CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dante

I INHALED THROUGH my nose, out my mouth, twice, three times, ten freaking times, and when it still wasn’t working.

I punched the steering wheel with my hand, again, and again, and again.

Out of the corner of my eye, El flinched with each contact my fist made, an explosion of color broke out in my line of vision. I didn’t have a choice. I either saw the way I drew with comic book like colors spouting from every angle when I was stressed — or I had to hit something.

“Feel better?” She asked softly.

I gritted my teeth, tasting blood on my tongue and mumbled out a gruff. “No.”

“What fixes it?”

Really? She wanted to talk now?

I stopped at the light and opened the sunroof. Fresh air, maybe that would help. But no, I was still shaking.

The burn ran from my elbows all the way down to my fingertips, it collided with my muscles, took over my mind, blinded everything except for the need to just… destroy.

Maybe I was the monster the guys always said I’d become.

Maybe I was just like him.

Just like my dad.

Ruthless.

Cunning.

Angry.

Dangerous.

“Sparring.” I finally got the word out. “Fights.”

You used to draw.

I shoved the thought away, because drawing wouldn’t bring back my father, it wouldn’t bring back my life — it was as useless as I was if I didn’t get myself shit together. Focus in on what was necessary for survival.

“But—” El turned on the AC even though it was frigid in the car already. “—you sparred with Chase tonight, right?”

“That’s different.” I exhaled roughly. “It’s training, I can’t fight back, and trust me — they don’t want me to.”

“Because you’d get hurt?” her voice was soft, confused.

I burst out laughing; it was an ugly laugh, one that made me realize how sick of a human being I really was. “More like they’d get hurt.”

I pulled into Sherri’s and parked. “So. Pie?”

“Why?” El’s hand hovered over her seatbelt.

“Why… what? Pie?” I asked confused.

“Why do you let them hurt you? Why don’t you fight back? I don’t understand, if there’s a way to be free—”

“You think this is about freedom?” I spat. “This has nothing to do with being trapped and everything to do with revenge.”

She recoiled. “On who?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know that either. Look,” I ran my bruised hands over my head. “You either want pie or you don’t want pie, I appreciate the save back there but I’m a shit conversationalist and I’d rather punch my way through a wall than have small talk, so if you can’t sit next to me and just… exist, then I’m leaving you in the car.”

“You’re a jackass, you know that right?” She scowled, unbuckling her seatbelt and then jerking the door open.

“Trust me.” I slammed my own door and followed her inside. “I know.”

I didn’t look behind me as I shoved the door to the diner open and made my way to the furthest booth in the back.

The wait staff knew the drill.

One slice of apple pie a la mode.

I knew the exact price in change to leave plus tip.

Four dollars and seventy cents gave them a little over a dollar.

And if they were quick, I left them a ten.

Luckily, it wasn’t two minutes after I sat down before a plate was placed in front of me with a spoon.

The cheap plastic seat groaned a bit as El moved across it and sat, elbows on the table, head resting on her hands as she sat in silence.

I dipped my spoon in the ice cream, then dug the edge into the crust of the apple pie and lifted it to my mouth.

A vacuum cleaner sounded in the distance.

A mom’s laughter.

A baby screaming.

Life just existed around us, as if it had a right to continue right the hell along — as if people like me weren’t fighting like hell to stay alive to stay safe.

To stay sane.

I was down to two more bites.

I looked up, ready to offer my pie as a peace offering, when El scrunched up her nose like the look of ice cream was personally offensive. “I didn’t take you for a vanilla kind of guy.”

“Oh?” I licked my spoon. She swallowed and looked away, her hands twisting the paper napkin over and over again like it was the only thing that gave her comfort, ripping paper to shreds. I studied the angles of her face, the way her bow lips pressed together, her dark rimmed eyes like she’d lined them with coal. The way her eyelashes fanned across her high cheekbones. The same cheekbones that had been bruised the first day I saw her.

Beyond fucking recognition.

Money got you good doctors.

Which meant she didn’t have any scars.

And sometimes I wondered if she’d rather have the scars on her face to match the ones he’d left on the inside.

“What flavor?” I finally asked.

She jerked her head back in my direction, her lips parted. “Wh-what?”

I licked the back of the spoon slowly and felt myself grin at her pink cheeks and the fact that my tongue sure has hell put that color there. “What flavor of ice cream?”

“Oh.” She bit down on her bottom lip sucking it in a bit before she frowned and shrugged. “I had you as a Rocky Road kinda guy.”

“Because I like to fight?” I guessed. “Like Rocky?”

She pressed her lips together in an amused smile. “No, because it seems like you only ever choose the hard way to do things. The rocky way. Road less traveled.”

I jerked back, my body hitting the fake plastic leather. “Same could be said of you.”

Her smile fell. “Believe me. Nobody would choose my path unless they were forced to.”

“Were you?” It was out before I could bite my tongue. “Did you go… willingly?”

She snorted and dropped the napkin onto the table, crossing her arms in that protective way she did when she was cornered. “Does it matter?”

“I think it does,” I said in the softest voice I possessed, which still sounded like someone had grated my voice box over nails. “It matters.”

She leaned forward and grabbed the spoon right out of my hand and dipped it into the melting ice cream. “Never. I never went to him willingly.”

The spoon touched her mouth then slid inside.

I groaned and found myself cupping her chin. “Good girl.” I tilted her chin closer. “Always make them pay. Always.”

“Them?”

“Anyone stupid enough to fucking touch you without permission.” I released her and nodded toward the ice cream. “So, how was it?”

“Very… vanilla.” She laughed and then laughed a little harder. “I think I’d like Rocky Road better.”

Yeah, that made two of us.

I dropped a twenty on the table and stood. “You still down to cover for me?”

“On one condition.” She looked like she was bracing for a fight from the way she put her hands on her hips to the way she held her head. “I get to come with you.”

“Hell no.” I laughed. “It could be a trap. I could die.”

“Then I die too.” She said it so matter of fact, so… prettily with her soft voice and equally soft and gorgeous body. A sudden wave of possessiveness washed over me.

“No.”

“Yes.”

I gritted my teeth. “El, don’t push me on this.”

“The only way they’re going to let you go out tonight is if they think you’re helping me with something.”

“What could you possibly need help with?” I snapped.

She held her head high, her eyes narrowed. “Self Defense.”

I whistled. “Yeah, not gonna happen, you don’t want me near you when things get violent. I don’t—” Shame slammed into me. “I don’t stop.”

“I don’t really need you to teach me.” She rolled her eyes. “Believe me, I can handle myself.”

“Doubtful,” I said under my breath about the same exact time I felt a knife poke into my lower back and her breath on my neck.

“Deal?” she whispered.

“More secrets, hmm?” I smirked, enjoying the way she thought she had me, seconds, it would take seconds to flip her on her ass and impale the knife wherever I wanted it.

But I liked her spirit.

Correction, I freaking loved it.

Shit, this wasn’t the plan.

I quickly jerked her elbow down, slammed the knife out of her hand and walked her toward the car, then pressed her up against it. “Rules.”

Her eyes lit up. Hell, this was a mistake.

“No talking to anyone.”

“I don’t talk to people.” A scowl drew her brows together.

“You talk to me.”

“You stock cookies in the pantry.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Plus you saved me today, I was just returning the favor.”

My mind immediately conjured up all the other ways she could return favors, and anger quickly replaced lust.

I jerked away from her. “Whatever you do, don’t get in the way of my fight.”

“Because you want all the fun?” She called back at me as I made my way to the driver’s side.

I opened the door and shook my head. “Because I don’t want to accidentally kill you, genius.”

She sucked in a breath.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I said, leaving it at that before letting the anger return.

I had to.

Because if I was walking into a trap, I needed it.

If I was walking into a fight.

I’d need it more.

Because something told me that the fight wouldn’t end with someone giving up anything but their life.

I kept that part to myself as El texted Chase and Nixon our agreed upon alibi.

Guilt gnawed.

I ignored it like I always did.