Ishouldhave.
I might even have convinced him long enough to get myself out of it. But that was the problem, the dirty, fucked-up truth. I didn’twantout, not if I had to give up my only tether to Gemma.
“So what now?” Lock asked. “You gonna go be your dad’s pet?”
“He’s not my fucking dad,” I growled.
“Maybe you could mark her.” Wraith spoke for the first time, flipping a page in his book.
Raze looked at Wraith like he was sprouting heads. “Howare you so cool about this?”
“Because I’ve known for years. At least it’s out in the open. We can deal with it. The whole ‘let’s pretend nothing is happening’ thing clearly isn’t working.” He eyed the barrel in the center of the room.
“So what do you suggest?” Raze threw a bloody towel—used to clean up the bathroom floor—at Wraith. “He actually mark her?”
Wraith caught the towel with ease and shrugged. “Maybe it will cancel out the contract. You know, a double-negative thing.”
“Or,” Raze stressed, “maybe it will make everythingworse. Maybe nothing changes, and now we have a spoiled, suicidal brat on our hands.”
“That’s also a possibility,” Wraith conceded.
I’d been holding, white-knuckled, to my last shred of control. Today, with her taste still on my lips, I could feel that grip slipping.
MarkGemma Crowne?
Lock laughed. “You only think this is a good plan because the idea of bloodshed gets you hard. And that plan has alotof bloodshed.”
“Look, I don’t care what we do,” Wraith said. “Mark her, don’t mark her, kill her, ship her off to the Galápagos. But—” He turned his attention to me. “—whatever happens, don’t put your life on the line for a girl willing to die.”
THIRTY-ONE
GEMMA
I had that feeling again. That hurricane feeling. That twisted one that my mother called attention seeking, but to me felt like a sandstorm in my chest. It carried me through the cold winter night, past Main Street, to a small tattoo parlor.
My entrance was announced with a dainty-sounding bell at odds with the rough interior.
“We’re closed,” the tattooist said without looking up.
He was like something out ofSons of Anarchy. With blond hair in a low ponytail, big and burly, even hunched over, I could tell he surpassed six feet.
“I’ve got five thousand that says you’re not.”
He glanced up, an interested arch in his brow. It didn’t take him more than a second to recognize me. He exhaled, stretching big arms over his head.
“You looking fora flower or some arrow?”
I pulled out my phone, showing him exactly what I wanted.
His eyeballs popped. “Yeah, fucking right. Good luck finding someone to ink that.”
“Ten thousand,” I upped.
He swallowed. “You have any idea whose mark that is?”
I had a really good idea. I guess you could say it wasinkedin my brain. The horse, skull, and scythe shining with briny ocean water, rippling across his shoulder blades and dripping down his muscles.
“Twenty—and I won’t say shit about where I got it done.”
