Beyond Jealousy (34 page)

Ace didn't know how old he was. He had vague memories of a mother who had died when he was young. Old enough to walk and talk and love drawing, but not old enough to understand why his mother hadn't come home to slap a meal on the table, or that she was gone for good.

It was a nice, juicy sob story. Better when he omitted the uncle who'd swooped him up off the streets before he'd been there more than a week, and Ace had never been above a little creative license.

Words had never been his thing, but he could use them for that much. Hair falling over his forehead, eyes big and sad. He spun out the story of little orphan Alexander drawing on his cheap sketchpad with his chubby fingers, oblivious to the fact that his mama was never coming home, and panties melted away like snow in July.

Fuck, he was a piece of work.

He hauled another oversized portfolio folder off the shelf and tossed it onto his desk with enough force to send the cup holding his colored pencils rattling to the floor.

"Hey, now." Emma stood in the open doorway, one eyebrow raised. "You want to
not
trash the place, Santana? What the hell are you doing here this early, anyway?"

Good fucking question, especially since he'd left Rachel and Cruz curled up together in his own damn bed. Not that it had been possible to crawl out from between them without waking Cruz--the man snapped to high alert at a whisper--but Ace had simply tilted his head toward the bathroom. Cruz had nodded, rolled over into the empty space Ace had left behind, slung an arm over Rachel, and gone back to sleep.

Of course he had. Cruz could roll into any empty space and fill it up just fine, because he was fucking perfect.

"
Ace
." Emma's brow plummeted into a frown as she stared at him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he grumbled, slapping open the portfolio. The top sketch fluttered toward the floor, and he caught it with one hand. A half-formed design for a tattoo stared back at him, sketched with adolescent clumsiness but clear emotion. A grim reaper, his scythe dripping blood, his skeletal face twisted in a chilling laugh. "I'm just looking for something."

"Bullshit."

He finally gave her his full attention, fixing on her worried expression. "Shit, what are
you
doing out of bed? I figured Noah'd be burning through adrenaline for half the night."

She propped her hands on her hips. "Don't change the subject. What gives?"

Emma had been easier to deal with in the beginning. So bright and eager, but sweet, too. Already a damn good artist, showing up with a stack of beautiful sketches, most of them better than Ace's uncle had ever dreamed of being, but she hadn't been pushy about telling him what to do.

Sometimes he missed those days. "You're a pain in the fucking ass, you know that? If I want to ransack my studio for no goddamn reason, I will."

She snorted. "Get pissy with me if you want, but I still think you'd be better off using your words."

The hurt and anger pulsing in his chest found a focus--if not a target. "The only words I've got are the filthy ones. I've never fronted about that, so I don't know why in hell you all expect better."

"You've always been hardest on yourself." Emma tossed her bag on the desk with a sigh. "How can you be so damn generous with other people, and then treat yourself like such shit?"

Because he deserved it. Because Rachel had asked a soulful question about Ace's past, and for a second he'd actually imagined trying to say it all.

I was a whore when you were still a kid, but I wasn't even a good one because I'm a self-obsessed narcissist who mostly just wants to have fun with his dick. And while Cruz was off bumping off bad guys and saving babies, I was playing temperamental artist fuck-toy to a bunch of women Noelle used to have over for tea and dinner parties. Boohoo, isn't my life sad.

At least Ace the tragic orphan had had a mother. An uncle. He'd had a mentor who'd given him a profitable skill set and a sense of connection to his ancestors and his heritage. He'd had Jared and Gia, who'd been his family long before the O'Kanes.

And he'd had Dallas. Lex. Jas and Mad and Nessa and everyone who had joined over the years, an ever-expanding network of family who loved him unconditionally, even when he was selfish, even when he was a narcissistic asshole who only wanted to have fun with his dick.

Cruz had nothing. Fucking
nothing
. No parents to teach him to love, no family, no warmth and tenderness. He'd had rules and regulations and brutality.

All of Ace's excuses for not being able to love looked pretty fucking flimsy with Cruz standing there, getting it done.

Ace flipped through a few more sketches without really seeing them, just to have something to do with his hands. "Maybe I know I have it coming. Ever considered that?"

"Of course I have. It's the obvious answer."

The next sketch crumpled as his fingers tightened. "Obvious, huh?"

"Yeah, to anyone who knows and loves you."

"You think you know me, kid?"

She leaned forward and braced her hands on the far edge of the desk. "Don't be patronizing, Ace. I know you better than you think, because I watch you every day. I see what you do when you're not thinking about what you
should
be doing."

His heart jackknifed halfway to his throat, but he made himself lean in until they were face-to-face. "And what's that?"

"You care," she answered softly. "You love, Ace. Maybe harder than anybody else I've ever met."

"I love easy," he corrected, grinding the words into his own heart like a reminder. "I love fast. I love everyone. But it's not hard, and it's not deep. It never was, and it's never enough."

Emma straightened with a groan. "I know that look. Don't, okay? Whatever you're gonna do, just...wait."

"I'm not
doing
anything," he snapped, but the words fell flat, like the lie they were. He was spinning out of control, panicking as hard as he had the last time he'd shattered Rachel's heart. Only this time there wasn't any comfort in telling himself he was doing the right thing by walking away, because this time there was no right thing.

He flipped over another stack of sketches, and there it was.

The paper was old, faded. So was the drawing. He could have been six or seven. Maybe five, maybe eight. The years were blurry, but the memory never was. He could remember the scratched table, so small his paper had covered almost the entire surface. He could remember the pencils--his mother had done six months' worth of extra mending to afford them, sitting up by the light of the cheap, stinking candles and sewing until her fingers were numb.

Five in all, but the true miracle had been that three were color. Blue, orange, and green--those had defined the art of his childhood, because they were the only colors that had existed for him.

God only knew where he'd seen a dragon, not that the sketch beneath his fingers was a very good rendition of one. Wobbly lines, no shading, terrible proportions. But he'd labored over it for hours, ignoring the empty gnawing in his stomach and the growing darkness, coloring in each individual scale with a mixture of blue and green. Laboring over the orange flames shooting from a mouth lined with giant, pointy teeth.

Ace traced his finger past the fire, down to the awkward figures half-sketched at the dragon's feet. A woman and a boy, though you couldn't really tell from the unfinished outlines. He'd been working on that part when his eyelids got too heavy, desperate to finish before his mother came home.

A dragon to protect us, Mama.

While he'd been trying to capture the fall of her long, black hair, she'd been bleeding out in an alley, an accidental victim in a shoot-out between rival drug runners. It had happened all the time before Dallas wrested Sector Four from the grip of his predecessor. Ace's story had never been special, except for its relatively happy ending.

The dragons he'd tattooed onto Cruz's skin were sophisticated. They were elegant, beautiful, a crowning fucking achievement of ink in black and gray, and they were just as childishly hopeful as this drawing.

A dragon to protect me.

Ace had heard the warning under Cruz's words, even if Rachel hadn't. Relationships divided loyalties. A world where Rachel had to choose between Dallas and Ace was almost unfathomable.

A world where she had to choose between Ace and Cruz was damn near inevitable.

Ace was like that faulty stick of dynamite that had nearly obliterated Mad last night, no matter how much he tried to keep his shit under control. No one knew exactly when he was going to blow. He didn't even know. He just knew it was coming, one way or another, and that he'd been lying to himself all along.

Being in love with them both didn't change anything. Ace fucked up. It was what he did, who he was. When he detonated everything they'd built together, Cruz would protect Rachel. Rachel would protect Cruz. No one would protect Ace.

But he'd known that. Hell, he'd counted on it. Little orphan Ace, abandoned again. The best sob story yet.

If he didn't get out before they claimed the last shreds of his heart, he might not survive long enough to tell it.

The day after the explosion--and Mad's subsequent nightmare--was arduously long. Rachel slogged her way through it, yearning for a cold beer, a soft bed, and some comfort from her two favorite men.

Only Cruz was in his room when she came in after her shift pouring drinks at the Broken Circle. She kicked off her shoes, crawled onto the couch next to him, and curled up against his side. "This day sucks."

"Yeah, it does." He slipped an arm around her, tugging her closer as his lips brushed the top of her head. "But Mad's doing okay. He came to Dallas's meeting to hear what Noah had to say."

"How'd it go with Fleming?"

"I'd say he heard Dallas's declaration of war loud and clear." Cruz snorted. "Noah thinks quick on his feet. He convinced Fleming that he'd rigged one of the blasts to go early to try to take out Dallas."

It was audacious--and just crazy enough to play well for an egomaniac like Fleming. "Noah's got a set of brass ones, doesn't he?"

"Without a doubt. He gave your father some equipment to help him track down Skinny Pete. A few more days, and we should have the whole organization wiped out." He squeezed her shoulder. "Your life can go back to normal."

His touch kindled a peaceful warmth that had her leaning in closer, her lips curving up into a smile. "I could do without the danger and violence, but I kind of like our new normal."

"Me, too," he said, leaning in.

His lips had almost reached hers when an abrupt knock pulled them apart. Ace was already coming through the door, his usual easy smile looking fixed. "Hope I'm not interrupting."

Rachel shifted on the couch, drawing her legs up to make room for him. "We were waiting for you."

But Ace swung a chair out from the table instead, spinning it around so he could straddle it. "Good. Because I've been thinking..."

Mild words, innocuous, but Cruz went rigid next to her. "About what?"

"About this." He waved a finger, taking in the three of them.

If it weren't for Cruz's sudden tension, Rachel could have told herself this was a good thing. Talking, maybe even about cementing their relationship into something deeper. But in so many ways, it felt like Cruz knew Ace better than she did.

This was wrong, all wrong.

Ace was cool, relaxed. She'd seen him like this a hundred times, his legs casually sprawled, his tattooed arms folded across the back of a chair. He looked like he was getting ready to share a funny story, not rip their world apart.

But that was exactly what he did. "I was just thinking, it's been really good. And maybe we should go out on a high note instead of riding it into the ground."

The words echoed in her head, like the garbled sound of rain hitting a tin roof combined with the low murmur of voices in a faraway room. No matter how much her brain tried to make sense of it all, turn it into something intelligible, she kept coming around to the fact that he couldn't have said what she thought he said.

And yet she knew he had.

"Go out," she repeated flatly.

Cruz tightened his hand on her hip. "What are you doing, Ace?"

"I'm being responsible. Thinking about the bigger picture." He met Rachel's eyes. "Do you really want to keep going until you hate me again?"

"This time is different." She heard her own words like they were coming from that far-off room, not her own damn mouth. "I don't understand."

"Cruz does," Ace said without releasing her gaze. "He knows about divided loyalties."

Cruz sat beside her, still as stone except for the fine tremor in his hands, and that tiny concession of control drove her from numb to furious in a heartbeat.

It would never be enough. No matter how much they opened to him, no matter how much they gave, Ace would always find a way to withdraw. It didn't matter whether it was out of fear or boredom--or if he was telling the truth when he said he didn't know how to love. The end result was the same.

Agony. Loss. The sharp, driving pain in her chest that couldn't quite drown out the anger, because this time he wasn't just hurting her. He was hurting Cruz, too.

"No." She climbed off the couch and stood directly in front of Ace's chair. "If this is what you want to do, I can't stop you. But you don't get to blame it on us, because all we've done is try to love you."

Ace didn't flinch. "I warned you about that, you know. It's only easy to love me in the beginning. This way you won't have to keep trying."

"That's bullshit. Cowardly, straight-up fucking bullshit, and you know it."

"Rachel." Cruz slid his arms around her, tugging her back a step, and Ace's gaze finally shifted, skating down her body to lock on the hands spanning her waist.

A muscle in his jaw jumped, the only indication of tension he'd shown. "We all got what we wanted, right? You got me out of your system, and Cruz figured out how to loosen the hell up. We can all walk away friends, or we can wait until this whole fucking thing crashes and brings half the gang down with it."