Bad Boy Criminal: The Novel (21 page)

“
J
ade
?!” I cried through the apartment, stalking from room to room.

“D-did Jade have many…enemies?” Izzy piped meekly from behind me, apprehensive in broaching the possibility aloud.

“She had a fucking ton of enemies,” I snapped, running a hand through my newly blackened hair without looking back at her. “But no one knew where she was except for Hell's Ransom—God
dammit!
” I let a kick fly loose against an overturned table, sending it rocketing across the room. Isabelle jumped at my frustrated display of violence, although it wasn’t like I was wrecking the place, was I? “I tried to tell Dom that I thought there was a bad egg in Hell's Ransom, and he said he’d look into it! And he didn’t do jack! Shit! About! It!” With each word, I sent my knuckles into the wall, or my heel against the destroyed sofa.

I whirled from Isabelle—who was staring after me with such trepidation, I actually did feel bad for her; even I didn’t know how to handle myself when I was reacting to the world falling apart—and snatched up Jade’s cordless, storming into the hallway and leaving Isabelle to stare after me in shock.

I punched Dom’s number into the keypad with blazing intensity. I let it ring eleven times—I would have let it ring eleven hundred, all the while clenching my jaw and reciting the litany of curse words I would spew when he answered—until finally, my damn brother picked up the damn phone. “Hello?” he sounded drowsy. Or tipsy.

“Dom,” I rapped out. “Jade is gone.”

“What?” Dom snapped.

“The place is wrecked. I mean, the couch got gutted, her electronics are busted to bits on the goddamn floor, I have no idea what happened—”

“Jesus Christ, kid, slow down. Start from the beginning.”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened my eyes again.

“We just got to Juarez. Her door was…hanging open. Someone was definitely here. But—man—no one was supposed to know where she was. No one but us.”

“And Arlo,” Dom supplied. “I mean, he knew you needed to get to Juarez. He knew you were going to see her.”

“Well, yeah,” I agreed, frowning. I didn’t quite understand what the two factors had to do with each other. “You think Arlo is cool, don’t you?” I asked, becoming increasingly worried about whatever Dom was implying. “I mean, he’s a Hell's Ransom member. He’s—”

“Eh,” Dom answered, fickle. “He’s a Hell's Ransom member with a lot of problems, man. You’ve met him. Everyone knows about his back room at Three Tequila Floor. I mean, it’s acid, it’s hookers, it’s guns, it’s coke… Mostly guns and coke, ever since he first hooked up with Mickey, some—what—two years ago? Anyway, that boy runs everything under the sun down there. He’s a Hell's Ransom member, yeah; he’s a lot of things. That’s what I mean. We’ve talked about taking his patch before, but…he hasn’t gotten us in trouble. Yet.”

“Still, man. Still. Even—even being friends with some gutter waste like fingerless old Mickey—that doesn’t mean he’d… You think he might have taken Jade?”

“Fuck no,” Dom answered easily. “Arlo’s a fat piece of shit seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. He’s not going to travel out of Albuquerque for anybody’s ass but his own. But he’s not the most trustworthy in our ranks, either. Somebody with their fingers in a lot of pies is easy to talk business with. They’ve got a lot of business to talk.”

“He could’ve been bought off,” I translated.

“Or something,” Dom agreed. “I mean, it wasn’t me, or you, and fuck knows it wasn’t Xander. So, who does that leave? Arlo, up in Albuquerque. He’s got nothing to do with Jade—likes her just fine, as much as a man like Arlo can like anybody—but he has a fuck ton of friends. One of them might’ve had a use for her.”

“Yeah, but who would take Jade? It’s just so random; she doesn’t mean anything to anybody but me.”

“Yeah, man,” Dom replied. “And you don’t have any enemies, right?”

“Not in fucking Mexico, man! The only person in Mexico I even know, other than Jade, is…” A grim light gleamed in my eyes. “…Mickey.” Fingerless old Mickey. The coked-out Hell's Ransom member I’d mangled during my initiation.

A
sh walked back
into the room with a dazed kind of expression, and I pursed my lips and tried to pretend like I hadn’t been eavesdropping with my ear pressed against the apartment door the entire time. “Hey,” I said, quiet. His eyes flashed to me. Now that his hair was coal black, the intensity of his emerald gaze was all the sharper. “So, what do we do now?”

“We aren’t doing shit,” he snapped, running his fingers through his hair. His eyes averted from mine and did not return. “You’re going to stay here, with the door locked all eight times, and not move a muscle for anyone unless they’re me.” I opened my mouth to protest, but Ash forged over me. “And Jade…you know…she’s a smart girl…she might be back, and someone will have to be here to let her know—and to let me know—”

“That’s bullshit!” I cried, drawing his eyes finally back to me. “Ash, you can’t just abandon me here in this apartment like some—like some damn puppy in a box! I’m not—Ash—I’m not some little girl with no brain, no muscles, no nothing, okay? And you need to start having a little faith in me.”

Ash’s brow furrowed. “I have faith in you!”

“Oh yeah? Then why did I have to prove myself to you at La Casa de Pistolas, when you had already seen me point a fucking hunting rifle at your chest?” Though it was likely that neighbors could hear us through these walls, neither of us could manage to stop yelling. “And, Ash, do you know how fucking insulting it is, that you think I will just stay here, while you go off to do God knows what, like some kind of bonnet-wearing cowboy housewife? While you go off and rescue your friend? Do you know how fucking insulting it is that you thought, when Alex kidnapped me, that I’d just bailed on you without a word and gone all the way back to Boulder? Why did you even bring me along if you thought I was that kind of person?”

“This has nothing to do with you being some...lazy, selfish ‘cowboy housewife,’” Ash defended himself, pitchy with confusion and exhaustion. “This is serious, Izz. It’s not—it’s not just riding on the bike while the sun sets, and it’s not just dying our hair together and exploring abandoned houses. This shit is about to get real, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Was the shit, um, not real when I was pointing my Gat at a federal agent’s head?” I demanded. “Was the shit not real when I was duct-taped to a cot in some old factory? I got myself out of that!”

“Yeah!” Ash cried, stalking forward. His skin was drawn tight over his face, his eyes manic and wild with emotion. “You got yourself out of it, but I got you into it! Did you ever think that maybe I’m tired of pulling you into my bullshit? Maybe I don’t want to be the reason you end up in the hospital?” For a moment, we stared back and forth, only a few inches separating our faces. My heart pounded, and my breath came fast, but the pause allowed the tension between us to slacken a crucial inch. Ash’s eyes softened. His voice softened. “We’re in fucking Juarez, Izz…”

I glared at him thoughtfully. The emotions were unwinding, but I still wasn’t going to let him win. “You think I’m so innocent,” I told him. “But I’m not. And I know that’s what you love about me…” I took a deep breath and considered revealing everything I’d been keeping pinned up inside. My past was always a secret for me to keep, not just from Ash, but from the world. That had been the way I’d lived for over two years now. But I couldn’t keep hiding from him. I couldn’t keep secrets from him. Not if he was only in love with me because he believed my lies. “…but the woman you love? The innocent, doting farmhand from Colorado?” My eyes clouded with a tremulous layer of hot tears. “She doesn’t exist, Ash.” I exhaled shakily and let them drop down my cheeks.

Ash reached out and cupped my face in his hands, brushing either thumb over the wet marks. “What are you talking about?” he whispered tenderly.

“Isabelle Turner,” I answered, my voice clotted with grief. “She’s not the daughter of two sweet old ranchers in Boulder. Isabelle Turner is originally from—well—all over. Isabelle Turner was born to an unwed teenager in Chicago. I don’t remember my mom. I got taken by the state pretty quickly, because she wasn’t taking care of me, and I was put into the system. You know. Foster care. I bounced around from house to house for the next ten years…and I got into running drugs when I was fourteen. I don’t just mean that I got into running drugs—I mean, you know that a lot more goes with ‘running drugs’ than just running drugs; it’s a lifestyle. I was using, I was having sex, I’d disappear for days, I was holding bags for people, driving guns over the state line for people, and on, and on, and on… I mean, damn, Ash. I’ve been shot before. And it had nothing to do with you. I was sixteen at the time.” I smiled up at him sadly.
It was nice while it lasted,
I thought. “And I was taken in by the Turner family when I was seventeen. I had to get relocated after I testified in court for a murder trial. They helped me sober up. They helped me find something to do that wasn’t drugs. I took their name. And then, you met me. Isabelle Turner.”

I looked down, breaking the loving hold his palms had on my jaw. “The woman you thought I was—sweet, and old-fashioned, and country, and virginal—she never existed. I—I’ve never been sweet. I’ve never been old-fashioned. Haven’t been a virgin in six years. Ash…you’d be surprised how well I can handle myself in a big, ugly city. Because that’s where I came from.” I shrugged and stepped away from him, smiling softly. He probably wouldn’t leave me right away. But the magic would fizzle for him, now that he wasn’t roleplaying some bad-boy-good-girl fantasy in his head anymore. He wouldn’t leave today or tonight, but he would start to leave, little by little, very soon.

“You don’t really know me at all, Ash,” I whispered. I wanted to cry more, but I held the tears inside. “It’s been less than a month since we met. Everything you thought you knew was part-lie…and part-daydream.”

I
stared at Isabelle sideways
, unsure of how exactly to proceed in this conversation. It was clear that she felt very passionately that she was a liar up till now, and that I wouldn’t want the real Izz, but—how, exactly, to break this to her?

“Ahem. Okay. Isabelle?” I called to her. She raised her bleak hazel eyes, glassy with tears, to mine. “I’ve known you weren’t some brainless Pollyanna since the moment we met. Do you even remember how we met?”

Isabelle peered back at me blankly, as if her mind simply couldn’t accept the words. I couldn’t blame her. I’d had a good childhood…and I couldn’t imagine how it felt to go from family to family in foster care, or how it felt to be taken from your birth mother for negligence or abuse. How that kind of thing might impact someone formatively. “You were pointing a gun at me,” I reminded her warmly. “I’ve been figuring you out ever since I first laid eyes on you, Izz, because—” I came up short and cleared my throat, suddenly dizzy with the impact of the words. “I’ve been figuring out you ever since I first laid eyes on you because I’ve been falling in love with you.”

Isabelle only glared harder, as if this was some kind of a sick joke, but I forged ahead. I had to tell her. It was obvious she didn’t realize what had been happening on my end for a surprisingly long time. I’d tried to deny it, tried to push it away, but it was the only conclusion which made any sense.

“Think about it, Izz,” I whispered to her. “After all…you demanded that you come on this insanely dangerous road trip with me, some stranger, a girl I hardly knew, a huge liability. You could’ve turned me in for reward money, for publicity, or for shits and giggles. But I brought you along in spite of all possible logical reason; why? For sex?” Isabelle hesitated, her eyes limpid and receptive, but she nodded at the suggestion. “And then,” I went on, “even after getting your old man’s truck and some of his money, I could’ve bailed on you. Hell, I had Jade set up the exchange with Arlo. I had a new gun, a new bike, and you were sleeping away the morning at that motel in fuck if I remember.”

“The Sandy Castle,” she reminded me shakily.

“Right,” I said, my heart softening to her vulnerability. “I could’ve just never come back. But leaving never even occurred to me.” I stepped forward and took her face into my hands again, cradling her cheeks, letting my eyelashes kiss across her forehead. “And then, when I’d thought you left…what other explanation could there have been for my panic? Even before that—when Cantrell pointed his gun at your head—I surrendered like a fucking idiot. My fate would’ve been maximum security prison with no hope of acquittal! But I did it anyway, because Cantrell had this girl I hardly knew in his crosshairs. Except…” I opened my eyes and peered into Isabelle’s, solid, hoping to impress upon her my certainty. “I felt like I did know her. I felt as if I’d known her my whole life. And just been waiting to meet her.”

My mouth captured hers, fully and firmly, and I hoisted her into the air. She returned the pressure of my lips with salty desperation, her fingers digging through my hair and her heels pinning against my lower back. Even though the get-up of Adriana Rey looked nothing like the Isabelle Turner I knew and loved, I was thankful for it, and shoved the flexible skirt up to her waist, revealing Izzy’s tan, muscular hips.

I knew we didn’t really have the time, and that it was entirely possible some hidden camera in Jade’s apartment was catching us on film at this very moment, but I couldn’t stop myself. Maybe I was a romantic after all…a big old softie…because I needed to express this feeling moving through me, and I didn’t think it was just coming from my body. It was coming out of my soul. I needed to be
with
her. Deeply.

I removed my belt and unsheathed my cock from my boxers; he sprang up like a leaky metal pipe between Isabelle’s thighs, and I hooked my finger into her panties, moving them to the side so that I could slide in. As always, there was a sharp intake of breath, a quiver of anticipation, and then, the all-consuming relief of being inside her. Suddenly, completely, I was not alone, and everything would be okay. Suddenly, completely, I was home.

I cried out with each thrust into her body; she seemed to enwrap me tighter and tighter, or perhaps it was I who was bulging and throbbing harder and harder. Isabelle joined me in my ululations, and I drove her up against the wall of Jade’s apartment. It felt like we were going to crack the plaster any minute.

“Oh, Ash,” she whimpered, eyes rolling back into her head. “I love you too, Ash. I love you too.”

Again, and again, and again, and again, I drove into her mindlessly, gratefully, and then burst and flowed into her like a dam breaking, a deluge which left us both shuddering and damp and electrified. I couldn’t even move; it felt as if we were welded together, as if we had slammed so hard into each other, our bodies had molded into one shivering, sweating conglomeration of nerve endings.

I was still inside her, holding her up against the wall, when a sharp series of knocks banged and we hurriedly returned to our senses. Isabelle unwrapped her legs and touched them to the floor, shoving her skirt back into place, and I zipped my pants and walked—unsteadily—to examine the peephole.

Four familiar Hell's Ransom members peered back at me through the warped glass.

Juan and Drake, the respective leaders of the Utah and New Mexico chapters, and their prospects, Woody and Nacho. “Let us in, old boy,” Juan called, his voice heavy with seriousness. “We got a call from Dom, directed us down this way. Need to talk to you. You still in there?”

I shared a significant look with Isabelle—
here we go, babe, hope you’re as ready as you think you are
—and wrenched the door open for our company.

“Hey kids,” Juan greeted, stalking into the apartment. “Jesus H., look at this place.” He didn’t seem to notice how my cheeks felt a bit flushed, or how Izzy’s hair was all over the place. If they did notice, no one mentioned, which was very adult of them. “Anyway, man, got here as soon as we heard. Dom had a real serious talk with Arlo, and learned that Mickey’s got a place here in Juarez, too… We knew it was Mexico, somewhere. Now he knows it’s Juarez. How about that. And, get this, he got up in Mickey’s chapter and nobody has seen homeboy for the past several days. Road trip, they said. Where to, no one could say.”

“To Juarez,” I answered.

Juan put a finger on his nose and pointed to me. “Bingo. So, Arlo says he had no idea that Mickey was going to go after Jade… Dom’s mulling that over. In the meantime, we’ve got a vengeful Hell's Ransom brother and the missing friend of another Hell's Ransom brother; I think we can connect the dots ourselves, right? Let’s get the fuck over to Mickey’s place and just have a look around. How about it, boys?”

I reached behind me and took Isabelle’s hand. “Boys,” I said, “and girl.” I looked over my shoulder and we shared a secret smile between the two of us. “Izzy’s coming.”

“You think so?” Drake looked over to Isabelle. “You want in on this action, little girl?”

“I have to,” Isabelle answered him plainly. “I can’t just stay here and do nothing.”

“Well, all right. Let’s party.”

As the six of us trooped back out the apartment’s front door, Nacho commented, “Smelled like sex in there.”