Red (Black #2) (8 page)

“You were
the druggie
?” I remember Savannah telling me I fucked a druggie. I look at her carefully, she doesn’t seem the type to be an addict. She’s a good person, I can feel it emanating from her.

“Yes.”

“And I fucked a druggie?” I question her. That does not sound like me. I would
not
touch a druggie girl, they’re nothing but issues. Her head swings around, she’s angry with me, and I think I like it.

“You didn’t fuck a druggie, you fucked me. Someone you couldn’t stay away from, someone you would’ve killed anyone to protect. I am
that
person, Black, that’s me. You and me, you see… we’re our own fucked up mess, but what a beautiful fucked up mess we were.”

“Fucked up, mess,” I mutter.

Her hands are on my chest, she touched my chest in anger when she said the word
fucked
. “It wasn’t easy,” she says, sitting down now. She doesn’t even move the toys that litter her couch. “No matter how much we weren’t meant to be, we had to be.” She looks up to me, tears now in her eyes. “Does that make sense to you?”

I shake my head, none of it does.

“Can I touch you?” she asks.

I don’t answer her straight away. It’s a weird question to ask, why would she ask that? I nod my head and she gets up and slowly walks to me. Her hands are light when they touch my chest like she’s being very cautious. Her eyes won’t look at mine, they watch her own hands.

“You let this woman touch you?” Still no eye contact, both hands are now on my chest.

“Yes.”

“That h-hurts me t-the most,” her voice breaks as she speaks.

“Why?”

Her beautiful blue eyes finally look to mine. Sadness covers them. “No one was allowed to touch you. Except me.” I grab her then, pull her body into my chest. She cries harder, I can feel the wetness from her eyes seeping through my shirt. I pick her up, cradle her, and carry her to the couch. She clings to me, sobbing on me. This would make me highly uncomfortable, it would make me dizzily angry to the point where I black out—nothing shows weakness more than tears.

She stays on me, her dress is ridden up from me picking her up. Her soft pale skin on display, so close to exposing her beautiful ass. I stay the exact way I am, not moving. She eventually calms down, and when I move her to check on her, I find her asleep. I shift her from me completely, place a pillow under her head and walk out. As I do a young man stands at the door, obviously watching. He’s tall, with short blond hair, and he smiles brightly at me.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he says, he looks around at Red, then back to me. A school bag is linked over his shoulder. I nod my head at him and walk past, he stops me as I get to the car.

“Can I get a lift?” I recognize him from Red’s photos. He must be hers, but how? He looks too old to be one of hers. I nod my head and he climbs in, smiling at me.

I drive for a while, waiting for him to talk, to tell me where to go. But no words leave his mouth. “Where to?”

“Back home, Mr. Black.” I look to him then press my foot on the brake hard.

“You know me?”

He smiles, nodding his head. “And I thank you, Mr. Black.”

He’s odd, just like the woman. I don’t bother asking anything more, no one seems to give me what I really need. Hell, I don’t even know what I really need. Though, I have a feeling it comes with long blonde hair and see-through blue eyes.

“I want you to tell me a secret” Her voice pulls me from my thoughts as I speak to her on the phone.

“A secret?” I question.
Why is she odd?

“Yes. Tell me a secret no one knows. I want to be the only one to hold it.”

I start to think what I should tell her because I have no fucking idea. “I like it when the blackness takes over,” I say, she laughs through the phone.

“I knew that. That’s why you were so good at your job. Now Black, tell me a secret, make it good, and I will tell you one, too.”

“I dream of you, I’ve always dreamed of you.” I hear her intake of breath. “Just not your face… but it was always you.”

“I’ve missed you,” her voice is so small, if I didn’t have the phone glued to my ear, I wouldn’t have heard her.

“I can’t say the same.”

She doesn’t respond straight away, making me think she has hung up, and I have to check the phone to make sure she’s still there. “What are you doing for work?”

“I kill people.”

“No, no… How? How are you doing that? Again?”

“Again?” I want to know what she means.

“That’s what your job was, that’s what you did. How are you still doing that, and not remember who you were?”

“Tell me, tell me about who I was?”

“Can I come to you?”

“Yes, I’m at the hotel.” I hear her shuffling, then talking to someone in the background.

“I’ll be there soon,” she says then cuts off the phone. Just as I place it down, a knock comes at the door, and when I open it a short brunette stands there, her face is flushed, her fists are scrunched—she’s definitely not a happy camper.

“Black,” she huffs out walking past me. She’s heavily pregnant, her belly pushes me out of the way when she enters. Her face is flushed, her cheeks red. She stands in front of me once I close the door, her finger pointing at my chest.

“What game you playing at?” Her finger does it again, pushing into my chest. If she weren’t so heavily pregnant, I would probably kick her ass out the door. I don’t answer her, just stand there, watching her pointy chubby finger dig into my chest.

“If you hurt her, pregnant or not, I will slice you in your sleep. You get me?” Her hands move in a motion of cutting her neck. I want to laugh. Is she a joke? “I can see you think I’m a joke. I am, after all, nothing compared to the big and scary Black. But be warned, you broke her, broke her fucking well and good, and if you do so again, I
will
break you.” Her hands finally drop to the side, then our heads swing to the door at the same time, because there’s another knock.

“Fuck, he found me.” Her body relaxes, so I know it’s not a threat to her. She waddles to the door and pulls it open, Sax stands there with shades covering his eyes. He looks to me, tenses, then back to the brunette, then relaxes.

“I told you to stay out of it, woman,” he says walking in, touching her hip—the wife I realize. Her nose scrunches up at him. “I can do what I want.”

Sax shakes his head and leans down and kisses the top of hers. “She didn’t pull a knife on you did she?” he asks, and the brunette hits his chest while he laughs.

“You took it away from me,” she whines.

Who the fuck are these people?

“Brother.” He nods his head, guiding his wife away. She looks back at me and pins me with a cold hard stare, one I think is meant to intimidate me. But does no such thing.

The door opens, and she’s there. No not Red, Savannah. The brunette looks her up and down. Sax tries to guide her out with a hand to her back, the look she gives Savannah is anything but nice, but Savannah doesn’t care, she simply smiles at her like she doesn’t give two shits.

“Trace,” she says, as they leave and shut the door behind them.

Why the fuck is she here?
This bitch has a few screws loose. She steps closer to me, inching herself into my personal space. I don’t want her here, she comes with lies. Nothing but lies.

“You need to come home… please come home?”

I hear a woman’s voice, it’s sultry, unlike mine. I look to the door again. Checking the number on the hotel room door, confirming that it’s his. So why did he say I can come over if there’s a woman inside? I stand there, unsure of what I should be doing. Jake wanted to come, maybe I should have let him. So I don’t have to face this alone. Except, I’ve always loved alone time with Liam. It’s completely different now, but somehow and in some ways, it’s still the same.

Knocking on the door because I can’t stand here any longer, I either have to do it, to see him or walk away. Which is impossible to do, I could never walk away from him, even when I was sixteen.

“I can’t, I won’t go with you.” My voice was raised, my mother getting angrier, my temper high, and she knew it.

“You don’t have a choice, Rose. This is what’s best for us. You can’t stay here anymore, that boy is no good for you.” I scoffed at her. Really? She didn’t even know him. She had heard, though, people talked in a town that was small. I was now associated with the bad boy, someone I shouldn’t have been socializing with. But who were they to tell me so?

“I won’t go, you can’t make me go. He needs me, I need him.” I was on the verge of tears, she couldn’t take me away, she wouldn’t take me away from him.

“You don’t have a say!” She stepped closer to me, her hand brushing my face. “He is just a phase, darling, you’ll soon forget about him.”

I never did. I never would.

Sixteen, I remember that day, the day I was meant to go back to him. He would have been waiting for me. Like I always waited for him. It was us, we waited for each other, just to be near each other. I never forgot him, but mother never knew that. I went back once, before I met Robert, before my life collapsed. I searched for him, no one knew of a man named Liam, I didn’t even know where he lived. I asked everywhere, no one knew. I got on that train and never went back. I wish I found him then, I wish I had those years. Except I don’t, and I’ve even missed so many more. It’s like we’re to be torn apart no matter what.

Except when a sexy brunette answers the door, I know that’s a lie, that I will have him and no one else. As I stare at him behind her, his eyes go to the woman, then back to me, and right there is my confirmation. Just that slight look alone. He won’t see any other woman the way he looks at me. It’s small, but I know. Just as I know him.

“You need to leave,” she hisses at me. Like I’m the intruder.

Well, maybe I am? I go to step back, not wanting to be involved in whatever’s going on, though wanting to stay so I can see him.

“Don’t leave.” His voice is strong, just like it always is. He comes off demanding, without raising his voice.

The woman’s head snaps back to his, but his eyes leave mine to look at her. “She can’t stay. We need to talk, you need to come home.”

A punch in the gut is what that is. Black doesn’t speak, he doesn’t have to, his body language and the way he looks tells you exactly what he’s thinking. And just as she realizes this, it hurts. It hurts so much because she understands him, she knows him—the
now
him. Not
my
him.

“I’ve seen you before,” she says turning to me now, my head is down, I don’t want either of them to see the pain in my eyes. I look up to her, realizing she’s speaking to me. I drop my head to the side, trying to gather where I’ve seen her. Nothing comes, I have no idea.

“You were high as a fucking kite. You still a druggie?” She steps closer. She’s taller than me, prettier, everything I’m not. She’s wearing shorts, so short they would fit my ten-year-old daughter. I’m wearing a knee-length dress. His hand snaps out and wraps around her arm, her eyes leave mine and look up to his. “What baby,” she says. That makes me snort, and both heads turn toward me then. “You think that’s funny, bitch? You won’t think it’s funny when he’s fucking you and wishing it was me riding his cock.”