Collateral

by Callie Hart

  “Sloane…I’m yours,” he whispers. I feel like I’m choking on my own tongue. I can’t have heard him right, surely? Zeth Mayfair doesn’t submit to anybody. But the truth of his words are right there in his eyes, all over his face, written in the lines of his powerful, possessive body. He is mine. He is giving himself to me. And I know he’s not just talking about this very moment, the shared secrets of our bodies moving together in the half light as Seattle slowly comes to life. He’s talking about all of him. He’s talking about always. He is mine, and I am his, and suddenly it feels like everything is snapping into place.

  I climb on top of him, positioning myself over his straining cock, and I sink myself down onto him. I need to feel him inside me more than anything else I’ve ever needed. It seems like the final part of a silent promise we’re making to each other, and to join our bodies together is the most sacred part of that promise. Zeth’s hands find my hips. He takes hold of me, and doesn’t let me go. With eyes locked, we move against each other in powerful, potent strokes, the two of us no longer separate, but more.

  “Fuck, Sloane. Hold on.” Zeth sits up, and then his arms are around me, holding me so tight I think I’m going to pass out. I shift so I can wrap my legs around him, and then he’s kissing me, stealing my breath from me. His hands take ahold of my hair now; he pulls my head back to gain access to my neck, his teeth biting into my skin.

  “Ahhh! Oh, shit, Zeth, I’m gonna—” I don’t need to finish that sentence. Zeth lifts me straight up, spins me over, still inside me, and throws me back down on the bed, landing heavily on top of me. He’s shaking, his whole body vibrating—he’s about to come, too.

  The fire of the moment burned my hangover away long ago, though my head is still swimming and dizzy. Dizzy from him. From lack of oxygen, and from the intensity of the want stabbing through my body every time Zeth pulls out of me. The loss of him feels too great to bear. He drives himself back into me each time, as though he feels that loss too, and is dead set on remedying it.

  “Come for me, Sloane,” he growls. “Come hard for me. Scream for me.”

  I do. I scream so loud I’m pretty sure the people five floors down hear, and I don’t care. In the perfect moment where I come, Zeth comes too, roaring with me, clinging onto me like he’s afraid I might drift away. Trapped under his shaking, sweat-covered body, there’s no chance of that, though. I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and so is he.

  Zeth lifts himself onto his elbows, but he doesn’t pull out of me. He rests his forehead against mine and stares at me, breathing heavily, fighting to regain himself. We don’t say anything. We don’t need to. I tell him everything he needs to know with my eyes, and he does the same. And then we fall asleep.

  I wake up, and I don’t try to kill my girlfriend. As beginnings to a day might go, this is an epically fucking brilliant one. I get out of bed and head to the kitchen to find Pippa Newan doubled over the kitchen sink, throwing her guts up.

  “Good morning, Pippa,” I tell her. Pippa from now on. Not Newan.

  She shoots me a filthy look. “Got any drugs in this place?”

  “If there are, they’re not legal,” I inform her. “Besides, you’re the one with the script pad. Prescribe yourself something.” I slap her on the back, doing my best to hide my evil smile when she groans.

  I stand out in the hallway for thirty minutes, making a number of phone calls. There’s still that one loose end I’m working on tidying up, but by the time I’m done on the phone, everything is set in place. I have plans for Sloane today. Big plans. I feel positively fucking devious when I head back into the apartment, almost itching with excitement. Been a long time since I’ve felt like this. In fact, I can’t ever remember feeling exactly quite like this.

  Michael and Sloane are up. The three of them, Sloane, Michael and Pippa, are slumped on the couch in the lounge, looking mighty sorry for themselves. Sloane looks the least sorry—I’m pretty sure I fucked the hangover right out of her this morning—but she’s clearly still a little green around the gills. Ernie is spread out across all three of their laps, docked tail quickly flicking back and forth like a demented windshield wiper.

  “You should have me put down,” Michael groans. “I feel worse than death. What happened last night?”

  He doesn’t remember me coming in and holding him up in the shower, or he doesn’t want to remember. Either way, I don’t say anything about it. “You were all disgracefully drunk. I put you all to bed like fucking three-year-olds.”

  “Any three-year-old put to bed by you would be mentally traumatized,” Pippa says, pressing her fingertips into her eye sockets. I point at Michael, enjoying the look of panic on his face.

  “On your feet. I have a job for you this morning.” Michael looks like he’s about to puke again, but he doesn’t. He lifts Ernie’s backend up so he can rise shakily to his feet, and takes a deep breath.

  “What? How are you planning on torturing me now?”

  I write down what I need him to find for me on a Post-It Note, which I hand over, and Michael’s eyebrows rocket up to his hairline. Or where his hairline would be if he didn’t have a buzz cut. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  I shake my head. “Better get moving, I need all that by the end of the day.”

  Michael shoots Sloane a dubious look and then leaves, grumbling under his breath.

  She gives me a confused look. “What was that about?”

  “You need to get in the shower. We’re leaving in twenty minutes,” I tell her. “And despite how lovely it is to see you, Pippa, it’s time you went home. My girl and I have things to attend to.”

  Pippa glowers at me. Good to see some things haven’t changed, but it’s nice to see she can bear to be in the same room as me for more than two minutes without trying to warn Sloane off me, too.

  Once Pippa’s disappeared and Sloane’s showered and changed, I drive her across the city, listening to her softly humming in the car. She begins to get antsy as we approach the warehouse. “Where…where are we going, Zeth?”

  “Exactly where you think we’re going.”

  “Oh.”

  Since we’re no longer being stalked by crazy gang bosses, it’s definitely safe for us to come back here. I can understand her hesitancy, though. Things have been easier at The Regency Rooms. They’re a blank slate. And, well, Lacey never stayed there with us. All of her things are at the warehouse, scattered all over the place—a fact I used to give her shit for all the time.

  I haven’t been back here since well before she died. If I could get out of being here now, I fucking would, but I need to face it. I need to begin processing what life’s gonna be like without my sister in it. When we arrive at the warehouse, we head inside in silence.

  The place feels like it’s haunted, though not by Lacey. It feels haunted by the people we were a couple of weeks ago—angry, lost, and unhappy. To some degree, we’re still all of those things, but now things just feel different. Now, I don’t want to be any of those things.

  We walk past the many reminders of my sister, Sloane’s hand in mine, and I guide her to the access door past my bedroom. Down we go, down the stairs into the basement, and I collect the sledgehammer I left resting against the wall months and months ago, the last time I came down here.

  “Here.” I hold it out to Sloane. She eyes it cautiously, folding her arms across her chest.

  “What do you want me to do with that?”

  “I want you to smash it into that wall behind you.”

  “What?”

  “Smash it into the wall. Tear it down.” She just looks at me like I’m mad.

  “Are you going to bury me behind there or something?” she asks. Once upon a time, she might have asked me that question in all seriousness. Thankfully, she’s joking now.

  “Just do it, angry girl.”

  Sloane reaches out and accepts the handle of the sledgehammer. She’s way stronger than I give her credit for, though this shouldn’t come as a surprise to
me anymore. I know exactly just how fucking strong she is. With one last mildly concerned look at me, Sloane hikes the sledgehammer onto her shoulder and then swings.

  The thin layer of plaster cracks and explodes in a shower of dust and debris, and there it is—a huge hole in the wall. “Oh my god. I just did that,” Sloane says, excitement creeping into her voice. “Here,” she holds the hammer back out to me. “You try.”

  “No.” I take a deep breath. “You do it.”

  She frowns at me, then. “Why?”

  “Because if I start hitting things, Sloane, I’ll never stop. And right now, I’m trying really hard…” That’s the truth of the matter. I’ve been calm. I’ve somehow managed to maintain this delicate, fragile calm, but I have no idea how. I am still consumed by a rage I’m too worried to even think about—the very depth of it scares me. If I give in to that rage for even a second, I will sink into it and I don’t know how long it’ll take me to climb back out again. And I need to be here, right now. For Sloane. For me, too.

  She nods, understanding like I knew she would. It takes her seven more clean swipes at the wall to create a hole big enough for me to reach inside and pull out the bags I left behind there.

  “Duffel bags? Tell me you didn’t make me smash down a wall so you could retrieve some sex toys?”

  I smile, testing the weight of the duffels, one in either hand. “No. Not sex toys. Open it.” I hold one out to her.

  She scoots down and unzips the bag slowly, as though there might be a bomb inside. Her eyes grow wide when she sees the stacks of money.

  “What the hell is all this?”

  “This is eight years’ worth of pay from my last job. My boss was an asshole, in case you were wondering why I quit.” I’ve never needed much to live; I was always very careful with what I spent. Eight years’ worth of pay from Charlie is a shit ton of cash.

  “That…that’s just obscene. That’s an obscene amount of money, Zeth.”

  “Yes, it is. And right now we have to hurry. We’re gonna be late.”

  No matter how hard she questions me—girl could give fucking Lowell a run for her money—I don’t tell her where we’re going after that. I throw the bags of cash into the trunk of the car I still have on loan from The Regency Rooms, and then I drive Sloane over to the western part of the city, in the direction of the hotel. That’s not where we’re heading, though. When we reach our destination, I come to a halt, wondering what the hell she’s going to say when she realizes what I’ve done.

  She takes one look out of the window and then spins on me. “A fighting gym? You’ve brought me to a fighting gym?”

  I take the keys out of the ignition and press the teeth into the palm of my hand. Maybe this was a stupid idea. “Yeah. Not just any fighting gym. My fighting gym.” I glance at her out of the corner of my eye—does she think I’m fucking crazy?—to find that she’s not looking at me at all. She’s looking back up at the building, squinting at it like the two-story structure is getting harder and harder to see. Perhaps she just can’t imagine it—me owning a legitimate business. Doing something aboveboard, making it work.

  I stare at the car key in my hand. I should put it back into the ignition. Drive away. I’m about to, but then Sloane’s hand rests on my arm, and she looks like she’s on the verge of tears. “So we’re not going to leave Seattle?”

  “What? Fuck no. I’m not running from my home, Sloane.” It hadn’t even crossed my mind that she’d expect us to leave. Not now. “There’s no reason for us to go. We’re staying right here. And if anyone’s stupid enough to wanna come fuck with me, they’ll know exactly where I am.” I point at the building outside: the cracked, crumbling brickwork in desperate need of repointing, the faded wooden board, complete with peeling green paint that reads O’Shannessey’s Irish Boxing Club For Boys.

  Sloane touches the window with her fingertips, checking the place out again, eyes fixed on the sign. “O’Shannessey’s? As in the same O’Shannessey that…”

  I pull a tight smile. “Not for him, no. For his dad. Father O’Shannessey had two sons. One of them was my best friend, Murphy. Charlie killed him to hurt me, slit his throat right in front of me. The O’Shannessey you had the pleasure of meeting was his brother. He watched as Charlie killed Murphy, and he did nothing to stop it. He let it happen, and then he stuck with Charlie all these years since.” I shrug my shoulders—no matter how many times I’ve tried to reconcile that in my head, especially while I was sitting in prison with nothing better to think about, I’ve never been able to understand. “Father O’Shannessey’s too old to run this place now. Michael brought me here yesterday morning to burn off some steam, and it just made sense. I knew I needed to buy it.”

  My certainty yesterday, the deep knowing I’d experienced, seems to have fled me now, though. Fuck. This was a stupid idea. How the hell did I think running a boxing gym would be a smart move? I have one skillset, and one skillset only. Hurting people is all I’m good for. I curl my fist around the key, feeling the bite of pain and clinging onto it for dear life.

  “I think…I think it’s a wonderful idea, Zeth. I think it’s perfect. I can help you run the place.”

  I let go of the key, risking another glance at her. Her expression has changed, as if it was only taking her a moment to refocus her vision of the place, but now she’s seeing it more clearly. Not O’Shannessey’s Irish Boxing Club for Boys anymore, but something else entirely.

  “What will you call it?” she asks.

  “Blood ‘N’ Roses Fighting Gym,” I tell her.

  She laughs. “Blood ‘N’ Roses? Why Blood ‘N’ Roses? Seems a little contradictory, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. It just seemed appropriate. It’s the life I’ve been given so far. Not perfect. Far from perfect. It’s been bloody and hard, with plenty of sharp edges, but…” I look at her, listening to me so intently, and I feel like a total dick.

  “What? Tell me,” she says, laughing quietly.

  “But it’s had its beautiful moments, too.” You. It’s had you in it, and you make the rest of that shit worth it. I shrug. “Fighting’s a lot like that. It’s hard. Pushes you to the limits of what you’re capable of, but then it makes you stronger and clears your head, too. Gives you strength for when you need it later. Fuck it. I’m probably not making much sense.”

  “You’re making perfect sense.” Sloane climbs out of her seat and into my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. “I get it. And I think it’s perfect, too. The gym’s a perfect idea, and so is the name. It’s going to be a roaring success. And you can teach me how to beat up anyone who wants to give me shit. Deal?”

  I’m about to kiss her, but that stops me dead in my tracks. I cup her face in both of my hands and I make sure she believes me when I tell her, “No one’s going to be giving you any shit from here on out, Sloane. No one. I will kill anyone that tries. You’re going to have a normal life from now on. Well, as normal as it can get with me as a boyfriend. But you don’t have a choice in that matter, I’m afraid.”

  She smiles, and that smile lights up my whole fucking world. “I don’t want a choice, Zeth. I just want you.”

  We get out of the car, and I collect one of the bags of money from the trunk. We go inside together, and I get to introduce my girl to Father O’Shannessey.

  And then O’Shannessey’s Irish Boxing Club for Boys becomes the Blood ‘N’ Roses Fighting Gym.

  We spend three hours at the gym, while an excited Father O’Shannessey shows us around and regales us with stories of the countless boxing legends that have trained with him over the decades. I’m a little confused as to why Zeth calls O’Shannessey Father all the time—he definitely doesn’t look, act, or dress like he’s been running any churches lately—but that’s only until the old man with the shock of silver hair winks at me and says, “I left the priesthood when I met me boys’ mother. I would have defied any warm-blooded man to stay celibate with that woman sitting in his pews. That was over
forty years ago now, but these ingrates still insist on calling me Father.”

  I’ve no idea if Father O’Shannessey knows his only remaining living son is now, in fact, dead, but I don’t breathe a word of it. Zeth catches my eye and I get the feeling that the news is better left unsaid. At least by me, anyway, which I’m grateful for.

  I let the men talk, and I walk around, imagining how to improve the place, what we can do to freshen it up—an awful lot—and how to draw in a younger crowd. I’m sure Zeth has plenty of ideas of his own, but I can see it myself—the potential the place has. It’s exciting, picturing how everything will work out here, yet I still feel like my stomach’s in knots as I familiarize myself with the place. I know why, too. I can’t think about that, though. Zeth will be good at this, and so will I. It will be our life together. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, and the two men are watching me, neither saying a word anymore. Zeth gives me a cautious smile, still leonine and confident, but a little secretive, too, and I know everything has worked out the way it was meant to.

  ******

  At five, Zeth drives me back to The Regency Rooms and tells me to wait in our apartment. I make a fuss over Ernie, feeling like crap for leaving him so long, and make myself a cup of tea. Zeth returns shortly after with a backpack slung over his shoulder and two garment bags in his hand.

  “Here, you’d better put this on. We’re going to be late.”

  “Again?” I eye the garment bag he’s holding out for me. The last time I wore something that came out of a garment bag, we all nearly got blown up. My body still aches every time I move in evidence of that fact. I’m black and blue down one side of my body from where I hit the ground so hard. “Late for what?”

  “Less questions. More action. Do I need to dress you myself, Sloane?” He takes a step forward and the challenge is clear in his eyes. From what I can tell, I sincerely doubt he wants to dress me; I get the feeling he’s more interested in undressing me.