.

  Two broken souls staring at each other, wishing that they could control the world around them.

  Knowing that one day — one day it wouldn’t always be like this.

  “I love you.” A knot formed in my throat as he closed his eyes and sighed, then wrapped his arms around me like he could physically protect me from all of the evil around us. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you too.” He kissed my forehead.

  I sighed into him. Leaned on him as rain started to pound the windows outside. We were a small piece of this world.

  But I vowed to be a dangerous one.

  One that wouldn’t let evil take away what was mine.

  “Teach me,” I found myself saying.

  “Teach you what?”

  We broke apart. I straightened and said in a clear voice. “Everything.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Dom

  I winced as Chase came at her again. He didn’t hold back.

  She told him not to.

  I got so sick to my stomach, I had to look away as Phoenix jumped into the ring with Chase — they cornered her.

  Phoenix had a gun in his right hand, Chase had a knife in his.

  Tanit stared straight ahead.

  “Focus!” Chase barked. “Use the fear to focus you.”

  Tanit gave a jerky nod and then held her hands up.

  “Good.” Phoenix approached. “You can’t run, at this point — you have to fight. Who do you disarm first?”

  “Gun.” She gulped. “But I only have a few seconds before I have to deflect the knife.”

  “Quick learner.” Chase winked.

  I wiped my face with my hands and watched just as Tex walked in with a bowl of popcorn. He started chomping on it like he was watching a free show.

  “Seriously?” I snapped.

  “Oh, sorry.” He handed me the bowl. “You want?”

  “No, I don’t want!” I almost smacked it out of his hands. “They’re going to hurt her!”

  “Good.” He shrugged. “Then she’ll go to bed, remember how bad it fucking hurts, wake up, and do better.”

  “Damned mafia,” I grumbled.

  “She asked for this.” Dante walked in behind him. “Let her learn, you don’t learn without falling on your ass at least once or twice.”

  “Or…” Sergio came in after him. “Getting impaled.”

  “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I prefer Nixon to all of you.” At least Nixon refused to train her because he didn’t want to inflict pain on her. No, that was all Chase. Bastard actually volunteered with a smile on his face and woke her up at four a.m. holding a knife under my chin and a gun to my temple.

  I’d had my gun trained on his temple too, so we both probably would have died, but whatever.

  Tanit just got out of bed, got dressed, and followed the crazy down to the training room.

  Swear he got off on harming people.

  “All right, cupcake.” Chase grinned. “Give it your best shot, and I’ll try to make it a flesh wound.”

  Anxiety washed over me as Phoenix charged. She kicked the gun out of his hands. It fell to the floor just as Chase attacked with the knife, getting her in the left side before she was able to move out of the way, deflect, and get to the other side of the ring.

  Blood stained the white shirt she’d been wearing.

  I moved toward the ring.

  But it wasn’t any of the guys who stopped me.

  It was Tanit’s face.

  She shook her head slightly at me, then looked back to Chase with murder in her eyes and said. “Again.”

  Tex chuckled under his breath. “Good choice, brother, solid damn choice.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Tanit

  My hurt hurt.

  It didn’t seem possible.

  But it was happening.

  Every bruise, every ounce of skin, every part of my body felt swollen and broken, and yet I kept looking at Chase through swollen eyes and saying, “Again.”

  Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

  Maybe it was the pain.

  Maybe it was the way he looked at me like he was proud.

  “Stop.” Dom’s voice filled the ring. I looked around for it, but my eyes were almost completely swollen shut, and the noises coming at me felt slow, my vision blurred as he stepped into the ring and faced Chase. “That’s enough for today.”

  “I’m not done yet.” Chase wasn’t even winded or fazed. He nodded at me and then winked, then turned his attention to Dom. “I had another half hour of training left, so does that mean you want to take her place?”

  Dom cursed under his breath then snickered. “Think you can handle me, old man?”

  Chase’s eyes narrowed. “I’m thirty-four, hardly an old man. Surprised you even have chest hair.”

  Dom gently put his hands on my shoulders. It still hurt. I hissed out a breath. He kissed me on the forehead. “Go grab some water. Phoenix has ice packs.”

  I almost asked for what.

  Then I stepped out of the ring and swayed on my feet as Sergio picked me up into his arms and set me gently on a soft bench. Hands and arms moved around me, ice packs were strapped to me. The cool felt so soothing against the burn.

  “I think that’s a first.” Sergio said with amusement as Dante stood in front of me and shook his head slowly.

  “First?” I whispered hoarsely.

  “First.” Dante repeated. “That Chase has ever been in the ring that long with anyone other than me and not caused severe kidney damage.”

  “Oh.” I winced. “Not sure about that…”

  “Her kidneys are fine.” Sergio said like he could see through my skin and assess the situation. Then again, my stomach and face hurt more than anything, not to mention my thighs. He kicked a lot, Chase.

  “Huh.” I wondered out loud as Dante put a pack in my hands.

  “Your right is worse than your left, ten minutes each eye.”

  I pressed the pack to my right cheek and then pulled it down as Dom threw a right hook toward Chase, sending him to the ground.

  Tex whistled while Nixon hollered. “He caught you!”

  “Shut the hell up!” Chase roared.

  I watched them dance around each other for what felt like hours. Each of them taking hit after hit, laughing after each hit, cursing when they couldn’t land their punches, and finding joy in the violence when they did.

  “They embrace pain the way they embrace pleasure,” Phoenix said as he sat next to me on the bench and handed me a cool rag. “As one should.”

  “Yeah?” I swallowed slowly afraid the motion would cause pain in my chest and neck. “And why’s that?”

  “Because they come hand in hand in this business, in this life. It’s why you kept telling Chase to keep going — because you know, the pain will be great, the suffering most likely worse — but the pleasure? The pleasure of being with someone you love, with laughing death in the face? It will always win. Every damn time.”

  I gaped at him just as Sergio shouted, “Oh shit…”

  I glanced back at the ring to see Dom straddling Chase pummeling his face, while Chase laughed, blood oozing from his mouth.

  “She’ll be pissed if he has to go to the dentist again!” Dante yelled.

  Dom pulled away laughing like a maniac. And Chase actually looked pleased when he spit out a tooth and shrugged.

  They both walked over just in time for Frank to stroll in with a bottle of wine in hand. “I heard it was a training day — I’ve brought reinforcements.”

  “One bottle?” Tex scoffed.

  “Oh, this is mine.” Frank shrugged. “The rest is in the kitchen with the cannoli.”

  Everyone bolted, leaving
me alone on the bench. Dom sauntered toward me, shirtless, blood marring his cheeks. His lip was cut, and he looked more than thrilled about it.

  “Blood looks sexy as hell on you,” he murmured, kneeling in front of me. “I would tell you to stop but—”

  “I want to knock his tooth out one day,” I said decidedly.

  “Right… but that.” Dom winked. “Train with Chase, and one day you’ll beat Chase.”

  “Your confidence in me is probably deadly,” I joked.

  “My confidence in you is life,” he fired back, kissing my bruised mouth with his. Pleasure and pain. Hand in hand.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Dom

  She moaned in her sleep. I couldn’t blame her.

  Bandages covered the bruises on her arms. There was one that stuck out on her right cheek. I caressed it with the backs of my hands. I knew it would hurt like a bitch in the morning — not that it would stop her. She was defiant. I loved it. I loved her.

  I winced as I turned on my side and pulled her into my embrace. Her slight movement told me she was awake as she faced me and cupped my face. “Do I look ugly?”

  “Never,” I whispered reverently taking in her cut up bottom lip and black eyes. Damn it, Chase. I hated that she let him fight her, but I knew these bruises would protect her. They would be the reason she knew how to fight, how to kill, how to protect herself. The only way to make someone a killer is to show them how it feels to be nearly killed. It awakens the darkness inside, the mortality, the demand to live regardless of what it costs. All of us have it. Few rarely turn it on. But it was necessary in this life.

  And for that, I couldn’t fault him, or her.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked pulling her closer to me.

  She shrugged. “A bit, but I need to learn. I don’t want to be…” She looked away. “I don’t want to be helpless, a victim. I want to fight.”

  “Only fight…” Our foreheads touched. “…when absolutely necessary.”

  “I know.”

  I let out a sigh of relief then pressed a kiss to her right cheek just below the dark bruised skin.

  “Dom?” She wrapped her left arm around my back and clung tight. “Will it always feel like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m just waiting for the shoe to drop?”

  “Yes.” I had to be honest. Sugar coating the situation wouldn’t make it any easier. It just made the shock greater when she discovered there would always be people who wanted us dead, there would always be monsters in the dark — but lucky for her my monster was bigger, angrier. “It will.”

  “Good,” she said, surprising the hell out of me.

  “Good?” I repeated. “Why the hell is that a good thing?”

  “I think before… I wasn’t really living, I didn’t feel as alive as I do now in your arms, like any minute could be our last. It forces me to treasure the time I’ve been given. Is the rest of humanity this foolish with their time? I wonder that, like what did I do before fighting to survive? Read magazines? Watch TV? I don’t want to go back to a life without passion, without purpose. Even if it means I don’t get as much time as someone who isn’t a part of this world.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t deserve you.” I couldn’t put into words how much that meant, how the guilt just dissolved around me instead of wrapping itself about me like a choking fog. “Do you really mean that?”

  “What do you think?” She smirked and then pulled away and attempted to take off her loose tank. Attempted being the key word.

  I barked out a laugh. “Need help?”

  “No! I’ve got this.” She wiggled a bit. I put my hands behind my head and watched the show. Her elbow kept getting caught and she was probably too sore to brush her hair let alone pull something over her head. She managed to get it to her neck though and then gave me the most pitiful look I’d ever seen.

  I cupped my ear.

  She glared.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Fine.” She sighed. “Please help me take off my shirt so I can seduce you.”

  “Ohhhhh that’s what this was.” I pointed at her. “A seduction? Thanks for clearing it up. I was confused.”

  She grabbed a pillow and tried tossing it at me. It moved an inch or so. Poor girl should probably go sit in an ice bath.

  I moved to my knees and tugged her tank over her head then cupped her face with my hands. “I’ll love you forever, even when you can’t take your shirt off, even when you have raccoon eyes, yell at me, hate me, berate me — I will always love you. Till the day I die.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Does that mean that you love me enough to help me take off my shorts? Because I don’t think I can do it.”

  “Ohhh, so after that speech we’re going to go back to the whole seduction thing?”

  “It’s because of the speech that I want to go through severe pain and take off my shorts — I want to please you. I want to love you. I want to be yours over and over again.” She wrapped her arms around my neck. “I’ll love you forever even when you have to help me take my shirt off, even when you laugh at my raccoon eyes, yell at me, hate me, berate me — I will always love you. Till the day I die.”

  She pressed a tender kiss to my mouth.

  And I fell in love a million times over again.

  I fell.

  And I realized in that fall.

  There would never be anything to catch me, anything to break it — because love is never ending, in this life and the next.

  It’s a constant fall.

  With the one you love at your side.

  Facing the adventure together.

  I dipped my fingers into her waistband and tugged down. “Why don’t you just lay back and let make you feel better…?”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” She giggled and then slowly lay back while I took my time loving her, caring for her, while I enjoyed the minutes I’d been given and selfishly wished for more.

  And when I tasted her pleasure.

  When she gripped the sheets between her fingertips and cried out my name.

  I knew — I would never find another love like this.

  And I was a lucky bastard for having it in the first place.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Chase

  “So.” I rubbed my hands together. “You grab the stick and put it on top of the other stick, and then you—”

  “Daddy, look sticks!” Izzy grabbed the sticks that I’d just instructed Violet to put on the ground for our campfire and started poking her twin Marco. “Huzzah!”

  I wiped a hand down my face and blew out a frustrated breath. Violet shared an exasperated look with me. She’d begged me all weekend to go camping. It had been Dom’s idea to do it in the back yard.

  I hadn’t factored in twin four-year-olds.

  My mistake.

  Dom approached with a bag of marshmallows and tossed them. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

  I took in his mussed hair and ripped shirt.

  “Daddy, did Uncle Dom get in a fight?” Violet asked with a gleam in her eye.

  God help us all.

  “Yeah, looks like he won,” I muttered as Tanit made her way out into the back yard, tucking her shirt back into her jeans. Uh-huh, right. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Inside tasting Luc’s casserole.” Dom grinned.

  “The hell!” I roared.

  “Daddy said hell.” Izzy said in a sing song voice while Marco started chirping hell, hell, hell, hell.

  I swallowed more curses and stared Dom down. “If you get past the stick part of making a fire, I’ll give you one of my cars.”

  “Struggling with your equipment, Chase?” Dom smirked.

  I double middle fingered him behind my back.

  He peered around and choked on a laugh before I dropped my hands to my sides and faced Violet. “I’m going to go check on your mom, listen to Uncle Dom, all right?”

  “Yes, sir.” She wrapped her scraw
ny arms around my waist. I felt my entire body relax into her embrace. She’d always had that effect on me. I’d come home with blood on my hands and demons in my soul and take one look at Violet and just… breathe.

  She got her light from Luc.

  All of our kids did.

  I often wondered what I bought to the table other than the protection I gave them. Then again, if that’s all I was good for — I was okay with it. Goodness be damned, I’d serve time in Hell to protect those I loved — gladly.

  “Don’t be long, Daddy, Marco keeps stealing the sticks and he needs a spanking.” Ah mothered by a nine-year-old hours after beating the shit out of a De Lange informant. Never got old.

  “Promise.” I winked and quickly jogged back inside the house where Nixon, Sergio, Dante, Phoenix, Frank, Tex, and Andrei were all gathered around my wife like a bunch of damn kids.

  “Really?” I put my hands on my hips.

  Swear all of them jumped back like they’d been caught doing something wrong.

  “She cooked,” Tex said lamely.

  “It’s good?” Dante offered hands up.

  The women were in the corner of the room grabbing wine and giggling like teenagers while I was stuck in a stare down with my brothers. “You taste my wife’s casserole before I do?”

  “Mmmmm,” Nixon licked his lips. “Tasty.”

  “Son of a bitch!” I pulled my gun, he pulled his.

  Money exchanged hands.

  Wine was poured.

  “Don’t be a chicken shit.” Nixon laughed. “Pull the trigger. I know it’s been a few hours… shaking like an addict.”

  I rolled my eyes. And turned the gun to the side.

  “Kill shot.” Tex rubbed his hands tighter. “I’m doubling up on this one.”

  “Deal.” Dante took his money and then Andrei added another crisp hundred-dollar bill to it.

  “Why do they even call it kill shot?” Trace said in a bored tone. “Does it make the bullet go faster?”

  “Not now, Trace! I’m trying to focus!” I didn’t have to look at her to know she wasn’t even fazed that I had a gun pointed at her husband. In fact, I imagined she was reading an intriguing article from US Weekly and yawning behind her hand while next to her, Mo painted her nails.