by Nicole James
“Come on, Cher.”
She turned to see Blood holding his hand out to her. Slipping her hand in his warm, firm grip, she let him help her out of the boat and up onto the pier.
“Watch your step.”
She followed him up the shaky pier, onto the soft, spongy ground, and then up the stairs. He opened a screen door from the small porch that led into another covered porch. The door was unlocked, and she followed him inside. It was a bare bones structure with a small kitchen area off to the right, the main room with a living and dining area, and two small bedrooms whose walls only went up about eight feet. The walls were bare wood with no insulation. There were no ceilings, just open wood rafters to the roof. An old wood-burning stove sat against the wall between the two bedrooms and must have served as heat for the entire place.
Cat noticed only kerosene lamps sitting on tables, and she could only guess the place didn’t have electricity, and she wondered if it ever had.
Blood moved to open some windows, exposing the screens and letting the cool breeze blow through. Cat was grateful for the storm blowing in with its cooling effect, but she worried about getting back out before they were caught in it.
The light of day was fading quickly. If they were going to search the place, they needed to move fast, but Blood seemed to know exactly where he was looking. He moved to a board in the floor. Taking his knife from his belt, he flipped the blade open and jimmied it loose. It popped up after a moment, and he yanked the board up, tossing it aside. He put his hand in and pulled out what was hidden in the space. Moving to the table, he set the items down—a leather-bound book of poetry and a bible with a rosary wrapped around it.
He moved back to the hidden space and turned on the flashlight app on his cell phone, shining it into the darkness.
“Is it there? The ring?” Cat asked hopefully.
He leaned forward, running his hand over the inside, and then sat back on his haunches. “Nope.”
Cat glanced around the room. “Maybe she put it somewhere else.” The place was a mess.
“Looks like my father already tore the place apart looking for it.” Blood moved back to the books on the table. He flipped through the book of poetry. Her favorite poem was marked with a prayer card—the Virgin Mary. He flipped it over and back. Just a card from the church she’d used as a bookmark. He searched the margins for any scribbled message, but found none. He thumbed through the entire book, front to back, but there was nothing but her name written on the inside cover.
He slammed the book down. “Damn it.”
Cat lifted her chin. “Maybe the bible?”
Blood picked it up and unwrapped the rosary, his thumb moving over it. “She always wore this.” He shoved it in his pocket and searched the bible, but found nothing. He glanced around the house. “It’s got to be here.”
“I’ll help you look.”
They both tore the place apart, searching every nook and cranny. Cat tried to think where she, as a woman, would hide something. She looked through every food container and canister, every feminine product in the bathroom, the jar of bath salts, the dust-covered box of tampons, everywhere she could think of that a man would never look.
After an hour, darkness had fallen, and Blood lit some of the kerosene lamps. A light rain began to fall outside and quickly turned into a downpour.
“I have to go cover the boat,” Blood said as he moved toward the door.
Cat nodded and watched him go. She moved to the screen and watched as he pulled some kind of an old tarp from under the house and hauled it down to the pier. He looked big and broad-shouldered as he stood in the ghostly gray mist that rose up from the water as the cold rain fell on it. His muscles worked as he yanked and adjusted the heavy canvas tarp into place. Watching him, she knew she was safe with him, knew he was fully capable of taking care of her out here.
She sat at the table, waiting for him to return, and thought about her sister, wondering what would happen if they couldn’t reason with Black Jack.
Blood came back inside, shook the rain off, and then pulled out the chair across the table and sat. He picked up the poetry book and flipped through it again. As he did, a picture fell out.
Cat’s eyes dropped to the photograph. It was an old Polaroid of a woman standing in front of a car, a big smile on her face, holding the keys up. “Is that your mother?”
Blood nodded.
“She was very pretty.”
“Yes, she was.”
“You think the car means anything? Could it be a clue?”
Blood smirked. “If it is, we’re screwed. That was twenty years ago. That car’s long gone.”
Cat deflated. “Oh.”
He opened the book of poetry and took out the prayer card with the picture of the Virgin Mary; he sat turning it over and over in his hands, staring off into space.
Cat wasn’t sure what to do, so she waited, allowing him time to think.
After a few minutes, he moved to the doorway and slammed his palm into the frame. “Goddamn it. I was sure it’d be here.”
Cat got up and moved behind him.
“I ain’t gonna lie, Cat. It looks pretty bleak. I can’t find the ring, and I’ve got no clue where Black Jack is. He’s disappeared. Without the ring, I’ve got nothing to trade for your sister, nothing to draw Black Jack out with.”
“He’s not at the compound?”
Blood shook his head. “If he was I’d go torture him to death and make him tell me where he’s got your sister. But Big John said he left. I’ve had people watching the place. He hasn’t come back.”
“Oh.”
He moved out onto the porch to stand by the screen door, watching the rain pour down. He eyed the sky. “We’ll have to wait for the storm to pass.”
“All right.”
“You sure about that? Might mean we have to stay the night in this stinking shit hole.” He watched the sky light up with a bolt of lightning. “I hate this fucking place.”
“The swamp?”
He shook his head, the outline of his body dark in the shadows silhouetted by the steel gray sky. “This place… It’s somewhere I never wanted to see again.”
She was almost afraid to ask, but maybe Blood needed to talk about it, even if he didn’t realize it himself. And Sandman had practically sent her to help him deal with all this stuff.
She watched Blood. He was definitely on edge. All this time, he’d been the one to calm her down. Maybe now it was time for her to return the favor. “Bad memories?”
He nodded.
“Tell me.”
He stood stock still, and she wondered if he was debating it.
“Please.”
“It’s not a pretty story.”
“Maybe I can help you, maybe if you talk about it—”
“Yeah, well, we all have shit we’ve got to live with.”
“Some more than others.”
“Yeah, some a whole lot more.”
“Does it hurt to talk about it?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s just…it’s my mess, you know? Mine. I deal with it. It’s like this box I carry around, packed to the brim with so much shit, when it gets opened it explodes all over everyone in the room. It’s better if it stays shut.”
“Does it scare you?”
“No. I just know it’s there. The pain, the anger, the loss… It belongs to me, no one else.”
“Share it with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to help you.”
“You can’t fix it.”
“Maybe not.”
“There’s no maybe about it.”
“It can get better.”
“Can it?” He turned to look at her then. “My mother took me and left my father. When my father found us, he brought me out here…this old fish camp out in the swamp.”
“I don’t understand… Did you live here or New Orleans?”
“My mother was from here. Her people were from here. But Black Jack w
asn’t. After they were married, when she would miss her people, he would get mad, like the nice place in New Orleans wasn’t enough for her. So he bought this old place, and he would leave us out here. I think it was supposed to be some kind of punishment for her—this piece of shit shack out in the swamp. I don’t think she saw it that way.”
“The night you ran away, and he caught you, what happened?”
“He beat me with his belt for going with her. Then he left me out here for two weeks. Alone. I was eight years old.
“I lived off anything I could find in the cupboards—peanut butter and crackers, cans of beans, dry cereal. He finally came back for me. I wasn’t sure if I was happy to see him or not. I wanted to kill him. Even then. But I was too young.
“He took me back to where he’d taken my mother—a second floor room in some shotgun house in the Quarter. A lot like the one the Death Heads had me in. I remember the narrow louvered shutters and how hot the room was. When I walked in, I barely recognized her. She was on an old iron bed. In the two weeks I’d been left out in the swamp, he’d been busy.
“He’d strung her out on heroine. There were needle tracks up and down her arms. She was shaking and sweating, begging him for her next fix. It was pathetic and heartbreaking, and not something an eight-year-old boy should have to see.
“Of course, I didn’t really understand all that back then, I just thought she was sick. It was when I got older that I realized what I’d witnessed.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“That wasn’t the worst of it.”
“Oh, God. It gets worse?”
“She called my name and held her hand out to me. But he dragged me back. He wouldn’t let me near her. That’s when she asked me, ‘Remember the poem I used to read to you, Etienne? Remember the poetry book? Don’t forget it.’ I didn’t know why she was talking about a stupid poem at a time like that. Then my father really twisted the knife. He nodded to a pen and paper that was lying on the bedside table and told her to sign it.”
“What was it?”
Blood pinned her with a look. “My mother sold me to my father for a thousand dollars and a speedball. At least that’s what he told me later. I never saw her again. He told me she’d run off and abandoned me. Years later, he told me he’d heard she’d OD’d in some motel somewhere.
“He was a monster, but he was all I had. So I did what I was told.” Blood turned back to watch the rain. “You heard Big John? It’s true. My father is the biggest crime boss in New Orleans.
“I remember one day he guided me in front of a mirror, his hand fisted in my hair, and he held me there. He shook my head and said, ‘Look, boy! What do you see? That’s Jacque Boudreaux’s son.’ He took my jaw in his hand and squeezed, forcing me to look. He said, ‘I own you. You do what I damn tell you. And you don’t ever try to run again. You do, I’ll bring you back. And next time I won’t stop at a black eye and busted lip, understand? You’re mine. And what’s mine is mine until I say otherwise. You’re under my control. You’ll always be under my control. Until the day you die.’”
“I looked at him with murder in my eyes and said, ‘Or the day you die, old man.’ He laughed and said, ‘There’s the family spirit. Hate me if you want, boy, but my blood runs in your veins. You’re like me, boy. Just like me. And there’s no runnin’ from that.’ I believed him then, maybe I still do.” Blood paused and shook his head, then turned to look at her. “That’s always been my biggest fear—that I’d turn out just like him.”
“You’re not like him, Blood. You’re nothing like him.”
“Aren’t I?”
“And your mother didn’t leave you, she didn’t abandon you. He killed her.”
Blood nodded. “Yeah. And I didn’t save her, did I? Worse than that, I thought the worst of her all these years, believing she deserted me like that. And I let that way of thinking color every relationship I ever had with women. I pushed them all away, believed they had nothing I wanted or needed beyond sex, that they couldn’t be trusted, that they were all out for themselves. Everything I based that on was wrong. My mother did the best she could. I was the one who let her down, not the other way around.” He stared her in the eyes. “I’m not anybody’s fucking hero. See how fucked up I am?”
“Blood—”
“I had it all wrong, and maybe subconsciously, I even knew it. How am I ever gonna get around that fact?” He paused and looked away. “I can’t shake it, Cat.”
“You were eight years old, Blood. None of that was your fault.”
“I think deep down I knew it had never added up—all the lies my father fed me, and maybe I even thought if I helped you, if I saved your sister, somehow it’d make up for not saving my mother all those years ago.”
“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done to try to help me, Blood, but you have nothing to make up for.” She moved to him and took his face in her hands, making him look at her. She stroked over his cheeks and beard, moving her thumbs over his lips. She stared into his eyes. He looked broken and vulnerable in a way she’d never seen him before. He needed her, and that was a powerful pull for her. He’d always had that whole bad boy thing going that sucked her in. Yes, he was a badass, but he’d also been very protective of her in his own way.
She brought her mouth to his, brushing his lips softly, tenderly. She took his hand and led him to one of the bedrooms. She turned to face him, then without another word, she pulled him toward the bed. When the back of her thighs hit the mattress, he pulled back to look down at her.
“You think I want your gratitude, your pity. Is that what this is?”
She shook her head. “That’s not what this is. That’s not what this is at all.”
“You’ve seen me now. The man I am, what I come from, who my father is. I won’t ever be able to shake that.”
“I see the good in you. You’re a good man, Blood. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here with you, no matter what promises you made to me.”
He studied her eyes carefully, searching for the truth, and then his eyes moved to the bed. “You lead, I’m gonna follow. You give, I’m gonna take. That’s just my nature, the kind of man I am.”
“I know exactly the kind of man you are.”
“And that’s good enough for you?”
She gave him the answer, slipping her hand to the back of his neck, her fingers threading into the hair at his nape as she pulled his mouth back down to hers.
He bent, cupping her thighs as he lifted and tossed her on the bed, following her down. She tore at his vest. He lifted off her long enough to pull it off and yank the t-shirt over his head.
Her eyes moved over his body, stopping on the bandage. “Your wound. We shouldn’t.”
“No stopping this now, Cat.”
He moved over her, yanking her shirt over her head in one quick movement. A moment later, her bra was gone as well. He paused, his eyes taking her in, and everything slowed down. His gaze came to hers, and they stared into one another’s eyes, seeing… really seeing each other. “I need you, Cat.”
She nodded, and her eyes slid closed as he dipped his head, his nose brushing along hers. Then he moved lower, his mouth trailing along her jaw, her throat, and down to latch on to her nipple. Her back arched, and her fingers dove into his hair, threading through the strands to grip his scalp.
He moved back over her, his mouth on her neck, and her hands slipped around him, the tips of her fingers tensing, digging in to the skin of his back as her mouth parted with a sigh.
He pulled back to look at her, his palm smoothing the hair back from her face, and she opened her eyes. “You’re beautiful. Did I ever tell you that? The first time I saw you, I thought you were an angel, come to take me to heaven.”
She smiled. “You were delirious.”
“You saved me. You’re still saving me, Cat.”
She saw the honesty in his eyes, and it moved something in her, made her catch her breath, made her heart skip a beat. When he continued to
just search her face, his eyes going all over it as he brushed her hair back, she asked, “What?”
“I’m just trying to take this moment in, how good it feels. I don’t want to forget it.”
“Blood.” She didn’t know what to say to those words. He said the sweetest things when she least expected. And then his eyes darkened, filling with desire as one hand moved down to her waistband, popping the button free. A moment later she felt the heat of his palm as it slid down the front of her pants. Her breath caught in her throat as his fingertips glided over her seam with barely there strokes.
“Open for me,” he growled, his voice thick and heavy with arousal.
She did as he commanded, her thighs spreading ever so slightly, giving him the added room he needed. Still, he teased.
Her tongue came out to wet her lips as the anticipation clawed through her. She wanted his touch, craved it… balanced on the sharp edge of a precipice, waiting for it.
His eyes dropped to watch her tongue, and he lowered his head, catching her mouth, sliding his tongue inside as his fingers spread her open and began to stroke her clit in lazy circles.
She moaned deep in her throat, her hands clutching him as she let him play with her. Her hips lifted, attempting to rub against his hand, wanting more.
“You like that, baby? You like my touch?”
Her answer came out in barely a whisper. “Yes.”
“You gonna let me play? Do what I want?”
She nodded, unable to form words at the molten look in his eyes. At that moment she’d deny him nothing.
He followed along her slit again, sliding two fingers inside her. She was wet, very wet. His thumb kept up the torment on her clit while those fingers sought out that little trigger deep inside. When they found it, she couldn’t keep her head from going back.
“Bingo,” he muttered, and then she felt his mouth close over her exposed neck, latching on. She couldn’t help but thrust against his hand, which caused her breasts to bounce.
He soon gave up his hold on her throat and moved down to catch a nipple in his wet mouth, sucking hard.
That had her grasping his hair and holding him to her, moaning.
He lifted his head and looked at her, then pulled his hand out and brought two fingers up, coating her lips with her arousal, then swooping down to capture those lips with his mouth, lapping at them and growling deep in his throat.