I step out from the shower and dry off. It’s been a long day—a whole-ass week, really. The carnival ended an hour ago, the guys and I doing our share of the cleanup after leaving Story in the funhouse. I still have the sight of her on her knees, bound and covered in spunk, my initial carved into her chest, burned into my brain like the brand I’d threatened her with.
The lying whore had it coming for what she did to me and the others. I knew bringing her in here was a risk, but I thought she was too weak to make a move. Turns out, Story has a backbone. She’d be an excellent asset to the Lords, but to what end? So she can betray us? Sell our secrets and souls to the highest bidder?
Jesus Christ.
I taught her to use a gun.
So why is it when I flop down onto my bed, inhaling the vestiges of her scent on my pillow, I don’t feel anything but defeated?
I lie on my back, well aware of the hollow cavern in my chest, and try to draw the memories of what she did to me from my brain like a syringe. The marks on my wrists are a physical reminder and everything else is a hazy blur, but if I struggle through the fog, I can make out these little snatches of memory. The caress of her hair against my face. The weight of her body on my hips. A sound she made, breathy and keening. Her words in my ear, low and vexed.
“Don’t you like it, big brother?”
My cock swells at the memory of her words, at the sensation of her pussy sinking down onto me. But it’s not enough. The sex wasn’t the problem. It was the loss of control—just like she said. And the fucked-up thing is, looking back, I can see exactly what she was doing and how she was such a deft hand at playing us.
In another universe, I might have found it in me to feel proud. She fucked Rath over so good. Got into Tristian’s head so deeply. Brought me to my knees so efficiently. I should be enraged, but while the fury is still there—the impulse to strike and wound and damage—there’s also something lurking beneath it.
When I was a kid, Ms. Crane used to say that every life is a patchwork quilt assembled from our hurts and joys, and it always stuck with me—a square on my very own blanket of bullshit. I used to think of it like that, as if every person had their squares, all fused together to form the fabric of who they’d become, and no two could ever look alike. I know mine is ugly and tattered and frayed, not fit for covering anything except my own fucked up insides.
How much of Story’s was constructed on account of us for her to have played us so expertly?
And why does the answer to that make my fucking heart sing?
I pause then, hearing someone coming up the stairs. Tristian’s in the basement handling LDZ business, and I can hear Rath right above me, listening to something fast and depressing through his speakers, so I know it’s not them. Ms. Crane went to bed long ago.
Story’s footsteps are light but obvious, crossing the distance to our doors. She doesn’t even pause in front of mine, the sound of her bedroom door closing ringing with a grim finality. Briefly, I wonder what she looks like. Has our come dried in her hair? Are her cheeks still stained with blood and tears? Would it make me satisfied to see it?
Now that my immediate aggression has been spent, unloaded on her like a stack of dynamite, I feel depleted and weary. Keeping Story is a full-time job that’s making my muscles ache.
I’m in the middle of deciding whether I want to rub one out when I hear a crash from across the hall. I pull on a pair of boxers as I cross the room, striding over the distance between our doors and giving her knob a try.
It’s locked.
My jaw goes rigid because it’s barely an inconvenience, but it’s getting old. Everything is a fight. Even when things started to get easy, it was just a trick. I see that now. That day in the truck when she climbed into my lap and we fucked, fast and hard and so desperate that sometimes I can still feel the imprint of her fingernails in my shoulders. It was fake. It had to be, because it was too easy.
Now I’m stomping across the hall and digging that key from my desk drawer, and the weariness is still there, but some of that aggression is creeping back in, salivating at the prospect of having another go at her. It comes out when I jam the key into the lock and thrust it open, revealing a dark, empty room. There’s a slant of light slashing across the bed from the bathroom, door cracked a few scant inches, and I don’t think twice about storming into it.
I freeze at what I find inside, all that tight hostility zapped away in the span of a single blink.
The mirror is shattered, glass scattered everywhere, and among the debris is Story, naked and pale.
Holding a shard of glass to her wrist.
My bones turn to ice, and for a long time, I can’t move. I try to speak, but my jaw won’t unclench, tongue fused to the roof of my mouth. The come is still dried in her hair, and her chest…
It’s gruesome and inflamed, our initials difficult to make out beneath the swollen, scabbing skin around it. The tracks of tears are gone, but in their place are empty eyes and a dead expression, as if she left her body back in that funhouse and now it’s just walking around without a driver. Her gaze is fixed to her wrist, so slender and flawless, and I have no idea what she’s seeing, but it can’t be the same image I’m taking in, because she looks so…
Relieved.
My voice emerges in a ragged whisper. “Put it down.”
I don’t think she even hears me, because she doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move at all, except to shift a delicate finger over the jagged shard of glass. It looks wrong there, pressed to the vibrant blue of her veins, and my chest goes tight in a way I’m not expecting. It isn’t until I realize she’s already cutting into the skin that my body begins to move.
I take three steps into the bathroom, barely noticing the sting of the glass beneath my feet and wrench her wrists apart. “Drop it!” I snap, nicking my fingertips as I angrily pry it away. She makes a small, wounded sound, forehead furling in confusion. She’s a wraith, contained inside nothing but what her hand is doing. Her forehead furls in confusion, gaze climbing my hand to meet my eyes. I can practically see her snapping to awareness, surfacing from whatever hypnosis she’d been under.
“What?”
I hurl the shard of glass into the sink and grab her by her arms, giving her a jarring shake. “Don’t you fucking dare,” I growl, watching the moisture build in her eyes. “You don’t get to take what’s mine!”
“Why do you care?” she asks, chest hitching. “Haven’t you hurt me enough? Isn’t it enough?” Her palms come up to shove at me ineffectually. “Isn’t it fucking enough?!”
The sob that wracks her body is a shocking thing, full of shuddering agony. And it should make me feel something other than relief, but fucking Christ. Agony is something.
Agony isn’t dead.
I don’t know what compels me to drag her into my chest. The truth is that I’m always on a knife’s edge with this girl. I either want to fuck her or kill her. Kiss her or kick her. Caress her cheek or yank her hair. It’s never made any sense to me, but it’s never had to. Until a few days ago, I’d always leaned to the easier side of the blade. Hurt, strike, yank, wound. Since she drugged me, I’ve found myself wondering if she feels it, too—how addictively intimate it can be to hurt someone. Maybe hugs and kisses are nice. Fuck if I know. But I know the look in her eyes when I say something mean—when I yank her hair and grab her too rough and call her a whore—and I don’t care what other people think. That’s a certain kind of closeness.
God fucking knows, it’s a lot less confusing than this.
She cries into my shoulder, her little body heaving with sobs. She doesn’t touch me back, but she doesn’t pull away, either. Her skin is colder than mine, tits pressed up against my bare chest, and when I run a hand down her back, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
Only a couple hours ago, I was pushing a blade into her skin.
I was bitterly shooting my nut into her mouth.
I was helping Rath fuck her ruthlessly with the handle of that knife.
I was seeing her puckered asshole taking it and feeling so hard and excited about it that I almost forgot to hate her for what she did to us.
Now, I’m saying, “Shh,” and, “Calm down,” and, “That’s not happening. I won’t let you.”
It’s not often I find myself on this side of those feelings, but I think about hurting her some more, and I just…somehow know.
I know it won’t bring me any pleasure.
I press her closer, my hand curled protectively against her head as she cries, and some of that chest-clenching pressure eases, melting away at the feel of her in my arms.
I can’t say that I’m sorry, because I’m not sure I am. She fucked us over. She tied me up and used me. She took away my rituals, knowing how much I needed them. She made me think I had her—that she belonged to me, willingly, wholly. These weren’t betrayals that could go unpunished. Surely she had to know that. This woman broke the one thing I can’t look past. The one thing that makes us Lords. Trust.
But deep down, beneath the tattered squares that define my fabric, is the knowledge that she’s probably right about one thing.
We struck first.
Wrapping my arms around her waist, I lift her just enough to spare her feet as I walk her to the shower, sliding the glass door open and lowering her to the clean tiles. She goes easily when I peel our skin apart, because even after all these years, Story doesn’t cling.
I wonder who made that square in her quilt.
I wonder if it was me.
Gently, I command, “Turn the shower on,” prying one of her hands from her face. “Get it warm, the way you like it.” She obeys perfunctorily, her little shoulders jolting with a restrained sob. I watch her test the spray, adjusting the knobs automatically, hands shaking each time she reaches out to feel the water. “Is that good?” At her shaky nod, I order, “Get under the water, clean yourself up. Wash your hair.”
The longer I watch, the more I want to say the words. They wouldn’t be welcome—they shouldn’t be welcome—but I feel them in the pit of my chest, hard like a boulder, and seeing her tears mingle with the water makes them so goddamn difficult to ignore.
I’m sorry.
It had to be done.
I’m sorry.
She doesn’t flinch when I run the cotton over the cuts on her chest, even though I know the antiseptic hurts like a bitch. I’ll be finding that out myself here in a few minutes, since my feet are cut all to hell. I’ll probably spend all night getting the glass out.
For now, I’ve got her on the bed. Her gaze is fixed dispassionately over my shoulder as I pick up her wrist, running the cotton over the cut she made. It isn’t very deep—won’t need stitches. Rath’s initial had been cut deeper than this, but for some reason, I’m more careful with this one. It’s fucking stupid, sitting here cleaning up the mess I made myself. The mess I refuse to even apologize for. It doesn’t make sense.
And yet, I reach for the ointment I’d found in the first aid kit and get to slathering all the cuts with it. The contrast of the letters tattooed on my knuckles—KILL—with the gentle way I’m dabbing the pads of my fingers onto her wounds, angry and vivid-red, is almost laughable. I don’t patch wounds; I make them. That’s made obvious by how sloppy the bandages look when I clumsily press them to her skin.
Rubbing my nose, I inspect my handiwork, her full tits perky and perfect on either side of the initials. I’d be lying if I said my dick isn’t hard, and it isn’t just because of the way her robe is opened, teasing the sight of her tits. It’s the letter between them, the ‘K’ that’s scabbing and still swollen. She’s going to wear that for the rest of her life. The thought makes my blood run lava-hot, something in my chest unwinding at the knowledge I’ll always be a part of her.
I’m not completely senseless. I know it’s abominable.
“Remember that one Easter?” I ask, sweeping the fold of her robe back to reveal her pebbled nipple. “It was right after you moved in. Dinner was fucking terrible. My dad was riding my ass about being nicer to your mom, and you—” Fuck, she was wearing this dress that killed me. It was a pale pink I could see right through when she stood in front of the dying sun. My balls were aching all day. She was different then—awkward, but with a carefree naivete about her. She was sweet and cute, and I still thought she was mine. “We spent hours that night in my room, playing games. You got so frustrated that I actually let you beat me.”
She sat between my legs as I taught her the controls, and I thought about claiming her then. There’s no way she couldn’t feel how hard I was. She’d send me these smirking little grins every time I let her win, and the more I think about it, the more I suspect that night was the happiest I’ve ever been.
In the end, I chickened out, too young and dumb and fucked up to risk ruining that square in my quilt.
But I saw her later, when she was sleeping in her bed. It was the first night I really watched her—the first night I allowed myself to stand over her and stoke myself to the sight of her soft body and wet mouth.
“Story,” I say, touching her chin. “Look at me.”
She obeys, just like she had in the shower, and I understand now, like I understood then. She’s turned off, shut down, reduced to following orders because she’s been taught that not doing so means suffering of one sort or another. She’s nothing like that girl anymore. She’s all rough edges, that light in her eyes so dimmed that I can’t even see it anymore, but she’s still enough. The sight of my thumb pressing into her bottom lip still makes my spine feel electrified.
And I could have her.
All I’d need to do is tell her to lie back and open up for me, and she’d part her thighs. She’d lay there impassively as I pushed into her, still flush with the memory of that knife. She’d fix her eyes to the ceiling as I fucked her, trying to cling onto whatever scraps of that girl are left so I can weave them into my quilt and imagine it bringing me warmth.
I draw her robe closed, sighing. “Let’s get some sleep.”
I’m drag-ass all day, tired and annoyed at every little thing. Two hours cleaning up glass, another hour picking it out of my feet, and five more hours spent laying stiffly at Story’s side hasn’t made me inclined to take Neil Takac’s bullshit.
“You don’t have to pay,” I tell him, not bothering to keep my voice professional. “You entered into this agreement, no one forced you.”
Every first Sunday of the month, my dad has us go around collecting the dues. It’s tedious, and more often than not, someone has to cause a ruckus about it, as if it’s some big surprise. It’s a waste of our skills and talents. Either one of the Nicks could easily be doing this bullshit. As always, I suspect it’s my father’s way of punishing me for getting all these tattoos.
“You want to look big and bad, son?” he’d say, giving me a nod. “Then that’s what you’re useful for.”
Rath is just as crabby as me. “If you want to give up Mr. Payne’s protection, it’s no skin off our noses.”
Tristian is the only one who plasters on a smile and level with the guy. “Mr. Takac, you didn’t pay last month. I’m sure a fine businessman such as yourself can understand how that puts us in an awkward position. If we let it slide for you, then we’ll have to let it slide for someone else, and then someone else. You don’t give your services away on credit, do you? Why should we?”
Neil glares around his body shop, swiping an oily rag over his sweaty neck. “It’s a bad quarter, fellas. I just don’t have the money today. If you need to pull the protection, then I understand.”
But he doesn’t like it. A body shop in South Side? This place is practically screaming ‘steal something’, which is pretty ironic given the three jacked cars he’s got sitting on the back of the property.
My dad doesn’t generally like us to blackmail people unless it’s warranted, so I don’t bother. Instead, I ask, “You insured, Neil?”
Eyes narrowing, he answers, “Yes.”
Nodding, I wonder, “For two hundred? Because you got some nice cars in here.”
Tristian offers, “I’m thinking he’d need more like three.”
“Well, you’re the car guy.” I shrug, gesturing to Tristian. “You insured for three?”
We leave ten minutes later, the bag in my pocket a couple grand heavier, and walk shoulder to shoulder toward the avenue. The thick clouds in the sky decide to finally break, moistening the air with a fine, misting rain. Shoulders curled against the chill of it, I finally bring up what’s been on my mind.
“We need to talk about Story.”
Tristian huffs. “I’m fucking sick of talking about Story. She’s hot, she’s cold. She wants to be ours, she stabs us in the backs.” Scowling into the distance, he shakes his head. “She can’t be trusted.”
“I know,” I say, my feet still aching as I trudge along the damp sidewalk. “Which is why we need to let her go.” I’m three paces away when I realize they’ve both stopped. I turn to look at them, setting my jaw. “She’s a liability,” I say, hoping to reason with them. “And right now, liabilities are dangerous.”
“Even more reason to keep her close,” Tristian says, eyes flashing in challenge.
I knew this would happen. Tristian can talk all he wants about being sick of her shit, but at the end of the day, she’s his little plaything. And he’s not like me and Rath. Random one-offs will get him by, but just barely. He needs someone he can really sink his claws into.
“We’re not keeping her. That much is certain.” I jerk my head, waiting for them to follow. “Like you said, she can never be trusted.”
Tristian scoffs. “Well, how exactly do you plan on doing that without making us look like a bunch of weak pussies?”
There’s little precedent for this. Sure, there have been other Ladies who didn’t fulfill their mission. Back in ’63, the Lady slept with a Baron, immediately violating the contract. She was stripped of her duties and her Lords-purchased belongings and forced to walk to the Baron’s mansion in nothing but her bra and panties. She was theirs to deal with after that.
Then there was Jacqueline Wilkins, Lady for the class of ’81. She developed a coke habit so massive that she started stealing valuables from the house. The Lords at the time set her and her dealers—the Counts—up with friendly police. She got three years for the drugs, and then later, a nice little charge for an assault while she was inside, adding a cool decade onto her sentence.
“The problem,” I say, scoping out each alley we pass, “is that regardless of what we do with her, it’ll go public and the Kings will ask questions. Especially ours.”
Rath toys with the ring on his lip, scanning the street. “Yeah, that’s not a conversation I want to have with Daniel.”
Tristian grabs my arm, pulling me to a stop. “So let’s not. We can push harder, crack down.”
I throw my arms out. “With what resources, Tristian? We don’t have the time to chain her to us!” I can see he doesn’t care—fucker calls me stubborn—so I finally release a hard breath, shoving my hand through my hair. “She’s going to kill herself.”
Rath kicks a foot out, looking bored. “Don’t be dramatic. She’s just—”
“I walked in on her last night with a blade to her wrist,” I snap, satisfied to at least his head jerk back in surprise. “This wasn’t acting,” I say before either of them can try. “I looked into her eyes, and you know what I saw? Nothing.”
Rath watches me with a skeptical expression. “What happened? When was this?”
I look around, not wanting to have this discussion on the avenue, of all places. “After she got home. She was in her bathroom. She fucking shattered her mirror, and then tried to use one of the shards to—” I press my lips together, not liking the way it feels to remember it. Looking at Tristian, I will him to understand. “We can’t push her any harder, and if I’m being honest, I don’t want to. It shouldn’t have to be this goddamn difficult. I don’t care about my dad, or about fucking LDZ or the Royals or the other Kings. What good is having a Lady—having her—if she’d rather be dead?” I ignore the stunned looks on their faces, averting my gaze. “I had to have Ms. Crane keep an eye on her today. I think we’ve taken this thing as far as it’ll go. We’re all fucking miserable. What’s the point?” Irritated, I jerk a hard shrug. “What’s the fucking point?”
There’s a long moment where the world moves on around us. Cars creep by, music blaring, and people pass like we’re invisible. The avenue isn’t like anywhere else I’ve ever known. No matter what, it just keeps on chugging, the biggest cog in the South Side machine, keeping everything running in a perfect cycle.
Tristian is the first to speak, voice thoughtful. “Maybe being upfront with Daniel is the best thing to do. Maybe he’ll have an idea about how to fix this.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Rath says, crossing his arms as the rain begins falling harder. “Plus, if he thinks we’ve been hiding it from him? It’ll only make shit worse, Killer.”
“You know what’ll happen if we take this to my father,” I say, voice low and full of dread. “You’re right. He’ll have plenty of ideas, and the first one will be taking her from us, and keeping her for…” I think of her sitting on his lap, his hand snaked around her waist and resting on her belly. I think of her words last night in the funhouse, and the thing is, I can’t trust them. She could be lying about her never wanting it. But there’s a chance she isn’t, and if it’s true?
Then I’m the one who deserves that knife.
Shaking my head, I insist, “Fuck that. I’m not letting that happen.”
We start walking again, and I can tell they’re as lost in thought as I am, struggling for a solution to a problem that only we can really be blamed for. It’s not like the other houses don’t sometimes lose a girl. Shit, for three years running, the Princess has cycled out in her fourth month. The Countess sometimes gets busted. The Duchess has a tendency to just…fucking disappear. Of all the houses, LDZ probably has the second-best track record with these things.
Kind of hard to beat the Barons.
We arrive at the last location just as the sun begins fading. It’s a warehouse that’s more often than not illegally operating as a nightclub. As always, we dip into the alley to knock for access to the back door. It reeks of piss, booze, and stale cigarettes, and my feet are killing me, raw like ground meat from the glass last night.
“Shit,” Rath mutters, patting his pockets. “Left my piece at the house.”
Tristian and I both roll our eyes. He fucking would. It’s not the end of the world. My gun is tucked into my waistband, and I can tell that Tristian’s got his.
“We’ll just do this and dip,” I say, not feeling great about how much money I’m carrying. Aside from old Neil, the avenue’s been looking flush, businesses happy to fork over their dues in whatever form they please. There must be some serious tax crunching happening, because almost everyone preferred paying with paper. I’m basically a walking target.
I bang at the door again, annoyed and quickly losing my patience, when headlights swing into the alley, bearing down on us from the other end. Tristian looks casual as he tucks a hand beneath his shirt, resting it on his gun. But Rath and I share a look and I know he’s feeling what I feel.
Unease prickles at the back of my neck.
I bang at the door again, reaching for my own gun. We’re so focused on the headlights that we don’t even notice—don’t even hear—who’s approaching us from the other mouth of the alley.
Not until Tristian grunts.
