Nightshade

by McAdams, Molly

  “I’ve been looking.”

  Beck flung his hand out to gesture to me. “Clearly not hard enough if you have time for this. My brother might die, and you’ve been here, fucking the girl I—” He curled his hand into a fist and blew out a rough breath.

  Kieran simply repeated, “I’ve been looking.”

  Beck laughed sadly. “How do I know that?”

  Kieran looked at me for a few seconds, like he was deciding whether or not to say what he was thinking, then blew out a harsh breath. “The guy is a ghost. You know that. There’s never anyone with Mickey at the office in Raleigh. There’s never anyone with him here. I’ve gone through his computers and phone almost every day. I’ve found nothing.”

  “Look harder.” Beck’s plea sounded like a mixture of a demand and a challenge. “I told you who to look for.”

  “That was yesterday, I haven’t had time since then. If you’ve forgotten, I’m being watched. We all are.”

  Beck cracked a cruel grin at Kieran’s reminder. “Hard to forget.”

  “I can’t do much more when he knows nearly every move I make. Even with nothing on me, he’s still sure I’m the one who fed information to the Borellos.”

  “You were,” Beck hissed, nearly launching from the chair. “We were. And we fucked up. Having everyone followed is a front. He’s already pinned us, he’s just waiting until he has his information. But he’s going to kill Conor either way if we don’t fucking do something.”

  “There’s no information for him to get, Beck.”

  “You sure about that?” he yelled. “If you would’ve been here instead of trying to keep your cover so damn bad, we would’ve finished things the way we were supposed to. We wouldn’t be going through this shit, and you wouldn’t have lost Lily to the fucking mafia.”

  Kieran’s arms dropped to rest at his sides. His fingers were moving slowly, the way he usually rolled his blades between his fingers. I realized he was calming himself when his next words came out low and even, compared to Beck’s outraged tone. “I’m going to find him.”

  Beck huffed and sat back in his chair. “For the first time in my life, I’m having a hard time believing you.” His eyes dragged to me, and in them I saw both pain and defeat.

  Then something like a challenge flashed across his face so fast I almost missed it. I didn’t understand what it meant, but somehow, something in me knew that it meant everything terrible. And it made me feel hot and cold all at once.

  No. No, he can’t . . .

  Kieran sighed and started to speak, but Beck quickly said, “Jess should do it.” He cocked his head to look at Kieran. “She’s not being watched. I know better than anyone how easily she can get in and out of places without being seen. She should follow Mickey and find the ghost.”

  No.

  Beck’s wrecked stare met me again. And again, there was that challenge. “Jess?”

  The thought of going anywhere near that man made me lightheaded. Made a rock settle in my stomach.

  The room suddenly changed. Shifted. It felt cold, like Death himself was standing in the corner.

  Or beside me.

  Deep down, I could feel something in me responding to it. That crazed need bubbling up inside.

  Make it go away.

  My gaze shifted to where Kieran was holding himself unnaturally still. By the time I realized he wasn’t breathing, a consuming laugh was shaking my body and falling from my lips. Almost completely silent.

  Make it go away.

  “Someone’s about to go boom,” I whispered, and felt my lips stretch into a wide, teasing grin.

  Kieran’s hand shot out to grip my shoulder. The touch was pleading and soothing despite how he was now trembling.

  “Don’t,” he begged in a low, grating tone.

  “How’s that darkness feel, Nightshade?” I whispered, swaying lightly as I bit back another round of laughter. “How’s it taste?”

  Kieran’s hand moved at an achingly slow pace from my shoulder to the base of my throat then higher until he was cradling my jaw and his thumb was brushing over my mouth.

  Make it go away.

  I looked up into his piercing green eyes when he echoed, “Don’t.”

  I’d never felt closer to death.

  I’d never felt more alive.

  This had to be what it felt like to be high.

  This had to be what it felt like to have that rush flood your veins until you were overwhelmed with it.

  No wonder people sold their souls to experience it again and again.

  I would give everything to have this forever.

  Weak.

  His hand slid to my chest until only the tips of his lethal fingers were brushing against me, and then his touch was gone.

  My body sagged from the loss of his touch. From my revelation.

  It felt like a dark, disgusting weight had vanished.

  At least for now.

  Beck looked back and forth between us before staring at a spot on the bed, his face twisted in anger and pain.

  “She’s not following Mickey anywhere,” Kieran finally answered.

  Beck didn’t respond in any way, he only continued to stare as silence engulfed us. After another minute, he gave his head a hard shake and shot from the chair. With only a devastating look aimed at me, he left the room, the door softly clicking shut behind him.

  I wished he’d slammed it.

  I wouldn’t be warring with the part of me that felt like I owed him an apology when I owed him nothing.

  Kieran exhaled roughly and let his head fall to run his hands over his hair.

  “I can’t follow Mickey.”

  He twisted his neck to look at me, his brow pulled low. “Not that I want you to. Not that I think I could stop you if you decided to. But, why?”

  My arms curled around my stomach as it clenched and rolled. “I just can’t.”

  Suspicion flared in his pale eyes as he studied every movement I made. Every movement I couldn’t stop no matter how much I wanted to.

  I wanted to be strong.

  I wanted to be invincible.

  I didn’t know how after the fallout we’d narrowly escaped.

  “There’s a guy . . .” I began, bile rising in my throat.

  “Client?” he bit out.

  “No,” I replied automatically, adamantly. Then curled in on myself. “Not exactly.”

  Kieran straightened his body and turned to face me, his arms folded over his chest. With his lean, sculpted muscles and murderous expression, he looked every inch of the assassin he was.

  I swallowed thickly and let the dirty confession tumble from my lips. “He thinks he owns me.”

  “Does he?” he demanded, his voice sharp enough to cut through the tension forming between us.

  “I belong to no man,” I hissed, gritting my teeth.

  “Then why—?”

  “Because he has ways of controlling me. But it goes beyond that,” I hurried to explain when he started to question me again. “He thinks I’m his. He stalks me. He threatens me when he catches me working. Just because I’m not being watched by your person doesn’t mean I’m not being watched. If I follow Mickey, someone will know.”

  If Kieran could unleash hell on earth, he might have done it in that moment.

  “Who is he?”

  “The guy who follows me? I don’t know his name.” When Kieran’s jaw popped, I echoed, “I don’t know his name.”

  He nodded with a sharp jerk of his head then asked, “He knows you’re here?”

  Yes. “Most likely.”

  “What would he do if he knew?”

  “About us?”

  Kieran’s head dipped, this time slower.

  I thought of the way I’d kissed the man standing in front of me.

  The way I’d let him touch me.

  The way he’d felt inside me.

  It felt like someone grabbed my heart and squeezed. The pain was so intense it stole my next breaths.

  M
ake it go away.

  “He’d be furious,” I said through the pain.

  “Then how do I find him?”

  I could see it. Kieran was already thinking of every way to kill a man he didn’t have a name for.

  “You can’t; he won’t let you.”

  A cruel grin tugged at Kieran’s mouth. “Wanna bet?”

  A dry laugh forced from my chest. Yes, I did.

  And I wanted to bet on Kieran.

  But I was already playing such a dangerous game.

  I already had so many lives at the tips of my fingers.

  Kieran’s arm suddenly snaked around my waist and his mouth molded to mine. He crawled on the bed and onto me, leaning me back and pressing his body to mine in all the ways that made me forget about the horrors in my mind.

  As for his . . .

  Three . . .

  Two . . .

  One . . .

  His body started to vibrate as that monster inside began taking over, but he simply slid me up the bed like I weighed nothing and curled his body around mine.

  “Tell me,” he begged gently as his lips ghosted along my shoulder. “Tell me and I’ll find a way to put an end to it.”

  Make it go away.

  Please . . .

  I burrowed deeper against his chest, hoping he wouldn’t be able to see the longing and fear in my eyes.

  You can’t.

  Jessica and I fell asleep not long after Beck left. And when I woke, she was gone.

  I tried not to think of where my body automatically wanted to take me. Tried not to think of the name that had been the fourth on my list for so long. Tried not to think of why Jessica was gone after all the shit she told me.

  Tried not to think that she was never coming back.

  She went to check on her mom.

  I told myself that dozens of times already. But I felt it in my bones . . . I was an idiot if I honestly believed that was the only reason she left.

  I never thought I’d have to worry about the girl who could pull a knife on me. But I saw her fear when she’d told me about the man who claimed to own her. I saw the way she’d tried to hold herself together when she looked like she was so close to breaking.

  Like she had at The Jack.

  If she was scared, I needed to find this guy and put an end to his tormenting and fucked-up thinking.

  I hated that I wanted to make him a priority and that Jessica could have so much hold over me in such a short time. As much as she’d come to mean to me, as much as I craved her, there were still those times where I felt like letting myself want her was stepping into a trap.

  Not that I could get myself to heed my own warnings or slow down with her.

  She was everything I hated.

  And I’d never wanted anyone the way I wanted her.

  I wanted the dark that matched mine.

  I wanted the chaos.

  I wanted the way she calmed under my touch.

  I wanted all of it.

  I ran through the new list as I slipped from shadow to shadow, and forced myself to think clearly.

  Nameless man. Ghost. Mickey.

  No. Fuck.

  Ghost. Nameless man. Mickey.

  I ran my hands over my face and let loose a growl of frustration.

  Ghost. Mickey. Nameless man.

  I ran through those names again and again, my frustration building each time over the fact that I didn’t have concrete names for two of them. That I didn’t have faces for them.

  Sliding the blade I’d absentmindedly been playing with into my pants, I forced the frustration away for now and took a calming breath as I rounded the corner to where Beck was dealing.

  The second he saw me, his hands tightened into fists.

  I’d seen him in action long ago. He was unbeatable with those fists. They’d kept him and Conor alive before Holloway. I was also positive this would hurt.

  “Fuck you,” he spat, his voice low but still loud enough for me to hear.

  “Beck . . .”

  “Fuck you.”

  Once I was within reaching distance from him, he swung and let loose a frustrated yell when I leaned out of his reach.

  “Let me hit you, you fuck,” he yelled and swung again.

  I knew I deserved it, but it was instinct to dodge.

  “Do you know I’ve never hated you as much as I did today? Not when Aric died because you weren’t fast enough. Not when I found out you left for a job and Conor almost died. Not when you let Dare take Lily.”

  I ground my jaw with each memory he ticked off. Like he’d been saving them for something just like this.

  “You’re going to yell at me?” I seethed. “You’re going to hate me? You wanted her to follow Mickey. Mickey. What if he caught her?”

  Beck drove his hands through his hair. “I never wanted her to follow Mickey. Jesus fuck. I . . . fuck,” he yelled. “You were standing there holding the only girl I’ve ever loved. You had her in your room, and she was in your clothes. After everything that happened to Lily, I never thought you’d be with someone again. And then you chose Jess? Of all people, you chose Jess?”

  I blew out a ragged breath and dragged my hands over my face. “Beck.”

  “I was hoping. God, I was hoping it was a mistake. Or maybe you’d”—his face twisted in agony—“bought her for an hour or a day,” he whispered, sounding sick. When a growl sounded in my chest, he huffed sadly. “Yeah, I already know that wasn’t it.”

  “I don’t see her that way.”

  “I don’t want you to see her at all,” he yelled. “I was hoping if I suggested she do what you haven’t been, you’d let her go, and I’d be able to pull the knife out of my back so I could finally take a goddamn breath.”

  I looked at him helplessly as his shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry, Beck. I’m fucking sorry. I don’t know what more I can say.”

  “You can start by not stealing the last girl who means something to me on this earth. Lily was my best friend, and I lost her because you weren’t around to fix your relationship. I know what we were doing was important, but she should’ve been more important to you. She was more important to me,” he said, beating his hand on his chest. “And Jess?” A harsh laugh burst from him, and he turned, taking a few steps away.

  “You told me you wanted nothing to do with her,” I said. “You told me she wanted nothing to do with you.”

  He rounded on me, quickly eating the distance between us. “I want nothing to do with her because I’m so in love with her I can’t see straight when she’s there. And it kills me that she chose that goddamn life instead of what I want to give her.” He threw his hand out to the side, as if Jessica and her clients were all standing there. “I’ve watched her ruin herself because of what I am. Every day I have to see what I’ve done to her. I have to see how much she hates me. And the reminder that it’s my fault is thrown in my face. But given a chance, I would do it all again because it has kept her safe. She’s everything to me.”

  My head shook slowly as guilt and pain tore me apart. “Beck. I don’t . . . I don’t know—”

  “Save it. I think you’ve done enough.”

  I wanted to tell him I needed her.

  I wanted to tell him she fit me in a way nothing ever had or should.

  I wanted to tell him I’d tried to keep Lily . . . and why I hadn’t been able to.

  But anything I said then would have only made it worse.

  I nodded and rocked back. “I’m sorry, man.”

  I’d started to turn when he asked, “Is this how it felt?”

  I tilted my head slowly. Silently telling him to continue. Silently warning him not to.

  “When Dare stabbed you in the back. When he stole Lily from you. When you lost everything you’d lived and killed yourself for?” He rubbed at his chest and stumbled back a few steps until he was pressed against the wall of the building he dealt next to. “Is this how it felt?”

  Dare had been a business partner and friend.

/>   I’d spent my life loving a girl who I was never supposed to belong to before she’d fallen for him.

  Beck and I had been best friends most of our lives.

  He’d been in love with a girl who’d never belonged to him. Who’d rejected him. And then I met her.

  We’d both ruined our souls for those girls by trying to survive in this life.

  It all looked the same, and yet, nothing felt like it.

  Didn’t change the fact that I’d ruined something between Beck and me.

  “I’m sorry,” was all I said.

  “Lily’s pregnant.”

  The fuck . . .

  Even with all I’d realized in the last week, it didn’t change that I’d spent my life thinking she was my future. It didn’t change that I’d spent years wondering when the day would come that she would tell me she was pregnant with my child.

  Lily was no longer mine. I knew that. I felt it in my blood. But I wasn’t prepared for the shock and ache of hearing Lily was expecting someone else’s child.

  I finally forced my stare from the ground to Beck, watching him lift his chin in defiance.

  “I go see her every other week at the café. Saw her this morning.”

  “Then you didn’t fucking lose her,” I said through clenched teeth, unable to hide my hurt or anger at his deception.

  A harsh, mocking laugh left him. “Trust me. I lost her the same as you did. She has her new friends. Her new family.” One of his hands dropped to his stomach. “A little bump right here that she touches constantly. And I’ve never seen her happier.”

  I wanted to remind him that she’d made her choice and he’d agreed to allow that choice. Agreed to leave her alone—the way every Holloway member had vowed to.

  I should’ve known he’d go around it to see her just as I’d gone around it when I’d still planned to kill Dare.

  “So, how about that?” he growled. “Does it feel like that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said in a detached voice. “But that? I’d never do that shit to you.”

  Without another word, I turned and disappeared into the shadows.

  I looked anxiously down the street, my hands twisting the strap of my bag as I silently begged for one to hurry and the others not to show.

  Then again, I don’t know why I bothered looking. I doubted I’d see Kieran until he was directly in front of me.