Center of Gravity (Marauders Book 3) (29 page)

If this was partly due to club business, I had no idea what to do. I’d never asked him about it, just the one time I ended up being his alibi, and then I’d shielded myself from it all, thinking it didn’t matter.

It did matter now, though, and I hadn’t figured out how to deal with that yet. He and a lot of the others were trying to pull me into the family, and quite often ‘family’ had a slight mafia ring to it. I also had feeling it wasn’t
just
because they wanted to make sure I felt like I belonged, that it was somehow to protect me, too. Which, weirdly enough, made me feel more scared. Probably because the mere fact that I needed protection was frightening, so obviously Mom’s talk about women paying the price had left some nagging doubts behind.

When Mitch stopped outside my house, I turned towards him.

Looking at him, I felt horrible. He’d made a real effort to make this night special for me, and I’d yelled at him at a restaurant. Sure, he’d been somewhat of a jealous asshole, but I could’ve just told him the truth—that Victor was gay and I wasn’t looking for anyone else. I’d been a drama queen, and I hated when I did that. I sighed.

“I had a good night, you made it good, and I’m sorry that I didn’t show it in a better way.”

“Just get out of the fucking car,” he muttered. “I can’t fucking deal with this right now.”

“I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but thank you for coming with me.”

His initial response was a dry laugh, and his grip on the steering wheel hardened.

“Anna…” he growled. “Just get out.”

I started to cry, but nodded. “Okay.”

I managed to get inside and into my room before I really started bawling.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Say That Again

-o0o-

Mitch was fuming. He was so fucking pissed he was about to explode. So much for trying to… do whatever the fuck it was he’d been trying to do. It wasn’t just her fault, but he’d seen red when that cup-wearing asshole in tights had pushed up on Anna. Mitch had been with her for the full fucking night, watching something excruciatingly boring for her sake, while wearing a fucking suit. He’d even booked them a table at fancy fucking restaurant, and the second that ass talked to her, she’d looked like he’d given her a million bucks.

Mitch pulled out his burner and called Mac.

“Hey?”
Mac answered.
“Shouldn’t you be seducing the mother of your child right now?”

“I need to get high as fucking kite, and I need you with me.”

“I’m on my way.”

That was another reason why he loved his brother. The man was more hung over than he’d been in years, but he didn’t even question him. Mitch had told him he needed him, and he was on his way.

By the time Mac arrived, Mitch was already feeling slightly better.

“So,” Mac said as he sat down and lit a joint. “What went wrong?”

“I got jealous, she got pissed and started yelling at me at the restaurant, so I took her home.”

“Jealous?”

“One of the ballet jerks got all… touchy.”

“You know most of them are gay, right?” Mac laughed. “Maybe not all of them, but I’m pretty sure a lot of them are.”

Mitch actually hadn’t thought about that. “Fuck.”

“Well, the bright side would be that she’s most likely not fucking him now, so go back to her tomorrow and try again.”

“Look at you, finding the silver lining in everything.”

“I know. It’s my superpower. You should also keep in mind that you could’ve knocked up some bitch you hated. Like in a frustrating hate fuck.”

“My hate fucks are strictly anal.”

Mac lost it and started laughing until it ended up coughing.

“That’s probably a good plan,” Mac said when he managed to catch his breath again.

“I’m a smart guy. As long as I’m not trying to tell a woman I love her.”

He hadn’t thought he’d said that out loud, but he had, and he looked at Mac. He’d expected to see a lot of things, but not the big smile Mac was sporting. The honest, and to Mitch’s horror, slightly proud smile. Kind of like the smile his dad had given him a few days earlier when Mitch’d explained why he was taking Anna to the ballet. It had been slightly disturbing on Brick, but it was downright creepy on Mac.

“Maybe you should practice saying that a few more times and then just tell her,” Mac said. “It tends to shut them up, at least the first time you say it.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s not gonna make me feel like an idiot, practicing saying ‘I love you’ in front of a mirror.” He took a long drag and held it in for as long as possible before exhaling. “I worry. About her, about going away while Hump is around, and… fucking everything. I don’t think I’ll be able to convince her to stay with Mel, and it feels like I’m going insane about all this shit.”

“I know, man,” Mac mumbled. “I worry, too. Have you even asked her to stay with Mel while we’re away?”

“No. I need to figure out how to convince her before I even try.”

“I’m sending Vi to stay with Mel while we’re away, too. I know Anna likes her, so you could try telling her that. But if she won’t, maybe you should have Wrench staying with Anna?”

He’d thought about it but hadn’t brought it up with Brick. Bucket and his family would be staying with Mel, since he’d volunteered to stay behind, but Wrench was free to stay with Anna if that turned out to be necessary. Mitch just wasn’t sure how to bring that up with her, or how to explain why she needed it.

‘This guy is pissed and thinks it’s my fault he lost his hand, so he might try to kill you.’ He honestly didn’t think saying ‘I love you’ just before or after that would make any difference.

-o0o-

Mac hadn’t left until four in the morning, so when the doorbell rang at ten, Mitch was feeling like shit. He hadn’t really come up with any great ideas regarding Anna, but he still thought he needed to go talk to her, and he needed to do it as soon as possible. It was not a good idea to let the shit from the day before fester, and he almost hoped it was her who had come to have a go at him. It would at least get the discussion started.

But when he opened the door, it wasn’t Anna. It was his favorite detectives, Gordon the Gorilla and Evans the D-cup.

“Do you have a warrant?” he asked. He was in no mood to play games, and he frankly couldn’t have cared less what they had to say.

“Do you have an alibi for last night?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I was at the ballet.”

“Do you think this is a joke?” Gordon the Gorilla asked.

“No, it was actually boring as fuck. I don’t recommend it, but I was there, and I was seen backstage after the show, too. I was also seen arguing with a woman at a restaurant.”

“Anna Dobronravov?” Evans asked with a smile.

“Yeah. Good work on learning the name,” he added.

“Is she here?”

“No. What is this about?”

“Do you know a Patricia Haney?”

His fucking heart stopped. “The woman who owns the shop on Jomax Street?”

“So you do know her?”

This was bad. So fucking bad, because there weren’t that many reasons why they’d ask him about Patricia. And if it was Hump—and he was pretty fucking sure it was—this was to spook both him and Brick. Probably a very quick retaliation for the pimpled hacker—who they’d fucking left alive! Also, that was the shop across the street from his mom’s place. Hump wanted them to know he could get to them. It also made Mitch wonder if they were tailing him and knew he used to shop there. That was a really fucking scary thought.

He realized he hadn’t answered the cops’ question, and it took him an extra second to remember what they’d asked. If he knew her.

“She’s got a shop by my mom’s place. I’ve bought smokes there now and then.”

“She was killed leaving her shop last night, and she had the same number painted on her car as your stripper had,” Evans explained. “But since you have an alibi…”

“Yeah,” Gordon growled. “We’ll leave you for now, but we might have some questions later. This still reeks to the high heavens of Marauders, and when we figure out how you’re involved, we’re coming for you.”

Gordon the Gorilla was probably trying to sound threatening, but Mitch was really fucking fed up with his dick swinging and decided to do the IT equivalent of a rectal exam on Detective Gordon. He was going to find all the fucking dirt he could on him, because he had a feeling that Gordon’s affair with Evans wasn’t his biggest problem. It was always good to have dirt like that on a cop.

They had just barely left when Mitch called his dad to explain the situation and to make sure they had a guard on his mom. She’d go crazy, but she was a practical woman, and she’d understand why she needed one.

“Do I need to come in for a meet?” he asked while he was trying to find a clean t-shirt.

“No,”
Brick answered.
“I’m on top of this for now. Is Anna with you?”

“No,” he muttered. “We had a fight—again. And she’s my alibi again. She’s gonna love that.”

“Wow! You just keep fucking up.”

“I think you’ve already said that. I’ll try to get a hold of her.”

“I’m sending someone to sit outside her house for now.”

“Someone discreet. I don’t need more shit from her right now.” He scratched his head. “I’m gonna look into one of the cops. I think we could find something to use on him.”

“The one banging his partner?”

“Yeah.”

“Keep me updated.”

Mitch spent the full fucking day on the phone with one person or another. He soon realized that it probably would’ve been easier if he’d just gone to the clubhouse, but he managed to keep in contact with Mech online; they went through everything and kept in touch the entire day. He also had a quick talk with Sisco, his mom called and yelled at him about pretty much everything she could think of, and then it was the rest of them. He just barely had time to eat, and when he finally got a few moments, he realized what had happened.

Patricia was dead.

He didn’t really know her, but she’d been a great woman, and she had a young daughter. He’d been under the impression that she was raising her all by herself; he’d at least never heard of a man in her life. A fourteen-year-old girl had lost her only family, and it was partly on him. He couldn’t deny that, and the weight of it was crushing. There was no way he could make it up to the girl.

When the doorbell rang that night, he just hoped it wasn’t the cops again. And it wasn’t—it was Anna.

“I think we need to talk,” she started as she passed him and sat down on the stairs leading up to his bedroom. “I’m not really sure were we stand, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to complicate this even more. And you pissed me off yesterday with your… male chauvinist possessive crap. It’s not that I don’t want to have sex. I’d probably have sex with anyone. I actually scoped out a guy at the bus, and he was really old—”

“Anna,” he tried to interrupt her, but that just made her angry.

“No! Listen to me. I know you think it’s just to… have sex when you’re horny, but I don’t work like that, and I don’t do it that often. Definitely not like I did with you, and look what that led to,” she said and pointed at her belly. “And it wasn’t fair of you to just jump me when I said I was horny. Maybe I just wanted to talk about it.”

It was obvious to Mitch that he would never ever, under no circumstances, understand women, or at least not Anna.

“You wanted to talk about being horny?” he asked.

It was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, and he was too tired to even try to hide how stupid he thought it was. Luckily, Anna seemed to realize how stupid it was, too, because she blushed.

“Okay, that was silly, but still, the point of me telling you this was just so you’d—”

Mitch decided to trust Mac, since his track record with relationships was a lot fucking better than his own. Mac had loved only one woman in his entire life, and had been able to keep her happy for years, so he did what Mac had suggested. He interrupted Anna and just fucking went for it.

“I love you.”

And Mac had been right. Anna’s eyes grew wide, her mouth fell open, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Most importantly, she shut the fuck up. He squatted down in front of her.

“I do. This isn’t about sex. I was in love with you before I found out you were pregnant, but I was scared I’d fuck you up completely if I pushed for more right then. But I love you. I see you every fucking day, so this is the closest thing I’ve had to a relationship since I was a teenager, and I miss you when you’re not here, and the only fucking reason we’re fighting all the damn time is that we’re trying to stay friends and not have sex. It’s fucking insane, Anna. I love you, I don’t want to be your friend.”

“What if you get bored?” she whispered.

“You baffle me on a daily basis, so I don’t see that happening, but no matter what, could you please give me a shot at this before you decide I’m a cheating asshole?” He took her hands, and she kept studying him. “This isn’t working. You have to know that, too. We’re driving each other insane like this, and we never fought before.”

She looked at his hands, and looked up at him again. “The cops came by again.”

Well that was a very direct way of changing the subject, but he kind of assumed it was part of the subject, too, in a way. He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you know her?”

“Yeah. She owned a shop opposite my mom’s hair salon.” He tried to smile. “I’ve never had sex with her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Mitch, what’s going on? Can I ask that, or… Like I said, I’m not sure where we stand, what I can ask or what parts of your life aren’t for me.” She gently stroked his beard. He took a deep breath because he had a boner. A slight touch was all it took. “You seem really stressed, and I don’t think it’s just because of me.”

He closed his eyes again, and he wished he could’ve told her that all parts of his life were for her, that he’d never keep secrets from her, but it wasn’t true—and she would know that, too. The best way of doing it was probably to be honest, and be honest about when he was keeping secrets from her, too.

He was having a hard time focusing, though, because her hands on him were just awesome; he’d missed them. He’d been touching her a lot, but she hadn’t really touched him since… since before she’d gone to New York.

“It’s a really long story, and I’ll tell you as much as I can, but you’re gonna have to stop touching me.” He tried to stand up, but she pulled him back down. “Anna, please,” he tried to make it sound like a warning, but it was more of a whimper.

“Why?”

He could have sworn she was teasing him. “I haven’t had sex in a while. As opposed to what you think, I’m not having sex with others.”

“That’s why you wanted me to ask,” she murmured, and he could feel how close she was to him because her warm breath was stroking his face along with her hands. “Mitch.”