Filthy (A Bad Boy Romance)(24)

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Throughout the incident, nobody’s bothered to come over to see what’s going on. This part of town, they know better. There’s nothing to be gained by interfering with mob business, except maybe your own early demise. So I’m left alone to get back to my feet, regain some equilibrium, and figure out what the fuck to do next.

There’s not much to do, honestly. One thing I do know, though, is that I’m not going home to Jess looking like this.

Home to Jess. It sounds so strange, and yet so right. Never in my life have I felt like I had a real home to go to. Yeah, I had a house, a place I call my own, that has my name on the mortgage papers, but that’s all it was. Now it’s got Jess in it, and that makes all the difference.

I head for the line of buildings on this side of the parking lot, where there are several other businesses. There’s a bar I go to sometimes. I’m not that far from the gym where I normally work out, and the bar is a popular cooling-off spot for me and some of the other fighters. It’ll be closed this early in the day, but that’ll give me some time and space to get myself back together. Plus I know the guy who owns the place, and I know he won’t mind if I use his bathroom to clean up as long as I don’t damage things getting in.

So I’m careful breaking in through a back window; fighting’s not the only thing I learned when I was drifting through the system. The window opens into a storage area, and I make my way through shelves of foodstuffs and liquor until I find the door out to the bar.

I should probably head for the bathroom to clean up, but the lure of the liquor behind the bar is too much. I help myself to a shot of tequila. And another. And then—what the fuck?—a third. Patrón has healing powers.

The hot anger fades to a dull rage. What the fuck was I thinking, to hope anything would change? Nothing has. Instead, the only thing that was starting to give me some hope in the world is about to be torn out from under me.

I should have known Jess’s plan wouldn’t work. But once she’d put it in my head, I couldn’t put it back out. Now I was starting to realize that it wasn’t just because I wanted a way out. It was also because I wanted Jess. And not only because it would piss off her father. I wanted her because she’s Jess. It’s true, but I don’t want to think too hard about it. I’m a little afraid of the conclusions I might come to if I do.

I start to move toward the bathroom, but I haven’t quite cleared the bar when I hear a faint knock from the front door. What the fuck? Nobody should be here at this hour. The bar’s closed. But I go to the front and peek out through the Venetian blinds.

It’s her.

Frowning, more perplexed than ever, I pull the door open just enough for her to slide in.

Before I can ask her what she’s doing there, she loops her arms around my neck and kisses me. I can taste tears on her mouth; she’s been crying. But the kiss is hard and insistent, and I’m not going to push her away just to ask her what’s wrong. Instead I pull her closer. I need the comfort as much as she does. Maybe more, since I’m actually bleeding.

Finally she pulls back and takes in my face. “God, Cain,” she mutters. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I admit. I make a vague gesture toward the bathrooms. “I was just going to get cleaned up. How did you know I was here?”

Her mouth folds into a tight line. “Pop called me. Told me to go see how ‘my darling husband’ was doing. And that you’d get way more than this if we don’t play nice.”

She grabs my shoulder and steers me toward the bathroom.

“What does he mean by ‘play nice?’” I ask, although I know damn well what he means.

“He means do what he tells us to.” Her voice cracks a little, and she swallows. “He wants us to split up. Like, yesterday.”

“Divorce?”

“Divorce, annulment—I don’t think he cares as long as we’re not married anymore.”

I’m surprised at the steadiness of her voice. Her face is firmly set, and she’s very no-nonsense as she pushes open the bathroom door and guides me inside. It’s the ladies’ room, I notice, although it doesn’t matter. Except that there’s a small lobby off the main bathroom, and it has a couch. I know for a fact there’s nothing like that in the men’s room of this bar. She sits me down on the couch and goes to fetch paper towels. I hear the water running.

I’m not sure what to say. My head’s starting to hurt along with the cuts and bruises. My side hurts where Romano hit and kicked me. It feels like he stopped just shy of breaking a rib. Good call, since his boss wants me to fight in the very near future. Although he could have picked a different rib from the one that almost got broken the last time Spada’s goons beat me up. I draw a slow breath that’s meant to be cleansing. Instead, it just hurts.

I must be grimacing when Jess comes back into the little lounge, because her face immediately shifts into an expression of concern. I want to rub those worry lines off her forehead, kiss her there, tell her everything’s going to be all right. But I know it might not be all right. I have nothing to give her. I don’t know why I ever thought I did.

She scoots up next to me on the couch and starts daubing blood off my face with the paper towels. Some of the clots break, and I feel fresh blood rolling down my cheekbone, but she catches it, making a soft “shhh” sound like I’m a kid who needs to be comforted. I find it strangely reassuring.

“This is awful,” she mutters as she carefully cleans me up. She’s grabbed a first-aid kit from somewhere—maybe a cabinet in the bathroom, I don’t know—and opens it, sorting through its contents. There’s some antiseptic and bandages, gauze, little packets of ibuprofen. She applies the antiseptic, which stings like fuck, and then carefully tapes me up with Band-Aids and gauze. I probably need stitches, or at least some butterfly clips. Staples. Super Glue. Something.

It’s not until she shifts her attention to my banged-up hands that I get a glimpse of the look on her face. There are tears on her cheeks that she’s been ignoring. I reach up and wipe them away. My touch seems to break something in her; she chokes back a sob.

“Oh, Cain, this is my fault. I should never have…” She breaks off, closes her eyes, and I can tell she’s focusing all her strength on getting herself back under control. When she opens her eyes again, she turns her face down and fixes her gaze on my bloody knuckles.

I lean forward and kiss the top of her head, then stroke her hair with the hand she’s not working on. “Hush. We made this decision together. It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You think you forced me to say ‘I do’? You think you’re even capable of forcing me to do that?” I let my tone turn light. “Or anything, for that matter.”

She manages a slight smile. Good girl. “No. But I convinced you Pop would leave you alone if we got married, and now look at you.”

I shrug. “I’ve had worse.”

She shakes her head. She’s rubbing the cuts on my knuckles a little too hard, and I wince. “Sorry,” she says, then, “But there’ll be more. He’s not going to let this go. You’re in danger, I’m in danger—I mean, we both were before, but this has just made everything worse.” Finally she tosses down the bloody paper towel and puts her face in her hands. “Goddammit, Cain, I fucked everything up. Can’t you see that?”

I take her shoulders gently in my hands and lift her so she’s looking into my face. “Look,” I say, “I’m not going to divorce you, or get an annulment, or anything else just to placate your fucking father. I’m sick and fucking tired of having someone else tell me how I’m going to live. I’m particularly sick and tired of having that someone be fucking Phil Spada.”

“Cain…”

But I’m not done. I put a finger over her lips. “I don’t care what we have to do. We can move out of state. Fuck, we can leave the goddamn country—I don’t care. Whatever it takes to get away from him. To get you away from him. I want you safe. I want out from under his thumb. And most of all, I just want to be with you.”

The tears are sheeting down her cheeks now, but she’s not sobbing. A vague smile makes its way onto her mouth. “I thought this was just an arrangement.”

I shrug. “Whatever.” I’m not ready to make any emotional declarations. I’m not sure I know how. But I cup her face again, kiss her gently. “I’ve got a bad spot on my ribs. You want to look at it?”

She nods. I pull my shirt off over my head and lean to one side so she can work her magic.

As she carefully explores my ribs—they’re not broken, as I suspected, or even her gentle exploration would have me hitting the ceiling—I realize the pain, the frustration, and the anger are all morphing into something else. My dick is at rigid attention, because of course everything boils right down to sex with me. Or at least with my dick. Even the shards of pain as her fingers press into my skin are doing nothing but making me that much hornier.

“Nothing’s broken,” she says unnecessarily, although she doesn’t know I already figured that out. “Do you want me to wrap this up and maybe make you a sling, or—”