Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

“Yeah.”

We stared at each other for a long minute. A stalemate.

“Gotta get to the shop,” I declared, makin’ to stand.

“Sit your ass down,” Zeus demanded then waited as I settled and leveled a glare his way. “Now, we’re brothers more than most. You been with me since ’fore I got locked up the first time, and we’ve been through it all. So don’t go thinkin’ I’m tryin’ to be an asshole.”

“Then don’t be,” I suggested, barin’ my teeth in a violent smile.

Zeus’s silver bladed eyes pressed into me like the edge of a weapon held to my throat. “Gotta say it, and you were in my position, watchin’ a man like you make a play at someone good and pure, you’d say it too.”

A man like you.

Yeah, I’d heard that before.

Years of therapy had only solidified what I’d been born knowin’.

I was the black sheep, the dark horse, the animal too beastly for a soul.

Not good enough for shit.

So yeah, I didn’t try for much. I was happy with my shop, the reputation I got from sharin’ my passion for ink with the masses.

I didn’t need more than that and my family and my brothers in cuts.

Love didn’t have to factor into my life ’cause I’d learned early it was a trap.

“Don’t fuck with Lila, brother,” Zeus warned. “You gotta know the girl’s had feelin’s for ya since she was a girl.”

“Oh, yeah? Like Lou did for you?” I dared to point out.

Zeus had saved Loulou from takin’ a bullet when she was six years old, and even though they hadn’t gotten together until she was a woman, he was the last person who shoulda been holdin’ up a caution sign.

His lips flattened. “You think I’m warnin’ you off ’cause’a the age difference, you’re blind. I’m warnin’ ya ’cause you once told me love was for the weak and you’d never do it again. Not after what happened with that bitch, Meredith––”

“Don’t say her name,” I hissed, hackles raised, the dark animal risin’ up my throat so fierce I wanted to howl and snap. “Don’t want to hear that name in this sacred fuckin’ place.”

“Okay, brother,” he agreed. “But listen to what I’m sayin’, yeah? She’s tryin’ to move on. Yeah, that Jake is a pansy-ass, but it’s her choice. You playin’ games with her ’cause you miss havin’ her undivided attention? Don’t do it. She’s been through enough in her life.”

She had.

No one knew just how much like I did.

My heart twisted up like a wrung-out dish towel as I expelled a heavy, toxic sigh. I stared down at my hands, at the Suntastic Yellow Sunflower I had inked into the inside of my left wrist that represented the awful night Ellie Davalos had died and Lila’s whole life had changed.

I touched the raised inked with my thumb as my heart burned and my throat closed up.

Lila didn’t need any more pain, any more mess.

She deserved the best, and yeah, motherfuckin’ Jake wasn’t that, but I couldn’t pretend for a second I was either.

So I needed to move the fuck on from that kiss and the moments that led to it.

But somethin’ irreversible had happened when I’d shamed Lila for her crush. She’d pushed me away, sectioned me off into a little box and locked up the lid. We’d still talked, hung out with our families both of blood and leather, but she no longer let me close to her sunflower soul.

And I hadn’t realized until she’d put that wedge of intractable space between her and me just how much we’d grown up tangled like twin vines on a wall.

Life felt lopsided without her wit and ramblin’, without her hippie spirit spoutin’ the joys of vegetarianism and savin’ the planet, without her rockin’ out to music in the shop as she kept me company while I did bullshit paperwork.

She’d invaded my life so fully, so beautifully, like some kinda mornin’ glory I’d planted myself, that I hadn’t realized until I’d yanked her out just how much substance she’d given to my life.

And then that kiss.

One kiss changed the course of our friendship for good.

’Cause after that kiss?

I didn’t think there was any way I could go back to pretendin’ Lila wasn’t fuckin’ vital to me. ’Cause the feel of her lips on mine was like fresh oxygen after two years of livin’ with half a lung.

And now I was addicted to the thought of breathin’ free.

“You’re not listenin’ to me,” Zeus noted drily, resigned.

“Nah,” I agreed with a lopsided grin. “But when have I ever?”

“You’re gonna make a mess’a things,” he warned. “Here’s hopin’ you get your pretty boy head outta your ass ’fore you ruin things for good. ’Cause Lila, she might be your shot at the kinda happy I got with Lou. The kinda happy I carry ’round in my chest like a second heart that beats just for her.”