“Stan didn’t like me, and he certainly didn’t like having to care for a child. He was too busy working in a chop shop to worry much about my welfare anyway. His associates would bring in a stolen car, he’d strip it, destroy anything with the VIN, and sell the parts to another buddy of his who would put the pieces on the black market. It was a stressful job because these friends he had, they were the type that might kill you if you fucked up or maybe just because they thought you were dicking around on the clock. Their leader was a guy named Trojan. Big Russian-looking dude. Seemed like he was seven feet tall, but maybe he was six five. Square jaw. Small eyes. The sort of cold eyes that make a guy look dead inside.”
He swallowed hard, and Rowan nodded encouragingly for him to continue. “Anyway, Stan would come to the place where we lived. I hesitate to call it home. I don’t think it was a home. It was a closet with a toilet and a hot plate, and Trojan owned it. It was one of the ways he controlled his workers. Own where your workers live and you own more than their livelihood. You own their life. Stan would come to the place where we lived at the end of his workday, and the first thing he’d do was take off his belt. Then he’d take out all that stress of working for Trojan on me.”
“He beat you… regularly?” Her voice cracked, and disgust peered out of that impassive mask she’d had on. Good. Now he was getting somewhere.
Nick started unbuttoning his shirt. “You never saw. You kept my shirt on last night.”
“I had no reason to take it off.”
He removed the shirt, and he had to hand it to her for not doing what most people did. She didn’t gasp. But there was pity in her eyes and the disgust he’d seen before, stronger now. He hated that look. God, it pissed him off. It was a natural reaction and he didn’t blame her for having it, but he hated it. He didn’t want pity.
She set down her tumbler and examined his scars. Six on his chest. Two on his right side. Five on his back.
“These are all from his belt?” Her voice cracked.
He pointed to his left shoulder. “This one was a burn. Boiling coffee.” He pointed at his chipped tooth. “This? Happened at the same time. Hit in the face with a coffeepot when I was seven. The scar on my lip is from the glass. For some reason, my face didn’t burn but my shoulder did. Must have been how the glass broke and the coffee fell.”
“By the Mountain.”
“This one on my abs, that’s from a knife.”
She shook her head. “It’s so wrong. How can anyone do that to a child?”
The thing about Rowan, she ran a community center. He knew she’d encountered child abuse before. Maybe this was the first time she’d seen an abused child grown up though.
“There’s always a reason an adult beats a kid, you know?” Nick said. “The place wasn’t clean enough or I’d made too much noise. Like when I got sick and couldn’t stop coughing, but instead of taking me to the doctor, he flicked a lit cigarette at my face and told me if I didn’t stop he’d make me stop. I spent the rest of the night coughing into my pillow.”
Rowan’s face changed, morphing from pity to anger. Fire flashed behind her amber eyes. Good. He’d get it all out. If she couldn’t take it, he hoped she’d leave now, before he got any closer to her.
“Anyway, I was used to going to school so beaten that the back of my clothes would stick to my healing skin. Every time I’d go to the bathroom, I’d have to peel my pants away from the dried blood and it would rip the scabs and hurt like hell. The nurse knew. The teachers knew. I’m not sure why they didn’t do anything. No one cared enough, I guess. But when I was thirteen, I got really sick. Walking pneumonia. I went to school anyway. I never missed school. School was far better than home and the only place I could get a good meal. And that day we had a substitute school nurse. She took one look at me and sent me to the hospital. When they x-rayed my lungs, they saw signs of old injuries, poorly healed bones, cracked ribs. They saw the burns on my shoulder and the scars from Stan’s belt on my back.”
He paused. She’d moved closer and rested her hand on the scar that ran from his ribs to halfway to his navel. Her full attention was focused on him. That touch shook him to his core. It wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d expected her to back away.
“Go on.”
“The hospital called DCFS, and I went into a foster home. A couple whose last name was Grandstaff, Judy and Doug, took me in and eventually adopted me. Changed my life. It was great. For the first time I had enough to eat and a safe place to sleep and therapy. Years of therapy that helped the nightmares, the rage.” He swallowed hard. “Judy was a great cook. The gentlest, most patient mother. And all those calories she fed me were like rocket fuel. I grew big and I grew up. But the past has a way of refusing to die. I wanted to forget. I wanted to deny I’d ever been Stan’s punching bag.”
“That’s not how it works.” Rowan’s eyes held ghosts of their own, and he supposed that had to do with her brother’s murder. “The only way to master our past is to confront it. When we bury it, the bodies rise.”
“Yeah, my buried bodies rose in the form of Trojan. Stan disappeared and his boss found me. You might ask yourself, what did the mob want with a kid like me? I was eighteen when they pulled me off the sidewalk in front of my high school and told me that Stan had been keeping two sets of books. He’d screwed them out of thousands. Trojan figured I was Stan’s closest relative and must know something about where they could find Stan and their money. I didn’t. They decided I would earn the money back by doing a job for them. I needed to steal a car. A very expensive car.”
Rowan shifted. He’d suspected something about her since last night in her apartment, but it wasn’t until now, now that he knew she was immortal, that he put it all together.
“I need to tell you something, Rowan. I think we’ve met before.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Manhattan, 1998
Rich people lived in a bubble. Nick could always tell the ultrarich because they assumed the world would revolve around them and if it didn’t, they could buy themselves out of any mess they wound up in as a result. Take the Aston Martin convertible parked in the alley behind Arnold’s grocery. No one parked a car like that in this neighborhood and expected it to still be there an hour later. But what would be devastating for most people was a minor inconvenience for the rich. Whoever owned this thing was asking for it.
If Nick had owned a car, any car, he’d take care of it. That thing would be locked down like Fort Knox. But then, anything Nick had ever owned had been hard-won. He’d once fought another boy over a pair of shoes, taken a hit to the jaw on purpose at exactly the right time to get that boy thrown out of the community center they were in. The pain was worth it to ensure he was wearing those shoes when he left the building. He’d worn them until the toes split.
Whoever had left the car in its current state didn’t need it, and that was permission enough for him to use it to save his life. Stan was missing. Fuck if he knew where the asshole had gone, but he’d taken Trojan’s money with him. And now Nick had to pay Stan’s debt or risk the consequences. He could stand the pain of being tortured himself. He’d been beaten and worse by Stan for most of his life, but he couldn’t handle anything happening to Doug or Judy. The Grandstaffs were the kindest, most patient people he’d ever met, and he’d do anything to keep them safe, even hot-wire a car and take it to the chop shop in the Bronx where Stan used to work before he’d fallen off the planet.
He hopped behind the wheel and inserted his screwdriver into the ignition. No dice. He pried the plastic cover off the steering column. Everything had to be done quickly, quietly, attracting as little notice as possible. Nick dug out the bundle of wires and sorted out the ones for the battery and the ignition.
“You should be wearing gloves when you do that. You could get the shock of your life,” said a voice on his left.
He turned his head and saw a woman standing beside the car. The first thing he noticed was how he could see her thighs. She stood
on the sidewalk, wearing a peacock-blue slip dress trimmed with black lace. The kind that was so popular now. No one wore it like this woman did though. His breath caught. Her long black hair cascaded straight to her shoulders, and her round, wire-rimmed glasses shone blue beneath her thick bangs. In her arms was an old leather book. She had to be a celebrity or a supermodel. Maybe some billionaire’s trophy wife.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said. “I lost my key.”
He saw one bushy brow arch above the mirrored lenses. “This is your car?”
“Yeah.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out her key fob. The doors unlocked with an electronic chirp. “Funny, I thought it was mine.”
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. Busted. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I don’t have a choice.” He mumbled the last, sure that she was probably already dialing the cops on her flip phone. He was doomed. Done for. At least he’d be safe from Trojan in prison, if the guy didn’t have someone on the inside who’d land a shiv in his gut at the first turn of the guards’ heads.
“Hey. Hey…,” the woman said softly.
He lifted his head off the steering wheel and looked at her.
“You know, whoever’s making you do this, it won’t be the last time. These people… they have a way of getting their hooks into you. People like this, they don’t let go.”
Nick rubbed his palms on his jeans. “You believe me?”
“Yeah. You look scared. Can you tell me who put you up to this?”
He shook his head. It was too dangerous. The last thing he needed was Trojan threatening her over this. She was too kind. Too beautiful.
And a great liar. A member of NYPD’s finest walked up beside her, his chest straining his blue uniform. So she had called the cops after all. Nick held perfectly still and waited to be arrested.
“Good afternoon,” the woman said, her head tilting flirtatiously to the side as her full lips spread into a sumptuous smile.
The cop glanced at Nick and at the small kit of tools he’d left on the passenger seat. “Everything okay here?”
The woman’s voice made Nick think she was an angel. She had to be supernatural the way her laugh tinkled like wind chimes and her words dripped like honey off her lips. She drew the cop in.
“Everything’s fine, Officer. My nephew’s just helping me get the car started.” She gently rested her hand on his arm.
Nick’s eyes widened at the ruby-red stone shining from the ring on her finger. She had to be the wealthiest person he’d ever met. He’d bet that book in her arms was an antique, probably worth a fortune. Frankenstein. It looked like a first edition, the leather having formed a warm, amber patina on the spine where fingers had pulled it from the shelf over decades of use.
“Okay. Okay. Have a nice day.” The cop continued on his way.
“Thank you,” Nick said.
The woman rested her forearms on the driver’s side window and lowered her head so that she was eye to eye with him, those mirrored shades giving him a good look at himself. He needed a haircut and a shave and a new T-shirt.
“Listen to me very carefully.”
He gave her his full attention.
“If you are smart enough to steal this car, you are smart enough to figure out how not to steal it. You’ve underestimated yourself. You’re better than this.”
God, her voice was silky smooth. And her lips. That dress. He was staring at her, and he couldn’t look away. “Okay,” he mumbled.
“Now get the fuck out of my car and go figure out something else to do with your life.” Her smile was gone.
Nick hastily collected his tools and exited the vehicle, holding the door open while she climbed in. She tucked the wires back into her steering column and replaced the plastic panel. A turn of her key and the Aston Martin roared to life. With one last crooked smile over her shoulder, she shifted into drive.
“Don’t disappoint me. I hate it when I’m wrong.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rowan couldn’t believe her ears. Her initial relief at Nick not remembering what she’d thought was their first meeting in the Stevensons’ beach house gave way to complete wonder that it hadn’t been their first meeting at all. Nick had been the teen who’d tried to filch her car. She remembered how hopeless he’d seemed back then. The scars on his lip and shoulder when she’d caught him red-handed had told her everything she needed to know.
“I remember,” she said, eyes narrowing. She removed her hand from his stomach to take him in. “I remember you.”
“Last night at your apartment, I was in your library. I recognized a book on your shelf. It’s distinctive. A first edition. Leather-bound. It was the book you were holding when I tried to steal your car. Frankenstein.”
“I’d just bought it from a pawnshop. I couldn’t believe my luck.”
“Last night I thought it was a coincidence. I thought the book had made its way to you. It couldn’t have been you, after all. That was twenty years ago, and you looked different.”
“I change my appearance from time to time. The younger I make a new identity, the longer I can use it.”
Nick nodded nervously. “When you told me tonight that you’re immortal, the reaction you saw in me was my realizing it was you. You saved me that day, Rowan. You changed the direction of my life forever.”
She shook her head and scoffed. “I didn’t save you. I just gave you a second chance. It was only a car. I could tell you were desperate.”
“I applied to college that day to major in criminal justice. That was meant to be my way out. If I could become a cop, I could keep people like Trojan from ever controlling me again. All that time hiding from Stan at school paid off. My grades were good. They let me in. And I worked hard.”
“Are you saying you went to college because I didn’t have you arrested? I can’t take credit for that.” Something more was bothering her. “How did you deal with Trojan? I’m sure he didn’t give up just because you were admitted to college.”
“Trojan came after me, as I expected he would. I kept thinking about what you said to me, that if I was strong and smart enough to steal, I was strong and smart enough to figure out how to get myself out of the situation I was in. I returned to that hole-in-the-wall where Stan and I had lived. It was the same as when I left. Roaches almost as big as the rats. Cigarette butts everywhere. The smell—oh God, the smell. I was hoping to find the money or some clue to where Stan might be. What I found was Trojan waiting for me.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran. I was a fast son of a bitch, and I knew all the hiding places around our building, places where I’d hidden from Stan when I was younger. I didn’t use the stairwell but instead went out the window at the end of the hall and down the fire escape. Then I jumped the railing into the neighboring parking garage and hid between the cars. Trojan came for me. He caught up faster than I ever expected, almost like he knew where I was going.” He shook his head. “I remember crouching between two cars, the concrete stained with oil and grime under my feet. I could hear Trojan’s footsteps approaching. He was moving slowly, calling my name, taunting me as if he knew where I was and was just toying with me.”
“You must have been terrified.”
“I was, and I think that’s what he was going for. He flushed me out. I ran to the stairwell and then up to the top of the garage. My thighs were burning and my heart beat so hard in my chest that it hurt. Trojan kept coming. He knew there was nowhere for me to go. I made it to the far side of the garage on the top level, twelfth floor, and I stopped running. Unless I was willing to jump, I had no choice but to stand my ground, and I wasn’t suicidal. Despite everything, I wanted to live. I turned and faced him.”
The image of the boy he once was cowering in fear from that brute called Trojan turned Rowan’s stomach. Her jaw clenched. Had she known, she would have followed Nick and torn Trojan apart.
“How did you get away?”<
br />
“My foster dad taught jujitsu. That was his job; he was a martial arts instructor. There was this thing he taught me, that when you face an opponent who is larger and stronger than you, use what he isn’t against him. I was tall, skinny, and fast, nowhere near the size I am now. This was before the academy, when I was still catching up from years of neglect. But I had moves. Trojan reached for me. I ducked, put my head and one shoulder between his legs, and popped up. I pushed with everything I had, legs arms… everything. I still don’t know how I did it. Adrenaline I guess. I flipped him over the railing.”
Rowan inhaled sharply. “He fell from the top of the garage?”
Nick nodded. “I took off before the cops came. For whatever reason, Trojan’s men never bothered me again. Maybe they didn’t know who I was. Maybe they couldn’t find me once I went away to college. Maybe I just wasn’t worth it.”
Rowan studied him, angry for the abuse he’d suffered as a child but in awe of his perseverance and quick thinking. At that moment, Rowan saw Nick for the first time. Oh, he was human. He’d bleed red if she cut him, and he had a four-chambered heart instead of one made of stone like her own. He couldn’t change into anything, and he would grow old and die as all humans did, but he was a survivor and much tougher than he looked. When he’d fought off those vampires at Wicked Divine, he’d shown her who he was.
He truly was a warrior, and any woman would be proud to be his.
“You think differently of me because I killed him.” Nick picked at one of his nails.
She started in surprise. “Not at all. You survived. I’m… I’m admiring you.”
His eyes lifted to hers and locked. “I don’t talk about this often, Rowan. Never. But I told you before that if you knew about my childhood, you would believe me when I say I can protect myself. That I need to be able to protect myself.” He cast daggers toward her purse and probably at the talisman inside. “I wanted you to know who I am because it’s important to me that you see me, really see me, you know. The same way I see you, wings and all. If my past isn’t something you can accept…” He didn’t finish his sentence because his voice cracked.
Manhattan Dragon (The Treasure of Paragon Book 3) Page 14
