LINCOLN
I probably shouldn’t have gone back to the Playground, but I just… fuck. I couldn’t stay home and watch it as Cross tattooed Ava with my mark like she was a regular member of the syndicate.
I told her I owned her. I needed her to believe it so that she never thought that she could easily push me aside and walk away. After all, I did it to her—and if she really wanted to go, I’d let her; I’d watch her from the shadows like I have, but I’d let her go. No one deserves to be tied to me for life, but if I could convince her that she had to be… I thought I might get to keep her.
But I forgot what a little spitfire my Ava can be. I branded her ring finger with my name, and she retaliated by demanding that Cross mark her with my symbol.
And I couldn’t bring myself to bear witness to it.
I tell myself that I’m only going back to the club to make sure that everything has smoothed over after what happened earlier tonight. It isn’t often I blow my top with witnesses, and while it’s easy to twist the facts so that no one really knows what they saw, someone had to do it.
That was my second, and I beeline right for our usual booth when I see him sitting by himself, a whiskey neat perched in front of him, and his head tossed back.
I slide into the booth. “Everything good, Royce?”
His eyes were closed, snapping open the second my ass hits the seat. His instincts are unmatched, and I know there’s no better man to have at my back, even if he shakes his head and says, “Thanks for that, boss. Just what I needed tonight.”
I shrug. “He touched my wife.”
“Right. Because… and let me stress this part… your unmarked wife was walking in the club without a chaperone, and all the wallets thought she didn’t have your protection. Because… again… let me stress this… you’d rather hole her up in your penthouse instead of introducing her to the syndicate so the guys know to protect her, too.”
I fucking hate it when he’s right. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “You’re finally going to share Saint Ava with the rest of the class.”
“Fuck you,” I say, but there isn’t any heat. “I just meant that she’s being marked right now.” His eyebrows nearly reach his hairline as I explain, “She asked Cross to do it.”
“Riiiight,” Royce drawls. “And she happens to know that Cross does all the tats for the Sinners because—”
Ass. “Because I brought him up to the penthouse to ink a ring around her finger because she lost it, okay?”
Slipping his hand into his pants pocket, Royce pulls something out. With a clink, the golden band hits the tabletop.
“Where did you find that?”
“A good samaritan found it on the dance floor. They turned it in to the bar. Jessie gave it to me.” He uses his finger to shoot it across the table at me. “I guess you won’t be needing that now.”
I take it anyway. “Thanks.”
He shakes his hand, rapping his knuckles against the tabletop. “I don’t get it, Link. I just don’t fucking get it.”
“There’s nothing to get, Royce.”
You think he’d know me well enough to take a hint.
Not my second.
“Look at you. You’re puppy dog awful over this woman… have been as long as I’ve known you… and you’re hiding her. If it was me, I’d be showing her off to everyone in Springfield. But you… I still don’t get why you let her get away in the first place.”
He doesn’t, does he? “I had to. It was my penance.”
Royce snorts. “Catholic shit, huh?”
Something like that.
“I wasn’t good for her.” I’m still not. “Right before I left… I killed a guy.”
He points a finger at me. “You’ve killed plenty.”
True. “Yeah, but he was my first.”
“Ah. Just like with women, you always remember your first kill.”
He doesn’t know how right he is. “I was a runner, Royce. A fighter. But a killer? Shit, I was twenty. A kid. What did I know about killin’ anyone? But when my old boss told me to work him over because he owed him money, that I’d get a cut of it… he shouldn’t have said what he said. I wouldn’t have done what I did if he didn’t threaten her.”
Royce knows this part of the story.
Everyone in the life knows this part.
His name was Skittery. A nickname, of course, and he got it from how antsy and jittery and, well, skittery he got when he was coming down from whatever junk he was on. He had a smart mouth, sticky fingers, but I heard he had a habit of sticking his dick into women who weren’t willing.
There’s a reason the Sinners went into girls. We make sure that everyone who has a spot upstairs wants it. No one is forced to sell themselves for money, and for a percent of the profits, we make sure of it.
But the Sinners didn’t exist back then. Neither did the Libellula Family. Instead, there were six, seven, eight small gangs in Springfield, each fighting over a scrap of territory.
I worked under a guy named Gunner. Fitting, since he’s the one who got me into gun-running for money in the first place, but I was still making a living with street fights at that point.
Until Skittery owed Gunner money, and I was tasked with getting it back. No force was too unnecessary, and Gunnar said I could kill him if he didn’t have the dough. He was that done with Skittery.
I never thought I had it in me. Sure, there was always that darkness welling up inside of me—a shadow that was only tamed by Ava’s sunshine—but a murderer? It went against the commandments. I couldn’t do it.
And then Skittery made the last mistake of his life. He spat at me when I asked for Gunner’s money, and he laughed at me. I could deal with that… until he said with a cocky grin that he was going to find Ava and fuck her brainless to get back at me for trying to buck up to him.
He didn’t call her my girl. He used her name.
He mentioned that she was in college.
He knew who she was—and he threatened to touch her.
No one touches Ava like that. I knew that even then and I… I didn’t just kill him. With the only weapon I had—my fists—I beat that junkie to death. Then, when I was done, I took the knife I found on him and hacked his head right off of his body.
The whole thing happened in an alley on the West Side of Springfield with enough people as witness that I couldn’t even deny what I’d done if I wanted to. One of the locals stumbled upon me when I was done, seeing me tell Skittery’s detached head in a cold voice that I’ll see him in hell, and that was that.
The legend of the Devil of Springfield was born that day, and I knew that I could never touch Ava again with hands capable of such brutality.
Gunner shielded me from the crooked cops the same way I protected Ava after she shot Maglione, but he owned from them on. I was his until the day his rival took him out, and I decided to start my own syndicate.
But all that happened after I walked out on Ava, and I spent fifteen years trying to make up for putting her in danger. I always said when I did, when I had enough power, wealth, and control over my dark side to return to her, I would. Until then, I would do whatever I could to watch over her, keeping her safe from a distance.
And then I fucked up, Joey Maglione tried to do what Skittery had threatened long ago, and here I am.
God, I need a fucking drink.
Before I can flag down a waitress, I notice that Royce is watching me with an amused smile.
“What?” I snap.
“I finally figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“Why you went so long without getting laid. It’s because your game with women fucking sucks.”
Even now, the idea of touching anyone besides Ava has my hands curling into fists.
“I haven’t gotten laid in fifteen years because the only woman I’ve ever wanted is Ava,” I remind him.
Royces laughs, rising up from his seat, leaning across the booth to clap me on the shoulder. “You’re just proving my point. After all that time, you finally have her back, and what are you doing? Dicking around with me at the Playground while she’s back at your penthouse? You should get home, boss. Trust me. I got things handled here.”
“Royce—”
His lips twitch, forcing another smile. “Hey. I’ve got a reason to be in this hellhole all the damn time. You don’t.”
I shut my fucking mouth. Because you know what?
We both know he’s right about that—and, all right. The other stuff, too.
“Thanks, buddy. You’re right. I’m going home.”
And when I get there, I’m starting over with Ava.
I vow it.
