Miles High, page 28
part #4 of Grimm Tales of Smoky Vale Series
“But he didn’t, did he?”
“No.” He kissed me hard. “He didn’t. We got the fucker, and I’m going to enjoy ripping him apart. You scared me good, Miles.”
I half laughed…half sobbed. “I scared myself. Will the police believe us?”
“We’ve got witnesses.”
He got to his feet, his arms around me. When he turned me around, I faced two men, one I was well used to from fighting for Tempus. I snuggled closer to Rubble, clutching his shirt.
“I see you’ve already met Dusty,” Rubble said.
“You’re the one who helped us?” I cried. “Why?”
His eyes darted to the young man beside him—Rubble’s brother. It was so quick I would have missed the look hadn’t I been staring at him.
“Black has a lot of enemies,” he said. “Even those of us who worked for him.”
But was that all?
The wail of sirens echoed through the night.
“The cavalry's arrived,” Rubble said. “When this is all done, I’ll introduce you properly to my brother, Luca.”
The young man hung his head, hands stuffed in his pockets. He acted like a naughty kid who had been caught doing exactly what he wasn’t supposed to. Like fighting when Rubble had forbidden it.
Those two were going to have a lot to talk about.
We stood together and waited for the two police cars driving toward us. The sirens were cut, and four officers got out with their guns drawn.
“Why am I not surprised?” The captain said. “Why is it that every time there’s a crime, the Grimm Reapers are on the scene?”
“Maybe we should be the ones wearing your badges.” Rubble shrugged, all cool like we weren’t on the verge of being arrested. There was at least one dead body lying inside the building.
“You can keep dreaming.” He fixed his gaze on me. “And as usual dragging the innocent boys along with you. Not so innocent now, are you, kid?”
My face flamed. “I’m not a kid, and I find it offensive for you to talk down to me like that, especially after the night I’ve had.”
“Then maybe you should keep better company.” He turned his attention back to Rubble. “You’ve trained him well.” He nodded at Dusty and Luca. “Let me guess, fabricated witnesses?”
What an asshole. He didn’t even give us a chance to explain.
“You can call them that,” Rubble said. “You might want to have your men check inside, although I’m sure it’s useless. He’s already dead anyway.”
“Who’s dead?”
“Tempus Black.”
“You killed him?”
“I would’ve liked to,” Rubble said, “but someone else beat me to it.”
“Uh-huh, and who might that someone be?”
“Don’t know the guy’s name. One of his shady workers.”
“Any weapons on you?”
Rubble removed his gun from his waistband and handed it over to the cop, who inspected it. “That’s my licensed good. A man’s at liberty to protect himself and his family, isn’t he?”
“All right, we’re going to separate you all and ask you some questions, and if it means taking you down to the station to get to the bottom of this, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.”
Chapter 33
Rubble
“Man, I’m fucking starving. Anybody else?”
Dusty’s comment pulled my gaze from the police car where Captain Witter stood off to the side, questioning Miles. Witter had deliberately left Miles for last, making him stew in nervousness and uncertainty. I was worried about Miles saying the wrong things. He wasn’t used to lying as easily as the rest of us.
Even my brother probably had more practice than he did.
“I could eat,” Luca said.
I stiffened. I had yet to address him about tonight, but I was still too angry, too worried about him to face him. Every time we had a conversation when I was like this, it went south. I never got through to him, so I was waiting it out, giving myself time to calm down and look at him without wanting to smack him.
Who was I kidding? I could never lay a hand on him. Not after what Dad had done to me when I was younger. I just didn’t know how to reach my brother.
“I’m still confused about how the hell we ended up here,” I said, lowering my voice. “Miles was clear about the kind of places Tempus had these fights.”
“Tempus Black is huge, man,” Dusty said. “You really thought he got the kind of money he does by back-alley fighting? That’s where he finds his fighters. Then he takes them to the big league.”
“This was the big league? No one was watching.”
“Yeah, they were. On those monitors you saw across the room. People from all over the world bet tens of thousands of dollars behind the screen on who will win, how they’ll win, and when they’ll win.”
“And you’ve been fighting on the streets for Tempus all this time? Have you ever fought in the big league before?”
“Yeah. Only once. It gets…ugly. It’s a dog-eat-dog business.”
“All right, that, I can understand, but I still don’t know how you ended up in all this, Luca. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“It’s my fault, man,” Dusty said. “I might have said way too much around him when we’re at the gym training. You don’t want to admit it, but he’s got talent, and you shouldn’t stop him from exploring that.”
“Look where it got both of you.”
“See, I told you!” Luca jumped to his feet. “He never wants to listen. Just wants to tell me what to do, and I ain’t for that shit.”
He stalked off but didn’t get far, as a police officer stopped him.
“You wrong for that, you know,” Dusty said. “He’s a good man, and if you didn’t try to stop him from fighting, maybe he wouldn’t feel the need to go about it this way.”
I frowned at Dusty and the way he referred to Luca as a man. He was still my kid brother, and that didn’t change because the state of Ohio said he could fuck whomever he wanted once he hit sixteen. “What the hell are you doing with him anyway? He’s a fucking kid, Dusty.”
“Guess who didn’t forget his eighteenth birthday yesterday? Seriously, man, you need to talk to him and worry less about what I am to him.”
I glanced back over where Miles was still talking to the cop. Witter was sure taking his sweet time with Miles. I pushed off the steps and got to my feet. We needed to get the fuck out of here so I could deal with that Hook guy. Now that I knew he was the one who’d forced Miles to suck him off, I craved to relieve him of his remaining testicle.
For starters.
Tempus was dead. He’d taken that satisfaction from me. I’d have to find it from another source.
“Hey, we need to talk.” I placed a hand on Luca’s shoulder. He stiffened under my touch, and I let go. “We can’t let Mom find out about this. You know she’ll worry.”
“Like she doesn’t worry already,” he scoffed.
“Sorry I forgot your birthday.”
He shrugged. “It’s not important.”
“‘Course it is. I should’ve remembered. I know it’s no excuse, but yesterday we buried Miles’s father.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s different from the guys you used to date,” he said. “Even in that getup.”
I chuckled, glancing at Miles. My heart skipped a beat. Where was he? I let out a slow breath when I caught sight of him sitting beside Dusty. Way too close to Dusty.
“Dusty’s not gonna take your man or something,” Luca said. “Believe me.”
I snapped my head back around to him. “You and Dusty?”
His face turned red. “We’re just talking, that's all.”
“So that’s the real reason he called me. He didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“I didn’t know they’d put me up to fight against him. Or that they wanted us to fight to the finish, you know.”
“No, wait, we’re not done with the whole you and Dusty situation.”
“It’s none of your business.”
I grabbed him by the back of his neck. “You are my fucking business, so don’t give me that.”
“Really? Because you’ve hardly given a shit since you joined that club. You completely shut us out like we don’t exist anymore. Even when you come by, it’s just to bring us stuff. Then you leave.”
I reeled at his words. “Is that what you thought? That I shut you out?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The urge to hug him overwhelmed me, so I did, holding him tight to me, even though he struggled.
“What are you doing?”
“You fucking idiot. You know I love you. I didn’t come around as much because I didn’t want you becoming involved in club business. I wanted you to keep out of messes like this. That’s why I wanted you to get out of town. It’s not that I have anything against you fighting, Luca, but fighting in Smoky Vale only lands you in shit like this. That’s what I’ve been trying to get you to avoid because if anything happened to you—”
“The whole world comes tumbling down,” he finished. Just like I’d told him when he was a kid growing up.
“Exactly.”
“Richmond!” Witter shouted my name as he stalked toward us.
“We’re going to talk more about this, you and I.” I patted Luca’s face. “As we need to talk about whatever fire you’re trying to spark with Dusty over there.”
He blushed and ducked his head. “He believed in me.”
“Yeah, but there’s a whole lot of trouble that comes with a man like Dusty. But hey, I’m not making your decisions for you. I’m open to hearing you out about it.”
Captain Witter came up to us, and I turned to the man. “What can I do for you now, Captain?”
“I’m taking the gun with me for evidence,” he said. “It might not have been used in this case, but there are a lot of unsolved gun-related crimes in Smoky Vale.”
I shrugged. That was my legally obtained gun. “Be my guest. Just don’t forget who it belongs to. I feel naked without my side piece.”
“Somehow I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
“Does that mean we’re free to go?” I asked him.
“Just don’t go skipping town.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I’d miss you, Captain.”
I slung an arm around Luca’s shoulders and walked toward the other two men who stood as we approached.
“How’d it go?” I asked Miles.
“I did what you said. I told him the truth.” He smiled at me, then held out a hand to Luca. “Hey, Luca, nice to meet you.”
Luca shook Miles’s hand. “Hey, Rubble’s just been telling me about you.”
“He did?”
“I’m always talking about you.” I pulled him to me and kissed his forehead. “We need to get the fuck out of here.” I dug my phone out of my pocket. “I’ll ask one of the guys to pick us up.”
“I can drop you wherever you want to go,” Dusty said. “I drove here.”
“Luca?” I asked.
“They sent a car for me, so I’m definitely riding with Dusty.”
Why the fuck did that sound so dirty in my head? I needed my bed and Miles in it, holding him for the night just to reassure myself that he was all right.
Tomorrow I could work on Hook. And figure out how the hell I was going to swallow the idea of Dusty and Luca. Luca had shown he would do whatever he wanted. If I pushed him on this, he would only be more determined to get more serious about Dusty, but if I left them alone, maybe he would get bored and walk away.
Chapter 34
Miles
“Miles, stop pacing. You’re going to give me a headache.”
I halted and slowly turned to Fable, who was sitting on the couch, combing a doll’s hair. The doll was missing an arm, perched on his lap, and wearing a costume I’d watched him sew earlier. I didn’t know how he could be so calm when everything inside me was in knots.
What was Rubble doing to Hook?
It scared me thinking how determined he’d been this morning when he’d left with only the instructions for me to pack up as he was taking me home as soon as he returned. My stomach was a tender mass of nerves.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m just…”
Guilty.
Rubble was about to take a man’s life to vindicate me. He might be used to doing this, but I wasn’t, and ever since he walked out the front door, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Come here. Sit.” Fable patted the space next to him on the couch. “Come on, talk to me about what’s going on in your head.”
I huffed out a breath and dropped down onto the couch. He slung an arm around my shoulders and hugged me briefly.
“I can’t stop thinking about last night,” I said. “Of how wrong everything could have gone.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Still, it could have. When I saw Hook point the gun at Rubble and Booker, I knew I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else I loved.”
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Yeah, Rubble’s going to ki—” I swallowed hard. I couldn’t even say the word out loud.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “He definitely is going to off the bastard for putting his hands on you and threatening your life.”
I bounced my knees, frustration kicking up a notch. “It’s like deep down, I know he probably has before, but now it’s real.”
“Miles, you need to calm down. You don’t want your asthma acting up again and raising Rubble’s blood pressure any more than it already is.”
He was right. I was getting all worked up. I sucked in a deep breath and slumped against the back of a couch. Then I laughed, took my glasses off, and rubbed at my eyes.
“How long did you sleep last night, Miles?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. We got back late, and Rubble was on edge, so we had sex. Twice. He fell asleep after, but I was awake for a while.”
“I think you need to get some rest.” He carefully placed the doll on the floor, then patted his lap. “Put your head on my lap and lie down.”
“I can’t sleep. Have to wait up for Rubble to come back.”
“I’ll wake you when he gets back. And…it might take a while. They’re not just going to do it instantly.”
A shudder ran down my spine. “You probably shouldn’t have told me that.”
“I think the quicker you acknowledge what you’ve gotten into, the faster you can decide if you’re going to stay or leave. I sure do hope you’ll stay. We all like you, and Rubble’s not been as bad as he was before since you came into his life. He really likes you.”
I stretched out on the couch and placed my head on Fable’s skinny lap. “Rubble’s lap is more comfortable.”
He laughed. “Well, thank god, I’m just a substitute for now. Come on, close your eyes.”
I inhaled deeply. “Am I a monster for allowing this to happen?” I asked softly. “I mean, I lied to the police last night about what happened to Hook.”
“You did what you had to in order to protect your Daddy. Hook’s not worth Rubble going to prison.”
“I know. I know…I just wish I could stop thinking about it.”
Fable stroked my hair. The gentle movements were soothing, and slowly the stress left my body.
“What if I told you a secret?” Fable said, his voice low. “Of how I killed a man and my Daddies helped me to cover it up. Would you think I’m a monster?”
My eyelids flickered open, and I stared up at Fable, searching his face to find out if the question was real or hypothetical. Fable couldn’t hurt a fly. The guy often hid behind his Daddies and had more bad days than anyone else I’d ever met. Half of the time, he was locked away in little space, oblivious to the world his Daddies shielded him from.
“I-I’d say the person did something very bad to you.”
“Then why can’t you think that way about what happened to you and Rubble? What Hook did to you was despicable. He shot Rubble, placed Mort in a coma, would have killed both our Daddies, and taken you away to rape and possibly kill you.” His hand stilled. “As far as I’m concerned, your Daddy has an obligation to protect you, and if Hook stays alive, he’ll always be a threat to you.”
He made some salient points. Ones that made me relax and turn into him. His hand returned to stroking my hair. My breathing returned to normal, and I felt lighter.
When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the quiet around me. I sighed and stretched on the couch, moving my head from side to side to work out the kinks. Something felt off. Fable. My head was no longer resting in his lap.
“Fable?” I scrambled up to a sitting position. My breath hitched. Rubble sat on the couch across from me, watching me. My glasses were askew on my face, and I righted them. “When did you get back?”
“Like half an hour ago.”
I groaned. “Fable was supposed to wake me up.”
“I told him not to. He said you were tired.”
I slid from the couch and ran to him. Warmth spread through me when he opened his arms and pulled me into his lap. Nothing had changed. Why had I thought we would become awkward because of what he’d had to do?
Rubble pulled me down onto his lap, and I nuzzled against his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Being so austere earlier when you were going out.”
He groaned. “Smaller words, babe.”
“That’s like seven letters,” I teased.
I yelped when I ended up over his knees and his hand swatted my ass. “Are you sassing me right now? You’ve been hanging out with Jamie for way too long. I need to get you home ASAP.”
“I’m not complaining.” I giggled.
He pulled me upright once more. “Seriously, how are you? Do we need to talk about what happened last night or today? I’d rather not get into what I did today.”
