by Ace Gray
“Ladyface, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Please,” I whispered.
She didn’t respond, just turned further away from me.
“Remember.” I tried to move in front of her face, she twisted away from me again. “You. Are. Everything.” I enunciated each word and spit them out with all the sincerity I could muster.
She didn’t flinch.
I shoved away from the couch and stalked over to my discarded jeans. I yanked them on battling with the water still fresh on my skin. When I got them up and buttoned I grabbed a drawer so hard it slid out of the dresser completely and banged on my shin.
“Fucking shit!” My voice boomed off the bricks as I threw the drawer onto the floor. It splintered into pieces when it hit.
“Calm down.” Horse’s hand came to my shoulder as soon as he’d pulled on his shirt.
“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down.” I swatted his hand away as I picked up a shirt from the scrap pile of wood and cotton now sitting at my feet.
“Fine. Get your ass, along with your temper, out the goddamned door.” He pinched his face, knitting his brows together and thinning his lips into a straight line as he pointed toward the front door.
I slid into my hightops without tying them and grabbed my Glock from where I’d abandoned it by my keys. I threw open my front door and wheeled out without looking back. The look that Elle would give me, or rather wouldn’t give me, wasn’t something I could face.
17.
Elle
“Whatever you do. Do not leave this apartment. Not even to grab food or smokes from the corner store. Do not answer this door. Even if it’s the ghost of your recently departed mother.” Horse’s big chocolate eyes were level with mine begging me to understand. “Whatever happened in that bathroom, I don’t care. You stay here. And you stay quiet. He’s going to save you the only way he knows how.” He swallowed a giant lump in his throat then leaned in and kissed my forehead.
He stood and turned on his heel to follow Cole out of the apartment. The keys he grabbed scraped against the table and grated against my nerves but then the door shut behind him and I was left in silence.
The cold slap of being alone started tears trickling down my cheeks without warning. I tried to wipe them away at first with the edges of the towel but they came too furiously for me to stop them.
In a matter of hours, I’d searched for Cole, found him and lost him all over again. He’d been with somebody else. Whether Mr. Maloney had made him or not, the idea didn’t sit well with me. Matter of fact, it damn near crushed my insides.
If Mr. Maloney was as bad as they said, I couldn’t blame Cole.
But I also couldn’t quite swallow it.
I started to replay the day since I’d arrived in Chicago. There was the gun in my face, but in hindsight, the man behind it, unafraid to die was far more unsettling. There was Horse pounding on the hood of Cole’s car, but Cole’s very real terror had been hidden behind my thundering heart. Of course there was the threesome, but we had only started kissing on each other once Horse had said he’d help Cole hide me. That was when the levy had broke and Cole became my Cole again.
Then there was just now. He’d thrown a tantrum for sure, but once again it was the emotion behind it that was what I’d missed. He was trying to prepare me for what might come, he was trying to be honest with me about how dark things really were. I’d cast that aside based on wounded pride and storybook notions.
This is no fairytale, Ladyface, and I’m no Prince Charming.
He got the first part right but not the last. He was charging at the dragon all right, determined to keep me free, using the only weapon he had.
And I’d sent him off to die without so much as a goodbye.
The tears started pouring down my cheeks again and this time, I didn’t even try to slow them. I wept for my own stupidity every bit as much as the things that I may never get to say to Cole.
I shoved off the couch and started pacing through the loft. A million jumbled thoughts whipped through my head, none of them really making sense but all of them screaming Cole at me. I ran for my jeans where Horse had discarded them, searching for my phone. When it wasn’t in the pocket, I scrambled around on all fours looking for my bag.
Another memory crashed into me. The one of Horse splintering my phone like it was fragile glass beneath his boot.
I couldn’t call Cole to tell him all the things I wanted to now. Things like I’m sorry and I do understand and above all please come back in one piece. After all, this was real life, and people ended up dead. I knew that first hand.
My teeth dug into my bottom lip and my fingernails into my palms. It was the only way to keep from tearing my own hair out. Well, that or call Conrad.
“Fuck,” I swore into the empty apartment realizing I’d never called him. He’d be in a tizzy wondering where I’d gone off to. If he figured out I’d flown to Chicago, he’d probably explode.
I’d let two of the three men in my life down without even thinking about it.
“I’ll be damned sure I don’t let down Horse, too.” I murmured to no one in particular.
I blew out a deep breath, hoping it would steady my churning insides. It did jack shit, so I started to get ready instead. I tucked the towel in on itself and walked back to the bathroom. I swallowed hard, wishing that our last interaction had gone vastly different.
I opened the drawers beneath the sink and found a tortoise shell comb. It was the sleek, expensive kind that reminded me of the 1950s and James Dean. Picturing Cole bent in front of the mirror, styling his hair into the perfect and painfully trendy cut he wore the first time I saw him, pulled a smile across my face.
My hair was tangled but taking the time to pick one knot out at a time was keeping me distracted. When I finally got it smoothed, I found a pencil that I used to twist my hair up into a bun. I grabbed Cole’s toothbrush and helped myself, brushing my teeth made me feel a tiny bit more human. And a tiny bit more sane.
I stripped out of my towel and used it to start sopping up the massive amount of water coating the linoleum floor. Between our playful moment and my melt down, it was a lake. I made myself think about the light moments, or when he’d fallen to my feet rather than that other stuff. I wiped up the footprints as they trailed out of the bathroom and into the loft.
They eventually led over to where the dresser drawer laid obliterated. I sat back on my heels as the image of a devastated Cole washed over me. If I hadn’t been on the floor, it would have leveled me. As it was, I crumpled further. I aimlessly shuffled the splinters into a pile but I was lost in a sea of what if.
What if he hadn’t done what Mickey said? What if they’d gotten to me? What if he thought I wouldn’t forgive him? Or worse, what if the last moments in the apartment were our last moments, period?
It would be because of me. ALL because of me.
I was desperate for Cole. Not because I was magically over it and totally fine with what he’d done but because I understood why he’d done it. I needed to say that. I needed to explain. And tell him that my heart had inexplicably split wide for him.
The faint smell of Cole, sex mixed with fresh spice mixed and warm wood, lingered on his t-shirts where they sat amongst the splinters. I grabbed one of them and pulled it on, holding the collar up to my nose to breathe in as deeply as I could, hoping to fill more than my lungs with that smell.
This time it wasn’t tears that overtook me. It was sheer and utter panic. The words left unspoken threatened to be my undoing.
My lungs wouldn’t expand. A grip every bit as intense as Cole’s had my throat but there was no comfort of blazing green eyes or perfect warm flesh. It was just a ghost dedicated to my demise. Blackness edged in on my vision and the horns honking in the distance faded even further away.
I wasn’t losing it over a guy. I was losing it over the life I saw slipping away. He’d looked at all the inky, ugly black in my life and still seen a blonde haired, blue eyed girl rather than a vortex.
He’d seen a kindred spirit. I’d recognized another half.
And I’d let him run head first at the jaws of death, livid with me.
My shallow, haggard breaths seemed like boulders in my head, clanging into each other and echoing through the void. I prayed I’d pass out. Maybe when I woke up, Cole would be back and I could breathe I’m sorries into our kisses.
But no such luck.
I was left hyperventilating in a ball as I suffered an irregular heart jackknife alone on the cold and empty floor of Cole’s loft.
18.
Cole
“You need to get your shit together,” Horse said sharply from the passenger seat.
“I know what walking into that room means. Especially tonight,” I growled back.
“That’s great. And not at all what I’m talking about.” He looked over at me and I could tell he’d arched his eyebrow even though twilight played tricks sometimes. “I’m talking about Elle and you know it.”
“Tread carefully, Horse.”
“Same goes for you, Cupcake. Don’t destroy her. Because you can, ya know.” He turned and looked out at the street. “It’s only the people we’d die for that can truly kill us,” he said quietly, almost so quietly I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear.
I wanted to fight back, to tell him that she could do the same to me, that I hung by the tiniest thread and Elle held it. Tonight, Mick could cut it, Siobhan would relish snipping it, fate may even have a go, but it was her just letting go that was terrifying. And that was what she seemed to be contemplating back in the apartment, cutting loose and walking away. Spelling that out for Horse, was a wholly terrifying thing.
I pulled up to the Maloney house and turned the key in the ignition. My Charger slowly faded to silent but neither of us moved.
“I’ll treat her better, I swear.” I reached up and patted his shoulder before letting my hand slide over and rub his neck. “I’ll treat you both better.”
He turned and rolled his eyes at me but he couldn’t quite hide the smile tugging at his lips.
“I mean it. You laying down your life for her means everything to me. I’ll spend my life repaying you.”
“If it really means so much, you should blow me.” His full smile broke across his face and his eyes lit up.
“You have my cum covering your ass, let’s call that good for now.” I shook my head as I got out of the car.
“Oh yeah.” He acted like he hadn’t remembered and scratched his ass as he walked toward the front door ahead of me.
We both laughed a little as we took the steps two at a time. The guttural cry that wafted downstairs along with the smell of blood and death when we walked in the door made us swallow our laughter and quick. Horse looked over at me and we shared a look before he nodded for me to head upstairs, him falling into step right behind.
My hand tingled as I turned the handle, opening the massive door into the den. The lights were lower than normal, highlighting a bright white spotlight. A lumpy figure of a man, covered with bruises and wearing tattered clothing sat heaped on his knees, bathed in light and spattered in crimson. There was a fresh trail of the blood oozing from a limp hand, bent in a decidedly wrong direction.
“Where the fuck is Jimmy Ponies?!” Mick roared at the figure before rushing into the light and shoving what seemed to be a bloodied fingernail into his mouth. Mick smothered the man’s mouth with his hand then pinched his nose up. “Swallow it, then answer me.”
Mick’s shoulders heaved and his eyes betrayed the wildness brewing inside him. The man mumbled beneath his hand and Mick pulled his hand away.
“Do tell,” he purred.
“I meant it when I said, I don’t know,” he trembled and it made his voice warble.
Mick crashed his elbow across the already battered face and the man crunched to the floor. Then his eyes locked on mine.
“And you.” He lunged at me, landing his fist across my face.
Only when the crunch was so painful I thought my teeth might shatter beneath the sheer force did I realize Mick was wearing brass knuckles. They glinted in the faint light a minute before he hit me hard in the stomach then redirected to crunch upward into my jaw.
My instincts were screaming to fight back but something even deeper was reminding me of the sole reason to keep my cool—Elle.
“Where is she?” he screamed before jabbing up into my diaphragm and making me double over. “Where did you send her?” His elbow crushed down into my kidneys and I dropped to my knees next to the clobbered almost-corpse.
“Who the fuck are you talking about, Mick?” I managed between wheezes.
He raised his shiny pointy toe loafer and nailed me in my side. I did what I could not to react but I winced as I grabbed my side and held it.
“Mick,” Horse tried to calm him down.
“Don’t you dare take his side.” Mick’s shoes shuffled against the ground and I pictured him toe to toe with Horse. I prayed Horse backed down.
“She’s not in Seattle, Cole.” He grabbed my hair and wrenched my head back.
“Elle?” I walked the fine line of playing dumb but not too dumb.
“Yes, Elle. It seems this family has a knack for disappearing.” He shoved my head back forward and stalked around the front of us.
“I didn’t tip her off, Mick.” I was forceful even though I stayed on my knees. “I’m not that fucking stupid.”
“Are you saying that Siobhan is covering for her? Or maybe that she can’t do her job?” He shoved his face right up into mine.
“I’m saying that she’s been gone for maybe twelve hours. Did Elle not come to the front door when Siobhan knocked?”
“Or perhaps a bleeding heart called the one it beats for?” Mick was deadly serious, icy even, as he leveled a gun at my chest.
My heart jackknifed against the steel.
“Check my phone, Mick.” I shoved my chest into the barrel, praying I was calling his bluff. “I know you own me.”
Mick moved swiftly, pulling his gun from my chest and pointing it at the broken man on the floor. Without hesitating, he pulled the trigger. The sound was almost deafening in my ears, an explosion followed by intense ringing. Something warm spattered across my face but I was so consumed with the intense throb in my head that I didn’t care.
I covered the ear closest to where the gun had gone off, hoping that would ease the pounding. It didn’t do anything except distract me from Mick circling back to me. He used the barrel of the gun to pull my face up to his.
It was hot against the sensitive skin beneath my chin but I didn’t dare move. Instead I met his eyes as directly as I possibly could.
“If I ever find out you’re lying to me…” He sounded like he was underwater but the severity of his voice wasn’t lost on me. Nor was the click of the gun when he pulled the trigger.
Mick’s maniacal laugh cut through the ringing in my ears when the empty gun clicked, still pointed at me.
“Didn’t even flinch. Atta boy, Laddy.” He whirled away from me, pointing the gun and pulling the trigger at a few other people in quick succession.
When he plopped onto his throne, he leveled the gun back at me and pulled the trigger once more, making a big boom crackle through the room with his voice. I stared directly at the mad man but he just reclined in the chair, tossing a leg over the armrest and waving the gun wildly in the air while his laugh bubbled back up from the depths of hell.
“Horse, help him up. Cole, come sit at my right hand.”
Horse’s hands came gently to my shoulders and hooked underneath to help me. I shook out from his help then batted his hand away. He wordlessly dropped his grip and walked away, his eyes locked on me the second he sat to Mickey’s left. The worry that creased his brow was deep, changing the whole appearance of his usually light features.
I moved to stand and everything in me protested. Mick had hit hard and in all the right places. I collapsed back to my knees with a sound too pitiful for this room. It had Horse ba
ck on his feet in a split second.
“No. He didn’t want help.” Mick held out his arm, blocking Horse’s path.
I shot a look at Horse that said the very same thing. I knew damn well that I had to get up on my own and walk over there. Weakness was the last thing that I could show with Elle on the line.
This time when I bent to push up to standing I expected the thunderclap of pain that roared through me. Knowing it was coming didn’t make it any better but it was enough that I could push past it. I was shaky when I made it to my feet, still doubled over at the number he’d done on my organs but my feet were rooted.
I pictured Elle’s tiny fingers tracing the panther covering my stomach and made myself stand up and stretch that ink for her. Horse watched me like a hawk as I took unsteady steps to the seat beside Mick. When I gracelessly flopped into the chair, it took everything in me not to cry out.
Mick clapped his hand around the back of my neck a moment later. He patted and grabbed like a proud father, each jostle sending shockwaves through my body that I could only grit my teeth and take.
“I missed you,” Mick purred, his lips less than an inch away from my ear.
Everything in me simmered. I wanted to let loose and punch him. Preferably with brass knuckles. I would break his jaw if I hit him the way he’d hit me, and that was something I’d relish.
I pictured standing over Mickey Maloney’s dead body. In my mind blood barely poured from his body—a man with no heart surely wouldn’t bleed that much. But that hellfire that always danced behind his eyes would be extinguished. I could kick his corpse, bash the skull of Satan repeatedly into the wood floors, unload a clip into the soulless form. What I wouldn’t give to be the one responsible for sending that demon back to the depths of hell.
But for now, I took it. I let him shake me and whisper in my ear. I kept my temper and my gun in my waistband.