Scarred (Branded Book 2)

by Scarlett Finn

  Archer hadn’t had any stability while growing up. Ester was a blast to hang around with as a friend, but would’ve made an erratic, unreliable mother. That was why Archer craved responsibility. He had to look after the people he cared about and he needed that structure, just like his need to keep his apartment in order and to have a process and rules for what he did, rules that he was strict about following.

  Like telling her they would be through if she protected him. By asking him to come back to her, she was asking him to ignore his own rules and that caused chaos in his psyche.

  She and Tag hadn’t said anything to each other for a minute. Tag was still angry, but arguing against her declaration wasn’t going to make her back down. Something slid under the door, startling them both. Nya stared at it for a few seconds before going over to see what it was.

  “Be careful,” Tag said. “You don’t know what it is.”

  She recognized the blue file as the same kind of one that Archer had brought to her Sizzle office. But it shouldn’t be here, it should be in a drawer at the club.

  Opening it up, she was still reading when she heard the door slam in the apartment above and his footsteps crossed the room. So Archer was home. That flicker of awareness was vague until she absorbed what it was she was reading.

  “Holy fuck,” she said.

  “What? What is it?”

  Tag’s shadow obscured the writing and she stepped forward to hold it up into the light. “It’s the Sizzle deeds,” she said.

  “Why would someone put those under your door?”

  Tag couldn’t have registered that the clattering above had been caused by her former lover. It was too coincidental that this had shot under her door less than a minute before he got home. “Let me see,” Tag said, taking the file. “What does it say?”

  “It’s in my name,” she muttered the words but couldn’t understand them. She needed someone to explain how this could’ve happened. “Wait here.”

  Darting out of her apartment, she ran along the hall to the open stairwell, bolted up a floor, and went to hammer on his door. He didn’t answer, suggesting that he was ignoring her, but she wouldn’t let that fly. Not tonight.

  Slapping a palm onto the wood, she let her forehead follow with a light bang. “Fella, I’m gonna stay out here all night ‘til you open up. I know you’re in there.”

  That or he was being robbed. But she’d guess burglars would be quieter. The door opened and he appeared shirtless, chewing on a power bar. “I’m about to get in the shower,” he said from one side of his mouth. “What’s up?”

  “What’s up?” She wouldn’t give him any chance to refuse her entry this time. Pushing against him with all she had, Nya squeezed between his body and the door frame, bursting into the apartment.

  “I have business, Squirm. I don’t have time to mess around with you tonight,” he said, closing the door and taking another chunk off the bar with his teeth. “Say it quick and get out.”

  “You know why I’m here. How did you do it? What did you do?”

  “I was right,” he said, finishing the bar and smiling with satisfaction. “Never get tired of saying that.”

  Heading for the kitchen, he dumped his wrapper into the trash, and pulled open the fridge to retrieve a bottle of water. It was the mineral water she loved; he’d never drunk it before being with her. Either that was a bottle left from the last time she was here or he’d been keeping a regular stock.

  “Right about what?” she asked, too frantic to wait for him to finish drinking.

  Lowering the bottle with a fulfilled intake of breath, he wiped his mouth on his shoulder. “That gun Hex gave you was a murder weapon. I handed it off to a buddy of mine at the station.”

  Rushing over, she stopped up close. “You got Hexam arrested?” she gasped, touching his abs.

  “No, my buddy will sit on it for me. But you’ve got to give the right evidence to a guy in charge, so I can protect mine. Hex knows, anything happens to me or my family. My buddy in blue will find the gun by chance in the alley behind Hexam’s place.” Hexam owned the whole building but the alley behind it was public. “ ‘Nother buddy found a bunch of registration papers for that weapon, turns out Hex has owned it for a while.” There were no papers, at least there hadn’t been, not until Archer called in a favor, she heard what he was saying. “That could cause him problems, serious problems.”

  Archer handed her the bottle and tossed the cap into the trash. “That doesn’t explain how you got him to sign Sizzle over to me.”

  He stroked a hand down her hair. “You working under him was unacceptable to me. Hex knows how the game is played. I’ve outmaneuvered him this time, he’s not that pissed, but he’ll be watching his back. Truth is, I think he’s stoked that Farrah dumped Tag’s ass to the dirt. Your boy’s gonna keep out of that muck, isn’t he?” She nodded. “Good work, Sweets.” He kissed her hairline. “I’m going out.”

  He passed her and she looked at the bottle for a second before putting it on the breakfast bar and hurrying after him. “Why did you get him to sign it to me? Why not you?”

  “Why do I want a club?” he asked, sitting on his bed. Nya stayed in the doorway watching him take off his boots. “I wanted Hex out of your life. You can’t work for him. And I wasn’t gonna give your boy a windfall… forging your signature is easy too.”

  “So I lucked out by process of elimination?” she asked, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.

  “That and I know you have big ideas,” he said, taking his boots to the closet. “You’ll find Sizzle’s bank account just got a boost in funds as well. Hex deposited a hefty donation.”

  He came toward her and she knew he wanted past, but Nya didn’t move. “Threatening him was a big risk, how do you know he won’t come after you?”

  “ ‘Cause he likes me. He has a lot of respect for people who can outmaneuver him as long as they respect him. He doesn’t like weasels who cheat and scam like your boy. But guys like me who do the legwork to dig up the dirt, and who give him a chance to make things right, he has respect for those guys.”

  Archer could’ve just had him put in jail, but he didn’t. He told Hex how the pieces were positioned and told him that his ass was safe, as long as Archer’s was. “I don’t know what to say,” she said, in awe of how far he’d gone to put things right for her; and he’d done it alone.

  “I did think about killing him and if you ever feel at risk, I will.”

  This was the man who wouldn’t be with her. But he’d just risked his life for her again. “I can’t believe you fixed it. I would never have got out of this mess on my own.”

  If Archer hadn’t been in her life, and she’d made it out of the Sizzle raid alive, she’d still have been filled with vengeance and may have crossed paths with Hexam who could’ve helped her get it. But she would either be on one of Hexam’s corners or in a jail cell by now for sure, because it never would’ve occurred to her to check the ME report to confirm how the men really died.

  She wouldn’t have had the connections to find out if the gun was a murder weapon, or to connect it to Hexam. There was no one she could’ve trusted to keep it safe in case she needed it either.

  “I guess the only motor-mouth we have to worry about now is Tulio,” she said. “If he talks to Jonno or his other friend—”

  He frowned. “You didn’t hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Tulio broke his neck in the shower. Sad,” Archer said. “Very sad. Good thing he signed a life insurance policy worth a hundred grand just a few days before the tragic accident. It’ll help his wife grieve.”

  He took her arms to move her aside and then crossed the hall into the bathroom. Nya followed to see him turning on the shower. She closed over the door to open the closet, so she could retrieve a towel for him.

  “How do you break someone’s neck?” she asked. “Isn’t that harder than it looks on TV?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said, taking the towel. But h
e winked at her before he went to hang it on the shower rail. “Are you gonna stand there and watch, or are we done?”

  That was a ridiculous thing to offer and she smiled. “You mean you’re giving me the choice?”

  Archer didn’t rise to the bait. Propping a hip on the sink, he hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “You’re a legit business owner now, how does it feel?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, staring at his navel. “I can’t believe you did this.”

  Striding forward, he pointed in her face, growing stern. “And you’re not allowed to sign it over to your boy. I don’t care how much he begs you. I’ll hurt him until he signs it back and that will be on your head, Squirm.”

  “Tag,” she said, remembering that she’d left him downstairs. “He wants to kill you.” Squinting an apology, she hoped he wouldn’t get mad.

  Instead, amusement hit him. “It’s about fucking time, we’ve been broken up for weeks. He should’ve come at me long ago. Didn’t I tell you he was crap at looking after you? I’d have kicked my ass by now.” She smiled. “Is he still downstairs? I can make some time for killing.” Then he had a thought. “Damn, I shouldn’t have put carpet in your place, it’s a bastard to clean up… can you get him up here?”

  “How do you know Tag is in my apartment?” she asked, but he didn’t respond, he picked up her wrist to graze her brand with his thumb.

  “If he’s in your apartment, you should be wearing your cuff.”

  “That’s why he wants to kill you. I told him the truth. You were right, it does always come out.”

  “Really?” he asked. “You didn’t do it when we were together.” She liked that he seemed impressed. “It’s about fucking time for that too.”

  “He wants me to move in with him.”

  “Sex for rent?”

  Shaking her head, she resisted the urge to pinch him. Just like old times, information that hadn’t been requested, spilled out of her. “No! We’re friends.”

  “You’re not fucking going,” he said, walking her back until she was in the corner of the bathroom between the two perpendicular doors. “ ‘Cause Farrah’s gone, he’s lonely. He’ll drop you as soon as he’s bored.”

  “That’s what he said about you,” she said, scraping a fingernail a couple of inches up and down his chest. “And he loves to tell me how right he was about that.”

  He grumbled. “I bet he feels so smug that we didn’t make it.” She recalled the last time she’d seen Archer standing here. “How many days has it been now?”

  “Twenty-eight,” she answered and clued him in on her thoughts. “The last time we were standing here was the morning Ester drugged you.” He didn’t have a sense of humor about that, but she still found it hilarious until she realized she’d never have that bliss again. “We were happy that morning, Arch.”

  “You fucking were,” he said. “You had wood to play with that didn’t go anywhere for hours.”

  “You chained me to your bed, I was so pissed off. I could never stay mad at you for long. But twenty-eight days later and you’re still pissed at me. How do you hold onto it for so long?”

  Exhaling, his tone relaxed. “Squirm, I’m not pissed,” he said, brushing his palms from the top of her head down her cheeks, capturing her hair against them. “You think I’m happy we’re over. I get at you for not letting go, but I’m the guy who follows you home from the club every night, just to make sure you get home safe.”

  She didn’t know that. Nya thought he hadn’t cared, that he’d fucked off and left her there to fend for herself. It was a relief to find out she’d been wrong. “Why do you do that?”

  “Because I promised you that your nightmare would never come true and the first time I turned my back, it did. That’s on me.”

  His guilt was strong, but she could alleviate it. “Arch,” she said, stroking her hands up his body onto the sides of his neck. “That’s not my nightmare anymore. I faced that demon. Hexam didn’t mean to, but he did me a favor, I got to close that chapter. I might not have killed him. But I proved to myself that I was capable of taking control. Putting that knife in that man wasn’t just punishment for him, it was punishment for every man who ever hurt me. I stood up to the bully and I won. I know I can do whatever it takes. Doing what I did, it freed me.”

  “So no more nightmares?” he asked, tracing his thumbs over her lips.

  “I have a new nightmare and it’s one I don’t wake up from. I live it every single day I don’t see you. Tag says I’m pathetic for still holding on.”

  “If you are then sign me up too,” he said, crouching to rest his forehead on hers. “I love you, Ny, even though it puts you at risk.”

  Nya tipped her head back enough that she could speak with her lips against his. “Loving you is my security. I need you, even if you can’t bring yourself to ever be with me again. I’m always going to be here. Waiting.”

  “You can’t do that forever,” he said and she kissed him once.

  “Watch me.”

  Read on for an excerpt from:

  one

  “I told him that I wouldn’t marry him until my daughter got married,” Ester said, leaning across Archer’s couch to cup Nya’s face. As usual, the two women were sitting at opposite ends with their legs stretched out toward each other.

  The kiss she smacked to Nya’s lips was unexpected and was just a fraction longer than it should’ve been. Nya lifted her eyes to their top corners to see Archer glaring down.

  Grabbing his mother’s shoulder, Archer pulled her away from the kiss. “No more wine for you, Ester,” he said.

  But his mother wasn’t listening. She melted off the couch onto the floor to reach across the coffee table for her wine glass that had somehow ended up on the opposite side of the table.

  “I’m not getting married,” Nya laughed, wondering where Ester might have got the idea that she was. “If you really love this guy, you should do it. Archer will pay for it.”

  “Will he?” Archer asked, but he wasn’t actually pissed off, he was too distracted by his subtitles, happy to drink his beer and ignore the women and their private couch party.

  “I don’t need someone to pay for it,” Ester said. Hooking an elbow onto her couch, she slurped from her glass and patted Nya’s bare foot. “I just want to see you two going down the aisle.”

  Nya laughed again and curled her upper body over her bent knees. “How many times, Ester? We’re not together. How many bottles of wine have you had?”

  Ester waved a flippant hand. “Oh, I know you keep saying that,” she said, as distraught about the news now as she had been when she first learned it. “But I have been staying here for a whole week and you guys have had dinner together three times.” Holding up the last three fingers of her hand, she waved them at Nya, then at Archer who was still focused on the TV. “Three whole times.”

  “She had a slice of pizza that was already here the night you arrived,” Archer muttered. “The second time you set us up. And last night she brought leftovers.”

  Was he saying that none of those times counted? Nya brought him leftovers all the time these days and he invited her in to watch as he polished them off.

  Ester wasn’t interested in her son’s justifications, she just hit Nya’s foot harder. “Nya Yorke, you are in love with my boy, you love him.”

  Nya hugged her knees and used one as a rest for her chin. “You won’t hear me arguing, Est,” Nya said. “I’m nutso in love with him and he knows it.”

  “I knew it!” Ester said. Slamming her glass onto the table, she climbed back onto the couch to punch her son in the gut. “You’re just like all the others. You and your big proud pecker, you think ‘cause you’re cock of the walk, you can put it anywhere you like? How much pussy did you fuck while Nya’s was waiting at home for you, hmm?” She punched him again.

  Archer wasn’t offended or apologetic, he was still just annoyed. “I didn’t fuck around,” he said, giving his mother a shove, not to hurt her,
but to put her on her back on the couch so she couldn’t slug him again.

  Ester stretched her legs and rubbed her feet up and down Nya’s shins. “You young ones complicate everything. You love each other? You get married. End of story,” Ester said.

  Nya glanced at Archer and found him looking at her. This was a conversation he was so tired of having that Nya had stopped pushing… most of the time.

  “Then you should get married if you love Woodrow so much,” Nya said. She didn’t know that people were still called Woodrow, but apparently that was the name of Ester’s latest boyfriend.

  Ester was pleased at the reminder of her man, she shot upright. “He’s coming in to town tomorrow. You’ll have to meet him!”

  “He’s not staying here,” Archer said.

  “Sure he can,” Ester said. “It’s great having Nya so close. You can bunk in with her or if you’re so precious about your apartment, Nya will let us stay at hers and you can have her here.”

  “You can stay at mine,” Nya said because she wouldn’t see the woman and her new love on the street. But, it would make Archer uncomfortable to hear his mother going at it in his bed. “I can stay with Tag. He’s not that far from the club and—”

  “No! You stay here,” Ester said, lunging over the couch to grab Nya’s hand.

  This was more meddling. “I can’t stay here,” she said and Archer’s response was to keep ignoring them and to lift his beer bottle to down most of the liquid.

  “Why not?” Ester asked, stroking the back of her hand. “If you two are just friends…” Ester mocked the words with a roll of her eyes. “You should be able to sleep in the same apartment without screaming in anger.”

  Maybe Nya had had more wine than she realized because she dropped her knees and leaned over, pulling Ester even closer to whisper, “It’s not anger I’d be screaming in, that’s why Archer won’t let me stay.”

  “Is it ten-thirty yet?” Archer asked, glaring at her.

  Nya had to admit, she probably shouldn’t have said that because Archer didn’t like her discussing their sex life with his mother. Ester gave her a hug. “Ten-thirty? Who cares?” Ester asked and picked up Nya’s glass to push it back into her hand. “Nya and I are just getting started.” Ester tipped her head all the way back to look up at her son. “And if you want to get out the hard liquor and join us, I promise I won’t let Nya take advantage of you when you’re drunk.”