12. Daisy
TWELVE
daisy
Rebellion felt so good. I slipped into the town car next to Zeid. Cas and Rylee slid in across from us.
“This is so weird. I didn’t even know you had a car like this,” Rylee said, petting the leather.
A motorcycle echoed off the concrete jungle of the city and we looked in time to see X and Cali ride up and park next to the car.
“We don’t. But you don’t roll up to a funeral of this caliber on bikes and not blow all the hard work we’ve done to mask what we really are to these people.”
What they really were?
The door closed, and a moment later the driver was getting back into the driver’s seat.
“X will park elsewhere, but it would be irresponsible for us all to be in one place at the same time. Still, Daisy, we wouldn’t be sending one of our own into a den of monsters without some of her own.”
I shifted as the car took off and the soreness between my legs reminded me just what I’d begged for, and fucking hell, did he deliver. This was defiance, and it felt so damn good. So good to walk up to my father with someone’s come dripping between my legs while he tries to pretend like he can sell me. Except, for me? It was about confidence. Not the come. The man that had just been between my legs sat next to me, wearing a suit he very obviously hated. I took in a shaky breath, lost in my own fears, and then Cas’s words registered.
“One of your own? Zeiden? No, wait, you said her. You didn’t mean me?”
Zeid placed his hand on my thigh and it felt so right, so normal.
“Daisy, like it or not, I won’t be letting you go.” He leaned closer and his breath was hot against my ear. “You’re mine, little dove. I want you, and when I want something, I will stop at nothing to own it.”
Those words should have been triggering. They should have pissed me off. I really wanted them to.
“I am not to be owned.”
His fingers danced at the edge of my dress.
“Don’t you though? Says the woman wearing my come under her dress?”
I shivered at his words and the memory of the way he made me come so hard I’d nearly blacked out.
I swallowed. He wasn’t wrong. I turned up my face to his and kissed him, gently, but it was enough. Enough to remind me this was all real. This was all real for now.
“I… What happens when you get bored of me? What happens when my father offers you millions to walk away? When he sees you at the funeral, that’s a very real chance.”
There. I’d finally said what was freaking me out. What would happen if my father just bought Zeid off and he walked away? What if I was that easy to walk away from?
Cas and Zeid both laughed in unison, their voices blending into something far more sinister sounding than I’d expected.
“I do not play games I don’t expect to win.”
I looked at Cas and at Zeid. X was too far ahead of us, but I looked at Rylee too. She wore a simple black dress with a halter, and as she shifted in her seat I saw the same tattoo.
It was clear that I was missing something.
“Who are you guys, really? Everyone is afraid of my dad. I’m afraid of my dad. And why do you all have one tattoo?”
Zeid squeezed my thigh.
“I have plenty more than just one, dove. Perhaps you want a tour later?”
I licked my lips.
“As hot as that sounds, that’s not what I mean. I mean that one. The one on Rylee. Why do you all have it? I mean hers is small, but even I can tell from here it’s the same shape—an hourglass?”
The glance that Cas shared with Zeid said a lot.
“Zeid, who are you?”
His face was a bit softer than I think I’d seen it since sharing that dark corner. His touch careful as he pulled my chin up to look at him.
“Welcome to the Spectors, little dove. Should we introduce ourselves to daddy dearest before or after you tell him you’re no longer available for marriage?”
Spectors?
The conversation about the Vipers.
“Wait. You had said there were three main gangs. Vipers, Ravens, and …”
Zeid nodded. “Yeah. The Spectors. And I dare say that you sure have a way of picking men in power. We—Cas, X, and I—are the leaders of the Spectors.”
I’d lived my entire life doing as I was told out of fear of my father. I’d lived my entire life doing as my mother did because that’s what young ladies did. I’d gone on dates with whatever scum my father decided was worthy of his attention, not mine. I literally had been the perfect little daughter on the outside until they’d pushed me with this whole marriage. That was when I realized it had never mattered what I did or didn’t do. My outcome was always going to be marriage and a repeat of the same societal expectations. I wasn’t even allowed to go to college in person. Honestly, I was lucky that my father was paying for my classes at all.
“You’re telling me that I didn’t just fall for some guy who rescued me from a very boring night, but I gave myself to not just a member of a gang, but the leader . Or, well, one of them?”
If someone had told me this was what it would take to crack me, I wouldn’t have believed them. Hell, I thought the pressure of my father’s relentless expectations with no chance of ever getting his approval was what would push me over. The irony. I was hiccup-laughing at this point. My stomach was starting to hurt. I’d cracked.
“Is she okay?” I heard Rylee ask and waited to figure out if I was or wasn’t.
“Daisy?”
I dabbed at the tears welling up in my eyes from the insanity I’d just unleashed from somewhere inside of me.
“Yes, Zeiden? Or what do they call you? Lord? Undertaker? Certainly not prince asshole.”
That just started up my hysterics again.
“Oh god. I called someone who wears knives and a gun as jewelry prince asshole.”
Yup. I’d lost it.
“Oh my god. How naive am I? You show up at a party where I know you had to have millions to throw away on stupid shit just to be in the presence of those people, but you. You come in smelling like, hell, I don’t even know. Dirty sex? You didn’t talk like them. You wanted to hide in a corner unlike all the peacocks in there. Of course you’d be a gang leader.”
There was a lot to unpack, and apparently I was going to unpack it all on the way to say goodbye to my uncle.
“Oh my god. My uncle became a detective to clean up the city after his brother’s thing. My dad? Well he became a senator. You are the embodiment of everything my family hates.”
I stopped laughing.
“Oh. You’re the embodiment of everything they hate.”
I sucked in air, all humor gone.
“Are you, are you using me? Did you know?”
Zeid grabbed my hands in one of his. He was so much bigger than me. And now? Well I should have seen him as terrifying. The scar on his face? What was that from? The comments about bullets hurting? He might actually know.
“I had no idea who you were when I met you. In fact, you should have been a liability, but for some reason, something inside me that I’d tried to control my entire life screamed that you were what I needed.”
Needed? He needed me?
“You needed me? You who has a penthouse and money enough to buy into stupid secret little events, need me? Need me like you want money to return me, or need me like I’m a hole to stick your dick in?”
There was a sharp intake of breath across the car.
“Daisy,” Rylee’s voice broke my rant. “Zeid doesn’t, uh, well we weren’t kidding. You are the first girl he’s brought around us. Ever. I mean, ask Cas.”
“Only girl who happens to be the daughter of someone that is lobbying to get rid of your entire life?” I wasn’t yelling. I was actually rational. Numb rational maybe?
“Daisy. Stop. If you remember, when I brought you back to the hotel, I was the one to push you away. I offered you food and nothing else. Safety, yes. Me? I wasn’t on the table until I couldn’t deny whatever this is.”
I shifted myself and moved away from him and closer to the door.
What was I supposed to do?
Zeid tried to reach for my hand, and I pulled away.
“What will you do if this doesn’t work out? Kill me?”
I didn’t know why I said it. But I had. It was out there.
I glared out the window like I could hate the world and it would stop shitting on me. But my solace didn’t last long. I knew whose arm was wrapping around my waist and unbuckling the seatbelt that kept me from getting even closer to the door than I’d been. I didn’t fight him. I let him pull me onto his lap.
Cas and Rylee were talking in lowered voices, and I didn’t care what they were talking about. Probably me. What was new?
Zeid’s voice was low and calm when he spoke in my ear. Spoke just to me.
“I’ve never started a fight I couldn’t win. I’ve never placed a bet that wouldn’t pay out. I had already thought through every possible scenario that the universe could throw at us before I ever touched you. And all of them end up with you being mine.”
I tried to pull away. “Those are just pretty words from a delusional asshole.”
His fingers swiped over my collarbone and I shivered.
“That’s prince asshole to you, dove. And they aren’t just words. I just seem to know, and I trust it. I trust almost no one. You’ve met them all, in fact. So when I said that my soul knows what it needs and you’re it? That means I will follow you to hell and back. I will beg, steal, and murder to get to you if you’re in heaven. No one will take what is mine.”
Something about the way he said that seemed to be like glue to the shattered pieces of my soul.
But then there was the part of me that looked at the world like it was. It was empty and evil and obedience kept the pain away.
So I shut up and let him think that what he said was what I believed because more than ever, I wanted to believe him. Believe that anyone would want me for me. But what a joke the world was now. I’d given my virginity to everything my father hated and now I was bringing him to my uncle’s funeral. An uncle that was most likely murdered by a gang.
Fate had a sense of humor.
Gangs had destroyed my family. What would my father have been had his brother never been killed? And now? I’d given myself to not just a gang member, but to someone that could control them.
I swallowed down the lump that sat in my throat. Sadness? No that wasn’t right. Something else.
Moments passed and I did what I did best. I somehow breathed through the tears, but something else was different. My chest ached and I couldn’t will it away.