"I had an aunt on my father's side," I told him.
I hadn't known her well. She was from Vermont. I knew her by cards with cash on my birthdays. And I was sure she was at Sammy's funeral, but I had few recollections of that day aside from her closed casket surrounded by flowers in the church, then being lowered in the ground, dirt falling on it.
Aunt Tulla was a mirror image of my father with huge, round, black glasses, a wardrobe that went the way of oversized men's shirts and jeans.
"Well, girl," she said, sighing when she moved to sit next to me in a chair, doing so with a bit of resignation in her voice. "What are we to do?" she asked, shaking her head. When I said nothing, she nodded. "Try to heal, I guess," she went on. "I think it is going to take a long time."
I went back to Vermont with her and her husband that was short and stocky, who could always be found in the kitchen, cooking grand meals every night of the week because he loved it, because it was his true passion in life, not just the desk job he kept to pay the bills.
It was in Vermont that I was shoved into therapy.
It was in Vermont that my therapist suggested I take some kickboxing classes to learn to vent my feelings.
It was in Vermont that the impossible started to happen.
I began to heal.
Not quickly, not all at once.
But little bits over the years.
But maybe not in the way Aunt Tully had hoped for.
I'd been a difficult teen.
Angry and prone to explosive outbursts, or depressions that would send me to my room for weeks at a time, I was a prime example to them of why they chose not to have children of their own.
I disrupted their lives.
And try as they might to love me through my pain, they could never plug up the wounds that kept bleeding rage.
It was in their attic - my bedroom - that I hatched the idea.
Of making good on my promise.
Of revenge.
Of making them pay.
Aunt Tully and Uncle George were still in Vermont somewhere, likely enjoying the peace that having me move out afforded them.
We kept in touch.
Some holidays I would even venture up.
But there was always a dark cloud hanging over it all.
I think it was easier for them to forget when I wasn't around.
About her brother and his exploding heart.
About her sister-in-law and her pain pills
About her niece and her brutalization, and choice not to live beyond it.
About her nephew who had been part of the abuse.
About the angry kid they inherited, that they couldn't fix.
"Ya said there were five of them," Adler cut through my thoughts, making my head turn on the pillow to find him doing the same, watching me with dark eyes.
"Yeah," I agreed, brows drawing together.
His arm lifted, slid across my body, found my forearm, turned it, and traced a finger over the bullet tattoos there.
"Ya are hunting them down."
It had been a long journey just to find them, hadn't been something I even had the skills to do for a long time. Not until I started working for Geoff.
It was then I dropped myself down in a tattoo shop, got the outline of the bullets, and made myself a promise.
I would make good on the vow I'd made all those years before.
They deserved to pay for what they did.
They stole three innocent lives from this world.
They needed to pay with their own.
It took dozens of trips back to the Bronx, digging into gang business, making me someone to be suspicious of, this girl snooping around where she didn't belong.
Gang members changed every time you blinked.
Looking for people who had been there ten to fifteen years before was a feat.
I'd technically found the leader first.
Doing a bid for trafficking.
Not due out for two years at the time.
But the day he was free, he had a tail.
And then a bullet point-blank to his forehead, but not before I explained to him why he had to die.
That first one was the hardest.
Taking a life was a thing that seemed so abstract to normal people. Taking a life in cold revenge, even harder still to understand.
Once the hot part of anger banked, most people were able to move past it all.
But not me.
Every year only fed the ice inside, the desire to complete the mission before someone died of old age or an OD or whatever else might take them down.
They had to die by my hand.
And so four of them had.
"That was where ya went," Adler observed. "After we first met. Ya got yer big paycheck, and were stable enough to take off, track down number four, and take him out. That was why ya were getting that bullet shaded in that night."
"Yeah," I agreed, not sure why there was a bit of a pit in my stomach at admitting that. Especially considering the man in the bed with me was a former contract killer.
"Duchess?"
"Yeah?" I asked, stomach tightening, not used to his tone of voice.
"Ya are a fuckin' incredible woman," he surprised me by saying. He turned fully on his side, looking down at me. "Ya were incredible before, too, but more so now. And since ya don't share this with anyone, I don't think ya have ever heard it before. Fuckin' incredible." I felt my lips curve up at that, shaking my head at him. "Only you would think tracking down and killing people is incredible. Most people would call me crazy. Or Wicked. Evil."
Adler snorted at that. "Pretty much everyone I know is a killer, Lou. And all of 'em have a good reason. But I think ya have them all beat. There is a fine line between crazy and determined. I think ya toe it just fine." He paused for a moment before his fingers swiped up my arm again, touching the last unshaded bullet. "This one is yer brother."
It wasn't a question, but I answered it anyway. "Yes."
"Because he has been harder to find, or because ya aren't sure ya can do it?"
That was a good question.
I thought about it a lot over the years.
Was he truly hard to find?
Or had I not looked as hard for him?
"I think it is more than I am afraid of what will happen when I am finally done. This has been my mission in life. What does someone do when they accomplish it? Do they just move on? How does someone just move on? When this thing that has consumed you for so long is suddenly not there anymore?"
"Ya gotta find somethin' else to take its place. Somethin' positive," he suggested, hand sliding up to stroke down my jaw. "Somethin' that feels good."
I half-snorted at that.
"The only thing I know that feels good is eating. You want me to replace my life's mission with food? I'll blow up to three-hundred pounds."
"Ya'd still be sexy," he told me with a wicked curve to his lips. "But there is somethin' else ya find pleasin' too," he reminded me, even just the mention of it sending a shiver through my system.
"So you want me to make sex my new life's mission."
His eyes were dancing as he nodded. "Well, that or ya start collecting antique cat statues."
"Why cat statues?" I asked, smiling, never having claimed to be a cat person.
"'Cause if ya start collectin' creepy ass fuckin' dolls, I am outta here."
"What?" I asked, shaking my head, getting a feeling that this was somehow something he had given thought to. Though why that would be the case was completely beyond me. "Well, we wouldn't want that, would we?" I asked, sliding my hand up his back, finding the familiarity of it comforting, something I never could have gotten to know with any other man.
"Well, since ya brought that up," he started, voice going serious again. "Let's have that talk too. Since everything else is on the table now."
"What talk?" I asked, stomach tensing up again.
"The one about us."
"What about us?"
> Why did my voice sound so choked?
Was that nervousness?
Hope?
A combination of the two?
I honestly didn't even know.
"Think ya know that ya never would have told me that story if ya weren't thinkin' thoughts more than sex."
He wasn't wrong.
I never gave men my story.
I never gave anyone my story.
Not even my family.
Not the whole of it anyway.
Parts were always mine.
But I had shared them with Adler.
It said something.
It meant something.
"I turned down a job a couple days ago to spend more time with you," I admitted, somehow feeling like that was easier to admit that maybe, just maybe, I was okay with us putting a label on this.
"I conned Roderick into takin' two of my guard shifts this week," he surprised me by admitting.
"How?"
"For such a ladies man, he's got a soft side for his buddies finding their women, no matter how much he might rib 'em about it."
"Am I your woman, Adler?" I heard my voice ask. But that couldn't be right. I would never ask something like that.
Except, there was no denying it, I had.
I had just asked him if I belonged to him.
"Duchess, ya were my woman the moment ya pushed me up against the wall."
"You sap," I declared, smiling when he leaned down and nipped my shoulder in retribution.
"Ya gonna call me yer man, Lou?"
My belly fluttered, a mix of nerves and anticipation.
This felt like an important moment.
As important as giving him my story, as getting his out of him as well.
Because this was speaking of a future.
This was promising something I had never promised someone before.
Fidelity, support, and - I was having a hard time even thinking it - love.
For someone who had been so alone in life, so fiercely independent, that there were two parts of me warring inside.
The part of me that said I was okay alone, that life was easier without connections, that emotion and attachment only led to disappointment or heartache was battling the other part of me, a long-buried part, one I hadn't known still existed until Adler had found it, dug it out, brushed it off, and showed it to me. The part of me that yearned for connection, for stability, for a shoulder to lean on, for a chest to sleep on.
Adler was offering me just that.
And for the first time in my life, the part that was softer, sweeter, kinder was winning out.
"With one condition," I told him, not wanting to be too sappy about it even if it was an oddly life-changing moment for me.
"What's that?" he asked, eyes warm, hopeful.
"You don't cut your hair short," I told him, reaching up to free it, watching as it fell around his face, sifting some of it behind his ear.
"Think I can promise ya that, duchess. So long as ya cook for me at least once a week."
"I can do that," I agreed, smiling.
And for maybe the first time in my life, I felt it.
The smile.
I felt it inside.
Deep.
Down to my soul.
And I felt something blooming in my chest, a thing I hadn't felt since I was little, since my world was turned upside down.
A warm, light sensation I barely even recognized as happiness.
Adler made me happy.
Out of all the crazy in my life, that might have been the craziest thing of them all.
This man, this biker, this former contract killer, this neighbor who I didn't even want to learn the name of, he made me happy.
I realized as he smiled down at me, as he watched me with those deep, but bright, eyes, that I could get used to it.
That I wanted to get used to it.
"Now I gotta bring ya to the club," he decided.
"So you can officially 'claim' me," I teased, rolling my eyes.
"Damn straight," he agreed, serious. "Ya are mine. I want everyone to know ya are mine."
"I dunno if I'm, ready for some big get together," I admitted, never being great in social situations. I was bound to piss someone off. Even with Lenny and Rey and Peyton there to take my side.
"I can have Repo and Laz cook for ya."
"Getting more tempting."
"And there is an untouched bottle of Wild Turkey on the backbar shelf for years. Got dust on it and shite."
"That is unacceptable," I told him, shaking my head.
"So ya will come."
"I will come," I agreed, smiling even as his lips pressed down on mine, sealing the deal.
ELEVEN
Adler
It took me another five days to get her to make good on the promise.
I wasn't sure what the hesitation was for her - the fact that she wasn't the most social of people, to begin with, or that this was another move forward with us, another reinforcement of what we had agreed to in her bed that night.
Knowing her, a combination of the two.
As for the first, I assured her that if the club and the women could put up with Renny's sometimes prickly ass, Reeve's standoffishness, Lenny's mouth, then they could put up with her snark and rough edges. These were hardened men and women, they wouldn't get cut up from brushing against one of her sharp edges.
As for the second, I said nothing.
Because, I was learning, Lou needed space to be allowed to think, to process, to not be pestered about it while she tried to figure it out.
And me, well, no one would ever likely call me a patient man.
But I could give her patience.
I could give her what she needed from me.
Because now I got it.
I got her.
To a root-level, the parts buried deep underground, but the oldest, sturdiest parts of her.
I'd known a lot of dark stories.
I had many of my own.
Life had numbed me to most of it.
But her story managed to make me feel.
A mix of things too.
Anger.
Disgust.
Sympathy.
And a deep, deep understanding.
Because her entire personality was based around two things.
Her belief in her guilt for what happened that night.
And her deep understanding that because of her feelings around the entire event, she was unable to have - or even hope for - normal things like relationships, friendships, love, connection. Because if someone got close, if someone got to know the story, they would look at her the same way she looked at herself.
That was a flawed mindset, completely.
But understandable.
She'd hardly been more than a child at the time.
She'd seen her sister be gang-raped by four men... and their own fuckin' brother.
Then she'd seen her sister rise up, climb onto an edge, and jump over.
That was enough.
But then as she tried to come to terms with it, her father died, her mother died, leaving her alone in the world.
Sure, she had the distant relatives who tried as best they could. But they'd been out of their depths with such a broken girl who coped by stuffing all her cracks with what was easiest to access, most comfortable to carry around. Anger. And while it was easy to love sadness, heartbreak, thinking you could ease it for them, it was not easy to love someone overflowing with rage, lashing out at everyone around them when their body couldn't hold any more of it. She'd moved out at nineteen, both for her own sanity, and for theirs.
She had moved around a few states, working whatever jobs she could until she inevitably got fired for breaking the hand of a customer who manhandled her or screaming back a the boss when he raised his voice to her.
She'd lucked out, in a way, in finding Geoff, as big of an ass as he was. He had given her the freedom and opportunity to use the anger she still held - though
now seemed to control better - to take down skips, gave her the chance to be her own boss for the most part.
And, let's face it, gave her the chance she needed, the paychecks she needed, to be able to go about her other mission in life.
Not many jobs allowed you to take off for weeks or months to track down, and kill the men who once ruined your life.
And finding him, finding that lifestyle that allowed her to find some balance, some outlets for her anger, she seemed to be able to dial back some of the anger, become more of a normal person.
You couldn't expect someone like her, who had been through what she'd been through, to be completely average.
But she was as close as anyone could hope.
And she was slowly taking steps in a positive direction.
There had been next to no resistance when Lenny and Peyton pretty much forced their way into her life. And she had even taken to Rey, going over to her place once to meet all the critters, returning covered in various furs, a feather stuck into her hair, and beaming.
And I had finally gotten her to agree to come to the compound.
They were having a get-together of sorts, an end-of-summer cookout. Everyone in need of some levity, some normalcy after such a shitestorm.
While Reign had approved the situation, the jury was out on whether he and Summer and the kids would show up, if they were still too raw, still trying to cope with the loss of Ferryn, even though everyone was in agreement that while she was away from home, she was okay.
Everyone else seemed to be coming. Even Cash, Lo, and their newly adoptive daughter - Chris were planning on making an appearance, though all of us men were asked to keep a wide berth around her unless she approached us. Which, given her situation, no one even hesitated to agree. From what we knew, she was mostly comfortable around Cash, and had managed to give Reign a detailed account of what had happened in the basement, as well as she could remember it.
"The poor girl," Lou said when I finished telling her about Chris being at the party.
"Cash says she's doing alright, considering. Won't go anywhere near basements and jumps at the sound of feet on the steps, and he can't even mistakenly brush her shoulder in passin' without her havin' a little freak-out about it. But that's normal, I'd think."
"I'm surprised she's out of bed," Lou admitted, leashing up Linny to bring with us.
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