Marked (Branded Book 3)

by Scarlett Finn

  Nya thought he was finished, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Except as his eyes closed, her lover continued. “You could tie him up—exposure’s a bitch. Starvation’s tolerable, but unpredictable, you never really know how long they’ll hold on. It’s a bad way for your victim to go, but it’s the isolation that fucks with their head. Dehydration only takes a few days. Sometimes you get a good show. You can send a guy insane just by withholding liquid. There are drugs that make a guy feel like he’s on fire. Others that aim right for the pain center of the brain, they itch and scratch and tease that motherfucker until the guy is ready to tell you anything you want to know. You can liquefy the guy—watch his brain dribble out his eye sockets…” Ok, that one made her feel sick. “So,” Archer said, lifting his head to look past her and pin his gaze on Tag. “Do you want it to hurt?”

  “That bastard stole from me!” Tag said. “Damn right, I want him to suffer.”

  Archer exhaled a half-laugh and his head fell back again. “You’re a real dumb fuck, Taggert,” her lover said.

  “Hey!” Tag said, flying to his feet with such rage that Nya was driven to do the same.

  “I don’t want you fighting,” she said, but Archer hadn’t moved.

  “You can’t tell me he’s armed now,” Tag said. “The dude’s not even wearing shoes.”

  “How many times I gotta say it? I don’t need a weapon to hurt you,” Archer mumbled.

  Archer was certainly more clear-minded than Tag; he wasn’t high on any drugs, unless sex endorphins counted. But Nya knew her man, and he was armed. His knife would be strapped to the back of his jeans.

  “Can’t you guys get along for two seconds?” she asked. “Tag, I know you’re upset about Gio. But maybe you should hear Archer out because when he gets like this…” Nya presented her palm toward her boyfriend while keeping her focus on her friend. “He knows something more than you do. Hell, Tag, haven’t you figured it out yet? He always knows something more than you do.”

  “I’m in the fucking know. I’m in the fucking loop!” Tag asserted, offended by her implication that he wasn’t. It was the drugs, again, causing his anxiety and paranoia.

  “Archer always knows more than everyone, it’s not a reflection on you,” she said. “This is what he does. You know it. He listens. Why else would you keep coming around here to speak to him?”

  “He’s cheap,” Tag spat.

  “How the fuck would you know?” Archer said, sitting up straight. “All the shit I’ve done for months, Nya’s paid for, not you. You’re using her when you use me.” Tag scoffed, but Archer wasn’t letting him fake ignorance. “You fucking know it. Why else would you show up here when you’re looking for me? Why else would you call her and demand she gets me to call you back? You don’t come to me. You go to her because you know I’d do anything for her, even if it means saving your sorry ass. You’ve got to know, Taggert, I’d have sent you down the river months ago if it wasn’t for this girl. And yet, you come to her place in the middle of the night, strung out like a junkie bitch looking for the next fix.”

  Archer got to his feet and took her shoulders. “Archer,” she whispered, trying to soothe him.

  “No, I’m through protecting this prick,” he said. “We broke up ‘cause of your mess, Taggert. I picked up the pieces for you before and I was picking up the pieces after. You think I was doing that ‘cause you’re such a nice guy?”

  Nya turned her head to let her ear rest against his chest in an attempt to keep him calm. She could understand why he got so riled because he cared about her and didn’t want to see her being used. Tag was an old friend in a bad place. This might be a rough spell for him, but in a few months the pendulum would swing back her way and she’d be the one pounding on his door begging for his help at two in the morning.

  “You don’t know Nya as well as you think you do,” Tag sneered.

  She was so used to him being composed and relaxed around her that she was still getting used to this angry, scowling man who confronted her every time Archer was in the room.

  “Tell me what I don’t know then,” Archer said.

  Tag glanced at her. “What?” she asked, peering at him. “Tell him. Whatever it is, you can tell him. I’d do it myself, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Granted, she hadn’t told Archer every single detail of every single day of her life, but she couldn’t think of anything so shocking that she would withhold it from Archer on purpose. Yes, there were some details that she would rather not have blurted out in anger. But if they were, she couldn’t imagine Archer turning his back on her because of any story from her past.

  Anyway, knowing him as well as she did, Nya couldn’t discount the possibility that Archer already knew about the skeletons in her closet. “He’s fucking with you, Squirm,” Archer said, kissing the top of her head. “This is the guy you risk your life for. The guy who is willing to toss you in front of a train to win some points in an argument.”

  “I would never fucking do that,” Tag said. “Nya belonged to me long before she belonged to you.”

  “Is that what you’re getting at?” Archer asked, and she heard a semi-smile in his voice. “If this is a pissing contest over a girl you’ve had fifteen years to make a move on, just remember you’re the one who chose not to take her. Are you gonna tell me now you’ve been crazy in love with her all this time and you were just waiting for your chance?” He brushed his lips against her hair. “Well you missed it, buddy. She’s my girl now; there ain’t no wiggle room in that.”

  “Don’t talk shit,” Tag said. “Nya’s like my baby sister and she deserves better than a jerk like you.”

  “Like Damien?” Archer asked. “You left her with him for years. That happened on your watch, Taggert. You know she feels guilt about your relationship with your brother, about what happened to Jamie in the name of saving you.”

  Archer moved her aside. “Fella,” she said, but didn’t reach him before he began to walk away.

  “But you left her there,” Archer growled. “She thinks you’re some great savior. You wanna talk about secrets?”

  Archer got even closer to Tag. But Nya wasn’t worried about them fighting, the tension lingered, yet Archer was calm in his menace. She didn’t like her shame being aired in this public forum. Except, there were no strangers in this room, so it didn’t matter if she was here or not, both of these men knew the details of her past.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tag barked.

  Nya saw a retreat in his body language. There was something in the way he held himself now, he wasn’t projecting the same vicious anger as before. He was wary. He was worried. Archer knew something about her friend that she didn’t.

  “Taggy?” she asked. “What secret?”

  “He doesn’t know shit,” Tag said, marching toward the TV where she stood, giving Archer a wide berth. “You better not listen to shit he says about me. Whatever he says, it’s not true.”

  But Archer hadn’t told her any secret about Tag. Folding his arms, Archer slowly turned, observing the pair without speaking. “Fella?” she asked and he shook his head.

  “Gio used your fifty grand,” Archer said, glaring at Tag. “You were too chicken-shit to call the guy after Farrah dumped your ass ‘cause you wanted to rebuild your crappy empire, well what the fuck have you done? Nothing. Gio’s been watching. Just because he’s not been around doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what’s going on and he’s trying to fix it. Yeah, he’s back in town. He’s risking his fucking ass walking these streets around here, ‘cause you’ve got plenty of debts and nowhere near enough money to clear them.”

  Tag whipped around, forgetting about his previous paranoia. “I’ve got fucking money. You don’t fucking know!”

  “I know everything,” Archer said, completely nonplussed. It was an odd contrast to see Archer so aloof as Tag got more agitated. “I know the balances on all your accounts down to the last cent. But some debts can’t
be paid with green. You want to stand there while I list the people you’ve pissed off in the last couple of years? All this time I’ve spent digging you out of holes, I’ve learned a bunch of interesting facts, Taggert, don’t you fucking forget that when you start thinking about running your mouth to Ny, ‘cause there’s a limit. I’ve told her there is.”

  “What fucking limit?” Tag asked, his frenetic gaze leapt between the couple. Archer had told her that he wouldn’t go an inch further for Tag than he had to in the name of protecting her, but that was the only limit he’d spoken of. “A limit on what you’ll do for her?” Tag sniggered. “You see, Yorkie? He doesn’t fucking love you. If a guy really loves you, there is no fucking limit. There’s no limit to what I would do for you.”

  This was getting tiring. “This isn’t a competition,” Nya said. “I’m not interested in who’ll leap off the highest cliff for me.”

  “I didn’t say there was a limit on what I’d do for her,” Archer snarled. “I said there was a limit on what I’d do for you. ‘Cause as soon as she’s safe, I don’t give a fuck what happens to you.”

  “Like with Hexam?” Tag barked. “I know you did something to him. I don’t know what. But you did something.”

  “I do shit every day,” Archer said. “And I don’t tell fuckwits like you about it.”

  There was so much hostility in the room now, when only minutes before it had been filled with passion. Nya’s heart got heavy. At one time, Tag had been so respected in the underground community that he too could afford to be nonchalant. To see him reduced to this wild-eyed, unkempt, sweating stranger, she felt for her friend and wished she could resolve the situation for him.

  “This is good,” she said. Going over to Tag, Nya picked up his hands and pressed them onto her face. At one time, that had been all it took to calm him down. “If Gio’s coming back and he’s paying debts, it means you can rebuild things together.”

  “I can’t trust that fucker,” Tag said, pulling his hands away. “He stole from me!”

  “You were in the business together,” Archer said. “It’s fucking arrogant to assume he shouldn’t get a cut of the profit. It’s business money being used for business debts. You need him now. He’s more together than you fucking are.” Archer sneered as he looked Tag up and down. “But if I was Gio I’d take one look at you and spit on the partnership. There wouldn’t be a chance in hell I’d work with you in this state.”

  “Archer,” she murmured, trying to cool his disgust.

  “No,” Tag said. “No, see, he thinks he’s so much fucking better and why? What the fuck do you have? This shithole?”

  His lip curled as he scanned the room, Nya figured he’d forgotten he was in her place and not Archer’s.

  “I take care of my responsibilities,” Archer said. “And my dick’s big enough, man, I don’t need a fancy zip code to prove to my girl I can satisfy her.”

  Tag had moved to a new apartment around the same time he got together with Farrah. It hadn’t occurred to Nya that he might have picked that expensive place to impress the woman he was trying to seduce. Now that Archer had said it, it made sense. Rethinking so many things in a flash, Nya turned back to Tag to link their fingers at their sides.

  “We should think about this. What do you really want?” she asked. “Do you want the business back or are you done with it? I mean, you don’t need to go back to that.”

  “It’s my life.”

  “You could go legit,” she offered. “Get out of that mess now and you have a nice place, a nice car, you could help me with Sizzle.”

  “Squirm,” Archer warned.

  But she didn’t pay attention to her lover, she was too busy watching the disgust bleed onto Tag’s face. “Running a shitty club in a crappy part of town? No,” Tag said, shaking his head once. “Why would I want to do that? I want respect.”

  “You want power,” Archer said. “Just like every other small-dick, lowlife on the street. You don’t have the goods to back it up and now you’re talking about turning your back on the only guy in town willing to work with you. Doesn’t sound smart to me.”

  No. It didn’t, and Archer might be saying things that would hurt Tag, but his points were valid. For weeks before he’d got with Farrah, Tag had lived in hiding in fear for his life because of what went down with Hexam’s men. He’d lost all momentum. Lost contacts. Lost men and merchandise. And then when he’d been with Farrah he’d been so sure they were in love and that the relationship was going to last forever that he signed assets over to Hexam, proving to the woman he loved that he was willing to be a team player and part of the family business.

  That must have taken a lot of courage for Tag to do because he’d always been a proud guy. Agreeing to be subordinate to Hexam meant swallowing that pride. He would never have done it for Nya, which betrayed just how deep his feelings for Farrah went.

  Nya knew what it was like to be heartbroken, at least she’d had contact with Archer when they were split up and had hope that they might reconcile. Tag had neither of those. If she hadn’t fought to keep Archer in her life, maybe she’d have descended into this kind of breakdown too.

  “You don’t have anything to prove,” she said, trying to soothe her friend. “We’re here for you. We want to do what’s best for you.”

  “He doesn’t,” Tag said, half rolling his eyes in Archer’s direction, but she was pleased when they returned to her and seemed to clear.

  Smiling, she tried to use her own calm to promote his. “You know I love you and I would do anything to make sure that you were safe. I just want you to think about this before you do something stupid. If you don’t want to be a part of Sizzle, don’t be. Go and buy a decent place, a nice place. It doesn’t have to be a club. You could get a restaurant or a hotel. Use the nest egg you have to start something that no one can ever steal away from you.”

  This time when he loosened his fingers, Tag stroked her face by choice. “Always trying to keep me out of trouble, aren’t you, Yorkie?” She nodded. “But a man’s got to stand up for himself. This is about more than settling down and making smart choices. It’s about pride.”

  Nya hated that word because it made her think of ego. The damn male ego. “You have nothing to prove,” she pleaded. “No one is watching and nobody cares what you do next. You have to look out for yourself.”

  “I am,” Tag said. “People will be watching when I’m through.”

  He took a step back, but she wouldn’t release his hands. Desperate worry made her cling tighter. “Do you know where Gio is? Are you going to hurt him tonight? Please, you need to think about this,” Nya said.

  Tag yanked his hand away with such force, Nya stumbled forward. It wasn’t until Archer caught her arm that she realized her lover was close. “Let him go,” Archer said as Tag frowned and walked backwards toward the door.

  “I have to do this,” Tag said. “I have to do what’s right by me.”

  He turned and left the apartment. Although he pulled the door behind him, it didn’t close. “Oh, God,” she said and wanted to rush forward after him. “Archer, he’ll get himself killed!”

  “Gimme the tee shirt,” Archer said, sprinting away from her to the bedroom. Nya hadn’t figured out what he was doing until he came back three seconds later with his feet in his boots. He snapped his fingers twice. “Babe, tee shirt, now, come on.”

  Pulling it off, her hair hadn’t even fallen back to her shoulders by the time he had it over his head. “Arch—”

  “Go to bed, go to sleep,” he said. “Do not leave this apartment.”

  He ran out after Tag without any explanation or kiss goodbye, he was just gone.

  Being completely naked, Nya couldn’t go after them. But she worried about Archer’s intentions. Was he going to hurt Tag or Gio? Was he going to fight against Tag or at his side?

  She trusted that her lover would be calmer tonight than he had been in the club during his last confrontation with her friend, but she wasn’t convin
ced he’d absolve Tag of all sin.

  Even if she went and got dressed, she would never be able to find them. She felt so useless.

  Nya hoped to God that Tag wasn’t driving. If he had to find a cab, it would give Archer time to catch up with him. There wasn’t much traffic on this street at night, not cars anyway.

  The gangs moved up and down shouting at each other across the width of the street. Sometimes hookers wandered to the corner or pimps called orders from windows, but Tag would be hard pushed to find a yellow taxi bumbling down the street.

  Nya went to the window to look down, but she didn’t see anything. Archer’s car was still parked outside, but the men could’ve been in any of the side alleys, which cut across to parallel streets, or they could just be out there by the dumpsters fighting with each other.

  She tried to call both their phones, but got no answer. There was absolutely nothing she could do except what Archer told her.

  For weeks she’d fallen asleep without Archer at her side and just when she thought she’d got him back, he’d been stolen away again. Nya went to bed when she couldn’t take pacing anymore and she was sure that she’d be staring at the ceiling for hours, craning to hear any sound.

  Eventually, her eyes closed and she prayed that when she opened them again, Archer would be at her side.

  eleven

  Archer wasn’t beside her when she woke up. But she wasn’t in the bed alone.

  Nya opened her eyes and at first was so confused by what she saw that she didn’t react. Maybe it was a dream. But if it was, it was an odd one.

  She sat up, still naked beneath the blankets, and looked at the woman beside her. She certainly hadn’t gone to bed with Ester, but the woman was definitely here now. It was possible that Ester had stumbled into the wrong apartment while drunk. But if she had, she’d have made a noise or deliberately woken her up to party. Would Ester have known that this was her “daughter’s” place or was stumbling into the wrong apartment a common thing for her?