Patrena and I knew she was smart enough to know it, but I believed she wanted me to accept that she wasn’t afraid of the stigma attached to my family’s name. She was also daring enough to flirt with the danger she knew was lurking, another quality about her that intrigued me.
Her soft hand glided along my forearm and my gaze followed the touch that was adding fuel to the havoc she was stirring up in my pants.
“I understand your relationship guidelines better than you think and wouldn’t ask you to change them. However, if an opportunity presents itself again, please don’t play the hero. If I believe I need saving, I’m grown enough to know when I’ve had enough to back off.”
“Understood,” I said, grinning. Damn, I liked her.
She hadn’t demanded I change my ways. Would she be content with one night here and there? I wasn’t sure I would be, not with her. My instincts had warned me that with her one night would be a tease, but I had chosen to ignore them. My finger resumed its teasing along her soft shoulder of its own accord and images of her tattoo flashed to life in my head.
“I had a dream about your tattoo, but it was weird because it came to me like a memory,” I informed.
“Would you let it go please?” she demanded and based on the stiffness around her eyes and the tightness in her shoulders, her words were clearly a warning.
I didn’t sense that she was afraid, but she was definitely stressed. What was up with her tattoo? Why was it such a touchy subject? My gaze darted to the area on her right shoulder blade.
“Please forget you ever saw it. I’ve gotten to the point where I act like it’s not there.”
She took the time to cover it with makeup every day, so there is no way to act like it wasn’t there. Of course, I had enough sense not to say that out loud. Instead, I asked, “Why don’t you have it inked over?”
Her face was pinched in concern now, the expression making me want to do the opposite of what she was asking. My gaze fell on the area again. Her dress was cut so that it was exposed but camouflaged with flesh-tone makeup, so well that you’d never know anything was there unless you’d seen it before.
“Let it go,” she reiterated, catching me looking.
“Okay,” I replied, lifting my hands in surrender and setting my gaze loose on the rest of her. I was sitting in the middle of my cousin’s wedding, but I didn’t see anything but Patrena until the crowd’s reaction to the pastor instructing Arjen to kiss his bride. It was the first full statement I believed I had heard during the ceremony and guilt forced me to view the last moments of it. And they turned out to be telling moments.
Holy shit! I mouthed to myself. Based on the kiss Arjen had just laid on Mecca, I would venture to say his ass was in trouble. He wasn’t going to maim or injure, he was definitely going to kill, murder, and destroy on her behalf.
What kind of drama were my cousins going to drag me into behind their wives? What kind of hidden chaos did Patrena have in store if I didn’t find a way to keep myself away from her?
10
Patrena
Blaaa! Blaaa! Blaaa!
I jump out of bed, unsteady on my legs and shaking off sleep. The boom blast ringtone on my emergency phone was sounding off and alerting me that someone was in serious trouble.
“Patrena, get up,” Lady D’s voice blasted in my ear when I answered.
“What’s going on?”
“Mecca just put in a call for backup, all-hands. It’s a blackout affair, all gear, multiple targets in the Overtown projects.”
I swiped sleep from my eyes. Were my ears working right? “Wait. What did you just say? O-Town? What the hell?”
“Fucking Haitians acting up again,” she replied. Her irritation was so icy that it practically reached through the phone and touched down on my skin.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath while rummaging through my dresser drawer for something black to throw on.
“I’ll see you at the spot,” I called to Lady D.
“Okay. See you soon,” she replied before hanging up.
Later, we met at our spot, an old meat-packing warehouse sitting among a city of other run-down warehouses that were barely operational. We operated out of the basement that had been renovated to keep out stragglers. This was where we