Carving Graves: A Dark Mafia Romance (The KORT Series Book 2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CELESTE

The air was thick last night when Rex and Gage arrived—the way it always is when the heavy blanket of death cloaks everything.

More choking than smoke and dust storms.

The way it was after Ben was murdered. And after Ivy’s dad passed away—more for her, of course, but the suffocating loss enwrapped me too. And it was there again when my eyes met Rex’s at the door. The two men I’d cherished as guards and family emerged as haunting apparitions, cutting through the blissful haze that Liam and I had been in the past several days.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t felt it; I definitely had. But it was distant. Until I saw the pain marring Rex’s features. He’s carrying the weight of the responsibility on top of the loss. As close as those men were to me, they were like brothers to him. I’m all too aware of the agony such devastation inflicts.

After Rex and I fell apart, mourning Keith and Arnold, the rest of the night somehow managed to be lighter with laughter and drinking and dismissing the elephant in the room—the message from beyond the grave.

The books from Ben sat on the sideboard table like a taunt, but I ignored them. I wanted one more night. I already feel tugged between two worlds—a love I never imagined having and a grief that once nearly swallowed me. I’m not ready to go back there. To envision those last few days with Ben. To wonder if his fate would’ve been different if I had just understood what he was trying to tell me.

If Ben went to these lengths to get me a message, whatever it is might be life-altering—if not to me, then to someone I love. Thinking about that black book—the fear he must have felt in knowing about it, the terror of watching his friends and colleagues die because of it, and the fact that I’ve been sitting on this piece of him all these years—has me sick to my stomach.

So, I’m choosing the rays of the sunrise instead.

Liam has delivered more than my wildest dreams, and that’s saying something. I’ve felt the depths of his love during this getaway. It’s like a whole new understanding has blossomed between us. One that makes me feel safe and cherished and confident in who we are.

The books feel like a threat to that. I’m sure it’s simply paranoia, but Liam and I have had very little normalcy—a week of kicking his ass at cards and him teaching me how to cook and shoot isn’t enough. I want to submerge myself inside the mundane with him. Maybe these are the little pieces most would brush aside, but I want to drown in them, to become the essence of tiny moments lived in the raw and real. The idea of diving into something that could shake everything up again is nauseating.

I much prefer to block that all out and anchor myself to my strong, dimpled golden god.

It’s early morning. The tangerine light of dawn is stretching through the clouds and mountain crevices to illuminate the room. Liam got up about twenty minutes ago and went to shower. I considered joining him but decided to soak in a few more minutes of rest. The bed is too comfortable to leave.

The click of the bathroom door alerts me that he’s sauntering out of the bathroom. He swaggers to the dresser, a towel wrapped around his waist and speckles of water glistening over his tattoos. And I finally summon my courage.

“Tell me about your tattoo—the ace.”

He sifts through the top drawer, not turning around. “I wondered when you’d ask about that. Took you long enough.”

That’s true. I noticed it our first night together and every time after that. But I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t want him more than I did. And believing he wasn’t mine to keep was excruciating. But now that we’re us, I need to hear what it means.

I roll onto my side, bending my arm and propping my head up with my fist. “Yeah. I was a little overwhelmed by it the first time I saw it.”

He glances over his shoulder at me, his dimple making an appearance. “Nicely done, being honest, Ace. And you’re not overwhelmed now?”

“I’ll have to get back to you after I hear the explanation,” I confess. I’ve built it up in my head, hoping it’s good and my nickname correlates somehow, but I’m not going to share that.

After he snatches the clothes he needs from the dresser, he struts over to the bed, sitting beside me in his towel. That will make it hard to concentrate. The beaded droplets dot his eight-pack abs.

Shiny and appetizing.

He brushes my messy hair off my forehead. “You want to hear the explanation or lick my abs, Carver?”

My eyes shoot up to his. Caught. “Get over yourself, Graves. I was just noticing that you’re getting the bed wet.”

“Or you are?” He rips the covers back to reveal my naked body, snaking his hand between my legs before I can protest.

When he thrusts two fingers inside me, I whimper as my hips buck slightly of their own accord, to which he grins victoriously.

“My ravenous girl. I had you panting all night, and you’re drenched again.” He tsks. “Sopping after ogling my abs. And you lied. I’ll have to deal with that later.”

His fingers move between my entrance and clit over and over again, but I resist the urge to tank this line of questioning and crawl on top of him.

“That feels good,” I breathe. “But you’re not answering my question.”

He arches a cocky brow. “Want me to stop?”

I shake my head, a chiding frown tugging at my lips. “If you can’t multitask, Liam, don’t feel bad. You can take care of me later. Right now, I want the answer.”

He laughs, removing his hand, sucking on his fingers in the most lewd manner, and standing beside the bed. “I’m impressed by your focus.”

As he drops his towel, his dick bobs inches from my mouth. I let my tongue sweep out across my lips because I’m salivating for him and messing with him is fun.

He smirks and slides his shirt over his head. “My caseworker was this thirty-something lady. Nice, except for the pity she had for me. Fuck, maybe it was failure. I was the kid she couldn’t save.”

Stepping into a pair of boxers, he continues, “Anyway, I talked her into getting me approved for the Navy at seventeen. She was all for it. She helped me graduate early and dropped me off at the processing center before boot camp.”

He pulls on his gray joggers and snaps the waistband as his hazel gaze lands on me. “The last thing she said to me was that we’re not all given equal hands in life. The key is to stop looking at other people’s cards or wishing ours were better and just learn to play the hand we’re dealt.”

With a far-off look, he flops onto the bed, propping himself against the headboard and dragging me into his embrace. “I carried that around with me for a few years, busting my ass to overcome my shitty hand. But when we got erased, I realized I didn’t want to learn to play a fucked-up hand. I mean, it made sense in theory. I could bluff. But if I was called out, I’d still have the same worthless cards. Or—the strategy I prefer—I could tell everyone in this goddamn world to fuck off and steal the card that wins every time.”

I can see that being his outlook. So different from how I was raised and yet maybe not. In the political world, we’re all just dealing in the currency of family names, connections, and wealth to win our hands and stay on top. Some would consider much of what’s achieved in that area stolen.

And my father—although I wasn’t aware of the nefarious side of his business until recently—he always taught me to size up my opponent’s weaknesses so I could determine my strategy. Maybe that’s a little different, but I’m guessing the roots are similar.

Play their game.

“So, that’s your philosophy?” I ask.

His fingers skate up and down my arm, bumps erupting in their wake, both from his touch and from him offering another piece of himself. “To show up every day with the winning card, not because it was given to me, but because I was the one skilled enough to fucking take it? Fuck yeah. That’s my philosophy, Ace.”

He uses my nickname, but doesn’t grant me the correlation.

It started the night we gambled at La Lune Noire—maybe that’s all there is to it. If I assume more, he’ll tease me ruthlessly. No sense in showing all my cards.

Never let them see.

I’m not going to play games with Liam, but old habits die hard. And vulnerability isn’t my strong suit.

He strings his fingers through my hair as his other hand lifts my chin. “Is that what you were looking for?”

If I had any doubts about whether he sensed my underlying hopes, he decimated them with that. But still, I’m not going to ask for more. Everything’s been so perfect between us. I don’t want him to think that I expect a tattoo he’s had for years to have a deeper meaning regarding me.

So, instead, I nuzzle my head against his chest and give him a version of the truth. “I wanted the story behind it, and you gave it to me. Thank you.”

He chuckles under his breath. “Fine. Have it your way.”

“I do have one other question about all your tattoos actually. Or what’s beneath them. I noticed they cover scars …” I’ve wondered about the scars for a while. Most are barely visible through the ink, but my fingers graze across them daily, and if he’s willing to share, now seems like the time to inquire.

His arms cinch around me as he inhales what sounds to be a laborious breath. “You didn’t really ask anything, but I’ll let it slide because it’s about damn time you understood nothing is off-limits between us. I’ll answer anything you want to know. There’s only two from this life—one on my back and one on my chest, both from the bullet I took when I was protecting Ivy. That fucker went right through me, so I consider those a token of luck. I wouldn’t have survived if that bullet had hit her.”

A deep sigh billows out of him as he snatches his Zippo from the nightstand and proceeds to flick it open and shut. “But those other scars don’t belong to me. They belong to the kid who had assholes as foster parents. The warrior who died in combat. The soldier who was a POW. The man who was relentlessly tortured because the motherfuckers imprisoning him had realized the best way to torment the Chief was to harm his men. But that guy is buried, Ace. So, there’s no sense in dredging any of that up.”

As unhinged as Liam can be at times, after a lifetime of those types of scars, he seems incredibly grounded.

I swipe a tear away with the back of my hand and do my damnedest not to cry for him. For the little boy who had no one. For the soldier who was beaten alongside those he’d finally found a family with. Or for the other guys who’ve become my family too.

No wonder they’re all fractured. All of them were left alone in one way or another. All of them were terrorized.

And Wells … knowing him, I can’t imagine how broken he must’ve felt, watching his men suffer. His need to control every detail, to keep his family in a protective dome, makes even more sense.

I clear my throat, trying to mask the anvil of sorrow sitting on my chest. “That’s enough explanation. Thank you.”

He sets his lighter down and kisses my forehead as a smirk dances on his face, his thumb dragging over my lower lip. “Love you, baby girl. You and your wobbly chin.” Those words are spoken in utter adoration, but before I can return his declaration, his tone grows more serious. “I wish we could suspend time and just stay here, but the clock is ticking. We need to figure out the message Ben was sending you with those books.”

“I know,” I whisper, and I hate the raw emotion that crackles through it.

Why did I take our conversation in such a dark direction when grief is already boxing us in?

“It’ll be okay.” His fingertips draw soothing circles on my arms, his chin resting on my head. “We’ll work through it, find that black book, and move past all this. Faster we get it done, faster life can get back to normal.”

Normal?What does normal even look like? This week has been as close as it gets, and even that’s a far cry—we’re in a safe house, on the run because madmen kidnapped me and more may be after me, all due to the fact that my murdered brother had left me a clue to corruption.

Ivy seems to take the death and blood and torture and chaos as an everyday occurrence. Her knack for compartmentalizing really shines in this world. But normal isn’t a word I’ll ever label our life. I suppose getting back to it is still what I want though.

Just not yet, so I slink down his body and peel back his pants and boxers, rasping, “Soon,” as I free him.

His breath billows with a groan as I lock my eyes on to his and take him into my mouth, relishing the feel of him hardening inside me.

It’s all so intense with Liam. The sex makes sense. And him going down on me feels unbelievably intimate because I’d never permitted anyone to do that before him. But blow jobs were my thing.

And yet, with Liam, it’s so much more. Like my insides are being ripped out and sewn back together simply by making him feel good.

Maybe that’s exactly what’s happening because I’ve never been loved so vehemently by anyone. And I’ve never allowed anyone fully into my heart, into the darkest corners. Not like I have with him.

I’m so utterly in love with this man.

I swirl my tongue around the head, lapping at the salty precum and licking down the vein on the underside of his shaft while kneading his balls.

“Fuck. You’re a dream, baby girl.”

He spreads his legs to give me more room, one dropping over the side of the bed, his heel hitting the floor with a thump. It’s clear by his writhing that he wants to fuck my throat, so I drop to the floor, stroking him as I go.

He stands with eager anticipation, and when my eyes offer a subtle assurance for him to have at it, he fists my hair and thrusts his hips forward, ruthlessly slamming into the back of my throat.

Again.

And again.

And again.

“Jesus, Ace. So fucking beautiful, taking every inch of me. I love those goddamn tears tracking down your cheeks. I want every”—thrust—“fucking”—harder—“one. I am the only one who gets those.”

I murmur in agreement, heady from both the pain and the lust lacing through me. Dizzy from the realization that he means all my tears. My grief too.

Other than Ivy and her parents, no one has ever held my sorrow. My parents and grandparents were always too busy nursing their own. Maybe Liam and I are more alike in that way than I realized. I’ll gladly shoulder any anguish he shares with me.

“Mine,” he pants.

His. Only his.

“Touch yourself,” he demands on another mind-numbing pump. “I see you, so needy. Fuck that pretty pussy with your fingers, Ace. We’re gonna come together. I want to see you fall apart while you’re choking on my cock, drool dripping down your chin, gorgeous, watery brown eyes spilling. And fingers knuckle deep in that greedy cunt. Breathtaking.”

God, I love his filthy mouth—no one has ever spoken to me like that. The world melts away when we’re like this.

I do as I was told, paying special attention to my clit once I’ve spread my arousal. It doesn’t take long to reach the summit. I was more than halfway there from tasting him.

My heavy, half-slit eyes hold his as I begin to quake around him, my whimpers filling the room while my vision is spotted and freckled with the rhapsodies of my unraveling.

He doesn’t miss a beat, hissing, “That’s my good fucking girl,” as he slams into me and empties his cum into my throat, his thighs trembling through his release. “Fucking hell, I love you so much.”

While my lips are still wrapped around him, he admires the view—thumb dusting over my cheekbone and his gaze holding so much love and admiration that it surpasses even his declarations. Even in his silence, I feel understood and seen. Like, somehow, all of me, the wild and untethered and the polished and proper, can coexist within his unhinged vibrance.

To others, he may represent darkness, but he’ll always be the golden god who illuminated my dreary world.

We get cleaned up and dressed after that—Liam golden and sexy in his navy hoodie with his dirty-blond mop peeking out. Gage and Rex join us in the kitchen for breakfast. And as soon as the dishes are done, Liam spreads those books out on the table, pinning me with an it’s-time stare.

I get it, but my lungs shrivel inside my chest all the same.

Gage palms my head, clearly sensing my anxiety. “When we’re done, we’ll binge Queen Charlotte to celebrate.”

“I’d love that. But what about these guys?” I motion to Rex and Liam, the latter shaking his head at Gage.

“Showing your true colors, Big Guy,” Liam goads, but then he turns a serious stare on me. “Rex and I aren’t invited?”

Gage puffs his chest out with a haughty smirk.

“You’re not uninvited,” I backpedal. “It’s just kind of our thing, and I can’t picture you enjoying it very much.”

Rex coughs out a laugh. “Right. Whereas Gage here is obviously a period drama fan.”

Gage shrugs, scrunching up his neck tattoos as he makes his way to the other side of the table beside Rex. “It gets pretty hot, man. You’re missing out.”

“That’s true.” I laugh, plopping into a chair. “Let’s do it.”

“Great. Incentive to get through this, Ace.” Liam redirects as he passes me a cup of coffee, sweetened perfectly with the hazelnut creamer I like.

I love that he knows how I take my coffee. I just wish I were sipping it in front of a better view.

Scanning all the titles, I let out a sigh. “Well, it’s clear Ben was pointing me toward a conspiracy. I feel kind of stupid that I missed it.”

Liam slides into the chair next to me. “He gave you a stack of books when you were sixteen. Everyone on the planet would’ve missed the deeper meaning.”

Gage bobs his head, lifting his Black Rifle sipper into the air. “You fucking kept them. And remembered when it mattered. That’s something.”

Rex is quiet for a beat, mulling it all over. “Ben was always trying to mentor you. This wouldn’t have stood out, Cee. But maybe something inside will. Have you ever gone through them?”

“Not much,” I admit. “There’s a bookmark in one of them. I’m not sure why I never used it. I guess I wanted everything to stay the way he’d left it to me.” A lump lodges in my throat. “This was the last gift he gave me, so I kind of hated touching it.”

Liam sweeps my hair behind my shoulder and kisses my temple. “Let’s start with the bookmark then.”

It’s stuck inside The Da Vinci Code. I lift the pages where they’re separated, pulling the bookmark out to read it over.

“There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

I’m not sure what to make of that right now. I thought it was just another life lesson my brother was bestowing upon me, but I’m guessing there’s more to it. Maybe something literal.

“That might make more sense later,” I muse.

Next to me, Liam flips through another book, examining the pages. Gage and Rex follow suit, so I set the bookmark aside and do the same.

“Here,” Liam says after a few minutes of careful scrutiny. “The page number is underlined.”

He tips the book so I can see what he’s pointing at. Sure enough, there is a faint line beneath the page number.

“Yeah.” My breathing deepens. A simple line, and it feels like Ben is talking to me. “That probably means something.”

Liam gets up and grabs a notebook and pen, writing the number down. A couple more minutes pass, and Gage chirps that he found one, too, followed quickly by Rex. And not long after that, I discover one in mine. Liam logs them all while Gage peruses the final book until he locates one there.

I look over the list of numbers we have.

397

104

98

256

17

“I have no idea what this is supposed to mean,” I groan.

“Address? Phone number?” Rex mumbles, half to himself as he stares at the numbers like the rest of us.

“Could be a combination or an account number,” Gage offers, but looking over the paper, neither fits.

The suggestions are valid, but Ben wouldn’t leave me a message so obscure. It should mean something to me.

Liam opens each book to the designated pages, laying them all out for us to inspect.

I point to one of the markings. “The line gets thicker between the nine and the seven.”

“It’s a dot,” Liam mumbles. “Decimal point.” He pops up, dragging all the books closer to him, his eyes wild. “Coordinates.”

With that one word, it all starts to click. A choppy breath tumbles from my lips. “He used to take me geocaching when I was a kid.”

Rex smiles. “I remember that. You always came home excited about some tiny souvenir.”

“Yeah.” The word puffs out as it all swarms me. The feel. The joy. The smells—musty earth and pine and fresh crystal waters.

Ben loved taking me on adventures. It wasn’t all scuba diving and racing cars though. Sometimes, it was quiet hiking.

I let myself slip inside the coziness of those memories and share it with them. “We’d get geographic coordinates from a geocaching website, where people posted the caches they’d hidden, and hunt one down. Each cache was different, but always filled with a log to sign our names and a treasure trove of silly trinkets—key chains, trolls, harmonicas. We’d take one and leave something we’d brought. It was one of my most cherished activities with him.”

Liam breaks from whatever he’s frantically searching for in the books and palms my head. No words are offered, but the kiss in my hair says enough. He recognizes the anguish.

Swallowing the ache ripping through me, I pore over one of the open books. “We need north or south and east or west though. Right?”

“Exactly,” Liam says as his hand rubs over my back. “Nothing on this page.” He pushes one book out of the way and studies another one.

Rex taps on a page number. “Here’s another decimal. After the four.”

That one is harder to note because it’s at the end, but he’s right. Still, I don’t see anything denoting direction on any of the pages. But maybe that makes sense.

“Ben wouldn’t have put all the information on the same page. He’d want it to be hard for anyone to decipher. Shut the books,” I tell them, and to my surprise, all three men close the books immediately. Suddenly, I understand Wells on a much deeper level. There’s something about an entire group of people doing what you demand that’s exhilarating.

The Illuminatus! Trilogyis in front of me, so I trace my finger over it, noting the texture difference on the N. “North,” I declare.

Liam takes it from me, confirming the variance and sifting through the book to find the correct page. “Two fifty-six north. Good work, Ace. That’s part of it. Let’s find the other cardinal direction and try to piece it all together.”

It takes a few long beats of us rubbing our fingers over the covers, but Gage finds that the W in George Orwell for 1984 is also different. That puts the W after seventeen if we’re doing this correctly.

Liam scratches down the numbers, piecing together the order based on the decimal points and plausible directions.

39.7256 N, 104.9817 W

He plugs it into his phone. “Denver, Colorado,” he supplies.

“Yep,” I gasp, barely able to contain the emotion. “Ben mentioned he was going to Colorado. I thought it was for work.”

He pulls up a satellite image and several photos of a restaurant. “Do you know this place?”

I snatch his phone and swipe through all the pictures. “No. But look.” Enhancing one until we can see a small park behind the restaurant, I point to the screen. “Stepping stones. The bookmark.”

It feels like Ben is here with us. The smoke from the Dodge Viper that has fogged up so many thoughts and feelings instantly dissipates. Everything is clearer.

I scan the quote from Nietzsche again, noting the last line. “It all depends on how you use them.”

“It’s a hint for the geocache he left me.” It takes a second for all the pieces to move into place, but like a chess gameplay that unfolds before me, so does Ben’s directive. “The bookmark was in The Da Vinci Code, which was the third book in the stack. I’d bet anything that the black book is buried beneath the third stone.”

“Fuck,” the guys all hiss in unison.

Liam tugs me into his arms, burying his face in my hair. “You did it, baby girl. I knew you would. Looks like we’re going to Colorado.”