Chapter Two
Killian
I pulled out of Joss and slid off the condom, retreating into her bathroom. After I flushed the toilet, I washed my hands and used her fancy hand soap and my fingers to clean the makeup smears off her sink. The bathroom was cavernous, but apparently not big enough to corral all her crap—makeup, hairspray, perfume, lotions, and potions cluttered all the shelves and every available surface. Towels were tossed carelessly into a heap on the limestone tiled floors like she was waiting for the maid to replace them with fresh ones. I folded the towels and hung them on the rail. I wouldn’t even know where to begin cleaning up the rest of the shit in here.
I returned to Joss’s room, sidestepping a mountain of discarded clothes. She was lying on her bed naked, a lit cigarette clamped between her lips. Outside her wall of windows, Lower Manhattan was lit up like the Fourth of July. Joss lived in a luxury condo in Brooklyn Heights. I’d never seen her apartment in the light of day—never seen her in the light of day.
Joss never asked for pillow talk or cuddling. She had zero interest in a relationship, and that was the only reason it had lasted this long. She stayed out of my business, never asked questions, and didn’t try to analyze me. But tonight, the sex just left me feeling empty. Or numb. I couldn’t even find a word for this dull, aching nothingness. I didn’t know why I came over tonight. It was a mistake, and I knew it as soon as I walked in the door.
She watched me through slitted eyes as I got dressed, the smoke from her cigarette billowing up and into the stale air. Joss once told me she had a huge trust fund. She didn’t work, and I had no idea what she did all day. Maybe she slept, or shopped, or got manicures. I’d never cared enough to ask.
“Did you meet someone special?” she asked. She took another drag of her cigarette and blew smoke out the side of her mouth.
“You should know me better than that.” She didn’t know me at all, but I made the rules clear from the beginning. No personal questions.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Things change.”
“Did they change for you?” I sat on the edge of her bed to tie the laces of my combat boots. I’d had them since high school and they were as worn and battered as I was. Much too young to feel this damn old. That line came from a country song I’d heard at Fat Earl’s once. I hated that bar. My old man used to frequent it before the hipsters invaded, back when Earl was still alive and turned a blind eye. But even now, with a new owner and a different crowd, the place probably hadn’t changed much. Country music probably still blared from the jukebox, and it probably still smelled like stale beer and fried food. My stomach still knotted with dread whenever I drove past it.
“I don’t need you to love me,” Joss said. Love? I bristled at the word. She never brought any of this up before, and I didn’t know what prompted her to do it now. This had never been our deal, and now I knew for sure it was time to bail. “But I’m not stupid. You kept your eyes closed.”
“Orgasmic bliss.” A lie. It had gotten the job done, but it wasn’t blissful. It felt like we were going through the motions, like two well-oiled machines. All mechanics, no emotions.
That’s what you wanted, asshole.
“Bullshit,” she said. “You were pretending I was someone else.”
Wrong. I was pretending I was someone else. I stood and turned to face her. “Time for you to move on.”
“Maybe I already have.” She let a curtain of brown hair fall into her face to mask her hurt expression. Jesus. Did she think she was in love with some guy who called her at two in the morning for sex? She didn’t even know my last name or what I did for a living.
“I never made any promises,” I said.
Joss laughed, but it sounded harsh in her quiet room. “I knew the deal. But I still hoped…it would be different.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and exhaled. What in the hell could I say? I couldn’t pretend to love her. I didn’t know what love felt like, but I knew this wasn’t it. I never thought about her after I left. Never asked about her family, never asked what she did in her free time, never asked anything about her life. We met at a club six months ago. I was drunk and beyond fucked-up. She was looking for a good time with no strings attached. She brought me home, and we fucked. We’d been doing it ever since, but I’d never once felt the urge to get to know her better.
“I can live without the three a.m. booty calls.” She jutted out her chin. “Besides, I deserve better. My shrink told me that, so it must be true.”
She had a shrink. And she did deserve better. Someone who stayed the night and gave a shit. “I won’t call again.”
My hand was on the doorknob, ready to leave when her words stopped me. “You thought I didn’t know you were Killian ‘The Kill’ Vincent, the champion of the Octagon?”
I stilled, my body tensing. I’d walked away from fighting right before I met her. The media had been all over it, so I shouldn’t have been surprised she knew who I was, but she’d never mentioned it. And that was a good thing. I hated to be reminded of what I used to be.
“Someone at the club pointed you out the night we met,” Joss said. “Do you really think I would have gone for you if you’d been a nobody?”
I was a nobody. What did she think would happen? I’d take her with me to my fights, let her bask in the limelight like those other nameless girls who attached themselves to me because of who they thought I was. None of them knew me. None of them wanted to know me. They just wanted to be seen with me—and fuck me. “I don’t fight anymore.”
“I know. And I’m disappointed. I wanted to be with a champion, but I ended up with a has-been loser who runs a stupid bar.” She faked a yawn. “Boring.”
All along, Joss had been fucking someone else. Okay, it was me. But sometimes, I felt like it was more of an alter ego. I’d been a showman who got the crowd loving me and rooting for me, chanting my name. An actor, playing a role, all swagger and bravado, but I’d backed it up with a grueling training schedule, and I’d delivered the goods. My brother Connor once asked me if I was fighting my opponent or my own demons. I didn’t bother answering him. If I had, I would have said: both.
She turned her back to me, and I let myself out. I was relieved it was over, but I felt shitty about it. My old man would tell me it was the price I paid for having a conscience. He was born without one, but mine was big enough to take on the guilt of the whole God damn world.
“The ref called a clean hit,” my dad said.
“I don’t give a shit what the ref called it. I killed a man.”
“Don’t be dramatic. He’s still alive.”
“He’s in a fucking coma.”
“Stop being a pussy.”
That was one of his pet names for me. Pussy. Idiot. Shithead. I believed some people in this world set out to destroy you just because they thought they could. My father was one of those people. But I learned a long time ago, if you didn’t let anyone get close enough, they couldn’t hurt you. Not in any way that mattered. It wasn’t fists that did the most damage. It was love that could bring a man to his knees. A woman brought down Seamus Vincent, and he turned to the bottle to ease his pain. He was a nasty drunk with a selective memory. Sometimes, I almost believed he had no idea what he did when he was drunk. Maybe he didn’t. What went on behind closed doors stayed behind closed doors. Who was I going to tell, anyway? The cops?
* * *
I took a few deep breaths and pressed the call button. She answered her home phone on the second ring. In the background, I heard a baby crying. Johnny Ramirez’s baby—a boy he’d never gotten the chance to meet. “Anna.”
“Who is this?” she asked, sounding wary. She knew who it was. I met Anna first, at a nightclub on top of the MGM Grand in Vegas four years ago. She quickly figured out I was a one-night kind of guy, but Johnny was a forever kind of guy. Six months later, they got married, and I was his best man. I toasted to their health, happiness, and a long life together.
“It’s Killian. You haven’t cashed the check I sent.”
“Your money won’t bring Johnny back.”
“I know that.” Cash the fucking check. Buy something for yourself. For your son. Goddammit. Let me do something for you. “Anna. Please.”
I was begging for forgiveness, but she couldn’t give it to me. I was the man who ruined her life, and nothing I said or did could ever change that.
“Don’t call me again.” She cut the call, and I punched a hole in the living room wall of the crappy house I rented in Greenpoint. I wanted to burn the house to the ground—set fire to the whole fucking world. But it wouldn’t bring Johnny back. Nothing would.
I heard the front door open, and the rumble of a Harley engine in the hallway. Fucking Connor. Why couldn’t he park it on the street? Instead of going through the hallway into the backyard like he usually did, he cut the engine. A few seconds later, I heard his voice.
“You got what I need?”
I stalked into the hallway, catching him by surprise. He grinned and gave me a mock salute. He was feeling good. Too good.
“Good deal. And throw in some extra pancakes for the crispy duck,” Connor said to the person on the phone, no doubt for my benefit. “Catch you in thirty minutes.”
Connor flipped his phone closed. A burner phone with numbers for “Chinese restaurants” and “pizzerias” that didn’t sell crispy duck or pizza.
“Thought you’d be at work,” he said, cracking his neck.
“Don’t make that pickup. You don’t need that shit. I’ll get you into the best rehab money can buy.”
He climbed off his bike and rested his helmet on the seat. “Go to work. It’s just Chinese takeout.”
I grabbed him by his black leather jacket and slammed him against the wall. He looked like the younger version of me—dark hair, olive skin, blue eyes. Same height, similar build. But his body was filled with so many toxic chemicals, it was only a matter of time before they killed him. Over the past year, he must have dropped twenty pounds. His motorcycle jacket, once fitted to his body, hung looser on his frame, and his face looked gaunt. “This shit needs to stop.”
“Punch me if it makes you feel better.” He jutted out his chin. “Go on. I can take it.”
I released my hold and took a step back. I would never physically hurt Connor. Beating him up wouldn’t solve anything. “What happened to you?”
“Same thing that happened to you. Life.” He looked at my right hand. “Did you punch another hole in the wall? Did that make everything better?”
He brushed past me and took the stairs two at a time.
The bathroom door shut behind him, and I flexed my hand, not even feeling the sting from the cuts on my knuckles.
I was losing my brother, the only person in this whole fucked-up world I loved. But I didn’t know how to save him. And I didn’t know how to fix what was broken inside him.