Page 39 of Pain

I slipped on the boxers and T-shirt I’d left on the floor in the middle of the night and strode toward the door, one eye on the clock on the wall. It was barely six in the morning. Who the hell needed something from me already?

Shit, what if there was trouble? What if something had happened with Devil? I wasn’t awake enough to make decisions yet, still too wrapped up in Saraya and the way she’d smelled last night to think properly.

When I opened the door, Mandy was standing there, and my stomach turned. She never came to my room unless something was wrong.

Gemini never let her leave their room until he was up and about, and he never got up before seven–particularly when he was wounded. If she was here at six, it meant trouble. I could feel it in my bones.

“Is he okay?” I asked quickly. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

She snorted. “If you mean did he go out yesterday on a mission for you and end up getting shot, then yes, something happened. If you mean did he walk into a meeting that maybe you should have been taking instead, and get shot doing it, then yeah, something happened. If you mean has he been putting his life on the line for years for you, then yeah, something happened. Is that what you’re asking?”

I didn’t answer her right away, and I didn’t push her back and slam the door in her face, the way another president might have. No, she didn’t have the right to talk to me like that, and she was inviting discipline in doing so. Any other president would have slapped her across the face for showing up at six in the morning and trying to lecture them.

But Mandy was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister and one of my best advisors. I’d known her even longer than I’d known Gemini.

I also didn’t think she meant to be hurtful. The creases around her eyes and next to her mouth told me that she was hurting herself and hadn’t gotten much sleep.

I was just a convenient target for her anger and fear.

“You came here at six in the morning to play word games and push your luck by getting in my face, did you?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay even.

She might be one of my best friends. That didn’t mean I wanted her thinking this sort of behavior was okay. Or that I hadn’t noticed that she was stepping out of line.

“Because I don’t think I need to remind you that I could kick you out of the club for speaking to me like that.” This sentence came out in a growl, and I didn’t try to soften the words.

Mandy, to her credit, flushed and looked down, though her eyes darted around me to Saraya a moment later. She looked back down and took a deep breath, and when she looked up at me again, her eyes were calmer, but full of pain and anger. They flitted to Saraya again, and then returned to my face.

Then she held up her phone to show me what she’d pulled up on the screen.

It was an old picture of Mandy and Gemini. At least three or four years old—before Gem lost half his ear in a motorcycle accident. Mandy looked ecstatic in the picture, though Gem was working hard to look as stoic as possible, like he didn’t know how to smile, even with the woman he loved in his arms.

Typical Gem. He was either hot or cold, high or low, happy or furious. There was never any in-between, and he hated making himself vulnerable by showing anyone outside of his small circle that he had emotions.

The intentional lack of emotion in his face was, however, secondary. Because the far more important part of the picture was that he’d actually been crossed out.

Someone had drawn a red X through his body with such force that the marker had actually pushed through the picture in places.

Shit.

“‘We got your man, old lady,’” Mandy said, sounding like she was repeating something she’d memorized. “‘You got four. We got one. But we’re coming for more, and we’ve got big plans. We finish the job tonight. Give me Saraya and I’ll let you live.’”

She lifted her eyebrows and stared daggers at me.

“That’s the email that came with this picture. They sent it only to me. I checked. They wanted me to know that they’re coming after me, and they’re doing it because of what you did yesterday.”

That was true, but that was only half of the message, and I didn’t have time to think about how personal that message was for her. I needed to figure out what my next move was.

“So he thinks Gem is dead,” I said. “I wonder how he could. Surely they saw him riding away under his own power.”

“Who the fuck cares, Knight?” she shouted, surprising me. “Who the fuck cares what Devil thinks or why he thinks it? Who the fuck cares if he thinks Gemini is dead? He thinks that because Gem almost died out there! Do you know how close that bullet came to his heart? Too fucking close, that’s how close it was! Three inches south and it would have killed him where he stood! I almost lost him yesterday, and it’s your fault!”

That was enough of that. I took her hand, yanked her forward, and slammed her up against the wall of my bedroom. “He’s the VP, Mandy. It was his job to go into that meeting, and I didn’t force him. He agreed to come with me, and he walked up to meet that guy before I even asked him whether he wanted to. It’s his fucking job. He knows that, and you know that, and you’re the one who chose to date him, despite the danger. So don’t you dare come in here and act like this is somehow my fault or something that I caused. I love you. I do. But this is not your place, and you know it. Calm down, before I have to take steps. Do you understand me?”

She looked up at me and swallowed heavily, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “I could have died, Knight.”

“And that applies to every day of our lives,” I told her evenly. “That has always been true. Don’t act like you haven’t known that for the last ten years or so.”

A long pause, and then: “He’s never been shot before.” Her voice was broken, a bit hoarse, but still strong. She’d heard my warning... and chosen not to heed it.