I feel drained, I can’t breathe, and Skye, she pulls me against her and I hold onto her as she wraps her arms around me, but she doesn’t say anything. She stays silent, and I’m actually grateful for the silence because I’m not sure what she could say.
“Dom took the blame. I don’t… I don’t even know how he managed to get my prints off that gun, I don’t remember all that much about what happened after that, I just… I just know that nothing was the same anymore. After that. I lost my job because I just couldn’t focus. I lost Kelly because she couldn’t cope with what I’d done. I lost everything. And the guilt, it just took over. And it never went away.”
She lets go of me, and I look up at her, her eyes staring so deep into mine I have to take another few breaths before I can say anything else.
“I have to get him out, Skye. He doesn’t deserve to be there, it’s my fault he’s inside. And I have to get him out.”
“That’s why you’re here?”
“Mack’s helping me. Cole’s helping me. The two clubs, they’re working together, and we’re gonna get him out.”
“I mean… how? How is that…?”
“He’s being transferred, in two days’ time, to a more secure facility a few miles outside of town. They’re keeping him there until the trial. We’re gonna break him free, during that transfer. And I know I’m making it sound like it’s the easiest thing in the world but… I can’t live with the guilt, Skye. I can’t do it anymore.”
“And if you get caught? Jesus, Theo, do you have any idea how risky this is?”
My phone suddenly starts ringing and I pull it out of my pocket and check the caller ID. Mack. I need to go, and all of a sudden I’m filled with a panic the like of which I haven’t felt since I shot that bastard dead. “I need to go…” I stand up and I look at her, and I hope to God she can see how fucking serious I am now. “Can I trust you, Skye?”
She gives a small nod, and I take that. But in reality it’s too late to even be asking her that question. What other choice do I have now? But to trust her…
Chapter Seven
Gabriel
“He asked if I could trust him and I lied to his fucking face, Gabriel.”
“You did what we asked you to do.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better, is it?”
“You remember why you’re doing this, right?”
She sits down on my couch and I hand her a glass of wine. I shouldn’t really have her here, in my home, but after tonight I felt we both needed some time out. And she isn’t wearing her “wire” tonight, she’s free of that, for a little while. But she needs to make sure she’s ready now, for the next and hopefully final stage because, in a couple of days, this really will be over. And then we can all get on with whatever lives we choose to live; whatever lives we’re given.
“He’s doing so many wrong things for all the right reasons,” she says quietly as she stares down into her glass.
“Skye. Look at me.”
She slowly raises her gaze, and I sit down on the arm of the chair as she throws me a look. “It’s nothing like that, OK? I’m not falling for him or developing any kind of feelings so you can forget the lecture you were about to start giving me. I just hate myself for betraying him like this when – you’re right, Gabriel. He isn’t one of them. He doesn’t want to be, he just needs to find a way out, that’s all.”
“He’s going the wrong way about it.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“I think you already know the answer to that one. He’s gonna be joining his brother, and along with Mack Slayer and Cole Rockwell they’re gonna be spending a long time locked away. Where they belong.”
“He doesn’t belong there.”
“He killed a man.”
“He was defending his fiancée.”
“You sure you’re not developing feelings for this man?”
She gets up and goes over to the sideboard, picking up a photograph and staring down at it. “Who’s this?”
She shows me the photo and I sigh quietly. “That’s private shit, Skye.”
She looks back down at the photograph. “You look happy. You and her. Whoever she is. But I’m guessing she’s your wife? Ex-wife? Dead wife? You gonna help me out here?”
“Like I said, it’s private.”
She puts the photograph down and leans back against the sideboard, her eyes fixed on me as she takes a sip of wine. “Still a bit one-sided, isn’t it? This relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship, Skye. I’m your handler, you’re my C.I. End of story.”
Her eyes stay locked on mine but I break the stare, get up, and head into the kitchen.
“You hungry?” I shout through as I open the fridge and look inside.
“A little bit.”
“I’ve got some leftover Chinese food here. That sound OK?”
“Sounds good.”
I gather together the cartons, grab a couple of forks and go back into the living room. “Come on. Get some food inside you.”
She sits back down and takes a carton of noodles from me, forking some straight into her mouth.
“You did really well today, Skye.”
She looks at me, and she smiles slightly. “I did my job. Right?”
“You gave us something concrete to work with. We’re putting things in place now, and we’re gonna end this. Thanks to you.”
She shrugs. “You would’ve worked it out, in time.”
“When it was too late. But you took a risk, listening in like that.”
She looks down into her carton of food. “There was a brief second when I wanted to tell him to stop. To not go ahead with this.”
“I know. We heard.”
She glances up at me, and for the first time I notice how tired she looks, and I want to pull her from this now, she’s done enough. We have everything we need and it was beautifully quick and relatively painless. But I’ve been doing this long enough to know that for her to disappear just like that, it would raise suspicion.
“I’m sorry.”
“You pulled it back.”
She puts down her food, picks up her wine and takes a long sip. And then she bows her head and stares down into her empty glass and I feel like someone just kicked me hard in the gut.
“Did you ever wonder what life could’ve been like outside of the world you were born into?”
She raises her gaze and looks straight at me, frowning slightly. “No. Because I liked the world I was born into.”
“Even though it, basically, fucked you over?”
“What is this, Gabriel? Why are you doing this?”
“I just want to get to know you a bit better, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“You’re incredibly defensive sometimes, do you know that?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“She’s my ex-fiancée, Skye. The woman in the photograph.”
“You’re engaged?”
“Not anymore.”
She narrows her eyes and smirks. “You sure about that? Because, this place, I can tell a woman lives here, too.”
“She used to. She moved out. A couple of days ago.”
She raises her eyebrows. “That recent, huh?”
“It’s complicated. But, in reality, it was over a long time ago.”
“Want to throw some more clichés in there?”
“I’m not spieling you seven kinds of shit here, OK?”
“I don’t care if you are. It’s got nothing to do with me.”
Her eyes bore deep into mine, and I feel my stomach take a nosedive. I should take her back to the house now, get her out of here. I should do that. So why aren’t I?
“And it doesn’t matter that my club fucked me over. It doesn’t matter that my father fucked me over. It’s what happens, in that world.”
“Did he know? That you were being set up by this guy? One of his brothers? A man who was supposed to care about you?”
&nb
sp; “I thought you knew everything about me?”
“Not every last detail, Skye. We know enough, but not everything.”
She looks down, once more staring into her empty glass. “He knew me and Trent were having problems. He knew I wasn’t all that happy anymore. He didn’t know I was planning to leave him. We didn’t have that kind of relationship.”
“What about your mother?”
“She died, when I was six years old. So I never really had that mum/daughter bond thing going on.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“Oh, come on, Agent Franks, surely you know all that basic shit?”
Maybe I do, but I want to hear her tell me, I want her to talk to me; open up to me. Is it necessary? For the job she’s doing? No. This is all for me.
“I’m an only child. The club was my family, so I never really missed not having any brothers or sisters, because I kind of already had them. Lots of them.”
“And not one of them came to your defense when your ex-boyfriend framed you for drug-related offenses that could see you sent down for a good few years? Some family, huh?”
She narrows her eyes further as she stares at me, and then she stands up and goes to get herself another drink. “It was the only one I had. And I don’t appreciate you judging me like that.” She bypasses the wine and goes straight for my bourbon, and I don’t stop her. I watch as she pours a generous measure and downs it in one mouthful. “I made a mistake, I trusted someone I shouldn’t have done. I made an error of judgment. And now I’m paying the price. Anything else you want to know?”
I say nothing, and I can’t take my eyes off her. It’s quite obvious she’s got that defensive shield pulled right up now, and I’m slightly frustrated with myself because I caused that to happen, but I guess I just wanted to see if I could dig beneath the surface of this woman.
“My relationship with Erin, my fiancée – it ended years ago, Skye.”
“So you said.”
“But she – she just couldn’t accept that. She wanted to keep trying. I didn’t. And she was fragile, y’know?”
“Fragile?” She frowns as she leans back against the window ledge.
It’s my turn to drop my gaze. I don’t even know if I should be telling her this, but all of a sudden I feel like I need to. I want to. “We’d been trying for a baby for a long time, even though kids – they weren’t something I’d ever really wanted. I was too wrapped up in my work, this job, it takes up so much time. And I just – I just never really wanted to be a dad. But Erin, she came from a big family, and she wanted one of her own. She wanted a big family.”
“So you, what? Went along with it just to keep her happy? For an easy life? I mean, you must’ve known all that when you got together, right? That she wanted kids.”
“Yeah. I guess I did. But at the time I thought I might come round to the idea.”
“How long were you together?”
“Almost nine years.”
“And you never got around to getting married?”
“She wanted to, but I always pulled back.”
“Because you weren’t sure?”
“Because I was too busy.”
“I think you use your job as an excuse, Agent Franks.”
“You a counselor now?”
“Hey, Mr. FBI, you started this. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s arse about your commitment issues.”
“You got a real smart mouth on you sometimes.”
She shrugs and pours herself another drink. And neither of us say anything for a couple of beats, but there’s an atmosphere now that neither one of us can ignore.
“You said she was fragile. Why? Did something happen?”
I take a deep breath and walk over to the sideboard to pour myself a drink, because it doesn’t look like she’s going to fix me one. “I wanted her to be happy.” I turn to face Skye, and her eyes lock with mine. “So, I agreed to try for a baby, but deep down – deep down it still wasn’t what I really wanted, I just kept on thinking – hoping – I’d get used to the idea. If it happened. And then it did happen, and Erin, she was so happy. So fucking happy…”
“And you?”
I break the stare and look down into my drink. “I couldn’t get used to the idea. It still wasn’t what I wanted, but I couldn’t tell her that. I just had to suck it up and hope that, maybe, once the baby arrived, I’d be able to deal with it all a lot better.” I finish my bourbon and place the glass back on the sideboard, keeping my eyes down, I can’t look at her. “But it was something I never actually had to deal with at all. In the end. Erin she… she miscarried, at eight weeks. And it almost killed her. I’d never seen her so broken, so messed up… She blamed me. She said she knew I’d never really wanted the baby and because of that… She blamed me.” I finally raise my gaze. “And maybe it was my fault. Because I didn’t want that baby. But I didn’t want that to happen, either. I didn’t want Erin to hurt, like that.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t exactly tear you apart, I mean, you obviously stayed together…”
I lean back against the sideboard and drag my hands through my hair. “I was done, Skye. I think I knew it was over even before she got pregnant, but then she did… I don’t even know if I was still in love with her, my emotions were so fucked up, and she was all over the place, after the miscarriage. She was too fragile, and maybe it would’ve been kinder to end it right there. To let her deal with everything all in one go; to let us both move on, but I was weak. I was too weak, because I still cared about her. That didn’t just go away, those feelings don’t just switch themselves off. And she still loved me. She still wanted me. So we stayed together.”
“Jesus, Gabriel, and you think my life was messed up?”
“I threw myself into my work, because that’s what men like me do. I was rarely home, and she accepted that. To a point. Because when I was home we’d usually row, and I’d end up sleeping on the couch… And then I was offered this assignment. To head up this task force here in New Mexico. It meant upping and leaving New York for as long as it took to get the job done, and I knew it wasn’t gonna be quick, and I guess I saw that as my chance to finally put an end to a relationship that just wasn’t working out. But she… she wanted to come with me. And I just wanted an easy life, I was too exhausted to fight her anymore. And I know that was the wrong thing to do, it was cruel, almost, because keeping it going meant that Erin kept hold of that impossible hope. But we were never gonna make it. It just wasn’t gonna happen. And if I hadn’t finally told her it was over, for good this time, there was no going back… if I hadn’t done that, I… I don’t know. I don’t know how long this shit would’ve carried on.”
“She’s only been gone a couple of days?”
“She’s back in New York.”
“Why now, Gabriel? What made you suddenly decide to grow some balls and end it now?”
“You.”
I turn my head to face her and her expression’s confused. And again, that’s not something I’m sure I meant to say that out loud, but I did, I said it. Because it’s true.
“I don’t… I don’t understand…”
I move so I’m facing her, and I reach out and I cup her cheek and her eyes are staring into mine, and she’s still in a world of confusion, a world I’m about to complicate even further, for all of us. I’m about to step over a line here, and I don’t fucking care.
“You made me do it, Skye.”
She slowly shakes her head but she makes no attempt to remove my hand or pull away. And as I look at her I feel my heart beat harder and my chest tighten because what I’m doing here…
I lift her up and she wraps her legs around me, and as my mouth slams down onto hers my heart’s almost beating out of my chest, I can feel it, banging against my ribs, and it fucking hurts. But I’m over that line now, I’ve crossed it…
Skye
I pull off my T-shirt and arch my back as he dips his head and takes a nipple in his mouth, his tongue flicking as
he sucks on my tit, his beard gently grazing my skin. I’m still not sure how we got here, to this, all I know is I’m taking him, because I want him. I just didn’t realize that, until now. Until this moment.
His fingers start clawing at the waistband on my jeans and I help him loosen them, raising my hips slightly as he pulls them down, followed by my panties, which he tosses aside before he spreads my legs and steps between them. He takes my face in his hands and rests his forehead against mine, and for a second we just take a little time to breathe; to catch our breath and focus on what’s happening here. And then he smiles, and I smile too, and his thumb strokes my cheek as he kisses me again and I close my eyes and wrap my legs back around him as he pushes inside me.
Bound (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 3) Page 8