Rock Chick 08 Revolution (10 page)

“A second ago, you didn’t even
remember he existed,” Ren fired back.

Damn it!

I threw out an arm and went on the defense.
“I’m kind of not on my game, what with the late night grilling.”

“I had my mouth between your legs,
you’d be focused,” he returned, and there it was.

I’d had many briefings about
Asshole Speak, and that was proof Ren could equal even Luke.

“That’s not cool,” I whispered.

“But it’s true.”

It was true, damn it all to hell,
so I decided not to reply.

“Was there even a guy?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered snippily. “His
name is Carl and he’s currently undertaking FBI training in Virginia and likely
won’t be stationed in Denver when they’re done with him. So, since I don’t
intend to live anywhere but Denver,
I
had to make the decision to be done with him.”

Some of his anger slid out of the
room and his voice was less terse (though not gentle by a long shot) when he
pointed out, “Do you know that that’s the most personal thing you’ve shared
with me since beer at Brother’s?”

“Fuck buddies don’t share their
hopes and dreams, Zano. They fuck,” I educated him.

It was his turn to clamp his mouth
shut.

He did it better than me, and this
was because a muscle jumped in his jaw which I found, unfortunately at that
moment, all kinds of hot.

Crap.

I let him have his moment and
didn’t fill the silence.

He got over his moment and his
voice was even less terse (but still not gentle) when he told me, “I’m pissed,
and I don’t know what’s goin’ on with you out there, which means I’m pissed
because I’m worried. But that doesn’t negate the fact that I like what we got
and I want more.”

Oh God.

He wanted more.

And he was worried about me.

Fuck.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he
quickly closed the short distance between us, wrapped a hand around the side of
my neck and dipped his face close so I closed my mouth.

“You’re pissed too,” he told me
something I knew, but this time his voice was not terse at all. It was gentle
and sweet. “So don’t answer now. Not when we’re both pissed. Give it some time
and think about it. And think about sharin’ with me whatever you’re up to. You
got some mission with one of your posse, I might be able to help. It’s
somethin’ you and Tucker gotta keep close to your vests, I get it. But think
about sharing, honey. If I can help, I will.”

Okay, how did this happen? How was
it that one minute we were having not very nice words and the next minute he
was not only gentle and sweet, but also
nice.

When someone was being nice, you
couldn’t be not nice back. It was a rule.

Shit.

“Just laying down the law now,
Zano. When we’re pissed at each other, you can’t switch to nice. I can’t do anything
with nice. You know it, so that’s not fighting fair.”

His lips quirked. His hand at my
neck slid up into the back of my hair and his other arm curved around me,
pulling me close to his hard heat as he totally ignored me laying down the law,
and replied, “You know what I like?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He kept
going. “I like it when you act all badass, calling me Zano when I don’t have my
hands and mouth on you or my dick inside you. But when I do, all I get is sweet
breathy Rens.”

I lifted my hands to his chest and
was pressing, at the same time ignoring my inner thighs quivering as I pointed
out, “It’s also not fair to be sexy.”

He bent his neck, and with lips to
mine, he murmured, “I don’t fight fair, baby. I fight to win.”

I made certain to make note of
that.

He made certain I had no retort and
did this by kissing me. Then he did it by keeping my mouth engaged as he picked
me up like a groom carries his bride and walked me to my bedroom.

By the time we got there, I wasn’t
thinking about making a retort.

All I was thinking about was Ren.

* * * * *

Two
weeks later…

Ren was moving inside me and I was
loving it when his lips at my ear whispered, “This feel casual to you?”

It
so
didn’t.

It felt beautiful.

Perfect.

My limbs tightened around him and I
closed my eyes hard.

Then I turned my head, and, my lips
at his ear, I whispered back, “I need more time.”

His body stilled, unfortunately on
an outward glide, and my limbs again tensed around him.

Then he started stroking, sweet,
slow, gentle, and replied, “I’ll give you that, baby.”

I slid a hand up his spine and into
his thick, soft hair, thinking,
thank
God.

* * * * *

Three
weeks later…

I was sucking back coffee as Ren
strode into the kitchen wearing a suit.

I stopped, giving myself a moment
to appreciate the view. I grinned at him, moved into him and leaned up to kiss
his jaw.

I pulled back and mumbled, “Gotta
go, babe. See you tonight.”

Before I could make a move to do
that, his arm hooked around my waist and he pulled me into his side. His head
turned, mine stayed tipped back, and he caught my eyes.

“Been keepin’ an eye on things, and
Valenzuela’s lost interest in you,” he announced.

I knew this. Darius was also
keeping an eye on things.

I’d had my phone call with Darius
the morning after the night of Ren’s and my fight. He had already been made
aware of this situation and assured me he was keeping an eye on things and
running interference with Lee. Since neither of my brothers approached to tear
into me, and Darius had reported Valenzuela was focusing on other things, I
knew Darius was successful in these endeavors. So I moved on.

“I know,” I told Ren.

He nodded, then said, “Even so, I
also know your piece hasn’t exited the chess board.”

This was true. Darius, Brody and I
had another case.

I decided against speaking.

Ren held my eyes, then thankfully
changed the subject.

“You workin’ Brother’s tonight?”

I shook my head.

“Good, then I can take you out to
dinner.”

My heart squeezed, but luckily I
had an excuse and it was not made up.

“I can’t. Girl’s Night In at Tod
and Stevie’s. Jet’s wedding planning is heating up and things are getting out
of hand. Her mother and soon-to-be mother-in-law are horning in, and Jet’s
freaking. One word: bunting. You may not get that because you’re a dude. I’m a
chick and I don’t even get it, but according to Tod, it’s a bride’s worst
nightmare. Roxie’s also deep into the planning stages of her wedding, so Tod’s
decreed there are a lot of decisions to make and tonight’s the night.”

To that, he immediately asked, “You
workin’ tomorrow?”

I nodded.

He sighed.

Then he bent his neck and took my
mouth in a kiss that was a whole lot better than the one I gave his jaw.

When he lifted his head, he
murmured, “We’ll sort out another night.”

I again decided against speaking.
Instead, I gave his arm a squeeze and threw another grin his way.

I broke free and executed a forced
casual escape, calling, “Later!” as I did.

Ren didn’t reply.

* * * * *

One
week later…

It was after a shift at Brother’s.
I was in my Mustang with my phone in my hand.

I texted Ren with,
On my way,
then I tossed my cell on the
seat beside me.

I was about to set my car purring,
which would mean my radio would start blaring. This meant it was unfortunate
timing because I could hear my phone ringing when, if it had happened two
seconds later, I would not. Alternately, this could be considered fortunate
timing, depending on how you looked at it, considering what would happen during
that call.

Personally, I looked at it both
ways. But mostly the second. What went down was way better on the phone than
face to face.

Seriously.

See, I saw my screen said “Zano
Calling” so I tagged my phone and put it to my ear.

“Hey,” I greeted.

“Hey,” he replied, then didn’t
delay with laying it out. “Tonight doesn’t work for me. Tomorrow, you can get
away, we’re havin’ lunch.”

Here we go again.

Him pressing for more. Me finding
an excuse not to give it to him.

“I’m working Fortnum’s tomorrow.”

“You can get away to go shoppin’
with Daisy, you can get away to have lunch with me.”

Shit. I needed to learn not to
share. The more he knew, the more he could use.

And he used it.

Daisy, by the way, was another Rock
Chick. She wasn’t hooked up with a Hot Bunch guy. She was married to Marcus Sloan,
a colleague of Ren’s (as it were). That was to say legitimate at the same time
dirty.

I also stayed out of Marcus’s
business. This was because I liked him, regardless of the dirty part of what he
did. And I liked him not only because he was a nice guy, but mostly because he
loved Daisy to distraction.

Daisy, as it tended to be with the
Rock Chicks, was a little nuts. She looked like Dolly Parton, talked like her,
dressed like Dolly would if she was on speed, and Daisy’s heart was made of
pure gold.

So I loved her, and that meant
Marcus loving her and knocking himself out to give her a good life (after one
that was
really
not so good) worked
for me.

“Zano—” I started.

His voice was gentle and sweet when
he stated, “We have to talk, baby.”

“About what?” I asked, but I knew,
and this was beginning to get hard.

I was real. I said it like it was.
I wasn’t into duplicity and avoidance (okay, maybe
a little
into duplicity, if the situation warranted it). But
definitely not with someone who meant something to me. And regardless of the
boundaries I was working to keep around our relationship, Ren meant something
to me.

It took a moment to realize he
didn’t answer.

“Zano?” I called.

“You know about what,” he stated,
and as I mentioned, I did.

He said nothing.

I didn’t either.

Then he came to a decision.

No, that wasn’t strictly true.

It was then he came to a decision
because I’d forced his hand.

“Don’t like this shit, would never
do it, but you give me no choice, Ally,” he said and my heart lurched.

“What are you talking about?” I
asked, thankful my voice sounded strong rather than pained, which was what my
insides felt like.

“Ending things with a woman on the
phone.”

Oh God.

Shit.

Fuck!

“Ren—” I whispered.

“You’re not willing to go there
with me. You’ve made it clear, baby,” he said, still gentle and sweet. “Why you
need that, I don’t know. I just know you do. I also know what I want for the
future, and that includes wife and kids. So as much as I like what we got, it’s
important you know where I’m at. If you’re not into exploring that kind of
future with me, Ally, we gotta cut each other loose.”

I had to give it to him, he sounded
like he didn’t like saying those words, and it was very clear he was trying to
handle me with care. And I appreciated that.

Still, it hurt.

But he was right. We weren’t going
there.

So we had to cut each other loose.

“I… I have…” I stammered, shook
myself mentally and physically and got my shit together. “I’m not ready for
that Ren.”

“Right,” he whispered, and didn’t hide
his disappointment.

I closed my eyes tight and felt my
throat constrict.

“Be safe,” he said quietly. “And be
happy, baby.”

Oh God.

Shit.

Fuck!

“You too, Ren,” I forced out
through my tight throat.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Bye, Ally.”

“Bye, Ren.”

He disconnected.

I let my hand drop and stared at my
steering wheel.

It took a while, a very long while,
before I got myself together enough to turn the ignition and drive myself home.

That night and the nights after, I
didn’t sleep in my bed. I slept on my couch.

And I did this because the sheets
smelled of Ren and I didn’t have it in me to endure the memory of what we had.

But I also didn’t have it in me to
strip them and wash him away.

Chapter Five

Backbone

Rock Chick Rewind

One
week later …

I sat in my Mustang outside the
Balducci brothers’ pool hall.

I had my gun in my purse.

As Darius promised, he’d taken me
to Zip’s Gun Emporium. I’d picked out a little .22 I could fit in most of my
bags and Darius arranged for Zip to open late so I could go to his range with
no one around, thus no one to see me, and practice.

I also ran once a day (mostly, and
I was right—I rocked running gear
and
those awesome headbands, though I was only beginning to rock running; that shit
was not easy). I went to Zip’s one or two nights a week (depending on my shifts
at Brother’s). And last week, to get my mind off Ren (though Darius didn’t know
why I was fired up to go), Darius had taken me down to C. Springs to run the
warehouse maze.

This was also not easy, and I knew this
because I went through the drill six times and shot at least one innocent each
time. I felt like a moron until Darius told me he’d taken that trip down to C.
Springs three times before he ran the drill and passed.

We were going back next week, but
not for me to go back to the warehouse. For me to run the defensive/evasive
driving course before the weather turned iffy seeing as it was September (or,
as it went in Denver, since the weather was always iffy,
iffier
).

But I was there, outside the
Balducci’s pool hall, with my gun because last night, Ricky Balducci raped
Sadie.

No, that wasn’t right. He’d beat
the shit out of her and then he raped her.

And I’d been mean to her.

I didn’t know she was Hector’s. I
thought they’d be sworn enemies seeing as Hector was the undercover DEA agent
who brought down Sadie’s drug lord father (suffice to say, trouble—this time
crazy, serious, heartbreaking trouble—had hit a Rock Chick).

I learned that morning she was not
only his, but also that the reason I’d been mean to her—that she’d done
something nasty to Daisy at a society party—did not happen.

Daisy was beside herself with fury
and sadness. The first, because Marcus knew Sadie never talked trash about
Daisy and he didn’t tell her, for reasons I got but were now very distressing.
The second because Daisy had liked Sadie before she thought she talked trash
about her. They were friends. Daisy cut her out and now her friend had gotten
raped.

And I’d been a bitch. A bitch to a
petite, scared woman who looked like a fairy princess and came to my brother
yesterday to get his protection.

I’d
been a bitch.

God.

I closed my eyes tight. My hand
fisting, everything in me beating back the desire to grab my purse with my gun,
waltz into that pool hall and pistol whip Ricky Balducci, an asshole who’d beat
the shit out of a fairy princess and violated her, to within an inch of his
life

I fought back that urge and when I
opened my eyes, automatically, I scanned my mirrors.

That was when I saw the hips in
suit trousers approaching my car.

My body stilled.

I knew those hips.

I loved those hips.

I
missed
those hips.

I swallowed.

Those hips approached the passenger
side and Ren’s handsome face appeared in the window.

His eyes locked on mine and I
stopped breathing.

He lifted his hand and tapped a
knuckle on the window.

I sucked in needed breath, hit the
locks then reached out and grabbed my purse, clearing it from the seat seconds
before Ren’s fine ass settled in it.

He slammed his door and turned to
me.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey,” I replied, but my voice
sounded croaky so I cleared my throat.

“How you doin’?” he asked, still
gentle.

“Good,” I lied in answer. I was not
good, not with him in my car looking beautiful and being sweet. Not with me
being a bitch to a girl who’d been raped. Not simply knowing someone who’d been
raped. “You?” I asked.

He looked at me, his eyes traveling
down my torso before his head turned to look at the pool hall.

He came back to me. “Been better.”

He knew Sadie. He also knew what
happened to Sadie.

This was not a surprise. Marcus,
Vito, and Sadie’s now incarcerated dad, Seth Townsend, all occupied the upper
echelons of Denver’s criminal underworld. It would make sense they and their
families would hobnob.

“Can I ask what you’re doin’ here,
honey?” Ren requested.

I held his eyes and whispered, “You
know.”

He studied me a moment before
nodding. He knew.

Then he said, “Let me deal with
it.”

On one hand, I liked this idea. I’d
seen Ren in action against Luke. On the badass scale, Luke blew the lid off, totally
redefining the scale. And Ren not only held his own against Luke, he matched
him. It was a fair fight that didn’t go long enough to declare a clear winner.
Seeing this, I knew Ren could undoubtedly fuck Ricky Balducci up big time.
Because if he could go
mano a
mano
against Luke, he could kick anyone’s ass.

And if he did, I wanted to watch.

On the other hand, I’d been a bitch
to Sadie, a girl who was Hector’s, which meant she was a Rock Chick (though she
didn’t know it yet), which meant she was going to be family. And I’d done it
the day of the night she got raped.

I needed to make amends.

“Zano, I—”

“Let me deal with it, Ally.”

“What are you gonna do?” I asked,
and his anger hit the car, stifling me, just as his eyes flashed with a light
that even
I
found scary.

Right.

There you go.

Ren was going to deal with it.

“Don’t hesitate to make a mess,” I
invited, giving in, and I actually
felt
him relax as the heavy air shifted out of my Mustang.

“Dry cleaning blood out of suits
costs a fuckin’ whack,” he replied.

Yikes!

I was absolutely not going to go
there.

“Take care of yourself, honey,” he
said quietly, ending our conversation, ending our time together, reminding me
he’d ended us and that I was the reason there was no us.

In other words, major
ouch
.

I powered through the hurt and
nodded. “You too, Ren.”

He continued to hold my eyes, and
long moments passed. Those moments feeling like he was waiting for me to say
something, do something.

I did neither.

Then he turned, opened the door and
angled out.

I watched him saunter to the pool
hall and kept watching, even after he disappeared through the door.

I did this with a knot in my
stomach, something stuck in my throat.

Then I pulled my shit together.
Something I’d had to do a lot since Ren entered my life, and more after he
exited it.

I decided I’d find another way to
make amends to Sadie, though I didn’t know how I’d do that.

I just knew I would.

I turned the ignition, put my car
into gear and drove away.

* * * * *

One
month, one and a half weeks later…

I was at Sadie’s art opening at her
gallery, but a more apt way to put it was that I was in hell.

This was because Ren was there and
he was with another woman.

This was also because he was
avoiding me.

This was not surprising. We were
done and he was with another woman. I got a look, a chin lift and that was it.

It was the classy thing to do, not
ignoring me, not getting in my space and being sweet or cool, and thus
reminding me we were over and all I was missing.

Still, it hurt.

But this was mostly because, even
avoiding him, that didn’t mean my eyes, against my strong directive, kept
moving to him.

Therefore I’d caught him watching
Ava.

Worse, he did it with a soft look
on his face I’d never seen. I was too far away to be certain it was longing. I
just knew it was
something.

He was still hung up on her.

The only thing I had going for me
was that I looked hot. My dress was awesome, showed enough skin and was tight
enough to be slinky, but not enough of either to be slutty. And my high-heeled
sandals were my own, and they were even better.

That was all I had.

Sadie and Hector were, I was
hoping, heading toward the Rock Chick Reward. That was, everything got sorted
and they moved into their version of happily ever after. There were still
issues, all the Rock Chicks knew, and it wasn’t only because of the Balducci
brothers (all of them were giving Sadie problems), we just couldn’t put our
finger on what.

“You okay?” I heard from my side,
and I turned my head and saw Indy there.

My best friend had lots of fabulous
red hair and a lush body of the Ava variety. In other words, old-fashioned
Hollywood bombshell: great rack, lots of ass, long legs and the ability to work
them all in a huge way, as her current dress and strappy heels, which were
(almost) as awesome as mine laid testimony to.

“Yeah,” I told her.

She studied me closely. “You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure,” I answered
casually.

Indy didn’t take her eyes off me.

She’d been my BFF for so long, we
were so tight, we knew each other’s deepest secrets (well, in Indy’s case, only
most of mine). We’d been through pretty much everything, so even with the
additions of the Rock Chicks, I would never have a BFF who was more of the “B”
than Indy. I loved her. I would lay down my life for her and that was no joke.
I knew she would do the same for me.

I also knew her just as well as she
knew me.

And right now, she knew I was full
of shit.

She leaned in, her eyes never
leaving mine, and started, “Honey, you haven’t been—”

She didn’t finish. This was because
a brouhaha was commencing. That was to say, Sadie’s loud voice was coming at us
and she was being sarcastic and bitchy.

Not good.

Indy and I looked that way to see
Sadie was into it with some woman who Sadie clearly did not like.

“Here we go,” Indy murmured and
looked at me.

I threw her a grin and did what we
Rock Chicks always did.

Got close to a Rock-Chick-in-need
in order to take her back.

And I was right. As the events
unfolded, one after the other, it became clear something was still very wrong
with Sadie. It wasn’t that she wanted that outed. It was just that what
happened gave her no choice. Being recently raped and consistently traumatized
by four criminally insane brothers (literally, to
all
of that), it was time for the lid to be blown off.

And blow off it did.

It happened after Hector lost his
mind when we all learned Sadie was secretly planning to move to Greece (Greece!
What the fuck?) and he dragged her to her office.

No, that wasn’t right. It happened
after what happened in her office leaked out into the hall when Sadie came
rushing out.

“
I’m protecting you!
” Sadie screamed at Hector, “Don’t you get it?
I’m protecting you!”

My head whipped around to the
hall, and at her tone, my body went tight.

She went on screeching.

“You deserve better than me,
Hector Chavez! You’re a good man from a good family surrounded by good people.
My father was a Drug King. He kills people! It’s what I am, he
made
me. And Ricky Balducci raped and
brutalized me. You know it. You saw it.
You
were even there!
You saw me! You told me you’d never forget. You saw me!
You’re better than that and I know it. You deserve more than that. You don’t
think you do but you’ve got a tattoo on you that reminds you to think with your
head, not your body. I don’t want to be the next tattoo you get when you learn
your lesson one day and realize what you’ve done. That you could have had
better. That you could have had more. That you could have someone good and
clean and right. Someone who belongs at your side. Not someone vile and ugly
and tawdry and used that you should have never, ever,
ever
settled for!”

I watched, my heart bleeding at her
words, as she yanked free of Hector and started running.

“Don’t follow me,” she shouted
over her shoulder. She stopped and turned. “
Don’t!
”
she shrieked in a voice so shrill, it lacerated me.

My throat closed and I was
weirdly paralyzed as others sprung into action when Sadie made a desperate dash
through the gallery, grabbed something from a drawer and took off.

God, I fucking
hated
it when the Rock Chick Drama
entered this stage. When the raw thing the Rock Chick was hiding was exposed in
all its hideousness and we got to see inside to what we were actually battling.

Not that something like that
happened every time. Not that I was there to witness it every time it happened.
But I still hated it, whether I saw it or heard about it.

I was good at giving one-liners,
making people laugh, giving support in my way. I could be gentle with the
honesty. And I was always there, no matter what, no matter when, if they needed
me.

But I had no healing hand, like
Jules did (because she was a cool chick, but also a social worker). Or like Jet
did (because she was shy, quiet and sweet and had a way about her). Or like
Daisy did (because she had so much love, it leaked out of her pores and you
couldn’t help but feel better if it leaked on you).