Monster - Gadziala Jessica (серия книг txt) 📗

I didn't think about him often. He was a fuzzy childhood memory that made me sad if I really mulled it over.

“Why didn't you ever ask him, honey?” Shooter asked, his voice soft, sounding like he genuinely wanted to know.

I felt myself shrug. “He always looked at me like it hurt him to do so,” I said, cringing at the memory. “And then when I was ten... he was gone.”

“Gone?” Shoot prompted.

“Mom wouldn't tell me. She just said he was gone. When I was a little older, I looked him up in computer class. He died. Heart attack. His obituary said he was survived by his wife and two sons.”

“Aw, sweetheart,” Shoot said, resting his hand over mine.

“It's no big deal,” I said, shaking my head. “But you... you really thought Lex was my dad? Why didn't you say something about it earlier?”

“Didn't seem like a subject you'd want to talk about,” Breaker shrugged. “How do you explain the name thing though, doll?” he persisted.

“Honestly? I don't know. Mom was weird like that. Maybe she thought it would be... empowering? To use something ugly and make it something...”

“Beautiful,” Breaker supplied and I felt the word settle with a fluttering in my belly.

“I guess,” I said, ducking my head to cover the heat I felt in my cheeks.

“Hey why don't we... call it a night?” Shooter cut in, sitting back. “It's late. We've all had a shit week. We're far enough out of town now that we won't be suspicious. So long as no one gets a look at her face,” he said, wincing slightly as he looked at me.

“It's that bad?”

“You're still gorgeous,” he said, smiling at me.

“It's that bad,” I said with a wry smile, shaking my head. I was still too wired to really feel it yet. Things had been so crazy for such a long time. I wasn't convinced I would come down until I got some sleep.

Twenty or so minutes later, Breaker pulled the truck up to a small motel that looked reasonably less skeezy that Creepy Bob's motel. Breaker hopped out of the truck, going into the office with a wad of cash he had taken out of a safe in his house.

I tried my best not to gawk at the sheer mass of money the two of them seemed to possess. In cash. I knew that the underground jobs paid well. And that Shooter and Breaker were apparently well known in their circles. But still.

That was crazy.

But then again, most days I barely had two nickles to rub together.

“Alright,” Breaker said, opening my door. “They only had one room with two queens,” he said, looking regretful.

I shrugged, hopping out to help him haul bags out of the bed of the truck. Shooter joined us and followed as we let ourselves into the room.

And the inside was leaps and bounds better that Creepy Bob's. In fact, it looked recently redone. Fresh pale blue-gray paint on the walls, dark blue still plush looking comforters on the beds, a flatscreen, white curtains, new tile in the bathroom, unstained carpets.

I took a deep breath, smiling a little. “I won't have to sleep sitting up here,” I said out loud.

“What?” Breaker asked, watching as I went into the bathroom.

I flicked on the light, grimacing at my reflection. I had the start of a black eye, dried blood around my nostrils and in the cracks of my broken lip. I ran the water warm, dipping a washcloth, and gently wiping away the blood. “You saw Bob's place. No way was I lying down on one of those beds,” I said to my reflection.

I rinsed the washcloth and left it on the counter before going back into the bedroom to see the TV was already on and the bags were all piled in a corner furthest from the door.

Shooter gave me a small tight-lipped smile before turning to Breaker. “Keys,” he said, holding a hand out.

Breaker reached in his pocket, produced the keys, and threw them at Shoot.

Shooter nabbed them then walked over to me, his hand sliding across my jaw, then kissed the tip of my nose. “I'll be back in a couple of hours,” he said, then walked to the door and disappeared.

“Where's he going?” I asked, looking over at Breaker.

“Getting lost for a while,” he said on a shrug.

“But... why? This was his idea...”

“Come here,” Breaker said.

“It's really not a good idea for him to be all out and about when we just...”

“Alex, doll, come here,” Breaker's voice called, both soft and firm at the same time, making my belly flip flop. So I went there. And his hands reached out, cradling my face for a second, his thumb brushing over my lips.

“Oh,” I said, smiling a little as I realized Shoot's plan.

“Yeah,” Breaker smiled back, “oh.”

Twenty-two

Breaker

I tried to keep my eyes on the road while I drove. Because anytime I looked at her face and saw the damage Lex had done, I was equal parts furious and wanting to go back to Lex's place, drag him out of that panic room (if he was still alive in it) and rip all his appendages off, or also, pull the car over, wrap Alex up in my arms and tell her I would never let anyone lay a hand on her again.

Unable to do either of those things, I just looked ahead and kept driving.

But we were in the motel room. Shoot was gone. I had her bruised and bloodied face in my hands. And I didn't want to fight it anymore.

I dropped my hands from the sides of her jaws, over her shoulders, down her sides, and around her back, pulling her gently to my chest when what I really wanted to do was crush her there. But she had taken shots to the body and there was a wince when she walked. Bruised ribs. I needed to be easy with her.

Her head shifted, moving to bury her face in my neck as her arms went up and around my shoulders.

“I didn't mean it,” I said, my lips in her hair.

“Didn't mean what?”

“All that shit. About Lex keeping you and it just being a job and...”

“Shh,” she said, shaking her head. Then her face tilted slightly and I felt her lips press a kiss into the pulse point in my neck. “I know.”

My arms squeezed her a little and she didn't stiffen. “Don't ever,” I said, pushing her slightly away from me so I could duck my chin and look her in the eye, “ever fuckin' run away from me again.”

“Breaker... I was trying to protec...”

I shook my head. “Ain't your job.”

“What?”

“Ain't your job to protect me, doll. That's my job. So don't ever fuckin' do that to me again.”

“Listen Mr. Macho Badass, Guy” she started and I could see the heat rising in her dark eyes. Fuckin' hell. She had just stayed at a skeezy hotel run by a creep she thought (and probably was) going to date rape her, got taken to Lex's place, held against her will, beaten, almost raped, then escaped a bombing situation... and she was ready to go a couple rounds? Jesus Christ.

“No,” I said, my lips twitching.

“No what?” she asked, her eyes getting small.

“No, I ain't listening. You're new to this. You think you got me all figured out. But macho badass guys, doll... we do the protecting. You do the being sweet and cute and a royal pain in the ass thing. You don't go running off on your own. You don't make me worry about you. You don't fuckin' do that. Got me?”

“You were worried about me?” she asked, her voice getting low.

“Of -fuckin'-course I was worried about you. Running off on some hairbrained plan made up by someone you didn't know...”

“That someone I didn't know turned out to be a pretty big badass herself,” she pointed out.