Run From Me (Barbed Wire Hearts #2)

26. Calliope

TWENTY-SIX

calliope

I stood in the hallway, dressed in more of Rylee’s clothes. The conversation with Xander was a little fuzzy, but the way he fucked me. No, wait. That wasn’t even close to right. Maybe the first time on the table had been that. But the second and third? It was like he was taking his time with me, and my body was sore and yet still craving more even now.

I was in the hallway with Zeid, trying to process what everything meant. Home. The word kept running through my mind. Home. I was supposed to be home. Xander wanted me here.

“Put your fingers here,” Zeid said as he hit a button on a pad that seemed to control everything around this place.

I did as he said, and in a minute, we were finished, and I was able to access this place.

“How do you all know I won’t go run to the Vipers?”

Zeid just shook his head, and it wasn’t lost on me that he was handsome, tall, built similarly to Xander, and had the perfect bedroom voice, but that was it. I noticed it, and it did nothing for me.

“The way you look at X is not like the way you just looked at me. I’ve seen it too many times with Rylee and Cas. I see the way X is all territorial about you. Hell, he’s letting you move in and is building a cat tree downstairs for O. You run to the Vipers, and you will destroy him, and then I’ll have to destroy you. But make no mistake, I would die for you as long as you are loyal to him.”

A warmth filled me right alongside that threat. I couldn’t even muster fake fear, and my desire to remain right here had almost nothing to do with my needy pussy and everything to do with the fact Xander was downstairs with Cas trying to make a cat tree far more decorative than anything I could have bought, and for no reason other than me.

“That look. That’s the look right there,” Zeid said, and flipped the screwdriver in his hand while he leaned back against the wall. “You won’t hurt my boy, am I right?”

I didn’t really know what to say.

“Do you mean like hurt him with a knife, or hurt him like break his heart?”

A roar of laughter echoed up the staircase.

“Both, either. But the way you just smiled when his annoying as fuck laugh echoed up here? Yeah. You’re alright, Cali. I don’t have to repeat myself, do I? You get that, if you hurt him, I won’t hesitate burying your body seventeen feet deep so even the cadaver dogs won’t find you.”

That had my attention, and this time when I smiled it was for Zeid.

“Aww, Zeid. It takes a real expert to know about burying a body that deep. You’re alright in my book.”

He chucked and tipped his head toward the downstairs.

“Hey, Zeid, before we go downstairs, can you tell me what all of his scars are from? It can’t all be from Spectors stuff, right? The ones on his back? The ones hiding behind tattoos?”

He shook his head, but not like he was saying no.

“Look, that’s his story to tell. But let me just say that your little mommy issues hit home with him. And your lack of a father? Well, he isn’t fond of father types.”

My lips were in an O shape because I didn’t know what else to say or ask. Not yet anyway. But I felt I was right in thinking that most of those scars hadn’t been from fights or gang violence.

“Shall we?” Zeid asked after a moment of me being too quiet.

I skipped forward.

“We shall. Thanks for the pep talk.”

His boots made a little clunk as he followed me down the stairs. As we neared the bottom, I watched Xander come into view. If I wasn’t totally sold on this man before, this moment might have been one when I realized I’d just lost the heart I thought I’d buried deeper than even the deepest of graves.

“O, this is where you scratch and shit. That? That there is your parkour course. Now stay off my head.”

He placed O on top of one of several shelves with carpet, where the cat immediately sprang from one to the next and then to a circular sort of cave thing. Then he proceeded to settle in and clean himself.

I refused to cry. I refused, and I hated the warble in my next words.

“Is it done?”

Xander looked over from where he watched O and smiled. It was a real smile, one that showed he had dimples I’d somehow never seen.

“That’s the look, little X,” Zeid said as he walked by.

Little X?

I had a nickname, and it wasn’t from Xander. Why did that feel like it meant something?

Why did it feel like this cat tree meant something? Why did it feel like Xander had gone from hating me, to owning me, to… I stopped myself.

“It’s done, Sparky. What do you think? It’s like the cat parkour course that all the other alley cats will be jealous of. Even Rylee here tossed that stupid little electronic Tamagotchi now that she can snuggle up to stinky here.”

O looked up like he knew he was being talked about but went right back to licking a moment later.

The main floor was one massive great room, and over the past twenty-four hours, I’d realized it was the center of everything. Rylee and I had watched several movies while the guys worked on stuff for the art show. I wanted to go over to the shop and watch, but something felt too real about seeing whatever their creative process was. Like seeing them not killing someone made them more human?

“Thanks for building this, you guys. Xander, that reminds me. If I am staying here any longer, I really need some of my own clothes. Can you take me to my apartment?”

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug.

“Sparky, no can do. But place an order online, and I’ll get everything picked up from the mall.”

My brow furrowed.

“Xander. One, I can’t afford the mall or a whole new wardrobe. Two, you can’t just keep me locked up here.”

His fingers marched up my neck and booped me on my nose, making me blink and then glare.

“Sparky, I can and I will do whatever I please. Keeping you safe? That pleases me.”

I filled my lungs short of exploding and slowly let the air out.

“You don’t own me, Xander. That’s not a thing. Unless you are trafficking me.” I tried to pull his fingers off me and remove his arm at the same time. I grunted when he just grabbed me up in his arms.

“Xander, put me the hell down. I have a real life to get back to. Things to do. A job to show up at.”

We were halfway up the stairs at this point.

“Your cat is here. Your job thinks you have food poisoning and will be out for a few days with a doctor's note and everything. That life you talk about? I watched your cameras. For two days, you didn’t leave. You didn’t even order food. Something tells me your life is right here,” he said, somehow opening the door and slamming it.

We were in his little apartment that was cozy and smelled of oil and grease and whatever was him. I hated how my body betrayed me by instantly relaxing in this space.

“Xander, put me down. You can’t just go calling me out of work. I need the money. I need to make sure the Vipers—” His lips were on mine and swallowing the last of my protest.

At this point I was aware enough to realize when he laid me out on the bed and moved over me.

“I promise you, Calliope. The Vipers are not doing anything right now. Not to you anyway. I’m waiting on their terms for letting you go.”

My breath caught.

“You? Wait. To let me go?”

He shifted lower, raising the edge of the shirt he lent me. It was sizes too big, but it was comfortable, and I almost regretted asking for my own clothes.

“Yes.” He leaned down and shifted before moving to kiss under the band of my borrowed shorts. Fuck if I didn’t lose my train of thought as he slid them down, licking over every inch of my skin. Fucking hell if my eyes didn’t close at the nerves he found along my hip.

“Care to tattoo over this abomination?” he asked as his thumb gently ran over the Viper brand.

The memory of the day I received that damn brand resurfaced no matter how hard I tried to forget it. My breathing halted like I was holding it and praying that nightmare would end in my mind.

Xander looked up at me and met my eyes.

“My mom, she sold me to them, you know? And I wasn’t exactly asked. Just dragged out of my bed and gagged and tied up in a basement of some nasty house. I still can smell the urine in that place. They didn’t even pull off the gag as they let me watch them warm the brand over the burner of a gas stove.”

I swallowed before I said anything else.

“The smell of my own flesh burning? Well, it took a few seconds to recognize it was, indeed, my own skin. But what they said next. That’s what haunted me far longer than the memory of the pain. They told me I was no longer my own person. They would kill me if I breathed wrong. All these years working with the dead, training to get this job, and I suddenly wished I was one of them. I envied all those corpses.”

I didn’t realize until now, but Xander was lying next to me, just holding me.

“Never again will you feel that. Never. If you want to cover it up, I can have my guy come here or I can take you to his shop. But it is, and will always be, your choice. And give me a detailed description of each of the men you remember, and I’ll make sure to send them to your morgue as gifts.”

I placed my hand on his, the one that was still touching that little part of my past, and I slowly pushed his hand down my hip.

“Tell me about your scars?”

He stopped his hand before I could push it between my legs.

“Xander, I just told you my story. Tell me something about you. Please. I need to know the real you, not just the you the world gets to see.”

He sat up and lifted the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head.

“You know the car?”

I blushed, because yes. That car was forever part of my core memories.

“Yeah, what about it?”

He shrugged.

“My pops traded my mom for that car.”

I gasped. “What the hell?”

Xander’s brows knit tightly like he was trying to recall something.

“When I shoved the knife right through his neck, severing his spine, I swore I would keep that car and remember exactly what I would never be. The scars on my back? Let’s just say my father wasn’t a nice man, and he regretted the day I was finally bigger than him.”

We just sat there for a moment. I didn’t have any words to say. Neglect suddenly didn’t seem so bad when it was compared to being beaten. Or worse, seeing someone you loved hurt.

“I’m sorry.” Those were the only words I could think of.

He shifted and reached forward, his hand cupping my cheek.

“I never wanted to be attached to anyone. I never wanted to be weak, and you, Cali, are a weakness. But the pain of you being gone? The idea of never seeing you? It burns a hole in my chest and sucks the air from my lungs. I would burn the world to keep you safe, even though I could never save my mom.”

Getting up, the blankets catching as I moved to get closer, I reached for him.

“I never doubted for a minute that you could protect me. The feeling’s mutual. I would do anything to protect you. I’d even cover up your murders.”

That got him smiling.

“I will keep you in a job then, won’t I?”

I leaned into him and kissed him softly. I kissed his cheek, the corner of his mouth, then his lips fully.

“Xander? With all this talk about you killing for me? I need you to fuck me, because, baby, I’ve never wanted you more.”