The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos)

by Scarlett Cole

  “I think he’s found his own kind of happy,” she answered truthfully. “I don’t think it’s the happy he planned for himself, but it’s the one he’s been able to make.”

  “And where do you fit into all this? Because I love you almost as much as I love him,” Harper said, reaching for her hand.

  Lia shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. We’ve known each other for such a very short period of time, but we get along great. Too well, sometimes.”

  “This isn’t one of your things, is it? Where you fall in love this week and fall out of it next? Because I couldn’t stand to see either of you get hurt. And I don’t ever want to have to pick sides.”

  “I know. And I wish I could say that won’t happen. I think both of us have our hang-ups. But I love you, too. And if you told me that me seeing your brother is too much for you to handle right now, I’d step away.”

  The moment the words came out of her mouth, she realized she didn’t mean them and she prayed Harper wouldn’t ask her to make good on her offer. Of course she loved Harper. But the idea of staying away from Reid made her stomach tighten.

  “You need to talk to him, Harper. He doesn’t know what happened after. He wants to know why you’re here and not in Chicago.”

  “Oh, God. I never even thought about that last night when we left. Once I heard his story, I needed some space to think back to that time and to consider how my father had behaved. That’s so selfish of me, isn’t?”

  “Harper, sweetie, there isn’t a selfish bone in your body.”

  “Is he still at your place? I’m not working ’til later. Maybe I could go over and talk to him again?”

  “He did stay over, but he had a call this morning from the mom of one of the boys he mentors . . . he has a program at the community center. Her son was involved in an accident and she asked him to go to the hospital. I don’t know when he’ll be back. Though he’s hoping tonight, he has to see how hurt the boy is.”

  “Working with kids . . . volunteering . . . that was never his kind of thing,” Harper said, surprise lining her brow.

  “I think you’d be surprised what six years will do to a man,” Lia replied.

  * * *

  Happy freaking Labor Day weekend. Reid’s eyes burned like somebody had thrown sand in them. He ran through the job sheets and tried to figure out exactly how far behind he was but exhaustion was getting the better of him. Having burned most of the previous day at the hospital, worked had piled up at the garage.

  He put his pen down and leaned back in his chair. Thirteen-year-old Donovan was finally out of the intensive care unit, but he was a long way from being out of the woods. Egged on by friends, he’d attempted a stupid skateboard move around the back of an old derelict warehouse. He’d gone airborne, lost the skateboard from underneath his feet, and landed headfirst on concrete.

  The medical bills alone would cripple Donovan’s family for years to come, not to mention the potential long-term care implications if his recovery wasn’t a hundred percent. While Donovan’s mom, Sharon, had paced the hallways waiting for news, Reid had started to note down ideas for potential fund-raisers to help the family find their feet again.

  In comparison to their issues, the work he had to catch up on suddenly didn’t seem so bad. He placed the manifest back on the desk and headed toward one of the bays. The parts were in for Lia’s car, and he’d had every intention of fixing it as soon as they arrived. He hadn’t made it back to Miami. Lia had ended up having to work Cujo’s shift because he’d taken the day off sick, so perhaps it’d been a good thing that he’d been unable to make it back. Sitting around her condo without her in it, surrounded by the smell of her, would have been torture.

  Her car had been blocking the bay since he had stripped down the engine, and the sooner he got it finished the better.

  It had seemed wrong to be thinking about her while he was at the hospital, imagining the things they had done together. But he missed her, and no amount of texting made up for the feel of her in his arms. Sure, the timing was just about as bad as it could be and the relationships were complicated, but seeing Taylor—no, he thought, Harper–all kinds of wrapped up in Trent and well on her way to marriage suddenly made his decision to stay single seem stupid.

  There were so many questions he wanted to ask Harper. Like why she was in Miami, and why the hell she was going by Harper instead of her real name. He considered calling home, but it had been so long since he had left that it would be impossible to call up to simply get answers. Plus, his mom would want answers of her own and he had no idea what explanation his dad had given her. Had he told her the truth? Had she agreed with what his dad had done? He doubted it, but he wanted to know before he waded into those waters—not to save his dad’s ass, but to protect his mom.

  Reid pulled out his phone and took a snap of Lia’s car with the hood up. He opened the passenger door and sat down. The scent of Lia surrounded him, sending blood rushing to his cock.

  Four more sleeps until you get your baby back.

  He attached the picture and pressed send.

  Are we talking about you or the car?

  Both, babe.

  Don’t call me babe.

  Never.

  Reid laughed. He planned on calling her babe for a long time. Lia had suggested on Saturday that Harper might be open to a phone call. At first he’d been reluctant to push Harper, wanting any reconnection to be driven by her, but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to talk to her.

  Can you send me Harper’s phone number?

  She sent the number and he thanked her with all kinds of promises about what he was going to do to her when he saw her again, including taking her on the countertop in the kitchen.

  He called out to Chase that he was going to grab his lunch, left the garage, and ran up the stairs to his apartment. With a kick of his foot, he closed the door. He sat down in the armchair closest to the window. Swallowing deeply, he dialed.

  “Hello,” his sister said. It was such a small thing, but he missed the sound of her voice.

  “Hey, sis. It’s me. Reid.”

  “Of course it’s you. Unless Mom had more kids and I didn’t know it, you’re the only person on the planet who can call me sis.”

  He relaxed a little and sat back in the chair. He’d missed her wit and her natural ability to put people at ease. It was what had made her such a great teacher.

  “Do you still teach?”

  “I’m sitting outside of school right now, eating my lunch, but I didn’t for quite a while,” she said quietly. “I just started back full time after the summer. What made you ask that of all questions?”

  Reid shrugged, even though he knew she couldn’t see it. “I don’t know. Just calling you and you answering and joking with me seemed so normal for a moment. It made me think about what an amazing teacher you’d been. But I guess none of this is normal.”

  In the silence that followed, he watched little bits of fluff dance in the rays of sunlight pouring in through the window. Perhaps he shouldn’t have called her. What if he’d been right, that it was too soon? Maybe he should have waited for her to call him when she was ready.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just wanted to speak to you, but didn’t really have a plan beyond that.”

  “There’s still so much to talk about, so much that you don’t know. But I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what you said on Friday evening. And I remember things getting progressively more strained between you and Dad. I just . . . I mean . . . I get why he was mad. I’m hurt, too . . . but to send you away, for a mistake, and for doing what you thought was best, even if it was stupid . . . it hurts, you know?” Harper sniffed, and he hated the quiver in her voice.

  Damn. He hadn’t meant to upset her. He tried to change the topic.

  “Tell me why you’re here. You loved Chicago. You loved teaching. Hell, you were the only person I knew over the age of twenty who still built snowmen. And now you’re here, with a
different name, and a ring on your finger.”

  “I really don’t like to talk about it,” Harper replied.

  “Oh,” he said, disappointed he’d hit on another upsetting topic for her. It was clear their relationship was going to be a minefield for a while, but he was willing to do whatever it took to rebuild it. “I’m sorry. I guess I just want to get to know you again, but I get why you may not trust me with it all yet.”

  “That’s not it. It was brutal, Reid. And I don’t want to make you feel worse than you clearly already do.”

  Reid rested his head back on the sofa and tried to breathe through the vise currently clamping his chest. “Don’t worry about me. I need to man up to my mistakes, Harper, and I need you to let me.”

  Harper sighed. “Nathan didn’t stop after he went to prison. With the help of his father, and some gang members he met inside, he started to terrorize me. You remember how helpful the police were thanks to Nathan’s father’s financial contribution to the police retirement fund? Well, it escalated. They even tried to run Mom and Dad off the road. But most of the vitriol was aimed at me. I was terrified that Nathan was going to find me when he got out of prison. You remember how he yelled that I was his, and he was going to find me? So I told Mom and Dad that the only way I was going to be safe was if I just disappeared. We found a way to keep in touch that was untraceable, and I made my way south as soon as I felt well enough.”

  “So you made up a new identity and traveled alone? Fuck, that takes balls, sis.”

  “Didn’t feel so brave at the time. It wasn’t really until I met Trent that I found my feet at all. I knew that with all Winston’s connections and money, if he wanted to find me he would.”

  “How did you and the big guy meet?”

  “I asked him for a tattoo.”

  “Oh my God. You got ink? You hated tattoos. Let me guess. Some quote by an obscure poet.”

  The phone went quiet. Too easily he’d fallen back into an old habit with her, where they’d teased and loved each other in equal measure. He needed to remember to bite his tongue when he was tempted to do that again. Because right now they were barely even friends.

  “He tattooed over my scars.”

  Suddenly light-headed, he leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose. Her back had been a mess of raised red and white scars that had spelled out a shocking message. The tattoos down his own arm had hurt enough, especially the ones near his armpit and over his elbow. He’d wanted the pain, wanted the reminders. The date of Harper’s attack. The day he left Chicago. The lines that marked every hundred days since he’d left his home behind. But he couldn’t begin to imagine what it must feel like to have needles pushed into skin so badly damaged. His head spun.

  “Taylor . . .” He couldn’t find the words, couldn’t even remember to call her by the name she preferred.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me. It was the one thing I did on my own terms. Without Trent, I never would’ve gotten through it. Somewhere in between asking him on the sidewalk whether tattooing over scars was possible and him finishing the multiple appointments it took to complete it, we fell in love with each other. So if this story has a silver lining, Trent is it.”

  While it hurt to know he’d been replaced, he felt an enormous sense of gratitude that Trent had been there for her when he hadn’t. “Then I’m glad you found him.”

  “So am I,” she replied. “There’s one other thing. Did you know Nathan was released after four years for good behavior?”

  The news hit him like a punch in the stomach. He crouched over farther. He’d deliberately stayed away from the media, figured it was better if he didn’t know what was going on so he could fight the compelling need he had to go back and fix things. “No. Fuck. It’s my fault.”

  “I’m sorry, I feel like I should be telling you this face-to-face.”

  “Don’t insult me by apologizing to me, Harper. This is all on me. Not a single piece of it is on you. Don’t think that for a moment.”

  “When Nathan got out, he found me. He came to Miami and abducted me all over again. Fortunately, I got away without being too seriously hurt. He violated his parole and has already received a sentence that he has to serve in Illinois. But he’s here, being held in Miami without bail, to be tried all over again for the crime he committed in Florida. Once his jail time in Illinois is finished, he’ll be moved here.”

  Rage trickled through every part of him. He’d caused her so much more hurt than he’d ever thought possible. With his testimony, Nathan’s sentence would have been longer. Shit. If he’d stayed, he might’ve been able to stop the ongoing attacks on his family after sentencing, or at least he could’ve run with her to help keep her safe.

  He felt sick to his stomach.

  His father had been right all along.

  He really was a fuckup.

  * * *

  Lia pulled the long-sleeved blouse over her head. Her tattoos were still visible through the glossy black chiffon sleeves, but the impact was most definitely subdued. She reached into her closet and took out a pair of trousers. She rarely wore pants, preferring skirts and dresses, but she thought of the cream high-waisted trousers as her Katharine Hepburn look.

  Dinner on Star Island was most definitely not how she wanted to spend the evening, but the call from her mother earlier on in the day begging her to come spend some time at the house had led her to say yes. And it was on rare days like this that she hated Granny Emmeline for making her promise to take care of her mom, otherwise she’d be at home working on the new artwork that Reid had inspired. It was a collage of classic bikes, an old map of Route 66, and a series of quotes about speed and life on the open road.

  On the drive over, she prepared herself for seeing her father. As much as she was excited to tell her mom about the new man in her life, she knew it was too dangerous. Her father already had too much control, and finding out that Lia was dating the brother of an assault victim would be seen as useful. Somehow, he’d find a way of spinning it to suit his needs.

  She pulled into the driveway and parked alongside an impressive-looking Mercedes. Hopefully her mother hadn’t gotten any stupid ideas into her head. The last time a strange car had been parked outside when she had turned up for dinner, there had been a very mild-mannered accountant named Jeffrey waiting to meet her inside, her mom’s idea of a perfectly matched blind date.

  For a woman trapped in a loveless marriage, her mom still believed in the institution enough to wish it for her daughter. Lia couldn’t decide if this was hopelessly romantic or terribly tragic.

  At one time, Lia had liked to consider herself an equal opportunity dater. It didn’t really matter what the man did, how he dressed, where he was from, or how he looked. If he was funny and intelligent and charming, she would be captivated.

  Her thoughts drifted to Reid. Perhaps it was time to accept that she did indeed have a preference . . . and what a type it was. Hardworking with a body to match. Sense of humor nonnegotiable. Oh, and scruff. Not a beard, and not clean-shaven. Just those perfectly short bristles. Lia smiled and placed her key into the lock.

  Like clockwork, the hallway had been transformed. September the first marked the transition to fall in her mom’s mind. Everything summer had been put away, replaced with pictures of autumnal leaves and floral arrangements in burnt orange and brown. The rest of the house would follow suit. Gone would be the bright blue-and-white china pattern, and in its place would be cream plates edged in gold.

  Voices sounded from down the hallway. She couldn’t hear much, catching every fourth or fifth word, but someone was talking about legislation for foreign income. Her father responded with something about fraud. It seemed odd that he would take such a meeting in his own home. Her father was usually scrupulous about separating church and state, as he called it.

  Relieved that she wouldn’t have to make nice with her father for any longer than was necessary, Lia wandered into the kitchen where Leo, their chef, was busy making dinner. He ha
d worked for her family for nearly twenty years, and she was closer to him than she was to her real father. Every day after school he had made her a snack and sat and listened to her stories. Over the years, she had asked his advice on everything from boys to art school. Along with Granny Emmeline, he had been fully behind her decision to go study whatever she wanted. The hallway in his condo held eight of her paintings and mixed-media artwork, hung in chronological order. He joked that it was her first installation, and he had titled it Progress.

  “I made your favorite,” he called out over his shoulder. “Remember to take it with you when you leave.”

  On the counter were four dishes with glass lids. She knew that three of them would contain macaroni and cheese, and the other would be a container of lobster.

  She walked over to him and he opened his arms to embrace her. “Thank you, Leo. You are still my favorite.”

  “Of course I am,” he said. “That’s why there is also a small apple pie in the fridge.”

  Lia stepped away and opened the fridge to peer inside. Sure enough, there was a pie with a pastry letter L on top. “So what are we really having for dinner tonight?”

  “Your father asked for swordfish with mango salsa.”

  Lia thought back to Friday evening when she had sat on the balcony with Reid and enjoyed their Italian food. Maybe one night she could cook dinner for him, but she would need help.

  “So have you made plans with your friends for your thirtieth birthday yet? You’ll certainly have the funds to make it a big one.”

  Granny Emmeline had made provisions in her will for Lia and Ben to receive part of their estate at twenty-one and the rest on their thirtieth birthdays. Ben had already received his, but had left his money in the care of the family accountant. With her birthday less than a month away, she really did need to make plans, even if they were as simple as where she was going to put the money. Perhaps she would speak to her brother. See if he wanted to do some investing together.