by A. Zavarelli
I tried to shrug him off, but he didn’t budge. He was completely grounded, and I was rootless. Beneath the intensity of his shadowy gaze, I felt the armor I’d forged so carefully disintegrating.
“You’re coming with me.” The emotionless words rumbled from his chest.
Clinging to the image of fearlessness I wore like a badge, I laughed. “Is that what you think?”
His head dipped forward, the response low and gruff. “That’s what I know.”
I humored him with a smile, but inside, my heart rattled against its cage. He wasn’t joking.
“Sorry.” I tried unsuccessfully to yank away again. “But you aren’t my type.”
His eyes flickered with dark amusement. “Who said you were mine?”
Flames licked over my skin, singeing my delicate ego. Of course, this caveman wouldn’t know designer from department store. His opinion shouldn’t matter, but for reasons I couldn’t fathom, it did. It was an anomaly. Everything about this interaction was out of my wheelhouse. Men were toys. Suits with wallets. They didn’t make me feel. They didn’t produce physical responses in me. But this one did.
“What do you want?” I whisper hissed as a few heads turned our way. All those couples pouring out of the art installation probably assumed we were having a lover’s spat.
His attention never wavered, and neither did his grip. “I already told you. You’re coming with me.”
“Like hell, I am.” My nails dug into the skin of his forearm in warning. We were in a public place, and I could easily make a scene, but he seemed aware that I wouldn’t. Because like it or not, the last thing I needed was to draw more attention.
He studied me, the black of his pupils melting into the amber of his irises. I released a shaky breath. We weren’t getting anywhere. Clearly, this man was insane. I was preparing for further negotiations when my arm suddenly dropped back to my side, free from his grip. For a second, I stood there, stunned. And then the stranger fished a phone out of his pocket and stirred the screen to life with his thumb, flashing it at me.
My eyes moved from his face to the screen, and my heart leaped into my throat. Time seemed to slow as comprehension took root. The ammunition he’d produced so casually was an image of Gypsy in front of our apartment in Summerlin North. Her fingers were wrapped around the handle of a suitcase, and she was wearing the same yellow romper she’d had on when I picked her up at the airport this afternoon.
“What the hell is this?” Acid corroded my voice as I fought for breath. “How did you get that?”
His response was to flick his thumb across the screen, producing a cascade of images that didn’t seem to end. Photos of my sister. Photos of me. At casinos. Lunch. Shopping. From the looks of it, there was months’ worth of surveillance neither of us had ever noticed. A crater opened up inside my chest, threatening to swallow me whole. This was bad. It was really fucking bad.
“What do you want?” I croaked.
“Come with me,” he answered without emotion.
On instinct, my eyes shot toward the exit, but it was a silly notion. There was no escape. Not if he had Gypsy. I turned my phone over in the palm of my hand, fumbling to dial her number, but his fingers closed over mine, and he shook his head as he snatched the phone from me.
“I need to know she’s okay. I’m not going anywhere—”
“Don’t be a pain in my ass, and your sister will be just fine.”
I tried to suck in air, but it felt like I was drowning. I’d been so busy putting out the fires of our past in California that I never saw this one coming. I was exhausted and terrified, and I’d never felt so helpless. Gypsy. Her name was the mantra playing on repeat in my head. I couldn’t let anything happen to her.
“Where are you taking me?” I swallowed.
“Back to your apartment.”
My jaw hinged open, but I couldn’t force any words over my dry tongue.
He gestured for me to move, and I fell into line, heels jarring into the pristine floor while his hand branded my lower back. My entire body was trembling by the time we reached the exit, and for a split second, I felt his eyes on my face. I couldn’t return his gaze, but I wondered if he was sorry for whatever he was about to do.
Without hesitation, he hooked a finger under the strap of my clutch and removed it from me. Fishing around for the claim ticket, he handed it to the valet once we were on the curb and then tucked the bag inside his leather vest. Further proof this was not a random incident. He knew I was here. He knew that I’d turned over my car to the valet on arrival, and the ticket was in my bag.
My brain tried to formulate a question, but before I could, the driver returned with my car, opening the passenger door for me first. I looked at the baby-faced employee, silently pleading for help, but his eyes didn’t move from my boobs. And that was how I ended up strapped in beside my abductor without a word or a fight. He looked even larger cramped into the driver’s seat of my tiny sports car, but he handled it with ease.
I didn’t give him directions. He knew exactly where to go. All I could do was stare out the window, my legs a jittery mess against the leather seat. Just three possible scenarios had caused this chain of events to unfold, and none of them were good.
“Do you have a name?” My hands twisted together in my lap as I asked.
The bearded stranger glanced at me across the small space of my front seat, pinching his eyebrows together slightly. That small action told me he had to think about it, and that was a good indication he was working for someone else. I knew I hadn’t ever conned him, and while there was a possibility Gypsy had, he wasn’t the type she usually went for either.
“You can call me Ace,” he grunted.
The gulf between us fell silent and remained that way until he pulled into my designated parking space at the apartment. I glanced at the spot where Gypsy’s car should be, but it was gone. It triggered a response in me that I hadn’t felt since I was a girl. My sister was the only thing I had in this world. I couldn’t lose her.
Ace got out of the car and left me to trail him up the stairs. I contemplated the possibility that he didn’t even know where Gypsy was. Maybe this had all been a lie designed to lure me back to the apartment alone.
The muscles in his shoulders flexed with every step he took, thick and menacing. I considered darting in the opposite direction. There was no way I could fight him off, so once we crossed that threshold, I was at his mercy. He had my Taser and the pepper spray I carried in my purse. I had nothing. But the thought of Gypsy propelled me forward, as he knew it would.
Ace used a key on his own ring to unlock our front door, and I stared at him in disbelief as he gestured me inside.
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded.
“I’ll tell you when you get your ass inside and sit down.”
My eyes narrowed, and I felt the first spark of rage simmering in my gut. That wasn’t a good sign of things to come. I needed to stay calm, and I needed to focus on Gypsy. If I lost control, there was no telling what would happen.
I tottered forward on unsteady heels, my legs suddenly boneless and weak. Somehow, I made it to the couch, and Ace shut the door behind him. He sat down beside me, leaving enough distance to give me hope that he wasn’t a physical threat. At least not yet.
My clutch clattered onto the side table as he dragged an envelope from the pocket of his vest, forking it over to me.
“What is this?” I squeezed the paper between my fingers, noting the thickness.
He leaned back and kicked his boot up onto the opposite thigh with a quietude that cemented my suspicions that this was just a job to him. One way or the other, he didn’t care. He wasn’t invested in my feelings or my humanity. He was here to perform a service for someone, and I needed to know exactly who that was.
Peeling back the metal prongs that held the seal in place, I dumped the contents of the envelope onto the coffee table. A choice I regretted once my hand moved over the photographs, spreading them apar
t. They were pictures of me. At clubs, casinos, hotels… pretty much anywhere I’d been over the course of the last few months. And some of them weren’t pretty. There was evidence of me stealing. Still shots of me cleaning out wallets, safes, and the like. I didn’t know how he’d even snapped them, but I could only conclude I must have been set up somehow. It was exactly what I’d feared, but that wasn’t even the worst of it.
The worst part was the raw vulnerability I felt when I saw the naked photos of me. It was a shame deeply embedded into the very fiber of my being, and something I promised myself I would never do. My body was mine now. It belonged to me and only me. But here was the proof I couldn’t deny that, in the pursuit of freedom, I had allowed my seductions to drag me into a depth of darkness I never wanted to revisit. I’d harnessed the power of a man’s universal weakness and used my sexuality as a weapon. A machine of war. And even if I’d never slept with any of those men, it didn’t matter. It didn’t change the filth crawling over my skin when I examined the evidence of my sins.
Agony split me in half, and when I raised a trembling hand to wipe away a stray tear, Ace had the decency to look away. He wasn’t taking an active role in my humiliation, but I wondered exactly how much of these he’d seen. If he’d studied them. If he thought I deserved whatever was coming to me.
“You’ve made your point.” I shoved the contents back into the envelope, crumpling the photos at the bottom. “Now tell me where my sister is. What’s it going to take to keep her safe?”
He shifted, but his eyes didn’t connect with mine. It was the first sign of human emotion he’d displayed. I could feel in my gut that he didn’t like this. But that didn’t change whatever was about to happen.
“You’ve stolen a lot of money and humiliated a lot of powerful men. Your sister too—”
“I get it.” My jaw clamped down so hard it felt as though my teeth might break. “Just get to the point. What’s happening here?”
A sigh heaved from his chest, and Ace leaned forward, propping his elbows on his thighs as he turned to study me. “Here’s how this goes down. Give up any fight you have now because it won’t change the circumstances. You want to protect your sister, and she wants to protect you. Tonight, my friend will offer her a deal that can save you both, and she will take it.”
“What friend?” My eyes darted around the apartment, checking for other signs of life I may have missed. “And what sort of deal?”
“It’s not important.” He shook his head. “The only thing you need to know is that you’re out of options, Birdie. Your sister will take the deal, and if you want things to go smoothly, you’ll accept it too.”
He didn’t have to tell me I was out of options. For my whole fucking life, I’d been out of options. Trading one exploitation for another was all I’d ever known. Jumping from one frying pan to a different fire.
“Tell me about the deal,” I pressed, unwilling to accept that our house of cards was crumbling around us.
The vein in his neck throbbed as dark hot eyes pierced right through me. “The terms of that arrangement are between Gypsy and my friend, and all you need to know is she’ll be staying with him now. Your part of the deal is much easier. So easy, it only requires one thing from you. Leave town, and don’t come back.”
“No,” I croaked. “That will never happen. You’ll have to kill me first.”
“You’ve made your bed.” Ace spoke through gritted teeth. “Now you have to lie in it.”
BIRDIE GODDAMNED BLUE. FLASHES OF her wove through my mind like spidery webs, obliterating my focus and ratcheting my frustration. I’d punched a one-way ticket for this merry-go-round since the day I’d carted her ass out of the Venetian a little over a year ago.
One simple request. That was all I’d asked of her. Leave town, and don’t come back. But could she do that?
No. She never fucking did what she was told. And here we were, caught up in this game of cat and mouse all over again. Only, who was the cat and who was the mouse was still to be determined as she prowled the floor, undoubtedly seeking her next victim. She’d moved on from casinos after she’d come to understand I had eyes everywhere. Whenever I learned she was back in town, a simple text was usually enough to bring her to heel. She’d make herself scarce, and I’d watch her from a distance until she popped back up again. The girl was a fucking boomerang.
Rinse and repeat.
She only saw me when I wanted her to, but my job with her was never done. It was becoming a fucking problem. Lucian asked me to keep an eye on her, so I did. His interests rested squarely on her sister, and Birdie was not part of that equation. Once she’d learned that Gypsy had signed the deal Lucian offered, she no longer had a dog in that fight. But Birdie was still running wild, and I found myself chasing every lead I got on her like I was a goddamned fiend. She thought she’d outsmart me by changing up her scene. Casinos, clubs, they were all the same to me. Either way, she didn’t belong here.
Lights strobed over the bare flesh of her shoulders, highlighting her silhouette in shades of purple and blue. Music pulsed, vibrating up through the floor and into my pounding head like an unrelenting migraine. Something about this girl managed to provoke every last nerve I had.
Tonight, she was wearing a gold slip of a dress that was far too short for my liking. It dipped low in the front, exposing the rounded curves of her braless tits. It wouldn’t take much to drag that fabric aside to uncover all that soft, round flesh. Every fucker in the place was thinking about it, myself included.
With so many eyes on her, she hadn’t even noticed me in the dark corner. She rarely did when I watched her this way. But I thought she could sense me. I’d catch her looking over her shoulder, her fingers brushing over her neck as though she could feel the physical caress of my eyes on her skin. Sometimes, her armor would crack, and a glimpse of her vulnerability would shine through. She was on edge. Alert, but persistent. Then a moment later, she’d snap out of it and return to the game, more intent than ever.
I didn’t understand the motivation behind her desperation to repeat this cycle. At first, I’d assumed it was an addiction. What else could compel her to live in a hell where every day was the same and nothing ever changed?
On the surface, she was an enchantress, glowing with pleasure and sin. But I’d had plenty of time to pick her apart. She was exhausted. Anxious. Flighty. There had to be a reason she subjected herself to this, but it was a piece of the puzzle I had yet to figure out.
“Can I get you another drink?” The waitress intercepted my vision, and I shook my head, eager for her to move along. But she didn’t. When I glanced up at her, a pair of curious eyes roamed over my face. Some chicks liked the ex-convict look I’d never bothered to rebrand. The beard prompted assumptions that I’d be more than happy to take them out back and give them a rough going-over. Or so I’d been told.
“How about something to eat?” she offered, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.
Again, I shook my head. “I’m good.”
She hesitated, conjuring up another offer to throw my way, and my eyes narrowed. I’d heard more than a few times that I was a scary looking son of a bitch, and it didn’t take much to destroy whatever fantasy her imagination weaved. The waitress scurried off without another word, but by the time she disappeared, it looked like Birdie had too.
Fuck.
I scanned the sea of pulsing bodies, my head pounding as the noise drilled into my temples like a fucking jackhammer. I hated these places. I hated every loud, throbbing beat of the music. Every drunken, glazed stare tossed my way as I pushed through the crowd. The gold dress wasn’t anywhere in sight, and that left only one conclusion. I’d find her in the alley.
Warm air hit my face as I stepped outside and turned the corner. It didn’t take long to find the little criminal. Her honeyed voice drifted through the shadows as she demanded the poor fool’s wallet.
The guy was obviously from out of town. Rich trust fund kid with his pants down around h
is ankles and a dick that sagged under the realization he’d been played. But it still burned me. Had she kissed him? Touched him?
History told me otherwise. She’d never let them touch her before. She’d never let it get that far. But maybe that was only in my head.
“The watch too.” Birdie nodded to his wrist as she emptied the wallet and stuffed the cash into her bag.
The kid hesitated. “But it was my father’s.”
She paused, and it was moments like these that I knew she wasn’t truly lost. “Fine, keep the watch. What else do you have?”
“My cuff links,” he offered, eyeing the Taser in her hand. “They’re gold.”
She extracted them and waved her weapon of choice. “Don’t follow me.”
He nodded, and she turned on her heel at the same time I ducked around the corner. As much as I’d like to stick around and smack the shit out of her ass for being so reckless, she didn’t need to know I was ever there.
Back at the compound, I smoked a blunt and downed a shot of whiskey before bed. I still felt restless. It had been a long fucking day, and I had a lot of pent-up tension.
Stripping off my clothes, I stood in the middle of my bathroom, the cool familiarity of a pocketknife against my palm. Old urges resurfaced as I twisted the handle between my fingers, recalling the day’s events. I closed my eyes, and the ghosts of my past weren’t far behind.
It’s your fault she’s dead, boy. You good for nothin’ piece of shit. You killed her. Satan birthed you from the fiery pits of hell before he delivered you from that womb. We have to pay for our sins in this life, and the only way to save your soul is to bleed the devil out of your veins.
The tip of my blade pressed against the raised flesh on my chest, but I hesitated. A year ago, it would have twisted and snarled through the scar tissue until a river of red leaked down my torso and dripped onto the bathroom tile. I tossed the knife aside and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. Every letter carved into my chest had been retraced since Ed branded me. But there was no satisfaction in that pain anymore.
