by A. Zavarelli
Ace and I both took a drink from the shot glass, and then he topped us off.
“I think it would be easier,” I said, “if you just tell me what you know about my life. Let’s just open that can of worms and make a fucking mess and leave it all out in the open.”
He sat in his own thoughts for a few moments, staring off into the distance before he unleashed all the information he’d managed to gather on me.
“I know that you like pink,” he began. “You get bored easily, and you flirt to get what you want. You like wine and dessert, and you always expect people to see the worst in you. You don’t like to talk about yourself, and you’re at your kindest when you think nobody is watching. I think you’re terrified of your own anger. You don’t want people to see you for who you really are because you’re afraid they won’t like it.”
“Gee, is that all?” I replied sarcastically, even though everything he said was so true it scared me.
“I know that Ricky Montoya was your stepfather,” he continued. “He was a piece of shit who didn’t take care of you girls, and I know he let his friends… touch you.”
His voice was rougher than I’d ever heard it, and I couldn’t bear to look at him. I couldn’t witness the emotions that admission brought up in him for fear of condemning myself to a lifetime of shame.
“Birdie.” Ace reached for my face. “Look at me.”
I shook my head, silent tears falling down my cheeks. “I don’t want to.”
“I need you to.”
Slowly, he turned my head toward him, and I held my breath, afraid of what I might see in his eyes. But no matter how hard I tried to find his disgust, his revulsion, his impending rejection… it wasn’t there.
“You aren’t what happened to you.” He dragged me into his lap, murmuring against my lips. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. And nothing they did to you could change the way I see you. Do you understand that?”
I nodded, and he rested his forehead against mine, breathing me in like I was his salvation. There was still a lot more he didn’t know. He hadn’t heard the worst of it yet. He hadn’t mentioned the thing I’d done. The thing I couldn’t escape from. And I wondered if it was because he just didn’t want to believe it or if he really didn’t know.
He reached around and grabbed the bottle of tequila, and we both took another drink straight from the bottle before he discarded it altogether. Our lips came together in a clash of lightning. We were all hands and teeth and heart and breath at that point.
Ace scrambled to get my robe open while I fumbled with the button on his jeans. We were drunk on tequila and each other, but in my mind, I knew I would never feel this again. Never would anyone else affect me this way. And for a moment, I almost blurted it out. I almost begged him to make me feel this way forever.
It was crazy, but the closer we became, the further I felt like I was drifting away from myself. I was lost at sea. Lost to these emotions I couldn’t understand or accept, yet with every breath, I paddled harder and harder to hold onto them. Our time together felt doomed, just as everything else in my life had. Good things didn’t happen to me. And they sure as hell didn’t happen to Huck either.
So I clung to him desperately as he thrust inside me, filling my body and soul with a sense of urgency to honor every second we had together. I closed my eyes and breathed him in. I kissed him. I worshipped his body with my hands. For so long, I had dreamed of this man with the whiskey-colored eyes. But how long did I get to keep him?
I didn’t find my release in our feverish romp on the sofa. At least, not in the way I expected. Instead, I cried when I curled into the sacred space between his neck and shoulder. Ace thrust deep, coming inside me on a sigh as he wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me as if he’d never let me go.
I didn’t know how long we stayed there like that, wrapped up in each other, both of us refusing to break away. He was still inside me, and I never wanted him to leave. But in the wake of my emotional reckoning, sleep took me captive.
A NAGGING SENSE OF LONELINESS stirred me from my dreams, and when I woke, I found that I was alone in Huck’s bed. The sheets were wrapped around my body in a tangled mess, evidence that the nightmares were real and not imagined.
It was still dark, but the nightlight Huck had plugged into my outlet shined beside me. The bedside clock display told me it was after midnight. I sat up, focusing on that light as my eyes adjusted. My chest was tight, and I felt like I was on the verge of panic as I looked around for Huck. Where was he?
Once I silenced my thoughts, the low murmurs of familiar voices drifted down the hall. Immediately, their presence ratcheted up my anxiety, as did the few broken words I could understand.
“Video… Evidence… Problem.”
I wanted to believe it was a lucid dream, but as I swung my legs over the bed and tiptoed down the hall, I knew it wasn’t. The light from the television cast an eerie glow over the living room as Huck, Lucian, and Gypsy all stared at the screen.
The grainy footage couldn’t be confused for anything else. That memory was as vivid in my mind as it was on TV. And though I’d never known that camera had existed, it was obvious from my rage-fueled expression I didn’t care.
Ricky’s favorite game was using my love for Gypsy against me. He did the same to her. The things we had sacrificed in order to protect each other were innumerable. That man was a living, breathing nightmare until he wasn’t anymore. Until I made him go away.
Conveniently, the footage left out the events leading up to my crime. There was no evidence of the things Ricky had done or tried to do. This story left out the part when he decided to come for my sister. The film started violently and without warning with a slow-motion play by play of me plunging a knife into Ricky’s back before he dropped to his knees in front of my sister.
On screen, Gypsy’s face was awash with the obvious horror she must have felt over what I’d done. Deep down, I’d always suspected it, but seeing it recorded, I couldn’t deny it. She was so horrified by the scene unfolding before her she couldn’t even move. It was clear now that the monster was no longer Ricky. It was me. The girl in the trance-like state who punctuated every vicious stab with a declaration.
“You. Won’t. Hurt. Us. Anymore.”
Ricky was far past dead at that point. But the rage I’d bottled up over the years was like a Molotov cocktail inside me. It had exploded, and it couldn’t be contained. An endless abyss of pain opened inside my chest as I cried for that girl on the screen. The fragile, broken teenager who had done something so unspeakable, she would never look at herself the same way again.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst was the blank expression on Huck’s face when he hung his head in his hands and shuddered. I didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what he was thinking. I wasn’t any better than the man who raised him. I was a killer just like him. And how could Ace ever love someone with such bloody hands?
Silence swallowed up the room, and my shame forbade me from revealing myself. I stepped back into the shadows, listening as the conversation continued. Lucian explained that someone had sent this to their house. Between the three of them, none of them could figure out who would want to blackmail us now, but I knew. It was the truth that had haunted me for months, and I knew exactly who had sent the video.
The same man who set me up at the Rio. The same man who had bled me dry of every cent I could earn for him in exchange for keeping this dark secret. But it was too late. Joe was out for blood now, and it was obvious all my efforts had been for nothing.
My worst fear had just come true. Ace had seen me for what I was, and there was no coming back from that.
Hours had passed before he finally came back to bed, and still, I could not fall back to sleep. We lay beside each other, seemingly lost in our own thoughts. I waited for him to reach out and touch me. To give me some silent signal that it was okay. I wanted to believe that no matter what he’d seen, everything would be okay.
&nb
sp; That assurance never came.
In the early light of morning, he slipped from the bed and took a long shower. I didn’t know what the day would bring, but I was desperate to rewind time and make all the badness lingering between us go away. Would he touch me today? Or would he simply pretend it never happened? Or worse yet, would he just tell me to leave, finally understanding that I was beyond salvageable?
When he re-entered the bedroom, I sat up, and our eyes locked.
“You’re awake.” Tension lingered in his body and shadowed his eyes.
“I’m awake,” I answered cautiously. “What are you doing?”
He broke eye contact as he walked to his dresser and picked out a T-shirt. “I have things that need my attention. I need to step out for a bit.”
His words were vague enough to leave room for multiple possibilities concerning our future, but they only managed to compound my worst fears. I knew I should let him go. I wasn’t his responsibility, and it was only fair. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him walk out that door thinking the worst of me. The problem was, I didn’t know how to fix it.
“I thought you took the whole week off.”
“I did,” he answered. “But something’s come up, and I have to go.”
Desperation drove me to my feet, luring me into his orbit. I reached out and touched his arm, but when he looked down at me, his face was devoid of emotion. I couldn’t read him, and it scared me. I needed words, thoughts, emotions. Some kind of reaction.
Leaning up on my toes, I grabbed his face and tried to drag it to mine. He kissed me, but the burning passion had turned to ash.
“Stay,” I begged against his lips.
Pain flickered in his eyes, and he shook his head as he gently peeled me away from him. “I can’t, Birdie. Not today. You need to rest anyway. Trouble will be here to keep you company.”
“I don’t want to rest anymore,” I protested. “I’m done resting. I’m fine now.”
“You aren’t fine,” he clipped out. “You aren’t fine at all.”
Those words hit me like a bucket of ice water, and I couldn’t stop the armor I thought I’d left behind from slamming back into place. He just confirmed everything I’d suspected. There would be no acceptance of what I’d done or who I was.
He couldn’t even look at me anymore.
“WHO WANTS TO START?” KODIAK asked, glancing at the evidence stacked in the center of the table like a land mine.
The small army of bearded brothers I’d assembled had crammed around the table in the hotel suite I’d rented as they waited for their marching orders. Beside me, Lucian remained quiet as he eyed them individually. This wasn’t an easy concept for him to grasp. Trust was not something either of us gave freely, especially when it came to protecting his family. But this wasn’t just about Gypsy anymore. More than anything, it was about Birdie. She was the one at risk of taking the fall, and I’d burn down the world to save her if that was what I had to do.
I trusted every one of these mangy fuckers in this room with my own life, and they wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.
“Before we get to that…” Lucian broke the silence. “I need to ask each of you to reflect on anything you may have witnessed during the times you provided surveillance of Gypsy and Birdie. Was there anyone who might have been paying a little too much attention to the women? Regardless of how insignificant it might be, if anyone at all comes to mind, I want to know about it.”
“Fuck, man, I don’t know.” Kodiak scratched at his beard. “Every red-blooded male in a ten-mile radius was watching those girls. Can’t say that I blame them.”
I shot him a warning glare, and Lucian shifted beside me. “Be careful what you say about my wife.”
Kodiak held up his hands and shrugged. “Not starting shit, I’m just stating a basic fucking fact. I think all my brothers would agree.”
“It’s true,” Razor chimed in. “It would be difficult to identify one person who was more interested than all the others. Both women drew a lot of attention every time I saw them.”
Lucian scrubbed a hand over his jaw and shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Ace, what about your guy in security?”
“He’s compiling some footage,” I answered. “But we’ll need a lot of time and a lot of eyes to wade through all of it.”
Lucian nodded. At this point, we both knew the casino footage would be our best option, but it didn’t mean either of us liked it. The thought of any of these guys watching Birdie now felt wrong. She was mine to protect and mine to look at. But time wasn’t on our side, and I didn’t have a choice. Using the facial recognition software would narrow down the frames of each instance Birdie was captured on camera in the major casinos, but my buddy only had access to a select number, not all of them, so there was no guarantee we’d ever find anyone watching her on film.
Whoever was trying to blackmail her was someone from her past. Someone in California who knew she was in Vegas. But it didn’t mean the mystery asshole was in Vegas too.
“For now, you can start with the photos,” I muttered. “Check them until your eyes bleed. I don’t care how long it takes. Find anything that looks out of place.”
The guys nodded and dived into the pile of photos, which only included the fully dressed versions of Birdie. There was no way in hell they’d see the ones locked in my safe at home.
“Can I have a word with you?” Lucian gestured to the other room, and I followed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There’s something I keep thinking about.” His unfocused gaze drifted to the window. “The cons, the money… Gypsy believed her sister was trying to follow in her footsteps, but it doesn’t sit right with me. The amount of money Birdie’s stolen, it doesn’t add up. Where’s it going?”
The same thought had crossed my mind, and it bothered me that I didn’t know. She had a closet full of expensive things, but she’d bought all them before I started watching her. She wasn’t shopping. She wasn’t doing drugs. And other than the occasional buck she would flip Trouble’s way, the money seemed to be disappearing into a black hole. I’d considered she was saving it for a rainy day, but now that Lucian mentioned it, I couldn’t shake the thought.
“I thought it was a compulsion,” I admitted. “It didn’t matter how fucking tired she looked, every day she’d get back out there and do it again. But now I don’t know.”
“Have you asked her?” he questioned.
I shook my head. “She doesn’t know about the video. I thought it was best.”
Lucian was quiet for a moment, but I could tell he didn’t approve of my decision even before the words left his mouth. “You can’t handle her with kid gloves on this, Ace. She needs to explain what she’s been doing. Maybe Birdie thinks she can handle this on her own, but she can’t. If she’s been hiding something, we need to know about it. In the meantime, she’s putting all of us at risk.”
For the first time since I’d known him, Lucian’s words enraged me. He was someone I considered a friend and a brother. He’d saved me. He’d given me a life and guided me along the way. My loyalty to him had never wavered. But right now, all I wanted to do was tell him to shut the fuck up.
“Don’t tell me how to treat Birdie,” I bit out. “You don’t understand the things she’s been through.”
“I understand plenty.” His voice softened. “Do you think my wife hasn’t been through those same things?”
“It’s different.” I turned around and tried to gather my thoughts as I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Birdie is sensitive. She’s fragile. She isn’t like Gypsy.”
“I think they are more alike than any of us would care to admit,” Lucian noted. “But regardless, you can’t help her unless you know the truth.”
I knew he was right, but the truth was, I didn’t know if Birdie would ever tell me even if she did know who was blackmailing her. In the time we’d been together, I’d managed to break down some of her barriers, but she hadn’t given all of herself
to me. Not yet. She was still holding back. Still expecting the worse. I couldn’t blame her with her history and my fucked-up way of navigating this thing between us. I was too proud to admit I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, but I wanted her to believe I could save her just as much as I wanted to believe it myself.
She wouldn’t be another victim to fate. More than ever, I had to acknowledge the beliefs Ed beat into me were wrong. She wasn’t doomed by being with me. There was still time, and I had every intention of proving it.
“Hey, Ace.” Kodiak whistled from the other room. “I think we might have something.”
Lucian and I both hoofed it back to the table. The guys had several photographs spread out over the mahogany, and all of them were of Birdie. Kodiak was quick to point out what they’d found.
“Check out this asshole in the back here.” He pointed at a guy in a cheap suit. “Take a good look at him.”
I did, and the first thing I noticed was how he was holding up his cell phone. It looked like he was snapping photos, but from this angle, it was impossible to tell if Birdie was the subject. As I scanned over the photos, a pattern started to emerge. It was obvious I wasn’t the only predator tracking her.
“In this one, he’s wearing a ball cap and a sport’s coat,” Kodiak explained. “And this one, a wig and a beard.”
“What the fuck?” I leaned closer, inspecting the features. “He has a different hair color in every shot.”
Kodiak nodded. “Without seeing what’s on his phone, it’s hard to say if he was taking photos of her, but it’s a big fucking coincidence. And I know how you feel about coincidences.”
“Could he be casino security?” Lucian asked.
“Not likely,” Kodiak answered. “Considering these were snapped in four different casinos.”
Lucian leaned in to study the photos. “There’s something about that guy—”
“He looks familiar,” I agreed.
