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As the needle touches my skin, I grit my teeth. The numbing cream fooled me before because, holy shit, it hurts a lot more without it. I refuse to show any sign that it does, though, until he digs a little too deep and I close my eyes, hiding the way tears have filled them.
When I finally open them again, I have a brand new design branded on my forearm—Devil’s red horns and the pointed tail curved beneath it—and a missing husband.
Because some time during my second tattoo, Link left me alone with his men in the penthouse.
THIRTEEN
SKITTERY
LINCOLN
Iprobably shouldn’t have gone back to the Playground, but I just…fuck. I couldn’t stay home and watch it as Cross tattooed Ava with my mark like she was a regular member of the syndicate.
I told her I owned her. I needed her to believe it so that she never thought that she could easily push me aside and walk away. After all, I did it to her—and if she really wanted to go, I’d let her; I’d watch her from the shadows like I have, but I’d let her go. No one deserves to be tied to me for life, but if I could convince her that she had to be… I thought I might get to keep her.
But I forgot what a little spitfire my Ava can be. I branded her ring finger with my name, and she retaliated by demanding that Cross mark her with my symbol.
And I couldn’t bring myself to bear witness to it.
I tell myself that I’m only going back to the club to make sure that everything has smoothed over after what happened earlier tonight. It isn’t often I blow my top with witnesses, and while it’s easy to twist the facts so that no one really knows what they saw, someone had to do it.
That was my second, and I beeline right for our usual booth when I see him sitting by himself, a whiskey neat perched in front of him, and his head tossed back.
I slide into the booth. “Everything good, Royce?”
His eyes were closed, snapping open the second my ass hits the seat. His instincts are unmatched, and I know there’s no better man to have at my back, even if he shakes his head and says, “Thanks for that, boss. Just what I needed tonight.”
I shrug. “He touched my wife.”
“Right. Because… and let me stress this part… your unmarked wife was walking in the club without a chaperone, and all the wallets thought she didn’t have your protection. Because… again… let me stress this… you’d rather hole her up in your penthouse instead of introducing her to the syndicate so the guys know to protect her, too.”
I fucking hate it when he’s right. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “You’re finally going to share Saint Ava with the rest of the class.”
“Fuck you,” I say, but there isn’t any heat. “I just meant that she’s being marked right now.” His eyebrows nearly reach his hairline as I explain, “She asked Cross to do it.”
“Riiiight,” Royce drawls. “And she happens to know that Cross does all the tats for the Sinners because—”
Ass. “Because I brought him up to the penthouse to ink a ring around her finger because she lost it, okay?”
Slipping his hand into his pants pocket, Royce pulls something out. With aclink, the golden band hits the tabletop.
“Where did you find that?”
“A good samaritan found it on the dance floor. They turned it in to the bar. Jessie gave it to me.” He uses his finger to shoot it across the table at me. “I guess you won’t be needing that now.”
I take it anyway. “Thanks.”
He shakes his hand, rapping his knuckles against the tabletop. “I don’t get it, Link. I just don’t fucking get it.”
“There’s nothing to get, Royce.”
You think he’d know me well enough to take a hint.
Not my second.
“Look at you. You’re puppy dog awful over this woman… have been as long as I’ve known you… and you’re hiding her. If it was me, I’d be showing her off to everyone in Springfield. But you… I still don’t get why you let her get away in the first place.”
