“Please don’t go,” he said, voice muffled by the glass and the pounding beat of her pulse in her ears. “Crystal, please.” He smacked the flat of his hand against the glass. “Please talk to me.”
The truck started on a roar. She hit the gas, and the truck lurched forward, forcing Shane to jump back.
For a good thirty seconds, Shane ran after the truck. And it was staring at him in the rearview mirror that made her realize she was crying, sloppy streams of tears that streaked mascara under her eyes.
When she looked in the mirror again, he’d stopped. Hands on his hips, head hanging low, he just stood there. And then he turned in a slow circle, like he was lost. A huge tattoo she couldn’t quite make out covered his back. Crystal hated how defeated he looked, hated that she’d been the one to do that to him.
After everything he’d done for her.
Chapter 15
Wanna talk about it?” Easy asked from the passenger seat.
“No,” Shane said, entirely aware his tone gave a lot away but too fucking tired and pissed to care. Not pissed at Crystal. Pissed for her.
Goddamnit, he could barely breathe for the Humvee of rage parked on his chest.
Shane’s fingers might’ve only been on her back for a few seconds, but he’d felt enough to have a damn good idea what was going on underneath her clothes.
Lines of scars.
Some shallow, some knotted and deep.
Lots of things might’ve made them.
Problem was, he’d seen the backs of men who’d been struck by a whip while serving various places overseas. And whips left a distinctive pattern of diagonally placed straight lines. And that was too damn similar to what his fingers had traced on Crystal’s bare skin.
As if Shane hadn’t been horrified enough by her swollen cheek and bruised arm.
With every fiber of his being, Shane hoped he was wrong about what he’d felt. He might never feel a greater happiness than to know his imagination had run away with him, and he had it all wrong. But instinct and intuition had his stomach rolling and the whiskey he’d drank earlier burning a hole in his gut. Add that to Crystal’s reaction to his discovery, and Shane knew he wasn’t wrong.
And that was another thing his brain couldn’t stop chewing on. Why had she panicked so badly? Why had she run away? She’d nearly thrown herself from his truck, and no way her near fall and barefoot flight hadn’t chewed up the skin on her hands and feet. When he’d finally caught up to her at her truck, she’d been crying so hard he’d worried she wouldn’t be able to see to drive. Jesus, after the privilege of sharing a moment of passion with her, the evidence of her pain had just about broken his heart.
He peered down at the pair of white flip-flops resting on the seat beside him. They had a small fabric flower on the strap over the toes. He remembered them from the night he’d carried Jenna up the steps. As he drove through the quiet, mid-night streets of Baltimore, Shane debated the best form of death for the asshole who’d done this to her. Bruno.
Shooting? Too fast and impersonal. Poison? The scumbag might not be conscious of the fact he was dying. Drowning? Not painful enough. Cutting off his hands and dick? Messy but poetic.
“You like her,” Easy said, his voice pulling Shane from his murder fantasies.
Well, hell. And then there were three teammates who suspected the truth. No sense in doing a duck and cover now. He glanced toward his friend. “Yeah.”
Easy nodded and ran a hand over the side of his head. “Then you gotta get her out of there.”
Gripping the wheel harder, Shane heaved a deep breath and strove for a bit of levelheadedness amid the rage whipping up inside his chest. Everyone knowing he’d crossed an emotional line was one thing. But responding emotionally was another. “I know, but it’s complicated. And we’ve got just about enough of that on our plate these days.”
“I won’t disagree with you there. But most of the time, there’s a difference between what’s right and what’s easy. Maybe you should think about bringing her to Hard Ink.”
Shane cut his gaze across the cab to find Easy staring at him, a tired, almost weary, expression on his face. “I don’t know that I could convince Crystal of that. Or Nick.”
Crossing his arms, Easy shook his head. “I don’t know, man. But how many more people gotta die?”
That was for damn sure. Zane, Harlow, Axton, Kemmerer, Escobal, Rimes. His six teammates who’d died in the ambush on that dirt road that day. Merritt, though he’d brought that shit on himself. If the surgery hadn’t worked out, Charlie might’ve been on that list, too. Might still, depending on how well he responded to the meds.
Molly.
Not that she’d died as a part of this fubar, but she was one more reason Shane refused to allow Crystal to be next. Or Jenna, because he knew enough to know that loss would devastate Crystal to her very core. But it wasn’t like he could drag them to Hard Ink against their will.
Given what he suspected about Crystal’s situation at Confessions and with Bruno, the idea of doing anything against Crystal’s will sat like a jagged rock in Shane’s gut.
“You talk to Jenna at all?” Shane asked as his thoughts churned.
“A little. This whole thing being the clusterfuck that it is, I checked the apartment when we got back. She gave me a little shit for that. And then she gave me a little more for planning to watch over the place until Crystal got home. And then a while later she came outside looking for me and gave me shit because she couldn’t find me right away.”
Shane arched a brow and slowed for a red light at an otherwise empty intersection. “What did she want?”
Easy cracked a slow grin. “To see what I was doing. I asked what part of covert she didn’t understand, and she turned around and stomped away, right before she looked back to ask if I needed to use the bathroom or anything.”
“What did you say?” Shane said, chuckling. Shane hadn’t gotten to spend much time with Jenna yet, but she seemed to have a feisty streak, part impetuousness, part fighter.
“I just stared at her until she rolled her eyes and went back in.” Easy rubbed his fingers over the hint of his smile on his lips.
Turning onto Hard Ink’s street, Shane imagined the look Easy had probably given her. The one so intense it made you want to apologize even though you hadn’t done anything. The one that had made the newbies in camp stammer and back away. And here it had just made Jenna annoyed.
Easy chuckled under his breath. “She was fine, though.”
Shane grinned, only too happy to turn the tables. “Interesting choice of words.”
“What?” Easy asked. “Aw, come on, man. You’re cracked out of your head. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Waiting for the fence to open and allow access into the Hard Ink lot, Shane nodded. “Sure, sure. Of course not.” But something had to explain the fact that Easy had said more on the subject of Jenna than on anything else since they’d reunited.
A fist lit into Shane’s biceps, and he couldn’t help but laugh through the ache. “Ouch, motherfucker. Don’t kill the goddamned messenger, now.” He pulled into a spot and killed the engine.
A satisfied smile on his face, Easy reached for the door.
“Hey, E?”
“Yeah?” he said, his smile fading.
Shane girded himself to give voice to what he’d learned—or what he was pretty sure he’d learned, anyway. He wanted the guys on his side if Crystal’s situation escalated because no way was he leaving her to fend for herself. If she’d have him, if she’d let him in, he’d want her by his side. And, for now, that meant at Hard Ink.