Bad Boy Romance Collection: The Volanis Brothers Trilogy

by Meg Jackson

  Dressing for his morning run, Damon opted against a shirt. It was proving to be an unusually hot early summer, and at his size, Damon would easily sweat through even the lightest fabric. Before leaving, he checked himself in the mirror. He’d need to trim his black, bushy beard. His hair needed a trim, too; the same midnight black as his beard, he kept it short. A shadow of sideburns completed the dark frame around his face.

  He cocked his head as he flexed slightly. Until he’d gotten the call about the fight, he’d been more lax than usual in his workout, and it showed. He was still considerably massive; far bigger than his brothers, and big enough to make kids on the street look at him wide-eyed. But he had some catching up to do, it was true.

  He turned and eyed his newest ink, reminding himself that Cristov still needed to finish it up. The bold-lined, bright-colored lighthouse reached down his ribcage, the tattoo a recent addition to a body full to bursting with traditional American designs. Eagles and dice and pin-up girls lounging in martini glasses, Felix the Cat drawn as a skeleton, a devil eating a melty slice of pizza, a bow-legged cowboy. He liked the strong lines, the bravado and the humor.

  Outside, just as he’d known, it was already muggy and warm despite not yet being 7am. He started his run at an even pace, taking a few laps around the trailer park before hitting the road. He waved to Dago Tenniss, who was standing guard at the trailer park entrance. It was 3 miles to the start of town, 3 miles back. He usually spent his morning run going through the salient details of his upcoming day. What was happening at his cheese shop, what was happening in the kumpania, when he would go to the gym and what he would eat for dinner.

  He had plenty to think about that day. He was expecting a shipment of very unique, very expensive brunost, Norwegian brown cheese, at his store, Let it Brie. He’d promised to help Ana set up for a tasting event at her store, meant to capitalize on the early-season tourism. A trip to the barber shop was in order, and there was a workout to fit in somewhere, too. And, the arts theater a few towns over was doing a one-night screening of “Wild Strawberries” with an accompanying lecture from a film studies professor down from Delaware State.

  But, with all those things he could have been thinking about, he couldn’t stop thinking about Tricia. She would be back any day now. Would she come to see him? Should he go to see her? She would be different. She had to be different. Would she be so different that what he saw in her, all those months ago, would be gone? Or would it be even better? Would she even want to see him – or would he be just a reminder of all she’d been through?

  She’d covered for him when the police arrived to investigate the kidnapping. Damon had shot a man who wasn’t posing an immediate threat to either of them. Rig, the man he’d killed, barely even had time to pull his gun before Damon’s bullet met his chest. Tricia had told the police that Damon saved her life, that the man had a gun to her head. She could hate him for that.

  She could hate him for being part of the reason she was kidnapped in the first place. She could hate him for knowing more about her than any human should know about someone they’d met twice. Damon had seen her the night Cristov brought her home, bruises like a necklace from what her boyfriend had done to her. And then he’d seen her tied up and shivering, had carried her through the woods as she clung to him like a child. He’d seen her at her worst. If the roles were reversed, he didn’t think he’d be too eager to see himself. Not if he wanted to move on.

  Six miles went by quickly, and Damon found himself back at the empty trailer, guzzling water. His phone was buzzing in the bedroom, but he took his time checking it. Cristov had texted him, presumably from Ricky’s bed.

  Tricia coming back next Tues, R. planning a dinner for everyone at diner on Wednesday. You in?

  Who was everyone? Was it Tricia’s idea, or Ricky’s? He sucked in a breath. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to see her. Soon. It had felt like long enough since the last time, at the trial, when she’d been ushered in and then away so quickly that they’d barely made eye contact. But Wednesday…that was the night he planned to leave for Miami. Fate had decided for him this time.

  Can’t that night, he typed back. Cheese stuff.

  He threw the phone on the bed and went back into the bathroom to take his second shower of the morning. He made it quick, washing off the sweat and stink. He still had an hour before he needed to be at the store, and he spent it at the kitchen counter with another cup of coffee.

  He listened to the clock tick, uneven. That clock had been slightly off for as long as he could remember. It was at the half-hour; the seconds slowed just slightly, almost imperceptibly. It was only through years and years of listening that Damon could recognize it.

  He’d mentioned it to Cristov, once, and been surprised when his younger brother had no idea what Damon was talking about. Kennick said he’d noticed, and always wanted to get a new clock, because it drove him crazy. But Kennick never remembered that when he was at the store. Damon urged Kennick not to replace it. He liked the inconsistency. It helped him meditate.

  He supposed that was a testament to the difference between them all. Cristov couldn’t sit still long enough to pay attention to minutia. Kennick paid attention to everything, wanted to fix everything, but his priorities made some things more memorable than others. Damon didn’t just pay attention to the minutia, he focused on it so deeply that he accepted every flaw, every little detail, as purposeful, useful.

  And then, of course, there was Mina, who had grown up in that trailer but moved out to live with her girlfriends in another trailer when she hit 16. He’d asked her about the clock, curious. She’d laughed, told him that she did notice the fact that it was a little off. And then she’d leaned in, winked, and told him that the reason it was a little off was because she’d knocked it off the wall one day when she was sneaking some cookies from the cabinet. It had never worked quite the same after she put it back up.

  So Damon sat and listened to the broken clock and thought about other things that were a little off. Like dreams and women and hearts and histories. It was plenty to think about to fill an hour.

  5

  The sigh Tricia released as the storage unit door rolled up could have sent a dandelion’s seeds scattering. Her eyes travelled over the stacked boxes, the familiar furniture, the pictures that had once lined her walls. So much stuff. So much damn stuff.

  “Don’t worry,” Ricky said, sensing Tricia’s falling mood. “I’ll help you with everything. And you don’t have to deal with it anytime soon. Mi casa is su casa for as long as you need.”

  “Thanks,” Tricia said, turning to her friend with a wan smile. “I appreciate it, really. But I’m going to have to get my life back together eventually…”

  “No rush, though,” Kim said from Tricia’s other side. “I mean, the library will definitely take you back, but no one expects you to jump right back into things.”

  Tricia nodded, only half-listening to her friends’ comforting words. She’d arrived back in Kingdom the previous afternoon, after spending a few nights at her parents’ house in Dover. She’d gone straight to Ricky’s, where she’d be crashing while she looked for a new place to live and got back on her feet.

  She had enough in her savings, including a generous amount that she’d won in her civil suit against the Steel Dragons, that getting back to work wasn’t a huge priority. She’d only gotten the job in Massachusetts because it gave her day structure and routine, and a good chunk of time where she could focus on something other than herself. She expected the same benefits from getting her job back at the Kingdom Public Library.

  But the thought of walking back into that little building, where everyone already knew everything, was daunting. She’d known her coworkers there for years, and she didn’t imagine they’d be any better at making her feel normal than her coworkers in Massachusetts had been. She never liked most of those women in the first place, and they’d had plenty of time to twist and turn her story while she was gone. She expected plenty
of faux-sympathetic smiles and careful questions. She wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Seeing all her things in storage, gathering dust, only made her more aware of how long she’d been gone, how different things were now. Even things that were exactly the same were different. Everything seemed bathed in a new light. All the old streets and stores – they were intimately familiar and yet wholly alien. The only thing that still felt real were her friends, Ricky and Kim, and even they seemed to be handling her with care.

  She’d cried when she saw them again at last, the three women colliding in a big, sloppy embrace. She’d cried looking through the photo album from Kim’s wedding, which Tricia had missed. It looked to have been a beautiful day. She’d already seen most of the pictures on Facebook and in e-mails that Kim sent her, but looking at them in person drove an aching desire to turn back time through her heart. She should have been there, standing beside Ricky and Mina at Kim’s side.

  Among the pictures of the bride and groom were a few pictures of Ricky and Cristov. When Tricia had left, Ricky and Cristov had been broken up, but they’d gotten back together at the wedding, and the pictures left no question as to why. Both her friends were in love. Real, pure, perfect love. And she felt like she’d missed the chance to see it happen. Even all the phone conversations didn’t make up for actually being there.

  And, of course, there were other changes. Ricky had quit drinking. Kim, as mayor, had completely overhauled the town’s Main Street, making it cleaner, prettier, and more welcoming. There were new stores cropping up, businesses revitalized by the influx of tax revenue and tourist money. Tricia’s hometown wasn’t a crumbling phantom anymore. It was a quaint, picturesque hamlet in the hills. It was lovely. Tricia had never felt less comfortable, less at home.

  “Are you sure you’re up for dinner?” Ricky asked, pulling Tricia from her thoughts. Kim and Ricky had planned a dinner at Sid’s, the little old diner that was still Kingdom’s best kept secret. Tricia had asked them to invite Kennick and Cristov; it seemed wrong that she had spent so little time with the men who had captured her best friend’s hearts.

  She knew that she would always have a place in the sisters’ lives; by extension, that meant she should try and figure out her place in the Volanis brothers’ lives. Besides, she owed them her life. After they’d burst into the barn to rescue her, she’d only seen them fleetingly, in police stations and courthouses. She hoped that seeing them again, under normal circumstances, would bring her one step closer to feeling like it was all truly over.

  “Of course,” Tricia said, nodding enthusiastically. “It was my idea that they come, remember?”

  “Right,” Kim said, stepping forward to pull down the storage unit door once more. “Well, then we should get going. Here’s the key, by the way.”

  Kim slipped the little fob into Tricia’s hand while Ricky linked her arm into Tricia’s. While the three women moved through the maze of hallways towards the exit, a question lingered on Tricia’s mind, unasked for reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint – or didn’t want to pinpoint. Would Damon come?

  She hadn’t specifically asked Ricky and Kim to invite him, but a part of her hoped they would do so. And, the Volanis brothers were close – if Kennick and Cristov weren’t with their women, they were with Damon. So it would make sense for him to come along. But she hadn’t asked. She didn’t know. Maybe…

  “So, Sid’s wife, you know, Alise, she and Ana, who runs the market, they’ve been thick as thieves ever since they met, and Alise had Sid add all this weird stuff to the menu. I mean, not, like, weird, but like…weird. Not diner food, anyway. Spaghetti in squid ink. Borscht. Beef tartare.”

  “No shit,” Tricia mused, sitting in the passenger seat while Kim drove and Ricky leaned forward from the backseat, speaking a mile a minute. It was Ricky’s car, but everyone felt safer with Kim at the wheel. Ricky may have quit drinking, but she was still an impulsive – and angry – driver.

  “Some of it’s okay,” Kim offered. “I like the borscht.”

  “That tartare thing though…” Ricky’s nose scrunched.

  “It’s raw beef,” Kim said in a low tone, as though sharing a secret.

  “Raw beef? Isn’t that illegal?” Tricia asked, mimicking Ricky’s expression.

  “Raw fish is legal,” Kim said, turning into Sid’s parking lot. “They have that thing on the menu now about how pregnant women can’t eat it.”

  “They still have that oyster po’boy on the menu though, right?” Tricia asked, licking her lips in anticipation. Ricky grinned.

  “Yup. And the best French fries this side of the Delaware River,” Ricky said, leaning back to unfasten her seatbelt.

  “The boys are already here,” Kim said, pointing to a Ford pick-up parked a few spaces away. “That’s Kennick’s truck.”

  The boys, Tricia thought, then felt her heart tightening slightly. She looked at the truck. There was a backseat, but it was small. She didn’t think that three big men like the Volanis brothers would feel comfortable sitting in it together. Her heart loosened, falling at the same time. She told herself to stop having feelings she had no right to have. If she wanted Damon there, she should have asked them to invite him. If he wasn’t there, she couldn’t be disappointed.

  He probably doesn’t even want to see me, she thought suddenly. All she could do was remind him that a man had died at his hand. Maybe he didn’t care about that, about what he’d done. But she remembered the look on his face, when they’d finally got to safety. It was the look of a man who wouldn’t sleep well that night. Who wouldn’t sleep well for some time to come.

  That was at least one thing they had in common.

  Inside the diner, the gentle and happy clatter of conversation and silverware against ceramic covered the final confirmation of Tricia’s disappointment. Cristov and Kennick sat waiting for them at a corner booth. Cristov turned when Kennick nodded in the girls’ direction. Tricia put a smile on.

  Kennick greeted his wife with a kiss, Cristov doing the same for Ricky. There was room at the end of both seats for Tricia, and she chose to sit beside Kennick and Kim – mostly because she was more interested in watching Cristov and Ricky. Marriage had settled things for the husband and wife. A boyfriend and girlfriend would provide more entertaining body language.

  “It’s good to see you, Tricia,” Cristov said, his eyes warm. She felt closer to Cristov than she did to Kennick; Cristov had been the one to save her from Paul, had brought her to his trailer to keep her safe afterwards. “You look good.”

  “Thanks, it’s good to see you too” she said back, the smile no longer quite as forced. She turned to Kennick. “Both of you.”

  She took a moment to look around the diner, breathe in the familiar smells. A lot of familiar faces, too. She caught a few of them looking back, their eyes widening slightly in recognition. She felt like shrinking back into her seat, and fought it. As much as it no longer felt like her hometown, this was her hometown. The stares were something she would need to get used to.

  “How are you doing?” Kennick asked. The question was so casual, so normal, yet there was nothing cavalier about the asking.

  “I’m good,” Tricia said after a brief pause. “I’m…getting used to being back.”

  Kennick nodded. Tricia was struck by the green of his eyes. All the Volanis siblings had those green eyes, but there were subtle differences in each shade. Kennick’s were like a level sea. Cristov’s were lighter, like clover. And Damon’s, she could still remember, were the darkest. Forest green, almost shadowy.

  “We just went to the storage unit,” Ricky said, steering the conversation towards something lighter. “I forgot how much stuff was in there.”

  “I haven’t,” Cristov said with a grin. “Neither have my muscles.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tricia said. “I meant to thank you guys for helping clear it out. I was…well, you know.”

  She swallowed. Maybe this dinner was a bad idea, after all. What could they talk about t
hat wouldn’t wind back to the event that linked them all together? Tricia had left so suddenly, afraid of the bikers coming after her, that she’d left everything behind. It had been the Volanis family that cleared out the house and brought everything into storage. She owed them her life and the return of her security deposit.

  “Of course,” Kennick said. “It was nothing. We were happy to do it.”

  “They were suitably rewarded for their good deed,” Ricky said with a wink. “No thanks necessary, trust me.”

  Tricia had to laugh at that, joined in by Cristov, while Kim blushed and Kennick shook his head, a smile on his face. Cristov slid his arm across Ricky’s shoulders. Tricia felt a bittersweet happiness, seeing the adoration in Cristov’s eyes as he looked down at her friend. She’d always liked Cristov. She was glad Ricky had finally come around to seeing how good he really was.

  A waitress came by and took their orders; there was no need to look at a menu, as everyone had their own personal favorites. Conversation turned to town gossip, much to Tricia’s relief. By the time the food arrived, Tricia had almost managed to forget what had kept her away from Kingdom from so long.

  But every time she looked at the empty space across from her in the booth, she remembered something else.

  The person she wished was sitting there. The one person she wanted to see.

  That strange and unavoidable longing seemed to get stronger by the minute, and even overcame her hunger as she picked at her sandwich. She’d been looking forward to it, an old slice of heaven that had never ceased to make her happy. It smelled just like she remembered it. But the few bites she took didn’t taste right. Or, at least, it didn’t taste the same. It didn’t really taste like anything. The conversation around her slowly receded into background noise. Her shoulders slumped. She played with a fry, twirling it in her ketchup. She told herself, again and again, to cheer up. Enjoy herself. Stop thinking about him.