by Caitlyn Dare
“If you think I’m going to walk out of here without…” Ace trails off, and I hear his hand slam against the wall.
“Without what?” I shout, growing irritated by his games.
“Just open the goddamn door, Princess.”
“Why?” I yank it open, glaring at him. “Why can’t you just do as I ask, for once?”
“Because I fucking need you, okay?” His chest heaves as he steps into my space. “I need you more than I have ever needed anything else.”
“It’s a start…” I arch a brow, his words burying deep inside me.
“Fuck, Remi. You’re really going to make me do this? Here? Now?”
I give him a half-shrug, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s your call.”
He releases a long breath, dragging a hand over his face. “Yeah, okay.”
“No more secrets, Ace. No more lies.” One of my hands rests against his cheek. My anger is already dissipating. I feel it melting away, giving way to regret and frustration.
I want to hate him, I do. But how do you hate something woven into the very fiber of your soul?
It’s like hating blood or water or air. You can hate them but, in the end, you’re going to overlook your feelings because they’re a part of you. Vital for your survival.
“First, you have to tell me what the hell is going on between you and James.”
He inhales a deep breath. “I do this, and there’s no going back, Princess. I’m never going to let you go again.”
“Technically, you didn’t let me go the first time. You—”
“Fuck, I want to kiss that smart ass right out of you.” He leans down as if everything is fixed.
“Nuh-uh.” I press a single finger to his lips. “You have some explaining to do, then we can talk about the rest.”
He groans, dropping his head to my shoulder. A smile plays on my lips. Something is shifting between us. Ace always held the power, and I was fine with that.
In some ways, I needed it.
But I hold the cards now.
Ace is at my mercy.
And I want to toy with him a little longer.
Moving around him, I close the door. His eyes track my every move. It’s the predator within him. “You can take the chair,” I say as I climb onto the bed.
“No fucking way,” he grumbles.
“The door’s right there. If you have a problem with my rules, be my guest...”
“Fine, I’ll sit.” He rolls the chair right to the edge of the bed, his smile a little too smug.
“It’s hot in here,” I breathe, sliding my hands to my thin hoodie. “Don’t you think it’s a little hot in here?” Pulling it off my head, I ball it up and throw it at him.
“I know what you’re doing,” he says, rubbing his jaw.
“Who, me?” I stretch out on top of the sheets, letting my boy shorts rise up my thighs. Ace catches one of my ankles and pulls me sharply so that my foot is in his lap and begins massaging my toes. I smother a moan. It feels so incredible, but I won’t give him the satisfaction.
Not yet, at least.
I shift the pillows until I’m lying diagonally across my bed.
“Comfortable over there?” Ace asks. He seems so different. So playful and, dare I say it, happy.
“Is this real?” The words spill out, and his brows crinkle. “Or it is just another game?”
“You think...” He swallows. “Shit, Remi, it’s real, baby. I swear to you, everything I’ve said, everything I’ll keep saying, it’s all true.” His hand stills as his eyes lock on mine, holding me captive. “Hurting you is the biggest regret of my life, and I’ve done a lot of really messed-up shit, Princess.”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
The blood drains from his face. “When you said you wanted no secrets between us, I didn’t think...”
“Ace.” My brow furrows.
“Fine. But you have to promise not to run out on me when I’m done?” A dark cloud descends over him and I half-regret asking the question.
I know he’s dangerous, and I know he works for some dangerous people, but there’s still so much I don’t know about him.
Too much.
“I promise not to run if you promise to tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
He lets out a harsh breath. “Cruz was right about you,” he mumbles.
“Oh yeah, and what did Cruz say?”
“Later.” He brushes it off. “You’ve probably figured out by now that Donny Lopez isn’t a good guy.” I nod. “Well, he doesn’t let just anyone work for him. There’s an initiation process.”
My blood turns cold. “You had to k-kill someone?”
“I had to fight someone, one of Donny’s guys. This older kid I knew from my trailer park. Real piece of shit. He came at me like a bull out of a gate. I’ll never forget the feel of his brass knuckles crunching against my ribs. Fuck, that shit hurts. But I was light on my feet and quicker than he was. I don’t know how, but I managed to turn the tables. We were both a fucking mess, blood everywhere, broken bones... but I was the last man standing. I thought I’d won.”
“What happened?”
“Donny shoved a gun in my hand and told me to finish it.”
My eyes almost bug out of my head as I imagine a young Ace being forced to make a decision like that. I want him to tell me he didn’t do it, that there’s some kind of happy ending to this story. But I know the answer.
It’s written all over his rugged face.
“I was almost fourteen, and we were all out of food. Conner was starving and Cole was always sick. I had no choice... we needed the money. So I pointed at his broken, bloody body and pulled the trigger.”
His words are like a gunshot to my heart. “Oh my God,” I breathe, fighting the tears that flow down my cheeks.
“It was a test.” Ace runs a hand down his face. “It wasn’t loaded. I passed the test and lost a piece of my soul that night.”
I scramble off the bed and crawl onto his lap. He slides his arms around my waist, burying his face into the crook of my neck. “I didn’t kill him, but I may as well have.”
Ace cups the back of my neck as he looks at me. “After that, I lost count of the number of times I might have killed someone. When you run for Donny, you quickly learn to defend yourself. I’ve never shot anyone point-blank, but I’ve put a few bullets through guys. Same with my knife. When it’s them or you... you do what you gotta do.”
I inhale a shuddering breath. “I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize...”
“Still not going to run, Princess?”
“That depends on your answer to my next question. Why do you hate James so much?”
A wall slams down over his expression, but I grip his jaw, ghosting my lips over his. I’m not playing fair, but then Ace has never had a problem playing dirty, either.
“When I was eight, my dad died. At least, that’s what she told us. I never saw the body. One day he was there, and the next he wasn’t. We didn’t have a burial. Mom said we couldn’t afford it. So we went down to the park and stood in front of our favorite tree and said a few words. I was so fucking angry at the world for taking him. I mean, he was my dad.
“I was surprised when Uncle James showed up a few days later. He’d never been around much when we were kids. He and Dad shared a lot of bad blood, and it was no secret my dad was the black sheep of the family. I can’t remember much, but I remember him bringing this sack of shiny new toys. Cole and Conner were so excited, but I didn’t want his crap. I wanted my dad back.”
Ace’s body trembles and I hold him closer, letting my fingers trail up and down his arm. “They argued. I can’t remember what about, but Mom was crying and told him to go. We never saw him again after that. Mom tried to keep it together, but things went to shit pretty quickly. She was drinking more, snorting fuck knows what to get high, and then when she ran out of liquor and drugs, she’d invite guys over and turn tricks for her next hit.
“I had so mu
ch anger and hatred burning inside me. I hated my dad for leaving us. Mom for not doing right by us. And I hated Uncle James for discarding us like we were nothing but trash.”
“What happened then?” I ask when he goes quiet. He’s lost in his thoughts. “Ace, come back to me,” I whisper.
He blinks, startled. “By the time I was fourteen, I knew something had to change. We couldn’t rely on Mom for shit, and I wasn’t a scrawny kid anymore. So I asked Donny for a job. And things were okay. I mean, we weren’t living the high life or anything, but I kept food on the table and had enough to buy Cole and Conner supplies for school. I made sure they did their homework and didn’t act like little punks.”
“You’re a good brother, Ace.” I’ve told him before, but he should hear it more often. The sacrifices he made, although heart-wrenching, are a testament to his character. To how deeply he cares for his brothers.
“Yeah, well, it all went to shit.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “Right before we moved here, before Mom...” He chokes over her name. “I saw a ghost.”
Confusion pinches my brows, and he gives me a sad smile. “My whole life has been a fucking lie.”
“What do you mean?” He isn’t making any sense.
“Charlie Jagger isn’t dead.”
“Charlie? That’s your dad’s name?” He nods. “But how can he not be dead?”
“That’s the first fucking thing I thought when I saw him standing there. I recognized him straight away. Same eyes, same slightly crooked nose.”
“You saw him?” I sound like a parrot, but nothing adds up. Instead of getting answers, I feel like the puzzle is becoming more and more complicated.
“Yeah, I fucking saw him,” he hisses. “And I found out what a real piece of work Charlie Jagger is. Turns out he didn’t die... my uncle paid to have him killed.”
The air whooshes from my lungs as I gasp. “No.”
“Yes, he made sure it was his parting words after he stole the money I’d been saving. But that’s not all.” Pain glitters in Ace’s eyes, so intense I feel it rolling off of him. “He said he was never my dad to begin with.”
Chapter Eight
Ace
As I say those words, it’s like an actual weight is being lifted from my shoulders. I’ve been carrying those secrets around for too long.
“So who is?” Remi asks the exact same question I’ve been asking myself for weeks.
I shrug. “I don’t even know if he’s telling the truth. It could be a lie to add to all the others.”
“Ace,” Remi sighs, wrapping her arms tighter around my shoulders.
As good as it feels having her comforting me, that wasn’t the reason I came here.
“Remi.”
“Shhh,” she says, placing her fingers over my lips. “No more talking.” My heart damn near pounds out of my chest as she licks her lips.
Her eyes bounce between mine as she hovers dangerously close to my mouth. I can only assume she’s trying to talk herself out of it, but I’m not about to help her out with that. I need her lips on mine more than I need my next breath.
I hold her tighter, hoping it’ll help her make a decision.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” she mutters a beat before her lips press to mine.
Every single muscle in my body relaxes. I part my lips, desperate to deepen the kiss. She follows my lead, but the second our tongues collide she jumps off me like she’s just been burned.
“Remi, Princess. Come on, you’re not playing fair,” I groan, making a show of rearranging myself in my pants so she knows exactly what she does to me with just a simple kiss.
“Fair?” she asks incredulously. “Let’s talk about fair, shall we?”
Her eyes are still red from the tears she shed for me earlier, but as she remembers, more fill her eyes. “You played a sex tape of me losing my virginity at my own birthday party, Ace. How is that fair? I was already the school outcast. What were you even thinking?”
I sink back in the chair. “I wanted to hurt James,” I say honestly, and she gasps.
She said she wanted the truth, so she’s going to get it. “It was obvious the first day we moved in that you were important to him. The way he looked at you that night. It was with so much love and adoration. The exact look the three of us should have had from our parents but never did.
“I hated you in that moment. I’d been dragged into this life. A life I didn’t want. Forced to live with a lying cunt of an uncle who may or may not have killed my dad.” My chest heaves with the admission. “I was a fucking mess. I’m still a fucking mess. But something changed.”
“What?” she asks, a little hope seeping into her voice.
“You. You happened, Remi. I was meant to mess with you, hurt you, break you and send you back on your knees crying to him.” Her eyebrows almost hit her hairline, but I won’t stop now that I’ve started. “I wanted to show him that he’s not the only one who can manipulate other people’s lives. I wanted to prove to him that I had power. That I could get what I wanted and ruin who I wanted.
“I just didn’t anticipate one thing.”
She juts her hip out and places her hand on her waist. She’s so fucking sexy when she’s feisty. Her tank is thin enough to give me a hint of her nipples hiding behind, and her boy shorts ride high on her thighs. Fuck, how I’d love to rip them off her and feast on what’s beneath until she cries my name.
My cock swells once again. “I fell for you, Princess. Hook, line, and fucking sinker.”
“But you still went through with it.” My heart sinks.
“If James hadn’t pulled that stunt for your birthday, I probably wouldn’t have. But that just tipped me over the edge and I saw red. All I could focus on was revenge.”
“So you filmed me and played it for everyone to see? I can’t believe that even after… that, that you could be so cold, so cruel.”
“I had no intention of playing that video. I took the memory card from the camera and was going to destroy it. I couldn’t do it. You meant too much to me. I’d fallen too hard by that point.”
I stand, pushing the chair out behind me and stalking toward her.
“B-But it played. E-Everyone saw it, Ace. Everyone saw me naked as you…”
“Fuck,” I roar, anger like I’ve never known before swelling in my gut. “I know, Princess. I fucking know, and trust me when I say that I want to kill every motherfucker who so much as glanced at that screen. What they saw… I’ll regret it every day for the rest of my life.” The words vibrate in my chest, a firestorm coursing through me.
I run my hand over my face and scrub at my rough jaw. “That should have been for my eyes only. That’s why I knew I couldn’t do it. You’d given me something precious, and I couldn’t ruin that any more than I already had.”
“S-So how, Ace? You say you’d changed your mind but that tape was still played. How?” she seethes.
“I don’t know, baby.”
She stops pacing when I get to her, and she allows me to back her up against the wall. “But it played.” She loses the fight with her tears and one drops from her eye.
Reaching up, I swipe it away with my thumb. “I know, but it shouldn’t have.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” I’ve played the lead-up to that fateful event over and over in my mind. But with the alcohol I’d drunk, the coke I’d snorted, and the beating I’d taken, I wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.
“After we… slept together, I freaked out and left for the Heights. I went back to where I grew up and hung out with my old friends. I thought it would help me clear my head. Help me feel like I… belonged. I thought it would feel like home.”
“Did it?”
“Nope. I realized the only place that feels like home now is when I’m with you.”
“Ace.”
I press my body against hers, ensuring she can feel what her close proximity does to me, and rest my hand on her waist. It barely scratches the surface of what
I need from her, but I’ve got to get all of this out first. It’s the least she deserves.
“I drank a shit load of liquor and snorted fuck knows how much coke.” She gasps at my admission but doesn't stop me. “Then one of Donny’s guys showed up to hand deliver a message.”
“Your face,” she says softly, as if she’s only just now remembering how I looked that night.
“I don’t remember how the night ended. One minute, I’m getting my ass handed to me and the next thing I knew, I woke up in fucking agony in my bed in the pool house.”
“How?”
“Cole,” is all I say, because I’m convinced there’s more to his story about that night than he’s letting on. “But along with the pain, all I felt was regret. Regret for how I treated you, for what I’d taken from you, for what I had planned next.
“I took the card from the camera I had set up.” I lean into Remi’s ear. “I didn’t even watch it,” I breathe, making her shudder. “I don’t remember what I did with it after that, but the next thing I know it was playing on the fucking screen for everyone to see.”
“Just like you planned.” Disappointment swirls in her eyes.
“Yes but… I swear to you, Princess. I wasn’t going through with it. I’d changed my mind.”
“Really?” she says coolly. “It all sounds a little too coincidental.”
“I swear on my brothers’ lives I did not set that video up. I did not want anyone to see it.” Staring into her eyes, I silently beg her to believe me.
“Ace, I don’t—”
I don’t allow her any more words. I slam my lips down on hers and make the most of her open mouth. My tongue dives in, in search of her own, and, after a second, she concedes.
“I swear to you, Princess,” I whisper against her lips. “Let me prove it. Please.”
“Ace,” she moans, sagging back against the wall.
I kiss her so deeply, deeper than I have before. I want to give her everything. I need to.
My hand runs up the inside of her tank until I take the weight of her breast. Her head drops back and hits the wall behind her. As she does, a flashback of her falling into that pool slams into me.