“I dragged him,” Nadia said. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Richard.”
Thorne didn’t like that, either, apparently. “Go in the cabinet and grab some booze,” he said to Richard. “Whiskey okay?”
So he thought it was going to hurt. “You think I’m that easy?” she asked.
The corner of his lip quirked up, but he said nothing.
“Whiskey’s good,” she said.
“Only for you.” Richard left.
With the gloves on, Thorne’s hands looked semi-normal, the left just a bit misshapen under the white latex, but you could imagine he was just holding it that way.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said.
“I know for both of us.” He dabbed the perimeter of the duct tape a with an antiseptic-smelling cotton ball, dark hair grazing his brow, and right then, she had a flash of the good man inside him. The good father. He’d saved her. He was caring for her. “It’s gonna be hell pulling that off,” he said. “Might be best if you did it.”
Richard came in with the whiskey. He unscrewed the top and gave it to Nadia.
“What the hell; it isn’t quite dawn yet.” She took a swig.
Thorne addressed Richard without looking at him. “Go out into the street and find a stick for her to bite, then go soap up, okay? You’re going to assist.”
“I’m going out to find sticks now?” Richard said.
“Please?” She looked at him pleadingly. He was tolerating Thorne for her. She owed him big time.
Richard grunted and walked back out.
“None of it was his idea,” she said. “It was my operation.” She drank some more.
Thorne grabbed the bottle from her and set it aside. Then he took her arm and swabbed the inside of her elbow with cotton.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to; he had a syringe, and he was filling it with something from a little vial.
“What is that?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not knocking you out.”
“Thorne—”
“It’s antibiotics. To head off infection.” He grabbed her arm and shoved in the needle.
“Ow!”
He pulled it out and had her close her elbow. “You’re okay.” He handed back the whiskey. She wanted to laugh and point out that he would’ve contaminated the gloves by now, but she knew he was doing his best.
“I need to show you something,” she said. “I need you to understand.”
“You don’t have to make me understand anything, Nadia.” He picked at the corner of the duct tape. “Can you point to where the bullet went in? I need to know where the wound is under here.”
“Wait—”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me. “
“It’s about my mother. I want to show you the picture.”
His body seemed to still, to take on extra gravity. He raised his blue eyes to her, sensing the importance of the gesture.
She reached in her back pocket, wincing at the shots of pain from the movement. He caught her shoulder, trying to help her, contaminating his gloves even more. It made her want to kiss him.
She pulled out the photo and handed it to him.
He held it by the edges, eyes shadowed by sooty lashes. No emotions passed over his face. No shock, no horror, no outrage. Just deathly stillness. A blank mask that contained everything. She waited, studying his scar, white and jagged on his cheekbone.
Then he turned his eyes up to her, not soft like they usually were, but steely, merciless. Shivers came over her to see it. He understood everything, of course.
“I found it in the files,” she said, just to say anything, to bring him back from the edge.
His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “One of the brothels.”
“Yeah. And her name’s not Suzy, it’s Yana,” she said through gritted teeth. Sometimes her own anger stunned her.
“If Victor wasn’t dead already I’d kill him myself,” he growled. The emotion in his voice sent a thrill through her.
“The Slaters eventually move the women from those brothels to co-op sweatshops, and we had this lead that she might be in one. That’s why we were doing the raids. The robberies were about paying the guys.”
“You found the files.”
She nodded. “The CD. She’s out there, Thorne, but we’re running out of time. One of the women told me she has arthritis. It means she’s no good to them anymore as a seamstress. She might not even be alive. I swear, robbing these places, it was never about messing with you. I never wanted to get you into trouble, but the guys had to be paid—”
“You think I care about that? Why the fuck wouldn’t you come to me with this?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you come to me?” The break in his voice was a knife in her heart. “Jesus, Nadia. You think I wouldn’t have helped you?”
“Why would you help me against your own people?”
“You think the Slaters are my people?”
“Maybe they’re not your partners in crime, but they’re your cousins in crime. They’re kind of your people.”
“You’re my people,” he bit out.
He sounded so sincere. So genuine. “I’m your hotel soap,” she whispered. Even as she said it, she knew how insubstantial the words were compared to the fact that he’d come for her. He’d risked his life for her.
“Fuck,” he said, eyes bright with pain. “Fuck, Nadia, you know it’s not true.”
“It’s what you said.”
“Nadia…I had to. There you were coming after me, and I was joining Hangman.”
“You didn’t mean it? About the hotel soap?”
“Are you kidding? Hangman, Nadia. I couldn’t have you exposed to them.”
Her heart soared. He hadn’t meant it? He actually cared? “Then why join?”
“It’s where I wanted to be. But I couldn’t let them know…you know.”
She watched his eyes, confused.
He reached out and took a lock of her hair between two fingers. “I couldn’t let them know that I’m the lowlife who’ll always be there for you.”
Shivers came over her. “Don’t call yourself that,” she said.
“It’s who I am, baby. I’m the brute and the asshole who will never deserve you, but I’ll always protect you. They could destroy me within an inch of my life and I’ll still lay waste to heaven and hell to help you. You and your mother and your boy and whatever you need.”
Her heart pounded. He cared. Their relationship had been as real to him as it had been to her. “Thorne—”
“I’m the lowlife who’ll fight for you to the end.”
“It was a game—I never really thought that—”
“Don’t.” He pressed his fingers to her lips, as if to keep her from speaking, from lying.
She pushed them away. “Thorne, listen—” But then she paused. Thorne had risked his life to save her and Richard, and he had confessed something hard and true and beautiful to her, something that made her heart sing.
And she couldn’t give him anything back. She couldn’t tell him about Benny—he was still surrounded by danger. And she couldn’t tell him she loved him, because where could that go? He couldn’t be in their lives.
He looked away, as if he sensed her withholding. His pain speared right into her.
“Thorne…” she whispered, desperate to give him something, anything, but then Richard was back with a selection of sticks.
“We have to do this now,” Thorne said, handing gloves to Richard. “When we pull the tape off, that fucker is going to gush. Where under there did the bullet enter?”
“I don’t know,” Richard said. “You know what you’re doing?”
“Of course,” Thorne said. “I’ll need you to do what I can’t. With my hand—”
“Sure,” Richard said.
Everything was happening so fast, and Nadia was still reeling from the enormity of what he’d revealed to her�
�the hotel soap thing, bullshit that whole time. And he thought he really was a lowlife to her, and he’d keep thinking it no matter what she said.
“Nadia, where did it enter?” Thorne asked in a tone that suggested he’d been trying to get her attention.
“I don’t know. The middle?”
They used coconut oil to help pull up the tape. “It also has antibacterial qualities,” Thorne said. Slowly they ripped it up, all around the wound. She could still see the pain in his eyes.
Thorne had arranged clamps and pads on a cloth; he held something that looked like large tweezers in his good hand. “Ready?”
She took another swig of whiskey and bit the stick.
“Rip it off, Richard.”
“Sorry, Nadia.” Richard ripped off the tape and her world exploded in pain. She clenched on the stick.
“Get in there,” Thorne said. “Clamp there. See?”
She bit on the stick. Zings of fire and ice speared through her calf as they both invaded her bullet wound, doing whatever they were doing in there.
“Stop!” she cried, letting the stick drop from her mouth.
“Breathe through it,” Thorne whispered, probing around. “You’re so much stronger than you think.”
She breathed the way she had with Benny. Kara had been at her side, coaching her, and the pain had seemed like a journey. This was like a dark, ironic echo of that time.
Shot in the leg.
Pain zinged through like crazy.
“You have to stop,” she cried.
“Okay.” Thorne pulled out the tweezers and pressed on the wound with a pad. “You have to let me do this, baby.”
“I can’t handle it,” she gasped.
“You can.”
“Thorne.”
“Take this,” he said to Richard. Richard took over the pressing and, eyes fixed on hers, Thorne tore off the gloves like they were offensive, like he wanted nothing between them. He threw them aside and he took her hand, warm in his.
“Thorne,” she said again, wishing he knew what was in her heart. Wishing he could have been there while she was having Benny. Wishing for everything to be different. Because she loved him.
He scooted up, sitting next to her shoulder. He leaned down and kissed her, lips warm on her cheek. She focused on the sweet feeling of it. “I wish I could make it not hurt, baby, but it’s going to hurt.”
“Can we try the hospital? Just take a chance?”
“No.”
“We have to go forward now,” Richard said.
“I can’t do it.”
Thorne and Richard exchanged glances. She knew she was being impossible.
“Try not to tense up, to fight it,” Thorne said. “That makes it worse. You need to get into that pain.”
She snorted, laughing through her tears. “You would say that.”
“I mean it. When you stop resisting it, you rob it of its power.”
“It hurts too much for me to stop resisting.”
“You have to give in. Run toward it. Let it transform you.” He placed a hand on her forehead, and for a brief moment she wondered what it would be like to stop resisting whatever it was between them. To declare her love for somebody who was too dangerous and damaged to be with. To make their family real. She looked up into his pale blue eyes.
“You’re more than you think. This can be heaven or hell. It’s undecided. And I’m right in here with you. I’m right here.” He gripped her hand, and she knew this was how he would’ve been when she had Benny. He would’ve been right in there with her. “I’m going to dig in there with the tweezers, and it’s going to be intense, and you’re going to let it be that. Be soft and pliant with it.”
“Soft and pliant,” she repeated stupidly. This was going to happen.
He squeezed her hands, eyes gentle, as though he couldn’t bear to hurt her. He bent down and kissed her forehead. “Look what you made me do. Now I have to put on all new gloves.”
“Gotta keep stuff sterile,” she whispered.
“You can do it because you’re strong and you have a family to think about,” he said.
His family. Their family.
He stood and snapped on a new pair of gloves and took up the tweezers. It was back on, lightning bolts of fire. “Ohhh!”
“Found it.”
She hissed.
“Soft. Be one with it,” he said.
“Are you working your Bruce Lee magic on my mind?” she asked. “I saw those calligraphy paintings of yours. So busted.”
He ignored her, probing the wound. “I’m getting the shape and edges.”
She stuck the stick back in her mouth.
“You’re doing great,” Richard said.
“Yeah,” she gasped as pain shot through her like mad. She tried to accept it. “This is so messed up.”
“I know,” Thorne said. “Imagine giving up your pain to me,” he said. “Like I can absorb it all.”
He could. He would.
I’m the loser who will never deserve you, but I’ll always fight for you, he’d said. It hurt with a sharp, arctic beauty.
“I’ve got it,” he whispered as her breath evened out. “You’re doing so great.”
She tried to be pliant, to accept the pain, but she wanted so badly to cry—it was the pain and Benny and her mother, and the idea of Thorne, so fiercely alone.
“Middle clamp,” Thorne said. “Squeeze there. See?” Something pinched her flesh. Pricks. It all just blurred.
“Is it over?” she breathed.
“It’s out.”
She felt a sting and a dull vibration. She looked up to see Thorne sewing her calf with a needle and thread, Richard keeping the sides of her skin together.
“You really know this,” Richard said.
“YouTube,” Thorne mumbled.
Another sting. The needle going in. “Good Christ, hand me the whiskey,” she said.
“Whiskey time is over,” Richard said.
Thorne was making a knot. “It’ll hurt like a bitch every time the muscle fires, but you’re going to be okay.”
“We need to get you a little cane,” Richard said.
“Make sure it’s a little cane,” she teased. “A wee little lady like me likes a wee little cane.”
They fussed and cleaned and patched her up. Thorne informed her that it wasn’t a bad wound. She wanted to haul off and hit him.
Ten stitches she got.
The wound hurt like hell, but it was over. Richard and Thorne propped her up on the bed with pillows. Thorne made her take more antibiotics.
“Give me that picture,” Thorne said after they’d settled down. “We need to find out where your mom is.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “You think you can do that?”
“I think I can do a hell of a lot better than you two.”
She handed the photo over.
“They’re going to start breaking down the co-ops now,” he said. “But I got a favor I could call in. I’ll grab her.”
“I’m going with you,” she said.
Richard sniffed. “In your condition?”
“I have to go, to show her my birthmark. If I’m not there, if it’s just some guy coming in and asking for her, why would she speak up? She’d be too frightened. She’d say it isn’t her.”
“I work alone,” Thorne said.
“But how will you recognize her? I would know her, Thorne. The way I’ve been staring at that picture? I would know her.”
“So would I,” he said. “She has your eyes.”
Nadia forgot to breathe.
“I’m going,” she said. “I’ll drive. My driving leg is still good. And Richard can be backup.”
“No,” Thorne said simply, eyes on the photo.
The quest for her mother had been his quest, too, and she’d shut him out of it like she’d shut him out of everything. She loved this man, and she’d shut him right out.
“Come on, man. Everybody needs backup,” Richard said.
> “Not everybody,” Thorne growled.
Chapter Twenty-one
Miguel knew how to take a hit. It was a skill every good fighter had—the ability to take a hit, to take a fall.
Still, the pain of Jerrod’s knuckles slamming into the side of his face was unexpectedly intense. Miguel staggered back, partly from the pain, but mostly to give Jerrod the reaction he craved. It had never been more important to make Jerrod feel like he was in control of things.
“Dead?” Jerrod asked.
Miguel slowly straightened up, trying to look frightened. Though in truth, he was filled with a kind of angry pleasure. Thorne meant to kill Jerrod. It was just a matter of time, now, and he, Miguel, meant to help him however he could.
“Did you see the bodies?” Jerrod asked.
“No.”
Another punch. Miguel allowed it. He sometimes felt like a sponge, soaking up pain and darkness as a way of protecting his family back home from Jerrod’s wrath.
It was too late to check for bodies now. The place was crawling with emergency personnel and fire inspectors.
A few of Jerrod’s closest supporters lounged around Jerrod’s living room, watching. Skooge was off somewhere, luckily. Miguel had drilled Skooge what to say—that they’d been out in the parking lot discussing how he should enter the mechanical room when the place blew. Skooge would handle the lie just fine.
“You were supposed to send Skooge in to clear.”
“It blew before I could. They must’ve broken a gas line. A place like that, it’s full of sparks.”
Jerrod grabbed a beer. “They could still be alive.”
Miguel stayed silent. Jerrod wouldn’t kill him—the man needed him too much. He had to get through this day, and then another and another. He’d find a way to help Thorne, and someday soon, he’d be free to see his family again. He could live that simple, spare life he craved and never have to hurt anybody again.
“Nobody else showed? Not Thorne? Not the Slaters?”
“Not that I saw,” Miguel said.
“Barbarian and Victor’s girl,” Jerrod said thoughtfully. He made him tell the story again, how Miguel and Skooge had killed the first pirate. He’d gotten into a shootout with Barbarian and Nadia—no, Barbarian and Nadia didn’t know who they were—they’d worn masks, just as Jerrod had instructed. At that point, Barbarian and Nadia had holed up in the mechanical room. Miguel had bolted them in and called Jerrod.
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