Every Minute I Love You (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 3)

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  Before climbing the ladder, I offer a grin. “Yes.”

  “Lord have mercy if anyone was to walk in on us now. They’d think we needed straightjackets. You know, I’m not supposed to be staring at my brother’s ass…”

  “I’m going to tickle you until you piss, Cat.”

  “Kinky!” She giggles, relaxing, as I stand on the very top step.

  Do not try this at home.

  I’m a crazy son of a bitch who does shit like this all the time.

  “I’m so going to start throwing you hundreds,” she says as I wiggle my ass. “Stop!” She hysterically laughs while I detach the offending pants from the blades. “Oh, my God, you are so bad!”

  “So, are you!” I pitch them down to her and come down a few steps. “Move.”

  She steps back. “Oh, why must you jump?”

  I look at her like a psycho, flicking my brows up, and offering a full, wide grin as I step off and land directly in front of her. “Because I can?”

  “Shall we handle the man cave?”

  “This man would rather be in Iris’ cave.”

  She walks up the staircase as I gather a few trash bags for the mess. Coming out of the bedroom, she is struggling to carry the laundry bag. I rush over beneath her and say, “Drop it.”

  “Is this what Iris has to look forward to? A lifetime full of your antics?”

  “Yes, now drop that fucking bag!”

  “Is Deacon this bad?”

  I toss her a look. “I thought I was good. And he’s different, but if you’re asking if he’s this playful—absofuckinglutely. Probably more so. I tend to get depressed way too fast.”

  “Yep, that’s you Mr. Gloom-and-Doom.” We stand in the doorway of the man cave. “If you don’t stop doing this, I’m going to beat your ass.”

  “What?” I ask, chewing my gum. “Living?”

  “No, losing yourself.”

  “Find Iris,” I answer, swinging open a trash bag. “I’ll stop getting lost.”

  On the side table next to my chair, I notice my phone lighting up with repeated text messages from ‘Prissy Pussy Pants.’ My mood shifts to a seriousness as I scan over them and call her back. “Hold on,” I say to Cat, raising my hand. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got something, but I need you to come to Atlanta—tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I question, confused. “Tomorrow is the holiday.”

  There goes my hopes of trash tv, whiskey, weed, and Italian cream cake while fireworks go off.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Why are you in Atlanta?”

  “Because I found a lead in Iris’ case,” Jaid implores with an urgency. “Fumio Hada is Murasaki Hada’s son. Murasaki Hada was Matsu Goro’s second wife.”

  “Holy fuck…”

  “And your little hostess with mostess at the Yanagi club is Oki Hada, his sister.”

  I feel a loss of blood to my head as I whisper, “I’m on my way.”

  24

  I Hate How Much I Love Her

  With Cat driving my Spider like she stole it, I arrive at the private airstrip outside of Boston before my plane. “I’m going to keep this thing,” she announces, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “When will your plane be here?”

  “Soon,” I say, checking my watch and lighting a smoke. “I’m nervous as fuck. Are you staying at my house?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Yes.” I exhale, cracking the window. “But save me two pieces of cake.”

  “Because you’re having a guest?”

  “No, because I’m a fucking pig with cake these days.”

  Immediately, tears rush down my cheeks at how many times I let Amber call Iris an oinker. She will never call her that again. If I ever get her back, I will defend and protect her like never before.

  Cat pulls a tissue from her purse and hands it to me. “Sometimes, cake makes me cry, too.”

  “Fuck you!” I laugh and she grins as my plane lands. “I love you so damned much. Thank you for being my sister.”

  “Thank you for being my bratty little brother,” she replies, squeezing my hand. “You deserve every happiness in the world. Don’t stop chasing what you want, Salvatore.”

  The plane taxis closer as I encourage, “You should call Cruz.”

  “If I call Deacon, I may end up being Cat Cruz.”

  “Sexy.” I wink and give her a peck on the lips. “Call him, Mrs. Cruz.”

  “Fine!” She rolls her eyes and blows me another kiss as I exit the car.

  I shut the door and knock on the window. “If you don’t wreck it, you can have it. I ordered a new BMW. It’ll be delivered tomorrow.”

  “Can I drive it?”

  “Nope!”

  She flips me off and I turn away with a smile on my face. I walk up the steps to see Cat doing donuts in the parking lot. I shake my head and pull out my phone to call Jaid before we take off. “We’re leaving in probably ten.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” she whispers. “Be safe up there.”

  “I’m always safe.”

  The plane lands at 2:35 and jars my ass awake. Leaning against the car, Jaid is waiting, just like she said she would be. I walk over to her and we stand—staring and silent—for a good minute.

  “Can I tell you how much I miss you?” She breaks first. “And how much this all hurts?”

  “I don’t think either one of us understand it.”

  “I don’t know if we ever will,” she says, stepping closer. I set my bags on the ground as she wraps her arms around me. She smells clean and fresh like rose water with a hint of lemon. “I have a suite in Buckhead. You want to drive?”

  “Ya,” I say as we stay touching too long to just be friends. She places her hand in mine and drops the keys into my fingers. “Thank you for what you did when I was in Sugargrove.”

  “I may not be able to be on your team anymore, but I’m always with you.”

  I lean in closer and nuzzle her hair. “Shit…”

  “Don’t say it,” she urges, breaking away. “We have too much work to do.”

  On the way to the hotel, she provides a complete, very professional rundown of events leading up to her trip to Atlanta. She can be insane at connecting the dots, but her lines are never wrong. She wouldn’t have pulled me out of Boston at ten PM if she wasn’t one hundred percent certain.

  We arrive at our posh room in the upscale area. I strip off my hoodie and shoes as I note the two queen beds. I go take a piss and come back in boxers.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Sitting in bed, she blinks in a pink spaghetti strap nightgown. Her dirty blonde hair is piled high as she is tucked under the covers with her laptop. “What the hell are those?”

  “… Boxers?”

  “You are wearing black…silk…boxers…” She tilts her head curiously and asks, “Since when do you wear underwear of any kind?”

  “People change.”

  “This!” She rapidly shakes her finger. “This is not a good change!”

  I sit on the edge of the bed. “What time are we meeting Morpheus tomorrow.”

  “6:30. We’re having dinner. His Mamma is cooking.”

  I glance up from my phone and grin. “Her food is incredible.”

  “Okay,” she says, pressing her hands flat in the air like some Jaid-inspired yoga pose in preparation of a massive feast. The girl can eat. Together, we can easily annihilate an x-large supreme pizza. “I will have an iced coffee with no cream, yogurt, and some fruit in the morning.”

  “… Are you giving me your order?”

  Her eyelids flutter spastically like I'm speaking in Swahili. “You always feed me.”

  “You always ride my dick, too.” Her shocked, wide eyed gaze brings laughter from my lungs. She throws her extra pillow at me. “Don’t you start what you can’t finish little girl.”

  We’re like kids. I pull at her pigtails and run. She chases me and I steal a kiss.

  Hoping to get some sleep, I turn off the lig
ht and crawl into bed. I see the blue glow of her computer and decide to turn on the television. I’m randomly flipping channels, like I’m known to irritatingly do, when she jumps on top of me. Her legs straddle over me as we wrestle. “Who are you calling a little girl now, bitch!”

  She thinks she has me pinned. And if I’m being honest, Jaid is the strongest girl I’ve ever met. But with that said, I buck my hips up and flip her on her back.

  “Shit!” she complains, trying to get the leverage to get my stocky build off of her. “Fuck! I ought to nail you in the sack for this.”

  My eyes catch hers as I simmer, “You won’t do that…”

  “You’re right,” she whispers, spreading her thighs. “I won’t do that.”

  I’m on top of her and getting aroused. This cannot happen. I know she feels my growing erection by the lust filled look in her eyes. I flop off and proclaim, “You win.”

  “No,” she eases, slowly kissing my abs and seductively glancing to me. “You win.”

  Her lips are all over my belly and chest as she works her way in reverse back to my lips. “I hate how much I love you.”

  “Good,” she says, easing her body over me. She pulls off her nightgown and my mouth waters at the sight of her breasts. Her hands lock into mine as she brings them to meet her tender skin. I close my eyes and let it happen, caressing her fullness with the back of my fingers and gently kneading her nipples. “That makes two of us.”

  She falls against my chest and we passionately entangle our tongues with a savage heat. We are compulsively driven in our obsession with one another.

  I feel the need to confide the truth concerning Emily and I. “We’re apart.”

  “I know,” she acknowledges between our breath as she slides her hand down and wraps her fingers around my cock. She’s stroking me with painstaking precision. “We have until five tomorrow afternoon.”

  “4:30. You have to get ready.”

  She beams a smile at me. “Do you want this?”

  “The meeting or you?”

  “… Both?” She shrugs.

  “Both,” I reply, lifting my knees and pushing the fabric from between our bodies. “I’m going to fuck you now.”

  “Will you get my breakfast in the morning?”

  “Yes,” I answer, taking my shaft from her hands and guiding myself closer to her wetness. She soaks around my dick as I slide in with a moan. “And then we’re doing this again.”

  “You assume we’re only doing it once tonight.”

  “No,” I disagree, holding her ass as she bounces with every thrust of my hips. “I’m keeping my dick in you until dawn.”

  Opening my eyes, I run my hand over Jaid’s hair as I proved my point. We fell asleep on our third round at five in the morning. She drifted off first with my cock still hard inside of her warmth. “Baby, I have to piss.”

  She’s exhausted and rolls away, tangling her nakedness in the mess of white sheets.

  It’s 10:34 in the morning.

  I go to the bathroom and on the way back, grab a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. I spot her laptop, still open on the bed, and decide in my hazy sexed-up state to use her comp to check on things at Sibyl. I put in her password and log into her Sibyl account.

  All of her hours of research is here as well as the international trade cases she is working on. I notice the one marked Heller.

  Rudy Heller was a known trafficker. Jaid busted his ass a few years back, but we were still tracing his financial records and finding more leads along the way. Sometimes poking the spiderweb only leads to a hundred baby spider slings, running rampant on the skin to test their fresh fangs. And that was the case with Rudy Heller.

  I spot a name in Washington—Stone O’Rourke. I click his name and the file opens, but something about his profile concerns me. I swear I recognize the city he’s in—Reston—as being one where Georgia found one of the thirty-six deceased.

  I grab my phone to check the location on the map. Reston is close enough to be considered a border town. I’m lost in my thoughts when a message flashes and beeps on her screen from Cas.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” I say, eyeing her groggy state. “Why are you messaging Cas?”

  “Because she made contact last week.”

  “What does she want?”

  Reluctantly, she sits up. “She says she wants out of the mess she is in and she is willing to negotiate for her confession. She claims to have evidence on Mitch Daniels.”

  “She wants freedom in exchange for her testimony against Mitch?”

  “Yeah,” she wearily says, flopping back to the bed and falling asleep.

  I go to take a shower and agonize over if Cas is worth it. When I come out of the bathroom, Jaid is still asleep. I put in her password again and open the messenger program. My eyes focus on the one thing Cas said in a previous text.

  “Daniels will do anything to hurt Raniero, even if that means killing Iris. He has no limits.”

  After I get dressed, I run downstairs to fetch Jaid’s breakfast order. When I come back, she is up, in our bed, and pecking away at the keys.

  “Do you believe her?”

  “Am I under oath?”

  “Nah, I want your honest opinion.”

  She closes her laptop and takes the coffee from my hands. “By all accounts, Mitch has gotten his way with Iris twice now. If he gets a third, I’m certain he will kill her, which is why I’m in such a panic to locate her. Do I think Cas is telling the truth? Probably. But I also think she would say anything to avoid prison. She’s not trustworthy or safe. I consider her armed and dangerous, even in texts, but if I can get her to trust me—that’s half the battle.”

  “Where is she?”

  “On any given day,” she says, taking a swig of the coffee. “Brownsville to El Paso, Matamoros to Juárez.”

  “She’s really riding that fence, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah. But make no mistake, she is on with Javi and Juan in the Cinco division. She’d just as soon Pico and Cam were dead.”

  “Then she's playing for the wrong team,” I point out, understanding gender plays zero role in the manipulative mindset. “But she has been for a very long time.”

  Having dinner at Morpheus’ house on the Fourth of July felt like going home to old family. Mamma accepted me like her own with hugs and kisses, and I helped her snap the beans and peel the potatoes. And Morpheus somehow managed to become the older brother I needed.

  The six—Morpheus, Mamma, Fumio, Cristos, Jaid, and I—were comfortable and easy over Mamma’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and buttery yeast rolls.

  “How long has she been gone?” Morpheus asked. It didn't surprise me that he knew.

  “Since April 29.”

  “Shit,” he says, gnawing on a chicken leg. “Any clue who took her or why?”

  “No.” I think about the way he asked the question. Maybe I need to reprioritize the order—Who? What? When? Where? Why?—because if I knew why they took her, it might provide some insight to the other four answers. Knowing one to cheat the others.

  “My brothers in the Goro gang are unscrupulous,” Fumio chimes in. “I wouldn't doubt if they had a hand in her abduction because they've been doing anything to earn coin since Cristos dropped them.”

  It's all too much as I excuse myself from the table to get a breath of fresh air. I'm smoking a cigarette by the pool when Cristos nudges my arm. I don't look at him, maintaining my focus on the water. “Why didn't you tell me that you had pulled out of supporting the rebel gangs in Asia?”

  “I figured it would be obvious as we worked to build the relationship with Lotus,” he replies, unnerved. “We both need Lotus far more than any upstart.”

  “And my girl got lost in the translation,” I angrily hiss. “I never would've done the deal with Goro if I had known you were not offering to bank roll them.”

  He lifts his hands with a dramatic flair. “Do yo
u want to be the golden shark or swimming with the other fishes, Salvatore?”

  I stroke my chin, understanding what he is saying, but the implication - swimming with the fishes - triggers a resilience I never expected to hear from my lips. I offer a calculated, pretentious gaze. “I’m a shark. Aren’t you?”

  “We are!” His magnetic smile, gray green eyes, and bald head shimmer under the lights. “I’m still holding out hope for Cinco.” The emotional hit hints at his obligation towards the family that raised his daughter, but as a businessman, I don’t think he would buy so readily into the odds of Cinco overcoming Immortal. I’ll save the fight for another day and call this a success of my losses. “Do you want Morpheus to be a shark?”

  He’s asking for me to decide on whether or not to extend a hand from our network, and I don’t know if I can turn down the opportunity with Morpheus. I’m not sure what that makes me—the Italian thug aligning with the opportunistic, very wealthy black man with more gold chains than neck or a surreptitious rebel. My father would kill me, but he’s a racist fuck.

  All the more reason to jump.

  “I will sign onto anything attached with Morpheus’ name.”

  Cristos’ smile twitches, and I know he is testing me. Let’s be clear—my spot isn’t assured here; I must continue my growth trajectory and exceptional skill or he will have no hesitations at throwing my ass into the swarm of middlemen.

  And darlin, the only middle I’ve ever been into rests between lush thighs.

  “You know, Salvatore,” Cristos says, laying his hand on my shoulder. “I’m watching your back. And I’m not going to do anything that I feel won’t be beneficial for our relationship with Lotus. Every decision is coming back to Iris and our future.”

  That’s well and good, but who the fuck is going to watch my front?

  Delarte Cristos is a helluva fisherman in finding good talent, and the deeper I become involved with him, the less likely I am to evacuate his firm grasp—I know, I know. I remember saying I would need to eliminate him at some point, but his understanding this concept - his shibari-like business acumen - serves in reeling dynamic energy, like mine, for his future and his son’s.