Chapter 10 Maya
TEN
MAYA
For the past three days, I hadn’t been able to get my mind off him.
No matter what I did, it wasn’t enough to override him.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his commanding grip on my hips.
I felt his tongue against mine. The searing hot skin of his lips pressed tightly against my own.
Never had I felt so beautiful. So virile.
So wanted by a man. I wanted to trace his tattoos with my tongue and let him explore all the small crevices my body had to offer.
I never thought a man like him would want a woman like me.
I stood in the mirror in nothing but my bra and panties.
I was a B-cup on a good day, flat as a board lying down.
I had no waist. I was straight, from ankles to shoulders.
I’d hated my body for years. And with the gender-neutral clothing I donned on a regular basis, the only thing that gave away my label as “female” was my hair.
The drunk frat assholes that came into my shop to cause mayhem always enjoyed pointing that out.
I never let them get to me, but I also didn’t fool myself.
There was nothing about me that stood out from a crowd.
No bright blonde hair. No sparkling green eyes.
No curves to catch a man’s eye, and I certainly didn’t have a soothing voice.
I blended into the background better than anyone I knew, which was imperative for my survival.
But that usually meant my sex life suffered in the process.
“Not with Notch,” I murmured.
His promise to me made me shiver, and I’d been on pins and needles.
Every time my shop door opened, I wondered if it was him coming to fulfill the salacious promise he left me with.
I wanted him to. I wanted him to barge in just as I was closing and make love to me in that damn leather chair.
I wanted to tug him up the stairs and have him fall into my apartment with me, marking every wall and surface I had in this barren place with his memory.
I shivered as I put my clothes back on.
I flipped the mirror around and stopped looking at myself.
I’d always hated mirrors. I had my father’s eyes and my mother’s downturned lips.
My brother and I had the same color hair and the same jawline from our father.
We both had my mother’s high cheekbones and mischievous glint.
I hated looking at myself because it reminded me of all I had lost.
My parents to that gang—and soon? My own brother.
I just had to make sure he didn’t take me down with him.
I sighed as images of Notch flashed in my mind.
I stumbled backward, falling onto my bed as his tattoos rolled through my mind.
I’d gotten a great look at them as I filled in the spaces on his arm.
Those geometric patterns made them stand out even more, and I smiled as I recalled them.
The pile of dust with a date on it, probably to symbolize a fire where he had saved a life.
The skull and crossbones with another date on it, probably to symbolize when he brought someone back from the brink of death.
But there was one that didn’t quite fit the rest. One I felt was probably a personal tattoo. It was tattooed in calligraphy and wrapped around just below his right elbow, right there on his funny bone, which made me shiver simply thinking about.
“I Am A Lost Boy,” I murmured to myself.
I wondered what it meant.
My phone ringing ripped me from my trance, and I groaned.
Whoever it was that was calling, they could bite me.
I leaned up and reached for my cell phone, figuring it was someone calling for downstairs.
During my off days, I always had phone calls forwarded from the shop phone to my cell phone so I never missed a potential customer.
I should have checked the number first.
“Siren’s Tattoo Shop, this is Maya,” I said.
“Hey there, sis.”
I gnashed my teeth together at the sound of Harry’s voice.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I was wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner, thank you very much.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Please?”
I paused. “Did you just say please?”
“Yes, I really did. I really want you to come over for dinner, Maya. I’ll do anything to get you over here.”
Was he serious?
“Say it again,” I said.
“Please, Maya. Come have dinner with me,” Harry said.
He sounded so lost. So destitute.
I remember my father feeling that way the last time I spoke with him on the phone.
“Fine. Okay. I’ll come have dinner with you. Can you shoot me your address?” I asked.
“I just did. Really, Maya. Thank you so much.”
I rolled my eyes and stood up. And as I figured, we weren’t meeting at his house for some family home-cooked meal.
We were meeting at a local Chinese restaurant known in the community for its “affiliate” connections.
That was the nice word people used because “gang ownership” didn’t roll off the tongue as well.
It took me almost thirty minutes to reach the restaurant, but it didn’t take me long to find Harry.
“Maya!” he exclaimed.
I paused when I saw the three massive men who turned their heads toward me.
They were all situated in different booths, like that was somehow supposed to cover up who they were and what their purpose was at that place.
I almost turned around and walked out. But I was hungry, the food smelled good, and I had no idea what the fuck my brother had pulled me into.
“I should have never come,” I murmured to myself.
I had to admit, the behemoths did well to blend in.
Traditional clothes. Their noses in their menus.
Their eyes not focused on us. But I knew they were lookouts.
I’d grown up in this lifestyle. Men like that were around all the time when Harry and I were kids, walking behind us on the way to school and following us around in cars after we got our driver’s licenses.
I sat down in front of Harry and waved off the menu given to me.
“Not hungry?” he asked.
“What is going on?” I asked.
“Well, I’m trying to have dinner with my sister.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I’m not stupid, and I’m ready to hear it from your own mouth.”
He glared at me as I leaned back into the chair.
“Maya, just order some food. Let’s have a nice family dinner and—”
“According to what I heard, the last family dinner that happened ended in the slaughter of our parents,” I spat.
“Not now,” he hissed.
“Is that what’s about to happen here? Are these three men in the booths about to pump my body full of lead?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m not. An idiot. Harry.”
He dabbed at his lips with his napkin before tossing it onto the table.
“Fine, you want an argument. You’ve got one,” Harry said.
“I know what’s going on here,” I said.
“You don’t have a damn clue what’s going on,” he said plainly.
“Well, then fill me in. If my assumptions are so gravely wrong, then maybe you can be the man I hope you are and fill in all the wrong angles for me to make them right.”
“No. I won’t. Because it compromises your safety if I do.”
“So, that’s what this is about? Keeping me in the dark while trying to protect me? You saw how well that ended for Mom and Dad.”
“This isn’t about Mom and Dad!” he roared.
“But it really is! Because you took Dad’s place, didn’t you!?”
I stood up quickly, causing the three men to turn and face our conversation.
“You’ve tried for years to pull the wool over my eyes. Telling me you moved to San Diego to try and get away from the ghost of our parents. That you took a job here to be closer to me. A job working as an event manager at a hotel. Do you think I’m an idiot, Harry?” I asked.
“You really should watch your tone,” he hissed.
“I know you’re part of the gang that killed our parents. I know you took Dad’s place in their ranks. It’s the same shit that got them killed, and it’s about to get me killed, isn’t it?”
“Maya, just sit down and—”
“I’m done sitting down!”
“Well, then you need to learn your place if I’m going to keep you alive!” he exclaimed.
I slowly straightened my back as the men stood up from their booths.
“No,” I said plainly.
“You’re being stubborn, just like Mom was,” Harry said.
“I don’t give a damn what you think I’m doing. But here’s what I’m doing nonetheless. If you ever come around my shop again—if you ever call me again—it’s done. We’re done. I’ll burn my entire life to the ground making sure you can never find me.”
“I’ll always find you, Maya. Just like I found you over a year ago.”
My blood ran cold as a phone rang off in the distance.
The world spun around my head as I fell back down into my chair.
Was it true? Had Harry tracked me down like that?
Like a rabid, hunted animal? I swallowed down the bile creeping up the back of my throat.
My eyes traveled over to my brother, watching as he held up his finger.
He placed his phone to his ear and walked away from the table.
And suddenly, I was surrounded by those three men.
Trapped, with nowhere to go.
But as the fog of my mind cleared, I kept my face in a daze. The only advantage I had was the fact that they thought I was in shock. Incapacitated. And since my brother apparently thought the same thing, I could hear his conversation.
“Yes, boss. The Lost Boys. That’s what they’re called. I’m sure of it.”
I Am A Lost Boy.
And suddenly, something in my brain clicked.