Scarred (Lost Series Book 2) (14 page)

The barrier was broken. The ties, irrevocable. And then I saw the last piece of him. And I realized that piece belonged to me.

River

T
he days went a bit differently for a while. All Ethan told me was that he had to work with the other bosses to get some things divided properly before Mikhail’s brother could take over. I didn’t ask him to explain it to me because I knew he couldn’t. That fact that he told me anything meant enough.

Pavel worked with me on how to use my knife while Ethan was away. The way he taught me to hold it made it easier to use within my stances. Over the time I was with Ethan I got better, stronger. I didn’t doubt that now I could kill a man. I may not be able to best a man of Ethan’s skill head-to-head, but I did think other people had someone to fear when they looked at me.

Pavel stayed calm and collected, and I passed through the days in a bit of a fog. When Ethan wasn’t with me, I practiced. At night, he came home to me and gave me what I yearned for. We came together wildly, and sometimes the pain hurt so good I wondered if I’d survive it. And then he’d pull me into his arms and hold me through the night. Sometimes I held him when the nightmares came and he sounded like a wounded animal.

But things were different. Somehow, I fell in love with my monster and I didn’t want to give him up. He teased me and pushed me to be better. I softened him and taught him to accept his past. It was slow going for both of us, but we made the effort.

But Derrick was still out there.

I hadn’t forgotten and neither had Ethan. But since the death the other night, Derrick was strangely quiet. Perhaps it was because his plug into Ethan’s organization was missing, and he knew why, that he stopped. But I knew Derrick wouldn’t stop. It was why Ethan came up with a plan.

One that gave me back a piece of my past.

As I stroked the charcoal down the paper, transferring some of the emotions I had in my soul onto canvas, I couldn’t help but smile. When Ethan got my art supplies, it wasn't about Derrick. Instead it was about me.

“Come take a walk with me,” Ethan said. I frowned at him, wondering where we were going since he didn’t have any shoes on, but I stood and put my hand in his anyway.

“You have to close your eyes first.”

“That will make it hard to walk, Ethan.”

“Trust me.”

“With my life,” I told him. I knew he hadn’t asked a question, but his swift intake of breath as I closed my eyes made my heart happy.

Then his arms were around mine, helping me get around the house and up the stairs. After a few near mishaps he just picked me up into his arms and carried me. I buried my face into his neck until he stopped and put me down. I heard a door open up.

“Open.”

Inside the sunlit room was an easel with multiple reams of large paper to work on. Tears streamed down my face as I fingered my way through vine charcoals, sticks, and pencils. He’d gotten me everything I needed, and then some. Canvases were piled neatly to one corner. This particular room had large bay windows that let in a lot of natural light.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You never should have had to give it up,” he told me.

I begged him to make love to me in the center of the floor and he did. After a few days, he saw some work I did to get back in the swing of things, he had an idea form in his head. What if I pursued my dream of having a show? Why couldn’t I be the artist I always wanted to be? He knew the right people to call, and could get me the publicity I needed.

“I’m going to be the bait for that asshole,” I said to the air.

It made me feel good. It wasn’t something I could easily explain. I knew things between Ethan and me weren’t great. We had some growing to do, but we were getting there. And now, I could be a part of catching that wanker and giving him exactly what he deserved.

But did I have what it took? Could I be the woman Ethan needed me to be to lure Derrick to him, and help him kill? I shifted in my chair, a little afraid of the answer, and hit an unleveled piece of wood. I was able to save my easel from falling, but the wood had a chip in it.

That was when I caught the edge of what looked like mail. Heart pounding, I got on the floor and tried to look deeper into the hole. What if they were letters from a previous tenant? Some secret love letters that might give me inspiration? Or what if they were Ethan’s?

I jolted up, not sure if I wanted to break the fragile truce we were at. If they were his, and I was never supposed to read them, would he hate me? But then I thought, why would he set me up in a room where he hid them if he didn’t want me to find them?

Probably because he didn’t think I’d be breaking the damn floor and being nosey!

I quieted the voice as I peered deeper into the hole and decided I wanted to see them either way. When I lifted the board, it came away easily. It was nothing more than a small cut out section made to look seamless when it was in right. I held the big envelope in my hand with a letter from Susan to Ethan on the outside. Inside was packed full of letters, all from Ethan to Susan. Every single one unopened.

Until I cracked the seals. Simple letters, written in Ethan’s scrawling handwriting to Susan. Each one was dated, sometimes a few for the same day, but always to the same woman.

But there was only the one from her. That single letter.

Then all the letters stopped. I wanted to read her letter first, knowing deep inside it was the 'Dear John' letter that had broken Ethan’s heart while he was in prison. But I found myself less interested in finding how he had broken, and more interested in knowing the man before.

Dear Susan,

I know things have been hard, and you never liked me fighting in the first place. But you stuck by me. This is the third letter that I’ve written, and I haven’t gotten any back from you. Baby, we can make it through this. You were there through the fight, you saw what happened. You know how it broke me up. Please don’t abandon me now.

I need you.

To keep me sane, to remind me of the goodness in my life. I don’t want to ask you to wait for me, it wouldn’t be fair, but I can’t give you up to some other man and act like I’m okay with that. We can still get married, we can plan a life.

I love you. I LOVE YOU. Please write me back. Just one letter, telling me anything, and everything. I don’t care if it’s about what color your fingernail polish is. Let me know you’re okay, and you’re thinking about me.

Please.

Your Pantera

As I read his letters I was torn. There was such a capacity for him to love, and I was glad to see it, but it was hard to stomach the begging, soft quality that he had. I found myself wondering what type of woman Susan was to need those pretty words to make her feel better. Did she get off on having control, or had she wanted him to beg her? Was she that normal girl, all blonde hair and blue eyes, ready to take on the world, next to a man who traveled with her to coffee shops and bistros? Was she the girl who passed out at the sight of blood and didn’t know the difference between a flesh wound and a mortal one?

How had Ethan ever wanted her?

Or, more to the point... Would that man have ever wanted me?

My time here, in the house that Ethan came to when he first got out of prison, walking the same steps he had to shed the light of his soul, I realized what he and I shared was born of darkness. It didn’t mean it was any less real, or that we couldn’t be perfect for each other. It meant that we could be jagged and force our pieces together until we were smooth, until we fit.

Because now we only knew how to love hard and fast.

I loved the monster and I could become one that he could love. I could let myself go, give into my every desire. River Kendall could be the name of the woman whom others would fear. All others, except for the man who made her. As illogical as it was, reading these letters made me see more than Ethan ever tried to show me. The light just didn’t appeal to me anymore. I craved Ethan’s pain, his control, his destruction because it mirrored my own. Ours wasn’t a love story of sweet nothings and love making by candlelight.

We were made of broken glass and rough fucks in handcuffs after a gun fight.

That was us, and that was okay.

I finally opened Susan’s letter.

Just three sentences. That was it.

Don’t write me again. I don’t love you anymore. I never did.

I should find her and kill her.

“Snooping through my shit now?”

I smiled, a lopsided, dark smile, as I turned around and looked at the man I was in love with. Lock, stock, and barrel. She may have never loved him, but I sure as hell did. He stood taller, narrowing his eyes at me.

“You wanted me to find them. But if it makes you feel any better, want to spank me for it?”

I dropped the letters on the floor and stood up. Then I spun around, watching him over my shoulder, and showed him my ass. My blade, the one I always carried on me was tucked next to my thigh. I gripped it in my hand, shielding it. It was time to show Ethan I was tough enough to be his. Strong enough to take what he dished out.

Driven enough to stay with him.

And I didn’t need this fragile truce bullshit to stay his.

Seeing how Susan broke him taught me that she was never the woman for him. I was, and it had taken Susan and Derrick to make us who we were to each other. At least the bastards could be thanked for that.

Because that was what Susan did, worse than anything. She left him when he needed her. When he begged her to stay. She was weak enough to turn her back on him, and Ethan despised weakness. The man he was today drove weakness out of everything around him. Because it scared him. It had failed him.

I would not. He was my monster. That bitch, or anyone else, couldn’t have him.

“What game are you playing at?”

“Too chicken shit to come get what you want?” I taunted instead of answering him. His nostrils flared and he stepped forward, hands clenching at his side. He took one step further, but he froze. He was doing that lately, fighting himself, holding back from touching me. It pissed me off. I wanted him, I wanted everything he could give me.

I wasn’t porcelain, I wouldn’t break. And if I did, he’d make it all better.

“Or I can find someone else to give it to me.”

I watched his nostrils flare and then I ducked around him, running from the room. I heard his pounding footsteps behind me and laughed. I slammed through the door to our room and fell back on the bed. He fumed in the door way, chest heaving.

Laughing still, I used the blade to cut through my shirt and pulled it away from my body. Next I pushed the pants off my hips, but left my underwear on. Something he could rip off later.

“River.”

“You want to see it?” I asked. I came to my knees on the bed, facing away from him, and I pushed my chest to the cover before running my hand down the front of my body and in between my legs. Then I moved my underwear over, showing him my wet sex.

He growled, stepping forward again.

“You think I won’t kill any man who touches you? Think I won’t fuck you up bad enough you won’t be so pretty anymore.”

“Kill him, maybe. Hurt me, never.”

“Stupid.”

He gripped my hips and pulled me into him, grinding his jean-clad dick against my core. It was rough, biting into the sensitive flesh there, and it made me so fucking wet. But I needed to make a point first. I used my body to hide my knife, and then pressed the tip into his thigh, close to that oh so pretty artery there.

“You threaten me again, I’ll kill you.”

It was simple enough to hold the blade there and then lift my leg up and rotate my body so I was laying on my back. Grappling had taught me how to do so many interesting things. I could see the anger in Ethan, but I saw the grudging respect alight in his eyes.

“Think you’d have enough time before I snapped your neck?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But who the fuck would care if we were both dead?”

“You willing to go that far?”

And that was the question, wasn’t it? The one he’d been asking from the beginning. How far was I willing to go to get what I want? Would my will outlast my adversary? For him, for this man who destroyed me, and then built me back up in ways that I hadn’t understood, it was worth it. There was never going to be a way for me to get back to the woman I was before. Or for him to be the man he had been. We could make it work, like this, our own violent and messy way.

“Yes, I am.”

For the first time, I meant it. I fucking
believed
it, and when his eyes widened, I knew he believed it too.

“Ethan?” I stood up, pressing the blade harder, hearing his quick breath as he held himself perfectly still. His hardened cock was between us, and my wetness slid down my thighs. We were one and the same, two side of the coin, one unable to be without the other.

“Yes?”

“I’ll kill you if you touch another woman.”

He barked out a laugh, the first I ever really heard from him, and it warmed me from the inside, touched me in places I didn’t know I had anymore.