by Wyatt, Dani
“How you feelin’?” Topher chewed on the nub of a cigar in the corner of his mouth.
“Hundred percent.” Flynn blew out a breath as he tapped his fingers on his knees.
“You’d be all right, you'd stay away from my daughter.” Topher gave him another smile as the wet cigar nub wiggled as he spoke.
“So, what’s the deal?” Flynn didn’t hide his impatience.
Fuck if this asshole is going to tell me shit about her. Fuck all of them. Just give me my orders, and I’ll see if I’m going to breathe another day. ‘His daughter’ — fucker’s never done shit for her until he realized she could make him bank. Left her to rot with that fuck of a stepfather in a shack with barely enough food to feed a cat.
“The deal is, you need to be useful. If you are of no use, then you are unnecessary, and you must know what happens to unnecessary things, don’t you? Your father’s had enough of you, so here you are. Ready to help out your soon-to-be family.”
Flynn cracked his neck and fought off the urge to throat punch the fuck.
Topher’s bloated face smiling at him lit the fire already rising in his gut. Several of Topher’s soldiers sat in a booth about five feet away, taking quick sidelong glances at Flynn every few seconds.
“Just tell me what you fucking want. Either kill me or spit it the fuck out.”
“Fine. You’re going to fight again. First you heal, and then you go here—” Topher slid a scrap of paper across the top of the worn walnut table. “See Roger; get training. Keep your eyes and ears open. I want to know how many fighters they have, who’s coming up, anything they have going on. I’ve got an investment I need to keep my eye on there. Then, when you’re back, you’re going back in the ring. When and where we tell you. Just like before.”
Flynn felt his gut turn. He blinked and drew a breath, slow and deep through his nose. His fingers tapped faster on his knees.
“Fuck you. All of you. I’m not taking no fucking fall again... getting my ass handed to me when I know I could have knocked that fuck out. I won't do it again; I won't take a fall.”
“You’re not so smart.” Topher leaned across the table, losing the smile, and poked one sausage finger deep into the throbbing, stitched flesh on Flynn’s chest.
Flynn fought the wince, but heat radiated out from where Topher’s finger dug in.
“Do as you’re told or that knife is going to find your fucking heart next time. Do as you’re told, stay away from her, and you get to see another day. Fuck up again and even your blood won’t save you. You must know your father will make that call. Do as you’re fucking told. Now get the fuck out.”
***
“Do you remember?” Lilly’s hair looked like a waterfall of copper.
She reminded Flynn of a sprite from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a soft splatter of amber freckles across her nose.
Flynn tried to focus. Her golden-green eyes seemed to waver in the dark room. She stood close, her sweet scent swirling around inside his foggy head.
“Remember what?” Flynn felt her power as his blood rushed through his ears. He could barely make out the lines of her face. It was as if she were standing behind a thin veil of mist.
“How to find me.”
Flynn watched as Lilly dropped the cream and rose pink silk robe from her shoulders. A tidal wave of blood rushed from every extremity to settle heavy in the steel shaft carved with her name.
“Jesus, you’re so beautiful. Come closer, right here.” Flynn nodded his head, gesturing for her to stand in front of him.
Flynn slouched on the couch. He couldn’t remember what day it was or how long he’d been here.
Now, she was here, and there was nothing more he needed.
“Not yet. Tell me you love me,” Lilly said.
Something’s wrong. She hates when I tell her I love her. Fuck, what the fuck is going on?
“No. Come here. I’m going to show you.” Flynn nodded again for her to come closer.
She held the robe just off her shoulders, the swell of her magnificent curves catching the fabric where her nipples pushed through. Her dove-soft fingertips held it in a clutch between the cleavage where Flynn had imagined his tongue thousands of times.
“I’m done fucking around, Lilly. They almost killed me. You stopped them, now come here.”
She didn’t seem to touch the floor, and in a second she was down on her knees, letting the robe fall away to reveal what had filled Flynn’s dreams.
“I’m here.” Her hands rested on his knees, like a cherub at an altar.
Flynn tangled his fingers in her unruly hair, pulled her up and lost himself in her beauty before he brought his lips to hers. Her flavor warmed his entire being in one moment of connection.
Fuck, she’s really here. My dick’s going to tear its way out of my fucking pants. How could one girl I kissed twice own my ass so completely? I spent my life fucking for the sake of fucking, never once feeling anything. Then, this ginger beauty shows up and clamps herself around my heart like a damn claw hook.
His tongue took hers, the warmth and invitation of her mouth opening the door to what he could only dream of before. He listened as her breathing stalled and started again.
Flynn wanted to see her face, to take in everything it showed. Other primal screams inside his head told him to claim her in a much more primal way… but she deserved more. He intended to give her everything because she was his everything.
Breaking the kiss, Flynn stared into the glow of her eyes, her pupils dilating and retracting as soft, rapid breaths escaped from parted lips.
“Why did you decide to come?” Flynn asked.
Lilly didn’t answer.
He traced a finger from her cheek, down the softness of her neck, and over the mole that settled right at her nape. He could feel her blood moving below his touch. His eyes darted from her face and down to the weight of her magnificent tits, craving more than anything to have them between his lips.
Jesus Christ, how can I go from feeling nothing to this? One girl, one look and it’s like everything that came before in my fucked up, shitty life is gone. How can I ever protect her? Keep her from the fucks who act like they own her?
He let his fingers explore, the warm weight of her filling each hand as he palmed and relished her. Flynn tried to imagine making love to her, slow and gentle, but the rage that lived inside of him craved to mate her, to sear what they had together into infinity and make her his even if only once.
He had dreamed of her taste and the noises she would make as he bound them together. The pull of her walls as they caressed him, encasing him, and the sound of her bliss—it tortured him, knowing how impossible that would be.
They’ll fucking come and kill me for sure this time. What the fuck… I’ll die like this, with her. One time will never be enough, but it’s enough if that is all I’ll ever have.
“I have to go.” Lilly let her robe fall and the Venus stood in front of him, even as her words hit like a death blow.
“No, you can’t go. Fuck, Lilly, where are you going!” Flynn struggled to stand as he watched her turn and float back behind that wavering wall.
“Lilly. Wait, don’t...come back.”
Flynn felt the heat rising inside of him but he still shivered. He felt chilled as if someone was spraying him with ice water in a winter wind.
With every muscle convulsing, Flynn took a desperate breath and lurched to follow her. His legs crumpled, and he felt the impact of his weight hitting the dirty, rust-colored carpet, jolting him awake.
“Fuck.” Flynn’s eyes focused on the clock; the numbers seemed to be behind the same wavering mist as the image of Lilly.
He could feel heat radiating off his body, and the burning pain coming from his chest told him he was living somewhere between reality and imagination.
For over a week, he had tried to ignore the growing, red pulsing around the jaggedly stitched crevice in his skin. Mrs. Leonard had noticed him one day carrying a bag of ice pre
ssed against his chest as he'd made his way back from Leo’s corner market and had shaken her head at him from the second floor walkway above his apartment.
That night, there had been a knock on his door, and there she'd stood with a Tupperware container of some noodled liquid. Without question, Flynn had slurped it down before falling back into a delusional half-sleep.
That was three days ago.
Flynn had no idea if it was morning or night or if he was just dead, the apartment being his personal hell. He didn’t have enough power to get himself vertical, so he settled for what he could manage and leaned against the base of the green, woven fabric of the sofa.
His head fell back as he tried to figure out how he could be blazing hot and freezing at the same time.
Flynn could still smell Lilly's soft scent, feel the tangle of her hair between his fingers.
“Where are you?” Flynn asked the ceiling before he felt his heart pound against his chest. The curtain came down and there was silence.
Chapter Five
The room’s temperature stayed a chilly sixty-six degrees at all times. The white noise created by the massive servers that lined the back of one wall cost more than most Americans made in a lifetime.
Lilly tapped her foot under the desk as fast as a metronome on staccato and chewed on the inside of her lip as her brain processed more data in a second than most of the machines around her.
Lilly wore two sweaters and the slubby cotton knit cap her mother had made for her the winter she began to walk to school from their small, stone cottage outside of Adare. The walk took her through three cow pastures and Mr. Kilarny’s hay field where Oscar and Emily, his two mules, ate to their hearts’ content on the days they were not pulling the cart to market.
Within the ice box where she now spent her days, towers of man-made equipment whirred and hummed. One day soon, on the other end of these machines, throngs of screen-staring, online-gambling zombies would sit—sure the next hand would be their big win.
The lush, cool hills and dirt roads 5,000 kilometers to the east barely gave in to the world’s fascination with technology.
In the village of Adare, internet access spanked of the end of civilization just as Elvis Presley’s hip gyrations and devil music had done a generation ago in the living rooms of America.
Lilly’s fingers began to tingle as they flew across the keys, typing out what would to most eyes look like a child’s gibberish.
The Bose headphones on her ears blocked out everything but the angry screaming music of Five Finger Death Punch that was oddly soothing to the cherub-looking prodigy at the keyboard.
Her two worlds were as much at odds as were her warring thoughts about the emerald-eyed man who had lain bleeding in her ivory tower mere days ago. Part of her wished she had let them finish the job and carve his beating heart from his chest.
All she needed was to turn away, relieve herself of whatever it was that the Irish boy—with his eyes of fire and fury-filled fists—held over her.
Lilly was a quick study, and life gave her lesson after lesson about why caring for anyone would only bring heartache. When she thought of him, she felt like she was on a merry-go-round stuck in high gear—half-sick and exhilarated, fearful and hopeful.
A tap on her shoulder slammed her heart into her throat.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” She jumped as she turned to see the two men who played with her life like puppet masters.
“Scared you, did we?” The yellow-toothed smile of the man who contributed half of her DNA stood next to her betrothed.
“Yeah. Kind of in my own world here. Gotta make the donuts. Right, dear?” She gave Colin a wink.
“How’s it coming? Are you debugging the errors the testing found?” Colin stood tall and impeccable next to the plump disaster that was her biological father.
“Working on it. You can’t rush art.”
“I disagree. We have deadlines—people waiting on your work, so they can do their work, so we can hit our launch schedule. Dominos, Lilly.” Colin pinched her chin to look into his face, a veiled threat in his eyes.
“Of course she’s working as fast as she can. Aren’t you?” Topher shoved his hands into his suit pockets as his belly forced a desperate grimace from the two buttons on his sky blue dress shirt. His decades-old, Halston tie would be more at home in a thrift store.
“Yes. God, I’ll be done with the debugging in a few hours. Then, I’ll work on the next section of code. You just make sure those other hacks back there don’t fuck things up again and make more work for me.”
“Gideon is guiding them, I assure you.” Colin swiped his thumb over her bottom lip, and Lilly felt her stomach clench.
“Colin told me about your visitor.” Topher threw the dagger right toward the target.
Topher MacGuire held the gambling and prostitution business in and around Detroit in his fat hand.
Over time, the families had struck a precarious balance between competitor and partner. Both families were intricately woven together since the days of moonshine, and more than a truckload of bodies and gallons of blood had spilled between them over the years.
Lilly held back the quiver that started to run over her shoulders and tingle up her neck as she thought of Flynn lying on the floor with the knife halfway to his heart.
“I don’t think he’ll be back.” Lilly pulled her chin from Colin’s fingertips and stared at the blinking cursor in front of her.
“I hope not. Dalliances have their place for men, but you must remember your place, Lilly. Yes?” Topher fancied himself a concerned father all the sudden.
“Yeah, I’m living proof of that, right, Dad?” Lilly turned back, rubbing her face with both hands, then shaking out her fingers, trying to get the blood flowing.
She knew Colin hated the way she dressed. The bulky sweaters did nothing to flatter her ample curves.
Her hair hung in swirling fire down each shoulder in a cascade of unbrushed curls and rebel waves. He hated anything without order, anything out of control.
“I mean it, Lilly.” Topher spun her chair around to face him as Colin smiled.
“Yes, Daddy.” Lilly pushed out her bottom lip and held her hands together next to her cheek with an angelic yet sarcastic stare before narrowing her eyes and sticking out her tongue.
She clenched her teeth as Colin’s brow drew together. At fifty-two years old, he could cover the glossy pages of a men’s magazine. Salt and pepper sides of his previously deep onyx hair only served to exaggerate his dangerous sex appeal.
Unfortunately, what would have been his one redeeming quality was lost in his myriad of other vile parts, turning him ugly. His darkness dripped like a venom. His mere proximity gave a chill and burn at the same time. Standing near him, it was as though he emanated an invisible vapor. You felt intoxicated by his power and yet as scared as a cornered shrew.
In the six months since Lilly had found herself in a new country with a brand new fiancé she’d barely known, she'd witnessed his sociopathic need to steer the ship of his own life and the lives of all those around him.
“This is what happens when you give a girl a brain and then applaud her for her intelligence. They think they run things.” Colin smiled at Lilly.
“All girls have brains, well, unless they’re the blow-up kind you favor. And, as a matter of fact, we do run the world.” She answered his smile with her own.
Lilly blinked as Colin’s fist curled next to his hip. She was sure if Topher was not standing next to him, her deep plum-colored eyeshadow could match the purple bruise he would leave somewhere on her face.
“Lilly. Okay, let’s move on.” The tension was even too much for Topher.
After he had sent her mother away in disgrace, Topher’s only contact with Lilly over the past twenty-three years had been an occasional phone call and money to support her schooling when her math skills became something of an oddity turned prodigy.
When Topher sent his pregnant mistress back to
Ireland, penniless and uneducated, her prospects had been grim. The ever-concerned father and lover arranged for a loyal member of the extended family to marry the pregnant beauty when she arrived on the Green Isle, to ensure there was food on the table and a firm hand when necessary.
After Topher’s wife died when Lilly was 5 or 6, her mother hoped he would change his mind and bring them back to live with him. Only, that is not how it works in good Catholic marriages. There is no divorce. No fresh starts, certainly not for Lilly's mother, not in a world of organized crime where loyalty comes before all else.
“I’ll have this done by three o’clock. Then, I’m going to visit Mac, then I’ll finish the code. I can work from the house.” Lilly turned around, put her headphones on and tried to wish them both away.
Chapter Six
Flynn couldn’t stop laughing. Or shivering.
Something was funny. He couldn’t remember what.
The living room of his ghetto apartment seemed to sway and shift like a ship’s cabin below deck in a storm.
He looked at his hand, turning it over and back, staring at the intricate ink that formed a viper’s open mouth. Its scaled body wrapped around, joining the ranks of the other skin-branding that covered his arm, shoulder, and chest.
The indigo snake was laughing with him, and Flynn stared into its jealous, green eyes, wondering if he had stolen them from Lilly. They stared back, glowing and focused, as the image of an enormous woman in a tropical-themed house dress came into view.
It was Mrs. Leonard, the lady from upstairs with the bright yellow, green and black flag over her front windows.
“Ooooo boy,” She shook her head and planted her hands on her hips. “You in a state. You got to get to the hospital, you right ready turn sour. You got a phone, someone I can call? What’s your name?”
Why was she here? Flynn couldn’t help but laugh, but he wasn’t sure what was funny.
There was a huge bird, brightly colored like a rainbow on acid, printed into the front of the woman’s flowing house dress. The bird’s huge eyes were sparkling like tiny crystals and the rest of the mass of fabric blazed with prints of palm trees and birds-of-paradise. All of them were studded with the same crystal ornaments, making her look like an enormous tropical Christmas tree.
