30. Harper
THIRTY
HARPER
When I returned to consciousness, of course there would be turmoil going on. Because fuck me, why wouldn’t there be? I lived with killers, in an asylum, a temporary prisoner thanks to something out of my control. I abandoned my job, and I’d be lucky to get work when I went back. And if I stayed unemployed much longer, I wouldn’t have a home to return to, either.
And if I had to stay cooped up in this place much longer, I’d go fucking insane.
Rowan waltzed in from his office with a folder in hand, Angel trailing behind him looking very unhappy with whatever had transpired between them. His whole posture was stiff, and he looked like he hadn’t slept all night.
But he fell asleep out here on the couch with me last night. Hell, he was out first.
But he hadn’t been there when I woke up.
Maybe he still hated me.
Maybe I was overthinking it.
Maybe—
"Harper. You’re going to be running with Angel today. He’s got a side job to handle, and I want you to go with him. I’ve got . . . other business to attend to."
I crossed my arms and prepared to pout. "And why do I have to go with him? Why can’t I just stay here?"
"Trust you not to run out on us? Ha. Rowan’s not that stupid, brat." He fanned his perfectly flawless face with that folder, his eyes rolling back into his skull as he scoffed. "I don’t want a tail any more than you want to tail me, but orders are orders, no matter if I disagree or not. So put on some decent clothes and walking shoes, and meet me at the door in five."
It was my turn now to scoff. "Five minutes to get ready? How the hell am I supposed to take a shower in that time?"
"Not my problem, woman. Now get ready. If we’re late because of you, I’ll find a way to make you regret it."
He disappeared into his room, leaving me to turn my pleas of reconsideration on Ro’s deaf ears.
"Come on, Ro, he’s gonna be miserable to tail today." I put on my best puppy dog eyes and sidled up to him like a cat in heat, rubbing against his arm like the temptress Angel accused me of being. I wasn’t above playing my only advantage. "Why can’t I come with you?"
"Not safe for you where I’m headed," he muttered, refusing to give me anything more on the subject. "Angel will keep you safe if you listen to him. Don't cause any trouble while you’re out, okay?"
"Why can’t I hang with Nash instead?"
His eyes darted to Nash’s closed door, and he sighed. "He’s busy," was all Rowan said, and I felt like he knew exactly why me hanging out with Nash would be a horrible day.
He’s avoiding you, a little voice whispered in my head. Last night really happened, and now he’ll do his best to avoid you until you leave and go home.
I couldn’t wrap my head around how on and then off he was. Nash had never been so self-conscious in his life. He was confident, cocky, and didn’t give two fucks what anyone had to say about him.
Or at least, he had been . . . before the scars.
"Oh. Okay then." I didn’t have a choice, it seemed. I was stuck going along with Angel. "I suppose there’s nothing to do, then."
All the sulking I did had no effect on Ro, so I gave up and checked the clock once more.
Fuck. Two minutes left. Guess there’s no time for a shower.
I scampered into the office and rummaged around for some decent clothes, then threw my boots on and hopped one-legged over to the door again as I zipped them up one by one.
Fuck, I was so bad at getting ready at the drop of a hat.
Angel was waiting for me at the door, a smug look on his face as he eyed the clock. "You cut things close, don’t you? "
"Oh, fuck off, I rushed as fast as I could," I muttered, scoffing at the way he gestured out the open door like I was a princess or something. "After you, milady."
Smartass.
He turned and mumbled to Rowan, then closed the door behind him. A look of distaste curdled his gorgeous features as he eyed me warily.
"At least you wore pants, I suppose," he said to himself, then strode past me without a single glance to see if I’d followed behind. I suspected to him it didn’t matter whether I followed or not.
After all, despite his care last night for his brother’s emotions, he had no love lost for me.
Attraction, maybe. It was hard to deny there was something there. Attraction, hatred, something. But I couldn’t define it, and he wasn’t about to spell it out for me.
All I had to go on was my gut feeling. And I could trust it about as much as I could trust these boys lately.
Which was not at all.
Fantastic.
"You’re kidding me, right?"
Angel stood next to what looked like a high-speed, very dangerous street bike, the fucking thing painted Vanta Black like the damn Torino, and fuck me, why did it have to be a stupid motorcycle ? —
"You ever ride one before?" He held out a helmet that looked brand new, a sticker still stretched across the back. "Hello, earth to Harper?"
"Uh, sure," I said, because, technically, it was true. I’d been on the back of exactly one in my life .
So what if I’d fallen off the back when my asshole boyfriend at the time took off?
Angel didn’t need to know all of my secrets.
"So you know how to ride, then?"
I nodded wordlessly, sticking my tongue out at him like a petulant child. "Shut up and give me the damn helmet, Angel."
He handed it over with a look of apprehension, and I staunchly ignored him, waiting for him to get on so I could clamber up behind him and not look terribly ungraceful doing it.
I thought I managed okay. I was so worried about not looking stupid, I think I even overdid it with the high kick as I swung my leg over the fucking seat and wrapped my arms loosely around his ribcage.
His hand tapped mine as he started up the bike, but whatever he was trying to tell me was drowned out by the revving engine and his helmet. At the last minute, he tugged my arms down around his waist, and I hung on for dear life as he spun tires and peeled out of the garage, hitting the pavement with a squeal going faster than felt safe for a fucking driveway.
He didn’t even stop at the fucking end of it, just melting effortlessly into traffic as I tightened my grip on his waist and leaned into his back, hoping I didn’t fall the fuck off the second he took a turn too hard.
I didn’t miss the rumble in his chest as he laughed, though.
I’d never been so glad to be off the road in my life as when he finally pulled that fucking bike over. Unfortunately, it was painfully evident that I wasn’t used to riding a bike, especially long distances, because when he cut the engine, I moved too fast to get off the back and fell on my ass.
And, of course, he laughed.
Him and his perfect fucking hair right out of the helmet, like he hadn’t even worn one. Like he was a fucking freak of nature god or something, gracing us mere mortals with his presence as a gift .
Fucking asshole.
I bet his legs were never jello after riding on the back of a bike.
I bet he’d never even rode bitch on a bike in his life.
His hand appeared in my line of sight, a smirk attached to the other end. "Come on, lazy ass. No time to sit around. We have a man to meet. And as much as I don’t think it’s smart to meet him with you in tow, I think I’d rather have you in sight than have you waiting nearby and something go wrong."
He almost convinced me that he really cared. Almost.
And then he opened his mouth again and ruined the illusion.
"Rowan would kick my ass if you ended up hurt on my watch."
Of course he was only worried about his relationship with his brother.
I didn’t know why that hurt more than it should.
Sure, I slaked a thirst with Rowan. And okay, so I’d always been a little in love with broken Nash from the beginning. But Angel had always been this untouchable god, a man out of reach even in my prime. Even with black hair and that nerdy pair of glasses he’d obviously ditched somewhere along the way, he’d always been a fucking stunner, like a character straight out of a manga novel.
In comparison, I could spend two hours getting ready and still look like a fucking joke at the end of the day.
As I pulled my helmet off, I felt my hair cling to the insides, then plaster itself to my face as it fell around me.
Fucking hell.
Where the fuck even were we?
"Who the hell lives out here that you’d have to pay a visit to?" I asked warily, eyeing the few scattered buildings along the fucking open highway. The run-down motel had that cringe seventies vibe that advertised it as a drug den and fucking day motel for shady affairs. The kind of place you didn’t want to post up at long unless you had no other choice. "The fuck is this place?"
"Welcome to the home of your sperm donor, Harper. Fitting, really. Like father, like daughter. Oh, how the mighty have fallen."
"I’m not living in a drug den motel," I whined, remembering the little apartment in the less amazing, affordable side of town that occasionally had some noticeable drawbacks. "I don’t have anywhere near as many cockroaches as this place probably does."
"Oh, my apologies, dear lady. I forgot your elegant shack is above reproach."
"Why are we after my father? Isn’t it your father who wants me dead?"
Angel shrugged, shooting me a sideways glance. "Apparently, our old buddy here dabbles in information. And we think he’s the reason my father knows you’re alive."
I marched behind him in a foul mood as he led the way to the front desk, where a twenty and a few threats loosened the tongue of the desk attendant enough to find out which one of the long-term rooms my father was holed up in. I realized now why Angel had donned super-sized shades before walking in. There was no doubt he would be recognized easily if someone caught sight of those eyes of his. This allowed him to be forgettable, as much as was a man as gorgeous as him.
And of course, Angel dragged me along to a place like this. He probably got a kick out of seeing me so uncomfortable in this atmosphere.
I think he’d forgotten I’d been living a life on the run for years now. Seven of them, to be exact. I hadn’t been living it up as a socialite that whole time.
As a matter of fact, I’d been the opposite.
And I was not in a mood to put up with his shit today. Or anyone’s, for that matter.
"Shouldn’t I have a weapon before I go in there? "
Angel’s brow quirked, and he smiled at me patronizingly. "Arm you so you can, what? Turn the blade on me and steal my bike?"
"What if that asshole has a weapon?"
"A good point," he admitted, scratching the side of his arm absently. "Just stay behind me. Problem solved."
"Oh, yeah, like that’s totally manageable in this tiny ass place." If I spent much more time with Angel, I’d strain my eyes with all the rolling they did.
When he knocked politely, the door went unanswered, but a more insistent banging brought a man I didn’t recognize to the door. His profile—or what I could see of it around the side of my gallant protector—was a mess.
His hair looked unwashed, matted in spots, clinging to the side of his sweaty face. His eyes had bags under them that reminded me of a domesticated raccoon, they were so dark, and there was still a fucking tourniquet tied around his arm. Thankfully, I didn’t see a needle sticking out of his arm, but there was no telling what hid just behind the door.
This man was ruined by life, and if I didn’t know for a fact that he was another of the woman-beating, cheating, lying scumbags who preyed on my mother, I might’ve felt sympathy for his plight.
But I was well-acquainted with his particular sins.
Child abandonment. Assault and battery. Breaking and entering. Domestic violence. Drug dealing and possessions, a string of them. Petit larceny, the times he got caught boosting others’ possessions for drug money when my mother cut him off.
He was a piece of work, and karma did a good job of catching up to him.
"I thought I told you fuckers I didn’t want room service?—"
Angel didn’t wait for him to continue his little spat. His huge hand planted itself in the center of my father’s chest and shoved him backward into his room, making way for us to follow behind.
He was quick to slam the door behind us and bathe the whole room in darkness.
Curtains were drawn, no lights were on—it was safe to say the man currently whining from the floor was hiding. But from who? Or what?
"Okay, you sleazeball, get up. I’ve got some questions, and you’re going to answer them so I don’t have to spend any more time than necessary in this roach motel."
Angel kicked his feet up on the table as he settled into a chair that barely contained his long, lean frame. He made himself at home, but it felt like watching someone slum it. Though designed to look distressed and worn, his clothes were clearly brand new and designer. The way his jeans hugged his legs like they were painted on his skin with precision and crafted to fit him and only him?—
That would be what he spent his money on. Vain man.
But I wasn’t eyeing the clothes.
No, far from it.
My brain was stuck on how well it fit his frame. He looked confident sitting there, that knife in his hand, twisting it back and forth as if inspecting it and not making a not-so-idle threat.
"I’m not a patient man. You really ought to get up and do as I ask. This will be easier on all of us if you are cooperative." He flipped up his sunglasses and eyed the man disrespectfully, letting him see every ounce of disdain he carried for the man who’d sired me.
I should be focusing on anything but the way his shirt gaped open at the top, revealing the thin silver chain he wore underneath.
But I was more mesmerized by the expanse of skin on display making my throat close up, my heart beat faster, and making me think of all the things I shouldn’t want to do to his chest with my hands.
I shouldn’t be thinking of jumping his bones, standing here in this squalid mess that reeked of stale piss and rotting food. And yet I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t focus enough to spot the fucking attack coming from a mile away.
My father rose to his feet and pulled a gun out of thin air in the span of a second, his whining, pleading demeanor gone, all an act to protect himself.
And now, he had a gun to my head, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t the only thing around here that was loaded and unstable.
Fucking peachy.
"You try to hurt me and I’ll pull the trigger, man. I don’t want no trouble. You just tell Hector I’ll have his money soon, but he can’t bleed a dry rock, or a dead one. He wants paid, he’ll have to trust me."
Angel rolled his eyes and pretended he hadn’t been given an ultimatum. "A man who trusts a piece of dirt like you is a stupid one." He picked at his nails absently, sucking his teeth for emphasis as his steely violet eyes cut to my father’s wild stare. "Let her go, Dante."
Dante. Dante Riviera. An Italian/Spanish immigrant who’d swept my mother off her feet with promises of grandeur and travels beyond her wildest dreams. All because someone he knew told him that American heiresses were suckers for an accent and a pretty face. An easy target.
And he left her pregnant and bruised, beaten to within an inch of her life by the loan sharks he’d promised money to, in order to save his own fucking hide.
She almost lost me before I even took my first breath.
Something inside me snapped, and I had a moment of clarity, a momentary glimpse into why the guys could kill so indiscriminately. How they could live with themselves for taking out the scum of the earth with their own hands .
If all men were like this one, worthy of nothing more than a hole in the ground and not even a stone to mark their passing, then I could appreciate their dedication to eliminating them from the world.
I recalled my self-defense training and went over every step in my head twice as that steel barrel pressed against my temple, the coldness sending a chill through my bones. I could, and would, disarm him and save myself if I had to. Angel seemed to be in no hurry to keep him from blowing my brains out, but hey, maybe it was his tactic. Maybe it worked.
Trust no one but yourself. My cardinal rule for surviving these past seven years.
No one.
Not even if you wanted to fuck them.
Especially if you wanted to fuck them.
"It’s a damn good thing you passed along all the good-looking genes to me before life sucked them out of you."
Dante’s grip faltered for a split second as his brain caught up to the words I’d just uttered. "Who are you?" he hedged, his eyes narrowing dangerously as he looked from me, to Angel, and then back again, his hand tremoring slightly at the realization we weren’t one of his dealer’s henchmen groups. "You’re not with Hector, are you?"
"Ding ding ding, give the man a prize." I laughed hysterically, eyeing Angel as he staunchly avoided my gaze. "Bet you never thought you’d see me, huh, pops?"
The dig at his relation to me struck home—his fragile male ego. I felt the pressure of the gun to my head increase as his rage built. It was the opposite of progress, and had me switching around my entire plan.
I just had to open my damn mouth and piss him off, didn’t I?
"You’d better let the girl go, Dante, or what Hector would do to you will begin to look like child’s play to what you’ll look like when I’m finished with you. "
He wasn’t aggravated. In fact, he sounded fucking bored. I was worth nothing to him, just a pawn in this game, a chess piece he’d had to drag along with him because his brother said so.
I was in the way.
"Is there even a bullet in the gun, Dante?" His eyes lifted to mine and then flicked away before I could read what lay in their depths. "I doubt a man like you has enough money to rub together to buy a bullet, let alone a full clip."
As expected, my father lifted the gun to the ceiling and fired off a shot, coating us in plaster crumbs and dust as we both coughed and sputtered. His hand slipped from my shoulder, and I took the opportunity life handed me and slipped from his grip, kicking his gun from the sweaty palm he held out conveniently. Angel watched it skitter across the room with an air of disinterest, and I beat Dante to the fucking thing by inches, only for him to laugh maniacally when I pointed the thing at him.
"The pretty boy is right, girl. There was only one bullet. You can’t hurt me with that thing?— "
I moved to bring it against his temple in a smash-and-run move, but as if life was determined to deny me any pleasure in his comeuppance, a blade appeared in the middle of his throat, pressed so tightly against the skin that blood welled up in a line, trailing over the slick steel blade and dripping down his chest like a blooming flower of pain.
The threat was very suddenly real for him.
And behind him stood Angel, a feral look on his face, his lips split in a malicious grin, those violet eyes flashing dangerously as he forced Dante to his feet and dragged him a safe distance from me.
"Now, I’m only going to ask this question once. Did you give anyone information about your daughter?"
Dante looked ready to piss himself, his fingers not quite touching his throat, shaking uncontrollably now that he’d been disarmed and defeated. "No one. I didn’t even know the bitch survived that beating the loan sharks gave her mama when she was knocked up." He eyed me with no small amount of undisguised, unfiltered lust. "She’d catch a pretty penny for a man like Hector, though, daughter or no."
"She’s not for sale," Angel growled, and with that, he sliced the man’s throat in front of me and let his body fall to the floor, bleeding out with the sound of wet gurgles echoing behind us as he picked me up off the floor and carried me from the room into the sunlight of the outside world again.
I didn’t lose my breakfast, at least, so there was that. The world spun around me, but I didn’t get sick. That was the only consolation I had before Angel set me on a nearby ledge and ran his hands over my body, inspecting me for marks, damage, whatever.
"Did he hurt you?" There was a hint of concern in his voice, but that was all for show. All for his own concern, so that Rowan wouldn’t think he’d let me come to harm for the fun of it. "Harper!"
I shook my head as thoughts swirled in my head. Thoughts I shouldn’t have to replay in my head.
The welling up of that dark red blood as the blade cut him clean through. The wet gurgles as he fell to the floor. The cocky smile on Angel’s face as he threatened the man with the same knife he eventually took his life with. The way his eyes flashed as he ended another man’s life without hesitation.
His arms around me as he carried me from the carnage.
The realization that my fingerprints were on that gun.
Shit.
Shit.
"The gun," I muttered, unsure how to tell him to get rid of it or wipe the prints. "I touched it."
"I’m not worried about the damn gun, Harper. I asked if he hurt you. "
"I’m fine," I spat, suddenly hating myself for the way I lit up like a firefly when his hands touched me, even informally. "The gun, Angel-"
"Forget the fucking gun, Harper," he growled, his eyes pinning me to the stone ledge I sat on. "Are you okay?"
I looked away from his penetrating glare, unable to stomach the way my head and my body were at odds with each other. "I’m fine. I’ve been through worse, remember?"
I knew that line would hurt him, but I didn’t care. Right now, I needed space between us. I needed to put that wall up between him and I that he’d been building and plastering and adding bricks to this whole time. I had to plug the holes that eroded in it. If we didn’t keep up our guard, we’d end up caring for one another.
And I couldn’t afford to get attached. Rule number five was don’t fall in love. And to date, my track record was impeccable. I’d avoided any and all attachments to men, especially ones I knew I couldn’t trust.
I wasn’t about to break that rule. Not for a Blackwood boy.
Even the prettiest one.
Angel winced at the reminder that he and his brothers had tried to kill me once before, and then winced again as the double meaning—the second attempt—settled in. His attention died out in a heartbeat, and though he attempted to hide it, his expressive eyes were never good at feigning disinterest. Not to me, anyhow.
"Good. Hate to think about what might happen if you just show up at a hospital right now." His eyes trailed back to the room, and that steely gaze darkened. "Stay right the fuck here while I go wipe off the gun."
I nodded, but he seemed unconvinced, so I did it again, holding my hands in a prayer position as he eyed me with speculation. "If you think I’m stupid enough to try and figure out how to run this bike, you’re overestimating me."
He chuckled under his breath. "Harper, you’re a mechanic. Not only do you know how to start it, you could probably take it apart and put it back together in less than a day or two. With your eyes closed."
He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t the mechanics of the damn thing that stymied me. It was the skill needed to handle the damn thing.
"Taking it apart and actually operating one are two different things."
He didn’t seem convinced, but he nodded and disappeared into that grim hotel room, flipping his cellphone open as he went along, probably to tell Rowan he’d done his job. Or gone above and beyond the call of duty, maybe. Somehow, I suspected Rowan’s orders hadn’t contained the words ‘kill the man’ when he’d given them out to his brother.
That worried me as much as what Nash might do to the other target, whoever he might be.
The panic attack I expected to hit me never did. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was slowly desensitizing to the carnage and killing, or if I was just too overloaded to care enough to panic. Perhaps there was a third reason, but I’d never be able to parse it out alone, and seeing a therapist when you’re on the run was pretty much a no-go.
When Angel finally strolled out of the hotel room, the gun was nowhere in sight, and he’d stopped at the front desk again and no doubt told the man not to worry about the gunshot—cleaning his gun, no doubt. Went off by accident. Put it on his tab.
I couldn’t stop making up different scenarios in my head, and perhaps I was deluding myself into thinking I wasn’t having a breakdown. Maybe my panic attacks were changing form. Melding to the shapes of the new experiences I was living.
Fantastic. I never thought my panic attacks had heard the phrase ‘adapt, improvise, overcome.’
One more thing to add to the list of shit I was so over.