Page 6

Blade

I always knew Bella’s talent for art could get her far.

She never believed me. Of course, I did have things like art shows and galleries in mind for her, but watching her needle the intricate, beautiful design into a person’s skin is somehow better.

More intimate and visceral. She’ll have no shortage of work back in LA.

Everyone and their grandma are getting inked out there lately.

Hell, I’ll even let her paint something on me.

The thought gets stuck in my brain like an icepick and then I’m just sitting there, staring into the chasm that is the last ten years. It’s gaping wide between us. But somehow, being in the same room with her, finally after all this time, it seems like something we can jump just fine. But is it?

“All done,” Bella says, pulling me out of my dark thoughts like only her voice ever could.

“What do you think?” Holly asks, giving me a seductive smile over her shoulder.

I clear my throat. “Yes, very nice.”

Bella laughs and it’s a much harsher sound than I expected to come out of her mouth. She used to have the prettiest laugh. Like birds singing.

“Very nice?” Holly turns to Bella. “He’s one-hundred-percent the strong and silent type, isn’t he? Where’d you find him?”

Bella smiles at me. “We met a long time ago, he keeps me grounded.”

I did used to do that for her. And I want to do it again. Even if this feeling she’s evoking in my chest is very old and might not even apply anymore.

She and Holly talk for another ten minutes before they finally hug goodbye.

“I’m all yours now,” she says after, beaning at me. “We can get some lunch, then I can show you around the city if you want, or just show you my apartment…”

She winks at me, the smile making her whole face sparkle.

I won’t deny it. I’ve spent a lot of the past decade thinking about touching and kissing and yes, fucking, Bella.

But this is moving at breakneck, rollercoaster speed and we’re not wearing any seatbelts.

I should slow it down. Then again, life with Bella always was a rollercoaster and just as impossible to stop once it gets going.

But she’s been so quiet for so long I forgot what a wild ride it could be.

Her smile falters and wanes while I sort all that out in my head.

“Let’s just go get lunch and catch up some more,” she adds, sounding quiet again. Dejected.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” I say heartily, much too excitedly and loudly. But I just can’t stand her being quiet anymore. Her apartment sounds like a much better idea, but I said what I said and it’d be weird if I said so now.

She stuffs her large sketchbook into a tote bag, which is already jam-packed with all sorts of other things. And heavy, I realize as I take it from her hands so I can carry it.

“What do you do, live out of this thing?”

She smiles. “You know I can’t pack light.”

I do. Just the stuff she left behind when she left me was too much to carry. But I don’t need to slide into that kind of weird philosophical thinking now. All I need to do is let her take me for this ride. This walk. This whatever this is.

Doogie is nowhere to be seen or heard as we walk through the reception area. Bella doesn’t slow her stride until we exit the parlor and are once again greeted by the smells, and especially the sounds of the city.

She doesn’t take my arm this time as she leads the way down the sidewalk, setting a fast pace that soon wakes some residual pain from the gunshot wound in my stomach. It’s been three months, so I should be healed. This is probably just some weird sort of ghost pain.

“Are we moving too fast?” she asks as we stop at a traffic light, waiting to cross an avenue.

She could just be talking about the pace she’s setting, but she’s not. Or maybe I’m just hearing what I want to hear.

“I’m sorry, I’ve just been very alone for a very long time,” she adds and sounds it. “I don’t even have any real friends to talk to.”

The light turns to WALK, but we don’t.

“This conversation is like eating desert before the main course, Bella,” I say and start crossing the wide street. “How about we just start with the salad?”

“Gotcha,” she says and grins at me. “But this place I’m taking you to, I don’t think they do salads.”

I laugh at that. She always could make me laugh. Even when she was eyeballs deep in addiction, she was still the only person that could, without fail, bring me out of any kind of funk. Even the ones she caused.

“I’m sure it’ll be just fine.”

She gives me a weird over-the-shoulder look like maybe she doesn’t think I’m just talking about the salad. I might actually be.

Our destination is an Indian restaurant that’s on the first floor of an old brownstone, accessible via a narrow and very steep staircase.

We have to take off our shoes at the door, which tells me this is a very traditional place before she does.

I’m wearing my cut under a long black trench coat and I leave it on as we enter the restaurant proper and are shown to a table next to one of the tall windows.

“Vice president, huh?” she says. “Congrats.”

I nod and try not to groan as I lower myself onto one of the round, fake leather pillows they have in place of chairs. The doc who saved my life had to take out a part of my liver and despite all assurances that everything will heal just fine, it’s just not happening fast.

“And I love the artwork,” she adds as she looks at the back of my cut, our club colors. It’s a hooded figure praying, with angel wings sprouting from its back.

“Who did it?” she asks as she sits down across from me.

“A very talented guy named Jack,” I say. “He joined the MC right after we formed it, but we lost him to suicide soon after. He just couldn’t get over the death of his fiancée.”

“Oh, man, that’s rough,” she says.

“Yeah.”

I’m spared having to say anything more because the waiter comes to take our order. I have no idea what anything is on the menu, so I just go with what Bella suggests. On top of everything else, my mind is now filled with memories of Jack. He was only twenty-five years old when he took his life.

Afterwards, the MC did find the man who took his fiancée’s life, we made sure he went away for a very long time, and that’s not something we can offer all our members, but the sting of Jack’s senseless death never went away.

At least for me, the sting of all the injustices we can’t put right never does.

“So, what is it that you guys do? Exactly?” she asks once the server leaves.

“We go after the criminals no one else is willing to hunt down for one reason or another.”

“And then you what, kill them?” She sounds shocked, but not as much as I would expect her to be.

I shake my head. “Not exactly. Usually, we hand them over to the police or the FBI after we gather enough evidence against them.”

“So basically, you’re like private investigators?” she asks. “And I assume Rogue’s family at LAPD feeds you the information you need.”

“Yes, you’re pretty much right. But we’re like very cool private investigators. And we decide which cases we take on.”

That’s all true… of how we’ve done things in the past. Before Devil’s Nightmare MC gave us the location of Ghost and we helped them go full ninja on their enemies.

I’d taken one life before we joined forces with them to take down a sex trafficking ring.

Now that it’s done, I might actually be closer to a mass murderer classification.

It doesn’t sit well with me. Nightmares are a daily occurrence these days.

And even though those assholes had it coming, a life is still a life.

She has a very knowing expressions in her eyes as she gazes at me.

“So what’s changed?” she asks.

“We’ve now become killers,” I say, since there’s no sugarcoating it. “I’ve become a killer. And it doesn’t feel good.”

But it feels good to tell someone about this darkness that’s been consuming me.

Someone who won’t judge me. Might even understand.

“No one at the MC talks about it. Everyone believes we did what we had to do. Did what was right and what needed doing. And mostly I agree. But I can’t pretend it hasn’t also ripped my soul the way a cat scratching a piece of silk rips it. ”

Her eyes are very soft and kind of wet as she looks at me.

I can’t look at her, can’t see all that pity.

She probably thinks I’m an idiot worrying about this.

Just like everyone else would if they’d hear me talk about it.

With the amount of violent deaths we’ve seen and experienced, who could blame them?

The whole reason for our MC’s existence is to punish those who have done wrong.

Punish them by any means . Bring them to justice by any means .

I had no trouble with that. In theory, it would seem now.

She takes my hand and squeezes, the touch electrifying and calming at the same time. The way I imagine getting struck by lightning would be—unbearable at first, then soft as the pain subsides. Her touch always was like lightning.

“You worry too much,” she says. “But that just shows the purity of your heart. You have it in you to forgive everyone. Even those who don’t deserve it.”

“Do I?” I ask skeptically, finally daring to look into her eyes.

“It’s why you’re here, offering me a second chance when no one else is willing to give me one.”

Her eyes are the color of soft grass in some sleepy meadow at sunset, when only golden light remains. It’s a place where I can rest and not worry about anything.

“Right?” she asks, sounding much less sure of her words than she did a moment ago.

I lay my hand over hers. “Right. Now let’s not talk about this anymore. I didn’t come here to bring you down.”

“We can talk about anything you want.”

But it’s not gonna be this. Not now. I also won’t ask her how she could leave me like she did, without a single glance back. I don’t want to spoil this moment. I waited ten years for it. I can enjoy the serene meadow in her eyes first, before I tear it all down. I’ve earned it.

It feels good touching her skin. Better than I could ever imagine it would.

Unfortunately, we have to let go of each other to make room for the meal arriving.

But it’s only a momentary respite. Because after this lunch, I mean to make up for all the touching we’ve missed in the last ten years. And more.