“She’d never lose me. Mother! ” I grab a knife from his belt and stick it into his eye, twisting. He releases me with a howl and a spurt of red blood, and I go running down the stairs as I hear a car start.
My father catches me. Slaps me. Then cocks the gun at me. He smiles when I go still.
“Greyson, my son, even your instincts made you stop. You know this just killed a man. You’re not going to die. If you die, you can’t save her. Can you?”
My whole body is paralyzed. He smiles sweetly at me and hugs me, keeping the gun against my temple.
“I knew you were my son. I told your mother, it wasn’t nice to keep you from me. Thirteen years, Greyson. Thirteen years looking for you. She insisted you weren’t my son. I told her if you proved to have my blood in you, you were coming with your father, where you belong.” He eases back and studies me with pride. “I gave you a choice to shoot a man.”
He looks up the staircase, where I know there is a motionless body. A body that won’t move again because of me.
“You killed him. Bullet straight to the head. You’re my son, every inch of my son; you will be powerful and feared.”
His voice chills me. I don’t feel anything when we go upstairs and I see the dead man, no remorse, nothing. I want to kill more, kill everyone who hurt my mother. “Where is she?” I ask, my voice odd. I killed something else with that man. Me.
“She will be taken somewhere else. Because real men are not raised by women, you hear me? My son will not be raised by a woman. Not without his father. No, you will be like me.”
I look at the car pulling out of the garage, driving my mother away. The look in her eyes when I shot that man. A cold panic like I’ve never felt spikes and spreads through me. I want my mother to explain to me what I did, why it was wrong, why it was wrong when it was all for her. Why she’s being taken away. My face is suddenly wet, and I get another slap, this one shooting me across the room and against the wall.
“None of that, boy! None of it. Now see that man?” My father points at the man covering his eye where I stabbed him, blood staining his shirt, his jeans. “He’s your uncle, Greyson. Uncle Eric. He’s my brother, he’s our family. We are your family. Apologize for what you did. If you’re good and I’m happy with you, I will let you see your mother. She will be kept alive only for you. She was family too, and I take care of my family—but she shouldn’t have betrayed me. She should never, ever, have taken you.”
It took me very little time to realize how this family worked. Very little time to realize that my father used only his newest men for these antics. The guy I killed, standing like some mannequin behind my mother, had been working for him for three days when my father whispered the dare in my ear, all the time expecting and hoping I’d prove myself Slater enough to make my first kill.
Many nightmares later, I supposed my mother had been trying to tell me not to shoot. If I hadn’t been so determined to defend her, if I’d proved to be weak, she’d be with me. I’d be left in school, thought unfit to be a part of this family. But I played my father’s game and instead of saving her, I doomed us both for the rest of our lives. I showed him I was thirteen and yes . . . I would kill, even him, for my mother.
I was good. I trained. I sucked back every emotion in me. I became nothing. Zero. And left when the promises and promises that I could see her turned out to be nothing but empty words . . . I followed every lead, and found nothing. A whole big world, and all these skills, and I still don’t know where she is.
A noise in my bedroom filters into my dreamlike state. I awaken instantly, and move by instinct, reaching under my pillow for my knife. Lightning fast, I flip around and send it flying, slamming it within a grazing hair from my intruder’s face, against the door.
“Zero?” a stunned voice says in the dark.
I’ve got my gun cocked and aimed before Harley finishes my name. Then I sigh. “Never do that again.” I shove up to my feet and flick on the lamp.
I turn back to my list. I’m anxious to get this over with. So many names. So many. I can’t even stand looking at her name, there, next to number five. “Your father wants to see you. He wants to know how the situation is going.”
My father has the oddest hours. We’re still off-season. Everyone is sleeping. The meds and the morphine they give him make him sleep all day, and wake only for small periods during the night. I grab the list and shove my legs into my slacks while Harley waits for me.
He grins. “You’ll enjoy that one.”
“Excuse me?”
“Number five?” he presses. “Your finger . . . it’s on number five.”
I drag my finger away and my heart starts pounding with the sudden urge to choke him as I fold the page into a tight little roll.
He didn’t attack her, but the fact that her name is on my list bugs me. The fact that all the guys know she owes us money. Wyatt, Harley, Thomas, Leon, C.C., Zedd, Eric, my father . . .
I think of her, feminine and vulnerable, exposed to these assholes, and things uncoil from inside me, like cobras out of a basket. Only she can make me feel this. Like I’m the home of a deadly hurricane, and it has no outlet. I told myself last night before going to bed that I would use what little honor I had left to protect this girl from me. I told myself She doesn’t want you. Not the real you. She wants a prince, and you’re the villain. You’re the one she’s working extra hours for. You, your father. I don’t want to remember how she smells like summer and the way she slides into bed. Warm. Hot. Real. Melanie. Number five on my list.
“This chick. She came to ask for more time to make her payment,” Harley says, “which got her name almost to the end of the list now. She asked for an extension. Leon told her she could become an extension of his fucking cock and they could forget about it. If she can’t pay, we’ll all pitch in for a chance to fuck her.”
I breathe hard.
Nope.
Doesn’t calm me.
There’s just no fucking way anyone will touch her. No FUCKING way.
“Go. I’ll go talk to my father in a bit,” I snap out darkly, holding his gaze pinned.
I slip into a shirt and then wait for him to leave. I’m so fucked up by what he said that I grab my knife and fling it at my target across the wall. I do it several times . . . I won’t leave this room until I’ve hit my bull’s-eye twelve times, straight up, which means I’m calm again. I could probably blame this possessiveness on my cock. I never did like sharing for shit. Or I can blame it on some false sense of justice—I never believed it fair when someone stronger took advantage of anyone weaker. Pure cowardice. But that’s not it either.
I wonder who’s taking her home.
Jaw clamped, I swing my knife and hit dead center.
♥ ♥ ♥
“SON,” JULIAN SAYS, his eyes lighting up when he sees me. I hear the beep of his heart monitor, and notice, to his right, Eric is rolling up his shirt sleeves.
“Update?” I direct myself to Eric, crossing my arms as I assess the trio of nurses around them. I not only owe Eric his eye, I have owed him my life, here, in this fucked-up, strange family.
“He needs platelets,” Eric explains.
I hate myself for being unable to stand there and just watch. I hate that some sense of duty, of loyalty to my own blood, makes me hold my shirt up and expose my veins. “I’ll do it.”
My father lifts a hand as I take a seat next to him. “No. You get nicked out there, you’ll bleed to death. Not you.” He looks at Eric and makes a hand gesture for him to proceed.
Eric waits for my approval, and I give it with a nod. I’ve always taken his words—I’d say to heart, except I don’t have one. But I’ve taken him seriously all these years. Whereas my father refuses to engage in anything that might hint at weakness, Eric has, once or twice, patted my back and called me “son.” But loving uncle or not, karma is a bitch, and I owe Eric an eye. For my father’s side of the family, an eye for an eye is not only sworn by, it’s stamped on each of
our birth certificates.
“This list,” I tell my father, unrolling it from my hand, looking at Eric first, then my father, a threat—smooth and cold as steel—in my tone, “I want your word, and therefore the word of any man under you, that nobody is to touch any of my targets. Any name here is exclusively mine to deal with as I see fit. I guarantee the amount owed. I want a guarantee to my methods.”
Eric looks at the list and his one eye focuses on number five. Melanie. He wants a chance to fuck her? They all want her. I want her. I want to grab him and tell him this little piece of heaven? This is mine. But I cannot do that or I’ll look weak. I can’t outright buy her name off this list without endangering her, and not only to my father. She could become my every enemy’s target, known or unknown.
“This list and every name on it is mine to enforce,” I repeat, my voice level. “Only I make contact, only I retrieve and direct payment—as I see fit.”
“On the condition that Eric be filled in on a daily basis of progress as he keeps me company here, yes,” my father agrees.
“Your word,” I insist.
“So stubborn, Zero.” He slaps me, hard enough to make a sound, but not enough to make me move a muscle, and laughs. “I give you my word.”
His word alone should be enough, but words, blood, I will never live a day when I believe in something without reservation. He could be lying. So I bend over and pat his shoulder, giving the impression of a loving son to the nurses nearby as I whisper, “Any of them step out of line, I’ll wipe them out. Even my brother.”
Once again, I see the respect in his eyes as I ease back and he nods at me, betraying no expression as I straighten. I glance at Eric. “I’ll be gone for a few days. I’m taking one or two of the team, no more. I’ll summon backup if needed.” I glance at the nurse injecting the needle into his veins, then back at Eric. “Thank you.”
When I head back to my room, I feel a buzz, the kind you get when you’re hunting. Or killing. Or want to.
I wouldn’t want to mess with me tonight. This talk of Melanie begging the Underground for an extension? “Please, can I have some more time to pay?”
It’s got me charged.
I’m charged with a fierce protectiveness I’ve never felt before and it’s spiking my adrenaline in ways nothing else ever has.
I grab a couple of new phones, change a couple of chips, then I book my ticket online and pack a few things. The buzz in me changes to something dangerous . . . not deadly, but dangerous, not only to me, but to her.
While watching her these past months, something’s happened to me. I want you too much, sweet princess.
She’s gotten to me, under my skin, into my head, it’s like she’s flowing in my damn blood.
I shouldn’t have her.
She deserves more.
More than any guy I know, and definitely more than me.
But to let her run around loose, single and available? When I can make sure the damn bed she’s sleeping in is mine? When I can hold that face in one hand and look into those eyes and fucking know—certain as I breathe—that she wants me too?
I’ve been working my way up the list, instead of the usual way, from top to bottom. But I’m stalling because I don’t want to collect from her. I’m stalling because she’s a little burst of life and I don’t feel like charging in there like the apocalypse, shrouding her with my darkness.
I don’t want to remember a month ago, when I watched her spill her coffee as she walked to the office, how devastated she looked because she’d messed up her scarf, her whole outfit ruined. From all the way across the street, where I ducked behind my newspaper, I heard her rant that she’d rather be fired than head to work wearing only two colors! Looking drab! That was no way to meet a client!
God, I laughed. I laughed, and I was still grinning over what a passionate little thing she was on my flight back to where my team was stationed, hiding my grin under my palm as I stared out the window.
From the moment I found her on my list and then laid eyes on her, I’ve followed her.
I’ve followed her in the pretense of finding out her social habits, her weaknesses, so I can sweep in for the kill, but the truth is, I follow her because I’m a sick fucking asshole, obsessed as a dog with the way she walks, all the colors she wears, all the ways she smiles, the bubbly, lovely little package that she makes.
I had two emotions in my life before I met her, anger and detachment.
Now she’s given me ten more. Lust, frustration, concern . . . even joy. I have never, ever wanted anything the way I want those green eyes to memorize me the way I’ve made it a religion to memorize her.
I grab my duffel, the ziplock bag with all the phone pieces, and the card. I build it back up as I ask Derek to drive me to the airport.
The phone comes alive in my hand and my gut starts to heat when I start texting her back, finally, at last:
Be home tonight.
EIGHT
* * *
MESSAGE
Melanie
Saturday morning, as dictates our comfortable little routine, I find my parents having breakfast, bathed, perfect, and smiling. Maria, their cook, has the best breakfast in town, and having breakfast at Mom and Dad’s makes me happy because the table is always set with linens, silver, and the food is placed in such a perfect way that you feast with your eyes first before reaching into the offerings and serving yourself.
“Lanie!” Mom says as I walk in. “Your father and I were just talking about Brooke’s wedding. When did you say it was?”
“Less than a month.” I kiss her cheek and then hug my tall, handsome dad. “Hey, Dad, you look cute.”
“See? She noticed I cut my hair, unlike you,” he tells my mom, pointing an empty fork in her direction.
“You hardly have any hair, how am I supposed to notice? So tell us about the wedding. I still can’t believe she’s getting married before you. You were always prettier and so much more lively,” my mom says, squeezing my hand as I sit down.
“I’m sure her fiancé would disagree,” I counter. I hate when my mom always puts Brooke down merely to make me feel better. I don’t feel better—she feels better, making excuses as to why a good guy won’t want me. Sometimes I think her own desperation to see me happily married makes little ole Murphy poke his head out and lay down the law—the more she wants it, the less it’ll happen. Woe is me.
“Still doesn’t excuse why no decent man out there can see that my baby girl is about as good as they come. You’re fit, you have a beautiful smile, and you’re sweet just like your momma.”
“Thank you, Daddy. I’m sure my unmarried state has everything to do with the fact that all men are assholes except you.”
“Lanie!” Mother chides, but she doesn’t really chide, she laughs softly.
“Well, Ulysess’s son is running for senator and he always asks about you. He’s not the brightest nut out there, but he’s good looking and—”
“He’s gay. He wants a beard, Dad. A sham marriage to fool his constituents. I can do better than that on my own.”
“When I was twenty-five . . .” my mom begins.
“You were married and already had me, yeah yeah yeah. But I have a career. And I have a . . . very busy dating life. In fact, I’ve been dating so much I wouldn’t know who to pick to take to Brooke’s wedding,” I exaggerate.
My mom and my dad, what can I say? I love them. I like pleasing them. They’ve loved me my whole life. I have been showered with love. They not only love me, they want me to find the kind of love they share. I don’t ever want them to suspect what I already suspect myself—that for some reason, it’s just not happening for me.
“Just remember what I told you, Flea,” my mother says. “Choose the man who treats you best. The one who will not break your heart, who can be your friend, who you can talk to.”
I poke at my French toast. “You say that because Dad was your best friend. I, however, have a female best friend, and I would never marry
my closest guy friend, Kyle. Ever.” I shudder when I think of my sexy Justin Timberlake-look-alike-BFF and me having so much as a kiss. Continuing to poke my food and softening my voice, I add, “I don’t think you can plan these things, Mom. I think they just happen and suddenly you’re standing on the side of the ring, meeting the man you’re going to marry when he winks at you. Or you find yourself standing in the rain, and all you pray for is that whatever feeling just struck you struck the man in front of you too . . .”
I look at my phone wistfully.
God, I’m such a fool fool FOOL!
The only thing that struck that man was lust, and now he’s been stricken with the Run-Away-From-Melanie syndrome.
A syndrome that’s much more common than you’d think.
“True, you cannot plan who you fall for,” my mother agrees. “But if you can step back so you can hear yourself think, you’d realize you don’t want to be out in the rain, hit by thunder. Always choose the path with sunlight, is what my momma used to say.”
“Naturally. Nobody picks an awful life out of wanting, Momma,” I groan. “Some people are just luckier.”
“It’s all about choosing wisely,” she insists.
I fall quiet as I wonder why I couldn’t have been wiser a couple of months ago, when I bet my life away on a single night, a single moment, one single outcome. I glance at my parents—so sweet and perfect, in our little bubble of happiness—I couldn’t bear to ask them for the money, could I? Disappoint them this way? How can I take their money and all their pride in me knowing how hard they fought to keep me alive?
♥ ♥ ♥
BY THE TIME I go home, I’m sad. I’m sad about my debt and about my man. I brush my teeth and look at my blank white wall and scowl.
“Bastard,” I mumble. “You ruined my whole week, you fucking bastard. I bet you’re fucking some triple-D blonde right now and her triplets all at the same time, aren’t you? You’re not even a two-timer, you’re like a three-timer, liar, feeding me an I’ll-take-you-to-the-movies fucking line. I swear I was fine until you came back like you ‘got’ me, like you ‘got’ me even if I looked like a hungover mess. God, I can’t believe myself!”