Obsession (A Bad Boy's Secret Baby)(68)

Chapter Eight


Flora

I'd never seen a man die before.

Once, when I was about six years old, I'd attended a funeral for my grandmother. I hadn't known her well, she'd been bed ridden for my entire young life. The day we'd gone to pay our respects, I'd looked over her perfumed, chemical soaked body in wonder.

Her eyes were shut, lips painted in a dead smile. I'd known, small as I was, that she was gone forever. It had led to an understanding that someday I, too, would lie there in a coffin with a false smile and yellow skin.

Death hadn't been scary. Not then.

Now... now, I was terrified.

“Flora?”

A gritty voice spoke my name. He was insistent, arms crushing me in a hug that was meant to hold me together so I didn't crumble over into fragile insanity. My ears were whistling, skin numb as my brain tried to flee what had just happened.

I was almost murdered, just... erased. Right here, right under the sun. The grass beneath my feet was rust colored. How could plants look so sinister? Realizing my cheeks were wet, I reached up in surprise. I didn't remember crying.

When my fingertips came back crimson, I knew I hadn't been.

“Flora.”

That time I looked up, staring into Ronin's searching eyes. There was an intensity deep in his face, shadows at the bottom of the Earth's darkest ravine. I knew what concern looked like, but to have it aimed at me... and from him... the disbelief ate away at my trauma.

Ronin took my hand, scrubbing it with a handkerchief he'd pulled from his back pocket. “Are you alright?” he asked, moving to clean my face. I flinched, but didn't pull away. Knowing that he was removing the gore on my skin—the remnants of Roach, the man who had sold me out—made me shiver.

It also made me remember.

“You really were trying to save me.” My words were a whisper, but he heard me. His body tensed, then he stepped backwards. “The Knights were going to kill me. Like I was nothing.” Hot rage boiled, pushing my voice to a fever pitch. “I wasn't going to fight them! I would have gone along, done whatever they wanted so I could get to my sister, but they didn't care. I was as good as trash to them, wasn't I?”

He flicked his eyes downwards. “No. You were just a loose end. The Knights know that loose ends get tied off, or else they get long enough to hang a man.”

Blunt reality slammed into me. Hugging myself, I saw the dots of blood on the front of my recently washed shirt. Maybe it was the shock, but I started to laugh; a grim, dusty hitch that quickly turned into hiccups.

Furrowing his brow, Ronin leaned my way... but he didn't touch me. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Shaking my head, I dug my nails into my upper arms. The burn of self-inflicted pain served to root me in the depressing moment. “I was going to say that I was sorry. You wasted your time with my laundry.”

His half-smile was too tight. I kept waiting for it to shatter. “Blood can be dealt with. Besides, Roach wasn't using it anymore.”

Together, we both looked back at the corpse.

Swallowing nervously, I said, “You called me a loose end. They were going to kill you too, though. Is it true, what he said?” I didn't dare peek at Roach again. “Were you really kicked out of your club?”

A barely visible tension crept across his jaw. Then it was gone, an easy smile hiding away whatever he'd let too close to the surface. “Yeah. Difference of opinions.”

Like bits of snow, my head packed with the cold memories of my first meeting with Ronin. The way he'd risked his life to pull me from the brothel, how he'd gone back and forth between telling me the Knights were dangerous and locking me in, then this morning, assuring me I could return to them if I wanted.

And then... and then, somehow, he'd known they'd planned to kill me.

Unless I was completely off base, I had a hunch. Limply, my arms dropped to my sides. “Was it because of me?”

His eyes darkened, blacker than onyx. “What?”

“You getting kicked out,” I said. “Did it have anything to do with me?”

For a moment he watched me, and I didn't know what he was thinking. He was too hard to read. Breathing in deeply, Ronin motioned around the side of the building. “Go through the front, you don't want to see the kitchen. Clean up and grab whatever you need. I don't recommend you stay here long.”

“I—what?”

“The Knights left bikes, but Roach has a car.” Kneeling, he dug through the dead man's pockets like he was picking fruit from a grocery bin. I heard the jingle of keys, then caught them as they flew my way.

Gripping the hard metal, I gaped at Ronin and didn't hide my confusion. “You want me to just leave?”

Glancing around, he spotted the outdoor hose spigot. Walking over, he rubbed his palms under the splattering stream of water. “What just happened is only a taste of what the Knights are prepared to do.” Shooting me a quick look, he dried his hands on his jeans. “Your luck has just about run dry. I'm sorry to say that you have to forget about your sister. You don't know where she is, and even if you did, do you really think you'd make it out alive a second time? It's incredible that you've survived this long.”