“But…”
“No. I’m not done yet.” Jimmy leveled a hard stare at Ryder that was about as black as any he’d had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of before. “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean I believe I’m a saint. I’m not and never will be what dad was. He sure as hell wasn’t a father, so he doesn’t even deserve that title. Fuck. I didn’t even know you’d gone to jail. I had no fucking idea. I had no idea any of this was happening. Mom sent me away. I never thought she’d lie to me. I would have come back for you. For her. For both of you.”
Ryder wished he had something smart to say. He wished he had more blame to hurl at his brother. He wished he could make the bastard feel terrible, but those letters pretty much were a punch to his yap and he shut it firmly.
Finally he forced out the last shot he could. “I put mom into a program. She hasn’t said one word to me, to anyone, in five years. Just went inside herself and shut down. She was capable of looking after herself and shit. I got her an apartment. Checked in on her. She was just- withdrawn. Never spoke. But she was there. I could tell. She was- fuck. She just wasn’t a danger to herself so I couldn’t put her in one of those homes and forget about her. I did what I could, but recently, I’ve had a- what you’d call a life change. I left Detroit and took her with me. Put her into a program as soon as I got here. One for people who’ve gone through trauma. I hope they can help her. It’s not a home and it’s not a hospital. It’s a cross between them I guess. She- if she doesn’t come out of it though- you’re equally as responsible as me.”
Jimmy raised a brow. God, the guy was good at controlling his emotions and it pissed Ryder off. He wanted to see his brother rattled. He wanted to read the guy.
“How’d you find me anyway? I thought only mom knew.”
“She did speak one word. Philadelphia. Showed me this worn out piece of paper with an address. I knew right away it was you. She knew somehow that I wanted out. I never told her what I was doing, but she knew.”
“Which was?” Jim sighed, like he didn’t really want to know the answer and imagined the worst.
“Whatever it is you have going on in your head at the moment, it was probably worse than that. Not the kind of shit you come out of on the right side of the bone yard.”
“Yet you’re here.”
“Yet I’m here.”
All that shit started swelling his chest again, but Ryder refused to give it purchase. He’d always been shit with emotions. Go figure. It was worse after he’d done his stint in juvie. He’d come out pretty damn walled up. A hell of a lot of feelings and shit welled up in his chest, but he shut down and shut off. He’d already said more than he had in an entire lifetime in the few short minutes he’d spent with his older bro.
Who was still, despite nearly two decades of being apart, his brother.
Even if he liked to do good deeds and all that shit.
“I can see you’re overwhelmed,” Jimmy stated, magnanimously. He glanced towards the door. “Now that we have the hello, fuck you’s out of the way, do you have a place to stay?”
Chapter 6
LAURA
Dinner long over, the staff and volunteers busied themselves with clean up. As she usually did, she took the kitchen. She didn’t mind the methodical task of washing dishes. It gave her something to do with her hands, a way to occupy her mind.
The shelter was an escape for her, the same way it was for so many others. When she was there, she didn’t think about the house. About Nico. About his men and their pervasive, hardened stares. About the guns, about the drugs, about the men her brother had tortured and killed with pleasure. About the alliances, about the whole messy underground world that she’d been forced to be a part of her entire life.
Her parents did what they could to protect her from it, but not Nico. He didn’t bother with niceties and formality like her father did. Her mom died when she was eleven. Their parents were at some gathering, a formal thing at the house of one of her father’s fellow business acquaintances. The guy just happened to have a few select enemies in the community. Someone sent men, masked men, to storm the party. Shoot the place up. They got away and no one was ever held responsible.
The water beneath her hands ran red and Laura let out a startled gasp. She lifted them out of the sink to inspect them, afraid she’d cut herself on a knife or broken a plate or something, but when she blinked and looked again, the water was clear. Just dishes and suds and the sparkling clean stainless steel sink.
She exhaled shakily and pushed those thoughts from her mind. They crept up on her when she couldn’t control it. Her mother. Shot seven times. Dead before her body even hit the ground. Her father, consumed by grief. He’d lasted for over a decade, but he’d died of a broken heart. He never found out who killed his wife, though he tried. God, he tried.
Laura rinsed off a series of clean, soapy plates. Beside her there was a sink with clean, bleached water. She dipped them in there to soak. It was the same every single time she volunteered at the shelter. The night started off with so much promise. Promise of an escape. She could get away from Nico, away from her world, away from herself, for just a few hours. At the end of the night, it always came creeping back, a snake of doubt slithering up her spine to lodge in her heart and brain.
Dread welled up inside her chest. She barely managed to keep it together as she finished up the dishes. When she dried her hands, she couldn’t stop the tremors that ripped through them.
She gathered up her coat and purse from one of the many lockers in the small staff room at the back of the building.
Laura shrugged the denim jacket on over her black t-shirt. She was dressed casually, to blend in, as she always did. Black t-shirt, black yoga pants, black runners. She didn’t want to stand out.
She slipped into the hall and cast a longing look in the direction of Jim’s office. The door was closed. He was probably in there, talking with the stranger who looked so much like him. The much harder, more dangerous, version of himself. Who was that man? A cousin? A brother?
Laura really knew nothing about Jim. He didn’t talk about himself. Ever. He was too busy helping everyone else and she’d never actually thought to ask about his past. Prying was something she didn’t do. She didn’t like it when people tried to put her under a microscope, so she always kept her questions to a minimum.
In a fit of desperation, she’d broke down a few months before, and told Jim about Nico. Just the bare minimum. How he was a cold, hard man. A dangerous man. A man who had no more love for family than he did for anyone else. He was a tyrant, running the business any way he saw fit. His one and only love was money. His violent appetites were rarely sated. He wasn’t above putting his own men to death or above laying hands on her and Drake.
I wish he was right. I wish there really was a way out. That he could help me.
Squaring her shoulders, Laura walked quickly down the hall and out the back door. Though it was late, well past ten, the night was warm. Summer clung to the city, the heat seeping from the streets and the buildings, long after the sun went down.
She wasn’t afraid to walk through one of the roughest neighborhoods in Philly. She never drove. Couldn’t. Had never learned. Instead, she had one of Nico’s men drive her and pick her up. She hated the routine and never let anyone see her get in or out of the car. She made sure she was far away from the shelter, her one source of happiness, twenty blocks to be exact, before she ever called for her ride.
Her shoes crunched over broken pavement and crumbling sidewalks. She didn’t ignore the mass of hopeless humanity that gathered on the streets at night, but for the most part, they ignored her. They were lost in their own world. Misery or the bliss of escape that their drug of choice promised.
Despite her desire to keep a low profile, she might as well have had a sign plastered on her back. It was well known she was a Cannelli and as such, she was left alone. Those walking the streets took a wide berth. They accepted that she came there to help, that
she might not want to be a true Cannelli. They accepted her in the way that the stunned accept an angel who means good and not harm. They also accepted that should they lay a finger on her, her brother would burn down half the city in his rage and retribution. And he’d enjoy it.
Laura counted the blocks so that she didn’t have to think about what waited her at home. Nico. The normal inquisition. He’d question her about the shelter, and she’d answer. He’d intimidate her, threaten her, make sure she knew that she was a part of his world, not the world. She might get to go and be a part of something larger than herself for a few hours, but he never let her forget that in the end, it was his will that mattered. She was his prisoner.
She raised a shaking hand to her cheek. The bruise had finally faded, but the memory of Nico hitting her, her head bouncing off the wall, hadn’t. The fear remained. Her blood turned to ice and a sickly cold sweat broke out on her skin under her jean jacket. She quickened her pace, though she never wanted to go back home.
A scraping sound behind her startled her. She turned, expecting to find someone shuffling close, ready to pass her by. Her heart leapt into her throat when she realized it wasn’t someone, a stranger, at all.
It was him.
He was following her.
There were precious few street lights left that actually worked and in the darkness, he was even more fearsome than he was in the light. He seemed larger, a shadow, a part of the night, a creature of darkness, a product of hatred and rage.
“You’re following me,” she gasped, because she had to say something. It was stupid and her voice shook, betraying her fear and anxiety.
“Yes.” He nodded unapologetically.
“That’s- creepy. You shouldn’t do things like that in this neighborhood. What if I’d felt threatened and pulled a gun on you? Shot you? Pepper sprayed you or maced you?”
Something, a shadow of what could have been a smile, played over the stranger’s hard lips. “Wouldn’t be the first time for either of those things.”
Those lips could have been handsome, like the rest of him, if he wasn’t so fearsome. He wasn’t like Jim at all, now that she really studied him. He was so much harder. It wasn’t just his eyes that were empty. It was all of him, and that vast void where a soul should have been, ruined the handsome exterior that genetics had blessed him with.
“No?”
His nostrils flared, like he could smell her fear. Even when she pulled her shoulders back and blinked hard, he looked at her with those strangely haunted dark eyes. Looked at her like he wanted to consume her.
“No.”
The silence of the night stretched on between them, unbroken by other passerby or by cars. Most people with any sense didn’t drive in the neighborhood after the sun went down and few ventured through even in full daylight. “Why- why are you following me?” she finally asked, to break the uncomfortable vacuum of quiet.
“Because I had to.”
“I- what? You had to?”
“Yes.”
“Because someone sent you? Jim?”
He slowly shook his head. Something flashed through the depths of his eyes, even though there was little light to cause a spark or reflection. It came from somewhere else, somewhere inside of him. “You’re like smoke.”
“Smoke?” she choked.
“Yes. Smoke. You- I saw you leave. I knew that if I didn’t come after you, you’d disappear forever.”
“Not likely.” Laura forced herself to be brave and roll her eyes. “I volunteer three nights a week.” She kept her gaze trained on his. His much harder one. On those eyes that had seen far too much life. Eyes that were far too knowledgeable. She was twenty-three. She’d guess that the stranger was probably around thirty, but his eyes- they were ancient. Centuries old.
Those eyes cut right through her. She felt destroyed inside when he looked at her, wounded, pierced, bleeding out, dying just like her mother, her body riddled with bullets. Wherever those eyes touched, they left a trail of blood in their wake. They tore her up from the inside out.
“What do you want?” she demanded, when he said nothing at all. She dropped her eyes to her feet. She couldn’t stand the way he was looking at her, like he wanted something. Like he knew something. Like… she couldn’t actually define what those eyes made her feel and she didn’t like it. It unnerved her. They reminded her of Nico’s eyes, but with Nico, she knew actually what he wanted. Total and utter obedience. She was just another pawn in his sick endless game.
“I wanted to ask you what your name was.” His voice was deep, rich, somehow comforting and unexpectedly soft. It swirled around her like black velvet.
“Yeah? You could have asked Jim. He would have told you.”
“What is my brother to you?”
“To me?” Laura choked again. “Uh- a friend? He runs the shelter. I volunteer. He’s a good man. Has a huge heart. That’s what he is to me.”
“You were alone together when I saw you.”
“Yeah. Filling up a bag of clothes for a woman whose husband beats the shit out of her and her four year old daughter. That’s the kind of alone we were.”
The stranger stepped closer. God, he was huge. He filled up every direction, the entire sidewalk. There was no way she could sidestep around him and run if he tried anything. Though fear shivered up her spine, Laura kept her head up. She wouldn’t back down. She’d known true fear for years. She had some backbone left in her. She had to, to survive on a day to day basis.
He should have felt threatening, but when she exhaled, she realized that it wasn’t fear that she felt at all. It was something much more primal, something raw and basic that she’d never known before. Never had the chance to know.
Desire.
Her instincts demanded she remain close. Even though her breath shallowed out in her burning lungs, she didn’t step back. She didn’t doge around him. She looked straight up into his face.
“Laura. My name is Laura Cannelli. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll turn around and go back to the shelter, or wherever your destination is. Since you’re his brother, I’m going to warn you. You aren’t from around here. You don’t know me. I can tell because you didn’t react when I told you my name. I’ll warn you. If you know what’s good for you, if you- if you want to keep your skin intact, then you’ll leave. Now. You’ll never follow me again. You’ll never be seen even so much as talking to me again. You’ll disappear- and- and- leave me to it.”
The stranger’s strong brow creased and this time, a full on smile lit up his face. Her heart hitched before it resumed a wild, frantic pace.
“Well, Laura.” He drew her name out, rich and sinful on his full lips. “The only thing you need to know about me is that my name is Ryder and I’ve never done what’s good for me. Actually, I’ve spent my life doing the. Exact. Fucking. Opposite.”
She knew what was coming. She’d only ever been kissed once in her life, when she was sixteen, but she recognized all the signs. She tried to turn, to run, to save him, but he was too fast. He grabbed her arm, his fingers biting in through the denim jacket. He tugged her around fiercely and slammed her up against the rigid wall of his chest. He was warm, his heat blazing into her.
Her head snapped up and before she could utter a word, his lips crushed hers in a blazing, scorching kiss that sizzled through her veins, awakening every cell and nerve in her body.
She should have pulled him away, but instead she let him tear his mouth away and pull her roughly ten feet into an inky dark alley.
And there, when he shoved her roughly against the uneven brick wall and slammed his hot, unyielding mouth down to hers again, was where, at twenty-three years old, she suddenly came alive for the very first time.
Chapter 7
RYDER
All he meant to do was kiss her. No, that wasn’t true. All he’d meant to do was ask her what her name was. He couldn’t help himself. Once he was done talking to Jimmy and his brother offered him a place to stay, they’d exited
the office and some sort of near emergency required Jimmy’s attention. The guy took off and Ryder was alone in the hall. He’d rounded a corner, on his way to the kitchen, looking for something to eat since he hadn’t thought about food in a good twenty-four hours, and he caught sight of her.
Dark hair. Sad dark eyes. An angel battling demons.
He couldn’t leave it alone. Even though he should. She was much too good for him. What could he, a pathetic shell of a thing that had ceased to feel anything for a very long time, offer her?
She sparked something in him, a tiny, flickering flame of life, of goodness, of hope, that he didn’t even know existed or could find purchase in the barren ground of his soul. He was immediately drawn to her.
He couldn’t stop himself. He followed her. Trailed behind her in the dark like a creep. He couldn’t get away without hearing her voice again, one more time, without learning her name. And then he’d kissed her and that tiny little flame inside of him turned into a roaring inferno and he was fucking lost.
He broke away, panting hard. He realized he’d shoved her up against the brick building that bordered the dark alley, like some kind of animal. He’d kissed her, too rough, taking what should have been hers to give. He was a beast. He was a demon. He was the darkness. He was nothing and she was… she was everything.
He went to pull away, even though his body ached and he was harder than he’d ever been in his entire fucking life, but her hand, dainty and soft and so very small, reached for his shoulder.
“Wait,” she gasped. “Please.”
Hearing those words from her sweet, honeyed lips, lips that were swollen and roughed over by the furious hunger of his kiss, nearly dropped him to his knees.
“I’ve never- never been kissed- not like that.”
“No,” he agreed roughly. “You deserve something far more gentle.”
“All my life I’ve been told what I deserve.” Her dark eyes flashed with defiance and the strength that flooded them took him off guard. The rawness too, the desire that sparked out of nowhere, was as shocking to him as being shot for the first time was. “I’m tired of people telling me what I can and can’t do. This is the first time that I’ve ever actually felt alive. This is the first thing that I’ve done in a very long time, with anyone, that has- that means something.”
Lonely Rider - The Box Set: A Motorcycle Club Romance - The Complete Series Page 67
