24. Amorette
AMORETTE
I looked at the closed door. I’d really just been deposited inside Lafe’s apartment, so Andre could go do whatever the hell it was that he needed to do, grabbing Grey as he was coming out of his apartment to accompany him.
For weeks I’d been given free rein, yet suddenly, staring at the door two feet in front of my face, I felt suffocated again.
“Killer?” Lafe asked as he stepped up behind me.
Andre had texted him when we were on our way, and when we reached his door, Lafe had just opened it. His light blond hair was a mess. He’d just woken up and was greeting us shirtless in only a pair of pajama pants.
“Why am I here?” I literally couldn’t pull my gaze away from the door like I could gain answers with my willpower alone.
“Andre said he needed to talk to Parker and that Mia was making you uncomfortable.” A scratching sound was close to my ear, like Lafe was rubbing his jaw. His voice was rough, confirming he’d woken up recently.
“I can handle myself. She’s Parker’s childhood friend. So she’s not a threat, right?” I turned.
I couldn’t decide if Andre was trying to protect me—misguidedly, or if something happened to kill his trust in me. After the plane, when I’d lost my mind on his lap…
Hell, maybe he didn’t trust me now. He could view me like a woman trying to come between them rather than a woman trying to make the best of a terrible life situation.
Turning around, Lafe was much closer than I had anticipated. My breasts skimmed his stomach, but he didn’t pay attention to that. Instead, he gazed at me in concern, his blue eyes clouded by the remnants of his sleep.
“I think when Vicente is on the warpath, everyone is a threat.” He gently cupped my elbows, his thumbs making slow circles on my skin. Was this an apology? An admission?
“Even me?” I whispered, dropping my gaze to his chest and trying—failing—to ignore the tingles his touch brought to life.
Fucking Grey. I couldn’t even blame him. Not really, but I was, because that was better than blaming myself for letting these men twist me up the way they did.
They were bad men—no way around it. I had learned in a short span of time there was more than one type of bad person, and these men sat firmly in the gray and ventured into the black area of the law.
“Most especially you,” he returned in a soft voice. But instead of being an insult, one side of his mouth kicked up in a tease.
He stepped back, dropping one hand but using the other to move me deeper into his apartment. I hadn’t been back here since he’d nearly overdosed. I swallowed as regret washed over me. I wasn’t someone who dwelled on the past. There was no time for thoughts like that.
But I could admit to myself…I could have handled my time with Lafe better.
I should have handled my abduction better…
Wait…I shook my head. That was a bit like victim-blaming, wasn’t it? Except I was the victim.
Letting out a slow breath, I gathered my thoughts. I acted in a way that was authentic to me. I struggled with my doubts, with what I saw, felt, and said. But none of that meant I was to blame in any situation. And that made me human.
“Are you hungry?” He asked as he moved us to the couch. His laptop was open on the table like he’d been messing around between the time Andre texted and when we reached his door.
“No. I already ate before Andre carted me away.” I sounded just as sour to my own ears as I was sure I sounded to him.
He didn’t say anything as he let go of me and claimed the end seat and picked up his laptop.
I took the other end. Looking at me, he grabbed the remote and tossed it to me.
“Put on whatever you want.”
“What are you doing?” I leaned to the right to see what he was working on.
My first thought was that he would try and shield his screen, but he didn’t. Instead, he rotated it toward me so I could get a better look. Graphs and numbers took up the entire space. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
I knew Lafe managed the drug side of Vicente’s business. I also knew he used them. That was the extent of my knowledge.
Honestly, I’d done my best to put the rest out of my head. As much as I was coming to know them, and sometimes even like them, I forced the worst of them as far away from thought as possible. Shame burned inside my chest while logic warred inside my mind.
When you accepted someone, you accepted all of them, not just the parts you wanted to see.
Then again, I should never forget who these men were. They were shaped by their family. By the experiences that were forced on them. But that didn’t change who they were.
They were unapologetically themselves. No excuses. No shame.
“I don’t know what any of that is.” Although, I had an idea.
“My part of the business is managing the fuckups. The men hooked on the product or the men chasing money and power in the streets. I spend too much of my time weeding out the ones taking advantage, skimming off the top of profits, or trying to rat us out. I also have to manage the suppliers. I decide what products are pushed. The ratios of drugs in the pills. The shipping.”
I twisted my ear to my shoulder to crack my neck, and then repeated the action on the other side. All to give me time to formulate a response.
My initial reaction?
Horror. Lafe literally ran a company more sophisticated than anything I could have ever imagined that led to so many deaths on the street.
I couldn’t tell him that. We’d come so far I didn’t want to backtrack. I didn’t want to go back into my own head or to the birdcage. That sounded like an even worse hell than this reality.
When I met his sad blue eyes, he must have known what I was thinking, or at least had a damn good idea. “I’m sorry, Lafe,” I whispered, offering a wince in apology.
The smile that twisted his lips was as mocking as it was vicious.
It didn’t look right on Lafe. Outside of how he was at the warehouse where I was first taken, he was the vulnerable one of the four.
The one who I felt the most kindred with.
If anyone had any idea how it felt to be trapped here, it was him.
He wasn’t the evil mask he presented me with.
“You’re never going to change, are you?”
His words scored my chest, leaving deep, scarring gouges behind. “That’s not fair.” Why was I even arguing? I didn’t want to be like them. The gray area was not where I wanted to be.
Yet, that was where I was.
After killing that man…After relishing in Grey killing the man who abducted me.
I couldn’t argue that I had changed. Not for the better.
It wasn’t the life-altering change I thought it would be. I still felt the same, except also so vastly different.
“Isn’t it? You’ll always think I’m scum because of the business I manage. I run drugs. I have thousands of men who push and peddle throughout North and South America. Are you sorry you laid in my arms as you went to sleep?”
“Stop.” I put a hand on his arm and squeezed, hard. “I don’t think you're scum,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster in such a few words. “I think you do bad things. That might not ever change. But I also think you’re just as much a victim as I am. Just a different kind.”
He laughed bitterly and turned the computer back to face him. “I’m no victim. I’m exactly who I’m supposed to be. And of the four, I run the most despicable business. At least in your eyes. Parker might come close, but he steals from the wealthy and doesn’t kill addicts in droves.”
I jerked back. “I said stop. I don’t want to hear this.”
‘White knight’ Amorette, meet ‘head in the sand’ Amorette.
“You don’t want to hear how this is such a sophisticated business that I have the best coke, the most potent weed, the trippiest X.
And our margins are through the roof. A quarter of our product is stolen by the runners every year, sometimes more, yet I still have the highest margins of any of my brothers. Hell, Andre doesn’t even have margins.”
My only thought was to shut him up, so I didn’t have all this shit thrown in my face.
When I said nothing, he threw his laptop onto the coffee table and it skidded over the wooden surface. Then he was on me, hands gripping my waist, bending me backward over the arm of the couch.
His chest pressed against mine, and his breath fanned over my lips. The normally shocking blue of his eyes was so cold I shivered.
“Does it bother you to know that the hands of a murderer are touching you? Do you lie to yourself and say you don’t like it?”
I pushed against his chest. What had gotten into him?
“Lafe!”
“My hands are stained in blood, drugs, and filth. Does this turn you on, Killer? Grey’s hands have traveled your body so many times.
Does the blood on his hands bother you? Or does it make you hot to know you’re sleeping with a man who will kill for you?
” He tugged me down the couch until I was flat on my back and he covered me.
I twisted my head to the side, because I couldn’t let him see the truth. I did love that Grey killed Tony. Sometimes, I fantasized about it.
If Lafe saw the truth in my eyes, he’d think I was crazy. I wasn’t.
I wasn’t.
He grabbed the sides of my face and forced me to turn toward him. I squeezed my eyes shut, but he shook me.
“Could you fuck me, Amorette? Could you let me kiss and worship your body, knowing I don’t give a damn about my life or the millions of others who’ve died because of me? Do you blame me for their deaths?”
“No!” I screamed, kicking out my legs, but he had me effectively trapped beneath him.
“Would you let me fuck you like Grey?”
I pulled back my hand and slapped Lafe across the face. The loud, resounding crack echoed between us. With his face turned to the side, our breathing took up all the space between us. The rapid beating of his heart touched mine.
How could two hearts beat in sync but be so at odds?
“You’re an asshole, Lafe.” Tears pricked my eyes and when I shoved this time, he let me go. I stumbled to my feet and reached the hallway before I turned around. Words touched the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t say any of them.
They didn’t make sense. The accusations I wanted to hurl rang false with how short I’d known him.
Yet, I was hurt. He’d hurt me when I’d been telling myself these men were bad from the very beginning. My heart was only a heart, though. It didn’t see the logic, and it didn’t count evil deeds. My heart only saw how he looked at me, or his brothers, and the way he made me feel.
This wasn’t him. I knew it.
How could Lafe make me feel safe and not alone one second, then a fool the next?
Lafe pushed himself to his knees and swiped a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, I—” he choked on his words and glanced down my body then at the laptop.
Shaking my head, I took one step back, then another.
“I thought you were different,” I whispered. “I know you, Grey, Parker, and Andre all do bad things. I’m not blind. But you’re not cruel. Or are you, and you just haven’t shown me this side of you yet?”
The skin around his eyes crinkled in a tortured expression. “I am cruel. But not to you. I’m sorry,” he repeated and slapped his head. “Argh! I’m such a fuck up.”
Did I reassure him that he wasn’t? Tell him he wasn’t all bad and was a product of his environment? What kind of comfort could I really give him?
I’d tried that, and he’d accosted me on the couch. Burn me once.
Steeling myself for the pain I was about to cause to my own heart, I turned on my heel and quietly left the apartment. There was no stomping, no slamming doors.
I was not the fool.
I would not be burned twice.