Owned by the Mob Boss (49 page)

Sky

Two amazing days had passed since Shadow came home from the hospital. We’d spent so much time talking while he’d been there that now all we did was not talk… verbally, at least. With our bodies though…

My entire body was sore, and I was exhausted. I wasn’t getting enough sleep, but I really didn’t mind that much. He made me feel alive like I could survive anything. And I so needed that right now, more than anything. After all that had happened to me—that had happened to us—I needed to feel invincible.

And he made me feel that and so much more.

His time in the hospital, as upsetting as it had been, had drawn us closer together. I hadn’t intended for that to happen. Not at all. At first, I had still wanted there to be some distance between us. After all, I had left him or had tried to. But when I saw him bleeding like that, unconscious… when I had feared him dead, I knew then what I knew now.

I would always have a connection to him. He had burrowed his way back into my life. We were two broken people, and maybe together, we could find a way to become whole again. We could make each other better. Even if he wasn’t ready yet to give up on his missions, I had a feeling that as time went on I might be able to help get him to stop. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, but he hadn’t mentioned Frank Greene at all during our talks in the hospital.

And just what had we talked about? Anything and everything. The first time we met. The first time we fucked. The first time we realized we loved the other. It surprised me that Shadow had realized before I had. One afternoon, he had planned a surprise picnic for me, but ants got into all the food and then it had poured. He had been so upset, but I just laughed and found some berries in a bush near our blanket and we made the most of it. This was the first time we had ever made love outside. The rain had made the experience all the more magical.

Even after our tender lovemaking, it had taken me another two months before I admitted to myself I loved him. He hadn’t done anything special that day. No date, nothing like that. I had dozed off leaning against him as we were watching a movie, and I had dreamed that I lost him. I couldn’t find him anywhere. I was so terrified that something had happened to him. I remember running down a hallway that never ended, bypassing door after door on either side. Finally, I decided to open a random door. There he was, lying on the ground as if sleeping. But I knew he was dead with the certainty that only came in dreams. Crying, I kissed him. And he woke up. Kind of like Sleeping Beauty.

When I woke up, I kissed him and said, “I love you,” for the first time. He’d winked and said that he knew, so I responded with, “I know you love me.”

“And you’d be right.”

Simple, laid back, easy going… that was my Shadow. I could get him to relax and forget about all of the troubles and shit he’d been through. Once he learned how to relax by himself, without me, then he would be able to abandon his missions.

It would happen. It had to happen.

I stretched, relishing in the soreness of my muscles. We’d just finished another thorough fucking, and Shadow had fallen asleep. For these past few days, he had been on a mission of a whole other sort, and I had received the message loud and clear. I was his, completely and utterly.

But he might not know this part—that he was mine too.

I rolled away from him, got dressed, and went to the bathroom to freshen up. In between my long visits with Shadow during his hospital stay, I’d interviewed at a few different places for work. So far, none had gotten back to me. I checked my phone to make sure I hadn’t missed a call. I hadn’t. I’d just have to see where else was hiring. I couldn’t wait much longer. Shadow’s father had given me some money to get food, but I’d used it to get a few new clothes for interviews instead. I only took the money because I was going to pay him back. Handouts weren’t for me.

As I opened the door to the bathroom, I could hear a commotion going on downstairs. A woman was screaming. Ranting and raving might be more accurate. One of the guys’ girlfriends? Ex-girlfriends? Wives? Ex-wives?

I stood at the top of the stairs, and the more I listened, the more I recognized the voice. Crap. That sounded like Marie. And she sounded so pissed off.

“Tell me where she is,” she was shouting, her voice echoing off the walls. “I know she’s here somewhere.”

My life had been such a roller coaster lately. Right now, I was riding a high, but I had a feeling that after this conversation, I’d be way down low again. For a moment, I considered sneaking back to bed with Shadow. I could cuddle with him, maybe fall asleep, or else he’d stir and we could start up another round…

But I knew my sister, and Marie would force her way upstairs and interrupt us. There was no way that would go over well. Shadow didn’t like her. She downright hated him. It was a recipe for disaster, but at least it was a disaster I could prevent.

I patted my hair, hoping I’d done a good enough job in the bathroom so that it wasn’t completely obvious to everyone that I had just had incredible sex. It still felt wild, so I darted back to the bathroom. Yeah, definitely way too obvious. I tamed it as best I could as quickly as I could. I dabbed on some perfume and reapplied deodorant so I wouldn’t smell like sex. With the guys, I didn’t care so much if it was obvious what Shadow and I had been up to. They teased him about it all the time, and they even joked with me too on occasion, but Marie wouldn’t appreciate it at all.

Finally ready to face her, I hurried downstairs. Marie’s voice was coming from the bar area—surprise, surprise.

I headed there and did a double take when I saw her, pretending I hadn’t heard all of the commotion and was surprised, and happy, to see her. “Marie, what are you doing here?” I walked on over to her and gave her a big hug.

It took her a moment to return my embrace. She held herself stiff, and it made the embrace awkward. When she stepped back, she said, “Allie—”

“It’s Sky, remember?” I corrected, flashing her a wide smile and hoping to get her to calm down some. With a wave of my arm, I gestured to the bar. “Want something to drink?”

I nodded at the few guys who were in the room, and I murmured to some as they cleared out. Sam the Slayer patted me on the back before he left. He was a good guy. All of them were. Their lives, I was beginning to remember, all had some connection to someone who had been molested, just like Shadow’s had been. It was a terrible thing to bond over, but they were still damned fine guys.

Marie’s eyes flashed darkly, and she scowled. “You’re getting awfully chummy with everyone here, I see.”

“What’s the harm in that? I do live here.” Boy was I glad I never did get around to calling her when I’d decided to leave Shadow a second time. She never would’ve let me come back to him. My older sister was overly protective, although to be fair, she had every reason to hate my being with Shadow. I’d opened my mouth to her too much before, even if I hadn’t given her all the details about him at the time.

“Why?” she asked bluntly, tapping her heel on the tiled floor.

I sighed and refrained from rubbing my temple. Already I could feel a headache coming on. I definitely needed a drink for this conversation.

As if she understood my telepathic wish, or maybe just because she needed one too, Marie helped herself behind the bar. She poured herself some straight whiskey then poured me some as well.

Oh, boy. Straight to the big guns.

She downed hers in three gulps and poured herself some more.

I pulled out a barstool, sat down, and sipped mine. My sister might have a taste for whiskey, but I didn’t, or at least I hadn’t acquired one yet. It tasted bitter, but the burn on the way down wasn’t too unpleasant.

“Are you crazy?” Marie asked.

Oh boy. I took a much bigger swallow this time. It burned too much, and I started to cough.

As soon as I recovered, she asked, “Are you fucking crazy?”

“No.” Crap, what had she heard?

“I know Shadow got shot at.”

My eyes widened. How had she heard that? Hell, she was well connected! Not that it was her business, and her saying shot at meant she didn’t realize he had actually been shot and hit twice.

Before I could respond, she added, “Shadow is a dangerous man.”

“A little danger makes life more fun,” I said jokingly. “A walk on the wild side and all that.”

“Really? Allie—”

“Sky.” I scowled. If I had thought about telling her my memory had pretty much returned, I was reconsidering it. She was being a bitch deliberately.

“I know you hit your head bad and the whole amnesia thing—”

Damn it, I really didn’t like where this was going. It had train wreck written all over it.

“But you can’t seriously think that being with him is a good thing. You have to have more sense than that.”

“You have to have more sense than to tell me not to do something,” I said coolly. “You know that always has the opposite effect on me.”

She blinked a few times. Swirling the meager amount of whiskey still left in her glass, she said, “You are a smart girl. You’re gorgeous. You have your whole life ahead of you—”

“Yes, and it’s my life. I’ll decide what I’ll do with it and who I spend my time with.” I pushed away from the counter but didn’t get up. “If you just came here to dictate how I should live my life—”

“Sky, honey…” Her voice had completely changed. There had been an edge to it earlier. Now that was gone, replaced with far too much sugar. “I just want what’s best for you.”

“And you’re a better judge of that than I am?” I demanded, hands on hips. “Poor, stupid, college dropout Allie is now playing at life as poor, stupid, needy Sky. And poor, stupid, needy Sky can’t tell her head from her ass. And she sure can’t make any kind of decisions for herself. She’s too dumb for that. She can’t even realize how messed up her boyfriend is. She just sees him as a hot piece of biker ass.”

“That’s exactly my point. Shadow
is
dangerous. He’s not good for you, and I don’t see how you can’t see that.” Marie yanked on her hair. “But you aren’t stupid, Sky. Not at all. You’re too smart for him. You’re too smart to be with him. He’s a lost cause.”

Now she had crossed the line. “That’s messed up Marie. He’s not a lost cause. Sure, he’s fucked up. And you know what? So am I. I am every bit as fucked up as he is. The two of us understand that quality in each other.”

Her jaw dropped. “Sky, you are not—”

“I am too. And what’s more, we
need
each other. It’s the only way either of us will find redemption. You have to agree, sis, that I deserve redemption, right?”

“Redemption for what, Sky?” she asked quietly.

I didn’t dignify that with a response.

Very deliberately, Marie drained the rest of her drink and grabbed her purse. Then she stormed out, her footsteps echoing loudly, each one pounding into me as if stabbing me in the chest.

I didn’t want to fight with her, but she didn’t understand me like Shadow did. I wasn’t the same girl I had been. She acted as if I was with Shadow just because of his Wonder Cock and that wasn’t the case. Or maybe she thought I was too afraid to start over on my own. That wasn’t the case either. I was right where I wanted to be.

I was where I belonged.

And I did need redemption. Every one of those pedophiles Shadow had killed while we were together was on me as much as it was on him. Only I could save him and bring him back to life. It was only I he had let into his life to see the darkness there. I knew that deep down, he wanted me to save him. That was why he had told me about his past in the first place. He wasn’t strong enough to get past the terrors of his past by himself. No one would be. He’d suffered through too much.