Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
seamus
This fucking woman.
Fury engulfs me as the fuck grabs her by the throat. After punching Ava in the goddamned face.
There was a body lying in the rain in the gutter between two cars, a girl, and I wasted precious seconds checking to see if she was alive.
The street’s dead, everyone hunkering down from the storm that brewed up out of nowhere and currently covers all of New York.
Fucking fine by me. I kick open the door to the diner. I don’t look at the body behind the counter. It isn’t visible if you come in directly from the front door. But if you arrive from up the street like me, you can see someone there.
I pull my gun, the rain sluicing off me as the guy turns, throwing Ava as he reaches for a weapon.
He’s fucking huge, and I don’t even bother asking questions. I just shoot him dead. And then I stand over him and proceed to empty my clip into him. I’m in the middle of kicking the shit out of his bloodied, bullet-riddled corpse when Ava staggers into me, dragging me away.
“Let me go. This fucker deserves to be nothing but pulp.” I don’t even recognize my voice. It’s thick and savage, and it’s only when she stumbles back that I come to my senses.
“Seamus, I’m… sorry, I came to meet Claudetta. I work here. I…” She looks around, bleeding from her lip, this time for real, and a bruise is going to bloom on her face. “I don’t know where she is. I don’t know where Johnny is. I thought he was downstairs, but… why isn’t he here?”
Fuck.
I’m an ass.
I gently take her and sit her in a booth, way in the back of the small diner, a corner booth, one that faces the windows. “Stay here.”
I march off, lock the fucking door, flip the sign to Closed, and look for the lights.
I find them to the side behind the counter, near the kitchen, and I flip them all off, including the lights outside.
Everything goes dark and there’s no sound, nothing but the rain and thunder and the occasional flickering crack of lightning.
I text the cleanup crew the address, let Cal know I have her, and then I have to shut everything in me down as I go and move the fuck to behind the counter. Near where I presume Johnny lies dead.
I get a cup, a clean bar rag, and hit the ice button on the soda machine. I bring the rag and the cup to her, and a million things are in my head, but I shove them into the dark recesses, hammering down the fear and the rage and the anger I have reserved for my sweet thing.
I slide in next to her, pour some ice into a rag, and I touch her hand. She’s fucking ice, too.
A nasty, unwanted, undeserving to the dead thought lands.
She’s seen death before. Fuck, she’s probably killed.
I’m sure she’s killed. I don’t know if she shot someone shooting at me and got Anton, or if someone else shot him to shut him up.
Either one of those could be true. But I know she’s not an innocent.
And it’s one of the things… one of the few things l like about her.
I’m not sure if I should ask the question, or any of the others in my head, so I just kiss her instead, long and hard. She kisses me back. She doesn’t hiss in pain or pull away, even though based on the blood caked on her lip, he must’ve busted the inside of her mouth.
And I’m enough of a cunt to probe it with my tongue as I change the kiss, soften it. Then as I lift my head, I lick her blood from my lips and from the cut outside her mouth.
Dec would accuse me of being part vampire, and maybe I am. Because I’m fucking hard and I fucking love the taste of her blood.
But she’s warmer now, and if I am, too, it’s just for her.
I lift the wrapped ice to her face and hold it there to help stop the bruising.
“It’s cold.”
“Does it hurt?” I ask, sliding my hand up her thigh and holding it against the heat of her denim-wrapped pussy.
“Like a bitch, as they say.” And Ava smiles.
Remarkably that complex smile reaches her eyes. It’s a tired humor, a sad and worn warmth, like she understands the horrible nature of the world.
We’re more alike than I’m comfortable with.
Sure, I get that we both like to hunt and chase.
She probably would love to hunt me down, and unless it’s with a fucking gun or a spectacular ass fuck or blow job at the end, it’s not going to happen.
At least, I don’t think so, but I’m open to it.
And for the craic, I just might even take a good old regular fuck, too.
Not that there’s anything good, old, or regular about fucking Ava.
It’s all spectacular and filthy, and even when it’s soft, it’s gloriously wrong, like there’s a dark edge that just might make a consecrated place burst into flames beneath us if we tried.
“You didn’t stab him,” I say, tucking a strand of hair away behind her ear. “It’s why I got you the special combs. You could do some damage.”
“I didn’t think. Too busy being punched and strangled.”
I get up and hunt under the counter for some booze. There’s a bottle of sherry and I open it. My mouth twists at the sweetness that comes from it obviously sitting so long, but it’ll do. I take the bottle and leave it with her, then move the big prick and look him over. Ankles included.
He’s tattooed heavily already, so I’m not shocked there isn’t a special tattoo for the Lev group there. This one would wear it loud and proud… actually… I check his fingers, too.
He’s a fucking member of the X gang. They’re a New York specialty, and they like to play big. They’re not your usual gang. They dress in suits, nice clothes, just like this one. The XO on each of his knuckles is a giveaway.
But they don’t do mafia work, and they sure as shit don’t hit diners.
I did a good job destroying him, but in the wreckage of his face, upper chest, and neck is a medallion. I can’t make it out since a bullet hit it, but I’m sure it’s cartel. I pull it off and pocket it.
I’ll have to leave the girl outside in the rain for the cops, but the crew will remove gang guy and Johnny. I blow out a breath. “Ava?”
“Yes?”
I almost jump, she’s standing right there, staring at Johnny and the other man.
“Did Johnny have a family?”
“A mom, maybe. I don’t know. He works the night shifts. Worked.” She looks at the lump of meat I shot. “Did he kill Johnny?”
“I’m assuming.”
“And you did all that to him?”
I don’t remind her that she was there, I know how the shock thing works. And I’m betting she’s thinking if Johnny’s dead, then so is her friend. Or maybe she’s not. But she touches me, and for a moment I think she’s going to hug me, but she doesn’t.
She takes my gun and then feels my jacket pocket for the spare clip I always carry. Ava switches the empty one for the full one.
“Is my friend alive? Claudetta? Latinx, pretty, long hair, short.”
“I don’t think so.”
Ava nods. “Where is she?”
“Ava…”
“Where. Is. She?”
“We can’t move her.”
“I don’t have my phone. Someone needs to tell Onyx.”
“The biker?” I shake my head. “I wasn’t out the entire time when he hit me. I heard parts of the conversation. And no, we can’t call him. You’ll start a war that’ll wipe out his club. When this is done, I promise I’ll help him get revenge, but not now. Got it?”
“Yes.”
And she points the gun at the already disfigured corpse and shoots it twice. “I’m glad you mutilated him.” She hands me my gun back.
A stupid man could fall for a woman like her.
And then she goes to a cupboard under the register and pulls out a bottle of gin and drinks from it. She shudders. “Disgusting.”
I take it and do the same. Agreed. It’s vile.
I set the bottle down and look outside. The storm’s a little worse as I watch the unmarked van pull up on the street. I take her hand, and as they get out, I grab her and head out into the storm.
I kiss her in the middle of the street when we’re halfway home.
We’re soaked to the bone, and all I want is to bury myself inside her.
She wraps herself around me, kissing me back like she craves it, like we’re more than what we are.
Like nothing at all just happened. If she’s going to cry, this is the time to do it, with the rain, where no one will notice.
When we get home, we’re drowned rats in pools of rapidly growing water. I strip her down and throw a coat of mine that hangs from a rack in the hallway around her, and I strip down to my boxers. I leave the clothes in a pile and lead her up to our room.
“If you’re going to cry,” I say, stalking off to the bathroom to turn on the shower, “do it in here. I don’t like tears.”
I turn and she shoves me, sending me stumbling back into the water. Her face is a storm of fury, one to rival the weather outside.
She shoves off the coat, yanks the combs from her hair, and comes at me. “I don’t fucking cry.”
“Maybe you should. Maybe it’ll help you grow some sense of humanity.”
“You’re one to talk. You know why I hate you?”
I pull her into the shower, hot water beating down on us. Then I cage her in, her back against the tile wall. I look down at Ava. “Don’t tell me. You still think I killed your cousin. Boring.”
“Did you?” Her hands fist on my chest, and my cock’s hard in my soaked boxers.
She doesn’t think I did it, and I really don’t think she truly cares. She’s all about her fucking bratva. Money. Power. It could be me if I wasn’t a Murphy.
“You know I didn’t. I don’t give a fuck about a dead guy I’ve never met.” I glare at her, the urge to fuck her hard almost overpowering. “You didn’t care about a relative you hardly knew. But I think the absolute number one reason you hate me is because I see you.”
She goes still. “And why do you hate me?”
“Because I know you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, sweet thing,” I say, “I do. Greedy, cold, ambitious, and good at spinning tales to make yourself feel better.”
“Fuck. You.”
Now I grin. “I think I might.”
I kiss her long, hard, slow. A kiss that unspools heat and anger and darkness. But under the undulating seduction is a clawing need and she tugs at my boxer briefs.
Like I need another warning. I lift her and carry her from the shower to the sink and I sit her on the counter, pushing her back so I have access to that sweet fucking cunt. And I thrust in.
Ava wraps around me tight, launching off the counter and onto my cock so she can rise and sink at her will.
It’s frenetic, wild. The intensity rocks me and I slam us into the glass wall of the shower.
It’s not enough. Not the drag of my piercings in her cunt, not how she rides me with need. I want to dominate. Own her.
The steam swirls and I pull her off me, push her back on the sink vanity, and this time, it’s face-first. Her ass is in the air.
For a moment I waver, maybe I need her mouth. But no. I part her ass cheeks and push into her, making her jump and shudder and moan. Her gaze meets mine. The fury ticks higher, blurred at the edges by her desire, the pleasure she’s taking from my actions.
I fuck her ass hard. Slamming in balls deep, pulling out to the tip of my dick and back in.
She’s so tight and stretchy which allows me to go that deep. With each thrust, I whisper in my head, “Mine.”
With each thrust, my needs grow.
The drag on my piercings is almost unbearable, and an electric wave of desire and pleasure tinged with an equally unbearable ache and urge for release grips me.
And Ava is rocking me hard, rocking herself on the edge of the counter, and she gasps and moans as the deep waves of her orgasm hit, massaging me, the ripples and clenches from deep inside setting me off, and I fuck her harder.
Then with a cry, I come deep inside of her.
My whole body shudders, shakes, and my vision blurs as the expansive release and tingling pleasure spreads through me. I half collapse on her but manage to pull out and partially turn her, carrying her back under the water in the shower.
And I know I’m going to want to fuck her again before this night is over.
“Fucking concentrate,” Cal mutters as he passes me the ball at the pickup basketball game we have. Our shirts are off, Tom C.’s team is on fire today and Callahan, a better player than me, is getting annoyed.
He wants to win.
We all do.
Winning is in our blood.
Lucie sits with Harry who holds Clawzilla’s carrier, and Arnold is pressed in between Lucie’s legs.
I miss a dunk and Dec rolls his eyes. I wipe the sweat from my face, the adrenaline pumping, my body alive.
What I’d rather be doing is Ava. Failing that, working on my motorcycle. I’ve been neglecting it, but it’s a great way to center myself and just think.
And I need to.
Because last night at the diner wasn’t a random attack. Men dressed like that don’t typically leave a trail of bodies behind. No man in my world does that, either.
Not unless the point is to send a message.
And it would be a hell of a message. Did whoever it was lure her friend or just… what? Lie in wait for Ava to show up at the diner? No, that last one doesn’t make sense. Ava hasn’t been there since we got married.
To me, it feels like the work of someone who knows her or someone who very specifically followed her. Someone I’ve missed.
The ball hits me hard in the thigh.
“Fuck,” Torin says. “We’re calling a time-out. You’ve got a visitor.”
I turn. There at the edge of the chain-link fence that stops balls from hitting traffic is Ava. Everything in me implodes.
Mikey stands behind her. And she’s holding a bulging cloth bag with what looks like a loaf of bread sticking out. But she sees me looking and her eyes narrow. Before I can make a move, she and Mikey walk away.
Cal nods his chin at their backs. “What the fuck was that about?”
“Do I look like I can read the mind of evil?”
He studies me for a minute, closes his eyes, and shakes his head. “Oh, man. You got it bad.”
I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about, but the game goes from bad to worse. When Lucie and Harry leave to go to their respective places… Lucie to her pet adoption café and Harry to Dirty Harry’s flower shop, Torin gets a phone call that ends the game.
“Cartel members have been seen meeting with Romanov,” Torin says as we pile into one of our cars. “These guys traffic girls. And one more thing… the guy with the scar? He’s been seen, too, in those same meetings.”
“Let’s talk to Romanov,” I say. Then I dig out my phone, ordering Mikey to keep Ava safe.
It’s linked to her, all of it. And someone is after her. Cartel on Romanov’s orders? This Hank?
Fuck that.
I might hate her, but I don’t want her in danger. Because no matter what, right now she’s fucking mine. And if anyone touches her, they’re dead.