I shoved the last bits of a raspberry ganache macaron into my mouth and dusted my hands off on my pants. Stashing of few of them in my bag and bringing them to work had been my best idea all week. Rachel’s mom was a saint for sending over all that stuff.

Rach didn’t know how lucky she was to have parents who cared that much about her. But I wasn’t going to badger her about it. I sure as hell hadn’t done a good job appreciating my dad when he was alive. I drummed my fingers on the counter, nervous energy running through me as I waited for my cover-up client.

He’d been gone almost ten years, and the ache was still there. Those memories always hit me hard and fast when I least expected them. The newspaper had brought up those thoughts. Talking about helping people leave their lives of crime behind. Taking appointments from people getting their mob tattoos covered up.

When I thought about how my life had been shattered and what happened with my dad, there was always one interloper. Someone on the periphery I didn’t like to let myself think too hard about. Ivan.

So many times over the years, I’d tried to banish him from my mind. Pretend that our time together hadn’t happened. That he hadn’t ripped my life apart, but it didn’t matter. He was always there in the background as a haunting reminder of the many things I’d done wrong in my past. But every so often one of the good memories leaked through, unsullied by the bad, and those were the ones that hurt the most. They threatened to crush me under the weight of the guilt and anger that came with them.

As much as I wanted to hate him, I couldn’t. My dad wouldn’t have wanted me to hold that in my heart. He’d seen every day how it could poison people. I wouldn’t have found my passion if it weren’t for him. Taking my drawings from the page to skin was a leap I wouldn’t have had the balls to do if I weren’t dead set on making a new life for myself. And unable to get employment at most places. So in a way I owed him, even though I swore I’d never see him again.

There was a thumping on the shop door. I hopped up and unlocked it, swinging the door open and coming face-to-face with the man I never thought I’d see again. Who I’d kept all the heavy, express-train feelings for buried deep. But they weren’t.

My mouth opened and closed like a fish. He took a step forward, and I finally snapped out of it. Pressing my hands against the cold metal and frosted glass door, I shoved it closed. At least, I attempted to. Every nerve in my body was frayed, and my fingers went numb.

The anger I’d bottled up for so long. For so many years I’d done the best I could to be the daughter my dad would have wanted me to be.

“Dahlia,” he said, pressing his palm flat against the glass door. I pressed my full body weight against it.

“Get out, Ivan.”

“No.”

“Leave,” I said through gritted teeth. But I didn’t have any traction in my heels, and he easily pushed the door open, taking me with it as I slid across the floor. I glared at him as he shut the door behind him and turned the lock. It clicked into place, and he spun around, his gaze sending a tremble through me.

“We are going to have a conversation, Dahlia.”

“We aren’t talking about anything, Ivan. You need to leave.” I backed up and hit my hip against the front counter. Suddenly the shop that had been my sanctuary was my prison. I needed to get out of here. Every fond thought I’d had about him fled the minute I was cornered by him, my anger threatening to boil over and turn me into someone I didn’t want to be. That emotional, outburst-prone eighteen-year-old who had one summer of bad decisions that ruined her life.

“Dahlia, I came to talk to you and—”

I pushed against him as hard as I could, and he took a step back. This was not the time to deal with ghosts from my past.

He stared at me with his head tilted to one side.

“Dahlia, I know it’s been a long time.”

“I’d really like you to leave,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. Trying and failing. Fear ratcheted up, my throat closing. I could feel my pulse in my palms as my mouth went dry.

“Not until we talk. Listen, I’ll stand over here; why don’t you go sit over there?” He gestured to one of the chairs deeper into the shop. The look in his eyes wasn’t one of a cold-blooded killer. I’d seen the pictures. Had them slid across the table to me by a man so vile that bile rose in my throat when I thought about him. But for some reason Ivan was here. Why? Why now?

Ivan backed away from me. I was no longer in the cage of his arms and my heart rate calmed slightly. He stood with his back to the door, blocking my escape.

“I don’t want to talk to you. I have a client coming. Why are you here?” I took a step away so the urge to punch him or run didn’t overtake me. Fight-or-flight was a real bitch. I crossed my arms over my chest and sat on one of the chairs. The quicker he talked, the quicker he left.

“I’m your client.” He shrugged off his suit jacket, and I opened my mouth before snapping it shut. He laid the jacket on the front desk. The client who wanted his tattoos covered.

“Did your uncle die?” I asked, trying to figure out the only way this would be possible.

He let out a mirthless chuckle before undoing his cuff links and dropping them beside his jacket. The sound of metal on glass rang through the whole shop. He shook his head.

“No, he’s very much alive.” He slid the buttons running down his chest out of their holes and inched closer. My heel bounced up and down, and I took a deep breath.

“Why are you here, Ivan? You need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving. I’m here for us to start our work.” His shirt was completely open, the hard planes of his tanned muscles on full display. It seemed we’d both changed a lot in our time apart.

“You want to show me every detail you tried to hide. Every lie you told to cover up this secret, and now you’re here with me, ready to bare all, and you want me to cover it up for you?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling his shirt off, dropping it on top of his jacket. So much ink. He spun around. So many secrets all laid out in front of me. To the black cross down the center of his back and the triple outlined stars on his broad shoulders.

I could appreciate the artistry in the design, even if it turned my stomach to know how he’d gotten them. Over a decade of death and destruction etched deep into his skin. Every line a testament to the boy I’d known being long dead—or maybe he never existed at all.

I’d been in the business long enough to know what most of them meant. When he turned around, his chest was bare. Clean of almost any tattoos other than the bits of the stars peeking over his shoulders.

From that angle he was Ivan. The guy who’d sat at my table in a diner for nearly a month solid. Eighteen-year-old Ivan had done everything in his power to make me want him. He’d been just the bit of danger I always wanted as a cop’s kid. What I hadn’t known was, he was way more than a little bit. He was a mountain of danger, and I fell right into his trap.

I don’t know how long I stared, but it was long enough for Ivan to crack a smile.

“It seems you haven’t lost your ability to undress me with your eyes.”

I glared at him, and it knocked the smile off his face.

“I suppose this isn’t the time for a joke.” He cleared his throat.

“You don’t fucking say, Ivan.” I stood and took a tentative step forward. “Are you serious about wanting to do this?”

He nodded. And I continued toward him.

“Why? Why now? Why me?”

“Why not now? And you’re the best, that’s why.”

“You know what doing this would mean.”

He glanced down at me like I was the idiot. “Yes, I’m very aware.” His face was completely blank, without a hint of emotion. I took a deep breath. Could I handle it? Could I handle him? It had been so long. But if he wanted out from under his uncle’s thumb… “If you’d rather not take the job, I can find someone else.” He took a step back, and panic rose in me. Someone else trying to handle this job. Someone else trying to cover his past. There were few people I’d trust with this work, and none could do what I could do.

My hand flew out, and I grabbed his arm. His bicep bunched under my grasp. I snatched my hand back like I’d been burned, and squared my shoulders.

“I’ll do it.” He kept his gaze steady like he was trying to figure out the odds that I’d tattoo a huge dick on his back. “Turn around again and let me see.”

He spun around and held his arms out, letting me see everything up close and personal. The corded muscles of his back tightened as my gaze roamed all over his ink. The black lines of his tattoos would make a cover-up difficult but not impossible. I rubbed my fingers over my forehead. It would take time. A lot of time. At least ten sessions of a few hours each. The possibilities raced through my head.

My hand hovered over his skin as I studied his expansive back and arms. Those arms that had once wrapped me up in their warm, strong embrace for what seemed like days on end so long ago. Against my better judgment I put my hand on his skin, allowing some of his warmth to pass through to me, and I closed my eyes. The shape of the design I had in mind unfurled itself behind my closed eyelids. I dropped my hand as the lines and shading formed.

“You can turn back around.”

He turned and took a step closer. I didn’t take a step back. I couldn’t let him intimidate me. I couldn’t let him bully me if we were going to do this. It would be an exercise in self-restraint and determination when it came to him. I couldn’t let him suck me back in. It had been so easy to fall last time, even if I kept him at bay for a month. But I’d been like a moth to a flame and I’d been burned worse than I could ever have imagined.

“If we do this, we do it my way.” I licked my lips, which felt drier than the Sahara.

“Whatever you want.” He stood there with his chest exposed. Not like the teenage boy I remembered, but like a man who’d mastered how to use his body. A slight tremble raced through me as I thought of how. I didn’t know if it was fear or desire that made my breath catch.

“Put your shirt back on,” I said, spinning away and skirting around the desk. I stepped into my private studio and grabbed my notepad and marker as ideas raced through my mind. I turned and jumped, clutching the pad to my chest. He stood right there, filling the doorframe completely with his shirt back on. His fingers slid the cuff links back into place.

“It’s going to take a lot of work to cover everything. It’s going to be even more painful than when you got it because it will be more overall, in stages. I take it you got more of these over a number of years.” I glanced down, popping the cap off my marker with my mouth.

He made a gruff noise. And I glanced up. He stared at the back wall like he didn’t want to think about it. Maybe this was real. Maybe he truly wanted to get out. A bubble of hope swelled in my chest before I pushed it down hard. This wasn’t about our past. It was about his, and then how he was trying to escape.

“I’m going to do some sketches of the ideas I have. I’ll show them to you, and we can go from there. When do you want to start?”

“Tonight.”

“I can’t start tonight. I need to get these sketches done and do the stencil and get everything ready.”

His eyes darted back to mine.

“We can start tomorrow.”

His head snapped up, and he smiled. I beat down the small flutter that tried to take hold of my stomach. Not happening. Not with him.

“I’ll send you my ideas tonight, and you let me know what you think. If you like them, we can get to work tomorrow. Start on the first phase. With your shoulder.” I pointed to where the five-tipped star denoting his position in his crime family sat under his shirt. Tattooing over it would be a point of no return for him.

If anyone found out he was doing this, if they found out I was doing this, it would be untold trouble for the both of us. A shudder shot through my body as I remembered being face-to-face with what could have been my executioner. How my hands had trembled as he told me all about Ivan’s dirty past.

“I can go somewhere else, Dahl,” he said, the deep rumble of his voice sending shivers down my spine. This time I knew they were different. It wasn’t out of fear or shock. So many years since I’d heard my nickname on his lips. Tender. Sweet. Like the time between us had been erased. I didn’t want him to go anywhere else. I needed to do this. Needed to close this chapter of my life once and for all.

“No, I’m good to do this. I’ll send these to you once I’m done. Give me your number.”

He held out his phone. The one he’d always been so secretive about. I called myself from his phone and saved the number under The Terrible.

“Some things never change,” he said, reaching out as if to push my messy hair away from my face. I jerked my head back, and he dropped his hand, stuffing both of them into his pockets. I slipped around him to the front door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Ivan.” I tugged it open. He grabbed the jacket off the desk and stepped out into the crisp fall air.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dahl.”

Trying to look everywhere but at him, I nodded and closed the door, leaving him standing out there in the cold. My throat was so tight, I didn’t trust my voice. Hell, I didn’t even trust my mind. This whole thing was insane. I was out of my fucking mind.

I clicked the lock into place, and rested my back against the cold frosted glass. This was going to be a long few weeks. After everything I’d been through, everything I’d fought against, I was right back where I’d started, ready to put it all on the line for the boy, now a man, who stole my heart nearly a decade ago.

Now I had to make sure he didn’t destroy me again. I barely made it out alive last time.