CHAPTER TEN
Alessandra
FINDING RUSTING METAL STAIRS, I take them one at a time. I feel confused, lost, out of my body as I find the door at the top. Using my shoulder, I push it over and the desert wind kicks up my matted hair. My side is bleeding and burning from the ripped stitches, wrestling with Black Hat they must have torn.
Climbing out I see Raven just ahead walking into the desert as if she is just as lost as I am. Where do we belong? Where do we go from here?
“Raven!” I scream, but she doesn’t stop. She just continues to walk in a haze.
Wind slips past the bloody material of my uniform, and I feel misplaced wearing it. I don’t deserve it. I am not a cop. My family is not real, my life was not real. Everything was a lie, a façade of what I really was. I wasn’t living until just now.
I kick my boots off, as I walk into the night. I unbutton my pants and then my shirt. Letting the desert take them. Leaving my badge behind, my scuffed honor in the dust. The familiar roar of motorcycles sound just ahead, and my heart picks up its rhythm.
The Sin City Outlaws.
Standing there in a bloody white bra and red panties, Felix drops his bike and runs to me.
“What the fuck? Are you okay?” he asks with excitement and fear. I open my mouth to respond, but I shut it just as quickly and point at Raven who is walking into the desert. He looks over his shoulder in the direction of my hand.
“Machete, get her!” he orders and a bunch of guys go running after Raven.
“What the fuck happened, Black Bird?” He shakes out of his cut and places it over my shoulders, trying to conceal some of my bare body.
“I found out who I was. Who I am,” I explain in a haze. The things I’ve done, the pain I’ve caused others. I think I even killed a kid the same age as me.
Grabbing my face, he makes me stare him in the eyes.
“You’re mine, and that’s all you need to fucking know,” he snaps. He fully comes into view, everything else starting to dissipate as I take in what he just said. I’m his.
I’m not Brown 5. I have a home. I just had to relive my nightmare to realize it was with the Outlaws.
Felix
Lying in bed, I watch Alessandra stare at the wall. My body against hers she won’t let me up to even piss. I saw what she did to that man in that fucking dungeon, and it scares me to see what exactly she is capable of. This is why I didn’t want to tell her about her past, look at her. She is fucking lost, her demons battling the light inside of her. She doesn’t know where to go from here, and I don’t know how to help. I’ve accepted my hell, my life. She hasn’t.
I wanted to rip the badge from her chest when I met her, but seeing her like this makes me glad it wasn’t me who did that.
“Alessandra, talk to me,” I tell her. She rolls over, looking at me with sad eyes.
“Where do I go from here?” she whispers.
“Wherever you want,” I shrug.
“I’m a bad person. I did bad things,” she mutters, running the nail of her finger along my collarbone. Her tone emotionless; numb.
“Then we have more in common than before.” I cup her hand, and her eyes flick to mine.
“You don’t know this new me. What I’m capable of.” She shakes her head rolling onto her stomach. “What I’ve always been capable of.”
My eyes fall on her scar of X, the one that Cross branded her with no doubt. She can always get a tattoo if she wants, it will cover it up. But if I know her like I think I do, she won’t cover it up. She’ll keep it as a reminder of what she’s been through.
Running my finger along it I inhale a deep breath.
“Scars and memories remind us where we’ve been, babe, but they don’t dictate where we’re going,” I tell her. It’s something Carola has told me on my darkest days.
“I’ve always been on the side of the convicts then the side of the law. I’ve shot suspects and liked the way it made me feel; powerful. When I smell blood, I can’t help but inhale it like someone would a bouquet of flowers, rather than look away in disgust. I never knew why, but I do now,” she sobs, her voice cracking with raw emotions. Watching a girl become a woman right before me is something that no man can describe. The fairy tale her father sold her dimensioning to reality. It’s breathtaking, majestic, and makes me fucking want to own her every breath and beat of her heart.
Her eyes search mine, a moment of silence speaking louder than anything we have to say to each other.
“I’m here no matter what, Alessandra. You could have devil horns or a halo and I’d be behind you with a smoking magnum ready to clear the path for you,” I tell her, and it’s true.
“I don’t love you,” she whispers with watery eyes.
Pulling her close I rest my head against hers. “I don’t love you either.”
She looks lost, like she’s at a crossroad of what to do with her life. Does she live as an outlaw, or be a cop. I think she is both and needs to excel in both. It’s what draws me to her in the worst way.
“Go back to being a cop.” I can’t believe I just said that. She flinches at my words.
“You hate cops?” She tilts her head to the side. I did say that, but that was before I saw who she really was, what she could do.
“The streets need you. Too often have cops have forgotten what it is like to be lost in the throes of poverty trying to survive. You gave Bishop another chance at life, anyone else would have locked him away. You think with your heart, and not the badge,” I explain.
Alessandra turns her head looking at me with soft eyes, my words breaking through her wall of conflict.
She cups my cheeks, her cracked bleeding lips brushing against mine.
“What if my heart is black?”
“That’s why I love you,” I laugh and her eyes widen just as mine do when I realize what I just said. I can’t take it back, so I just smirk. Grasping her hand, I pull it close, the smell of her sweet skin making my chest tighten. “I admit. My feelings for you started with hate, then I just wanted to fuck you. But then I got greedy and wanted your love, Alessandra,” I tell her honestly.
“You can have all of me,” her voice breathy.
“I plan to,” I state, tucking a hair behind her ear.
“This ride could get me killed.” She rubs her thumb along my bottom lip. I’m not sure what ride she’s talking about. The one with me, or her going back to the department, but either way. I’ll be by her side. I may not be a man that you can take home to Mom, a man of many words, and I have a temper that would scare any normal woman away. But Alessandra is mine, and she’s crazy if she thinks I’m going anywhere else.
“Than society better make two graves because we’re riding to hell together.”
“The papers will say ‘Bonnie and Clyde who?’” I smile like the devil.