Page 43 of Carnal Wagers

A day after our visit to our father, my irritation still simmered. I flicked the butt of my cigarette onto the ground in the back alley of my preferred tattoo parlor and squashed it beneath my boot. Same as I’d do to our father if both Liam and Brody weren’t so opposed. Neither of my brothers deserved his berating. Me, he could have at it. I couldn’t care less. I’d stolen his clan position years before his health would’ve forced him to give it up. When gambling and alcohol soured the little we had left of a father, I’d beaten him bloody before he could do it to us. That was before his Parkinson’s hit full force and his muscles locked up, before the tremors got so bad he saw in us what he couldn’t be anymore.

I rolled my shoulders and neck. The newly worked skin over my right pec twinged delectably, a shot right to my nervous system. Getting a new tattoo was a high that lasted hours. One that tugged me out of the abyss of nothingness and towed me through bumpy waves under sunny skies for hours of relief. Until, in time, my demons dragged me back down into numbness and apathy.

Every day, I fought them. From the moment the gleam of sunrise splayed over my face until the instant my pillow swaddled me to sleep, I kicked. I slashed. I struggled. If my heart pumped, if my desire surged, if my craving for life peaked, my fingers grazed the surface of that murky water, ensnaring me tight. On occasion, they broke free and wiggled over fresh air that spoke of hope and possibilities. Until a wave submerged them again, and the nothingness dug its claws even deeper.

Today was more of the same, meaning I was on another search for that new high to rocket me out of the hole of my mind’s making. Another tattoo was as good a choice as any.

As I traipsed back inside for the next round of my tattoo session, “Every Breath You Take” by The Police grooved in the empty lobby area, the music old-school, just like Levi, the same man who’d given me my first tat twenty years ago. He waited for me in his office—gloved, his goggle glasses back on, and wearing his baseball cap backward, like he’d forgotten his teens ended forty years ago.

“Lady friend left that for you.” He nudged his head at a to-go bag on a chair reserved for the clients’ guests as he finished changing the plastic coverings on the equipment.

The bag crackled as I glanced inside. A water bottle and an insulated stainless-steel thermos. A purple paper umbrella was taped to the thermos. I twirled the accessory between my fingers as I drank down the water. How in the fuck had she gotten past Paulie and Big Charlie, who were keeping watch in the car out front?

“Where is she?”

“No idea. Probably took off the moment she dropped that off with my receptionist.” He wiped down the chair. “If you’re ready…”

I sat back, set my gun aside as we’d agreed, and took out my phone as Levi got back to work. There was a lightness in his movements that soothed my reactionary instincts. I pulled up the messaging thread with my stalker, whom I renamed síbhean, Gaelic for fairy woman.

Not because of any supposed ethereal beauty.

But because she was an opportunist. Sly in obtaining her goals. Adaptable against predators. Playful in the face of danger. And a woman worthy of note.

Cillian

What’s in the thermos?

Síbhean

A Bloody Bull.

Is that a threat?

😂 😂 😂

I burst out laughing, and everyone on the street turned to look at me.

Too good.

My mouth twitched.

It’s a cocktail.

I thought you might want something a bit hearty and savory with a kick after your session.

From which bar?

I made it.

The machine whirred. A buzz rubbed over my skin. The pain sparked, cutting through my chest as Levi began shading over the raw skin. It grounded me, pulling me out of the water for a breath of fresh air.

Poisoned?

Would I tell you if it was?

Calm down.

Not poisoned.