Chapter 4 #2
I placed my lips right up to his ear, feeling the warmth of his black leather cut against my bare chest. His breath came in jagged, harsh gasps, his pain a palpable entity surrounding him. “You touched my wahine,” I told him in a cool, almost relaxed tone. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Lifting him by his hair, I slammed his knees down onto the ungiving concrete below us, shattering the bones.
I did not release my hold on his hair. Noticing the glass door to the rear of the building was directly in front of me, I started walking forward, dragging the bloody Bloody Scorpion behind me.
Some of his bones were protruding from his skin, blood dribbling from his mouth, nose, and one ear.
Outside in the yard was chaos. Roughly a third of the remaining Bloody Scorpions had run outside to check on the explosion.
The twins had torn through them like tissue paper.
Tetrodotoxin was extremely potent, and could be lethal if enough of it got into the blood stream.
From the flood light overhead, I could see that most of the Bloody Scorpions were not dead as they lay on the blacktop.
They were paralyzed, and struggling to breathe as their bodies slowly shut down.
There was no sign of Virgil, but both twins were sitting on a log piling of the dock.
Neither was wearing their gloves anymore.
They stood in unison when they saw me dragging the Bloody Scorpion from the building, but they did not approach.
Instead, they watched in silence as I made the journey down to the dark, ebbing waves.
When the water was just below my ankles, I dropped the Bloody Scorpion.
His broken body fell face first into the rising waves.
As the flood tide came back, his face submerged.
He struggled to move, but merely wiggled helplessly like a worm.
He gasped for air when the water receded.
Again and again, the tide came, pulled by the moon.
I stared up at the night sky, taking solace in the unfailing reliability that was my ocean.
I don’t know how long I stood there. Long enough that the spluttering at my feet ceased and Pele rested once more.
That is, until the manifestation of Kū, god of rage and war, came charging out of the storage facility in a blaze of glorious fury.
I turned, my feet still planted firmly in the sand.
I smiled at her, taking in everything that had changed in the past four years since she’d left me.
From her longer hair to her new lingerie, she was still a sight to behold.
It took me a moment to realize her rage wasn’t aimed at the dead man at my feet, but at me.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Aloiki? You ruined everything!”
I blinked. I was not entirely sure what I anticipated our reunion to be like, but after saving her life, I expected some form of gratitude. Not hostility.
I stepped away from the body at my feet, not caring in the slightest if the tides took him.
“Lu, I—”
“Don’t you ‘Lu’ me,” she snapped as I drew near. “You selfish asshole! Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?”
By Laka, she was beautiful. I’d never forgotten, but it was like I’d forced myself not to remember.
She was tall, nearly five-eight, with long black hair, a lean waist with wide hips.
Fuck, I loved her tits. They were a C-cup, and the perfect handful.
I used to tie her to my bed and worship them for hours.
When I started my porn business, Lu and I had starred in lead roles. Back then, I didn’t have employees. Not like I did today. Merely that I had certain friends who I invited over to fuck my girl with me while on camera.
She had been magnificent then, but was even more so now. Standing here, staring at her, drenched in the blood of my enemies, I became rock hard.
Lu put her hands on her hips. She was completely unfazed that she was standing nearly naked in her bra and panties at the edge of a storage yard while men gasped their last breaths around her.
I loved that about her. It used to drive me batshit crazy, how narrow-focused she could be, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why.
Right now, all I could think was how incredible she was.
Then I blinked, realizing what she’d just said.
Anger replaced the love-fog that had taken over my brain.
In three quick strides, I was directly in front of her, nose to nose.
She didn’t back down. If anything, her dark eyes narrowed even more at my nearness.
I certainly hadn’t expected her to come running into my arms in typical Hollywood slow-motion, but was a fucking ‘mahalo’ too much to ask?
“What the fuck did you expect me to do, Lu? And what the fuck are you even doing here? Why aren’t you on the Mainland?”
Under the overhead light, I saw her cheeks flush. Her natural tanned complexion hid it better than Red’s fair skin, but there was no hiding that pinkish tint. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she snapped. She pointed behind me to the ocean. “Did you have to kill him? He was my best lead!”
For some stupid ass reason known only to the gods, I looked behind myself to verify we were talking about the same guy. Yeah, there was only one dead body behind me. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I demanded. “Lead to what?”
Her nostrils flared, and for a moment, I saw tears enter her eyes before she rapidly blinked them away. “Nishi,” she finally said. “She’s been missing for nearly three weeks. And he,” she pointed behind me, “was the last person I saw her with before she disappeared!”
My anger dulled a bit. Nishi was Lu’s best friend.
The Japanese-Hawai‘ian woman was Lu’s Tangaloa.
Like me, they’d met in elementary school and had been inseparable ever since.
Nishi wasn’t a bad person, per se. I had always thought her na?ve to the point of foolishness.
Like the time she nearly got arrested helping strangers she thought were a neighbor’s cousin “move” some of her neighbor’s belongings, but it turned out they had no relation to her neighbor and they were actually robbing that apartment.
One could not fault Nishi’s kindness. I’d seen her sit with a lost little girl for hours on the beach, entertaining her until the parents could be located.
What I didn’t understand is Lu’s unwavering loyalty to her best friend.
Lu might be a danger magnet, but nothing she did was on purpose.
Things just…broke or fell or shifted cosmically in her presence.
With Nishi, her na?veté could almost be attributed to immaturity or a refusal to see the world as it is instead of through rose-colored glasses.
The fact that Nishi was missing was disturbing. Lu said that the man I’d just killed had been with her the last time Lu had seen her. And then her words registered. She’d called him ‘her best lead’.
What. The. Fuck.
My anger returned to me in full force. There was no gradual acceleration.
It was zero to three hundred in a split second.
I ducked my head down to be closer to her, my hands going for her shoulders.
“The fuck did you just say?” I practically snarled.
“Are you investigating the Bloody Scorpions? What the fuck is wrong with you! Nishi is missing, you go to the police! You come to me. You do anything but what I think it is you are doing here!” I shook her.
Not hard and not in anger. In fear. Of what might have happened, of her recklessness.
Lu’s loyalty was something I admired about her, but not when it put her in danger.
Not when she was painting a bullseye on her forehead.
“What the fuck were you thinking!” I roared.
“Tell me you didn’t purposefully get yourself captured by the Bloody Scorpions? !”
She pushed against my chest, but I did not budge. Lu was strong, but I had a lot of muscle on her. “Let go of me!” she demanded. I only tightened my grip on her. “You don’t control me, Aloiki! Nishi is missing and the police have no leads! What else was I supposed to do?”
“Anything!” I repeated. “Anything but put yourself in the hands of those bastards!”
“I had it under control! I had a plan—”
I growled, the sound low and menacing. “Do tell,” I managed to get out through gritted teeth. “Tell me your master plan, Luana.”
Her eyes narrowed, though I didn’t know if it had to do with my derisive tone or my use of her full name. Lu hated her full name. “I needed them to take me to where they have Nishi—”
“And what makes you think she’s still alive!” I shouted. “What evidence do you have that she is even in a state that means she could be rescued!”
For the first time, grief and worry replaced the fury on her face.
Fuck, I hated that my words had brought on such a reaction, but fuck it all.
She had gotten herself purposefully caught by the Bloody Scorpions to try to find her kidnapped best friend.
Of all the stupid, reckless things for her to do…
And it chafed because Lu had done so without knowing I was here, without having an escape plan.
What had she been thinking? It wasn’t like Lu to be so irresponsible. Yet, what wouldn’t I do for Tangaloa? But that was different. Who knew what could have happened to her in the hands of the Bloody Scorpions? The one had already had his hands all over her.
“Don’t speak to me like I’m a child!” Lu slapped her palms against my chest. While I did not step back, I did loosen my hold on her arms.
“Why didn’t you call me?!”
She froze. “What?”
My jaw was so tight, I could hear the bones groan in protest. “Why,” I repeated slower, enunciating each word. “Didn’t. You. Call. Me?”
The confusion on her face was like a knife to my heart. And then she twisted the blade. In the most innocently puzzled voice, she asked, “Why would I call you?”
The lasso snapped. Everything I’d been suppressing from the moment Lu had walked out my front door, leaving behind her black pearl ring on my kitchen counter, came rushing back like a tsunami.
It swirled and whirled inside my soul, a maelstrom of agony, heartbreak, and guilt.
The knowledge that I’d had the best thing right in front of me, my fucking soulmate, and I’d allowed her to walk out of my life, out my fucking front door, and I never went after her.
Because I knew I had been the cause. I’d broken my promise. I’d broken her heart.
Seeing her finally standing before me was like a balm to a bad burn. The fact that she’d been so close and felt she couldn’t come to me? That she’d been in trouble, or her best friend had been, and she hadn’t asked for help? It only cemented my resolve.
I’d watched this incredibly stubborn woman walk away from me once. She was not getting away a second time.
I gripped her chin tightly in my fist, ensuring she couldn’t look away from me. “Because you’re mine,” I snarled, letting her hear all the pent-up anger raging inside me.
Her mouth opened in a gasp, but I sealed it closed again with a passionate and possessive kiss. Lu might be determined enough not to believe my words, but I’ll be damned if she didn’t feel the declaration in my lips.
Mine.