My only chance, he thought, again and again, like a mantra. Kennick, you're my only chance.
The irony of that didn't escape him. Fate could be unbearably cruel. He'd had enough good things once, but didn't realize it, only wanted more. And now the rest of his life depended on a man who he'd tried to destroy.
28
"He's going to Miami," Kennick said, staring at the face of his phone. "The motherfucker is going to Miami … "
"Who is?" Cristov asked, looking up from the sketch he was working on. Kennick had stopped in to see Cristov at the tattoo parlor when the call came in. Cristov had been too absorbed in his doodles to pay attention to the call.
"Damon," Kennick said, and that was enough to get Cristov's full attention. He dropped the pen he'd been scratching across the paper, stared up at his older brother.
"What the fuck is he doing in Miami? Was that him on the phone? You should have let me talk to him … "
"It wasn't Damon," Kennick said, and realized how tightly he was holding the phone when his hand started to ache. "It was Jenner."
"Jenner Surry?" Cristov spat, standing up even straighter.
"The one and the same," Kennick grumbled.
"What the fuck … "
Kennick explained everything Jenner had told him, and watched Cristov's face darken with each slow reveal. Kennick was worried about Damon. He was also worried about Cristov. He had hoped his younger brother's relationship with Ricky would give him some balance, and in some ways it had; in other ways, mainly ways involving Damon, Cristov was still as volatile as live TNT.
"Jesus Christ," Cristov said. "Damon … "
A vein pulsed above Cristov's right eye.
"Do we know anyone down in Miami? From when Damon was still in the scene? I don't remember him fighting down there before," Kennick said, looking through his contacts for any name that stuck out as potentially helpful.
"It sounds like he is still in the scene," Cristov hissed, and pulled out his own phone to do the same. "What was that guy's name … the one with the shitty axe tattoo on his neck … "
"Vano?" Kennick asked, glancing up. "Vano lives in Maine."
"He used to," Cristov said. "Not anymore. He moved to Florida a few years ago, remember."
"I guess it's a place to start," Kennick said. "At least he might have some lead on other guys in the rings down there. Cristov … you're taking this really well."
It was true; despite his red face and throbbing forehead vein, Cristov was at least thinking clearly. He wasn't cursing every other word, and he wasn't screaming.
"We need to find him, Nick," Cristov said, looking up from his phone for a minute. "I'm going to find him. And then I'm going to slam him into every wall from here to Miami, until he owns up to what he's doing to this family. To us."
Kennick wanted to say something. Wanted to tell Cristov that Damon would never change unless it was by his own will. But Cristov was just as stubborn as Damon in his own way. Cristov pressed a button on his phone, and brought it up to his ear, keeping his eyes fixed on Kennick the whole time.
"Vano," Cristov said. "It's Cristov. Yeah, Volanis. Good, good, man. Yeah, right. No – I got some questions for you … "
29
Damon didn't return that night until Tricia had fallen asleep. When she woke up in her bed, feeling more alone than she had in years, she just blinked at him in the opposite bed. He had his back turned to her. He was just a rigid lump.
She slipped into the bathroom to shower; returning, she found him dressed and ready to go, with no explanation as to where he'd been the night before. Not that he owes me one, I guess, she thought. We only slept together once …
The thoughts hurt, but not as much as the silence between them. The drive to Miami was short, but felt longer than all their previous days of driving combined. Both Tricia and Damon would open their mouths to say something, then turn to the other, see that they weren't looking, and close their mouths again.
Tricia, for her part, was trying to batten down the hatches on a rising anger inside her.
How dare he treat her like this?
How dare he act like a sweet, sensitive man, and then become this … ogre. This silent-treatment-giving, white-knuckling, rough-man-smelling, still-sexy-as-hell asshole.
In Charleston, she'd had a taste of what he could give her. And now, before they'd even begun, he was saying it was over. No, that's not what he said – not at all, some part of her thought. He just thinks … he thinks that doing something very stupid will make him ready to love you right.
He doesn't get to decide what it means to love me right, she thought, turning to him as they pulled off the highway. His fight, which was scheduled for the next day, was actually in a community known as Carol City, but he'd booked them a hotel in the city proper. Carol City was not, apparently, a very good neighborhood.
"I'll leave the car with you tomorrow so you can, you know, go out and do stuff," he said as he pulled into a parking spot. It was the longest sentence Tricia had heard him say all day. "I wouldn't trust it out there, anyway."
"Thanks," she barked back. The tone of her voice wasn't lost on him, and his shoulders slumped as they sat listening to the engine cool down.
"I wanted to take you to this really nice … "
"Just go check-in," Tricia spat, not wanting to hear it. It was a bit late to try and make nice. He'd brought her. He'd made all the first moves. And now he'd decided that it wasn't the right time for them to – to do whatever the hell Tricia had thought they were doing.
He gritted his teeth as he left her alone in the car to stew. She watched him walk away, caught by the way his shirt framed his statuesque body, his tight jeans glued to his thighs in the heat …
Tricia narrowed her eyes and made a decision.
She wasn't just along for the ride anymore.
And she was going to make sure he knew that.
Once they were in the hotel room, another double bed deal, Tricia turned to Damon, catching a glimpse of his rippling muscles as he set a bag down on the carpeting. When he straightened up and saw her eyes, he stiffened all over and put up one hand, as though anticipating what was to come. She moved in quickly, swatting his hand away.
"Damon," she said, rising onto her toes to grab his face in her hands. She hoped he saw the anger in her eyes. She hoped he saw that all she wanted to do was help him, and that he'd spit on those efforts. He'd hurt her. She wanted him to understand that. "I don't want you to take me out to fancy dinners or on elaborate trips or pay for luxurious hotel rooms."
He looked down at her, eyebrows slightly raised. He glanced away long enough to look over the room. It was definitely not a luxurious hotel room. She pressed her hands tighter on his cheeks, frustrated with the joke she saw dancing on the tip of his tongue.
"Listen to me," she said. "I don't care about what kind of nice time you can show me. If you want me, you have to want all of me. Even the parts of me that say things you don't agree with."
He pursed his lips together, breathing in deeply. He lifted his hands to cover hers, his eyes soft but unyielding. She nearly cried out in frustration.
"You have to trust me, and talk to me," she said, hearing the waver in her voice even as she felt her core temperature rising from the mere proximity of him. "You don't have to do what I say. But you can't shut me out. You can't … you can't just walk away, Damon. You can't just … "
"I don't want to do any of those things, Tricia," he said, voice soft. For a moment, she thought he might be willing to let her in. "But this time … "
That was it. He wasn't budging. Anger like lightning snapped through her body. And anger felt so much like lust that she acted on it. She dragged his head down, pulled his lips against hers, silencing the denial that he'd been so close to repeating. She wasn't going to let him say it. And this was how she knew to keep him from smashing her heart open again. And this was what she wanted. So badly that she shook with it.
Her lips parted when his tongue touched them; gentle, now, gentle. He probed her mouth, felt her tongue against his, giving and taking in equal measure. His hand on her waist pulled her in to him while her arms wrapped around his neck, the sensation almost instinctual. Her soft moan, swallowed by his mouth, made the kiss hot, her humming lips against his.
She wasn't going to be satisfied with a kiss.
Her hands moved down, began to roam over his body, caressing the hard plane of his chest, the ropy muscles of his arms, the tender slope of his jaw underneath the bristly beard. She reached down, made quick work of his jeans and plunged her hand downward, curling her fingers around his hardening cock. She felt like her hand was so small in comparison, and so cold; her fingers warmed, thrumming blood to the tips, as she stroked him and felt his groan against her tongue.