Love and Lead Page 5

  He moaned something incomprehensible then sat up and pushed his legs out in front of him just before I settled on his cock. It gave me a clear view of the night sky in the window behind him, and I bit his shoulder while rocking up and down, moaning into his skin while admiring how peaceful the stars looked.

  And when we both came, it was the closest thing to magic I’d ever experienced. One long thrust, and I felt a little bit okay. A little bit relaxed.

  I felt a little bit in control, too.

  Chapter Six

  Ryker

  * * *

  She looked like fucking poetry. Something you’d whisper in the dark ’cause it’s too cheesy to say out loud. It was hard being myself with her hazel eyes boring into mine. She looked like all the pretty little things people said when they were drunk off of love and other promises. She looked like mine, lying there in my arms with her dark hair flowing over my skin. I stared at her a moment, pretending that she was there only for me.

  She also looked like something I didn’t deserve. Sunshine loved with her whole heart, and what did I do? I saw the worst in her, spending the last five years of my life hating a hurting woman. How could something that looked so beautiful make me hate myself so much? I needed to punch something. Hard. Now.

  I got her back, and shit hit the fan. Then I left her for my fucked-up sense of duty to Gav. I owed him one. Of all of us, he didn’t give up and brought her back to me. But fuck if I didn’t resent him for being the reason I had to leave again, too.

  She let out a little moan, and a line formed between her brows as she burrowed deeper into the mattress and my arms. I wanted to reach over and smooth the distress on her face, wake her up and do whatever necessary to distract her. I tried to heal her—every jagged little piece. But I had business to attend to. I was always leaving her, wasn’t I?

  I padded down the hallway, not bothering to put on a shirt. I was kind of proud of the fact that I got to spend the night with my—our—girl. So maybe I was an asshole because I wanted them to see the scratches running down my back from her sharp nails. Let them see the bite marks on my pecs. The bruises on my abs.

  I didn’t bother knocking on Gavriel’s door, knowing that he would be up and they were all waiting for me. It wasn’t something we necessarily planned ahead of time; it was just a conclusion I came to after years of knowing what was expected of a Bullet. A sixth sense, if you will. Where there’s a need, there’s a Bullet.

  Sure enough, Callum, Gavriel, and Blaise were all scattered about the room, looking as grave as I felt. Blaise was lounging on the sofa, the dark circles under his eyes showing only half of how fucking exhausted we were. Gavriel was sitting in a chair by the window, and Callum stood with his arms crossed over his chest at the door.

  “Surprised you could tear yourself away. Think that I could sneak in and wake her up with a kiss?” Blaise asked, and I threw him a snarl, still feeling a bit of cabin fever from spending the last four weeks up his ass. Yeah, that’s it. I wasn’t feeling territorial. Because I hadn’t earned the right to feel that way. Shit like that had to be deserved, right? “Calm down, caveman. It’s just a kiss.” Yeah. A kiss. I bet he’d have his head buried between her thighs. Wake her up with an orgasm.

  Shit. I was growing hard just thinking about it.

  “She’s out, looks like she hasn't gotten a good bit of sleep in months,” I said while looking at Gavriel and Callum. They were here with her, weren’t they? That was supposed to be a perk of our fucked-up little group. Shouldn’t I be able to trust that she was in their capable hands? So why did she look like she’d been through the wringer?

  “It took you long enough,” Gavriel said to me before taking a sip of water. It was odd, seeing the bastard without Sunshine Whiskey in his grip. Guess nearly dying sobered him up. I wasn’t sure if I liked him more or less off the bottle.

  “I’m sorry, don’t you know how this works? It’s supposed to take a while. Or are you a two-pump-chump in the sack?” I was egging him on. Gavriel didn’t want to be treated like a weakling. We were the stereotypical toxic males, showing affection with a healthy dose of insults.

  “Fuck off. I meant that it took you long enough to save Grace.”

  “Yeah, well that was a difficult situation. We’re lucky we even got her at all. Santobello was weird about Grace. Obsessed, somewhat.”

  “You’re welcome, by the way,” Blaise said in an over-exaggerated tone, leaning on each letter like he wanted to punch the syllables—or Gav.

  Gavriel waited a moment before spitting out his next words, likely struggling between feeling thankful for our help and entitled to it. He knew we’d do it again. That’s how we were. “How is she? Grace. The doctors said...but…” What, the big bad guy couldn't say it out loud? Had he gone soft on us? Oh, how he bent for the women in his life.

  “She’s resilient,” I answered. “She’s got that stubborn Moretti gene.”

  I tried to be patient and sympathetic, but I only reserved those good qualities for Sunshine. Everyone else got what was left over, which lately wasn’t much. The polite thing to do would have been to ask how he was, but I already knew the answer to that. I needed to know how our girl was doing. “So, how is Sunshine?”

  Gavriel stiffened, which wasn’t a good sign. Blaise snapped to attention, and I looked at Callum, but he looked like a puppy dog with sad eyes that made me wonder how he ever got accepted as a Bullet. I trusted Gav’s instincts, but he might have missed the mark on that one.

  “Every time she asks if I’m okay, I want to wrap my fingers around her neck and choke her ’til the tears flowing from her eyes are blood. Then I want to fuck her so hard she feels just how ‘okay’ I am.” I used to think that Blaise was the blunt and honest one of the group, but it was actually Gavriel. He held his desires—all of them—so close to his chest that he had no choice but to own up to them.

  “Kinky,” Blaise said with a lightheartedness that felt forced. He stood up and tugged at his shirt, then moved to the fireplace, fists clenched. He was practically growling at the notion of anyone hurting Sunshine, but he couldn’t say anything to Gav. We had to accept one another, that was the deal.

  “But you haven’t fucked or choked her, I assume,” I replied before looking to Callum for confirmation. He might be a pathetic fucker, but he was loyal to a fault. It was the one redeeming quality I found in him, and it was good enough to overlook all the other shit. He shook his head no in a subtle way only I could see.

  “No. Of course not,” Gav replied.

  “You always loved Sunshine more than you hated anything else—even yourself,” Blaise said with a sigh as he trailed his finger in the dust, leaving a trail that spelled out her name.

  “She does this counting thing when she thinks I’m not paying attention,” Gavriel mumbled so low that I almost didn’t hear.

  “What kind of counting thing?” I asked.

  Gavriel let out a sigh then stared at his glass, as if willing the water to turn to whiskey and his throat to turn back to normal. I kind of liked that he could no longer yell without going into a coughing fit.

  “She...she counts to herself. Anytime something distressing happens, or she’s mad or scared. She just counts. Sometimes to three. Sometimes to three hundred. She doesn’t think I hear it, but I do. I’ve been debating on hiring a therapist, but I’m not sure if it’ll just piss her off.”

  “Since when do you give a fuck about pissing people off?” Blaise asked, and I nodded. He had a point. Bastard had bulldozed his way into everything. Forced his friendships. Claimed Sunshine without question.

  “It’s...delicate.”

  “You scared a therapist will convince her to leave your sorry ass?” I asked. “Guide her through the realization that we’re all way too fucked-up to handle her and this dynamic?”

  Blaise looked at me, eyes widening at the idea of that. I shrugged. Yeah, it was a fucking possibility. I might have been projecting my own fears, shoving them down everyone’s throats
, but it was valid. Maybe we were worse than her father. Breaking her down ’til there was nothing left so she’d be forced to put up with our shit.

  And despite knowing this? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Pretty horses had to get broken before they could be owned, right? Or some shit like that.

  “We can address it when the time comes,” Callum said, stepping forward while adjusting his belt. I wondered if it was a habit of his, the phantom ache from where his duty belt, stocked with weapons and a badge, once hung. “I think it’s just a coping mechanism.” I grit my teeth, pissed that she even needed a coping mechanism.

  At that, the front door was pulled open, and one of Gavriel’s remaining men, either still here out of curiosity or boredom, led Alessandro inside.

  Santobello’s man looked pissed, and I didn’t blame him. Blaise and I gave him a hard time the entire way here, and by the look on Gavriel’s face, I got the feeling he wasn’t quite done with Alessandro Gray. Gav had been looking for an outlet for his anger, and he seemed to be a good enough target. Poor bastard.

  “Leave,” Gavriel said to the guard before turning his attention to Alessandro.

  “I thought we were done talking,” Alessandro said while crossing his arms over his chest. Bad move. He should have dropped to his knees the moment he got in here. Oh well, he’d learn soon enough.

  “I decided that I wasn’t done with you,” Gavriel sneered before looking around the room at us, wordlessly dismissing us if we so chose. I forced myself not to laugh, as if we’d ever leave.

  Some men had demons. Some men were haunted by history, regrets, or pain. Gavriel wasn’t filled with the things that tortured him—he became all the terrifying things that kept him up at night. We stuck by him because we saw ourselves in the way he struck out at the world. Or at least that's what I told myself. ’Cause admitting that I got off on the blood was too fucked-up even for me.

  “On your knees,” Gavriel said, his voice low and gravely. I could see how Sunshine viewed him as weaker now, but I saw a man stronger than his own body, fighting—no, crawling—to his surface of existence to prove the world wrong. He might have been stripped of his power and his empire, but Gavriel Moretti was still just as psychotic and ruthless as ever.

  Gavriel made his way towards the fireplace. In one swift move, he flipped the switch, turning on the electric flame that seemed to fill the room with a threatening glow. I might have escaped with the least amount of injuries, but even I flinched when it roared to life, the phantom fear haunting me.

  My eyes flickered to Callum. The puppy dog now looked feral, angry in ways I’d recognized before. I wondered if he was reliving that night. Smashing in Paul Bright’s skull again and again in his mind.

  “I wanted to make one more thing clear,” Gavriel began before picking up the fire iron and holding it over the flames. I was surprised by his composure; the fire didn’t do shit to his nerves. I was proud of him.

  “I’m not a forgiving man. I’m not a patient man. I don’t like traitors. I don’t like men that think they deserve an audience with me.”

  Once the iron was sufficiently hot, he pulled it out of the flames and walked towards Alessandro. “I wanted to give you something that would remind you always that if you fuck over my family, I’ll burn you alive.”

  Gavriel was always more of a poet than I was. He lifted the metal tip and placed it against Alessandro’s side as Callum walked up from behind, holding a pillowcase over his mouth to muffle the screams. My, how the puppy dog had changed, rising up the ranks and helping Gav do his dirty work. Guess guilt was a powerful weapon.

  At least Sunshine wouldn’t wake up from the screams.

  Chapter Seven

  Sunshine

  * * *

  My body woke up without an alarm the next morning, and I regrettably shied away from Ryker's warm arms wrapped around me before padding barefoot out of the guest room towards Gavriel's suite on the other end of the house.

  Every morning, he took his medicine at seven thirty and then had a special lotion applied to the grafts on his back. He never let me be present for that, but it was afterward that he was in a good enough mood to enjoy breakfast with me.

  It reminded me of the mornings I used to sneak into the Jamesons’ house and wake him up. It was the only glimpse I had into the old Gavriel, so naturally, I embraced our early mornings together with open arms.

  When I opened Gavriel's door, Blaise and he were both sitting at the breakfast nook by the window, eating a plate of fruit and pancakes while they discussed everything that had happened during their time away. “He’s a liability,” Gavriel said.

  “You still didn’t have to stab the poor guy with a hot iron. He’s not so bad once you get to know him,” Blaise replied while rolling his eyes before popping a bright green grape into his mouth. For a moment, I debated eavesdropping on their conversation but decided against it. I didn’t really want to know.

  "Good morning, Sunshine," Blaise said with a smile before tossing a cloth napkin on the plate in front of him and standing to greet me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, breathing in his cinnamon scent as he held me. God, it felt so nice to have them back. “Good morning, indeed. You look thoroughly...rested,” he added before pressing his tongue on the inside of his cheek and looking my sleepy self up and down. His hands gripped my hips, and I shivered when his thumbs pushed up beneath my shirt, grazing against my warm skin.

  When he let me go, I turned to assess Gavriel, trying not to be too obvious in the way I observed his facial expressions, searching for pain or discomfort. "Good morning, Sir," I said while running a hand through my tangled hair. I didn't bother brushing my black locks this morning; I was too eager to check on him. Although sleeping with Ryker last night was perfect for me, it still felt odd being away from Gav. It also bothered me somewhat that Gavriel looked well-rested for the first time in weeks. Was having me near messing with his ability to sleep? Maybe I should suck it up and permanently move into the guest bedroom and let him rest?

  "Good morning, Mrs. Moretti," he said with a conspiratorial smile, easing my doubts. I shook my head, warming at the sound of my new last name in his gravelly voice. He didn’t call me Love as often, once he found out that I told everyone I was his wife. Obviously, there were no formalities, or even a promise exchanged between us. Gavriel just liked the implications of that name and used it whenever he could. And by implications, I didn't mean marriage. I meant a legally binding ownership.

  Blaise’s eyes widened as he looked at me. "That's just a joke, right? You guys didn't actually get married or anything while we were gone, did you?" Blaise chuckled a bit, but the way he looked between the two of us made me wonder if he was actually concerned. He also looked at my hand, sighing ever so slightly when he noticed the bullet ring still proudly positioned on my finger.

  Pulling out of his arms, I made my way over to the breakfast table and snagged a piece of toast off of his plate. "Nix changed my name and helped smooth over the story of why we were at the church."

  "Well, great," Blaise said with a frown, "now the bastard is probably going to insist we all take his last name." At that, Gavriel looked at Blaise and laughed. It didn't sound like it used to, the smoke making his voice deeper than it ever was before. But it still made me feel good to hear the amusement bouncing out of his chest. Blaise was excellent at lightening the mood, it was one of the many reasons why I loved him.

  "Well now, that would be a shame," I said with a laugh. "Blaise Bennett has such a nice ring to it.”

  “You could take all of our names? Just list them alphabetically," Blaise offered, and Gavriel immediately interjected.

  "Absolutely not."

  Blaise popped a piece of bacon in his mouth, giving Gavriel a weary look. There was a lengthy pause where none of us said anything for a moment, but I could see the wheels turning in Blaise’s head. He was about to hit us with one of his signature truth bombs. "Gav, you look awful, man. It's fucked-up what happened," he said. E
loquent? No. Effective? Yes. Leave it to Blaise to dive in and tango with the elephant in the room.

  "Yeah," was Gav’s one-worded response.

  "You doing okay? I'm sure being in the hospital and the healing process was one hell of a mind fuck." My mouth dropped open in shock, feeling a combination of disbelief and relief that Blaise was moving forward with this conversation. I knew that if anyone could pull the truth from Gavriel about how he was feeling, it would be Blaise.

  Gavriel looked back at me, likely debating if it was worth it to say something and risk my ridiculous martyrisms. “Don’t feel like you have to respond,” Blaise added. “I know that being honest with yourself isn’t really your thing, and if I wanted to have a conversation about feelings, Ryker’s my man. But it might be beneficial for you to admit that you’re struggling. Hell, I’ve barely seen you for five hours, and I know you’re miserable.”

  I could have crumbled right there. Maybe Summer Bright would have. She would have absorbed their guilt and owned it, played the victim, took the blame. But Gavriel didn’t need that. None of them did. It took me a few days of wallowing in the hospital to realize that this wasn’t about me. This was about them.

  “Yeah, you should leave the emotional, introspective bullshit to Ryker,” Gavriel replied before slowly standing up. I noticed the honey tea he’d been savoring most mornings was half drunk on his table. It usually soothed his voice, but he sounded more hoarse than usual. Was that emotion bubbling up in his chest? Resentment? “Let’s go check on Grace?” he offered before straightening his collar.

  Looking down at myself, I wondered if I was appropriately dressed to meet Gavriel’s sister and Nix’s...well, I still wasn’t exactly sure what she was to Nix but was excited to find out. I also was excited to see him. He was too busy last night making sure that Grace got settled, and I was too eager to spend the evening with Ryker—a delicious evening with Ryker.