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The two of them walk into the motel room together, leaving me standing in the parking lot with Ace’s cum dripping out of me. What they just did was… well, it was hot. Right out in the open too. It’s dark and the parking lot was empty, but anyone could have seen us.
My cheeks burn with heat.
What is not hot is them zipping up their jeans and walking away like it meant nothing to them. Like I mean nothing. I don’t know why I expect more from them, but I do. And it hurts me more than it should. Way more than I care to admit. I fucking hate that I let them use me like that. And the irony of the whole situation isn’t lost on me. I’m aware I used them too, and in a much more hurtful way.
Standing in the doorway, Romeo turns and shouts. “Are you coming, Fuck-up?”
I swallow down the ball of shame and anger. So, we had hot sex on Ace’s bike. It was a release we all needed, and it changes absolutely nothing.
After I took a shower and we all ate some late-night takeout, Ace asked for his daily video call check-in with Mia. It’s the first time he’s spoken to me since what happened on his bike, and as I lean against the wall and watch him talk to her, my heart shatters at the compassion and tenderness in his voice. The first thing she asks about is Lorenzo and their children and if they’re all okay without her. Ace lies and tells her they’re fine, but of course they’re not. No doubt her children have been told that she’s somewhere nice and she’ll be home soon, but little kids miss their mom no matter what.
“Are you okay? Are you being taken care of?” Ace asks.
“Yes. Tell Lorenzo I’m fine. I have food and water and even a couple of magazines. And I still feel nauseous twelve hours a day, so that’s all good too.” She laughs and rests a hand on her belly.
He grimaces. “How is that good?”
“It means all’s good with the baby. Morning sickness is a sign that pregnancy hormones are still high.”
He scrubs a hand through his short hair. “Oh. Right.”
He watches her on the screen for a few seconds, and I know I should end the call. He’s checked in with her. He knows she’s fine. So why don’t I? Because Ace is her lifeline, that’s why. And I know the desperation of clinging to a lifeline. My lifeline was the man who pulled me from that truck. I remember everything about him except his face. How safe I felt in his arms. His deep soothing voice. The scent of fresh air on his clothes. His words still comfort me whenever I’m close to falling into that black hole of despair.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Mia,” Ace says, and his voice is so full of anguish that I have to press my lips together to stop myself from telling him that it wasn’t his fault. Mia tells him instead, and then he promises he’ll have her home soon.
I step up behind him and hold out my hand. “Time’s up.”
He glowers at me but says a final goodbye to Mia. I check in quickly with Phoenix, who seems to be growing increasingly impatient with having to take care of our prisoner, then slip the phone into my pocket, ignoring the nagging doubt that taking Mia may have been a mistake.
What’s done is done, and if it gets me to my final goal, it will have been worth it. I sit down on the empty chair at the table. Romeo is busy cleaning his gun while Ace watches him.
“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” I ask.
“We find this guy, we interrogate him, and we hope to fuck he knows the guy you’re looking for, Fuck-up,” Romeo says without taking his eyes off his gun.
“I’ll fucking interrogate him,” Ace says with a growl.
“The fuck you will,” I snap. “This is my—”
Ace slams his fist on the table. “And have another scene like we had with Boone? It took three of our best guys to clean up the mess you made.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. He didn’t seem to have any complaints at the time.
“Sometimes cutting out a guy’s tongue isn’t the best way to get information from them,” he says, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
I glare at him, my jaw clenched tight, annoyed that he’s right. “He fucking deserved it.”
“But we didn’t get anything from him, did we? Nothing at all of any fucking use.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Because he didn’t know anything. You said the same thing yourself.”
Ace shakes his head. “Who knows what information he might have given us if we’d given him a fucking chance. Sometimes people know shit they don’t even know they know.”
I can feel Romeo’s eyes bouncing between the two of us, but I keep my attention fixed on Ace, whose suppressed rage seems to have increased exponentially in the last few hours. He’s pretty much always an angry, stubborn asshole, but he’s doubling down tonight.
I scoff. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Yes it fucking does, Keres!” His shout rattles the thin walls, and I flinch. “You live in this black-and-white fucking world, only ever focused on what you want and everyone else can get fucked.”
