Mister Black: A Billionaire SEAL Story, Part 1 (In the Shadows) (2 page)

My guess is he’s around seventeen or so, but he’s much taller than most boys his age. I feel like a dwarf beside him.

“Where do you live?” he asks while lifting a strand of my hair over my shoulder so he can see my face.

I glance around, anxious realization cramping my stomach. Where
am
I going to sleep tonight? How will I eat? What I wouldn’t give to have the security of ten meals in my pocket right now. “I don’t know,” I whisper.

Concern creases his brow. “You don’t know where you live?”

I shake my head and look away, afraid he’ll see too much in my eyes. “I can’t go back.”

“Do you have someone who loves you at home? Some family?”

My gaze shifts to his steady one. “Yeah.”

“Then that’s all that matters.” He turns and walks to his car, opening the passenger door. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

I shake my head in fast jerks. “I can’t.”

He steps toward me, his voice suddenly tight. “Has someone hurt you?”

Clamping my mouth shut, I bow my head. “I’ve done something horrible.”

Wet, cold fingers touch my chin, but I pull away, tension building inside.

“No matter what you’ve done, family forgives,” he says softly. “It’s like the tide every morning and evening, sunrise and sunset, and a rainbow after the rain stops and the sun shines.”

A raw edge of hope laces his comment—as if he needs to believe in his own words. Instead of putting me off, it fuels my courage purely because he used to live here. He knows it’s not easy. I glance up, then frown, worried. “Rainbows don’t always come out.”

He smiles broadly, a dimple appearing on his right cheek. “The brilliant colors are always there. You just have to know where to look.”

The confidence in his answer gives me courage. I follow him to his car, then quickly slide into the passenger seat.

As soon as he settles behind the steering wheel, I ask, “Do you have a towel or a blanket? I’m dripping all over your leather seat.”

He takes in the water pooling under my butt, dripping off my jeans onto the supple black leather. Smirking, he starts the engine. “I know.”

“This isn’t your car, is it?”

The look he gives me is both defiant and amused. “Nope.”

Oh God, am I in a stolen BMW?
I start to reach for the door handle when he presses on the gas and the car zooms forward.

“I didn’t steal it. I’m just borrowing it.”

Uh huh. And I didn’t just commit a crime. Two liars sitting side-by-side.

“Where do you want me to take you?” he asks while I chew the tip of my thumb in indecision. The last thing I need is to draw police attention. If we get stopped, I’m not confident my black sweatshirt will hold up under the indoor lighting at the police station. Does blood glow under florescent lights? Or is that black light? I wrack my brain trying to remember from TV shows. Either way, I don’t want to find out. “I should just probably walk.”

He turns right onto a main road. “Or I can just drive for a while if you want.”

The car smells like leather and “new car” scent, and its warmth feels so good. For a second I consider trying to fall asleep. Maybe then I’ll wake up to discover all of this has been one big nightmare. I shrug off the fantasy. The last thing I want is to get out and have to walk around in the cold night air with sopping wet clothes, so I nod.

We drive for about twenty minutes when he finally breaks the silence. “What’s your name?”

I shake my head.

“You want to talk about it?”

I bite the inside of my cheek and stay quiet.

Sighing, he pinches the top of his nose, then rubs his thumb along the curve of his eyebrow. “I used to live in that neighborhood back there, remember?” he says softly.

Something about the sympathy in his voice cracks through, creating a knot in my throat. Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with emotion. No matter how I try to justify my actions, I’m a terrible person. Panic sets in and I start to breathe hard. Clutching my chest, I pant out, “Stop the car. Just stop. I can walk. I need to go.”

He quickly maneuvers through traffic and pulls off to a side road. I bend over and wheeze, trying to catch my breath.

A warm hand kneads my shoulder. “It’s okay. Breathe. Just breathe.”

“I.
Can’t
,” I choke out, fingers clawing at my throat. It’s closing up. I’m smothering.

He pulls my hand from my throat and gently cups the back of my head. “Hey, I’ll breathe with you, okay? Take deep breaths. Like this. Through your nose, then out of your mouth. In and out. In and out.”

As he rubs his thumb along my wrist, I take a breath and follow his lead, trying to slow my racing heart.

Several seconds pass with us just breathing quietly.

“That’s it, Red.” He gives an encouraging smile. “You’ll be okay.”

Usually I would totally hate being called Red—second only to Freckles—but right now his teasing in the middle of my dark, spiraling reality is so crazy and absurd, it’s exactly what I need.

Once I’m breathing normally, I pull away from his hold and press my shoulder into the door. “I’m fine,” I say in a low voice.

He leans back against his seat, resting an arm on the steering wheel. “You get those attacks often?”

I start to shake my head when my gaze zeros on the watch he’s wearing. I don’t know the brand, but by the look, it’s probably worth more than a year’s salary to most people in my neighborhood. I nod to his watch, eyebrow hiked. “You’re from around here, huh?”

He follows my line of sight, then raises his arm to look at the watch. Taking it off, he holds it out to me. “Here, take it. I don’t want it. The price I paid for it was too high.”

The pain in his voice is real, as real as the one raging inside me. “What happened?”

He sets the watch down on the seat between us, his gaze locked on the clock face. “I lost my mom.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur.

Glancing up at me, his unusual eyes hold heartfelt sincerity. “You’ll never know how much family means until they’re gone. I didn’t have a choice, but you do.”

I wish I’d known my mom. She committed suicide when I was a baby. My dad was never in the picture, apparently. I didn’t have a choice either, but I stay silent.

He gently tucks a wet strand of hair behind my ear. “Don’t run away. Go back and tell them you love them. Whatever you’ve done, they’ll eventually forgive.”

My body stops shaking while he talks. What he says makes sense, but all I can do is hope “family bonds” will be enough. Thinking about it churns my stomach, so I tilt my head and focus on him. “Why did that guy call you Blackie?”

Amusement glittering in his gaze, he shuts his blue eye and stares at me with his brown one. “Because of this. He says the dark one makes me Black Irish.”

“Why
do
you have different colored eyes?”

“It’s not entirely unheard of.”

I shake my head at his offended tone. “I’ve seen a person with one green and one blue eye, and another with a hazel and a green eye, but never eyes like yours. They’re—”

“—Odd, disturbing, distracting. Let me guess…you don’t know which one to focus on, right?” he supplies, a smartass smile on his face. “I’ve heard it all before.”

I smirk. “I was going to say, ‘Like night and day. They’re unique.’”

“Most people don’t ask about my eyes so quickly. They usually dance around it a bit first.”

“Oh, sorry,” I say, wincing.

“Don’t be. Thanks for making me feel a little less like a freak of nature.” He puts the car in Drive, then pulls back onto the road. “Ready to tell me where you live now?”

There’s no way I’ll let him drop me off in my neighborhood, so I give him the name of a street a few blocks over from mine. Fifteen minutes later, he pulls outside an apartment complex and gives the neglected building a once over. “Is this you?”

I nod and reach for the door handle.

“You okay now, kid?”

“Why are you calling me kid? You’re not that much older than me.”

His brow puckers. “You can’t be more than what, fourteen?”

Like age gives you a free pass from bad shit.
I don’t want his pity. Rolling my eyes, I force a light tone. “I’m old enough not to share that with you.”

“Hey,” he calls as I quickly slide out of the seat and shut the door. The electric window zips down. “Take care, Red.”

“You too, Blackie. Thanks for the ride.”

Nodding at my quick comeback, his lips quirk upward. He closes the window, but doesn’t drive away until I climb the stairs and reach for the button panel to unlock the main door. Of course, I don’t know the code, so I just pretend and punch in random numbers.

The second the Beamer rounds the corner, I take off. I’m halfway down the street before I realize I never gave him his jacket back. Grimacing at my forgetfulness, I pull the lapels closer together and soak up the coat’s warmth, thankful for it.

When I get within a couple blocks of my neighborhood, my teeth won’t stop chattering. My jeans feel like slabs of stinging ice pressing against my skin. Just when I stop and rub my hands against my thighs to help warm them, a strong smell of smoke wafts in the air. Discomfort forgotten, I take off running once more.

A massive crowd stands around my building watching the chaos. Fire truck lights are flashing and the firemen are doing what they can to extinguish a massive fire that’s billowing out of the gaping hole on the fourth floor. People are talking, rumbling about an explosion. “Was it gas?” someone asks.

I cover my mouth to hold the scream inside. I can’t let it out. My fingers tremble like a junkie going through withdrawals. Our apartment and the conjoined apartment next to it—where Walt spends most of his down time with his buddies, drinking and hanging when Aunt Vanessa isn’t home—are both gone. With a blast like that, will there even be bodies left to bury? The thought makes me nauseous.

Finally the tears come. For Amelia. Not for Walt.

What caused it? Was it a gas leak in the other apartment? Oh God, was Aunt Vanessa in our apartment when it happened? She should’ve been there an hour ago.

No. No. No. Please, no!
All the family I have left. Gone.

Just as my legs start to buckle, someone screams, “Talia!” I jerk my head around toward the voice. My aunt is frantically pushing her way through the crowd. When she’s ten feet away, the people start to part and let her pass. As soon as she reaches me, her dark eyes roam over my face, anguish and relief in her expression. Tears streak her cheeks, but she’s still wearing her work uniform and the bun in her dark hair is askew.

Guilt swells in my throat, making me croak when I try to talk. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Vanessa.”

“You’re okay. Thank God!” she says, grabbing me and pulling me into a tight hug.

“I need…” The words jam in my throat, wanting to be free. “I wa—want to tell you.”

“Hush!” my aunt gusts in my ear. “The firemen won’t let me go up, but I know…” she trails off, her voice cracking.

She’s gripping me tight, tighter than she ever has before. As I hug her back, I realize that telling her the truth would be more painful for her than the one she’s experiencing right now. Amelia might not have been hers, but she loved her like a daughter. Just like she has me, ever since my mom swallowed a bottle of pills when I was just a week old. Letting my aunt hold onto some pleasant memories is better than none, so I clamp my jaw shut and swallow my guilt and anger.

The wind picks up, encouraging the flames to spread. Several more firemen burst through the crowd, and we have to move out of their way to let them pass. When my aunt and I turn to watch the men try to contain the blaze, our entire lives floating in the debris with the smoke, she says, “This is going to be hard for a while, Talia. It’s just you and me now. Like it has always been.”

“I know,” I say and gulp back the anxiety clawing at my throat. We’ll have to sleep in a shelter tonight and probably for a while until we figure things out. We have no other family. My aunt had only just finished nursing school and was in her first nursing job. Even with her salary, I know she depended on Walt’s carpentry income—which was a crock. It’s a good thing she’ll never know the real truth—to make rent and her car payment. The idea of having to quit school and find a job gnaws at my gut. School’s my only chance of going to college…of making a better life. Sighing heavily, I hunch my shoulders and slide my hands in my pockets to stave off the wind’s sharp bite.

My knuckles drag against something metal, and I frown, curling my fingers around the object in the coat. When my thumb rubs across the watch’s face, I realize he must’ve slipped it into the pocket right before I got out of his car. Sneaky car thief.

My grief for Amelia still heavy on my mind, I lean into my aunt’s solid frame. She has always been much stronger than me.

When she squeezes me and says quietly, “We’re all we have to depend on,” I know we’ll be okay.

One day.

I clutch the watch in my hand, fisting my fingers tight around the metal. That’s not all we have to get us through.
Thank you for the rainbow, Blackie.

“G
et up, sleepyhead,” Cassie says before landing a stinging whack on my butt.