They Endure: A Stone Hearts Novel, page 19
Lou’s heart dropped into her stomach and then, she was fairly certain, dropped out of her ass entirely at the admission. Lou knew Bash cared about her, but hearing him say it out loud? Nope. None of that now. She reached down and yanked her anger up to drown out the emotions she could never allow herself to feel or succumb to.
“Oh, fuck no are you going to dismiss me and tell me what to do!” she yelled, thundering after him down the hall as fast as she could with her short legs and high heels.
Bash snorted and kept right on walking.
Lou saw red. “Hey! I’m talking to you!” she shouted when she caught up to him, grabbing his arm when he had one foot on the steps.
Tearing his arm free as he whirled, Bash suddenly had her pinned to the wall. Being that Vas had shared that she’d been in the same exact position with the Stone patriarch not all that long ago, the irony wasn’t lost on Lou when she found herself pinned to the wall with an angry man crowding her. “And what is it that you want to talk about, Lou?” he snarled.
Now that she had his attention, Lou didn’t know what she wanted to say or do. Her anger had been propelling her forward. Well, shit. At a loss for anything significant to say, she just scowled up at him.
Bash leaned in close, invading her space in the most orgasmic way. “I thought not,” he said nastily. Giving her one last glare, he pushed off the wall and started back up the stairs again.
“You can’t,” Lou heard herself saying to him.
He paused and looked back at her over his shoulder. “Can’t what, Louise?”
God, if he said her name like that one more fucking time—with such disdain and disappointment… “Care about me,” she nearly choked on the words.
Still he didn’t turn fully around. “And why is that?”
“Because, I—I’ll—I don’t—” God fucking damnit. What she was trying to say was that she couldn’t care for him in the way he did for her in return, that she didn’t want to, that she didn’t want to hurt him, couldn’t hurt him.
And why couldn’t she? Why did she not want to?
Because she was terrified—and it burned her ass seven ways to Sunday that she was. And the truth beneath all of the bullshit? Lou did care about Sebastian Corinado. Very much.
Bash scrutinized her face, specifically her eyes, as if he could see all of her thoughts and feelings in them. A slow smile crept onto Bash’s face. Turning fully around to face her, he offered his hand. “One day, Louise Geralt, one day. In the meantime, let’s go to bed.”
A demon must have taken over her body because Lou took his hand and went with him to do just that, ignoring his statement and the mad fluttering going on in her belly as they went off to bed together. She needed to see a stomach doctor. Clearly, something was wrong. Maybe an ulcer—they could cause weird sensations, she’d heard.
Zaitzev really was a revolting bastard. Not only did Bash share with Lou and Ren via speaker phone the next morning that he indeed wanted to set up an underground trafficking facility, but that he wanted to have it built in Luxton as well as a whole bunch more all throughout the U.S. And he wanted Bash, ‘Marco Davies’, to do it. That’s what the men folk had talked about while Lou was getting information of her own out of Zaitzev’s woman.
Lou was now wondering if Tatiana knew about his billion dollar flesh trade business. she liked Miss Levin and she’d been one hell of a fuck—but if she knew about this and stood by while thousands of people, mostly women and young girls, were sold, raped, and used fror other vile activities, Lou would kill her.
“Good work testing out if Zaitzev’s mistress could be a weak link, Lou,” Ren said while baby Amira cooed in the background. Vas had a fuck ton of work to do at Wonder so he was staying home with the baby. “It was risky, but I think if she was going to rat, she would’ve done so last night and you and Bash would already be dead by now. I’ll have my sources suss out if she did and Zaitzev is pretending he doesn’t know. How did you get the information out of her anyway?”
Bash gave her a shit eating grin, loving that she was going to have to tell Ren.
“Oh, ya know,” she gave a little laugh, “lot’s of alcohol.”
Ren snorted.
“And let’s not leave out the fucking,” Bash added.
Ren roared out a laugh.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Lou snarled, hitting Pretty Boy in the arm.
He put up his hands innocently. “Just giving the boss all of the info.”
Lou rolled her eyes. “Now what, Ren? How do we use this to take Zaitzev out?” She wanted this over and done with, for the threat towards her loved ones to be dead and gone. She also wanted to tackle the situation with her father as soon as possible and to get the fuck out of this penthouse with the bastard who was getting under her skin in a way she couldn’t handle more and more each day.
“Bash has an in now—we see that through and get any information we can. The fact that Zaitzev wants his pen built in Luxton is good. It means he’ll eventually come on our turf. It also means he’s being stupid. I want this dealt with yesterday too, Lou, but we need to be patient and smart about this. We need all of the facts before we make a move.”
Great, more wait and see. Lou puffed out a breath over her lips. “And the situation with Gabriel?”
Ren was quiet for a moment. “He hasn’t made any moves either. But Lou, you should know,” he hedged, “he’s been staying with your mother.” Fucking, what. “I have Mike keeping an eye, making sure she’s alright. From what he’s seen, they’re um—an item.”
All Lou heard from there was the sound of a tea kettle going off in her ears, ringing so high it burned. Was her motherfucking serious? She was not only shagging and letting the man who used and abandoned her shack up with her, but was agreeing to Lou being forced to be her father’s legacy—Lou didn’t want to think that Gabriel had told her about the selling or killing her part. If her mother was okay with that…
All of a sudden there was shattering glass. Looking for the source of the noise, Lou found her hand outstretched and trembling and her coffee mug missing.
Oh.
She was the source of the noise. Talk about literal blind rage.
She was going to kill Gabriel. She was going to make it hurt and relish in his screams. She wanted to do some screaming of her own at her mother. How? How was it possible for a mother to turn her back on her own child and condemn them to a horrid fate they wanted nothing to do with? Was it really her mother’s addiction? Had Lou been too naive to see that her mom was a shit person? Had she just been a stupid little child who fell for Lizbeth’s ‘love’? Jesus fucking christ.
“I’m sorry, Lou,” Ren said after a long moment of silence.
Bash was staring at her, doing that scrutinizing thing again with his lips pressed tightly together.
Lou ran her hands through her short hair. “Thanks, Ren.”
“Why can’t we just kill the fucker?” Bash demanded, the anger in his voice surprising Lou. “We know where he is, let’s roast the bastard.”
“You know why, Bash. We have to tread carefully, the last thing we need is for the entirety of the Colombian Cartel to gun for us—Gabriel has good relations with all of the syndicates and we don’t know how they’ll react to him being taken out. That and we can’t risk him hurting Lou’s mother. He’s also under heavy guard—Mike spotted over fifty of his men hiding out in Lizbeth’s neighborhood, patrolling.”
Lou wasn’t quite sure if she cared if her mother was hurt right then, but Ren was right. The Stones didn’t need the Colombia cartel coming at them. So it was a good thing that Lou wasn’t a Stone, but a Muerte when it really came down to it. She would act alone when she took her father out. Let the entirety of Colombia come after her, she didn’t give a fuck. She’d lead them on a wild goose chase far away from those she loved if they decided to seek out retribution. How she was going to get that murder ball rolling, she had no idea, but the first step would be a jailbreak from the penthouse. Bash could handle the undercover crap with Zaitzev on his own, the Russian had no interest in Marco Davies’ wife anyway.
Bash squeezed her hand in silent support. “What’s next, boss? Zaitzev mentioned a ball?”
A ball?
Ren sighed. “Yup. He’s the one throwing it, so if his family or any Russian friends are involved, they will likely be in attendance. Hopefully we’ll get a better picture of how much force he has behind him and any other major players. That being said, no eating salad other than what’s on the table, Lou.”
The last statement and the smile she could hear behind it, Lou snorted despite herself. “You’re funny, Stone.”
“Keep working the mistress though,” he chuckled. “Get her to keep opening up. Something useful is bound to slip out, especially if she’s wanting to end her time with him.”
“And if Tatiana is lying?” Bash asked.
“She’s not,” Lou told him. “I’m good at recognizing a woman yearning for freedom,” she said pointedly. “And like Ren said, we’d be dead otherwise. I don’t think Zaitzev would play the long game, he seems like an intense get it done now dude. Can we keep Tatiana safe when shit goes down, Ren? Can we get her away?”
“Absolutely.”
Rolling his eyes, Bash said hurriedly, “okay, gotta go, bye,” and hung up.
Lou shook her head and jumped down from the barstool she’d been perched on to clean up the shattered coffee mug.
“Was the yearning for freedom comment a jab at me, gorgeous?” her jailer asked, coming around the island to help. For some reason seeing him squatting down barefoot and in man's best creation; grey sweatpants, had her tingling in all the right places. Bad Lou, bad.
“No,” she said, speaking truthfully. It had been a general statement, and if she was being honest, it was more of a shot at her father and what happened to her when she was thirteen. Something that she was not going to let come to the surface.
Bash kept his eyes on her as they dumped the shards into the bin and she went for a broom.
“What?” she snapped after she finished cleaning up and found him still watching her.
He crossed his muscular arms. “Want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” Knowing this was about to go where she had no desire to go, she could feel her back going up like a pissed off cat.
Bash pinned her with a flat look. “Your father, your mother, your father and your mother, everything, whatever dark place you just slipped into and shook yourself out of?”
Goddamn these Stone men and their ability to pay attention. Men were supposed to be bad at that when it came to women. “Nope.”
He raised a brow.“What happened?”
Lou sighed. “What do you mean, Sebastian?”
“Your trauma.”
“My trauma?” she scoffed with false humor.
Bash lips didn’t so much as twitch. “Yes, you have it. What happened?”
Giving him a shot to the shoulder to get past him, Lou rounded the island. Maybe she’d torture herself with a run on Stone’s fancy treadmill in his even fancier home gym. She was definitely going to practice her martial arts. “I don’t have any trauma. I am walking, talking sunshine—it practically shoots out my ass, I’m so goddamn sunny.”
“You’re a fucking liar, Louise,” he growled.
Lou rounded on him. “You know what? You’re the most aggravating, intolerable person I have ever had the misfortune of meeting! I should have riddled you with holes with my goddamn uzi’s!” She was so fucking pissed off, she was shaking—she did not want to talk about this. She was also shaking from the very fragile lid she had on the trauma she denied the existence of. Her mother deciding to be with her father with eyes wide open, her knowing his plans for Lou, that she was choosing him over Lou as a whole—it put Lou over the edge.
She’d grown accustomed to her mothers alcoholic fits over the years, her bouts indifference, her fucking mood swings—but her being all for Lou’s life and freedom being taken away from her? Because of a man—her father or not?
Fuck, that hurt. And it ripped open all of the wounds that Lou thought had long since healed over. It made her wonder—did her mother know about what happened to Lou eight years ago? Did she just not care? Now that Lou thought about it, her mother seemed angry with her after that night. Really angry. And her drinking had picked up to a terrifying degree the weeks afterward.
And how Lou was feeling now—the shaking, her her skin feeling like it was on fire, her face literally throbbing in time with her raging pulse—it let her know that it was not a sad hurt plaguing her, but a hurt of fury and fire and ice and the whole fucking shebang. Lou hated it. She didn’t want someone to have control over her emotions like that, but as hard as she tried to even out her breathing and calm the fuck down, her body wouldn’t listen.
Bash watched her as those thoughts raged through her mind, as her body started involuntarily reacting to them. His face set in unreadable stone, he started for Lou. She immediately retreated backwards, hating the reaction. Her steps synchronized with his as they moved, but his legs were about double the length of hers so he reached her in half a moment.
What he did next surprised the shit out of her. Gently grasping her arms, he brought her into him and wrapped his arms around her. Lou immediately stiffened, but didn’t try to escape. He smelled too good. He was too goddamn warm, his body too freaking hard yet soft at the same time. And being held by him…it made her feel safe, cocooned in a soft, warm place away from the world and her hurt and anger.
Had Bash ever held her like this before? They’d had each other every which way and then some, sometimes he would do that cutesie peppering her face with kisses thing, they spooned in bed post sex, and every now and then they had sleepovers where Lou would wake up with them tangled around each other—but they’d never hugged. He certainly never did this—holding her as if he were purposefully trying to shield and console.
Had anyone ever held Lou like this?
No. Not even her mother. And this was different from hugs from Vas.
Before she knew it, Lou’s body began to loosen and her pulse started to calm. She realized that she’d even leaned further into Bash and had encircled his waist with her arms.
He rested his chin on her head. “I’m not sorry,” he said after a few minutes of them standing in the middle of the penthouse in silence.
Lou felt a pull at the corner of her mouth that may or may have not been upward. “Me neither.”
“Good.”
She peered up at him. “Good?”
Bash sighed. “You wouldn’t be you and I wouldn’t be me if we were—we wouldn’t be us.”
Lou wanted to comment that there was no us, but didn’t have the energy to. A solid mad gave you enough energy to demolish a building, but the come down was pure exhaustion. A small voice in her head whispered that she and Bash were an ‘us’, but she ignored it and blamed not chewing him out for using the pronoun on being tired.
Bash broke their embrace and Lou quite literally almost whined aloud at the loss of his calming contact and heat. But the loss was quickly over since he scooped her up into his arms and started carrying her down the hall princess style.
“Bash,” Lou protested weakly with a roll of her eyes.
“Shh.”
“Bash.”
He continued despite her objection, effortlessly climbing the stairs with her in tow. “Let me take care of you, Lou.”
Well when he put it like that. “This is a one time thing,” she warned. “Because I’m so tired.” God, what the fuck was wrong with her? Why was she allowing this? Why wasn’t she fighting him? She most definitely should be. This was dangerous ground here. She was already fragile, she didn’t need him weaseling his way under her skin more than he already had.
Why was that bad?
Because it would only lead to being hurt and disappointed. Welcome to Abandonment Issues 101.
And him wanting to take care of her….
Like the holding, had anyone ever done that or wanted to before?
Other than the late Amira Alexandrio, the answer was no, and Lou never allowed any of her past lovers the chance to want to. She’d been taking care of herself since the day her mother had forgotten to send her to school with snacks and lunch when Lou was in Kindergarten. Nearly dying of humiliation when all of her classmates stared and her teacher bought her lunch with a look of concern and pity, Lou packed her food from there on out. Her mother having had no idea that she forgot, she just thought her five year old had entered a stubborn independence stage.
“I’m not going anywhere, Lou,” Bash said as he carted her into the bedroom that she realized then that she hadn’t been putting up much of a fight about sharing with him—sharing the bed.
Lou sighed as he padded into the bathroom. “What are you doing?”
“Running you a bath.” He moved to the tub and started the hot water. “Then I’m getting you a spa day. And later we’re going out to dinner.”
Spa day huh? Lou was cool with that. And though she wasn’t as cool with going out to dinner—it was just one more thing to give him the wrong idea—she conceded, “only if there’s a bacon cheeseburger involved.”.
Bash smirked at her. “That’s my girl.”
15
Bash hadn’t been kidding when he said Lou would be having a day of relaxation. After he left her to her own devices in the bath, though not without lighting candles first, he’d apparently been a busy man. By the time Lou was dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants that may or may not have been his, he had procured her own personal spa team.
Lou was rubbed down by a very gay Pablo for an hour and a half with strong smooth hands and relaxing oils like lavender and cedar. The massage magician even whipped out hot stones that he had in a fancy traveling machine on wheels. After that was her facial and scalp massage with Amy. Then her mani and pedi in which her feet had been massaged so well by the magnificent Dani that her eyes were rolling in the back of her head. And to finish, Pablo’s very hot business partner and husband waxed whatever body part she wanted waxed, and washed, re-dyed, and trimmed her hair. Needless to say, Lou got every hair on her body that weren’t her eyebrows or her pixie removed. Waxing was expensive as hell.
