Page 46 of Then and Now (The Edge of Retaliation 3)
“You okay?” Alarick asks, walking over and doing a quick once over of me.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice shaky. “He came out of nowhere.”
“Worse than I thought, these guys want you and they’re gettin’ ballsy in their attempts.”
“H-h-h-how did you know he took me?” I ask, my voice still shaking.
“As soon as you walked out, I remembered I promised Tatum I’d watch you. Figured I’d come and check, lucky for you I did.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, taking a step in his direction on trembling legs.
“No problem. Goin’ to have to get more eyes on the place. I’ll work it out. Let’s get back to work.”
We both walk back to the shop, abandoning our lunch, and Alarick peers around as we move, his eyes scanning over everything, every car, every person, every shop. He’s looking for them, but I don’t think he’s going to find them, hell, we don’t even know who we’re looking for at this point.
We don’t know what his men look like.
“Goin’ to call my brothers around here, get them to check things out,” he says sitting down and getting back to the tattoo he was doing before he came to save my ass. “Get a watch put on you, extra security.”
“I just …” I say, hesitating as I sit on my chair. “I don’t get it.”
“Not up to you to get it. Those men are on a mission and they’re goin’ to complete that mission to make a point.”
“Because we went to the cops?”
Alarick nods, starting up his gun and getting back to work. “Let me explain somethin’ to you. Men like that, they have a reputation to uphold. Know, because I’ve been there, I am there. You bring a group like that down, and they let you get away with it, people notice. They let you go, they start openin’ the doors to everyone messin’ with them. No, they need to make a point, and that point is that nobody fucks with them.”
Makes sense.
It really does.
“How do we get out of it then, if they’re not going to ever let it go?”
Alarick pauses and looks up at me. His look says everything. He doesn’t need to say the words, he doesn’t need to explain any further, I know exactly what his look is saying.
The only way to get out of it …
Is to kill them.
“YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE doin’ here?” Tanner asks, pulling his shirt up and over his head, and then lying on the table, facing me, his big chest on display.
I can see why Callie finds it so hard not to stare at him, to be obsessed with him, to want him the way she does. He’s gorgeous, but not only that, he’s masculine and he’s strong. He’s a powerful man, and he knows it. He carries it with pride.
“Yes,” I say to him. “Are you sure you want this?”
“Callie wants me to have it.”
“It’s not Callie’s body,” I say, wiping the blank spot over his heart where I’m going to put the tattoo I designed.
“Never thought to get somethin’ for Celia, I’m not against it.”
“Good, because once it’s on here, it isn’t coming off. Do you want to see it?”
He shakes his head. “No, this is her thing. Let her do it.”
I place the template on and transfer the ink onto his skin, giving me a clear outline of the gorgeous design with Celia’s name in it. I made this one more masculine, incorporating a cross, and some unique patterns. It’s really great, and I’m super proud of it. I know it meant a lot to Callie to get this done for Tanner.
“I didn’t think you would let her do it,” I say, waving my hand over his chest to dry the ink so I can get started.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asks, his eyes meeting mine for a moment before going back to stare at the pictures on the walls that line the entire shop.
Pictures of ink, and designs, and certificates.
“You know why,” I say, loading my tattoo gun. “You two aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye.”
“Do you expect that we would?”
I shake my head. “No, no I don’t expect that. I know you’re angry at her, but that’s because you don’t understand her. Not really. She did what she had to do. You have no idea what it’s like to live Callie’s life.”
“Enlighten me,” he murmurs, putting his hands by his side as I start the gun up, dipping it in ink.
I bring it to his skin, leaning against him, feeling like I’m getting way too close for comfort with someone that means so much to Callie, but I don’t really have a choice.
“She never lived. What happened with Celia happened at such a young age. She never got to experience life, or fun, or parties, or boys, or anything that we all got to enjoy growing up. She lived with pain, and trauma, and then she got out and found more pain, and more trauma. She trusted people, and those people broke her, yet she still stuck around, she still wanted to fix things. You need to understand what that’s like. To live with those feelings every single day.”
