There was a difference this time than the first time we’d been together. A bittersweetness that made my throat burn. I kissed Tana softly, then slowly eased her out of her clothes. She helped remove mine and then she was beneath me, opening up her legs, letting me in, her smile shy and trusting.
I was hers.
She was mine.
For tonight.
I plunged into her, rocking her body, gently loving her with everything that I was. Tears leaked from the sides of her eyes and I kissed her as I kept moving. “Don’t cry, baby.”
“I’m not sad. It’s just...”
I couldn’t let her say the words I knew were on the tip of her tongue. She would shatter me if I heard them. I’d never known love and I’d craved it all my young life. Now here it was, in the most beautiful, purest form waiting for me and I couldn’t take it. “Shh...” I eased out almost all the way and then back in, increasing the tempo until Tana breathlessly begged me. I worshipped every inch of her skin with my lips, my hands, and my body until she clutched at my shoulders, raked her nails across my back and called my name.
Then I let go, freefalling from the darkness into beautiful Tana. My heartbeat. She shuddered beneath me and sobbed out that she loved me. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, probably thinking she would see rejection in my eyes. But had she been looking, she would have seen the heartbreak in them instead.
Tana slept in the crook of my arm and I held on as tightly as I could without hurting her. I watched her peaceful slumber for hours while wishing I had the power to stop the new day from dawning. Her breathing was slow and even, her lips slightly swollen from mine. I gently smoothed the hair from the side of her face. She didn’t stir.
“I love you, Tana Shaw. You will always own me,” I whispered as dawn broke. Exhaustion crept in and I finally slept.
Chapter Twenty-Two
TANA
I woke up alone in the bed with the memories of last night to keep me company. It had been different with him. The first time had been as wild and intense as attending a rock concert. This time was like a long, slow love ballad. I eased over and felt along the floor for my pajamas, dressing quickly.
My body was satiated, my heart full. There was no longer any denying that I loved Ryan and I wasn’t going to lie to myself about it anymore. I wandered into the kitchen. There was a note on the table and I recognized Ryan’s handwriting.
Left the Charger so you could get to the hospital.
The keys were beside the note. After I reread the words, I felt a little deflated, then I immediately chastised myself.
Ryan didn’t owe me anything. He’d never promised me anything. I was the one who’d thrown myself at him. I was the one who’d broken his rule by falling in love with him. I set about getting some breakfast together and Mark appeared, yawning and rubbing his head.
“I can make oatmeal,” I said.
When he hesitated, I added, “It’s the microwave kind with fruit.”
“Okay.” He poured himself some juice and sat down. “Did Ryan leave?”
“He did.”
“I wanted to give him these.” Mark set a miniature collection of superhero figures on the table.
“You can give them to him when you see him tonight.”
“But I wanted him to have them before the fight.”
Trying to keep a casual tone, hoping Mark knew more than he’d said, I asked “What fight is that?”
“The one he’s fighting for you.”
I dropped the box of oatmeal and bent to retrieve it. “Why is Ryan fighting for me?” A myriad of different reasons ran through my mind but none of them made any sense.
“For money.”
“Did you tell you this?”
Mark shook his head. “I heard him talking to Juvante on the phone this morning.”
“I want to talk to him.” I picked up my phone and Mark waved his hand. “Stop! You can’t call. You’ll wreck his concentration.”
“Tell me what you know, Mark.”
“I know I’m hungry.”
I took a bowl from the cabinet, set it on the counter and stuck some water in the microwave to heat. “Now tell me.”
“He makes money to give to you if he fights.”
*
RYAN
Juvante and I waited in his car until others arrived. We were in the lower level of a parking garage in the heart of Michigan. Construction equipment lined the outside of the garage waiting to be set to use. The garage was being redone so the employees of the financial building across the street had to park elsewhere. This gave us the space we needed. We’d be long gone before they even showed up for work anyway.
As a group of guys and a few of their girlfriends exited their cars, Juvante and I joined them.
“Ryan, man, never thought I’d see the day,” a guy I knew as Eddy greeted.
I nodded at him and Juvante slung his arm across my shoulder. “I watched an old fight someone videotaped of Bobby. He likes the left. Retreats, then he goes for a kidney punch.”
I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, feeling the adrenaline start to flow. We didn’t have to wait long for a circle of people to form. The referee, a slender guy in a backward ball cap walked into the center area and started pointing out the obvious. “Watch the columns. Keep it clean.”
Bobby and I shook hands, then I walked to my side and he did the same. The sea of people pressed together, making a human boxing ring. If I had to guess, I’d say there was at least forty guys. The referee called out our first names and fight records, then stepped back and clapped his hands.
I knew this one would be easy. Bobby had a few more pounds on me, but he wasn’t good with follow through. He wasn’t from the streets and thought about his moves too long before he acted. That always cost him. There was no time to think in the fight. You hit or you got hit. Pretty damn simple.
Bobby danced forward, shifting his feet quickly and threw out a round of air jabs. I dodged his hands and slid close to land a hard blow to his abdomen, putting my weight behind it, making it count.
He grunted and winced and immediately dodged to the left. Not giving him any respite, my next jab caught his ribs. He grunted again and with his arms up, fists locked at his face, he surged forward and landed a blow on the side of my arm. Just what I was waiting for. While he had his arm out, he’d left an opening. I snaked my hand in and landed a blow to the side of his jaw. He staggered backward, his teeth slamming together in a hard snap.
The crowd cheered.
“C’mon, Ryan! Slide him to right,” Juvante called out.
A girl in the group yelled, “Take that jab!”
Someone else said, “Get away from the column!”
We wove our way back toward each other and I landed a one-two at Bobby’s jaw. He wrapped his arms around my sides. The referred rushed forward. “Break clean, break clean,” he yelled.
We broke and Bobby launched himself at me. I hit him with another series of jabs one after another and he staggered, dropping to one knee. The people who’d bet on him screamed his name, telling him to get his ass up. Bobby rose and shook his head, trying to clear away the sting.
I blocked out the sound of the crowd and focused on taking Bobby out of the fight. The third time he dropped and tried to stand back up, he kept staggering and falling. The referee waved his hands, indicating that I’d won, and the crowd erupted with cheers before they surged forward, slapping me on the back.
I pushed forward and extended my hand to Bobby. He was leaning on another guy for help walking out but gave me a lopsided grin and shook my hand. Juvante and another guy started divvying up money, then we all headed our separate ways.
“Your take.” Juvante laughed as he handed me the cash. I folded it and shoved it in my pocket. “Man, I need to forget about the Marines and manage fights. Can you imagine what we’d clear if you could do a few fights a day?”
Once in the car, I leaned back in the seat. After the adrenaline rush left and the fight high wore off, it always left me feeling sluggish for a little while. “You stick with the Marines. There’s no future in the fights.”
“Yeah, uh huh. You mean there’s no future with Tana in it.”
“Don’t start. One week, that’s all I can do this and then I’m with Chanos.”
Juvante thought for a second. “I don’t mean to sound like a girl, but I’m worried about you going back in this time. Got a bad feeling that you won’t make it out alive.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
TANA
At two o’clock in the afternoon, Mom opened her eyes. My world, the one that had gone dark the day my mom had been shot suddenly filled with light. I’d wept until my makeup was a smeared mess and I had no more tears left. For half an hour, we’d been able to sit and talk to her. Though she’d been groggy and a little slow to respond, she’d known who we were and had been able to follow the conversation. If all went well and he saw improvement, the doctor had said she should be able to come home possibly in a week.
On the way home, Mark and I celebrated by stopping for milkshakes and fries. He was still talking about all the things he wanted to tell Mom as I pulled the Charger into the driveway behind Brooklyn’s car.
“Hey! Want some fries?” Digging my house key out of my purse, I noticed Brooklyn wasn’t smiling, though she was trying hard to put one on. I pushed open the front door and Mark barreled through. “I’ll be right in,” I said, then turned to Brooklyn. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s about Ryan.”
I grabbed her arm. “Oh my God. He was going to fight. Did something happen to him? Is he hurt?” My heart pounded. I started back down the steps to the car. I had to get to him.
“Ow. No.” She rubbed her arm. “I don’t know if I should even tell you this and I don’t even know if it’s true. My brother heard something.”
A premonition welled up inside of me. I didn’t want to know but I had to know. “Tell me.”
“Gabe said that your mom’s shooting...she wasn’t the target. You were.”
Someone had wanted to kill me? My legs couldn’t hold me up any longer. I sank onto the top step and clutched my purse to my chest like a shield. “But who’d want to shoot me?”
“Chanos.”
“Chanos? I only saw him at the garage. Ryan knows the guy, but why would he want to shoot me?”
“Rumor is that the shooting was retaliation for his brothers taking his drugs.”
Fear raced up and down my spine like a mouse running from a cat. “Your brother has to be mistaken. Ryan would have told me. He wouldn’t have kept something like this from me.” The minute I said the words, I knew that I was wrong. “I have to go see him. I need him to look me in the eye and tell me that he didn’t know the person who did this.” I put my hand up to my trembling lips.
“I’m sorry, Tana.”
“Could you stay with Mark?”
“No problem.”
I jumped back into the Charger and took off, barely able to see through the tears, barely able to breathe.
Please, let it be a mistake. Please don’t let Ryan have known and kept it from me. Please.
*
RYAN
Abraham hadn’t said two words to me since I’d walked in this morning after he’d seen my scraped knuckles. Finally, when I couldn’t take the silence any longer, I threw down the rag and walked away from the Taurus I’d been working on. Pushing open the door of his office, I said, “Go ahead and say it.”
Swiveling around in his chair, he stared through the window across the parking lot for a second. I knew he’d talk once he gathered his thoughts, so I waited. He turned back to face me and his dark eyes searched my face before he said softly, “I don’t have anything to say. Is there something you want to say to me?”
“I’m only doing them for a week.” I rubbed the back of my knuckles. “And it’s not that I wanted to do it. Tana used her college money to pay the hospital. I can’t let her give up college. It’s her dream.”
Abraham blinked. “I wasn’t asking about the fighting.”
“Well, then what?”
He leaned back. “Your friend Chanos came to see me after you left yesterday.”
My face tightened. “He’s not my friend.”
“He sure talked like he was. Telling me that I didn’t have to worry about security, that his crew was going to make sure the garage was off limits.”
Shit.
He rose and hit my arm with the back of his hand. “SB. Southtown Brothers. That’s him, too?”
I nodded.
“I thought so.” His eyes sparked with what looked like disappointment. “You said you were out.”
“I was.”
“Are you back in?”
“Not yet.”
He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “When?”
“Saturday.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No. This is me paying for past mistakes so Chanos won’t hurt...forget it.” I swallowed hard and began unzipping my overalls. “I understand. You don’t want me around.”
“You take those overalls off, son, and you’re fired.”
I stopped. “You’re not firing me?”
“For what? Being part of something you don’t want to be a part of? Do you think you’re the only man who ever crossed a line to protect someone he loved?” He looked out through the open garage doors at the sound of a car pulling up in front of the garage.
I’d know that engine anywhere. I walked out into the bay in time to see Tana climb from the Charger. A tearful Tana. She slammed the door behind her and crossed her arms giving me the hardest look she’d ever given me. “Brooklyn told me something but I’m asking you to tell me the rumors are lies. Please tell me that you didn’t know who was behind my mother’s shooting.”
I started toward her, knowing the end of us was here, knowing I had to let her go but I hadn’t thought it would come this soon.
She backed away with her hand up. “Stop. Answer me. Do you know who shot my mother?”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“Did you know before they shot her that it was going to happen?”
“What?”
“Did you?”
I could feel the burn spread through my body that she would think that way. Folding my arms across my chest, I stared at her, letting her think what she wanted.
“You knew things about my mother getting hurt that you didn’t share. You probably didn’t tell the detectives working on the case either.”