“I’m ready.” His deep voice ripped me to shreds, made me want to push him against the wall and demand he love me. Demand he never leave me. Ask him to stay…
“Okay.” I turned and looked.
And immediately wished I had never fallen for Tex.
Because no man would ever compare to the broken one in front of me.
My heart beat to fix him. My soul yearned to join him.
“Alright.” I saluted. “Just think of me as your grumpy old nurse.”
Tex eyed me up and down. “Yeah you look nothing like a grumpy old nurse. In fact, I’d probably purposely walk in the line of fire in order to get patched up by you.”
My lungs were paralyzed.
Air didn’t come.
Words ceased.
So I nodded as I helped him to his feet and then stepped into the shower with him, leading him to the bench and pointing the shower head towards his body.
“I feel like a child.” Tex smiled wide. “Do I look helpless? Be honest, Mo. I can always tell when you’re lying. You avert your eyes and put your hands behind your back like your hiding cookies.”
“I do not!” I rubbed my hands and put them behind my back without realizing it. Tex pressed his lips together and nodded his head towards me.
“Really? You don’t?”
I unleashed my hands and returned his smile. “It all started with that first stolen cookie when I was six.”
“Liar.” Tex stretched out his legs and winced. “It started when you were five… with the piece of chocolate I told you to steal.”
I gasped. “I forgot about that!”
“The girl’s got a weakness for the dark side, don’t you, Mo? Your grubby little hands stole Nixon’s dark chocolate and then you didn’t want to have to give it back, so what did you do?”
I folded my arms across my wet chest. “I ate it.”
“Not it.”
“I ate them.”
“How many? I forget?” He chuckled.
“Ten mini candy bars and then I threw up all over my church shoes.”
Still laughing Tex reached for the soap. “One of my top ten Mo moments.”
“Ten?” I joked. “You have a top ten list?”
“Hell yeah I do.” Tex soaped up his body but cringed when he hit the sliced skin on his leg, so I bent down and started slowly cleaning the blood away with a wash rag and the soap.
“So…” My hands moved seamlessly across his leg. “Name a few.”
“Hmm…” Tex leaned his head back against the tiled wall. “The day you wore that kick-ass swimsuit.”
“The white one?”
“Yeah.” Tex’s voice lowered. “I wanted you so badly that day but I knew it was too soon, so I waited. Good things come to those who wait they say.”
“And did they?” I asked.
“Did they what?”
“Did the good things come?”
Tex was silent for a few seconds then said, “They come and go… like life.”
“Another moment?” I moved to his other leg and washed up and down.
“When you smiled.”
“What?”
“Each time you smile.” Tex shrugged. “It’s a new moment, so I always say when you smiled at least that’s how I keep track in my brain. Each time you smile is a new moment so I store it and I tell myself that’s my favorite one right there.”
I smiled.
“See? New moment. Mind blown.”
I shook my head and sucked on my bottom lip before moving the soap up his thigh and across his stomach. With a groan he closed his eyes. “Best nurse ever. We should get you a button.”
“A button?”
“Yeah a button that says number one nurse or something like that. Put it on all your clothes… good plan, right?”
“Right.” I rolled my eyes and continued washing his abs. “So what’s number one?”
His eyes flashed open as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Water droplets cascaded down his square chin landing on his chiseled chest. “The day you married me.”
I slid my hand down as the soap dropped to the tiled ground. “But you were so angry.”
“At the circumstances,” Tex whispered. “And maybe at you, a bit, but it was the happiest moment of my life, knowing you would never be able to run away from me—from us. Knowing that even if you broke my heart, I still had a ring on my hand saying you it was yours to break and that I probably deserved it in the first place.”
My hands moved up his stomach to cup his face. “And now, now are you mad still?”
“Mo.” Tex groaned as he gripped my wrists. “What do I keep telling you? I could never hate you as much as I love you.”
“Still?” My lower lip trembled.
He sighed. “Still.”
“And even though you’re choosing blood…”
Tex sighed. “Sometimes a person does what he has to do, to protect those he values the most.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Death makes you see things clearly… sometimes that’s not a good thing.
Tex
I WOULD HAVE GIVEN damn near anything to be at my full strength, to be able to lift Mo into my arms and whisper promises across her skin. Instead, I was so weak it would be an adventure just trying to get out of the shower. But her skin, it was so pretty, each time the water hit her, it pressed against her flesh and then receded down her face and honestly it was so distracting that I almost had to close my eyes.
“Tex?”
I released her wrists and leaned back so I could cool off. I didn’t want her to know that the shower was so hot I was ready to pass out—then again it was probably because my blood was heated to dangerous levels just breathing the same steam as her. “What?”
“For what it’s worth… I’m sorry.”
“For what…” I repeated. “…it’s worth… I’m kind of flattered you value my life as much as you do, Mo. You’re the only one who would go out on a limb for me.”
“Nixon would, so would Chase,” she argued.
“No.” I shook my head. “Not anymore, and the sick part is I can’t blame them, I mean I have a freaking sister that I’ve never met and I feel possessive as hell right now over that girl… she could be a raging lunatic and I’m still concerned that she’s safe. Blood—”
“—wins.” Mo cleared her throat. “Right, I get it. So, should we wash you off?”
“I’m such a dirty boy.” I said dryly, my eyebrows shooting up in good humor.
Mo suppressed her laughter with her hand and stood in front of me. “Right, okay so I’m just going to…” She gulped. “Rinse.”
“Wash, rinse, repeat,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Talk dirty to me, nurse.”
“Keep joking like that, and I’ll be sure the nurse slips and hurts the patient, capiche?”
“Physical pain I can tolerate.” I chuckled and then realized what I had said, or what I’d meant by that. Beat me, slaughter me, make me bleed, but break my heart?
And you’ve just destroyed my reason for living.
Take away Mo?
And you’ve just wrecked my entire existence.
I cleared my throat. “Are we doing this or not?”
“Yeah.” Mo licked her lips and positioned the shower head over my body. I closed my eyes as the warm water cleansed me of all the soap and blood—my sins, however, stayed. And wasn’t that a bitch?
Never clean.
“Alright.” Mo turned off the shower. “I’m going to grab some towels and dry you off so you don’t slip.”
“Wow.” I folded my arms across my chest to keep warm. “I get toweled off too?”
“Try not to get too excited.” Mo winked. “I towel rough.”
“I can do rough.”
“Not this kind of rough.”
“Just don’t injure what doesn’t like being injured… gentle, you know the meaning of that word don’t you?”
“I was always horrible with school, you should know th
at.” Mo called from beyond the door. She returned with two white fluffy towels and tossed one at my face. “You dry the upper half, I dry the lower half.”
“Score.”
“Keep talking.”
“Sorry.” I grumbled rubbing my face and hair with the towel and moving down my arms and chest. I stopped briefly to look up since Mo hadn’t started but her eyes were trained directly on me. “Uh, this isn’t a theatre Mo, if you didn’t pay you can’t stay, sweetheart.”
A blush stained her cheeks before she started vigorously rubbing my legs taking several leg hairs with her, damn it!
“Okay.” I pushed her hands away. “That’s enough nurse for the day.”
“But you’re still wet.” She pointed at my thighs.
I looked down, she looked up.
It really couldn’t have been timed any worse. I’d always prided myself in being able to control my body and my lust, I was easily able to keep myself in check around Nixon especially when I checked out Mo. So why the hell was my body rejecting every sane ounce of logic I threw at it?
“Er…” Mo dropped the towel and looked away. “Um, I’ll just, you can finish up and then I’ll…” She twisted her hands. “Help you out of the shower and to the bed—to sleep!” I winced as she shouted the last part in my right ear. “Sleep, because you need rest.”
“Thanks, Mo.” I nodded. “Pretty sure I know what sleep is for.”
Her cheeks stained even redder before she walked out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. The woman had seen me naked countless times before. Hell, technically we were married, and she was still blushing around me like she’d never seen a man before.
I wanted to remedy that.
Correction, I wanted to be the only guy to remedy that.
With a sigh, I stood on wobbly feet and slowly made my way out of the shower, I was at least able to make it to the counter before I had to stop. Mo quickly grabbed my arm and without saying another word helped me to my bed.
What happened next was probably my fault.
I was suffering blood loss.
So really, she shouldn’t have expected anything less of me.
When I fell back on the bed, I took her with me, and ripped her towel off in the process.
“Two hours,” I ordered softly in her ear.
“Two?” She squeaked.
“Yeah.” My arms tightened around her body. “Please?”
With a defeated sigh she whispered, “Okay.”
Part Two: From the Ashes
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It’s best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise above the ashes. –Anne Baxter
Phoenix
THE ANSWER IS NEVER as simple as the question. And when Luca asked me the question, I had no idea what my answer would be. In a million different scenarios I never imagined I’d be back where it all started. When you’re a kid you’re always told that your choices will haunt you, that they become like blocks you build off of.
My freaking blocks were destroyed.
And I was smothered beneath the rubble, just waiting for death to take me, because honestly? I should be dead.
I wanted to be dead because maybe then this sick feeling in my chest would go away, maybe if I was dead I wouldn’t have the nightmares.
Maybe if I was dead, I wouldn’t want what I literally had no business wanting.
Life.
“What the hell did you do?” I screamed jerking against the IV and hospital equipment. The hum of instruments made me so sick I puked in the van. “Luca! Answer me damn it!”
“We had an agreement.”
“Bull shit!” I roared. “Why! Why can’t you just let me die?” The rage that had been my constant companion my whole life was threatening to take over, I looked for a weapon, for anything to end my own life, to go to Hell where I belonged. The shine of a scalpel caught my eye; I snagged it from the table and held it to my throat. “I’ll do it! Don’t think I won’t!”
Luca’s eyes took in my shaking hand. “Son, you’re story isn’t over.”
“Who are you to decide that?”
“Who are you?” Luca asked calmly. “I saved your life so you could save more lives—I offer you something better than death.”
“Oh yeah?” I hissed. “What’s that?” The rage was pounding against my skin screaming to be set free.
“Redemption.”
The knife clattered out of my shaking hands, I watched as it banged against the floor of the van and swayed a bit as his words hit me square in the chest.
And just like that, the rage I’d kept inside for so long, broke.
I broke.
And burst into tears.
“I can’t—I can’t.”
“You can.” Luca joined me on the gurney. “And you will.”
“I have nothing.” I whispered.
Luca held out his hand. “You have blood.”
“Phoenix? Are you even listening to me right now or are you seriously stupid enough to stare at the wall while I lecture you?” Nixon paced in front of me. Damn it, felt like I’d been sitting in his office for hours. Pictures of me and the rest of the guys lined the walls. They may as well have been years ago, eons. I wasn’t that same person, didn’t even recognize that face in the picture. It looked so casual, so carefree. I had been anything but that.
I refused to look at the smile on my face.
In fact it made me so damn sick I wanted to puke up every ounce of food I’d had for the past week.
My life had been such a joke.
And now, it was about to get worse.
“Yeah,” I whispered and leaned forward. “I’m listening, man, and I’m sorry I kept so much from you, but—”
Nixon’s fist came flying so hard that when it hit, I heard bone crack in my jaw before I fell to the ground in a bloody heap.
“That,” Nixon spat, “is for being a complete ass to Trace. I’m still not over it, and it’s going to take more than you saving my life for me to be completely calm with you two in the same room.”
I wiped the blood from my mouth and felt my entire body sag with defeat. “Understood.”
“Don’t get up.” Nixon pushed his boot into my back and pressed me hard against the area rug. “I will end you if you as much as look at her with anything other than indifference. Do you feel me?”
Hell yeah, I felt him; his boot weighed a hundred pounds. “Yes, sir.”
“You work for us, you don’t work for yourself. You protect us, you protect the girls, and you tell me every damn detail. Yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
He removed his boot. I expected a kick to the side. What I got? An outstretched hand. Confused, I took it as he pulled me to my feet.
With a grimace, Nixon pulled me into his arms and hugged me so tight I almost stopped breathing. “Another thing,” he said gruffly. “I’m so damn happy to see you.”
I collapsed against him, embarrassed that I didn’t even have anger as a shield anymore, but defeat, so much damn defeat and regret that I stank of it. I wanted to sob, I wanted to wrap my arms around my ex-best friend and apologize until my voice was hoarse, but the thing about messing up like I did? Leading the life I did? Words mean absolutely nothing. It was like throwing feathers into the wind and hoping they’d make it to China.
Words hold no value when you’ve used them your whole life to hurt people rather than heal them.
So I had action.
And they were about to see a lot of it.
Nixon released me and pointed to the leather seat across from him.
I sat and leaned forward, suddenly uncomfortable with the tense silence and vulnerable exchange.
“You look like hell.” Nixon grinned and leaned back in his chair, his lip ring catching some of the light from the otherwise dark study.
I smirked. “Yeah well, I’ve been to Hell, seems they don’t treat guys like me well down there, so I came back with a few… bumps.??
?
“Your hair’s brown, your nose looks like it’s been broken four times since I’ve seen you and you have circles under your eyes bigger than Tex’s mouth. What the hell have you been doing?”
I licked my lips. “Oh you know a little of this a little of that.” With a shrug I relaxed a bit in my seat. “I’ve been working for Campisi, couldn’t look like a De Lange so let my hair grow all natural and got in a few skirmishes trying to prove my worthiness.”
“And Tex’s sister?”
I froze.
“Phoenix?”
Swallowing, I licked my lips nervously. “Sorry, yeah, she’s… safe.”
Just thinking about her made me a nervous wreck. I had her to thank for the broken nose and dark circles. Woman never slept and tried to kill me the first night I watched over her.
“Name?”
“Bianka.” Shit, saying her name made my entire body tight. “But I just call her Bee.” She hated that nickname, and what do ya know? That’s where broken nose number two came from. I’d learned long ago never to fight a woman, never to make them feel small. So even though it hurt like hell to get the crap beat out of me, I let her hit me, I didn’t fight back. Ever. Fighting back brought too many memories… memories that made me feel like the devil himself. So I allowed my nose to break knowing it would hurt a lot less than the sickness in my soul.
Nixon scratched the back of his head. “Well damn, we’ll need to meet her.”
“Not now,” I said quickly. “Not with The Commission coming up, we’ll have to keep her in hiding until Alfonso’s out of the picture.”
“Any idea where he is?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I can find out, I still know some of his men and money makes them talk… a lot. Well money and whiskey which thankfully Luca has in spades, so I usually do pretty well.”
“Fine.” Nixon’s eyes narrowed. “And… with everything else, Mil and Chase and… all of us, I mean, are you handling things alright? Do you need…” He lifted his hands into the air, and looked away. “Do you need to talk to someone?”
I smiled, Nixon was all hard–ass, but it was funny how Trace had helped him in ways he probably didn’t even realize. She hadn’t made him soft, just… sensitive to things that he normally wouldn’t give a shit about. “Nah man, I’m actually good. Luca’s been helpful.”