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When the door finally opened, Ryker stared down at me w
ith eyes full of both excitement and dread. It did not give me good feelings about what we were doing, but I put my hand in his anyway. Choosing to trust that he wouldn't push too hard, that he wouldn't take advantage of me since I'd given him everything he'd asked for.
But as the car door closed behind me, he guided me to the very last building I'd expected.
The name was simple, etched on the sign up top with a tattoo gun drawing out the letters.
Ink.
"Are you getting a new tattoo?" I asked, running my thumb over the one and only tattoo I had. The arrow on my right wrist had been a spur-of-the-moment decision after Chad died, my symbol that life would propel me into something amazing, but that it’d had to pull me back first. As much as I loved having my tattoo, I couldn't help but feel a little regret over it.
Not when life had propelled me forward into a new life as a mob wife. Did that qualify as something amazing?
With the way Ryker made me feel, maybe. If I could ever really look past who he was and what he did.
"Yes," he said, and his voice went soft. "And so are you."
I laughed, thinking for sure he had to be joking, but when he guided me into the nearly empty tattoo shop, I felt panic well in my chest. Two tattoo artists stood behind the counter, smiling at us while they bent over something and conferred on it.
"Ryker," the man said, stepping around and slapping Ryker on the back of the shoulder with a familiarity that meant he knew my husband well. "Long time no see. This must be Calla."
"It's nice to meet you," I murmured, attempting to tug my hand free from Ryker's hold to shake his hand. He refused, holding me hostage. Whether it was because he didn't want me to touch the other man or because he was afraid I'd run, I didn't know. Either could be true of Ryker.
"We've got your designs ready and waiting. I have to say, Ada has outdone herself with yours. It's stunning." He complimented the woman behind me, and she shrugged her shoulders with an eye roll.
With ebony hair that fell to her butt, she stepped around the counter and took my hand. "Let's get the outline on you and see if you like it."
"I'm not getting a tattoo," I laughed. "I'm sorry to waste your time, and I'm sure Ryker will pay you for the time you spent on the design, but I didn't agree to this, and I'm not putting something permanent on my skin just because he demands it."
She chuckled, casting her eyes over to Ryker before tugging me back behind the counter, anyway. "Do you know who owns this place?" she asked.
I sighed, disbelief filling me. Of course, he would have taken me to a place where I had little to no ability to convince people I didn't want a tattoo. "Matteo Bellandi?"
"We do all the ink for everyone in the family," she said, picking up the tracing paper that was on a little platform on the counter and taking it into the back room. I sat in the chair, waiting and trying to debate what choice I had while she washed her hands and slid gloves on. I zoned out through the process, feeling her apply the stencil to the skin on the outside of my left forearm only vaguely. "Take a look," she ordered, and I stood to move to the mirror at the edge of the room.
Disbelief and fury washed over me.
"I do not fucking think so!" I yelled, and the other man who worked in the shop let out a roar of laughter from the adjacent room. It didn't matter that the tattoo was stunning, that the unalome that wound up the outer edge of my forearm and led into a lotus flower was gorgeous.
I was no expert on roman numerals, but I knew Ryker well enough to know that the roman numeral Ada had worked into the unalome was our wedding date. I stormed into the other room, staring down momentarily at the stenciled outline on his bare chest. A tribal sun, worked into the smokey haze that surrounded his existing ink there, and the same roman numeral was worked into the circle of the sun where the sun rays jutted out. It was beautiful, and it might have been sweet if he wasn't trying to force me to tattoo a wedding date on my skin.
"I am not doing this!" I growled at him, anger flooding me all over again as he stood from his chair and propelled me into the room where the woman waited to tattoo me.
"You have one for him, and now you'll have one for me," he growled right back, snatching my arm in his and pressing it to the rest where the artist needed me positioned.
"Ryker!" I shrieked.
His voice softened momentarily, but there was still a harshness in the intensity of his glare. "I need you to do this for me, Tesoro."
"I don't want to have to cover up a tattoo if we get divorced! This is ridiculous," I argued. Ada left the room, seeming to sense the danger coming before I did.
Ryker leaned forward, catching my chin in his hand and holding so firmly that I didn't dare move. "I am a Bellandi man, regardless of what my last name is. There is no divorce in this life, Sunshine. We take the ‘until death’ part of our vows very seriously. So you will sit your pretty ass in that chair, Ada is going to give you the beautiful ink she designed for you, and then we will go get our children. I don’t care how long it takes, because there is no other option that is acceptable to me. Understood?"
I didn't answer, clenching my jaw as I tried to jerk my head away.
"Is that understood?"
"Yes," I spat.
