“Tight-lipped, are we?” He lifts his hand and reaches for my ponytail and pulls me hard to his face, his mouth a mere inch from mine. “I still like it when they don’t speak.” He leans in, and I try to pull back, his mouth opens and I close my eyes squeezing them shut as tight as they will go in hopes this will be fast. I won’t kiss him, and I don’t want his mouth anywhere near mine.
My heart rate picks up fast and I start to shake, but he does the weirdest thing, and my first reaction is to scream as he bites down on my lips. Both of them, together.
My lips don’t open far, so my scream’s muffled. The pressure makes them hurt, the pain throbbing through them. He applies a bit more pressure and I feel his teeth break the skin of my lips.
The car comes to a complete stop and he pulls away, then lifts his hand and wipes my lips with his thumb, smearing the blood like lipstick. “Red looks good on you.”
I taste and feel the blood now coating my lips. They sting, and I can’t keep the tears that fall from my eyes at bay.
“The fun we will have…” He smirks, laughs, then gets out.
Soon, he’s at my door and pulls me from the car by my hair.
21
Gunner
Rage is all I feel. The cheek of that prick. Who the fuck does he think he is? Thinking he can touch her. I knew the minute he saw her he’d see weakness. Roberto is more fucked up than I am, and that’s saying a lot.
When my parents died, he would get jealous. Jealous that I lived with our grandmother and he didn’t. Jealous that the family business was given to me, even though he was older. The family business isn’t much anymore. The business is now more mine than family-oriented. I’ve created something that’s mine and no one else’s. Real estate is what I’ve come to love, both buying and building. It’s an easier life than the one I was introduced to. Drugs and guns aren’t easy to move, and, in the end, you’re in a business that’s bound to be problematic and will one day see you caught and doing jail time.
I needed something else.
I purchased my very own piece of land when I was twenty-one. And then continued from there. Yes, the money that bought it all was money from the family business, as I ended up selling things off. This is the part that has Roberto seeing red. He likes the idea of what we do, but he doesn’t know what’s involved or how to go about getting things done.
And it isn’t helped by the fact that he’s using as much of the drugs as he’s selling.
“Where does Roberto live?”
My grandmother crosses her arms over her chest. “Why?”
“He has Everly.”
Her eyes go wide. “Maybe it will once and for all get you out of your funk regarding her.”
If I didn’t love her, I would hurt her for those words. If she were anyone else, she would be wishing right now she were dead for uttering them.
“Where. Does. He. Live?”
“You should know this.” She steps away from me and heads to her kitchen.
“I wouldn’t be asking if I knew,” I state the obvious.
“He lives in your house. You never sold it.”
My feet halt. That’s the place where my parents were murdered. I own it, but never go to it. I don’t like the reminder of that night. I don’t like to think of why they were killed. It’s part of the reason I pulled away from the business and made my own.
“You let him in there?”
“He asked. I gave him a key.”
“How long for?” I question her.
“At least six months now,” she says.
“That’s their house. How could you?” I spit venom directly at her, the silly old woman.
She spins to face me. “How could I? How could you? You would have all of this town and the trades if you stuck to the damn contract. You would have everything. But no, you gave it all up because you’re in love. What a lame, stupid excuse for a man,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t want it. I don’t want to end up like they did. Why is that so hard to see?”
“Their stupidity killed them, not the job.”
I throw my hands up. “No, it wasn’t. It was trading to the wrong people that ultimately killed them.”
“It was Roberto who dealt with the trade, not them,” she fires back.
I halt.
What did she just say?
“Oh,” she says, seeing my reaction. “No. Get what you’re thinking out of your head. He did nothing.”
“How was it Roberto’s trade?” I ask her.
She sighs. “He found a new supplier. A new distributor. He handled the last shipment.”
“And…”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “It was them who killed your parents, Gunner. You know this.”