by Jo Raven
I press a hand to my side, over the bandage I slapped there, over the shallow knife cut.
Last thing I wanna deal with right now, this damn event. Yesterday I spent hours staring at my To Do list—the catering, the graphics I need to go get and have approved by Rafe Vestri. Then the requested journalist interviews, the table and chair rentals—and managed nothing. I wonder how long it will be before I’m kicked out and fired for missing deadlines and botching things up.
Goddammit, I never thought I’d amount to much, and these past weeks it looks like I’m living up to that promise. Motherfucking loser, my dad used to yell at me. Useless little punk. Worthless piece of shit. Then my aunt finished the job, never missing a chance to tell me what a freak I am.
Yeah. Try finding any faith in yourself after nearly twenty years of being told you’re good for nothing.
If I didn’t have my brother, I don’t know where I’d be. He counteracted the poison, always telling me I could do this. That he believed in me.
“Raine, you there?” he barks in my ear, and I blink. “Raine.”
I wonder how long he’s been talking to me with no reply that he had to resort to my full name. He rarely uses it. Hates it, like he hates his own. It was a cruel joke our mom played on us. She thought it funny to call us, Storms, by these names. Ocean Storm—and Raine Storm.
Fuck her. Any goodwill I might have harbored toward her, even after everything, vanished the moment she swindled Ocean out of his money and his last shreds of belief in humankind’s kindness.
He deserves better. So how much can I tell him?
“Raine! Come on, man, you’re giving me the creeps. What did our old man say? What did he do? I swear, if he as much as touched you…”
“I’m okay. I’ll meet you—”
“Stay put, I’m on my way. Be there in ten.”
And he hangs up.
Older brothers. I sigh and toss my phone on the bed beside me, brace my hands on the edge of the mattress and stare down at my bare feet.
I wanted to keep Ocean out of this. Looks like it’s out of my hands now.
It fucking sucks.
When the doorbell rings, I realize I’m still in the kitchen in my underwear, so I go pull on a pair of sweats. By the time I reach the door, my ears are ringing from the incessant noise.
“Stop leaning on the goddamn doorbell,” I mutter, open the door and step aside to let my brother in.
He enters like a man-shaped storm, blue hair standing up, eyes narrow, pointing a finger at me. “You’re freaking me out.”
My muscles are locking up with tension just looking at him. “I said I’m fine. Cool down. I just made coffee. Want some?”
“I don’t want any fucking coffee.” He’s giving me a once-over, and I know the moment he zeroes in on the bruises. “What the fuck?”
Hey, they’re hard to miss. My arms, my ribcage, my neck, and then there’s the white bandage over my ribs. I’m so colorful this morning.
I back away from him. “Easy, Shun.”
“He did this to you?”
I bristle at the implication our old man could do this to me. “I’m a grown man, Shun. Takes more than one old guy to beat me up.”
“So someone did beat you up and slice you open.”
Of course he’d pick up on that immediately. “Just… sit, okay?” He may or may not want coffee, but I need my caffeine. “Be right back.”
“Not going anywhere,” he mutters darkly.
Right.
I return with two steaming mugs and pass him one as I settle on the sofa. He’s taken the armchair, shoulders tense, jaw set, brows knit, looking ominous, like Iron Man or something.
Don’t ask.
My brother’s always seemed bigger than life to me. I forget sometimes I’m now a couple of inches taller and slightly wider at the shoulders. He’s always been my older brother, the one with all the answers, but I want to protect him.
I wonder if that’s how he feels about me all the time, this crushing weight of responsibility, this fear that he’s failing me—like I’m feeling now.
“Just…” Ocean puts the mug down on the coffee table and gestures at me, frowning. “Tell me what happened.”
So I tell him, starting from Dad’s phone calls and his increasing demands and threats, culminating in his threat against the families of everyone we know.
“That fucking bastard.” My brother’s hands have tightened into white-knuckled fists on his thighs, and there’s a vein throbbing in his forehead. Good thing he put the mug down when he did, or it might’ve ended up thrown against the wall.
Ocean keeps a lot of his anger and frustration locked up inside, unlike me. I fire off my stupid mouth whenever I’m upset and overwhelmed, but he keeps quiet, letting that anger boil over. But he’s quite good at controlling it.
Again, unlike me.
“You met him,” he finally says, his voice low. “Last night.”
“He had me meet him at this small park near the big Starbucks. Baited me into an alley, and had a bunch of thugs jump me.”
“A bunch of thugs. You fucking kidding me?” He gets up, his face dark with fury, then starts pacing behind the couch. “How did you get away?”
“I used some of the moves you and Rafe taught me at the gym. And…” I open my mouth to tell him about Jason, and nothing comes out. “And I ran,” I finish lamely.
Better keep him out of this for now, or else Ocean will start asking more questions—why Jason showed up, why he’d care. A question I don’t know the answer to myself.
“And this Simon? Was he there?”
“No.” Jason mentioned him. “His name came up.”
“Jesse had a run in with a Simon once, long ago. Nasty guy. Jesse put him in prison, around the time you came to town.”
Could it be the same one?
“You sure our father was behind that?” Ocean asks.
I manage not to roll my eyes. My brother believes in me, but sometimes he also believes I’m an idiot. “He was there, Shun. He talked to them. Told them to get me. And he said that this is a taste of what will happen if I don’t pay up.”
“We.”
“Huh?” I lift my head. Didn’t realize I’d dropped it in my hands.
“If we don’t pay up.” He’s stopped pacing and is staring hard at me. “This isn’t on your shoulders only, R.”
I stare back at him, unblinking. It strikes me that in the past he would have taken the responsibility on his own shoulders, no questions asked, and although the thought of dealing again with my dad leaves me feel slightly queasy, I’m also glad.
That Ocean sees me as an equal now, that he trusts me to pull my weight.
“Okay, we,” I agree and hide a small smile. It fades quickly, though. “He wants fuckloads of money. What are we gonna do? Neither of us has that money, plus… This has to stop. He can’t show up whenever his funds run low and suck us dry.”
Ocean nods. “We will put a stop to it.”
“How?”
He folds his arms over his chest. “When I said we, I didn’t just mean the two of us.”
He lets this sink in. “But…”
“We’ll figure it out, together with the other guys, okay?”
“But I wanted…” To end it myself. Protect you. Protect everyone.
He comes around the sofa and leans over, puts a hand on my shoulder, looks me in the eye. “You’re strong, little brother. One of the strongest people I know. You may not think so most of the time because everyone’s told you that you’re weak, but you and me, we’ve been through hell and came out alive to tell the tale.”
And just like that, he’s laid me open. “Shun, listen.”
“No, you listen. I’ve tried to do things on my own. I fucked up a thousand times. And you know why? Not because I’m stupid. Not because I’m incapable. But because I was alone. Families shore you up, have your back, support you no matter what. We never had that, you and me. We only had each other, and then we h
ad no one. But now, R... Now we have a family, a big one, and those guys? The Inked Brotherhood and the Damage Boyz, they’ve been through their own hell. They understand. And they’ll help us, you’ll see.”
I nod, not convinced. “If you say so.”
“It’s not all darts and pool and drinks, man. We help each other, always. They’re the reason I landed back on my feet after what our parents pulled. Them, and you.”
He’s looking straight into my eyes, those eyes that look so much like mine. It’s like staring at my reflection, with a difference: in his gaze there’s a confidence that I’m not feeling right now.
“Okay,” I whisper. If Ocean believes we can do this, then I have no choice but to believe it, too. His belief is what saved us both all those years ago in the trailer park—the trust that we can make it. “Fine.”
“Gotta go now.” He glances at his watch. “Kayla’s waiting for me, I promised I’d be there.”
“There where?”
“She’s buying fabrics for the event.”
Right. “Hey, one last thing. This Simon guy… What else did Jesse Lee say about him? What happened?”
“A violent bastard.” Ocean frowns, his hand already on the door handle. “He’s involved with the Mexican mafia, I think. Bad news.”
Fuck, and Jason is somehow involved with him. I have to tell Ocean about Jason, but dammit, not now, not before finding him and talking to him first.
Chapter Twenty
Jason
What the fuck have I done? Going against Simon’s men, against his orders. I’m out of my ever-loving mind.
I had no choice, though. They had Raine.
They’d have let him go, though. Right? Eventually. His dad set him up, but he wouldn’t have him killed.
But I hadn’t known this then. Problem is, I’m not sure Simon cares all that much about keeping me alive. I amuse him, for now, but later? It’s anybody’s guess.
Like, after I get everyone out of town… yeah, what then? Like, how will I extricate little ol’ me from Simon’s clutches? Nobody will rescue me, that much is clear.
I breathe through the panic, and stay low, hiding in unfamiliar places—in alleys and parks I’ve never frequented, in the hopes that Simon’s goons won’t know to look for me there.
Raine’s words hurt. They actually hurt more than the cut on my arm, or the bruises on my body.
And yet I’m glad I ran, leading the thugs far away from him. I just have to hope he made it home safe.
I really have gone batshit. Over a guy, a guy who isn’t sure if he wants me or hates me half the time. Who doesn’t trust me, or feel anything about me except anger.
Then again, that’s just about the description of every guy’s behavior toward me. Looks like it’s me, not them. Figures.
Not lovable, one foster family had written as they returned me to the group home. Too serious. Too troublesome.
Not what we expected.
I rub at the scars on my arms and shiver. Others said it without words, expressing their displeasure with me. Some things I remember, but others… Others are buried deep.
Forgetting can be a blessing.
Fuck, it’s cold, too cold to sleep dressed like this, in my thin jacket, without at least a sleeping bag between me and the night chill.
Getting my stuff is out of the question, though. My sleeping bag and duffel bag are now in Adam’s keeping, since Mayleen left, and if anyone’s watching me, I’d rather not show up and walk right into their arms, or worse, lead them to Adam’s door.
So I tough it out, searching for a hot air vent, a corner where the wind can’t reach me, moving through the night, sleepwalking through the city.
Morning finds me curled up in front of a coffee shop entrance, and a cleaner who comes to unlock the door shoos me away, like I’m some stray dog.
The cut on my arm throbs. It’s bled sluggishly through the night, soaking through the sleeve of my jacket, so that I have to pull the fabric off, and that hurts like a bitch. And then it’s bleeding again.
Dammit.
I won’t die from it, that’s all that counts, and there are more pressing matters. As I stumble down a vaguely familiar street, the buildings swimming in my eyes, my hands and face so cold I barely feel them, I realize I urgently need someplace warm to thaw out, and something to eat and drink before I faceplant and ruin some passerby’s morning.
A woman, nicely dressed in a business suit with an upswept hairdo stops in her tracks—then turns and crosses the street to continue, stealing glances at me.
I scared her. I bet I look like a demented ghost or a hungry vampire with my eyeliner running down my cheeks like dirty tears, blood down my side and on my jacket, bruises on my face and throat, dragging my feet through the gray light of dawn.
I suppress the urge to bare my teeth at her.
The world dips again, and I shake my head to clear it. There’s a bakery not far from here that opens early. The owner knows me, and he won’t mind if I sit inside to have a cup of coffee.
I’m focused on that, on the promise of warmth, as I stagger down the street, my teeth chattering so loudly I can’t hear myself think, when movement from my side catches my attention.
Too late, though. Something hits the back of my head. Pain explodes inside my skull, a firework laced with darkness, and then everything goes black.
Strong arms are around me, keeping me safe. “You’re okay now,” a deep male voice says in my ear, and I nod, grabbing fistfuls of soft fabric, pressing my face to his muscular shoulder. “I’ve got you.”
“They’re after me,” I whisper. “Raine—”
“It’s all right,” Raine says, and yeah, it’s him, and his arms around me. “Slow down.”
I huff a laugh. “Why do you always say that? I can’t stop running. My life’s fucked up.”
“Why?”
Why? “Because I don’t deserve any better,” I admit, muffled against his T-shirt. “Never have.”
“You deserve good things.” His voice rumbles in his chest. I feel it in my bones, inside my head. “I care for you, Jason. Let me.”
Let him do what? And what does he mean, he cares?
“You hate me,” I whisper, and there’s a fucking knot in my throat. I can’t breathe past it. “I’m—”
“I don’t hate you.”
Yeah, right—but I want to believe it, I want to hear him say he cares for me, I want his arms around me, so I just nod, soaking it all in.
I feel so safe. This, being with him, feels so good. So right.
It’s not real. It’s just a dream. Has to be.
And like with everything good in my life, I fuck it up, ruining it, ending it in case it gets too good.
I wake up, wishing to hell I hadn’t.
Disorientation. Darkness. Cold air hits my face as I shift on a hard surface, scratchy fabric under my folded arms.
Ice cuts through my veins, stiffens my spine. Cold, so damn cold. Where the hell am I? What’s this place? Am I alone?
Faint voices. Muffled, as if behind a door. A TV playing somewhere in the building. Stale smell of mold and urine and sex.
The sounds and smells crash together, forming a picture, and I jerk as it clicks. I know where I am.
The Club. I’m at the Club, and as last night’s events rush back, I groan in despair, because this is worse than I thought.
Simon Gomez has found me again, and there’ll be hell to pay.
I climb to my feet and stagger into the wall, holding on to it for balance. Damn room is spinning, too fast. Bile rises in my throat. I have to get out. Escape before he comes for me.
Even as I stumble toward to door, I know it’s fucking useless. I’m inside the Club, in one of the basement rooms. There’s no way out that doesn’t go through Simon’s HQ.
I’m trapped like an animal waiting for slaughter.
But I try, with the same stubbornness that got me through a childhood punctured with black holes where my mind refused to hold
on to the memories. I reach the door, try the handle.
Locked. Of course.
I rattle it, jiggle and pull at it in the faint hope that the lock with give. But no such luck. “Come on, come on!” I slam my fist on the door. “Let me out!”
Knowing I’m locked up sends a shiver through me, and cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. My breaths go shallow and choppy. I can’t stand being locked inside, no doubt a souvenir of some childhood event I don’t want to recall.
Even as I’m banging my fist and shouting to be let out, I realize dimly this is the last thing I should be doing. Reminding them I’m here. Pissing them off. But whatever has been triggered in my mind is pulling my strings.
“Hey, open up! Open the fucking door, you assholes.” I’m howling like a crazy person, and I can’t stop. “Fuck you! Let me out! Let me out!”
Careful what you wish for, I guess, even if I have no control over myself right now.
With a bang, the door swings open, flinging me back. Christ. I hit the floor with my elbow, then my head bounces off the tiles, stunning me. I blink black spots from my eyes, and when I can see again, he’s there, leaning over me.
My worst nightmare.
