by Coralee June
I bristled at the insinuation in that blaming statement. Nix couldn’t have possibly prevented this. Ryker was still clenching and unclenching his fists. He had been the most silent. It wasn’t necessarily out of the norm for him, but I wanted him to say something, do something. “I’m going to say yes to the fight,” he growled before grabbing my hand.
Blaise twisted around in the front seat to face us, a curious expression on his face. “You want to willingly challenge the man that almost killed us?” he asked incredulously. My fingers itched to call Callum, to check and see how he was and let him know everything that was going on, but every time I reached for the phone in Gavriel’s hand, something made me pause.
Maybe it was the chronic martyrism and self-pity I’d been living off of the last few weeks that was making me doubt things, but I wondered if Callum would even care. It was stupid and a waste of time to even entertain those dark thoughts. It was just a different form of the same doubt my father tried to instill in me when he threatened me the night in the basement. He wanted me to doubt the system and the people I loved. He wanted me to think that no one would believe me, and those that did, wouldn’t care.
“Why would he do this? Challenge you to a fight then bomb our car? It makes no sense.” I was working through the motives, packaging them up and looking for pieces that made sense.“You don’t think it was…?” Everyone looked at me. Did my father plant the bomb?
Usually, Blaise would have finished my sentence for me, answered my unspoken thoughts and provided me comfort, but none of them interjected. We simply weren’t sure. Was Paul Bright crazy enough to plan that sort of assault? Gavriel started the car and headed towards the airport. “We’re going to Vegas. I think it’s our best bet,” he finally instructed.
“Turn around so I can pull the glass out of your back. I just realized that you’ve been sitting there in pain, and if we don’t get it out soon, you could get an infection. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Twisting in my seat, I showed my back to Ryker as he opened up some tweezers in a first aid kit Blaise picked up from a drugstore earlier. Slowly, he began pulling the small collection of glass from my shoulders.
“This sucks,” I grumbled, feeling naive because I didn’t know what else to say.
“That’s an understatement,” Nix replied from the very back of the SUV. It didn’t escape me how Gavriel kept peering out the windows, anxiously checking for a threat on the horizon. He didn’t like feeling out of control. Gavriel Moretti prided himself on the safety and protection he provided the people he cared about, and when there was a threat to their safety, he took it personally. The night sky was quickly closing in on us, and after this morning, the monsters lurking in the dark seemed much more real.
Nix had been on his phone since the attack, scrolling through various different things on the dark web and checking for updates. “Your dad was conveniently at a public event, kissing babies and making cringe-worthy smiles at the camera.” I should have been comforted by the fact that it wasn’t him that tried to kill us, but I wasn’t. Instead, I shuddered, imagining him so close to helpless people that had no idea about the devil within him. He was sick, probably getting off on his secret, internally laughing at how ignorant the world was for not knowing he could end them with a snap of his fingers.
I let out a hiss of pain as Ryker pulled a rather large piece from my back. “All done.” Within minutes he was applying antiseptic to the cuts, the burn waking me up as I let out little whimpers.
“You’re hurting her,” Blaise said, a little more stern than I was used to.
“We all are,” was Ryker’s solemn response, and his words hung heavy around the car, acting like a weight on our already sullen mood. Didn’t he know? They’d saved me.
“Santobello was brazen. This could easily be traced back to him. Either he has reason to be this confident, or he’s cocky,” Gavriel said.
“Or he’s scared,” I added. Fear made people do reckless things. It bolstered courage when there was none left. It made people fight for that last breath of air, to break the surface of the waves and dive right back in. It was dangerous, fear. It was liberating.
“We’re close,” Nix said. “And while you were busy accusing me of not doing my job, I was keeping tabs remotely. I found out about a meeting he’s having tomorrow night in Vegas,” Nix said while rolling his eyes and passing his phone up to a driving Gavriel.
“Interesting, it’s the same night as the fight,” Ryker said while leaning over Gav’s shoulder to peer at the cryptic message scrolling across Nix’s phone.
“He was trying to throw us off our game with the fight. Make us focus on his motives for that as he ambushed us right under our noses. I think this meeting is important…” I trailed off, trying to think of what could possibly lead to all of this.
Gavriel passed back the phone and began biting his nail again, a nervous tick I hadn’t seen since we were kids and he’d first moved to Chesterbrook. He’d long ago controlled the urge, but every now and then, when things got bad, he’d pick the habit back up. I hadn’t expected to see the powerful man he’d become slip so easily back into that insecure habit.
“Can you explain your feud with Santobello to me more?” I asked while scratching at the dried blood on my hand. The dull red looked almost bright against my washed out skin.
“Santobello wants to control gun imports. He used to work with my dad, they shared control of a few of our suppliers, each taking territories to keep things even. It worked—for a while. Until dad went to prison and Santobello got greedy.”
We pulled up to the airport, and four of Gavriel’s men walked towards the parked car. Gav nodded towards his private plane, indicating that he would continue his story inside. We were escorted on the tarmac and up a flight of stairs, the men crowding around me, creating a shield of flesh and suits, and making me wish I had Joe’s grumpy expression to comfort me. Once situated on the plane, the pilots made quick work of preparing us for takeoff, and Gavriel poured himself some whiskey before continuing his story.
“When I came back to take on the family business, Santobello had taken control of our territory and monopolized our suppliers, forcing us to work with him if we wanted anything. It took a while to regain our clients, using old friendships, fists, and competitive prices to win them back. My dad made a lot of allies. Santobello got lazy. Complacent. And when I started stealing my family’s business back, he got pissed.”
Ryker shifted back in his seat on the airplane, placing headphones over his ears and sinking into his silent place of focus, probably imagining his fight tomorrow. It was a routine I’d only just begun to understand, but I saw his calm expression for what it was. He was preparing to channel all his anger into whatever sorry motherfucker ended up on the other side of his fist.
“He’s probably meeting with a supplier tomorrow and doesn’t want you there…” Blaise offered. He didn’t bother to sit down, despite the pilot’s numerous requests. It was like he couldn’t sit, couldn’t keep still while our minds were racing.
I unbuckled and moved over to Gavriel, sitting on his lap as the plane leveled out in the sky. He immediately wrapped his arms around me, eager to hold me tightly to his chest. I was quickly realizing that he enjoyed offering me what little peace he could. He liked showing that other side of himself, and I couldn’t help but feel like Gavriel hid behind control but thrived within comfort.
“Why did you go back, Gav?” I asked, pressing my lips against his and ignoring the smell of grease and smoke on our skin. I was a mess, my hair frizzy with stray strands tickling our faces.
“Why did I do what?” he asked.
“Why did you go back to the family business? Why get involved? You could have been anything, done anything.” I truly believed that Gavriel was selling himself short with this job. He was a leader. Cunning and driven, he could have run the world. But I guess he was, in his own deviant little way.
Gavriel stroked my hair, his fingers gettin
g caught in the mass of tangles and making me wince in pain.
“Well, there was the obvious. I wanted to keep my father’s legacy alive. Even if I hated the business as a kid, I grew to understand it as an adult. I don’t deal women, Sunshine, never women. But I give jobs. I cut through some of the bureaucratic bullshit that other people have to deal with. We don’t do ethical. We don’t do legal. But we do money. Lots and lots of money. Lots of opportunities for lots of families that otherwise would be eating off food stamps for the rest of their lives,” he spoke like a pastor in front of a choir, or a used car salesman trying to convince an unwilling buyer that their car was worth the purchase.
“I guess…” I mumbled, still not seeing the bigger picture. I wouldn’t lie, I enjoyed the luxurious way Gavriel lived and traveled. Hopping on a jet plane at the drop of a hat was nice, and the homes he stayed in were glamorous. It was more than I could have ever even dreamed of.
But I’d had nothing. I’d slept on benches, eaten out of the trash. I walked miles because I couldn’t afford the bus fare. There was an entire six months where my blisters had blisters, and the soles of my feet were a permanent shade of black and red because my shoes didn’t fit. I worked shitty jobs, dated shitty men, all to survive. Money wasn’t shit. It wasn’t worth your soul. I felt better about surviving than I did about sleeping in Gavriel’s posh penthouse.
“I still don’t get it. You always hated his job. You liked the status it earned you, but you didn’t like what your father had to do…” I trailed a finger over his shoulder where I knew the bullet wound was, where the evidence of how dangerous his job lie beneath the surface of his outfit. How many more near misses had he had in the last five years?
“Isn’t it obvious?” Gavriel asked, cradling me closer. “You left, Sunshine. The kind of money it took to hire private investigators, to fund the continuous searches I ran, it was something a foster kid with two cents to his name couldn’t do. If I wanted you, I had to accept my heritage, Love.”
I clutched him so hard that my nails dug into his skin. If he weren’t wearing a shirt, I was certain that I would have made him bleed. It hurt to hear that I was the reason Gavriel became who he was. It was my fault he was forced to dive headfirst into the bleak parts of his family’s dealings just to find me.
Fucking guilt at every fucking turn. Fuck.
I couldn’t escape the damn emotion. It was always there, taunting me with the possibility that the entire world, in fact, did rest on my shoulders. That I was the reason for all this pain. Grief wasn’t an emotion, it was a state of being, and guilt held grief by the hand, coaxing it to the other side of survival and breaking it’s kneecaps just before the finish line.
“I’m sorry, Gav,” I choked out, not knowing what else to say. What more could I have done? I was a young girl, running from the devil and from the people meant to protect me. Knowing that my father got away with killing Callum’s parents just made my decision that much clearer.
“Why are you sorry? I built an empire. I built you a kingdom,” Gavriel said, his eyes wide as he grabbed my chin. Tilting my head to make me look at him, Gavriel peered at me with his brown eyes, making sure to look past the tears I had forming and dig deep, right to the darkest parts of my soul.
“But I never wanted a kingdom, Gav. I just wanted you. I just wanted all of you.”
Gavriel kissed me then. It wasn’t passionate. It wasn’t painful. It didn’t split my lip. It didn’t taste like bliss or love or hope. It was a dark kiss, one that licked the edges of danger and heartbreak. It challenged me. It broke me.
His tongue broke through the seam in my lips to taste me as his hands threaded through my hair, cupping my skull. I moaned into his mouth. His kingdom for a kiss. I had gotten flakes of dried blood on his shirt, my tears on his soul.
I didn’t care that Nix was sitting across from us. That Blaise and Ryker were there, fighting the turmoil of the day. I claimed Gavriel’s mouth again and again. I memorized the feel of his soft lips on mine. I showed him how much I didn’t give a fuck about his name, status, power or money. I showed him that it was always him, always him.
Gavriel had always had misconceptions about who he had to be in order to be accepted. He was either controlling or powerful or rich. He thought he had to be the baddest in the room, the wealthiest, or the scariest. He could never just be. Only with me.
The plane landed hours later. I had dozed off in Gavriel’s lap. We decided to stay at a hotel off the strip, far enough away from the commotion that if things went down after the fight, we wouldn’t be in the thick of it. Once again, I found my fingers trembling to call Callum, but I stayed firm to give him the space he so desperately asked for. I also knew that this was an extenuating circumstance, but maybe a part of me was being prideful. I wanted him to know that distancing himself came at a price. I was sure that by now the explosion had hit the news. The authorities were there before we could hide the bodies, much to Gavriel's dismay.
And still there had been no call, no reassurance that he still loved me, still cared, or still wanted to make this unconventional relationship work. I found myself wishing that, at the very least, he would care enough to let me know that he couldn’t love me anymore. And fuck, I hated myself for worrying about Callum while Joe was somewhere recovering from surgery in a hospital, and Ryker was up for a fight against one of Santobello’s men.
Nix was typing away at a computer that Gavriel had delivered to the hotel the moment our keycard slid into the slot at our top floor suite. The moment we were checked in, I took a shower, scrubbing away at my skin until it turned raw. Red little streaks were left behind by my scratching marks. Lathering up soap, I rubbed it in my palm and kept washing, over and over and over until the layer of skin with Joe's blood was completely gone. Once I was done and dressed in the tight clothes Blaise snagged from the gift shop downstairs, I joined the guys.
“Santobello is covering his tracks on the dark web. I’m checking for hits, but keep getting kicked out. I think he’s finally hired someone that could rival me,” Nix exclaimed, awe evident in his voice.
“Well, I’m paying you to be better,” Gavriel growled while Ryker stretched on the floor of the hotel. Blaise was standing at the window, occasionally checking outside.
“I am better, doll face,” Nix replied to Gavriel in a patronizing voice, keeping his tone sickly sweet as he batted his eyes at my boyfriend. “I’m just letting him think he’s beating me. But I’m going to need, like...three more computers,” Nix quickly added, albeit a bit sheepishly.
I moved over to Ryker, rubbing my hands along his neck as he stretched, massaging the knots that were still there from the last fight. “Is it safe?” I asked. “To fight so soon, I mean? Aren’t you still recovering? And then today..." Ryker wasn't hurt too badly, but he was sore, that much I could tell. I felt anxious, it was a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. One of those instinctual sensations that said something worse than what had happened today was on the horizon. I'd felt it when I went to the cabin, sitting outside and staring at the shadowed porch as my father climbed into his car. I felt it the night I ran into Blaise at the restaurant. It was like a shift in the air, a promise for something bigger to come. A hint that your entire world was about to flip on its axis, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.
"I'll be fine, Sunshine," Ryker said, his voice holding that wise tone to it that I loved so much. "There's nothing preparedness and anger can't beat."
"I don't think we should go," I said, allowing that feeling of uncertainty to cloud my thoughts and tempt me with hiding in the shadows with my men. Was revenge worth losing them? Any of them? Was Gavriel's money and power worth it?
"It's worth it," Ryker said. Usually it was Blaise that could read my thoughts, so I was surprised when Ry stood and began stretching his calves, bending at the hips while talking to me. "We could run, sure. Give up the Bullets and live together. But we'd never really be safe. Never really feel free. I refuse to have a lif
e where I'm constantly worried about the people I love. That's not a life at all." He grunted out his last statement while standing before dropping to the floor to do push ups.
"Does this weird ritual where he grunts and works out amid fortune cookie statements work for you, Sweets? ’Cause I'm about half ready to drag him to the gym," Nix said while rolling his eyes. He preferred to work in complete silence while hacking. You could always tell how stressed Nix was by the way the veins in his neck throbbed, and right now, there was one particularly angry one thudding away.
“I’ll go,” Ryker offered before kissing me on the cheek and heading off to his room. He’d requested to sleep alone so he could focus, but I didn’t like having him even down the hall. We were on Santobello’s turf for the time being. But exhaustion tempted me with sleep, and I passed out soon after Ryker left.
Chapter Fifteen
"Are you ready for tonight?" I asked Ryker while we ate a cheap breakfast of microwaved bacon with eggs so fluffy they seemed artificial. When I lived on the streets, I used to break into hotels just like this and eat their continental breakfast. I had to rotate hotels in whatever city I was in, careful not to take too much and not look too eager. Looking back, it was crazy to think of how resourceful I had to be.
"I could think of a few things that would make me more ready," Ryker said, his green eyes bright as they took in my low cut shirt. Blaise had bought me a makeshift wardrobe while here, making sure to only pick clothes that were too small. And although it was November, we were in the desert where the temperatures weren’t nearly as frigid as Chesterbrook or New York.
Ryker had become progressively flirtatious as the morning went on. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to distract me, or if he was trying to redeem himself from our previous pre-fight chat in the locker room. The last time I fucked him before a fight, he had left me with his cum on my chest and a lot of self-loathing. I had a feeling I’d end up in the same position before tonight’s fight, but I was more than okay with being on his list of things he did to prepare for a fight—especially if it distracted me from all the shit going on.