Ash: A Bad Boy Romance (13 page)

Her voice trails off, and she drums her fingers against the cherry wood doorway. Everything about this place is beautiful—crown molding, antique furniture, pale blue walls and tastefully selected paintings. To think of it going away makes my heart hurt indescribably.
 

“Mom—” I start again. But I don’t know what to say. It feels like there’s a brick in my gut, weighing everything down, pulling at the small happinesses I’ve known since I’ve been back. It feels like my life—no matter how I try to work it—is filled only with duplicity and loss, and pain for the people around me.
 

I do the only thing that I can: I go to her and draw her into a hug and hold her for a long time. I barely even notice when my phone alarm buzzes, alerting me that my shift is starting, that I’m beginning another day again. My mother lets go and kisses me on the cheek.

“Don’t think about this,” she tells me. “I’ll be okay. Just go to work and go see your boyfriend.”

Husband. But who’s counting?

“He’s not my—”

“Whatever you say, Summer. But either way, don’t worry about me. Not right now. I’ll figure something out. I always do.” She pats me on the cheek, and I walk out of the front door and down the grand old steps that won’t belong to my mother for very much longer. I’ve had enough hurt in my years to know that sometimes, when there’s loss, humans feel it physically. There aren’t any studies published on this kind of thing, but I’ve been through it enough to know.
 

It feels just like my mother is trapped, like she’s been taken, like there are walls closing in around her and no way out.

When I start my drive to the hospital, I have a flashback to living in New York and all the pain that stemmed from every decision I made. I thought I’d gotten away from it, but it turns out that the past repeats itself again and again.
 

If I were younger, I might call on Ash to solve this problem. But he’s just as messed up as I am, or so it would seem. I don’t know about all the losses and traumas he’s been through, but I can guess it would be a lot by this point.
 

This man, he’s never far from my mind.
 

And it’s in moments like these that he nags at me like a low-grade fever.
 

I try to remind myself of the time I needed him most, when I was alone in Syria. He never
knew
, but that was the thing that broke my heart for good. And the reason why there’s no way I can go there again. Even if he does know what to do about all of this, I can’t weave him into my life again.
 

There’s no way.

I’m not
his
anymore, and I’m not sure if I really ever was.

Three Years, Four Months Ago

The fear in Summer’s voice—it leads me out to my car, barreling down the street to Cullen’s club, through the pouring rain. I’m moving on automatic, running to protect a woman I don’t even know, moving faster than I do even for Cullen.
 

For a girl. For one girl.

I could say it’s because she’s innocent, but I’ve broken a lot of innocent fingers before. There was always whiskey afterwards, and women.

Since Summer though, whiskey has mostly lost its flavor. And she’s the only woman I notice now, no matter where I go. Cullen’s guys would call me whipped, would laugh at me until they were blue in the face. But I’m still Jonathan Ash, and I could rip them all to shreds.
 

When I roll into Cullen’s place, not one of the guys is there. The lights in the bar are dim, and the door to Cullen’s back room is open.
 

That’s where she’ll be. You’ll roll in there, Ash, and then fucking what? You’re going to save the day? Grab Cullen’s ass and cut his throat?

I chuckle. This is almost comically stupid. I’ve been in Cullen’s family since the day I was born. If I weren’t saving for my own place somewhere fucking far away from New York, I’d be gone and not worrying about this pretty little girl at all.

Cullen speaks from the darkness and I turn slowly towards him, an icy chill creeping through my body. “Come in Jonny.” He opens the door to his back room, and welcomes me in magnanimously, his smile bright and fake. He’d still be handsome if it weren’t for the eye, but those days are long past, and now he simply looks cold and cruel. Probably against my better judgment, I walk in, and I see Bianca, just as Summer said I would. “You were with the girl?”

“Yeah.” I won’t deny it, not now. I can still feel her on my body, can still
smell
her. I crack my knuckles. I outweigh Cullen, but he’s strong and fucking quick. “And you have her aunt.”

“Conflict of interest I’d say, Jonny.”

“Not really. You let the woman go, and there’s no conflict.”

“You’re tied to this family in blood, Jonny. There’s no escaping it, not even for the lass.” Cullen leans in and whispers so his prisoner can’t hear. Cullen’s never scared me before—I outweigh him by fifty pounds of muscle, and his right leg is near useless from a knee-capping twenty years ago. But when it comes to the woman sitting over there—his ruthlessness hits home. He’s often spoken of Bianca as an old friend, letting her pay him late on loans and forgiving a light payment here and there. But with his campaign to take Hell’s Kitchen back for the Irish, it seems his memories aren’t as dear as they used to be.
 

“Cullen—” I start. I haven’t argued with the man before because he’s the boss. He’s told me what to do and where to be ever since I entered into my debt agreement with him. There’s no reward. There’s no raise. There’s just me not ending up dead behind the club.
 

“You think I didn’t know about you and the girl? I do. But when it comes to loyalty, you think only of the family. She and her aunt have crossed a line, and there’s no going back.”

I move my gaze to Bianca. She’s sitting in one of the antique Irish chairs, hands tied in front of her. She wears a haughty expression on her face like she’s a fine lady with better places to be.

She’s always made Cullen mad as fuck, since she’s from an old Irish family but would never bow to him like the others have. Maybe it’s because she was raised in the states. Maybe it’s because she and the boss had history, but he’s never laid a hand on her until now. She’s in a position she could easily escape from, but it’s a dominant move on Cullen’s part even if she doesn’t realize it. She’s not an old woman, but she’s slight and lean like Summer, and even a grizzled old bastard like Cullen could overpower her in an instant. I look at her and she regards me coolly, like Summer does each time she sees me. It’s like looking forward in time, seeing the woman that summer will become. It’s eerie, unnerving. My stomach churns. Even though I’ve never felt it before in our methodical takeover of every business in Hell’s Kitchen, guilt comes over me when I look at her. She wears a look like she’s sure Cullen is bluffing. But she’s a victim of a decades-old vendetta, and Cullen’s decided it’s come to a head.

“This isn’t necessary,” I growl, my body poised to strike like a coiled snake. But Cullen smiles that creepy Cheshire cat grin. Like a lot of things these days, it sends an emotion through me that I haven’t experienced in a long time—disgust. Like a shiver running through me, taking residence in my soul and refusing to let go. “The woman was just trying to run her fucking business, Cullen. Make an alliance—”

“Too late,” he says, still smiling. “Because of our friendship,” he says, speaking up so that Bianca can hear him. “I’ll spare her body for now. I know how
effective
a knee-capping can be. But right now isn’t the time for that.”
 

My stomach drops again. The last man whose kneecap I shot screamed and drooled and begged for his mother, alone in the dark alley behind the club. But there are even worse things—especially when Cullen knows your family.
 

“Our friendship—” Bianca sputters, her voice rusty and thick with emotion. “A friend wouldn’t keep me here away from my business, my
family
.” She emphasizes the last word, her eyes pleading. “That girl—that girl is all I’ve got. You don’t know what you’re doing—”

“Gag her,” he commands me. “I was mistaken not to do it in the first place.”
 

“Whatever you say, boss.”

I go to Bianca and do as he says. She struggles beneath my hands like a trapped mouse, looking up at me with sad, accusing green eyes. She struggles to get out of the gag, pushing her tongue against the white cotton, trying to say something, desperate and loud. Cullen goes up to her and takes her face in his hands, and Bianca stills for a moment.

“Cullen, Summer isn’t a part of this,” I tell him.

“She made herself a part of this when her aunt invited her to New York.” Cullen takes a knife from his pocket and flicks it open, holding it up to the side of Bianca’s face where he makes his customary “marks,” the ones that show every criminal in Hell’s Kitchen that this person
belongs
to Cullen. “Silly girl.” For a moment I think he’s talking about Summer, but his eyes are locked with Bianca’s. “You left New York twenty-six years ago, Bianca. You shouldn’t have come back if you didn’t want to play my game. I never thought it would come to this, but this is where we are. You owe me twenty thousand dollars, and Ash will take care of the little chickie while you get the opportunity to pay up.”

Bianca groans and says something through her gag that sounds like, “Why now?”

Cullen nods, contemplating. “Because I’m sick of your bullshit, Bianca. You couldn’t pay me this month, and I’m done playing your game when you should be playing
mine
.” He brings his knife across her cheek, and she inhales sharply, beads of blood forming along the slice. The cut is shallow and will fade far more quickly than the others I’ve seen Cullen give. It might not even leave a true scar, not the kind he favors. But the look on Bianca’s face shows what it means to her. Cullen looks back at me with his one blue eye and glares at me.
 

“Jonny, you take the girl to the safe house tomorrow. Keep her chained. B has a week to get her shit together, or we start with her fingers and work our way down. And don’t worry. We’ll make sure to get regular updates from you about how the girl is. You let her go, we kill her. Keep her with you, under your watch, and she and her aunt both live to see another day.”

I leave, and I drive back to Summer.

I’ll keep her under my watch, yes.
 

But it’ll be on
my
terms.

When Bianca is freed with the threat against her family, we can get her far, far away from this man.
 

And once Summer is my bride, she’ll be off limits.
 

Cullen can burn down Bianca’s pub or do whatever the fuck he wants. But Summer will be
mine
, and he’ll have to break his own prideful code to get at her or her family.
 

And that woman will belong to
me
.

Present Day
 

When I come to pick Summer up, she’s ghostly pale and nearly fucking shaking. I can see it even before I pull my car into the spot near the back. It’s either been a hard shift, or it has something to do with seeing her mother and that empty-ass inn.

Seeing her standing there takes me back in time to those strange weeks when I feared for Summer’s life and safety. She looks just as lost and vulnerable as she did then.