by J, Bella
I wasn’t a fool. I knew our road together would be no fucking walk in the park. But I was determined, and I would walk through hell with a flashing fuck-you sign on my forehead if it meant we’d find just a sliver of happiness on the other side.
Tightening my hold on her hand, I glanced down at her, loving the fact that she was walking beside me. That was where she belonged, next to me…with me.
“Yo, Ink.” Manic came rushing around the corner. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, man.”
“What’s up?”
Manic glanced at Neon. Either he didn’t see we were holding hands, or just didn’t feel the need to crack a joke about it.
Neon let go of my hand, and in my mind I dropped an entire vocabulary of fucks, fucking, fuckers and fuck-this-shits.
“I’ll give you two some privacy.” She smiled before walking off down the hall.
I glared at Manic. “I hope someone is dying. If not, I’ll have to kick your ass.”
“I’d like to see you try.” The challenge clung to the arrogant smirk on his face. “But seriously, though. We have trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Crow. He suspects we know where Slither is.”
I crossed my arms. “How?”
“I dunno how. All I know is the Sixes are watching us like hawks.”
“How do you know this?”
He backtracked a little, and for a fleeting moment I saw a strange look in his eyes. “I just know.”
“How the fuck do you know, Manic?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at the ground, looking guilty as sin.
“Manic, what the fuck is going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Manic,” I growled, grabbing him by the collar and slamming his back against the wall. “What. The fuck. Is going. On?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“You’re lying. I saw that look between you and Crow the other day.”
“What look?”
I tightened my grip on his cut. “The kind of look that proves you’re hiding something from us.”
Manic’s green eyes studied me, a few seconds ticking by before he shoved me away from him. “Fine. But you need to swear to me this stays between us.”
“No can do, brother. It depends on what the fuck you’re about to tell me.”
Manic pushed away from the wall. “A secret for a secret.”
Sly motherfucker, cashing in the IOU card he had by not telling anyone I had Slither chained and demented in a secret room no one else knew about.
Grinding my teeth and curbing my annoyance, I nodded in agreement.
Manic stepped closer, glancing up and down the hall. “Crow’s doing me a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Personal.”
I shook my head at him, a simple indication that his answer wasn’t good enough.
Pulling his hand through his hair, he pressed his lips into a thin line before finally letting out a sigh. “Crow has the kind of connections I need.”
“To do what?”
A few seconds ticked by while he kept my gaze. “To find my parents.”
I’d admit, his answer kinda threw me for a loop for a moment or two. Manic never spoke about his parents, or his need to find them. We all knew he grew up going from one foster home to the other, a shitty way of living for any child. But never once did I get the impression searching for his biological parents was something on his bucket list.
I crossed my arms. “Since when do you want to find your biological parents?”
“Since I learned that I might have a younger brother out there.”
“A younger brother?”
“Yeah. And if he’s in the system, I have to get him out.”
“Okay, hold up.” I held out my hands. “So, you’re telling me you know you have a brother out there somewhere, even though you don’t even know who your parents are?”
Manic paced as he lit a cigarette, frustration pulsing off him in waves. “I’ve done some digging around—”
“And by digging around you mean bribing your way into system records?”
“Exactly.”
I snorted, not the least bit surprised. “What did you find?”
“My mother’s name.”
“Father?”
“There’s no name listed anywhere as the father.”
“Okay, but you have your mother’s name, so it won’t be a problem to find her.”
He leaned against the wall, lifting his one leg, placing his heel against the concrete. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
I went to stand against the wall opposite him. “Remind me again why you got Crow involved in this?”
Glancing at me from under his lashes, I knew whatever the fuck he was about to tell me wasn’t something I was going like.
“The name listed for the woman who gave birth to me is Cassandra.” He blew out a cloud of smoke before looking my way again. “Cassandra Blackwood.”
“Jesus.” If it was possible for my heart to tear out of my fucking ass, this would have been the moment for it to happen. “Blackwood? As in, Cassian Blackwood? Crow?”
He shrugged. “Seems like it.”
“Christ.” I pulled my palm down my face. “Is this Cassandra Blackwood related to Crow?”
He nodded, and I closed my eyes. “Please, please tell me Crow’s mother isn’t this Cassandra Blackwood you’re talking about.”
Manic straightened. “No. Crow and I aren’t brothers.”
“Thank fuck.”
“But seems like we might be cousins.”
I held up my hands, pinching my eyes closed yet again. “Just shut up for a second so my head won’t explode.” I paced a few feet away, both hands weaved through my hair. “Cassandra is Crow’s aunt?”
“His aunt, and my supposed mother who disappeared the same year I was born.”
“Then how the fuck is it possible that you have a younger brother in the system if she wasn’t even around?”
“I dunno, man. There’s a lot of shit that don’t make sense. But I figure finding out who my father is might give me some answers.”
“And Crow can help you with this, I assume.”
Manic merely nodded.
I rubbed my temples, thinking a mother fucking migraine might be less painful than the current state of mindfuck I was in due to the information overload Manic just dumped on me like a heap of fucking shit.
“Okay,” I turned to face him again, “let’s backtrack here for a second. How do you know Crow suspects we have the snake?”
“He told me.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Are you two meeting up for tea and macaroons every fucking Tuesday now?”
“Listen, I have somewhere to be in half an hour. Just be careful. Crow’s on your ass.” He walked in the other direction, leaving me gobsmacked and confused as fuck.
“And how the fuck do you know this, exactly?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“Hey, where the fuck you going? You can’t just drop this on a brother and bolt.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “We’ll talk about this later.”
What in the name of ever-loving fuck was going on? “PS, you’re a fucking asshole,” I yelled after him, but he had already disappeared around the corner.
This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. If Manic and Crow really were cousins, that would create one motherfucker of a conflict of interest between us and the Sixes. And now that Manic knew I had Slither, a man Crow was determined to get his hands on, it gave me one more thing to worry about.
Would Manic betray me? When push came to shove, would he choose blood above his crew? I hated that I was questioning him, that my spine tingled with worry. If a man couldn’t trust his crew, who could he trust?
God. I needed a beer.
With my thoughts scattered all over the place, I made a beeline downstair
s to the bar. Like always, I immediately found her among the crowd. She always stood out to me, as if she had a goddamn halo above her head only I could see. The second our gazes collided, I forgot all about the newly added stress Manic’s freshly fucked-up situation had put on my shoulders.
Alyx and Red sat with her, no sign of Wraith. And by the absence of our president, my guess was they were probably upstairs getting it on like fucking rabbits.
Deciding to give Neon some breathing space, I joined Dutch at the bar. My ass had hardly kissed the seat when Dutch glanced up at me. “You notice anything weird with Manic?”
I froze, my ass only halfway on the leather barstool. “Nope.”
“You sure?”
“Yup.”
Dutch turned in his seat to face me full on. “Are you really sure?”
“Jesus Christ. What are you? A fucking bloodhound?” I held out my hand. “Yo, Dice. Gimme a beer.”
I settled in my seat, yet I could practically feel Dutch’s stare burning holes in the fucking side of my face.
“Dude, you’re staring at me like you’re about to start humping my leg.”
“Something ain’t right around here.”
This time I looked directly at him. “What do you mean?”
“I dunno. It’s just a feeling.”
“Listen, Nostradamus, things haven’t been right around here in a long time, so tell your feeling to calm the fuck down.”
Dutch narrowed his eyes, his nose all scrunched up like a dog who just caught a scent. “I noticed you and Neon have been spending a lot of time together without her throwing a boot at you.”
I snorted. “Yeah. I can see why that makes you feel like shit ain’t right around here.”
Dutch snickered before turning back in his seat. “You love her, don’t you?”
I picked up my beer, holding it in front of my mouth. “Yeah. I do.” There was no use in denying it. I’d loved Neon for so long I hardly remembered what it was like before she waltzed in here with her leather boots and kick-ass attitude. Pity it took a tragedy for me to realize it and accept the fact that I wanted no one else but her.
“Good. Now, don’t fuck it up.”
“I don’t plan to.”
Dutch downed the last of his beer before he got up.
“Hey, where you going?”
“I got some people keeping an eye on Boa, just in case Slither pops up on the radar. Need to check in and see if there’s any new intel.”
If only I could tell him he was wasting his fucking time, and that Slither wouldn’t be popping up anywhere. But I just nodded, keeping my secret.
For months, I dreamt about having Slither at my mercy, torturing him, fucking him up in the worst possible ways. Just imagining it thrilled me to no end. But it was turning into a fucking shit show with Crow getting involved, and now having Manic in on it too. This was not how I envisioned it, all these added factors that overcomplicated it. It was supposed to be simple. Torture the fucker. Make him bleed. And then slit his throat…slowly.
Simple.
“Don’t touch me!”
I jerked around when I heard her scream, adrenaline instantly manifesting in my veins. My ass was off the chair and hauling in her direction within a single fucking heartbeat.
Breaking through the crowd, I was just in time to catch her as she stumbled back. “What happened?”
A guy standing a few feet away was clutching his nose, blood spilling through his fingers. “The bitch broke my nose.”
“What?” Trying to steady her against me, I saw the look of horror on her face, like she had just seen a ghost.
Alyx came rushing from the other direction, panic written all over her face. “Neon, you okay?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…he touched me, and—”
“Motherfucker!” I let go of Neon, knowing Alyx was there, and launched myself at the fucker. My fist collided with his jaw, the sickening sound of bone crashing against bone. I wanted to break his face and tear his fucking skin off. Grabbing him by the collar, I crashed his back into one of the tables, people flying out of the way like fucking birds. With a fist to his gut, he crouched over, and I took the opening by slamming my knee into his midsection, over and over and over again. I couldn’t stop. All I saw was red, and it was fucking with my brain, making me want to tear this man apart. Fighting like a ravenous, crazed animal going for the kill, I kept beating my fist into his face, one punch after the other, the feel of his bone cracking fueling my rage. There was no voice inside my head telling me to stop, only a demon screaming for me to break this son of bitch.
I swung my fist one more time when a hand grabbed my arm. Judging by the force with which I got pulled back, I knew it could only have been one person. Granite.
“What the fuck is going on here?” His voice slammed against the ceiling like a motherfucking sonic boom.
“He put his filthy hands on Neon,” I gritted between clenched teeth, glaring at the fucker squirming on the floor.
The guy spat out a mouthful of blood, his face looking like a battlefield. I didn’t recognize him, which meant he wasn’t a regular. “Who the fuck let you in here?”
He couldn’t talk. He was too busy fighting the pain I just dished out.
Granite gripped my arm tighter. “Take Neon and get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m not done with him yet.”
“Yes, you are. Now, leave. I’ll take care of this fucking mess.”
My glare met Granite’s, and I bit my bottom lip, tasting my own blood. Jerking out of his hold, I rushed to Neon, whose face was red and cheeks were wet. There was something raw about her tears, like her pain was still an open wound. I placed an arm around her waist. “Come on.”
She was shaking so badly, she couldn’t put one foot in front of the other without stumbling, so I wrapped my arms around her and picked her up. With no objection, she merely placed her arms around my neck and leaned her head against my shoulder, her tears soaking through my shirt.
“I got you, baby. I got you.”
15
Neon
I didn’t know what happened. All I remembered was feeling two hands on my waist—unfamiliar hands—and I was catapulted back into that room, watching my blood drip on the white-tiled floor beneath me.
Flashes of light. Pain. Fear. It all came crashing down, and I lost myself. I felt his hands. His fingers. His vile touch. For a split second, I saw his face everywhere, and I reacted, slamming my fist into a man’s face.
But when I stumbled back into the arms of another man, I knew it was Ink. I knew it from the indescribable relief that gushed over me, taking me back to the day he carried me after hell delivered me to him—beaten and broken. Torn apart.
Now, he was carrying me again, clutching me tightly against his chest and letting me feel his warmth in the comfort of his arms. As my tears soaked into his shirt, I hated that I had become this dependent on someone else. I hated that I was weak, unable to fight the demons that refused to let go.
I heard him shut the door behind us, and I lifted my head, realizing he had carried me all the way to my room even though it only felt like a single moment.
“You okay, babe?” He sat on my bed, still holding me against him, resting me on his lap.
“I don’t know what happened. I felt someone touch me, and the next thing I knew, I was back there, in that room.”
He tightened his hold around me. “That fucker had no right to touch you.”
I shook my head. “I think he was just trying to move past, trying to make his way through the crowd.”
“Doesn’t matter. He didn’t have to touch you.”
I didn’t move my arms from around his neck. I was clutching him for dear life, refusing to let go as if he was the last lifeline I had left. He stroked up and down my arm, his touch soft and gentle. I never would have guessed the Ink I had known for so long could be this kind and caring. His fingertips traced along my shoulders, warm and inviting—nothing like
the cruel touch of the devil’s hand on my broken body.
“It’s different with you.” My voice cracked, and I swallowed. “When you touch me, it doesn’t hurt.”
“I will never hurt you, Neon. Ever.”
“You know what’s strange?”
“What?”
I nestled my face deeper against his chest. “I believe you.”
He snickered. “Yeah, that is strange. You know what’s even stranger?”
“What?”
“The fact that you haven’t thrown a shoe at my head for the last seventy-two hours.”
Both of us chuckled, and the anxiety that lingered in my bones started to dissipate. Little by little, I felt myself relax in his arms, embracing the security it offered.
“Ink.”
“Hmm.”
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
I glanced up at him from under my lashes. “Make me feel like I can breathe without it hurting?”
His arms tightened around me, squeezing me against him. “I dunno. But what I do know, if there’s one person in this world I want to be the air to…it’s you.”
My heart skipped a beat, my chest warm and insides coiled tight. I couldn’t remember the last time a man had me feeling this way, like I wanted his touch—needed it, even. For the first time in so long, my body felt alive, rather than frozen and numb.
He cupped my cheek, and I could feel his affection radiate from his touch through to my soul. “You’re everything to me, Neon. Everything and more.”
Sucking on my bottom lip, I leaned my head back down against his shoulder, curling into him. It made me feel safe, being so close to him. His arms, his presence, it became my barrier, my fortress against the world. It made me feel protected—untouchable, and it was a feeling I instantly became reliant on. Without it, I’d be lost, drowning in a world the ghosts of my past had created.
For the longest time we just sat there. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The silence around us was loud enough, saying everything that needed to be said. His hands didn’t still for a second. Soft and gentle fingertips caressed my skin in slow circles. The longer his touch remained, the more aware I became of how it seemed to affect me…my body. I was no longer numb, and it felt good.