Chapter 36
Ash
I’ve got a nosebleed.
“Shit.” I lean my head back, pinching the bridge of my nose.
I try to tilt my head to the side, so that I can keep staring at Scarlett in Widow’s purple Stingray.
Bleeding like this in the middle of her race is inconvenient and annoying to me.
The woman I love is about to achieve her dream and I’m dribbling all over my white sweatshirt?
“Please don’t tell me you’ve been hiding a secret, incurable illness,” Adrian grumbles, tearing a grease rag from his pocket and tossing it over to me.
I catch it as Alexei shudders and lunges toward me, using gloved hands to pry the rag away from me.
I’m doused with hand sanitizer and then given his silk tie like it’s a cheap handkerchief.
“There’s oil on that rag.” Alexei frowns, replacing his gloves but keeping his attention on the race.
All three of us are bothered by having to entertain Emma Jean today.
All three of us are even more bothered by the massive, heaving crowd that surrounds the track.
The people outside, too, my father’s supporters or paid lackeys or whatever they are.
“It’s not hygienic or even safe to rub chemicals like that on your skin. ”
“There are clean parts.” Widow lifts up the rag, revealing plenty of bright white amongst the dirt.
“It’s fine, if you use a clean part. Besides, it’s not like he’s got an open wound.
It’s just a nosebleed.” I’m given a nasty, wolf-eyed look over one shoulder, seated one row behind Widow.
We’ve got more than enough seats in our box to choose from.
Bohnes pops out of a hidden door on one side of the box, some special fire exit or something.
He stays in the shadows, arms crossed, and sneaks a peek at the race through the glass at the front of the open box.
No roof. The roar of the crowd is all around us, the smell of rubber on asphalt, the cutting December wind.
“Oh? Scarlett’s winning? What an upset, my God.
” Bohnes sniffs the air and then whips his head around to narrow his eyes on me, like he scented the blood all over my chest and it summoned him.
I smile back, thinking of the frog stuffie and the necklace I’m wearing that’s made out of Trish’s bone. “Why are you bleeding?”
“Why does it feel like I’m in trouble?” I mumble, swiping at the blood with Alexei’s gold tie.
He has one leg crossed over the other, jiggling his foot in impatience.
We all know that Scarlett is going to win.
It’s mostly about what happens after the race, with Burt and Jonas.
Jonas. More blood drips from my nose, spat-spat-spattering against the back of my left hand and obscuring the ink of my wedding ring.
Ominous.
I lift my eyes up and turn them in the direction of Jonas’ box, only to have Widow’s hard fingers on my chin, forcing me to look away.
“Parking space,” he snaps, using the word freely now that Scarlett’s done the same. I will never use that word, not with these people—minus Emma Jean.
“Go, Scarlett, go!” she cheers, shaking some pom-poms that she got from one of Scarlett’s girls.
We ignore her.
I’ve got Bohnes, Widow, and Alexei all staring at me right now.
“You are in trouble.” Alexei sighs heavily, picking at the latex on his hand. “You’ve given yourself a nosebleed by obsessing over Jonas.”
I chuckle at that, wiping at the blood again and succeeding only in smearing it.
“You’re probably right.” I stare down at the dirty tie, stained with red.
I’ve never been happier—never been happy, period—in my entire life.
Here I am, wishing I could stay in this space forever and I’m fucking terrified.
I’ve never been this scared because I’ve never had this much to lose.
“I suppose…it’s just…I’m not sure that you three, or even Scarlett, I’m not sure any of you truly understand that man. ”
In the pattern of my spilled blood, I find a barrage of memories that I wish I could wipe away.
I keep telling myself that we’re almost there, that if Burt agrees that we’ve damaged Jonas’ reputation enough, he’ll take care of the arrest. It won’t be like a normal arrest or trial or imprisonment, but something dirty and mob sanctioned.
After the conviction, my father won’t have enough connections left to hurt me.
He probably won’t last long behind bars either.
So close. We’re so close. We’re—
More blood and then Widow is cursing and forcing me to tip my head back.
“I should get going.” Bohnes presses a hand to his chest, staring down at the track with heavy-lidded blue eyes.
“I just wanted to see my beloved undertaker race.” With a romantic sigh, he edges back through the hidden door and disappears.
I wish I could go with him, but we all agreed well in advance that if Jonas is around, I should be as publicly visible as possible.
“One more lap,” Alexei says casually, legs still crossed, gloved hands resting on his knee.
There’s some disconnected chant from the protesters in the parking lot that’s getting caught up in the wild murmur and electricity of the spectators. Emma Jean is shaking her pom-poms, drawing a glare from Widow. The crowd roars in anticipation of Scarlett’s inevitable win.
“The hell am I going to do with you?” Widow mops me up as best he can and then puts a hand on the side of my neck, touching me in a way and in a place that I wouldn’t let most people touch me.
He can feel the frantic galloping of my pulse, like my heart is trying to keep up with the cars.
It’s loud here, and oh so very crowded. I’m overwhelmed and nervous, edgy and unsettled.
“Yesterday was the best day of my entire life,” I blurt, and then it happens.
The it that I was suspecting.
Jonas, and the obsession that seems to run in the Kelly blood.
An explosion rocks the track, erupting just as the front tires of the Stingray hit the finish line.
Heat, flame, and falling.
There’s a blip in my memory, a gap that’s too long and somehow instant, all at once.
I’m awake with a bloody nose and then I’m lying in a pile of rubble and bodies, coughing and trying to figure out how I got there. My ears are ringing, and my leg is trapped underneath a body. Alexei? Widow? I can’t see.
Where the fuck is Scarlett?! Oh, God. My beautiful wife. Where is my fucking wife?!
“Here he is,” a voice murmurs, hooking big hands under my armpits and tugging me through the debris in the direction of a waiting ambulance.
My head is rolling around, loose on my neck.
Did I fall out of the box? That’s my first addled, smoke-choked thought.
I can taste blood and grit on my tongue. There’s no pain, not yet.
I’m lifted up and into the back of the ambulance, bright lights and sterile walls replacing the chaos around me. If I fell, where did all the other people come from? They were everywhere, some of them with signs. Twisted limbs. Blood. Screams and moaning.
It hits me too slowly, a dreary, tired thought surfacing from the bottom of my broken brain.
Jonas did this.
A needle goes into my arm, injecting me with something that clouds my mind and limbs immediately.
I’m not paralyzed, but I can’t move. I’m still awake, but I’m not coherent.
Incapacitated, that’s what I am. Lifted and strapped onto a gurney by two men wearing crisp blue shirts and navy trousers.
They look like paramedics, but they’re probably not.
One of them grabs me by the chin, the move contrasting sharply with the feel of Widow’s fingers grabbing me just a few…seconds?…minutes?…earlier. The guy holds his phone up, like he’s recording me. He tucks it away a few seconds later and then exits via the vehicle’s back doors.
I’m left with the second man, alone and strapped down with drugs in my veins. I’m so disoriented that I haven’t even been able to put together a thought for Bohnes. Oh, Kellin, do you think that dead body on my legs was really Alexei or Widow?
Scarlett is…thank God she was nowhere near me today. Maybe she’s okay?
No, my wife. Where is my wife? Can she live without me?
She might have to.
My worst nightmare, the absolute most terrifying thing that could ever happen to me is if someone I love suffered because of me. I can’t bear that. I don’t want that.
“Ah, shit, you can’t have that,” the man says, standing up and grabbing the hilt of my sword.
He pulls it free of the sheath with a shing of metal.
He looks at it for a few seconds and then briefly opens one of the back doors to chuck it outside, like he’s nervous to leave me with a weapon of any kind.
Jonas must’ve warned his men about me properly this time.
The sword. Scarlett.
I prepare myself for the inevitable torture I’m about to experience. When I agreed to live for Scarlett, when I allowed myself to hope and be happy, I knew deep down that this was still a very likely possibility.
All Bohnes had to do was hold on, Ash. That’s it. Don’t give up yet.
So I don’t. I keep it together long enough to realize that hope is fucking pointless.