His Young Queen: (Steel Jackals MC #1) (2 page)

It was just over a week later when cracks began forming in the thick hovering clouds, and light began to seep into Tish’s dark world.

It was Saturday afternoon, and she was reading a book Mrs. Reed had given her. She didn’t understand much of it because the words were big, but she had a dictionary beside her and she’d stop every little while to look stuff up, just like her teacher had taught her. She was just getting back to reading after having wasted a few minutes searching the word “Heathcliff”—not realizing that was the boy’s name in the book—when she heard a heavy knock on the door. Rachel had left without a word not long ago so Tish put her book down.

She went over and pulled the door open, and looked up, and up, to meet a pair of eyes that were honest-to-God gold. She and the giant stared at each other for a few seconds, him frowning, her in awe.

“You didn’t even ask who I was before you opened the door,” he said in a disapproving tone that was a low rumble.

Tish didn’t look away from those gold eyes. She knew adults didn’t like it when you looked away when they were speaking to you. “Who are you?”

His eyebrow moved up. “Josh Sylvan.” He put his hand out. “But my boys call me The Guardian. Your uncle sent me over to sit with you until your mom comes home.”

She shook his huge, colorful hand and stepped aside so he could enter the apartment. To sit with her? She didn’t need anyone to sit with her. Why would her uncle think she did?

“If I come by another time, and that door opens without you asking who’s on the other side of it, I’m not gonna like it. You got me?”

“Okay.”

His big feet made solid thuds when he walked. She followed him into the living room and watched him look around. He picked up the book she was reading and flipped through it.

“You reading this?”

“Yes.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Our old landlady gave it to me last week. She said she finished it and didn’t want it back. She said I could keep it.”

He put it down. “Kind of heavy for a little kid to be reading, isn’t it?”

“Then I guess it’s lucky I’m not a little kid,” she said, completely serious.

He gave her a sidelong look. And then he smiled. “We’ll see about that.”

Tish O’Malley fell in love right then and there. She fell in love with her Uncle Nick’s best friend as a ten-year-old girl would her protector, and never would know when that love began growing, transforming into something deep and everlasting.

Over the next few years, for the first time in her life, Tish experienced a continuous stream of something most people took for granted; happiness. Josh, her defender, babysitter, playmate, and best friend in the world, became her beacon of joy and peace and everything good. He sheltered her from her mother’s poison and gave her a sense of security she’d never had before. He became her sounding board, the first she’d ever had. He listened when she talked, and seemed genuinely interested in her problems, big or small. He was gentle and patient and fun, but he could also be stern and unyielding and wasn’t afraid to give her shit when she deserved it, which wasn’t often. But best of all, he was always there.

Until the day he left.

Jumping off the bus at the corner, Tish raced up the sidewalk wearing the McDonald’s uniform she hated. No one looked good in a McDonald’s uniform, but today she was particularly resentful of it and her job because both had kept her away from where she really wanted to be. Where she was coming to feel she
needed
to be. With Josh.

She turned the corner, aiming for the Steel Jackals’ clubhouse where he’d promised to meet her. He wanted to know about the marks she’d received from the summer school classes she’d taken to be ahead when she started her junior year the following month. She’d be sixteen in a few weeks and was already working toward qualifying for scholarships so she could go to college, at Josh’s urging.

She almost tripped when she saw flashing lights ahead. Her heart seized and then started hammering. Police cars. Oh…no.
Please not one of mine
, she thought as she ran as fast as she could the remaining half block and rudely pushed through the group of onlookers watching a police officer walk someone to one of the patrol cars.
Please not Josh or Uncle Nick, please not Josh or Uncle Nick—

Her legs nearly gave out when she saw who it was.

Josh. Handcuffed.

“No!”
she gasped, her blood turning to ice. “Josh!” She dropped her backpack, purse, and the sealed envelope containing her marks on the driveway and ran to him on legs she could no longer feel. “No! What are you doing?” She grabbed the cop’s arm and jerked. “You can’t take him! He’s mine!”

“Aw, fuck.” Josh’s whisper was tight with regret, and she saw more of the same when he turned. His forehead had a deep crease, and his jaw was ticking. “Gimme a second,” he said to the cop, who had to have seen she was having trouble catching her breath through the horror pouring through her. He and Josh exchanged a look. They obviously knew each other.

“Take these off of him,” she wheezed, trying to get some oxygen into her lungs as she swiped at the tears blurring her vision. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Tish—”

“You didn’t, though,” she insisted, even though she had no clue what this was about. She just knew they couldn’t take her happiness away from her. “Please take these off,” she begged the cop as she tried to stop the metal of the cuffs from digging into Josh’s thick wrists. “
Please!
They’re hurting him!”

“Don’t be long, man,” the officer muttered with a sympathetic look before walking over to stand a few feet away.

“No! Two min— No! I can’t— What? Josh!”

“Hey. Hey! Look at me. Right here.” He bobbed his head to get in her line of vision. Feeling a panic unlike anything she’d ever felt, she looked up into those golden eyes she so loved. “This is happening,” he said calmly. “You need to take a breath and relax before this goes from bad to worse. If one of these cops thinks to pull you away from me, shit’s gonna get critical real fast. Got it?”

She shook her head and looked around for someone she could talk to. Someone who would listen to her, help her.

“Tish-Tosh.”

His nickname for her—one he thought she hated, but really, secretly loved—had her focus coming right back to him.

“You’re gonna be okay, honey. I won’t be in long. Nick will take—”

“
No!
You’re not going anywhere!” she wailed. “You can’t! You’re mine, and I need you here!”

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, looking pained. He tipped his head back and glared up at the sky. “Two fuckin’ minutes? You couldn’t have given me two fuckin’ minutes to save her from this?” When he brought his head to rights, he looked into her eyes, and then his expression closed up in that way she hated. “Get her out of here. This isn’t good for her.”

“What?” Her head whipped around, and she saw her Uncle Nick and the club’s VP right behind her. A large group of the others, all wearing their cuts, weren’t far behind. Silent support. Always. “No! I’m not going anywhere! You have to do something, Uncle Nick,” she implored as she clamped her arms around Josh’s waist and held on for her life. “This can’t be happening. Please tell me this isn’t happening,” she whispered fiercely.

The next few minutes were a blur of pain and misery that Tish still wasn’t sure how she survived. It took both Nick and Chase to peel her off Josh, and once they were separated the cop rushed to open the back door to the squad car. He put his hand on Josh’s head and tucked that huge body into the backseat. When he shut the door, Tish went wild and started screaming.

Only, in reality, she had stilled, and not a sound was coming from her. The screams were deafening, but they were buried deep in her head. In her heart. Tearing apart her soul.

“He’ll be out before you know it, Tish,” Nick whispered, his voice rough with something that sounded like guilt.

She shook her head and disengaged herself from his arms. Taking one step toward her sun, she absorbed the intense, regretful look in his gold eyes, and for the first time in her life whispered the words, “I love you.”

Only once. She didn’t shout them. She didn’t repeat them. She said them once. Then calmly stood there and watched until her life disappeared down the street.

A few hours later, she was sitting on one of the puffy couches next to the pool table in the clubhouse, frozen to the bone. Nick had gone to the bathroom, leaving her alone for the first time since they’d taken Josh away. What did he think she was going to do? Kill herself? She made a soft sound. No. That would be silly. She couldn’t be with Josh if she were dead. She couldn’t visit him. Couldn’t wait for him. Be here for him when he came home. Right now she simply needed her questions answered. Why wouldn’t anyone tell her why he’d been arrested?

She looked over when she saw what she thought was Chase’s dog rushing to her. But it wasn’t Nom, it was Rachel, hunched over, as though trying to hide in plain view. There was no one left to hide from. Everyone had gone home except for her, Nick, Chase, and two of the other guys.

When Rachel landed on her knees at Tish’s feet, she jumped, startled.

“I’m sorry,” her mom whispered, eyes wild because she was high. “I’m sorry.” The repeated whisper was eerie, and it raised the hair on Tish’s nape, but she nodded anyway, accepting her mother’s idea of condolences even though they didn’t mean much right then.

“I didn’t mean to take him away from you. I know how close you are. Sorrysorrysorry…”

The bottom fell out of Tish’s stomach. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t mean it. It was an
accident
!” her mom hissed. “I grabbed his jacket and put it on to go down the street to make a buy. I thought it was my brother’s!” She glanced behind her, as though afraid someone might catch her tattling. “When I came in, I tossed the jacket but forgot my shit in the pocket because I took a bump outside. When the cops landed with the warrant and pushed us all to the side, I was too scared to grab my stash ’cause I bought a double load this time and I wouldn’t have made it to the door without them seein’ me, right?”

Tish sat there, her eyes wide, her heart barely beating as she listened to this selfish, horrible person try to excuse her appalling behavior.

“When the cops waved the jacket around, and Josh put his hand up to claim it, I almost fuckin’ died. Then they took my stash out of the pocket, well, I couldn’t say anything
then
! You wouldn’t have either! And…and he didn’t even seem to care!” She was talking fast and no longer whispering now because she’d spotted Nick and Chase crossing over to them from the back hallway. Both men looked livid. “Ask anyone! You know what he said? You know what that asshole said?” She deepened her voice to imitate Josh. “
‘Better me than you. Go home and take care of Tish.’
Like I need
him
to tell me how to take care of my kid.”

As her uncle and his VP descended and all but dragged Rachel away, it was at that moment, after everything they’d been through, that Tish’s love for her mother finally died.

Three Years Later

Tish waved to her co-worker as he took off down the street with a chirp of his tires. Couldn’t get away fast enough. Seemed Brian’s girlfriend had just texted him to hurry home because she “needed him”. Tish, who’d known them both since seventh grade, would have been totally insulted had he not told her why he was dropping her on the corner rather than in front of her driveway the way he normally did. Instead, she was amused. Sex ruled. Or so she’d heard.

She didn’t allow herself to dwell on why, at nearly twenty, she didn’t know personally. She couldn’t go there tonight. She felt weepy. Maybe her period was coming.

She took in a useless lungful of hot air and cursed her uniform. It wasn’t the synthetic McDonald’s nightmare she used to wear, but the butt-hugging shorts and small black T-shirt with “Bubba’s” emblazoned across the front were fabric, and that fabric was already sticking to her because it was Arizona in August. Blowing her hair off her forehead, she aimed for home.

She looked up at the stars as she walked, her boot heels clicking. She hated August. But wouldn’t always. In two years, it would be her favorite month. She looked forward to that particular August the same way she used to look forward to Sundays. She hated Sundays now, too. But wouldn’t always. When he came home, they might become her favorite day.

As a truck drove past, and she neared the house her uncle had moved her into, rent-free, shortly after Josh had gone away, the cold anger that now lived within her bubbled up to make her eyes sting and her throat ache. She missed him. God, how she missed him. She wanted him to come home so badly it was a constant physical pain in her chest. She wanted him never to have left her. She wanted her mother to change places with him. It was
Rachel
who should be behind bars, serving a five-year sentence for illegal possession of a controlled substance, not Josh. But, no. Rachel was roaming free, shooting up and hopping from one dealer’s bed to the next, happily feeding her addictions. While Josh remained locked away, alone, his freedom gone for something he’d had nothing to do with.

She pursed her lips as she reached her house and stood looking up at the darkened residence. He wouldn’t be alone every single day if he would change his stubborn-ass mind and allow her to come to the prison. But he wouldn’t, and she didn’t know why. The only person who might know was her uncle, and he was too loyal to say shit. Nick was grumpy lately. Maybe his new responsibilities were piling up—he’d been honored with a VP patch eighteen months ago when, Chase, the previous VP was patched President.

Yawning, she got her ass in gear and dragged her feet up the walkway. She might sleep in tomorrow. Time passed when she was asleep. She didn’t work until seven, which was unusual. Her normal shift on Saturdays was four until close. It was a long day, but she could always use the tips, which was why, if it wouldn’t interfere with school, she took any hours offered. She’d just started back for her final semester at the local community college and didn’t want anything to get in the way of her finishing.