Glass hit tile, shards flew everywhere. One might have pierced me. I thought water might have spilled on me based on the cool numbness I started to feel.
I don’t know.
I was too busy staring into the box.
“What’s going on?” I glanced at Lenny with her ruby hair messed up like she’d just been fucked, sleepy at the top of the stairs, the shirt she’d borrowed from me wrinkled and dipping to the side of her shoulder.
“Nothing…” I waved her off, hiding the box behind my back. “I just dropped the glass.”
“Are you okay?” Lenny asked, rubbing her eyes.
“I’m fine,” I said, keeping my voice level.
“What’s that?” I followed her finger to the black wrapping that had fallen to the floor.
“It must be left over from the birthday party,” I lied.
“I thought I’d cleaned all that up…” Lenny yawned and scanned the room, looking for stray bits of birthday party.
“Everything is fine, go back to sleep.” Lenny shrugged and pulled the shirt up tight, turning back toward our room. When I was sure she wasn’t coming back, I extracted the small black card.
Hours after Lennox had gone back to sleep, I flipped the black card in my hand. The gloss face reflected against the granite kitchen counter. It didn’t have a name or number, just an address. Two addresses, actually.
Both my apartment and my fucking safe house.
In case I got any ideas about hiding.
I knew what it meant. Anyone in my line of work knew what a black card with their address meant. It meant they’d been marked. Somewhere, someone had an identical card, except it was white. That person would be coming for me. Maybe they were already here, waiting.
Fuck! I moved to slam my fist against the adjoining kitchen wall but stopped short an inch from the plaster, for the very reason that I felt the need to crush my fingers.
Lenny.
She was upstairs, asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her. I’d heard that love made you a fool, but I hadn’t known it made you a complete fucking idiot. It was like all my training flew out the window the minute I met Lenny.
Years ago I’d made my bed. I’d married the devil, then had the gall to divorce her.
I deserved everything that was coming.
But Lenny didn’t.
I turned the card in my hand, my stomach churning. I’d known Alice would get her revenge, but I hadn’t thought she would have GEM on her side when she did it. It was a revelation I should have come to much sooner, but I’d been so wrapped up in my own shit I didn’t see it.
I used to shrug at the idea of being blacklisted. Even when Alice threatened me, it barely resonated. Then again, I was never used to making decisions for two. Somewhere along the line my consequences stopped affecting only me and started rippling like a stone in a pond.
And somewhere in that time, Alice had gained power, true and real power. The kind of power that could crush a much bigger man than me. I was dealing with a greater threat than I’d previously thought. Upstairs Lennox slept soundly. She trusted me to protect her, and I had been failing miserably.
It was no longer just my address, it was our address. It was our bedroom. It was our kitchen. It was our goddamn safe house. It wasn’t our fucking black card, though. It was my black card with my black address and my inked ruination about to befall both of us.
Crumbling the card in my palm, I threw it against our wall.
I walked up the stairs and into the bedroom. Keeping the light off, I went over to the bed and grabbed Lennox by the arm. She struggled in her sleep, fighting against me, but when she woke she looked me in the eyes and calmed down.
“Oh my god, Vic!” She gasped. “You scared me. What the hell are you doing?” I kept my face cold, doing my best to dampen the emotions rising up. I tightened my grip around her forearm and for a moment I faltered. She’d lost weight. My fingers now almost completely curved around her arm.
Before, Lenny was curvy. She had hips. She had an ass. She had tits to die for. Now she was wasting away. Had I done that? Well, I definitely knew what the fuck my black card would do.
Fuck. I shook my head, tightened my grip, and pulled her out of the bed, flinging her to the floor. She fell, the crash making my stomach revolt. She’d taken off my shirt and was completely naked. Even in the darkness, she shone. Like the moon against the black.
On the ground, I noticed how knobby her knees had become. She lay disheveled, her hair like a fiery veil over the rest of her body. When she didn’t move, I was worried I’d gone too far. I nearly reached out, but all at once she moved.
“What the fuck, Vic?” Lenny exclaimed.
“Get out,” I said, voice stony.
“What do you mean ‘get out’? Have you gone insane?” Lenny stood up and walked toward me. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong!” She gripped my shoulders, trying to pull my eyes to hers.
“You’re what’s wrong,” I lied.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I don’t love you any more,” I continued. “I can’t be with you. You’re a fuck up. You’re an addict. You’re a fucking psycho. Just get the fuck out.”
Lennox stepped back. The look on her face was worse than I’d prepared myself for. She touched her heart and I knew why. I felt it too. I felt the tearing sensation, as if I’d ripped a piece of myself out just by saying that.
“You don’t…” Lennox whispered. “You don’t mean that.” I saw her blink her tears away, and in that moment I saw the resolve she built. I saw her construct her defenses to be with me. A while ago I’d said we were irrevocable, and that was the problem.
Lennox would never stop fighting for me, just like I would never stop fighting for her. I needed to break us, so she could become unbreakable. When Lenny placed her small hand on my shoulder, I snapped it away and raised my hand.
Then I hit her across the face.
It wasn’t enough force to break anything, but it would be enough to leave a bruise. I didn’t want to hurt Lenny. Fuck, I never wanted to hurt her. It felt like I’d kicked myself in the balls hitting her across the face, but I needed to leave a bruise.
I needed the world to see I’d hit her. On the off chance she decided she wanted to come back, I needed the world to tell her no. I needed Lissie and Zoe to think I was an asshole. I needed them to see the purple mark on her face so they’d keep her away. I needed her to stay away. I needed her safe. The only way Lennox was safe was if I was out of the picture.
The next moments passed in a blur, as if I was watching them through a slideshow someone was running too fast. I tried to stop the pictures so I could memorize them and save them away for later. Even though I loathed that this was the last way I would see her, it was the last, so I had to memorize it.
She touched her cheek, her eye, and her chest. Tears fell freely from her deep blue eyes. She grabbed clothes. She looked at me, her face convoluted in confusion and fear, true fear. She was afraid of me. There was a moment where it looked like she might stay, might convince herself to stay even after everything, so I hardened my face, and the fear returned. When she ran out the door, a part of me went with her.
I sat next to the bed smelling Lenny’s shirt like some fucking pussy out of a romance novel. A part of me thought she would come back. A part of me thought she would burst through the door right away and, in our sick, twisted, and completely toxic way, I could explain. Even though I knew nothing would ever change if she came back, it would be better. Sort of like the way drinking makes depression better.
I stared at the bedroom door with her shirt in my hand, but she never came back.
When it finally started to hit me that she wasn’t going to return, I had other thoughts. I started to imagine that she told the police. That she went to them, her eye black and blue, and told her story. I gripped her shirt tighter, imagining them coming through the door instead.
I just wanted something to fucking happen. Somethin
g. Anything instead of just waiting in silence, knowing she was out there and I’d hurt her physically and emotionally. When we’d had our fights before, I thought those silences were deafening. I thought they were painful. I had no fucking clue. I was truly alone now, living in the fucking reminder.
I used to be alone. I used to have no one. Before Lenny, it was only me. You don’t realize how quiet a room is until the music stops playing.
Fuck.
My phone eventually blew up, and that was a short reprieve. First Lissie texted, calling me all kinds of colorful and hateful names. “Cumguzzler” was probably my favorite. Then Zoe sent me a text.
Vic, I like to think that over the years we’ve gotten to know each other a bit. First you were my landlord. You were a pretty shitty landlord, but you were never a shitty person. I’m worried about you. I never thought you had it inside of you to do this to someone you loved. I still don’t. Please contact me, or get help. You still have someone on your side.
I threw my phone against the wall and opened up a bottle of bourbon.
There was a knock on the door. I had just about drunk my acts away, but there was a chance it could be Lenny, and that chance sobered me right up. I felt giddy at the thought, and was once again reminded of a fucking romance novel. Then I remembered our life wasn’t roses and chocolate. It was ashes and charcoal. I glanced over at the corner where’d I’d thrown the black card. Whoever was knocking probably had the matching white one.
I’d worked for GEM for years, but I’d only been on a few blacklist missions. I’d looked at the pearly cards they gave me with no other thought than it was the job. I provided recon for the men who would dole out the judgments. It was the nature of the trade, I would tell myself.
Now it was my turn to be judged. Maybe it was karma. You can’t devote your life to killing and not expect to be killed. So as I heard a second knock on the door, I knew it was Death himself curling his fist, and I wasn’t exactly jumping at the chance to answer. I was pretty fucking comfy on the floor with my bourbon and my regrets.
Assassins, mercenaries, contract killers, whatever name you wanted to call them, they’re all the same fucked up entity. I wouldn’t have put it past them to knock on the door to draw me over. Once I looked through the peephole they’d put a bullet through my eye.
Glaring warily as a third knock sounded, I stood up. I always carried a weapon on me, usually a SIG, and today was no exception. It might be my turn to die, it might be penance for all the deaths I’d caused—tangentially or by my own hand—but I wasn’t going down without a fight.
I walked over to the door and sidled up against the wall, then reached across and unlocked it. With my gun out, I waited for death to enter my home. The door opened slowly, a barely noticeable creak on the hinge.
“Uh…” My brows rose at the voice. “Vic?”
“Grace?” I asked, peeling myself off the wall. “What the hell are you doing here? I told you to get as far away as possible.”
“And we did…” Grace trailed off, looking around the apartment like she was inspecting for termites. “We were as far as Washington when we got a cryptic text from Lennox. So lemme ask you, what the hell is goin’ on round here?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” As long as the people I care about get as far away as fucking possible, I added grimly in my head. I only needed one thing from those I loved: stay the fuck away from me. Clearly that was too much to ask. I ran a hand over my face. “Grace you need to leave. It isn’t safe.”
“Lenny is down in the car.” Grace pinned me with her gaze, but stayed in the doorway.
“Why the fuck is she down there?” I exclaimed.
“Because you hit her and she wants answers. So do I! Eli, well…Eli wants to kick your ass.” Good man. A stupid man, but a good man.
“Before she comes inside, I wanna trust that you can be alone with her Vic.” Grace folded her arms as she laid down the gauntlet. She still hadn’t crossed the threshold more than a few inches, but I doubted it was due to fear. I’d seen it in war, when lines start being drawn because things were being taken without permission. I’d taken her trust and she didn’t want to give up anything else.
“You can’t.” I shrugged, trying to portray nonchalance when everything inside me was screaming. Grace couldn’t trust me and she never should have, at least that was true.
“I don’t want to believe you’re anything like Daddy,” Grace whispered, almost too quiet for me to hear. From the way her glare flickered, I assumed Grace was thinking the bruises our daddy had given us were resurfacing on Lenny’s face. She looked at me, face hard, waiting for me to tell her otherwise.
I’d already done more than a bulldozer’s worth of damage. Broken faces, broken friendships, broken families…I laid it all to waste like crushed concrete. If I offered Grace an ounce of comfort, it all would have been for nothing.
“I don’t want to see her,” I replied. “So get the fuck out.” I lifted my hand to move Grace and in that millisecond she transformed.
“Don’t you touch me Vic!” she screamed. “I can go on my own.” I lowered my hands in defeat, following Grace to make sure she really left. As soon as we were out of the apartment, I felt her. My body pulled to hers. If I’d had a soul left, I was sure that would have been tugged to hers as well. She was my magnet. Anywhere Lenny went, I went as well. Gearing up for obliteration, I turned to see her.
Lennox stood in the shadows of the doorway. Her black eye had spread to the top of her cheekbone and up to her temple. Eggplant, maroon, and saffron, the colors were like a violent sunset across her eye—that I had put there.
“She shouldn’t have left us alone,” I said, more to myself.
“She’s probably just outside the door.” With her eyes on the floor, Lenny leaned against the door, refusing to take another step inside. “She’s worried you’re becoming like your asshole dad.”
I reached out to touch the bruise but she flinched. Like an idiot I asked, “Does it hurt?”
“No it’s great,” Lenny replied, sarcasm like a snake bite. “I’m surprised they don’t offer this in spas. You know, get a facial, a mud mask, and then a one-two punch.” I laughed despite the circumstance. Lenny always had a way with words, even when she had a fucking black eye. I took a step closer, expecting her to flinch again, but she held her ground.
Lenny glared up at me, Atlantic eyes stormy. “You’re not well, Vic. You might even be mentally ill.”
I laughed. “You think everyone is mentally ill.”
Lennox punched her cheek out with her tongue. “Yeah that’s great, deflect. I kept wondering these past months why you were so goddamn adamant that I get help—”
“I wanted you to be well.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s all it was. It couldn’t be that you were projecting or anything.” She pointed at her bruised eye and I looked away. “You’ve been to war, you grew up in an abusive home, and you never talk about your birth mom. Are you really going to try and sell me that shit as diamonds? You wanted me well? Sure, okay.”
I stepped back at her accusations. Even after years of living with her, after a constant slew of Lennox, I had somehow gotten it in my head that I could prepare myself. Her words cut through me, nestling deep inside my abdomen like acid. She had such an uncanny ability to strip raw everything I worked to strengthen.
Now was not the time to be raw. I needed my defenses up and unwavering. Superman doesn’t carry kryptonite into battle. I hardened my jaw, placing a hand on her shoulder to kick her out.
Our eyes locked.
“You’re such an asshole.”
There it was again, that fire inside her. For a while it had been so hard to see, but it was back and it was a fucking bonfire. She raised her fist, knocking free the hand I’d put on her shoulder and nearly crashing her own against my mouth. I grabbed it at the elbow. She frowned harder, but it was a mask. I could see the glow inside her, burning away at the facade. She raised her other fist but I caught th
at one at the wrist.
“Let go of me you wife-beating ass,” Lenny said, struggling in my grip.
“You’re not my wife,” I pointed out.
“Oh excuse me, you’re right, I should really get the nomenclature right when talking about my abuser. Ass. Did I get that right? Ass—” I covered her lips with my mouth, shutting her up with a kiss. At first Lenny resisted. She pushed at me and elbowed me, but she was my drug. I needed to have her, and I knew Lenny felt the same way. We were like two heroin addicts who housed each other’s personal brand of heroin.
Lenny bit my lip and pulled it between her teeth. With her now free hands she pounded on my chest. Still, that wasn’t enough. She grabbed my hand and forced me to touch her face. She made me feel it, the place I had hit her. I tried to pull away, because fuck if I wanted to cause her any more pain, but she refused to let me.
Through it I felt everything. I felt her tears fall as my touch caused agony, an agony I had created. Our kiss never broke. I pushed Lenny back against the door and lifted up her shirt. With my free hand I cupped her breast, ecstatic that this time her hiss was of pleasure and not pain.
Lowering my lips from hers, I placed kisses along her skin. From her collarbone down I lavished her skin, watching her face change as I inched closer to her nipple. With my mouth to her tit, I lowered my hand beneath the seam of her pants.
It wasn’t sweet. It was anger and confusion marked by our passion. It was punishment. It was a lashing literally done with tongues. When I entered her with my finger, she grasped the hand that still lay on her cheek, as if I could ever forget.
The orgasm I pulled from her was rough and visceral. She wanted to look away but that was the one thing I forced from her. I wanted her to look into my eyes when she came. Too many days she’d looked away or been lost to me. I caught her chin as her body moved against my hand.
Come To Me (Owned Book 3) Page 10