3. Deacon
DEACON
“So? What’s the verdict?” Deadlock asked.
“She just needs time,” Dallas said as he slinked in behind me. “It’s a lot to process, but I don’t think she’s sold yet on the idea that this woman is after her, specifically.”
“Can’t say I am, either,” Mace said with a nod of his head.
“You good, Deac?” Rat asked.
I snapped. “Do I fucking look good to you, Rat!?”
He shrugged. “Not my cup of tea, but?—”
I lunged at the man as he chuckled, yet all I wanted to do was smack that motherfucking grin off his face.
“Come here, you son of a bitch,” I growled.
Dallas slammed his hands against my chest. “Deac, settle down. This isn’t doing anyone a damn bit of good.”
I shoved him out of the way. “You think this is funny? Huh!?”
“Deac,” Plug said as he stepped up to Rat’s side, “maybe we need to?—”
I ripped away from Dallas and shoved my finger into that fucker’s face. “You don’t call the shots around here. I do. No one tells me to settle down when my men are being picked off and some fucking no good, useless little bitch keeps getting the better of us.”
“Deacon,” Dallas said.
I whipped around to face him. “What? What the fuck do you want!?”
Gauge’s voice was the next to sound as his heavy footfalls padded down the hallway. “Guys?”
I snarled. “What is it now?”
“Hey,” Dallas barked, grabbing my attention. “Enough. It’s been enough.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as Gauge came around the corner. “Uh, you guys okay?”
“Yeah,” I said as I eyed Dallas hotly, “what do you need?”
Gauge thumbed over his shoulder in my peripheral vision. “Char’s pretty rough right now. I’m sure she’d appreciate some creature comforts from her place. So who’s taking her to get them?”
Finally, something I could execute. “I’ll go.”
Dallas grabbed my arm. “Are you sure you’re in a position?—”
But it was Rat who pulled his grip away from me before I snapped his goddamn arm off his body. “Let him go. He needs the time away.”
“I think she might, too,” Gauge said honestly.
I looked around the room at my men. My disheveled, wide-eyed, angry-faced men. They were hungry for blood. Starving for money. Ready to put all of this behind us. Never again. Never again would we get so fucking comfortable that someone could pull the wool over our eyes like they did.
My men deserved better than that.
Char deserved better than that.
“So?” Gauge asked.
I rolled my shoulders and turned my sights toward the hallway. “Leave it to me. I’ll make sure she gets what she needs.”
“It’s not safe for the two of you to go alone right now,” Dallas said as I exited the room. “There should be someone else with you guys if?—”
“Then get a motherfucking move on!” I bellowed. “Gauge!?”
“She’s in her room upstairs!” he called out.
I heard Dallas fall in line behind me. “I’m gonna get some blankets and pillows for the back of the van. I’m assuming she won’t wanna sit up for the ride.”
I harrumphed and waved my hand in the air as I practically stormed toward the steps.
Her sniffles drew me toward her, one after the other until I found her precious little body curled up beneath the mountain of blankets on her bed.
I listened as her tears freely fell. I listened as her nose tried to clean itself, over and over again.
She deserved more than those tears. More than the heartache we brought into her world.
Char had been through so much in her life, and now we added to her fucking plate.
She deserves better than us. “Knock, knock.”
She sighed as she turned over. “What?”
I leaned against the doorframe. “We hear you need some things from your apartment.”
I watched the comforter flutter around a bit until one of her red, puffy eyes came into view.
The sadness in it alone shattered my world.
“You okay to travel?” I asked as I tilted my head.
She pulled the comforter up a bit more, showcasing her red, apple-peaked cheeks. “We’re really going?”
I walked over to the bed and pulled the blanket off her head. “If you want.”
She nodded. “Yes, please.”
“Then,” I said as I dipped my arms down and scooped them beneath her body, “come on, little one. Dallas is getting the van prepped for transport.”
Feeling her crying against my chest was the most helpless feeling in the entire world.
More helpless than when Gauge dragged me out of that goddamn bunker in the middle of the desert.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think some woman from a bar would completely wrap me around her fingers, yet as she gripped my shirt and sobbed against my heart, the only thing I thought about was getting her life back on track.
Making her smile again. Getting her back to work so that she felt purposeful again.
Even if it cost me in the process.
Dallas kept talking to us, spouting all sorts of nonsense and talking about drinks, for whatever reason.
But I was too preoccupied. It took everything inside of me not to put Char down and go on a rampage, destroying everything in my path until I found that motherfucking woman.
She deserved to die. She deserved to die the same way she killed Bait.
After Gauge took his time with her, of course.
“There,” I said as I slid Char into the back of the van that Dallas made up with pillows and blankets, “you should be comfortable while we travel.”
She immediately pulled the first blanket she touched over her head. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem at all,” Dallas said.
I understood now why he talked about drinks. Dallas went all out for her back-of-the-van travels. Pillows and blankets, yeah. But also a cooler full of snacks and drinks. I smelled grapes and bread. Something steamed from behind the cooler, and I had to resist the urge to look.
“We goin’ on a picnic or some shit?” I asked as I peeked over at the man.
But he simply shrugged. “Didn’t know if she’d want any of it while we were traveling.”
“Deac?” Char asked through her broken breathing.
“Yes, little one?” I asked.
She patted the small space beside her. “Will you ride back here with me? Please?”
Dallas patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I got the wheel.”
I didn’t hesitate to climb in. “Whatever you need, little one.”
The space in the van wasn’t nearly enough to fit us side by side.
But the instant I sat down, she crawled into my lap.
She snaked that effortless body of hers between my legs and laid her head against my chest. I never felt so powerful.
I wrapped my arms around her, and suddenly it gave me purpose.
I held my head high as she continued crying against my clothes, and it filled me with a need I lacked when it came to chasing this woman down.
I wanted vengeance. I wanted retribution. I wanted justice.
However, I needed Char to be safe.
The ride was silent. Nothing was heard except the rumbling of the tires against the desert floor and asphalt roads.
Every time we got jostled, I held her closer.
Every time she wiped her nose along my shirt, I bent down and kissed the top of her head.
She felt so tiny in my arms. Like a little porcelain doll about to fall off the top shelf of a display case.
I stroked my fingers mindlessly through her hair and tried to remember the last time I sat still long enough to feel anything.
It had been a while.
She shifted in my lap. Not trying to get away.
Just adjusting, tucking herself closer, her cheek pressing harder against my chest like she was trying to get inside of it.
My arm tightened around her without me deciding to do it.
My body made the decision before my mind caught up, which was something Char did to me constantly and I still hadn’t figured out how to stop.
I didn’t want to stop.
That was the part that got me.
“Deac.” Her voice was barely a sound. Just my name, soft and worn out.
“Still here,” I said.
She made a small noise against my chest. Not words. Just something that meant she heard me, and it was enough.
I kept my hand moving through her hair. Slow.
Deliberate. I watched the desert roll past the van windows in the dark and thought about the version of myself that existed before she walked into Bottle Grounds with that look on her face like she already knew we were going to be a problem.
That version of me didn’t hold women in the back of vans.
Didn’t kiss the tops of their heads when they cried on his shirt.
Didn’t sit still in the dark cataloguing the way they breathed.
That version of me was easier to be.
I bent my head and pressed my lips to her hair. Just held them there for a moment. She went very still beneath my mouth.
Then she tilted her head back.
I should’ve looked away. I didn’t.
Her eyes found mine in the low light of the van and something passed between us that I didn’t have the language for and didn’t need.
I’d spent my whole life learning when to take what I wanted and when to hold back.
I was good at reading rooms. Reading people.
Reading the exact weight of a moment before I moved inside of it.
This one said: *now.*
I cupped the side of her face. She didn’t pull back. She just watched me with those wide winter eyes of hers and I’d be a liar if I said my hands were steady when I tilted her chin up.
“Deac,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said.
And I kissed her.
It wasn’t the kind of kiss I’d given her before.
It wasn’t a show of force or a claiming.
It was slow, and deep, and it cost me something I wasn’t prepared to give up.
Her hand found the front of my shirt. She held on.
And I kissed her until the van went over a rough patch of road and we broke apart, and I pressed my forehead to hers and just stayed there.
Her breathing was unsteady. So was mine.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” I said.
She let out a soft breath of a laugh. “Yeah?”
“Don’t push it.”
She laughed for real at that. A small one, half air, but it was genuine and I felt it all the way through me. I pulled her back against my chest and she came willingly. Settled herself right back into place like that was exactly where she was supposed to be.
I thought about stopping there. I thought about being the kind of man who exercised restraint.
Then her hand slid up my chest and she turned her face into my neck and I felt her mouth against my skin, and restraint became a distant memory.
“Char.” Her name came out low. A warning I didn’t mean.
“I know,” she murmured against my throat. “I know. I just—I don’t want to think.”
I caught her jaw in my hand and tilted her face up. Looked at her for a long moment in the dark.
“Dallas is twenty feet away,” I said.
She held my stare. “Then you’d better be quiet.”
Something snapped loose inside of me.
I shifted her in my lap and heard her sharp intake of breath as she felt exactly what she did to me.
She bit down on her lower lip and I watched that happen and decided I was done being reasonable.
I pulled her mouth back to mine, harder this time, and her hands went to my shoulders and she kissed me back with everything she had and goddamn it, I was in so much trouble.
My hands moved over her. Slowly. Learning her.
She made a soft sound against my mouth and my jaw clenched with the effort of keeping myself quiet, keeping myself measured, keeping the whole thing from barreling somewhere we couldn’t come back from in the back of a van on a desert road with Dallas up front.
I pulled back just enough to breathe.
“When we get back,” I said. Low. Just for her.
She searched my face. “When we get back, what?”
I held her stare. “We finish this.”
The color that rose up her neck told me everything I needed to know. She settled back against me, her hand pressed flat against my chest over my heartbeat, and I kept my arm locked around her as the van rumbled on through the dark.
I pressed my lips to her temple and kept them there.
I wasn’t a patient man.
For her, I’d learn.
I stroked my fingers mindlessly through her hair until the van came to a stop.
“We’re here,” Dallas said as he cut the engine to the vehicle.
Char simply sighed at his words as I shifted.
With my arm wrapped around her, I glided us toward the exit where the first harsh light of sunrise seemed to beam directly into our eye sockets.
Char winced, her hand searching for a blanket before she found the hem of my leather jacket and pulled it over her head.
It made me chuckle as I sat there, holding her in my lap.
“Dallas, keep an eye out,” I said.
He nodded before he disappeared around the side of the van. “Got it.”
I dipped my lips down to Char’s ear. “You ready?”
She sighed heavily. “Can you just wait outside or something? I just need a few minutes inside.”
I paused. “That woman could be anywhere right now.”
She scoffed as she pulled away from me and slid off my lap. “Then by all means, lock down the space. But I’ve been surrounded by people for what feels like weeks when I’m used to being alone. I just need a minute to collect myself.”
I didn’t like that thought. I didn’t want to leave her in that apartment by herself, especially when that woman knew exactly where it was.
But who the hell was I to deny her the privacy she wanted?
We headed up the wrought iron steps and I used my landlord key to unlock the door.
I shot Char a look, telling her to stay put until I cleared every corner, closet, and piece of furniture in her place.
I took my time, running my hands along the underside of countertops and searching things like her cookie jar and her shower for cameras.
Nothing was found in my sweep, though.
“Dallas and I will be out here once you’re done,” I said as I stepped back out onto the small concrete porch. “Take all the time you need, but I’ll check on you if you’re not out in twenty minutes.”
“Thanks,” Char said softly as she slipped past me.
And as she made her way inside, easing the door closed behind her, Dallas came trotting to the bottom of the steps.
“Everything good?” he asked.
I clasped my hands in front of me. “She just needs some time, and I think she’s earned that time. Don’t you?”
“Hell yeah, she has.”
I pointed back toward the van. “Go keep watch. She shouldn’t be long.”
I started the countdown in my head. Twenty minutes and then we had to leave. It was already a risk, splitting the core group up just to bring her back here. But it went on much longer than we anticipated. It was much more complicated than any of us could have predicted.
And I couldn’t leave my men vulnerable for long.