by Marie James
I cup my hand over the glass in front of my place setting, letting her know I don’t want wine, and she lets me know that there are soda and bottled water in the fridge.
She doesn’t frown or try to convince me that a little alcohol wouldn’t hurt me, and I’m grateful to have found these amazing women.
We settle in with our food and drinks and watch three romantic comedies before the night is over.
And we’re all counting down the minutes until the guys come home. Knowing they’re okay and seeing it with our own eyes are two different things.
Chapter 21
Scooter
“Fuck,” I grunt after hanging up on Mia.
I already feel like a piece of shit for what went down in Jiménez’s panic room. Now I’m an even bigger asshole for hanging up on my girl.
I huff a humorless laugh. My girl. What a damn joke.
Mia doesn’t belong to anyone. She doesn’t want to be owned. She experienced that for weeks, and even though I’d never hurt her like those bastards did, I’m fairly certain it’s not something she’d even entertain. No matter how many times she brushes her lips across mine or how many times she holds me in her sleep.
She’ll never be mine.
And I’m a fool for even holding out hope.
I scrape rough hands over the top of my head, trying to rid it of all thoughts of her. She’s the cause for today, but she’s not to blame for my actions, rather my inability to separate things is the reason. This is all on me, and even though the bullets have stopped flying, I’m not even close to being done dealing with this shit.
I sense Kincaid drawing closer before he even says a word. I don’t know how bad the fallout is going to be, but I know I won’t be able to walk away from what happened today without some sort of discipline.
“Ryan,” Kincaid says as he steps up beside me.
Shit is bad, really bad if he’s using my legal name rather than my club name. It’s a way to remind me that I’m an employee long before I’m a friend.
“Sir,” I answer, standing tall and praying he doesn’t see it as a defensive act.
There’s no way for me to defend what I did, and I hope he’s aware that I know it.
“May I speak with you alone?” He angles his head to the side, indicating an empty room.
We’re still in the compound, working on the cleanup. There are more bodies here than we’ve ever had on a mission before, including the women that were slaughtered in the basement.
I follow him without a word, and the closing door echoes around us, ringing like we’re being enclosed in a tomb.
Instinctively, I want to apologize before he even opens his mouth, but I can’t manage the words. I don’t know that I am sorry for taunting Jiménez. I’m only sorry that I wasn’t paying enough attention and nearly got myself killed. I’m sorry that Jinx gets to claim that kill because I was careless. As if thinking about it activates the pain, the impact wounds on my chest burn like fire. I’m going to be sore for days.
“You’re normally so focused,” Kincaid begins. “What you did today was not only against Cerberus protocol, but it was foolish. You endangered your life and the life of a teammate.”
I swallow thickly, unable to argue a single point because he’s right.
“If you’re given a kill order, it’s what you do. Find, aim, shoot. It’s that simple. Taunting a mark is not only unprofessional, going against everything that Cerberus stands for, but it’s dangerous. Normally you take your job very seriously. You’re not one of the guys I have to worry about. You’re a machine on missions, and you take down the targets and move on to the next.”
I’ve disappointed him, and that concerns me more than endangering my life. I feel like shit for putting Jinx in the middle of it. My throat burns with letting him down. He’s my boss, but he’s also a mentor, a father-like figure that I respect without fail.
“I was distracted,” I tell him, and we both know that it’s only part of it.
“The entire team and the men from Blackbridge heard you taunting Jiménez. Everyone knows you took Butler out without following protocol. She was to be interrogated by the CIA.”
I stiffen further, wondering what this means for my career with Cerberus. Hell, killing her could bring formal criminal charges. There’s a possibility I’ll end up in prison for what happened today.
“It’s Mia, isn’t it?” My head snaps in his direction, but I don’t find irritation on his face. “I understand, believe me. We all have people back home that we love, people we worry about when we’re working, but you can’t let them control your actions and your thoughts. We won’t make it home to them. Your team won’t make it home to the people they care about if you can’t get that under control.”
“I don’t know how to do that. I’m beyond distracted. I was livid walking into that panic room,” I confess. “I wanted to take him apart piece by piece. I wanted to bathe in his fucking blood.”
Kincaid nods, and I can tell he fully understands what I’m feeling. The only difference is Kincaid was able to kill the man who hurt Emmalyn when he had the balls to go to the clubhouse to take her back. I fucked up so royally that Jinx had to do my dirty work.
“I understand exactly how you feel, believe me, but the kill order should’ve been enough. It has to be enough. Even if he was unarmed and you had all the time in the world, a bullet in the head is all you can do. We’re not those men. We’re not allowed to get off on torturing them. We’re moral men. We’re a moral club, and you have to decide if you’re able to operate under those orders.”
“I couldn’t separate her out. I could only see red where he was concerned.”
“You have to compartmentalize. You have to box her away while you’re working. Every man that we go after is like Jiménez. Every one of them hurt women. Everyone could easily have been the one to hurt Mia or Emmalyn, but making it personal makes it dangerous.”
“Yes, sir,” I tell him, even though I know how hard it’ll be to just work now without making things personal. Before Mia, I operated like a robot. I had my mission, and I always executed it with precision and efficiency. Things are different now. Now, I’m exorcising her demons, the demons of all the women ever hurt, and that changes things drastically. I can no longer operate without emotion. It’s impossible. The only thing left is to figure out if I can box them away like he suggests.
“You’re suspended for a month, longer if the CIA is still investigating. When we return to New Mexico, you’ll undergo psych testing to determine when and if you’re able to return to fieldwork.”
“Yes, sir.”
Suddenly, his demeanor changes, and he steps closer, cupping my shoulder with his palm. “Loving someone and being able to handle this job will be one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do. I have faith that you can do it, but if you can’t, there’s no harm in that either.”
He walks away, leaving me in the quiet room, questioning my entire future.
What would I have if I didn’t have Cerberus?
Would Mia even want to stick around when I could no longer protect her with the backing of the club?
I have a million thoughts racing through my head when I leave the room to continue with the cleanup. The deceased women are treated with more respect than the men who hurt them as we enclose each one into a body bag. Some we’re able to identify, like Caroline Spring, the woman we didn’t find from our last mission in Venezuela. The woman abducted from a mission trip weeks and weeks ago was crouched over, clearly protecting two younger girls. Her tiny body didn’t protect her or them from the spray of bullets.
Thankfully, the Blackbridge men stay out of the basement. They’re upstairs sifting through paperwork after we identified the body of the woman who was abducted while under the protection of Deacon Black’s men.
The CIA is working on identifying all the men we dropped during the raid and updating their databases in preparation for retaliation from those men’s family members. There’s alway
s a little fallout when working on a mission. It’s why the women at the clubhouse are so well trained and protected.
Jinx works beside me, but he won’t even look at me. I’ve damaged that relationship with him, and probably the relationship with all the other guys since they were able to hear me taunting Jiménez.
I embarrassed all the men of Cerberus by my actions, and I did it in front of Blackbridge as well as the CIA. I can’t imagine what all of them are thinking about me.
I won’t make excuses for my behavior, but other than disappointing everyone, I don’t regret it. My only regret is I let my guard down, and Jinx had to end that fucker before I got to cut him up into tiny pieces. I’ll regret as long as I live that I wasn’t able to torture him until he begged me to let him die.
I was hoping to grow numb with each woman that I zip up in the generic black bags, but my anger only grows. I want to go back upstairs and kill all those fuckers all over again. The mass killing of these women and girls was pointless. All it did was serve as one last power play from men who knew they were going to die.
If this had happened in Miami, Max would’ve lost his twin sister, and I never would’ve met the woman who has the ability to change my entire life, and I feel like the worst person on earth for being grateful that it happened here instead of there.
Chapter 22
Mia
Electricity fills my blood while watching the guys pile out of the SUVs that rolled onto the property just a few seconds ago.
Misty, Khloe, and Emmalyn finish up the last touches to the meal we spent the morning preparing.
I haven’t heard from Ryan since the phone call a couple of days ago, but that isn’t stopping me from itching with adrenaline.
I notice Ryan right away, but the sour look on his face as I watch him grab his duffel out of the back of one SUV isn’t what I’m expecting. I’m humming with a need to see him, to touch him, and to kiss him, and he looks like he’s walking toward the gallows as he climbs the front steps to the clubhouse.
I don’t know if it’s all the men filtering through the front door that ups my anxiety, or the fact that Ryan isn’t happy to be home.
I keep to the corner of the room, wondering if his face will change when he sees me, but I don’t have to wait long. As if he can sense me in the room, his eyes dart to mine the second he’s through the front door. I freeze, my heart pounding so hard, I’m sure it’s going to bounce right out of my chest.
He doesn’t drop his bag and run to me like I pictured would happen. He doesn’t close the distance between the two of us like I see Diego do with Emmalyn and Dustin do with Khloe. He doesn’t even shake my hand like Shadow does when his son Cannon walks up to him.
He doesn’t walk toward me at all. He heads in the opposite direction, grabbing a beer from the fridge before turning to speak with one of the other guys.
It only takes a minute for me to realize I’m not wanted or not important enough. It angers me, pisses me off beyond belief, but calling him out on it isn’t something I’d ever do in public, even if I wasn’t shaking from being in a room with so many men.
While he’s got his back turned, I disappear down the hallway, stopping outside my room before deciding to go to his. I’d never be able to sleep if I don’t find out what his problem is. I need to know what’s bothering him or if there’s something I’ve done wrong.
So, I go to his room and sit in the dark. I’ll wait here all night long if I have to. Ignoring problems and hoping they disappear isn’t something I’m going to do to myself. I did that with Jason, and the stress caused ulcers. I refuse to put myself in a similar situation. If he doesn’t want me around, then he’s going to have to use those words. We’re both too damn old to let things fall apart because we can’t communicate like adults.
Minutes turn into hours as I wait. The rambunctious crowd begins to dwindle, and yet Ryan is still absent. I’m nodding off in the center of his bed, still fully dressed when he finally shows his face. I know he can see me in here when he opens the door, but he doesn’t bother with the light as he closes the door behind him.
His duffel thuds as he drops it to the floor, and a second later, he’s pulling his t-shirt over his head. Maybe he doesn’t know I’m here. Is he drunk? Even the thought doesn’t bother me. Ryan wouldn’t hurt me no matter what state he’s in.
I click on the bedside lamp, but he doesn’t even flinch as the bright light fills the room.
I gasp, however, because there are three huge bruises marring his otherwise perfect skin. The injuries are darker than the ink decorating his body.
“What happened?” I ask as I fly off the bed and reach for him.
He doesn’t say a word as my fingers trace over the purple spots. He’s frozen, a statue in the middle of his own room, and suddenly I feel like an intruder, unwelcome in a space I’ve always been welcomed before.
Yet, I’m stubborn, and if he wants me gone, he’s going to have be a grown-up and use the words.
He doesn’t open his mouth.
Not when I leave him standing to go get some cream from the bathroom.
Not when I apply the cold cream to his heated flesh.
Not when I brush my lips across his back while checking for more spots to doctor.
And in turn, I don’t say anything when he unlaces his boots and shoves his jeans down.
Him standing in the middle of his room in nothing but black boxer briefs doesn’t bring the same apprehension that it did the time he came out of the bathroom wrapped only in a towel.
So much has happened since then. I’ve had time to get used to the idea of him being more than someone who comforts me. I’ve had time to get to know him better. I’ve had time to accept that he’d never hurt me, not physically anyway. The rejection in the living room did sting more than I want to admit, if only so I don’t give a voice to his ability to hurt my feelings.
He’s not indifferent to me even in his silence. His eyes follow me everywhere. They stay on me when I disappear into his closet. They find me when I reemerge wearing nothing but one of his soft t-shirts. My hands tremble, and I want to explain that I’m not offering anything up to him, but the words don’t seem necessary, not even when it’s clear he can’t take his eyes off my bare legs.
He ignores the length thickening between his thighs. His body has reactions to me all the time, but he’s become an expert at ignoring it. We both have, honestly.
For all my bravado about wanting to confront him for not coming to me earlier, I keep my mouth clamped shut. I can sense that he wants to end things, even as his body responds to mine. I can tell he’s not entirely comfortable with me in his room in only a shirt, even though at the same time, he’s enjoying the view. He’s torn just like I am.
He wants to touch me, and he wants to keep his distance.
He wants to ask me to leave, and yet he’ll beg me to stay.
He wishes he’d never met me, and at the same time, he can’t imagine his life without me.
He’s not looking for anything serious, yet he knows once with me would never be enough.
I’m nothing like the women he’s been interested in before, and somehow, I’m all he’s ever wanted.
I’m off-limits.
I’m broken.
I’ll never be whole again.
Yet he’s looking at me with half-lidded eyes and a desperation that’s so thick it fills the room, swirling around us like fog in the wintertime. It’s as if I’m the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to him.
I circle him, trailing my fingers along the dips at his waist. Goosebumps pop up on his skin, but he remains silent. He doesn’t reach for me or ask me to stop. He’s a statue, a living breathing piece of art, and I take my time admiring him.
His breaths are rushing past his lips in rough pants of air, and mine are doing the same. I feel alive for the first time in as long as I can remember. I feel in control and powerful, and the heady scent of his skin wraps all the way around me. He doesn’t hav
e to tell me I’m safe with him. I feel it deep in my bones. He doesn’t have to tell me that what I’m doing is okay. I know it by the way his eyes beg me for more.
The only problem is, I don’t have more to give. My body is singing, begging me to reach for his hand and put it on my skin, but at the same time, I know my limitations. Doing that would only make me shut down, so I let his arms hang by his sides.
I let a million things go unsaid. I let my lips linger against the soft skin of his back, even as he sucks in a harsh breath from the contact.
He still hasn’t said a single word to me since he came home, and yet I feel as if we’ve had an hour-long conversation.
He still doesn’t say anything when I clasp his hand in mine and urge him to get in the bed. He remains silent as I pull the covers over both of us and press my lips to his. He responds only by tightening his arm around me and holding me close.
He doesn’t deepen the kiss, and neither do I. He doesn’t make promises or explain what happened while he was away. He doesn’t flinch when I press my lips to each of his injuries. He doesn’t make a joke about his erection needing attention when I nuzzle against him, making no effort to touch him further.
And he isn’t in bed when I wake in the morning.
Chapter 23
Scooter
Leaving her in my bed when I snuck out like a coward this morning was more difficult than I’d like to admit. Breathing in the fresh, cold air when I stepped onto the front porch of the clubhouse was the first full breath I took since I arrived home yesterday.
The dichotomy of emotions is enough to drive me crazy. She read me like an open book last night. I could see it in the way she watched me, the way she touched me like she never had before. She’s well aware that I’m battling my own emotions, but speaking of them out loud didn’t seem fair. I’m not trying to convince her of anything one way or the other. She has to come to her own conclusions, figure out what she wants on her own without me trying to persuade her in a specific direction.
