“Then, don’t.”
“I don’t have a choice,” I say as tears form in my eyes. “Why do you even care? We met once. We wrote a few letters. In the grand scheme of things, it was insignificant. We were strangers. Still are.”
“Bullshit!”
“I thought you said you didn’t want me to lie to you?” I argue.
Grim sits down in the blue stadium chair next to me, and for a moment, we both quietly look over the bay. It’s Grim who finally breaks the silence.
“What did you mean when you said you loved the boy in the picture?” He asks, throwing me off balance.
Confusion and panic set in. I give up my quest for the truth and revert to what I’m good at. Lies. ALL THE LIES. “I really didn’t mean that,” I back pedal.
“Yes, you did,” Grim replies. “If you can’t tell me where you’ve been or why you said that, at least, answer me this: why are you here?”
“You carried me here,” I say sarcastically.
His forehead wrinkles. “Don’t push me. Why are you here in Lacking?”
Because I was recruited by a gang I never wanted to be a part of and threatened with my life and the life of my best friend. Did I mention the man who took me prisoner is also your mortal enemy? Yeah, I’ve been working for him for five years. Great, right? Wanna grab coffee and catch up?
I sigh heavily, giving myself time to come up with a semi-truth that might appease Grim. “I got sent to a new home just outside the city. I’m just waiting to age out so I can figure out what to do with my life,” I fib. “They had a foster kid they took in a while back. He was…not well. Mentally. He was sent away and they moved, but he still blamed them. He sent threatening letters. So, when they took me in, they’d just moved again. They had CPS seal their address and my records. You know. Safety precaution. They don’t want me talking about it, and they don’t want me associating with anyone in Lacking because they don’t want me caught up in the life.” I try changing the subject. “Did that family adopt you?”
“Yeah, but it was more like recruited,” he replies.
“Ah, I know the feeling,” I mutter, instantly regretting my words.
“How so?”
“The couple that took me in? They did it because of my record. Because they wanted an accomplice to run tricks for them.” I shrug. “It’s not so bad. A little petty theft here and there. A few well-timed lies. Besides, I’ll be eighteen in a few months, so it’s not like I’ve got to stay long. They’re strict about where I work and when I have to be back, but it could be worse.”
“Could be worse?” Grim asks, and for the first time, I see the corner of his lip tug up in a half smile that I swear stops my fucking heart from beating. “Like you could end up sneaking into a member of Bedlam’s window and have a gun aimed your head?”
I roll my eyes. “Well, when you put it that way,” I repeat my words from the other night. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
Grim shakes his head. “It is. This could have ended very differently. If you were anyone else. If you were with The Immortals or worse, Los Muertos…” He shakes his head like he doesn’t want to think about it. “You’d be dead right now.”
His words are a twisted dagger in my chest and fuel to keep up the lies.
“Well, good for me that I’m just good ole Emma Jean, up to her same old tricks,” I say clasping my hands together on my lap and looking out onto the water.
“I take it that you and Gabby are behind the casino cons.”
“Uh…no?” I don’t even try to sound convincing. I have to give him something so he feels like he got one over on me. Manipulation is a give and take. This is my give.
He laughs, and it pains me that I can’t laugh right along with him. He’s beautiful when he laughs. He pulls the locket out of his jacket and hands it to me. “Here.”
“No, I told you I would give it back someday, and I finally got a chance.”
“It isn’t that someday yet,” he says.
I take it and rub my thumb over the cold metal and instantly feel comfort. I lift it to my neck and close the clasp, sighing in relief.
“You know, I never asked you about your mother. What happened to her?” I ask. “She was so beautiful. You have her eyes.”
Grim flexes his fingers. “We lived a few towns over, but she drove to Lacking every day for work. She was killed. Got caught in a drive by shooting on her way through town, heading home from her shift at the casino.”
“I’m sorry,” I offer. I don’t want to ask the next question that comes out of my mouth, but I have to know. “Did you ever find out who was responsible?”
His jaw tightens as he grinds out the words I know are coming but don’t want to hear. “Los Muertos.”
Silence passes between us and so does that magnetic current raising every hair on my arms. I’m trapped between a life I can’t live and a death I don’t want.
“I looked for you, you know,” he says, breaking the silence. “I even went to your Aunt Ruby’s house. She was as useless as you made her out to be and more.”
His words pierce straight through my heart. I feel sick. Guilty. And surprised. He knew my records were sealed, but that could be figured out with one phone call.
“You looked for me?” I ask with genuine surprise. I turn toward him. “For how long?”
Grim’s gaze meets mine. “After my last letter came back to me?” He pauses. “Every single fucking day.”
“Every day?” I practically yell. “Every day for how long, Grim?” I don’t know why I’ve raised my voice. I’m half-surprised and a whole lot angry, but I know it’s not at him.
“Five years,” he admits. “Right up until you stumbled into my window the other night and I found out it was you. The hair threw me off at first. That and the fact that you’ve…grown up.” His Adam’s apple bobs in his neck behind his tattoos. “I like your hair now. But I loved your crazy curls, too.”
“I think you and Gabby might be the only people who’ve ever said that to me.” I smooth down the hair falling over my shoulder. “I straighten it to blend in better when I run scams. The curls kind of stand out.”
I also straighten it to blend in better around Los Muertos so I won’t be bothered. I would dye my entire body the color of a brick wall covered in graffiti if I could.
“Yeah, that’s what I liked about it. But you can straighten it all you want. You, Emma Jean Parish, will always stand out.”
My throat tightens. I’m cringing on the inside with every word that comes out of my mouth. “I mean, I guess I’ve thought about you a couple of times over the years.”
“Bullshit.” He points to the locket in my hand. “You wearing that around your neck five years later tells me otherwise.” He drags his gaze from the locket to my lips, then to my eyes. “The look on your fucking face tells me otherwise. You’re a good liar, but now that I know it’s you, I see it all over your face. I feel it. Your words say one thing and the rest of you says another.”
Yeah, I’m starting to get that.
“The look on my face?” I ask, feeling myself heating from the inside out. I’m suddenly angry at him for making me feel this way, at myself for too much to fucking list, and at the fucking world because why after all this time does Grim come back into my life now? When we’re these people. “What kind of look is it that you think you see?”
His eyes travel back to my mouth. His tongue darts out, wetting his bottom lip. “Like you felt this thing between us as much as I did when we met. Like you can feel it now. Although, now, it’s stronger. Different.” His voice turns low. Rough. “Like you want to know what it feels like for me to kiss you. What my bare skin would feel like pressed against yours. How if it feels like this just sitting next to you, how would it feel if I was inside you. How hard I could make you come.”
My nipples stiffen. My mind is awash with the picture he’s just painted of something I desperately want to moan yes to. I shake my head adamantly and pretend my lower sto
mach isn’t clenching at his words. That everything in me hasn’t tightened and contracted and answered him without the lie I tell him.
“That’s not what I’m thinking. That’s not the look on my face. You’re wrong.”
But my entire body comes alive at the thought of Grim’s lips on mine. He’s not wrong. He’s right. So right it’s like he’s peering inside my mind. My skin feels tight around my muscles. My entire being tingles in anticipation of something that’s NOT going to happen.
“Not even a little bit,” I tell him.
He gives me a look that says exactly what he knows I am. Liar.
“Fine, I’ll make you a deal,” he says. “One kiss. If you still want to go, you can go.” He leans in closer. He pushes a hair from my eyes and tucks it behind my ears, searching my eyes for an answer. “You’re not going to be able to lie your way through a kiss, Tricks.”
Wanna bet?
One kiss. One kiss and I can go. Grim will be nothing but a memory when I’m on the bus to freedom with Gabby next week. I won’t let him affect me. I can’t.
I shrug. “Sure, but I don’t see the po—” I start to say when Grim reaches over and hauls me onto his lap.
My legs straddle his strong thighs. He tangles his hands in my hair and pulls my face to his. Our lips crush together. Fuck. I knew it was going to be bad, and by bad, I mean…holy shit. It’s not just a kiss. The word alone does what’s happening a huge injustice. It’s something else. Something more.
It’s everything.
The kiss spreads from my mouth to the rest of my body. I feel it everywhere. I feel him everywhere. He opens his mouth, and my reaction is instinctual. I can’t help but to respond by opening my own. Our tongues meet, and it’s as if someone’s shot a gun off at the starting gate.
All bets are off. All lies temporarily forgotten.
The truth is before me, and it’s Grim and here and now.
Wetness pools in my panties, and I fight the urge to grind myself against his lap. Thunder claps overhead. Rain pours down on top of us. We claw at one another like two cats fighting in an alleyway. Angry and pent up and…fuck, he feels so good. My breasts are heavy with need and aching with a pain I didn’t know was possible. We are the only umbrellas we will ever need, and how I wish that were fucking true. I can’t make myself stop anymore, I rock against the hard length of his monstrous erection, wishing there were no clothes separating us.
“Fuck, Tricks. Yes,” he hisses. “You ever felt anything like this?” He groans into my mouth. “I haven’t. Never anything like this. Anything like you. It’s better than I’ve fucking imagined.”
“You’ve imagined?” I ask breathlessly as his mouth sucks and kisses down my neck.
“Since the alley. Before I knew it was even you. All I knew was this feeling. I tried to shove it off, but the rest of me didn’t exactly get the message. I thought of you a lot. At night. Stroking myself.”
He’s so hard beneath me. I’ve never felt anything like it. Never wanted to. But I can’t help the urge that comes over me to see it. Touch it.
Taste it.
“I’ve never…been kissed, or anything,” I reply hastily. “Just our accidental one. Only you.”
It’s only ever been you.
He holds my face in his hands. “I can tell you that they don’t feel like this. Not fucking EVER.” He pauses. “I still can’t believe it’s you.” He strokes his thumb over my bottom lip. “My Tricks,” he groans, before starting the kiss all over again.
This time we’re even more aggressive, pulling at each other’s hair and biting at one another’s lips. I wish our clothes barrier was the only barrier between us, but it’s not. There’s a much bigger and deadlier one.
My Tricks.
I suddenly feel sick. I feel like the traitor I am, but never signed up to be.
“I…I just can’t,” I say, pulling away and leaping off his lap.
“Tricks!” Grim calls, standing from the seat just as lightning strikes a power pole in the bay, causing a bright firework type explosion followed by a rain of sparks falling into the shiny black water.
Grim turn’s his head toward the bay. I don’t waste the distraction. I make a run for it. I’m out of the stadium and far down the footpath splashing through the mud. Rain soaks through my clothes. Thunder booms overhead and in my heart. I trip and fall face first into the mud, wishing it was a sink hole and would swallow me down into the earth. So, I wouldn’t have to feel this way. So, I wouldn’t have to run from the only person in the world I’ve ever connected with besides Gabby.
Grim’s booming voice rises above the thunder and rain, echoing all around me, surrounding me in his own anger and pain. “You can lie with your words, but your body tells the truth. You can’t fucking run from this, Tricks!”
“Yes, I can. I have to,” I whisper. “Or, so many people will die because of me.”
The pain in my heart makes my vision blur. I lift myself from the mud and choke back sobs as I run from what most would consider the most frightening man on the planet. But to me. He’s Tristan. Grim. I’m not running from him. I’m running from war. From needless bloodshed. I’m running from the dangerous feeling I get when I’m around him. The one that makes me feel like I’m home for the first time in my life.
As I’ve thought before, telling Grim I’m with Los Muertos only has two possible outcomes. One, is that he kills me because of who I am and starts another war. Two, is that he fights for me, and starts another war.
I should have told him before he figured out who I was. Then, he could have killed me, sparing me from the surge of pain that hits me like a runaway train.
Because now I know he’d fight for me, and that somehow makes it all so much worse.
I run as fast as I can, stumbling through the mud. In the process, I lose my shoes. I stop for only a second to retrieve them from the muck. When they’re finally free, I cradle them in one arm, running barefoot the entire way back to my prison. All the while telling myself the biggest lie I’ve ever told. I try and try, but can’t even begin to make myself believe this one. The one that’s crushing me, from the inside out.
You don’t really love him.
Eighteen
"Tell us, Grim. Why do you have us all gathered here today?" Marco asks, leaning back in his chair placing his feet up on the table. His elbows in the air with his hands folded behind his head.
The guy makes my skin crawl. Always has. I know Marco was too young at the time to be personally responsible for my mother’s death, but I’m almost positive he was behind Digger’s. I brush off the thoughts of revenge and try to focus on the business at hand while also trying not to think of the way Emma Jean moved on my lap, pushing herself against me, her tits rubbing my chest. The heat from her… I make myself focus.
"As you know, our truce has terms,” I start. “One of those terms is that any new ventures have to be fully disclosed to both the Immortals and Los Muertos.”
Margaret nods from across the table, leaning to the side like the elegant gangster she is.
Marco sits up straight and takes interest. He moves the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Bedlam will be opening up a strip club-slash-brothel on the reservation. We ain't gonna be running girls on the street. It's going to be a somewhat legitimate business venture that won’t interfere with operations from either of your organizations."
“Where you getting the girls?” Margaret asks.
“We're putting out feelers for those interested who live in the area and want to earn. Marci will be interviewing and running the day-to-day operations. We will only take on girls who don't have affiliations with either gang or affiliations exclusively with Bedlam.”
Margaret folds her hands on the table. "You know that the Immortals don't run girls. Not officially, anyway. We like to keep our business to the highways and imports/exports. I got no problem with you opening your place on the res. But I do have a favor to ask in return for The Immo
rtals signing off on this.”
“What do you have in mind?"
Margaret's gaze meets mine. "I ask that you allow girls with Immortals affiliation to apply for positions. It's hard for a woman or a single mother in this town to find a job that earns enough to hold down their households and feed their kids these days. If they want to come to you so they can earn to support their families, and they are of age and willing, I'd like you to consider them.”
Margaret's a fair woman. Having access to girls associated with the Immortals greatly expands our talent pool. Margaret's offer will mean that we can fill positions quicker and open faster than we thought.
“Done,” I say. “Plus, I'll give you 10% of whatever your girls make.”
Margaret shakes her head and wags her finger at me. “I’ll take 15% and ask that you do right by them. Any of my girls step out of line, you come to me first.”
“That's fair,” I say. I look to Marco. "And you?"
Marco leans forward with his elbows on the table. "I don't give a shit what happens in your territory. Do whatever tickles your dicks.” He glares at me. “But you ain’t taking girls from Los Muertos.”
A vein in his neck pulses, and there's nothing I'd like more than to reach into my jacket, grab my blade, and slice it the fuck open. But in this situation, I have to remind myself of what Belly would do.
“That's fair.” I stand to leave. I glance between Margaret and Marco. "Anything else?"
"Yeah," Marco sneers. "I don’t want my bitches tainted by Bedlam bullshit. Do you understand me? Steer clear, or you’ll end up with more bullets in your body.”
“Noted,” I say when all I really want to reply with is a knife in his fucking skull.
“My girls are special to me. They’re all off limits to you, but understand I got one that you don’t fuck with. Ever. You don’t talk to. You don’t look in her fucking direction. It’s that fucking simple,” he threatens with a sneer.
I slap the table. “Marco, you sly dog. Did you go out and get yourself an old lady?” I ask sarcastically. "You can threaten me all you want. Your jealousy for someone I’ve never met is fucking adorable.”
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