Of Blood & Consequence (Book 2 of The Blood Bond Series)

15. The Past

After Michael had convinced his parents that he would sit down and “talk” with them the next day, he ushered them past the door of his home, directing him to the nearest ‘nice’ hotel.

Nice, of course, being completely subjective.

His phone was out of his pocket and in his hand before the door shut behind him. He needed to speak to Eli, see if Alex hadn’t found anything out about something stirring in the wind when it came to organized crime.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” he muttered into his phone. He knew Delia was behind him, burning holes in the back of his head with her eyes, but he needed to speak to Eli, get him on the ball if he could—as quick as he could—before sitting down and having a talk with the older Jensens.

After all, her was sure it was going to be a long one.

‘Hello?’

Praise Jesus, the Keebler elves, and jolly old Saint motherfucking Nick.

It wasn’t always a foregone conclusion that Eli would pick up his cell phone, particularly in the evening when he or Cassie was getting the babies ready for bed.

“Eli,” he spat out through the phone. “My parents just popped up on my doorstep and I’m dying here. Has Alex found anything out through the supernatural grapevine?”

He could hear Eli curse up a storm over the phone, though he wasn’t altogether sure if it was because of what he had said or because one of the babbling babies in the background had splashed him. It sounded awfully wet over on the other end of the line. ‘When? Just now? They didn’t call ahead? How rude.’

Rude was just the tip of the iceberg. They were dangerous, manipulative, and downright scary at times.

“Yes, they just showed up on our door after Delia and I watched Cassie’s movie. Completed ruined our date, pissed me and Dee off, and then mentioned something about expanding the business to the west coast. West coast meaning west coast of America.”

‘What? Halfway across the globe? Are they mad?’

Probably, Michael thought as he ground his teeth together and bit back a litany of curses that tumbled through his mind.

“I need Alex to see if he can dig deeper, get a feel for what’s going on underground. I don’t know if this is power struggle with another family or if they’ve finally gone off their nut, but I need as much information as I can get before I see them tomorrow. To get them out of the house, I swore we’re have a sit-down to discuss all…all this.”

He heard the slurp of a straw behind him and knew Delia was finished with her meal. Her appetite might have been sated for now, but he was sure she’d want to rip out his heart to feast on that once he told her everything, down to the bare bones of his parents ‘business’.

With Eli promising the quickest response he could garner, Michael ended the conversation and jammed his mobile back into his pants pocket. When he turned around, Delia was staring at him with her wide, chocolate-brown eyes. Her form was rigid, tense, and he sauntered over to the couch that she was seated on, bending at the waist and pulling her into him as he sat.

For comfort. To apologize when his words would probably mean nothing once he spoke them. He didn’t know, but he knew that he needed her skin on his to calm himself.

“My parents…”

There was a silence where Delia drew in a breath and let it out on a sigh. “Yes, they seem…lovely. Do they bite as well as bark?”

He couldn’t help but smile at her contemptuous tone, and he pulled her so that she was seated on his lap, more for his reassurance than hers.

“They’re even worse than they act.” His admission was stark, causing her head to bob back so she could look him in the face. “Much worse.”

“Tell me.”

He did. It was almost cathartic the way the ache in his chest dissipated for a while when he found himself telling Delia everything, going over every little detail of what he’d gone through and how it made him feel today.

“Their businesses—most of them, anyway—are illegal. They hide and launder their ill-begotten money at the casinos and strip joints they run, but they make most of their money with drugs, through extortion, political strong-arming, military arms trafficking, and—before I left them—I believe they were starting to delve into human trafficking as well through their strip clubs. It’s a decent cover for it, anyway.”

“Humans?” Delia felt dirty for just having met them once. She squirmed uneasily on his lap and felt him nod against her head as she snuggled into his arms, trying to take as much comfort in him as he did with her.

“Yes, at least, I think so. There were several times some of our dancers just disappeared. Went home and never showed up again, or if they did, they’d come into a different establishment, looking scared and with a powerful and dangerous man on their arm. Usually older and backed with more money than God. I tried to speak to one of them, tried to ask her if she was with the gentleman of her own volition, but she just shook her head and wouldn’t speak. The girl…she was barely 19 and avoided me like the plague. IN the end, I was told to mind my own business and keep my mouth shut.”

He closed his eyes, taking in her scent for a moment before he had to get to the more unsavory things he’d done in the past.

“You’ll hate me for what I’ve done, Delia,” he told her. Sounding sure of himself. “It’s why I’ve never wanted to tell you about my parents and have been coy about my past. I regret what I’ve done in this life, and I always will. The things I’ve undertaken, the missions—they’re not nice and will make you feel differently about me. I didn’t want to tell you before. I wanted you to see who I am now, not the man I used to be before moving to the US.”

“Michael.” She drew her head back, cupping his stubbled chin in her soft palms. “No matter what you say, who you were, there is nothing you can say that will cause me not to love you. If you’ve changed, if you’ve left them because of your own choices, that’s enough proof to show that you aren’t that man anymore. That will be good enough for me.”

Though it warmed him inside to hear her say that, the things he’d had to do as part of The Family, the people he’d slain…Jesus, it was enough to make a much harder man than him weep.

“I was the heavy, the man you sent out to maim and eviscerate. My parents don’t play by the rules of anyone but themselves. When someone wouldn’t pay a debt, we didn’t immediately kill the debtor, we killed a loved one. Some…sometimes a child if that was who was there. It was a warning. A warning that he was next. If he didn’t come up with the money owed, we killed another. And another. Once, we went down the line until all that was left was him.”

“And then you killed him?”

Michael shook his head, oddly disturbed. “We broke nearly every bone we could in his body and left him on the streets.” He bit off a curse, his lip curling in disgust. “Now the man can’t piss or wipe his ass himself. Quad… Something, they call it. I can’t remember.”

“Quadriplegic?”

“Yes, sposina, that’s the word.” He pulled her deeper into his embrace. Michael was just getting to the crux of his most vile past. “There’s more. So much more that I don’t want to tell you. I didn’t always take part, but watching it happen…I always believed it makes me guilty by association.”

She breathed in deeply, pulling his scent in to comfort her. “Tell me. Tell me all of it.”

He almost shuddered at her soft voice, wanted to weep onto her shoulder. It had been decades since he’d pushed back the memories, tried to forget them—store them away in a place where they could fade into oblivion.

Jam them into a box in his mind, lock it up, lose the key, and hopefully never find it again.

But memories didn’t fade in a vampire’s mind like they might in a human’s. Time wasn’t your friend, and your age had nothing to offer but another set of mistake to make—make and learn from, if you were lucky.

“There was a man who’d borrowed money. I think Americans call them a loan shark? He didn’t have anyone in his family except his pregnant wife. He’d been an orphan, I think. When my parents’ men found him, it was just him and his wife, Bianca, her name was.”

As if he could forget her name after what they did to her.

“They…they killed the wife?”

The shock in Delia’s voice was stark, and Michael’s throat ached with the words. “Worse, amore, much, much worse.”

Delia let him breath deep for a moment, holding him to get him through every foul syllable and bleak word.

“They cut the baby from her while she was still alive, slit its throat in front of the parents, then killed the still-weeping mother.” He dragged in a heavy breath, tears stinging the backs of his eyes. “I was there. I didn’t do it—couldn’t even had I tried, but I witnessed it. It was the most loathsome thing I’d ever seen, ever, in my life to this day. It haunts me. Sometimes I dream about it. That baby. Poor, innocent f*****g child, ripped from his mother’s womb and…and…”

He couldn’t finish before breaking down into sobs. Wracking, heavy sobs as he grasped onto Delia with his hands, his arms. Delia, whose eyes too were wet with what she’d heard him describe. She shushed him until he was only sniffles, stroked his thick black hair away from his forehead until he pulled his face away, searching hers for a response.

He expected hate. Disgust. He found none, and his shoulders slumped, giving in that she’d accepted his truths, as ugly and abhorrent as they were. He’d given her his deepest, darkest secrets and received only loving embraces and understanding in return.

Michael thought he didn’t deserve someone as wonderful as Delia in his life, and yet there she was, whispering reassuring words and promising she still cared for him, loved him even.

“I know you couldn’t have done that. I know,” she murmured as she rocked him in her arms. “You got away. You’re not that person, Michael. You never were. Not even when you were breaking spinal columns of slitting throats, that wasn’t you—not deep down. If it was you, you’d still be there, under your parents’ thumbs and doing what they bid you to do. But you’re not. You’re here with me. Always with me. I won’t let them try and bring you back, not if I have to—”

“Delia, cara, you can’t ever let them know you that are aware of who they are.” He gripped her cheeks hard as her eyes widened. “If you knew, if word got out, your life would be forfeit. They would either force you into their world, or kill you so you couldn’t say anything. Everything I told you, I’ve never told anyone. Not even Eli knows what all I’ve done, though he knows some of it. It was part of his background check when I signed on as part of his security detail. I was as honest with him as I was with SecurElite. I don’t know why they didn’t kick me out the moment I told them, but—”

“They knew,” she interjected softly. “Like me, they knew that wasn’t you. People do all sorts of things they regret, some worse than others. I’m not even mad that you told Eli about this before me. I get why you had to, and why you’re asking for his help.” She stroked his soft, tousled hair away from his face again, rubbing her thumbs against his whiskers as she pecked him sweet and slow on his lips. “They can’t make you be someone you’re not. I get that. I’m glad you don’t want to go back to them. I don’t care if that lifestyle got me gold-plaited jewelry and diamonds for decades or a fine house and designer clothing.”

She kissed him again, nearly choking on his musky scent, it so inundated her senses.

“Michael, everything I need is here with you. Anything else is just a bonus. If it comes down to it and we need to run, I’m coming with you. I won’t let you even think of making the bad decision for either one of us to go back to that life. You’re so much better. You’re my heart, Michael Jensen, and I can’t live without my heart.”

He took her lips, greedy for her taste. He hungered for it, ached to let it heal him.

Just like he’d let it heal him every day before this since they’d met. He’d continue to do so until all that was left was Delia. Delia and her good their future.

He’d let the bad stay in the past.

Where it belonged.

A/N: To read ahead, please subscribe to my p*****n account at: https://www.patreon.com/RKKnightlybooks. The link can also be found on my wall on Inkitt or in the ABOUT section on w*****d.

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