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“You’re pretending to be my Rocky, remember? And my Rocky is confident.” “Right, I’m the best. Anyone would be lucky to know me. I enrich the lives of those around me just by breathing.”
“And I take it Loulou is Loulou Garro, Zeus Garro’s wife?” “Yep. Another scandal, another epic love story.” At my look, she expanded. “Zeus is like nineteen years older than her, and they got married when she was seventeen.” Nineteen years. Married at seventeen. I ached to talk to Loulou suddenly.
“I don’t think that kind of love can be forced, no matter how much we long for it.” “Have you ever been in love?” she asked,
“I guess I’m still waiting for my white knight to come and sweep me off my feet.”
“Mui mui, aren’t you going to let me in?” he asked after a moment, stepping forward to blow smoke through the crack in the door directly into my face. I scowled at both his rudeness and persistence in calling me Mui mui, a term of endearment that meant both little sister and girlfriend.
When I returned, he was lounged back on one elbow, looking through my sketches.
“Your next book should be erotic,” he suggested, pushing the image of Axe-Man’s huge hands palming my backside toward me over the duvet.
I’d been playing at being Jiang’s girlfriend for the past five years. Not out of the goodness of my heart but because we had a deal. Gwaan hai.
“You know I’ll never touch The Fallen MC,” I said,
He raised both hands in surrender. “You’ve told me a few times, yes. You know, I met him today. Your Axe-Man could be a caricature of a biker.”
Did you try to make a deal with them like we discussed?” “Did you really think they’d take it?” “No, but it makes me feel better that you tried.”
“I don’t know why you put up with it,” I said softly because it hurt me to see the way Jiang had diminished over the years, his spirit shrinking behind the dark lens of his gaze. “You could be so much more than what he allows you.”
“I don’t know why you pine for the blond Viking, but you persist in trying to pay penance for things that were not your doing. Do you see me judging you for it?”
“No, I put him in jail. Rooster Cavendish put him in jail. Henning Axelsen put himself in jail. He made that choice to take the heat so you could go on and live your life, Mui mui, not so you could waste it by living in the past trying to banish old ghosts.”
You can’t fool me, Jiang, because I know what it is to love in a way that never dies. And if that love is taken from you unjustly, I know what it is to live with revenge as your life’s purpose. You can pretend as long as you’d like that you don’t want to take Kasper down one day for what he did to Eero and what he continues to do to you, but I’ll always know the truth.
And if, no, when that day comes, I’ll be here to help you take your vengeance. Not because of our deal, but because I know you want that peace for yourself just as much as I do, and I think you deserve it.”
finally responded, the words slow as that same sap, dripping sluggishly in the cold room. “And I’m going to leave now before I do something I regret.” “Like hurt me?” I asked mildly. He levelled me with a cool glance. “Like hug you.”
“Lock this behind me,” he ordered, making me roll my eyes. “I’m almost certain I wasn’t followed, but Kasper is paranoid these days. I told him you were on vacation, but if he finds out that vacation is in the home of The Fallen, even I can’t protect you, Mui mui.”
Stay safe,” he demanded. “And stay smart. Don’t embarrass yourself with apologies to that great oaf if he won’t listen to the reasons you were forced to hurt him.”
“You wanna tell me why Jiang fuckin’ Kuan was cozyin’ up in your room just now?” Axe-Man demanded,
For the first time in my life, I was actually frightened of Henning Axelsen.
“What the actual fuck, Mei Zhen?” he demanded. “You sleeping with this fucker now?” “You know he’s gay,” I managed to choke out,
“I don’t know shit. He could be bi, he could be pan, he could be whatever the fuck, Mei. The question is, are you sleeping with this motherfucker who almost ruined your goddamn life? Why the hell did I go away if you were just going to join up with the fuckin’ Seven Song, huh?”
“If you’ve stayed friends with him over some mis-fuckin’-guided attempt to get justice for Kate, I swear to fuckin’ God, Mei, I’ll turn you over my knee and tan your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit for a goddamn year.”
“I’m not a child anymore, Axe-Man,” I sneered, shoving at him with two hands. He didn’t even budge. “You think I’d threaten to spank you if you were?”
“You think you can scare me into doing what you want?” I hissed. “Because I hate to break it to you, Mr. Big and Bad, but you don’t scare me at all.”
“Just tell me the fuckin’ truth for once in your life. Why the fuck are you still dealin’ with the triad, Mei?” he growled.
“You worry about your shit, and I’ll worry about mine,” I snarled, pushing both hands against his chest to get space. Only, he was an immovable force.
A part of me longed for it. The sex and the punishment for what I’d done and how I’d failed him. But enough was still enough. I wasn’t going to make myself into Axe-Man’s punching bag as some kind of act of forgiveness. I was going to do exactly as he’d ask and avoid him like the plague. That didn’t mean I’d abandon Cleo.
But I was officially done pining after Henning Axelsen. He was dead and buried inside a man I didn’t know and didn’t love named Axe-Man.
I woke up with a painful cry, snapping into a seated position only to be shoved back down on the bed. Panic, already awoken by the dream, surged through me like lava flowing through the mouth of a volcano. A horrifying scream tore from my throat before a fleshy hand clamped over my lips, pressing me hard into the pillow.
“Hello, Mei Zhen,” Ashes Li said in Cantonese, showing me the Chinese gun staff in his free hand before lifting it for a strike. “Kasper sends his regards to you and your friends at The Fallen MC.”
Ashes grinned at me, leaning down to whisper hotly in my ear, “Hold still. This should only hurt a little.” Like most triad gangsters, Ashes Li was a liar. It hurt so fucking much that before long, I passed out into cool, black oblivion.
What had started off as a borin’ kinda self-imposed punishment took a fierce turn when I followed Jiang down the twistin’ Sea to Sky Highway all the way to the turn-off for Purgatory Motel. The same pink monstrosity housin’ one Mei Zhen Marchand.
He lit a cigarette before he knocked at number 7, and when the door was opened, he was yanked inside urgently. The way one might haul a lover into one’s arms after a long separation.
The truth was she was fuckin’ immaculate. So beautifully constructed that even after years of distance, my fingers still itched to pick up a pencil, a pen, or a piece of charcoal and work out the fine details of her face on paper or canvas.
Still, the rage burned bright and brighter still as I sat in the dark and stared at the closed door to her room for forty minutes while she entertained the Vanguard of the Seven Song triad.
I fucked her like I hated her. Usin’ her. Tryin’ to forget exactly who it was I was drivin’ my dick into, only she kept remindin’ me in a myriad of inescapable ways.
I wanted to bury myself inside her. Wanted to tame all that wild, reckless energy with my cock and a strong hand on her throat, her tits, her sweet little ass. Wanted to stamp my possession on every inch of that black-inked, white-washed skin ’til she glowed with colour from my lips and teeth and brutal hands. It wasn’t about anger, not really, unless it was anger with myself for capitulatin’ to this dangerous degree of lust.
Even though it shouldn’t have happened with her. And it wouldn’t. Not again. Even if my dick was tellin’ me somethin’ different.
The parkin’ lot was quiet when I pulled up on the side street, but that wasn’t exactly surprisin’ at three in the mornin’. Still, somethin’ like a sixth sense told me to get off my bike and check out Mei’s door, make sure it was secure enough to last the night before I could send one of the prospects over to fix the latch for her.
Satisfied I was alone, I went back to the beds, noticin’ the rumbled sheets on the one closest to the bathroom. There was blood splatter on the pillow. Enough of it to mean someone had hurt Mei considerably. My heart was beatin’ in my stomach, tossin’ up my long-ago dinner ’til I thought I’d be fuckin’ sick.
Someone had taken Mei, and it felt palpably, woefully like my fuckin’ fault.
I sucked in such a deep breath it ached in my lungs, forcin’ myself to do the 4-7-8 technique they’d taught me in the military to calm the fuck down before I had a damn panic attack. This was not the same situation as Cleo.
“Fuck,” I shouted, sprintin’ toward the dumpster and launchin’ myself up over the rim into the muck, mindless of the filth. “Mei, Mei!” I threw garbage off her body, searchin’ for the extent of the damage, terrified to move her if the wounds were deep or cripplin’.
She seemed so small like this, naked and limp and covered in contusions and lacerations. Her heartbeat was steady but low.
“We got you covered, brother. Get Mei home, and we’ll meet you there. I called Nova and Lion. They’ll be waitin’ for you.” “If it wasn’t war before,” I said darkly as we round the corner into the parkin’ lot, and I saw Bat had the foresight to drive his truck while Dane drove his SUV. I moved to the truck and lay Mei in the back seat, acceptin’ the keys from Bat. “It is now.”
“But she’s not even Fallen,” Dane pointed out,
“But once, she was mine.”
“Am I dreaming?” I croaked, and even the words scraping up my throat hurt. “I didn’t think I was gay, but I’m wondering if this is the start of some kind of sex dream.” Harleigh Rose stopped what she was doing––checking my pulse against the time on her Rolex watch––and blinked at me for a second before that cold expression shattered with belly-laughter. “Well,” she said, still chuckling. “That has to be one of the weirder things a patient has said when wakin’ from unconsciousness, but I’ll take the compliment.”
