Page 88 of Stone: The Precursor

I narrow my eyes as he walks back to his room. When he returns, he tosses me clothing. I hold it up. It’s a pair of my sweats. “Where?—?”

Stone doesn’t answer me and walks to me, grabbing my arm and forcibly pulling me along. He opens his door and brings me down the hallway until we reach my door. He opens it and walks me inside. He circles the small living room and looks out the window.

I stand in my small living room, confused. I follow him and watch in bewilderment as he checks my closet and what feelslike every square inch of my apartment. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Are you leaving today?”He barks in my direction.

I blink at his question. “What do you mean?”

He stalks to me and grips my arm, hauling me up, right into his face. “Are you leaving the apartment today?” Fury radiates off him.

His hold hurts, and I try to connect the dots. “I—Uh, I have to go to the art supply store. I need groceries. I?—”

“Cancel them all. Stay inside.”

“Now wait a freaking minute!” I bluster, tugging at my arm. “You can’t tell me what to do!”

When he brings me flush against his hard body, my mind explodes, my body reacts immediately, warming, my pussy getting slick. His cock is hard, and it pushes into my stomach. “Don’t test me, Camryn. Stay the apartment and out of sight. Don’t stand near the windows. Don’t leave in your car, do you understand?”

Each sentence makes goosebumps explode on my skin. Fear swirls in my belly. Something is wrong. “Just tell me why.”

Stone doesn’t answer me, but releases me and steps back. “Lock the door.”

Then he’s gone, leaving me with a thousand questions. There’s still so much I don’t know about him, things I want to know. I want to push him to answer me, tear down the boundaries he’s erecting. What secret is he hiding?

Chapter 45

August

“They took one of ours. A woman.”

Fuck.

“Who?”

Riggs’s hesitation doesn’t bode well.

“Denise.”

Something catches in my chest. Denise. It feels personal. A direct line to me. I feel itchy. The camera feed wire at the tattoo shop has also recently been tampered with. Some sort of glitch that Riggs can’t figure out.

But the glitch no longer feels like a malfunction. It means that the Mestizos have eyes on Camryn as well. Eyes that aren’t mine. Eyes that could belong to any member of the Mestizos. Eyes aren’t mine. Eyes that might have seen me in her gallery, seen me painting her walls, seen me touching her, almost kissing her. That alone makes me want to kill them. Her body, her movements, her activities are mine. They want to watch me? Fine. I expect it. They have free rein to watch and study me, but Camryn is a different story.

Rage simmers. I never should have gone into Camryn’s gallery, not with the clear glass windows. Self-loathing coats my tongue. I’ve forgotten all the rules I’ve set for myself. The one thing Jace asked me when he found out that my shop was next to hers was about my background.

“Do you think it’s a problem with her being next to your shop? Your clientele?”

By clientele, he meant the members of the Legion Lords who often stopped by to get work done. The men and women who lived like Onyx, Riggs, and I, on the edge of the law. But that was why I built the shop. I wanted to establish a legal business to ensure that Onyx, Riggs, and I had access to funds that weren’t the result of the crimes committed at the club.

But they came, and I never turned them away. Tattooing saved me when I was a child. It was one skill that I learned early while we lived in the double-wide I called home. I went to school because I had to, I worked because I needed to, but I tattooed because I wanted to. Working with Amy and her husband at their shop gave me the creative license to practice my art. I hoped one day to become a tattoo artist like them, but Ivory’s assault and the death of my stepfather changed the trajectory of my life, forcing me to make choices I didn’t want, namely, going into the Marines. I did it because I felt that Ivory needed more structure. She was in such a deep depression, and while tattooing was my dream, it wasn’t a consistent job. My mother was showing more and more signs of dementia. So when Onyx, Riggs, and I signed up, I went willingly. Sending home money for Ivory and my mother. When Onyx and Ivory got married when she turned 18, I didn’t protest. Onyx could provide for her, and she could get housing.

Shoving thoughts away from memories of Ivory and the harsh reminders of my past, I walk out of the shop, refusing to look next door, and climb on my bike.

“They used a box cutter.”

Onyx’s statement comes as no surprise. The man is familiar with this type of torture. It was the trademark of Los Mestizos. The work has a calling card, one that my sister and niece had been forced to endure before their deaths.

That phone call from Riggs that a woman had been found brutally murdered and dumped on club property prompted me to ride like the hounds of hell were at my heels. That it was Denise compounded the anxiety in me.