It's legit; I've lost my fucking mind. She's got the goods on me now.
Juliette smiles. “That's good, Thorn.”
My heart thumps like a lump of dead flesh in my throat. Rising, purging. I take a deep breath and let it out nice and slow. I shake my head, bringing the thin sheet up over us both. “No. It's because I killed a perp. There was a ton of media around it because Mick—”
“Your friend? The owner of Black Rose?”
I nod. “Yeah, the rich billionaire's pregnant fiancée who was almost killed by a serial killer's son? Yeah.” I scrub my head. “It was sensationalized, and the media almost outed me as undercover.”
“But they didn't?”
“No.” I smile at her.
I think about Shepard and how he took a fourteen-year-old girl out of the safety of her home to be trained as a drug mule, assassin, and prostitute.
What kind of sick fucker does that?
I want him dead. Hell, I'd forgo all the protection I’ve been promised as a cop to have a go at him.
“What's that look for?” Her brow furrows as she searches my eyes.
I look away. “I hate Shepard.”
“I loved him once.”
My eyes snap to hers. “He hurt you—took your cherry.”
Juliette bites her lip. “True. But I also felt like he saved me from what it could have been. In his way, he loved me.”
“No, Juliette, a man doesn't love a woman when he robs her of childhood. Fuck, I know this.”
I'm fierce on this point. I remember the needles, the dark.
The men.
The horror.
It's as real as me sitting here with Juliette. I can reach out and touch it. I know the antidote is within reach. If I can find my biological loser of a dad, he can explain his sadistic bullshit.
And if he can't... well, I have a plan for that too.
A payment plan. In blood, like how he made us bleed.
But I can't convince her that Shepard didn't do her any favors. He should have left her alone.
So I switch topics. “I need to visit my shrink, keep the head appointments going.” I pull her in tight against my chest. “I’ll go to one more—they're mandatory—then I can call Mick, and we can take a little break. Go to the east coast. Create distance.”
“Why?”
I shiver as her nail climbs the tight space between our chests.
My breath stills when she tightens her fingertips around my throat. My heartbeat is frantic against her hand. Our eyes lock.
I pull my shit together and plow forward, “Mick has clubs in the east that need some Thorn attention to operate smoother.”
She pulls away. “Shep will find us.”
Her full lip trembles.
I run a thumb over it, revealing white teeth and a tongue I want against mine. “Shhh, no, Juliette. It gives us time. I'll figure something out. You have dual citizenship, right?”
She nods.
That gives us options. “Don't cave on me now, baby. You've made it this far.”
I don't say that she killed a man with her hands today. Each murder is etched on a face that should have never seen it.
Lived it.
“Why do you want to help me, Thorn?” Her eyes scan my features.
I hold them for a moment before they sag into honesty—defeat.
I want to lie so badly, it courses through my body in the guise of adrenaline.
But it's not.
“I always thought that love at first sight is bullshit. No one finds their perfect ʽwhateverʼ right away.”
Juliette closes her eyes in resignation. “I know,” she whispers.
I suck in a breath. I'm so close to one of those fucking panic attacks, I shudder from it. I grip Juliette, turning her face toward me.
She's ethereal in the sunlight streaming in through the window. It lights her. I'm afraid to close my eyes and she won't be here in the shadow of my body. My mind.
I open my eyes and her nipples harden under my stare. I brush black hair behind her shoulder and trail a finger along her collarbone. Gooseflesh rises like a command behind my touch.
My hands go to either side of her neck and rest there, her pulse beneath my fingertips.
Juliette places her palm above my heart.
Flat. Sure.
I take a breath. Then another.
“And then I met you.”
I've told her. The revelation paralyzes me.
She'll fuck me and leave. That's what women do.
That's what Tasha Simon did with her neglect of me. It was absolute, her protection of the boy I was, non-existent.
And Thorn doesn't want a replay of that shit.
Instead of slipping out of the bed and out of my life, Juliette rises to her knees and moves in close. Her naked breasts encase my face as I meet her.
She tenderly turns my head and places it between them. Her hands wrap around my skull, and my breath warms her.
I hold still, frozen in my terror.
The trust.
My arms snap around her smaller body, and she moans so softly I barely hear it.
“I love you too, Thorn.”
My fucking heart splinters. The fissures are enough for entry.
For Juliette.
She slips in without effort and I stop resisting.
Juliette doesn't run when I leak against her body. She knows sadness, and accepts my grief like a sponge.
Her love is tougher than my anger.
TWENTY
Juliette
I don't want to stop touching him. I feel as though if I do, he'll disappear.
I'm the rose, and he's the thorn. We can only be together.
I watch him talk with Kiki, and I hide my smile behind the cup of tea. My sex throbs from what he's done to me. From the thought of what we'll still do.
For once, I don't have shame with sex.
Thoughts of Shepard invade, and I shove him away. I can't tell Thorn the deepest secret, or he'll leave me.
It's unforgivable.
Instead of dwelling on my morose thoughts, I smile and chat with Kiki as Thorn calls Mick.
Can he take me to the east coast with him?
Sure, Mick says.
Will we fall apart when I go with him? Will Shep find me?
Unknown.
The tea sloshes slightly as I lift the cup to my lips.
Kiki snaps her fingers at me. “Hey, hornie toad, where'd ya go?” Her eyes peek over the rim of her mug.
I laugh. “I'm...” I tuck my wild hair behind my ear. More wild because of my interlude with Thorn.
I remember his profound sadness—so like my own. It makes me klutzy.
I swallow some tea, and it burns my tongue. I set the cup down, looking out her window at the churning Puget Sound. Rooftops cut the bottom of the view into irregular chunks, the sea appearing to cover them with gray foam.
“I think I like him a little too much.”
“Uh-huh.” Kiki nods, blowing on her tea. “So it's more than hot monkey sex?”
Another laugh bursts out of me. Thorn twists in the bar stool, raising an eyebrow with his cell pressed against his ear.
I wave, and he flashes a knowing smirk before he turns away again.
Kiki searches my face. “Yeah, looks like you got it good.” She winks. “Better you than me. If I ever get hit between the eyes with the love flogger, just shoot me. Kiki don't play that way.”
I didn't think I did either.
She stares at me a beat longer, contemplating asking me more. Instead of pressing, she lets me off the hook.
“Thorn!”
He's laughing into the phone. He covers it with a palm.
Kiki lifts some papers. His eyebrow pops.
“Gotta go, my man,” Thorn says into the phone, his eyes on Kiki. He nods. “Yeah, have to visit the head doc, then I'll blast off to New York City.” He listens for a moment then nods again.
His intense gaze finds me.
�
�I will.” Those words are for me.
He swipes the cell screen with his thumb and stands, moving toward me like a black panther. Lithe, elegant.
Primal.
“Damn, baby, aren't you bringinʼ it.” Kiki's lips twist as she pops out of her seat to meet him.
Thorn says to me, “Mick told me to tell you hi, and he's glad you're accompanying me.”
Those are so unlike Thorn's words, I know they're from his friend. I smile at him.
Kiki slaps the papers into his hand.
“What's this, Kik?”
Kiki smiles like a cat with cream. “I've been doing a little digging. Trying to find bio-creep.”
I half-stand when I see his expression. This is a part of his life I don't know, that he's only intimated.
“What?” Thorn barks.
“Settle down, stud. Check it out.”
Thorn tears open the envelope and scans the contents.
His incredulous eyes find Kiki's. “How'd you find this?”
She rolls hers. “I'm pre-law. I've been researching what I thought his connection to you and Tasha would be. Somebody has to do something besides hump like a bunny all the time.”
Thorn laughs and gives me a weighted glance. “Jealous?”
Kiki smiles, lifting her shoulders. “Yeah.”
Her eyes go to me, smile fading.
I straighten, and my palms go flat on the table. “What is it?”
“French national.”
My eyes ping-pong between the two. I'm not a big believer in coincidence.
Thorn's gaze, which beheld me with tenderness earlier, now narrows with suspicion.
I hold up a palm. “Wait a second.”
I swear in French.
Kiki sighs. “Your cursing sounds great too.”
I ignore her, looking at Thorn. “I—I don't know what this has to do with me. I mean, your real father?”
Thorn nods.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Thorn skates his fingertips over his forearms in an almost nervous response.
My eyes move over his skin. It's been hiding in plain sight.
The scars.
They're old, scattered over his skin like spoiled salt, the tats hide them. They accentuate the scars for someone who looks for them. I do. I see.
I see everything.
The pain in his eyes matches the painful remnants of his past.
I want to run to him and kiss every atrocity leveled against him, but Thorn's eyes are hard. He cannot be pushed. Kiki looks between us. and I sweep my eyes away from the evidence before Kiki notices.
His shoulders drop in apparent relief.
Kiki says, “I don't know what the French angle means but I'm not digginʼ the trend.”
Kiki passes between us, but our eyes stay on each other.
She ignores us as she stands at the wall of glass in her high-rise condo. The view goes on as far as the eye can see, but today it's intimate. Today the clouds roil with portent. Angry.
“Thorn's mom is Haitian—French.” Kiki pauses as though in question, and Thorn nods before his eyes roam back to me. She continues, “You're French, but Nigerian too.”
I nod.
She folds her palm around her chin. “I smell a skunk, so there must be one.”
“No.” I swing my head toward her. “What tie could there be?”
“I don't know, but...”
“It looks like my father might be this man.”
Thorn holds up a picture of someone.
I know him so well I feel light-headed.
Shepard kept me from him through sheer determination alone.
Thorn sees my face.
“What the fuck? Juliette, what is it?”
I grip the chair behind me and sit down hard. My head goes between my knees.
Thorn's hand palms my nape.
I think I might breathe someday.
“Tell me, Juliette, what is it?”
I see their feet on either side of my chair. My head's heavy, but I lift it.
I look between Thorn and Kiki and see what I should have the minute I saw them in the same room.
Resemblance.
To each other.
“Roi,” I whisper.
Thorn's eyebrows meet in a harsh line of anger. “This is not fucking funny, Juliette.”
Kiki's face swings from one to the other of us. It's like a tennis match and I'm losing.
“King?” Thorn's hands go to his hips, his face in hard planes of disbelief as he translates the French word.
“King? What king? Nah. No, kids, this guy's a French thug. His name is Roi Rexford Laroux. Wait”—Kiki swings up a palm—“he's a king dick. Does that count?”
I can't answer. I'm so numb I don't feel, think. Roi is King in French.
Thorn looks away, and I feel as though the sun's warmth is gone. The burning heat of his gaze should cause me relief. Instead it leaves me icy.
“He's connected to the French mob. Prostitution, drugs—the works,” Kiki adds.
They look at me.
“How do you know this prick?” Thorn asks. He grips my shoulders and gives me a small shake. “Don't tell me this fucker had you? This prick that—God!” Thorn shouts and stalks off.
This man who could be his father. That is almost certainly his father.
Kiki's eyes widen.
I shake my head miserably. No, Roi didn't have me.
Shep saw to that.
When he made me his wife.
TWENTY-ONE
Thorn
I'm going to blow a gasket. It's not if but when.
A throbbing vein in my head keeps time with my rabid heartbeat. “So this prick, my sperm-donor... is what? Some fucking French kingpin?” I throw up my hands.
Juliette bows her head, her shoulders rounding. A horrible sound comes out of the lips I just hammered with my special flavor of brutal tenderness.
It's a sob.
Fuck me. I don't walk—I stride like my life depends on it.
I'm at her side in a second. I jerk Juliette from the chair. It's what I know I can do.
I nail her lips again with the hardness of my emotion.
My love.
Because that's what it is. I fucking love her. The thought of Rex touching a hair on her head makes me insane in ways I can't count.
I latch onto her hair with my fist. “Tell me he didn't.” I move my lips over her mouth, and she matches the press, neither one of us breathing. “Touch you—ever.” I tighten my hold on her hair, and she gasps, her pain threshold reached.
“Thorn, settle the fuck down,” Kiki says.
I ignore her.
“No,” Juliette answers me.
I reward her by softening my hold.
I pull away, but we're still tethered. She wears my kiss in a red so deep, it looks as though it'll be a bruise tomorrow.
“Tell me. Fuckinʼ tell me before I go crazy.”
“Too late,” Kiki mutters.
I shoot her a glare.
My eyes go back to Juliette. A primitive protection blooms inside me like a raw sore. It won't heal until I beat down every person who's ever hurt her.
“Shepard kept me from King.”
“Kept you?” I growl.
“Protected me,” Juliette says, swiping tears that flow again.
I suck in a rough breath.
“So this prick is head French honcho. Shepard cherry picks”—Juliette flinches, but Kiki goes on—“breaks in the girls, spends time on the ones who can do everything, and King gets the best.” Kiki summarizes all the bullshit perfectly.
Juliette's silence is confirmation.
I fold my arms. “There's more?”
Juliette pushes her black hair behind her shoulders. “Roi had a run when he was in America, strengthening ties for his... activities here.”
I want to go to her so badly, I step forward. Then I remind myself that my bio-dad is basically a French pimp.
“When?�
�� Kiki asks.
I look at Kiki. She's circling the knowledge before Juliette gives it to us. A knowledge that's been obvious since I saw the prick's photo, Juliette's reaction—and remembered Kiki's history.
Juliette raises her chin. “In the 1980s. He was here in Seattle.”
Kiki's face blanks. “A man like that would have needs. Be used to getting everything he desires.”
It's really better if she puts the puzzle pieces together herself. I face Kiki slowly, waiting.
“Oh my God,” Kiki whispers.
Yeah. My hands fall to my sides.
“Who's your dad, Kik?” It's a beautiful and raw realization, the only good thing in this whole fucked up mess.
She shakes her head in apparent denial. “Some white dude.” She says it slowly, unbelievably.
I shake my head. Not just any white dude. “No.” I stab my finger at the 8 x10 glossy photo on the table.
He looks European because he is. Just like I'm not “black,” I'm Haitian. I'm also more. As Kiki is.
We gaze at the photo. The subject is unaware of being photographed. He’s a muscular man, his face slightly in profile. Full lips and a roman nose are framed by dark hair and light eyes, color unknown in the black and white still shot. He's tall. The scale is obvious because a small woman of color stands by his side.
The only thing that mars the photo is the dangling cigar that's jammed between his cruel lips.
*
Kiki's hands fly to her mouth like captured birds of nervousness. She shakes her head, curls flying. “It can't be?”
Juliette moves around me, and I fight against touching her. She places a hand on Kiki's back. “There were a lot of children made when King spread his seed.”
Kiki's eyes widen, her hands falling limply beside her.
“So this goddamned chump went around fucking everyone and leaving them with kids?”
Juliette is silent, not denying Kiki's words.
Her nod makes me want to howl. I turn away from them both, hiding my thoughts.
We stand together in the deafening silence.
I whirl around. “How do you know? And… what women...?”
Juliette sighs. “He doesn't... enjoy a woman unless she is non-Caucasian. He preys on woman who are needy. Malleable.”
More silence fills the room like thick molasses.
“Beautiful?” Kiki asks in a sad voice.
I close my eyes as Juliette whispers yes.
savage 07 - the dark savage Page 32