And then his mouth was on mine.
Coaxing. Inviting. Taking everything I wanted to give him and didn’t know how.
My chest pitched when I felt the tip of the blade skate up my stomach, dragging my shirt up my body and leaving chills in its wake. My toes curled against the comforter when he dragged the flat side along the underside of my breast, and I cried out when he slammed the blade into the headboard above us.
Kieran sat back and put some space between us, his chest moving roughly as he studied me with a satisfied grin that made him look so much less threatening.
My heart was racing.
Adrenaline was coursing through my body.
And I wanted more.
He’ll ruin you.
I forced the thought from my mind and watched as he bent to place a kiss on my stomach, then moved my shirt back down.
There wasn’t a scratch on me.
Why would Lily ever want to leave this?
Kieran jerked, his eyes hardening. “What?”
My stomach sank as I tried to take back words I knew I couldn’t have said.
“Kieran . . .”
“This place?” he asked, his voice hard and unforgiving. “She hated it. Me? We’ve been over that.”
“I didn’t mean to . . .” I bit out a curse and sat up. “I just don’t understand. I’ve never had something like this. I’ve never wanted to be touched. And with you”—I shrugged unapologetically—“I don’t want you to stop touching me. I didn’t want what you were doing to end.”
He watched for me long seconds before he said, “I never did that with her.” His eyes lifted to the knife sticking out of the headboard. “She hated what I was. Hated whenever she saw me with a knife for any reason. I taught her to use one for basic defense, but she hated the idea of them. Anything that would connect me or her to this life she wanted nothing to do with.”
Suddenly I understood why he freaked out the night before—why he’d been so frustrated when he thought I was using his jobs and the fact that he was an assassin as a reason to leave.
If only you knew.
Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock.
“I feel special.” It came out sarcastic, but I liked that he’d never done those things with her.
“You pulled a knife on me the first few times we met.” The corner of his mouth curved up. “Figured you’d be able to handle it.”
“You’re the first person I’ve ever kissed,” I admitted and held his surprised stare, daring him to challenge my confession.
“Why?” he finally asked.
Because they would’ve ruined me.
“Kissing isn’t in the job description.” I gave him a playful grin and ignored the irritated set of his eyes. “I’ve just never allowed a man to kiss me. Never wanted to. Especially not with any of them.”
Minutes came and went in silence as the assassin stared at me, like he was trying to figure out things he shouldn’t.
And the ticking only became louder.
When it started to feel like I would go out of my mind if he didn’t say something, he crawled over the bed and lay on his side next to me. “Tell me why you do it.”
A wild laugh slipped from my lips. “It’s easy money. Why else?”
He sighed and ran a hand through his shoulder-length hair. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend to be someone I know you’re not.”
I looked at him, caught off guard at the way he suddenly sounded so drained, but he was staring straight ahead.
“And what makes you think you know me, Nightshade?”
His eyes lifted to meet mine. The look he gave me telling me more than words could.
Without saying anything, he returned to staring straight ahead, and I blew out a steadying breath.
“Because I need money.”
“Lots of ways to make money.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a depressed sounding huff. “Yeah. Tried a lot of them too. I’ll spare you the story of poor Jessica’s job failures, but I was desperate. I owed a lot—Momma owed a lot to some people, and she’s never worked a day of my life. I had to get money to keep her alive and keep us in the trailer so we weren’t on the street.” Again.
“Where were your dad and brother?”
“Gone.” When he tapped my leg, I rolled my eyes. “I’m not sure. My dad could be dead for all I care. And Jentry was already off living his cushy life with Declan. Forgetting about me. When places started refusing to hire me because they’d heard about Momma and the people who came looking for me, I started begging on a corner. Not long after, some things happened and I decided to take control of my life.” Another tap. Another roll of my eyes. “The man who . . . the one who tried to force himself on me.”
His fingers curled into a fist on top of my leg, but slowly unfurled after a few seconds. “You said you had clients,” he said, spitting out the last word. “Why are you on a street if you have them and don’t get picked up?”
“Standing there is how I originally met them and it’s how they come get me. I refuse to go crawling to them, and I won’t let them near Momma. I’m already protecting her from enough.”
The random people she brings home.
The boyfriends.
AJ . . .
He nodded slowly, but I could feel the way his body was slowly beginning to shake. “Why do you make people think you’d fuck anyone for cash? Beck. Your brother. Me.”
Shock pulsed through me at his question. But after a moment, a hint of amusement played on my lips. Of course Kieran would be the one to pick up on the inconsistencies in my lifestyle and my conversations with others. Of course.
If Kieran understood anything, it was threats. The way they moved and worked.
And a threat is exactly what I’d been to him.
“I don’t make anyone think anything,” I said softly.
Kieran muttered something too low for me to hear.
“I spent my entire first night turning away every car until the very last one,” I mumbled, my voice thick with shame. “He’s still my client. He’s never once touched me, and he just watches me touch myself. He was my only client for months.”
Kieran’s body was trembling so hard that it was forcing mine to shake too.
“Beck found out a few days later and started yelling at me. Called me a whore. Told me to go spread my legs for another dozen men if that’s what I wanted.” I swallowed around the knot in my throat. “Growing up, it was nearly impossible to get in touch with Jentry. It’s how I became so good at sneaking into places. When I finally got in touch with him after all that began, he lost it. He already knew because Declan had seen me on my street. Said more of the same as Beck had. I first saw you with Beck, and he’d already decided he knew everything he needed about me. So . . .” I shrugged and started playing with my fingers.
“Declan’s a client?”
My face twisted in disgust and hatred. “No. That . . . that was different. That was right after I started. I tried to go to Jentry for help, but they’d moved. It would’ve taken me forever to find where they’d moved to. But, Declan . . . he’d never been hard to find, and he always led me right to Jentry. So I went to a party he was at one night. I didn’t have to follow him at a distance. No matter how many times I’d seen him and slipped in and out of their houses, Declan hadn’t seen me since we were kids and didn’t remember me. He was all over me, pulling me from the party early and taking me back to their new house.” I forced a shrug. “He became my revenge.”
I knew Jentry would be angry when he found out.
I knew he’d lose control.
And I’d been so desperate for everything to go away that I’d nearly cried in relief when Jentry stormed into the room and started beating the shit out of Declan. I’d taunted him ceaselessly, silently begging him to turn on me next.
The way our father always had.
But he’d taken one look at me, his expression full of so much disgust and darkness and rage, and had storm
ed out of the room.
“That’s why you think I’m going to ruin myself with this revenge?” Kieran’s lethal tone ripped through the memory of one of my many failed attempts at pushing Jentry too far, and I forced a huff.
I opened my mouth to respond then shut it. After a few seconds I said, “It’s a reason. But our situations are so different, and you’re still not seeing yours clearly.”
He loosed a slow breath. “Tell me about the people you owe.”
Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock.
I rubbed at my chest to ease the sting of hurt at his dismissal and pushed a laugh from my lungs when it suddenly felt difficult to breathe. “What is this, twenty questions?”
“Yes,” he responded shamelessly. “The people you owe.”
I settled against the headboard and looked away. The room felt too hot, and I felt too cold. The chill skating across my skin felt like insects crawling as fear crept through my veins.
The people I owed was really only one man.
He was every nightmare I’d ever endured.
He’d been the fear clinging to my spine since I was eight years old.
He was why I’d become this.
Weak. You’re so weak.
“That’s not something I’ll ever tell you.”
Even though I was now looking at the window, I could feel the way Kieran tilted his head on my leg. Knew he was watching me. Studying me. “Why?”
“Because I don’t need you to try to fix it. I take care of my mom.”
I always had. For the last sixteen years it had been the two of us. And I vowed that we’d have so many more. More that were hopefully different than the previous years. More with her clean. More with her safe.
“Never said you couldn’t, Chaos.” He squeezed my thigh and blew out a ragged breath. “Is she able to take care of herself?”
My teeth gnashed so hard my jaw ached. “I’ll figure out a way to get the knife from this headboard if you continue with that train of thought. I’m never leaving her.”
Jentry and Beck had wanted me to do exactly that. Leave the lost cause. Leave what they thought was holding me back and destroying my life.
I refused to give up on her.
“Jesus, Jessica.” Kieran’s strong fingers gripped my chin and forced my head down so I’d look at him. “I asked because you’ve been here for days. That’s it. Stop being so goddamn defensive.” He released me and rolled onto his back to run his hands over his face.
When his hands fell to his muscled stomach, I reached down to grab one in a silent apology. With another longing look at the window, I said, “Just because you haven’t seen me leave doesn’t mean I’m not taking care of her.”
I always will.
Tick. Tock.
Tick.
I opened every cupboard again then went to the fridge for the second time and just stood there.
The cupboards held a blanket and cigarettes instead of food.
The fridge had a carton of milk, but I’d already looked at it yesterday. There were chunks in it and bluish-green fuzzy stuff on the very top of the carton.
I looked over my shoulder when the people in the room next to me laughed and bit on my lip as I watched them.
Momma didn’t say I couldn’t talk to her or her friends. But I hadn’t ever wanted to be near them.
See nothing. Hear nothing. Be nothing.
I’d promised Jentry that, and I’d stuck to it these last two months.
Besides . . . they scared me in a different way than Daddy did.
But the last things I ate were two hard crackers I’d found at the top of the neighbor’s trash two nights ago.
I crept silently to where they were gathered around the living room and whispered, “Momma, I’m hungry.” When she didn’t look my way, I said it again.
She groaned from where she sat in front of the coffee table and dropped her head. “Then get you some fucking food, Jess. Jesus.”
The men with her laughed. There was only one other woman, and she was doing something to one of the men that I knew I wasn’t supposed to see.
One of the other men was staring at me.
See nothing. Hear nothing. Be nothing.
I stepped closer to Momma and bent my head. “Momma, you need to eat too. You haven’t eaten in days.”
She laughed. “I’m about to.”
She sounded weird. Excited.
My mom had never been excited about anything other than leaving Daddy and Jentry.
The man looking at me nodded my way. “Why don’t you come sit over here and keep me company?”
“You’d ruin her,” Momma snapped at him.
“Jesus, AJ,” one of the men said. “She’s eight, you sick fuck.”
All the men laughed so loud that the sudden noise made me jump.
“I don’t want to,” I said softly.
“I think you do,” the man named AJ said.
The men laughed harder then started throwing out words I knew I wasn’t supposed to understand.
Pervert. Horny. Pussy.
See nothing. Hear nothing. Be nothing.
See nothing. Hear noth—
See nothing. Be nothing.
And then Momma stretched her arms out on the table. A long rubber band was tightened around one, and in the other, she was holding a needle.
“Momma . . .”
“Shut up, Jess.”
“Momma, don’t do—”
“Stop being weak,” she yelled.
Some of the men were laughing. Others were talking.
AJ was still staring.
But now all I could see was my mom pressing the needle to her arm. Her head falling back.
See nothing. Be nothing.
See nothing. Be nothing.
“Momma . . .”
When she let out a slow breath and leaned against the couch with her eyes closed, I remembered all the times I’d walked in to see her looking exactly like this over the years . . .
I thought she’d found a reason to be happy for a few minutes before Daddy came home. Before he’d gotten angry when it turned dark outside.
And the whole time, it had been whatever was in that needle.
See nothing. Be nothing.
I looked up to find that AJ man watching me. The way he was looking at me made my stomach feel heavy and wrong.
Be nothing.
I ran from the trailer and didn’t stop.
The day Momma took me from Jentry, I counted every traffic light and memorized every turn, and I hadn’t forgotten them since. I swore I’d never let myself forget where my other half was.
Remembering it backward was harder.
And I cried because I wasn’t strong like Jentry, and I was afraid I was lost and I’d never see him again. But I made it.
I found my way back to our old house across town.
Only when I got there, it was empty.
No car. No Daddy.
No Jentry.
I waited for three days, picking scraps out of our old neighbors’ trash as I did. If I could find Jentry, he could help me take care of Momma. He could make it go away.
But no one ever came back.
If Beck hadn’t already let me know he was coming to see me, I still would’ve known he was on his way.
You could hear the guy from the entrance of the mansion with the way he walked.
I was standing in my room, flipping a knife to calm myself while I waited, when he finally opened the door and stormed in.
He skidded to a stop then looked me up and down. “Why do you look like you knew I was coming?”
“You texted me,” I reminded him.
“Yeah. An hour ago.”
“You’re loud.”
“Or you’re a mutant and you’re just not telling me,” he said with a huff then dropped heavily to sit on the edge of my bed. “Jesus fuck.” He drew out the last word when he got a look at the wall near my bed.
It had every one of my knives sticking o
ut of it.
Except the one rolling between my fingers.
She told me she’d give me the night, and I thought I’d be able to change her mind.
When she stayed through the morning and early part of the afternoon, I thought maybe I had.
I’d run downstairs to grab some food and had come back to find her gone.
And now I didn’t know how to take back every decision I’d made.
I didn’t know how to turn back time.
I didn’t know how to find her even though I knew the path she took.
She was a wraith. She’d disappear from my life forever with as much thought as it took for me to imbed a knife in the wall.
None.
“Uh . . . wanna talk about it?”
Did I want to tell Beck that I’d fucked the girl he used to love long ago? That I craved her in a way that drove me insane? “No.”
“All right then. So . . .” His eyes narrowed on the knife I was flipping in the air. “Do you have to do that?”
I caught it and gripped it in my hand. “Do you have to send me an emergency text and then keep me waiting?” I gritted out.
“Right, right.” He pulled out his phone, his finger sliding over the screen as he spoke. “I think I might have an idea who our ghost is.”
One of my eyebrows lifted, but I didn’t respond or move closer to him. I just waited.
This is what I needed to take my mind off her. To stop me from tearing up the entire goddamn state to find her.
“Remember the guy who was coaching Mickey in how to start the human trafficking ring?”
“William. Killed while Mickey was in jail. The whole ring was taken down.” Beck already knew this. “Even if he hadn’t been, Mickey wanted to be better than William. He wouldn’t have hired him for anything.”
“No. But . . . he would hire the man William trained to replace him.” Beck held his phone out to me, waiting for me to take it.
I scrolled through the list of dozens of faces.
Then did it again.
“Where did you get this?”
“They finally released the names of the men involved in the human trafficking ring in Texas to the public. Not that we didn’t know who they were. But who’s missing from the list?”
“Lucas Holt,” I murmured, scrolling quickly through the list again to confirm that we were right.