Shades of Love (Mad Jackals Brotherhood MC Book 3) (7 page)

Chapter Eight

As Mia pulls up outside Cassie’s house, she still has Amanda on her mind. She’d waited until the cop car had arrived and settled Amanda in her old room again. The girl is safe, but she can’t seem to get the conversation they’d had off her mind. It’s not just that it’s made her wonder if she had been wrong about Ray. It’s made her feel like she’s beaten herself around the head with a stupid stick.

How could she have let herself forget everything she knows about him? He’d proven himself again and again to be someone who cares about her, someone who wants the best for her. Yes he’d avoided the truth; she can’t deny that, but she also can’t deny that, perhaps, in his shoes she would have done the same. Ray had been afraid that her opinion of him would change after she found out the truth of his past. And she’d proven him right.
 

She slams the door of the car behind her, trying to get into a better headspace before she walks into Cassie’s house. But she stops as she gets to the porch steps feeling that familiar sense of there being eyes on her. She looks behind her, her hand in her bag grasping the can of mace her dad had insisted she carry around with her. That’s when she notices that Cassie’s house is pitch dark and her car isn’t parked in its usual spot. She wasn’t home, but if she wasn’t there, who the hell was watching her?

She hears the sound of a heavy-booted footstep behind her and starts to run back towards her car, scrabbling around in her bag for her keys. Suddenly there’s a heavy hand on her shoulder and it’s turning her around. She pulls out the can of mace and sprays it in front of her, not even looking where she’s aiming it.

“Goddammit, Mia. Knock if off; it’s just me!” Ray’s voice reaches her through the haze of her fear and she drops the can of mace to the floor.

She opens her eyes, slowly, as if she’s afraid her ears might be deceiving her. But they’re not. It really is him, standing in front of her, his hands on her shoulders, looking pissed off as all mighty hell and as handsome as ever.

“Ray? Holy shit! What the hell are you doing here?” She plants her palms against this chest and pushes him back so she’s not trapped between the heat of his body and the hard metal of her car. “You scared me half to death!”

“
I
scared
you
?” He looks at her incredulously. “You’re the one that just tried to freakin’ mace me! And, by the way, next time you decide to use that open your eyes when you spray it; you might actually hit something then.”

“I didn’t get you?” She tries not to sound disappointed in her lack of aim and fails miserably. She’d always thought she’d be pretty good in a crisis, drawing on all her self-defense classes, but it turns out she’s just like the women in scary movies she wants to shout at to do something other than scream when the killer is just about to get them.

“Just my shirt.” He looks down at the wet patch on his dark t-shirt and Mia feels a giggle escape her at the ridiculousness of the situation. Ray looks at her like he’s afraid that she might be cracking up on him.

It doesn’t take long for her brain to go into damage control mode. “Where’s Cassie? Oh my God, has something happened to her?” Mia starts racing towards the house, praying the Jackals hadn’t decided to come after her friends, starting with the lawyer that was taking a restraining order out on one of their members. How could she have been so stupid? She should never have gotten Cassie involved in this; she should have known better. She hammers on the door of her friend’s house. “Cassie! Cassie!”

Ray’s hand on her shoulder makes her jump. In her panic for her friend she’s almost forgotten he was there. “Hey, hold up; calm down. Cassie’s fine, nothing has happened to her.” His voice is calming and his hand on her shoulder is comforting.

“Then where is she? She was supposed to meet me here. And why are you here?” Mia looks at him, more confused by the minute.

“Cassie’s with her cop…friend.” Ray clears his throat, like he’s embarrassed. “She pretended she was going to be here so I could talk to you. I figured it was probably the only way I was going to get to say goodbye. I didn’t think you’d be answering my calls.” He smiles with that beautiful mouth of his and, for a moment, Mia feels as if time has stopped.

“Goodbye? You’re leaving.” She folds her arms across her chest, wishing it would keep her voice from wavering.

“Yes, but there’s more and I’d rather not get into it on the porch of Cassie’s house where anyone could come by and see us.” Ray looks behind him as if to emphasize the point and she notices that his bike isn’t parked out front.

“Where’s your bike?” She frowns as she looks past him.

“I didn’t exactly want to advertise to every passerby that I was here. It’s a few blocks over.” He motions his head towards the end of the street and Mia nods in understanding.

“Passerbys or passing Jackals? She raises her eyebrow at him and Ray raises one at her in return, nodding towards the lock on Cassie’s door. “Fine, fine!” Mia pulls out her keys and jams her spare into Cassie’s front door. “But this better be good.”

She turns on Ray as soon as he’s closed the door behind him. But he’s not ready to talk yet. He walks around Cassie’s family room, closing all the curtains and flicking lamps on as he goes. Once there’s no chance that anyone outside could catch sight of them he finally stands stills. She watches him take a deep breath, like he’s preparing himself for something and then he looks at her.

She wonders if there is ever going to be a time when his eyes won’t make her forget everything that she wants to say and all the reasons why things won’t work out between them. Suddenly her tongue seems too big for her mouth and all she can do is stare.

“There are a lot of things that I need to tell you and I need you to listen.” He jams his hands in the pockets of his jeans, giving her that intense look of his.

“I’ve heard that before. I didn’t much like it the first time round.” She crosses her arms over her chest, trying to summon some of the anger she’d felt that night in the apartment, needing some kind of defense against the way her body and her heart responds to him. She comes up with nothing. “But if you want to talk to me, I’ll listen.” She watches him as she waits, the guarded expression slowly seeping out replaced by resignation.

“I have to get out of town before the Jackals do anything worse than they already have. I don’t need any more deaths on my conscience.” He scrapes his fingers through his dark blonde hair.

“You didn’t kill that man the other night, Ray. They did. It’s not on you.” Mia shakes her head dismissively at his words. If he wants to blame himself for everything bad that happens in the world, that was fine, but she was damned if she was going to do the same.

Ray looks at her with a surprised expression. Whatever he had expected her to say, it clearly wasn’t that. “Regardless, they’re here now and I know if I leave town, they’ll follow. I wanted to let you know they won’t be bothering you anymore and neither will I.”

Mia bites her lip hard, looking down at the floor so Ray won’t see the pain in her eyes at his words. “Bothering me? Is that what you think you’ve been doing?”

“Well I sure as hell haven’t been making you happy.” Ray rocks back on his heels watching her, but she refuses to meet his gaze. He clears his throat, stalling as he starts to say whatever is on his mind. “There’s something else.” She looks up at him, wondering what else there could possibly be. “It’s about Eli.”

She frowns at him as thoughts of the way he had behaved over the past few days fills her head. She’d finally turned her phone off after telling him she was going to Cassie’s and not to wait up. Seeing the inevitable list of missed calls from him was becoming more than irritating; it was entering the territory of creepy. “What about him?”

Ray sighs deeply. “You may want to sit down for this.” She stubbornly remains standing and he nods as if that’s what he’d expected. “You remember I told you that I suspected he was involved with what happened with my mom, that he was somehow involved with the Jackals?”

Mia nods, not trusting her voice.

“Well today I found out what I needed to know.” He takes a deep breath before he starts to retell the story Donnie had recounted to him that morning. It still didn’t feel real, but he knew it was the truth and, right now, that was all that mattered. “Eli’s dad has been involved with the Jackals for a long time. Haven’t you ever wondered how his little hardware store has grown into a mini empire so fast?”

Mia nods again, not liking where this is going, but forcing herself to listen.

“He’d been in bed with the Jackals for years, paying them protection money to get rid of his competitors. The Jackals firebombed stores, cleared the way for Eli’s family to get a monopoly on the market, and they were paid well for it. Eli knew all about it.” Ray shakes his head like he can’t believe how low his old friend has sunk. “He’d always been in love with you; you must have known that?”

The look on Mia’s rosebud lips tells him she had no idea.

“Well, that makes you probably the only person that didn’t know how he felt. I don’t think he ever really forgave me for taking you away from him.” Ray rubs at his forehead in frustration.

“You didn’t take me away from him. Eli and I were just friends. I didn’t feel that way about him.” Mia shrugs, again absolving Ray of any blame.

“Anyway, he saw me as the reason you two weren’t together. He knew the guy I worked for in the pawnshop, Donnie, was with the Jackals. Eli went and asked some questions about me, pretended he didn’t know me, pretending he’d been sent there by the Jackals to look out for a prospect. Donnie just confirmed what Eli needed to know: that I was desperate to get out of this town, to join the Jackals, to be a part of the MC, to be a part of
something
.” Ray shakes his head at his own stupidity. “It was the perfect opportunity for him to get me out of the picture, permanently.” Ray takes another breath and starts pacing around the room while Mia follows him with her eyes. “He arranged with a pimp to take my mom away to the crack house I found her in.”

“Why? To what end?”

“Eli was my friend; he knew me. He knew if I thought that dealer had killed my mom I would do almost anything and he knew that would mean the Jackals would own me. It was a pretty good plan for a guy who never scored above a C on any test.” Ray chuckles mirthlessly.

“Oh my God, Ray. I’m so sorry.” Mia looks at him, as she realizes the gravity of Ray’s words. If Eli hadn’t played his part Ray’s mom would probably still be alive today and Ray wouldn’t be running from the Jackals. The Jackals needed him to commit a crime, to kill someone so they would be able to hang it over his head for the rest of his life. Eli gave them that opportunity and then she had given herself to Eli. “I should have known. I should never have just believed the things he told me. I should never have…” She can’t say the words but Ray knows exactly what she means.

“It’s not your fault, Mia. You had no idea.” Ray’s tone is insistent. “You had no reason not to believe him when he told you I was dead. He knew how to plant the rumor and how to make it spread. He probably figured I was as good as dead to you anyway; he knew that I couldn’t come back, that I’d never have a normal life, that I’d never have anything to offer you.”

Mia shakes her head, closing the distance between them. “Don’t say that, Ray Nolan. Don’t you dare ever say that.” She meets his eyes, anger bubbling over in her voice. “You have everything to offer me; you have everything that I could ever want or need.” She stops herself before she can say anymore but it’s too late; she’s already said more than she should have.

Ray steps towards her, lifting her chin so she has to look at him. “Mia, what are you saying?” His blue eyes search her dark ones, looking for something.

“I’m saying…” Mia takes a deep breath, letting herself say the words she’s been thinking since the last time she saw him. “I’m saying that I love you and I’m sorry for not believing in you and for saying those awful things to you. I should never have blamed you for what happened that night, your initiation. You’d just been through a trauma; you’d seen your mom’s dead body and came face to face with the man that as good as killed her. You were seventeen years old, Ray. You were a kid! I can’t blame you for doing what you did to him.” She shakes her head, feeling the tears rise behind her eyes, obscuring her view of Ray. “And what happened to those women, it was an accident. You didn’t mean to hurt them. I know that’s not you.”