by Jo Raven
“Don’t,” he pants, “make me get up,” another hissing breath, “and come after you, or I swear, I’ll puke all over you.” He tugs on my hand, with less strength this time. Then, more quietly still, “Don’t leave me.”
It hits me like a brick wall.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I sink back down on the hard, plastic chair. “Besides, you can’t get up. Your leg’s broken.”
“It is?” He squints down at his body and pales more. “Shit. What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
He looks at me with a frown. “Your father shot me.”
“That’s right.” The need to smash something is too strong. I bite on the inside of my cheek to get myself back under control. “He almost killed you because I handled this wrong. I should have told you more about him, about meeting with him, I should have thought he knew where I live. I failed you.”
His hand tugs free of mine, and I let go, bowing my head.
But then I feel his fingers in my hair, stroking. “Will you stop blaming yourself?” he whispers, his voice hoarse and low. “And if not… forgive yourself. We all make mistakes.”
I frown, echoes of my own words blowing back at me. I said that to him, didn’t I? Among the words I whispered to him in the apartment, in the ambulance later. In my impromptu prayers. I said I’d forgive myself if it meant he’d be okay.
I lift my head, and his fingers trail down to my face. “Can you forgive me?”
“I don’t need to. This ain’t on you.” He blinks, his eyes hazy with exhaustion. “You tried to protect me. Did your best. Gave me hope. I wanted to see you again. I want to be with you. So don’t let me go.” He licks his dry lips, and I see tears spangling his lashes. “I love you.”
My head feels too light, my chest too big for my lungs. There’s a bittersweet pain in my mending heart. If he loves me, if he believes in me...
“I’m not letting you go.” I catch his hand, turn it over to kiss his palm, and smile against it. “Never letting you go for as long as you want me, because you, Jason Vega, belong with me.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Raine
The taking down of Simon Gomez’s gang goes down on a quiet Tuesday evening, a couple of days after I found Jason bleeding out on my apartment floor. I’m at the hospital, at Jason’s side, when Riot opens the door and gestures for me to come out and talk.
The aftermath isn’t pretty. There was a shoot-out when the Club was stormed. In the basement of the building, in separate cells, Simon kept prisoners, and among them Jason’s friends. Adam, Mayleen, Josie, Mikey, Mia, and others. They made it out alive.
Confirming the names with Jason is heart-wrenching. The way his grip on the covers turns white-knuckled, the sorrow in his gaze, it’s too much. No amount of hugging in the world will take away the pain of knowing he did all he could to save them, and they ended up right where he never wanted them to be.
At least they’re okay. Looks like Simon only collected them as an extra card to play against Jason—and it really makes you wonder what the hell his beef is with his cousin. Jason doesn’t know. Sick fascination? Something more?
No matter what it is, I wanna smash Simon’s damn face in, hurt him like he’s hurt my boyfriend, but he’s not available for that. The Mob notified the cops about the prisoners in the basement and the bloodstains all over the place, so the police stormed the place, but Simon Gomez?
Nobody knows where he went. Now that is interesting…
Meanwhile, Jason has been discharged from the hospital, I’ve taken time off work, going as far as quitting my second job, and we’ve fallen into a routine, where I help him up from bed in the morning, help him to the toilet, in the shower, make him breakfast, then we talk about his plans for the future, his plans with me.
Then I make lunch and we watch TV on the sofa, where I hold him and kiss him until he blinks those brilliant dark eyes at me, dazed, to remind him how much I love him.
Over the past few days, things seem to be settling into a comfortable rhythm. I still find myself glancing over my shoulder from time to time, and Jason still jumps at any loud noise, but with every passing day he relaxes a little bit more, starting to believe that it’s all over. Simon, the MC, my father’s threats, the danger.
I help him with his crutches and the full cast on his leg, watch, and think. Is there danger? If so, I’ll protect him, if it’s the last thing I do.
But everything’s quiet.
Leaving him at home alone isn’t in my plans for now, even with the Damage Boyz keeping watch over him. Even with the cops keeping an eye on the building. No way.
But more and more days pass, and I need to go back to work. So I change my shift to afternoons, to be able to make his hospital appointments in the mornings, and ask him if he’d go with me to the shop, stay there while I man the reception desk.
He says yes. After being cooped up at the hospital and then in the small apartment, he seems excited to get out, even if to go sit inside the tattoo shop.
“Could we go to the park?” he asks for the millionth time since he left the hospital. “Just for a short while.”
“Not today, Jase, sorry.”
I see his face fall. I’m treating him like his needs don’t matter, and it’s breaking my goddamn heart. I’m a shitty boyfriend right now, but I have my reasons.
If I’m right. If not, I’m just a stupid, paranoid boyfriend.
So sue me. After everything that’s gone down, what’s a little paranoia?
Clients come and go, the Inked Brotherhood come by to say hi, bodies are inked and the snow keeps falling outside, and I ask myself in all seriousness if I’ve gone crazy. Jason needs to get out, forget the past, he needs to be happy. The MC is gone, and Simon has surely fled to Texas, or to Mexico.
Sounds too much like a goddamn fairytale ending.
As the evening comes down and the clients leave, the Damage artists waving goodbye one by one as they close their stations and go, I get a prickly feeling between my shoulder blades and up the back of my neck.
Was there a strange noise?
Uneasy, I look up from the computer screen where I’ve been re-checking next week’s schedule, and glance at Jason who’s Googling something on my tablet, his broken leg in the cast stretched before him, propped on another chair.
Then I glance at the darkness outside the glass façade of the shop, at the car lights flashing and the shadows of passersby flitting like dark ghosts.
Nothing out of the ordinary. I’m imagining things… right?
But that wrongness is gnawing at me.
“Jase,” I whisper, moving toward him. He’s seated beside Ocean’s station. Earlier, my brother was showing him how he mixes the colors for the inking. “Jason.”
He looks up, and I’m still wondering if to trust this bad feeling that’s twisting up my stomach, when I hear the back door slam open.
And I know with a sudden clarity that I’m right.
As I press the alarm button under the desk and grab the gun I’ve kept hidden under a pile of papers, as I hurtle myself at Jason who’s turned a pale face toward the crashing noises coming from the back and trying to get up without success, I figure that gut feeling has never let me down. Zane was right.
Because all I kept thinking from the moment my stupid asshole of a dad shot Jason was that Simon would find out about it, and he’d be careful. He’d hide. And he’d plot his revenge. When the Mob didn’t find him, I knew he’d come after Jason, and me, because he’s an obsessed son of a bitch, and what better place than the shop at the end of the day, where we’d be alone, him and me?
I haul Jason down, inside Ocean’s cubicle, doing my best to be careful with his broken leg in the cast. He’s white as a ghost and shaking, but when I lower him down on the ground and start getting up, he gets a death grip in my T-shirt.
He doesn’t speak, but his horrified gaze bores into mine.
“Jason Vega!” a voice booms, and although I
’ve never met Simon Gomez I have no doubt it’s him, especially when Jason’s face goes gray. He looks like he’s about to pass out. “I know you’re here.”
I lean closer to Jason, shake him a little to make sure he’s not out. “Don’t worry,” I mouth at him. “I have a plan.”
More crashes, shouting. Someone is trashing the cubicle beside ours.
Jason flinches.
I have learned a thing or two in the past weeks. I’ve learned to plan for things going wrong. And to have back-up.
But sometimes you can’t wait even for that. Not when someone starts yelling and a gunshot cracks, when a bullet goes right through the cubicle, passing right by Jason’s head.
Fuck that.
Prying Jason’s fingers from my shirt and standing up, I raise the gun Rafe gave me. I release the safety and turn to the opening of the cubicle just as a tall dark-haired guy in a dark suit appears, a gun in his hands.
A motherfucking huge-ass gun, that he levels right at me. At us.
“Simon,” Jason hisses from behind me.
I press the trigger and fire. The bullet catches the man in the chest, and he stumbles back, his dark eyes widening. There’s something of Jason about them—or maybe not. I don’t want to think about it as I fire again, driving him out of the cubicle.
Away from Jason.
More bullets slam into the cubicle, and I step back, crouching down to shield Jason—as if bullets can’t go through me—but I don’t have time for anything else.
Then the front door slams open and the back-up is here. The Brotherhood and the Damage people burst inside from the front, while the cops push in from the back, as planned. Another gunshot cracks somewhere inside the shop, then another, and after that it’s just yelling and cursing.
Until my brother and Jesse Lee burst inside the cubicle and drag us both to our feet, only to pull us into a group hug so tight it hurts.
“God, you’re both okay, thank God,” Ocean is saying over and over, and Jesse is cursing quietly under his breath, ruffling Jason’s hair.
We’re okay. I’ve never shot a man before, and I think I might throw up, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat if someone threatened Jason.
It strikes me then that this time it’s really over. No fairytale endings, no miracle cures.
This ending is bloody and real.
Life is back to normal.
Okay, that’s a lie, but we’re getting there. With everything going down, Soul Stain left to go back to Chicago, putting off the techniques and ideas exchange for the moment, the guest rooms they occupied given over to Jason’s gang.
Speaking of Jason… He’s sitting right beside me, behind the desk of Collateral. He has his leg with the cast propped on a chair and my tablet in his hands, job hunting. I’ve told him to take it easy, heal, rest. Think about what he wants to do with his life.
He said he is thinking, and resting and healing and all that, but he can’t sit around doing nothing, or he’ll go stir-crazy. Plus, he wants to start contributing to the rent and other expenses. He’s always been stubborn, and proud.
And I understand how he feels. He’s not a rent boy anymore, and he doesn’t want to be a kept man, either. Makes perfect sense. I just make sure he doesn’t push himself too hard. He tends to do that, between sessions with a social worker, a psychologist, police interviews, and visits to the hospital.
My old man is in jail, awaiting trial. He named names in the MC, and also in the Chicago Mob, though as expected, despite his bragging and posing, he’s small fry and doesn’t know anything important.
Meanwhile, my mom has gone AWOL, and not even Dad can tell us where she is. Looks like she took his money and left. Serves him right, that son of a bitch.
As for shooting my boyfriend, he claims that Jason pulled a knife on him, surprising him. As if that makes it all right. The thought of him shooting Jason, the image of him lying in his own blood, or cowering in the cubicle, bullets flying past us… this is the stuff of my worst nightmares.
The rage hasn’t left me, and it ignites every time I remember all that. I’m trying to work through it, though, to let it go. For myself.
For Jason.
At least, I’ve kept him alive. I’m not infallible by a long shot, but I kept my promise to him. I protected him when Simon came for him. And it steadies me, even if I now have new nightmares added to the ones with Livvy, nightmares where I shoot Simon over and over and he keeps coming at me and Jason.
He’s dead, I have to remind myself. It’s over.
“Hey, guys, we’re leaving,” Mayleen says, snapping her neon-green gum, and slinging an arm over Josie’s bony shoulders. “See ya tomorrow.”
They’re also trying to figure out what to do with their lives, but Mayleen says she got an apprentice job at a nearby hairdresser’s lined up. Everything will be okay.
Jason nods affectionately at them. “Be careful.” He looks happy as he watches them go, and it makes me wanna kiss him so badly.
Just then the door of the shop chimes as it opens and a certain blond in a long old-fashioned gabardine makes his way inside.
“Greetings.” Corey gives a general wave, then winks at me and heads my way. “How’s my favorite guy doing today?”
Jason snickers from his perch on the chair. “Adam’s in the back.”
Oh yeah. Forgot to say that one of Jason’s friends is currently working here, at Collateral Damage. Adam is staying temporarily at Rafe’s house, and his job is to clean the shop and bring fancy coffees and cupcakes from a nearby coffee shop in the mornings and afternoons.
He’s also Corey’s new obsession.
“I thought you’d gone back to Chicago,” I tease him. I know full well he came back, and who for. He’s been visiting the shop every day, and has been driving Jason and his friends to the hospital and to the psychologist’s office when I can’t do it. “What happened with that guy you were in love with, Soul Stain’s newest tattoo artist? That Ethan guy?”
Corey waves a disdainful hand. “He was never into me.”
Yeah, sad but true.
“Ethan’s in the past.” He pushes off the desk and heads toward the back, his long coat flapping behind him. “Adam! How are you today?”
Jason huffs. “Sometimes I wanna grab Corey and shake him. He’s coming on too strong.”
“Like I did with you?”
His cheeks color. “I’m glad you did.”
Yeah, me too. Damn, Jason looks good. Hell, he looks damn edible, his dark hair ruffled, his eyes bright, that faint smile on his mouth.
I glance in the direction Corey went, and see him with Adam who’s leaning back against the wall, arms folded over his chest, blond hair falling in his eyes.
“Ethan told me there’s another guy in the picture. So I’m glad Corey found someone else to obsess over.” I shake my head. “Do you think Adam likes Corey?”
“Oh yeah. You don’t?”
I frown. “If he doesn’t, I’ll kick Corey’s blond ass out.”
Jason laughs—one of my favorite sounds in the world. “Truth is…” His laughter fades. “I don’t really know what Adam wants. I doubt he wants anything more than to find his way in this new world.”
I crouch down beside Jason’s chair and stroke his cheek. “And you? What do you really want in this new world?”
“You.” No hesitation. “And maybe a job?”
“You got it.” I kiss him softly, my chest bursting with affection. “You have me, and you’ll find your way. You’re the strongest person I know, Jase. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
He smiles back at me, his eyes happy and clear. “You changed my life. Don’t you forget that. You make me strong.”
We’re strong together. Love just seems to work that way, and who am I to question it? I wrap my arms around him. He’s the guy I’ve been waiting for all my life, and I’m right where I wanna be.
Epilogue
Jason
Three Months Later
It’
s late when I finally unlock the door and enter the apartment. Our apartment. Our home.
The lights are low inside. I prop my walking stick against the wall, hang the key on the hook and massage my thigh before I limp toward the sofa. The bone is whole again, although I have a metal rod and screws in my leg, to match my screwed-up mind.
The wound has healed as much as possible, though the bone hurts with the cold and burns like coals when I sit on a hard surface. The muscle is still weak and gives me trouble, especially when going up or down steps—like at the call center where I’m currently working, thanks to a recommendation letter from Rafe Vestri, or the therapist I’ve been visiting since I got out of the hospital.
Can’t complain, though. I can walk again, the anti-clotting shots to my belly are a thing of the past, the therapy is helping even if I haven’t remembered anything yet about my past, and life’s getting better every day.
Every day that I realize I’m not going back to Simon, or to the street, and that I get to be with my boyfriend.
Speaking of whom… “Raine?”
“In the kitchen,” he calls out, and I grin, turning my limping steps that way.
Since I moved in for good, Raine decided he needed to learn how to cook properly. After I came out of the hospital, he took care of everything for me. Bathed me, dressed me, helped me move around, on top of driving me to the hospital all the time, on top of working two jobs. And he’s stressed about the food. Seriously.