Chapter Thirteen
Ratchet watched as Marlee tucked the empty—and half-empty in her case—food containers back into the bag, making sure she got every utensil and napkin before folding it closed and setting it aside. She liked to keep things tidy, he’d noticed. Probably a habit from being cooped up. Or something she’d done to keep busy. Maybe a little of both.
She sighed and leaned back on her palms to stare up at the sky. The view of the stars wasn’t as good as it was out in the country where darkness was thick and black. Here on the fringes of the city, the sky was a deep shade of charcoal, dim night lights peeking through just enough to let you know they were around. But Marlee seemed to enjoy it.
He wondered when she’d last sat like this searching out the stars on a calm night. But he knew the answer. Or close enough. It had been longer than ten years for damn sure.
He watched her, his broken beast loving the content sigh she made. Loving the way her expression was relaxed, not afraid. It transformed her from something already beautiful to extraordinary. Her bow lips didn’t make a frown. They tipped up on the sides. Not quite a smile, but enough to make his heart thump double-time in his chest. And her eyes… so green. More so in the dark as she stared upward like she wanted to fly away.
Keep her. Show her you.
But he didn’t want her to know who he’d been all these years. He wanted her to know the man he was becoming. The one that would move heaven for her because she was making him a better person.
She has to know both. She has to accept both.
Shit.
Ratchet dug into his pocket retrieving her gift and held it out to her. She stared at it in his fingers, a small line forming between her dark brows. “For you.”
She shook her head, lifting her gaze to meet his. “Your marble. You want me to try the toothpaste thing?”
“No. It’s for you. To keep. I…”
The longer it stayed in his hands, the worse of an idea it seemed. Why would she want something he’d collected from the garbage? Why would she want anything from him at all?
“I found it today and it reminded me of your eyes. Green like a jewel. So I kept it to bring home for you. Uh…”
Her breath was coming faster as she stared at the marble, wide-eyed. Panic. She was getting afraid again. Shit.
This was too fast. Or… or maybe just the wrong move altogether.
He hadn’t thought it through. He collected things all the time. This time, she’d been on his mind, and he’d wanted to share.
“You don’t have to keep it,” he looked away to keep her from seeing his disappointment. “It’s silly.”
He closed his hand around it, hurrying to put in back in his pocket.
“No, wait!”
Marlee’s arm shot forward to pull his hand into hers. Ratchet froze at her touch. She pried open his fingers until the marble was revealed again, and then just stared.
Didn’t let his hand go. Didn’t touch the gift. Just stared.
“That’s why it was in your pocket. You got this for me?”
He held his breath and gave her a nod.
Her big eyes went to his. “Where?”
He hesitated. What if she didn’t get it, the way he searched for treasures in the trash because he needed to find worth in the things people felt had none.
But her little hand cradled his so perfectly and her touch was like catnip to him. He wanted it all over. His hair, his chest, skin, anywhere, everywhere. It made him loose. Made him blurt out the truth.
“To make the days more hopeful I search for treasures in the trash.”
She frowned, but not in a way that looked disappointed. More like… intrigued. “Do you find many?”
He relaxed at her question. “Tons. But sometimes they aren’t obvious. You have to look hard to see the beautiful parts. This one was easy. Because it’s the exact color of your eyes.”
She bent to stare at it again, tilting his hand sideways and back to let the thing glisten in the spare light from the security lamp. Her full lips curled at the sides until she was smiling.
“You’re right,” she whispered, her voice all full of wonder. “It is.”
Fucking hell. She was smiling. He’d made her smile.
Shit, now he wanted to kiss it off her face. Yeah, he wanted to do that. Taste it. Test the way it curved around his mouth. Kiss the hell out of her, and see if it was still there when he was finished.
Mine.
She looked up, and he swallowed back the growl in his throat.
“No one’s ever given me such a thoughtful gift.”
He cleared his throat, trying to brush it off. “No big thing.”
She picked up the marble, holding it between her fingers, still smiling as she stared at it. “You do nice things, Ratchet. Why do you?”
He shrugged. “I like you.”
It was more than that. So much more. It felt wrong to reduce it to those three words. But how could he tell her all the insane things he was feeling and how much he needed to bond with her?
Careful with mate.
Her hand dropped his. He felt the absence of her touch like a weight in his chest.
Fisting the marble, she stared at him again. “How did you end up here?”
“How did you?” he countered.
“I mean… you’re different than the others. I know who the Alley Cats are. Know what you do. That you’re organized crime. A mafia of your own, but you work for the king. Do his dirty work. Like everyone in Memphis does.”
“You know all that, huh?”
Marlee snapped her mouth shut, realizing she’d revealed too much.
He sighed. “I know he was the one who hurt you. Bastian.”
She flinched at the name, and Ratchet fisted his hands to keep from reaching for her. Instead, they both got quiet.
Instinct guided him now. The way it did before the curse. His lamb had to be coaxed. Slowly. He was building trust, and like Rome, it wasn’t built in a day.
Even though he really fucking needed it to go up like one of Bastian’s shitty office buildings. The construction crew could knock one of those out in three days flat.
Huddling into her sweatshirt, Marlee rubbed the marble between her thumb and finger. Like she was using it to keep calm.
“You know,” she murmured to the wind. “Does this mean he’s coming for me?”
“Damn well better not be.”
Her gaze flipped to him.
“I told you, I won’t let him hurt you ever again. I mean it. It’s a promise. As real as that marble.”
“But he’s your boss.”
“He doesn’t own me. I only answer to my leader. Felix.”
“Will he give me up?”
Ratchet dipped his head. “In a heartbeat.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“That’s why I have to hide you. Just until Felix isn’t a danger anymore.”
The faintest wisp of hope filled her eyes. “How will that ever happen?”
“He’s sick, and getting weaker. There’s a change happening in our clan. A storm that will either break us apart or bring us together. Either way, Felix will have to buckle. And me and you, Marlee? We have to wait it out. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can tell you I’m going to make you safe. So safe you’ll never worry about anything ever again.”
It was a steep promise, but if nobody could muster up any faith for him, he’d have to do it himself.
She stared at him for so long, blinking over and over until he wondered if he’d gone too far.
“I believe you,” she murmured. “But I still can’t figure out why. Why do you want to help me so much?”
But he didn’t know how to answer her.
Because you’re mine.
No. Too claimy. She hadn’t been her own for a while, she wouldn’t like being reminded she still wasn’t.
Because I need to.
No. Too vague. And there was too much of that between them already.
Because I want to right my wrongs and do one fucking noble thing in my life, and I want that thing to be you.
True, but he wasn’t ready to explain his need for redemption yet.
He settled for simple honesty.
“Because something inside is telling me to. And because the idea of you hurting makes me burn on the inside. I’m not a good man. You can see it. I haven’t cared about anything in a long damn time, but I care about you. And when something jerks me to attention like that, I’m not in the business of questioning it. I just go with instinct.”
“And instinct tells you… what?”
“To be careful with you. To go slow. To give more than I get.”
Her eyes went glossy, emotions spilling off them. His girl was so damn expressive. How had that not been worked out of her by her circumstances? How was she able to stay tender, when he’d found it impossible.
“Maybe you’re a better man than you think.”
He didn’t argue with her. She was wrong of course, but he wanted to believe what she said. And maybe someday, really be better.
He was trying. He was going to do it. If it took his entire life.
And maybe if he was lucky, Marlee would be next to him when he finally became a good man.
***
Give more than I get.
Marlee couldn’t get Ratchet’s blunt words out of her mind as she lay on the blanket staring up at the dim stars. They were faded, but still the best night sky she’d seen in years.
Give more than I get.
That was the exact definition of love, wasn’t it? Caring more for someone than you cared for yourself. Thinking of them first, even when it didn’t benefit you. She’d seen her mother make that choice over and over again. For Marlee. For her father. And it was a fine line, caring for yourself enough to not be taken advantage of. Sure. But it was the purest form of love when another person’s well-being mattered more than your own.
The idea that Ratchet might feel that way about her was baffling. It wasn’t normal for a person to care that much that fast, was it?
Then again, what did she know about love. She’d been without it for a decade.
He laid beside her, keeping a thin boundary of space between them. Sticking to her rule of no touching. Except she’d broken the rule several times now herself, so it was pretty much moot.
If Ratchet wanted to hurt her, he could. Rule or none.
But he wasn’t going to.
She moved her hand along the blanket, a centimeter closer to him. Now that she was convinced he was safe, she couldn’t help wanting more of his touch. He was tender with her, and it was like food for her soul. She’d been starved of good things for too long. Smiles, touches that didn’t harm, the beauty of the outside world. Now she wanted to gorge on it all until she was so full she couldn’t remember being without.
She needed to let him know… what? That she needed him? That she took back all that don’t touch me stuff now that she was trying to trust him.
Closer she moved, until her pinky bumped up against his hot hand, and then she held her breath.
Several moments ticked by. The honk of car horns somewhere below drowned out the thumping of her heart while she waited to see what would happen.
Then Ratchet moved. Carefully, slowly, he curled his pinky around hers.
And that was all.
But it felt more intimate than any kiss could surely.
He didn’t ask for more. And even though she wanted more, it was sort of a relief he didn’t. She was a ping pong ball again. Needing things and not. Wanting them, then not.
This was good. This was enough for now, pinky holding.
“You never told me how you ended up here.” She wanted to know about him. And this is the only way she knew how. It was how she’d started up with the other girls. It was the first question she asked them when they were brought to the basement.
He’d turned away from the sky and she could feel his eyes on her.
“Born here, lamb,” he husked. “Born a monster like the rest of them.”
“No one is born a monster.”
He was quiet. She traced the stars with her eyes.
“You’re right. I wasn’t born a monster. I just had one waiting inside me for someone to bring it alive. My father made sure that happened. Along with the other fathers.” His breath wisped out the rest. “They taught us how to be cruel. By being cruel. Always.”
She thought of the brutal scars on his back.
“They put the S in your back?”
She cringed when he answered, “Yes. And more.”
“Who taught you how to be kind?” But she already knew the answer.
When he said nothing, she turned her head to look at him. Their faces were very close but they were still only linked at the pinky.
“Who taught you how to be kind, Ratchet?”
“My mother, I guess. She stayed.”
“What do you mean she stayed?”
He blinked, his lashes shielding his eyes, his brow frowning.
“When the other mates left, she stayed, knowing my father would hurt her. She stayed to watch over me instead of leaving me alone with him. Fang, Skittles, Monster, Felix and Gash… so many. Their mothers escaped but left them behind. Mine stayed.”
Mates. Funny word to use. It must mean something to his brotherhood. Bastian had his own terminology too. It had taken her years to get it down.
“She’s strong, to do that for you.”
“For all of us. She was a mother to us all, as good as she could be.” He pressed his lips together. “Yeah. She’s a strong female.”
“She must love you very much.”
Ratchet frowned at that. “I think she did once. Then I think it changed to something else.”
“To what?”
His breath stalled between them. “Fear,” he rasped.
And she could hear the regret in his tone that told him Leah wasn’t free here either. But if she was reading his eyes right, he wanted to change that. A storm was coming, he’d said. Changes that would make all the difference.
Ratchet squeezed her pinky with his. “Your turn. Tell me how you became his prisoner.”
Her stomach twisted just thinking about it, and she looked back to the stars.
“I was there as payment for somebody’s debt.”
“Whose?”
She could hardly make the words come out. “My father’s. Casino debt. So much of it.”
“Shit.” His whispered curse gave her strength.
“I thought he’d come for me. Pay what he owed so Bastian would let me go. I was his daughter. He was supposed to… to… care. But he never came. I was told he said Bastian could keep me. That it made them even.”
An angry growl rumbled in Ratchet’s throat, but he didn’t move. Not a muscle except his pinky.
“My mom tried to find me. Went to the police. Went to the news.”
“They did nothing,” Ratchet guessed.
“No. Bastian has too many arms in this city. Too many people owe him.”
“Did he sell you?” he ground out, his voice doing that gravelly animal sound again.
Tell him the truth. Get it out.
“He tried. Because I had nothing else to offer him. Couldn’t hack computers like Nyla or cook meth like Vegas or play arm candy like Skye and Janet. But I refused to use my body to pay off a debt that wasn’t mine. Besides…” Her voice got real thin. “I’d only been with one boy in high school and it was awful. Couldn’t imagine doing it with strangers. And Bastian said he wasn’t in the business of selling his customers a woman who would cry the whole time. That I had to say yes, go willingly, before I could start paying off.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
She shook her head. “So he started counting. Every morsel of food I ate put me farther in debt. Every bar of soap, scrap of clothing. The heat it took to warm the basement. Blankets I slept on. Pretty soon I was nearly as in debt as my father was. Bastian thought it would convince me, but…”
It had done the opposite. It had made her want to fight. Not just lie there, his prisoner, but shove back.
“But what?” Ratchet pushed.
Now was the time. She had to lay it out there and see what he’d say. If he really wanted to help her be stronger like he said, then he would help her free the others too.
“It made me tougher. I used only what I needed to stay alive so he couldn’t hold any of it over my head. Ate so little I was starving… because one day, somehow, I was getting out of there. Didn’t bathe. Slept on the floor without blankets. The girls helped me some. As much as they could without him finding out. And when the time came, they made a way for me to run but only if I did something for them in return.”
She turned her face to look at him. Her ear was pressed against the blanket just like his, and her heartbeat thumped hard making every sound seem like it was rolling through a tunnel.
His furious snarl was in place, but she wasn’t afraid of it anymore. It steadied her. The way his touch did. Made her feel like with him at her back, she could conquer every demon. If this feeling was real, if it didn’t come crashing down in the morning when her eyes opened… if it wasn’t a dream like every time before when she’d thought she was free…
Then she was never letting it go.
“The picture,” he said, jerking her to attention. “Skittles found a picture in the shed after I found you. Four females. They’re the ones who helped you? The other dolls.”
She chewed her lip, nodding. “Now they need my help. I was supposed to get far from Memphis, from the people under Bastian’s thumb, and then give that photo to the authorities. I didn’t make if very far.”
Ratchet frowned. “That won’t work, lamb. Any rescue would involve local law enforcement. Bastian would be tipped off.”
She wilted inside. He was right. With her head clear of the drugs, she should have realized it. But she’d been on a mission and only thinking of completing it.
“I can’t leave them there,” she whispered.
He pulled her hand up by the pinky, bringing it to his lips while his thunderous gaze held hers. He brushed a kiss there and she felt chills break out all over her skin.
“Give me time, Marlee,” he promised. “I’ll free them. Free you all. I’ll do it for you. I just need time.”
She let out a shuddering breath. “Okay.”
Silence fell between them, but she couldn’t pull her gaze away. And he didn’t look away either. Ratchet turned on his side and this put them even closer. Their hands were still linked, nestled between her shoulder and his chest.
“Trust me?”
“Trying to.”
He slowly brought his other hand to her cheek, barely touching it with the pad of his thumb. He felt like velvet sliding down her jaw. Rough skin, moving so very carefully. His eyes followed the movement as he paused at the corner of her mouth. Softly pressed in. Like he was testing it.
And she watched his face, the way his eyes flicked between heat and awe. Three heart beats.
And then he took the journey back to her cheekbone, repeating the same exploring touch with the tender skin beneath her eye.
She closed them, letting the breath ease from her body. He was relaxing her. Soul food. Making things inside settle and feel right again. How did he do that?
“You like this?” he whispered. His voice was quiet like he didn’t want the night sky to hear him.
“Yes.” She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to break the spell.
“Can I touch more?” It came out rough, and again, she got the impression he wasn’t used to asking, but he did it just for her. He was used to doing whatever he wanted. “If I’m careful?”
She wanted to say yes. Wanted more of his velvet hands on her sensitive skin.
But she had to know she was in control of herself. Had to know she could choose, and he would accept it.
She blinked open to find his eyes had softened. He was raw right now. She was too.
Still, she said, “No.”
Please be okay. Please don’t make me.
Ratchet’s hand froze and he frowned hard. “No?”
“No.” She held his gaze. He was puzzled. But this was important.
Seconds ticked by. So many. She hardly breathed waiting to see what he’d do.
“But… you do like it?”
“Yes.”
His brow eased even if he looked disappointed. “Okay, lamb. I won’t touch anymore.”
He laid back against the blanket, keeping their pinkies hooked. Her cheek felt cold without his hand there. Bare. Kind of sad. But inside she was soaring.
Her no meant something to him. She said it, and he’d respected it.
It was a test, and he’d passed.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes.
Did he even know what he’d done just now? He’d given her power back. Even if just a little. Even if just when she was with him. She was in charge. She could say no and he’d listen.
“Ratchet.”
“Yes?”
“I like holding pinkies too.”
“Then I’ll hold your pinky until you tell me not to.”