“Black Warriors?” When he nodded, she said, “So if you felt you had to be a bully to fit in, then why did you change your mind about Perseus?”
“Maybe I felt sorry for him because he was so scrawny. Or maybe there was just something in his
eyes when he looked at me, like they were a kind of mirror that made me see myself in them. See
what I was doing.” His whole body was rigid along the length of hers. “I told them to leave him
alone. So they turned on me.” She felt his shrug, as if what the bullies had done to him was nothing
and only what he’d been about to do to Perseus had meaning. “That’s when Hector and Argus
rescued me. They were always good fighters.”
“I’m sorry.” She understood bullying. She’d seen neighborhood kids pick on Zion. She’d put herself
between them. But Darius a bully? She remembered his defense of Zion at the grocery store, and, in
a way, his story made sense of his reaction that day. He’d seen himself in that clerk. Cruel and
demeaning. And he’d gone overboard to protect her brother. “But the gang took you back?”
“I went back. I thought they were my people. I thought they were my family, the only one that
would ever want me. And that isn’t all I did.” He caressed her cheek with his thumb, his touch a
contrast to what he was saying. “You need to know everything. Everything I’ve never told anyone
but the Bevericks and my foster mom and dad. I was a burglar and a car thief, too.” He moved
slightly, indicating the tattoo on his arm. “I stole anything I thought I could sell. I was really good at
picking out the good stuff.” His laugh was more of a snort, angry and mocking. “I still am. I’ve
made a fortune at peddling the good stuff.”
Her lips parted. She couldn’t seem to close them again.
“My dad sent me into houses. I was small and I fit through windows where he couldn’t. He’d toss
me in and I’d unlock the place for him. Since I was always able to spot the best stuff, dear old pops
put that skill to excellent use. We lifted everything we could carry.”
“Your father?” No one could do that to a child, especially not their own child, could they? Except
that she wasn’t naïve. She knew people did awful things to children all the time. But this was
Darius. Not some fifteen-second news bite about a stranger.
“He’s in prison now. Three strikes and you’re out.”
It was hard to breathe, hard to hear, but she knew it was harder for him to tell. “How old were you
when he made you steal for him?”
“It started when I was eight. A couple of years after my mom died. When my father figured I was
old enough to follow orders without screwing up.”
Her whole soul ached for him, as if she’d suddenly been shoved through a tiny window right along
with him, shards of glass scarring her the way his father had scarred him. She’d wondered why he’d
sidestepped all her questions, why he’d never told her his story. Now she knew: This was the truth
he hadn’t wanted her to pry up.
She’d told her story so many times that she’d ended up feeling as though it defined her, as though it
had too much power over her. Whereas, even though Darius had told almost no one else, she could
see the enormous power his past had over him—and that he believed it defined him, too.
But couldn’t he see? “None of that was your fault.”
He pulled from her then, almost to the opposite side of the bed. So far, far away that even if her
hand had been on his chest, his heart, she still wouldn’t have touched him.
“Maybe I wasn’t to blame at first. But all the stuff I did later was my fault. All the bad choices. Lots
of bad choices.”
She ached to run her fingers down his arm or to smooth the tightness from his forehead. Anything
to ease his pain. But he needed to get it out, and she was afraid that he’d stop if she pushed him just
then. Still, she needed to say again, “You were just a kid.”
“I was a bully. I was a thief. I could hotwire a car like that.” He snapped his fingers, a loud, sharp
sound in the quiet. “Still can. I probably would have gone to juvie when they put my dad in jail if it
hadn’t been for Sally and George. Hector’s parents took us all in when we needed it. Except for
Perseus.” He shrugged, pressed his lips together, the shadows taking over his beautiful face. “He
never moved in officially, he was just underfoot all the time.”
When he talked about Sally and George, his voice was reverent, rife with emotion and meaning.
The Baddricks, Sally and George—these people were the most important in the world to him. No
wonder they were bonded beyond blood relation. She didn’t know his friends’ stories or anything
about their lives, but if they’d come to Hector’s parents, she now knew they must have seen things
as bad as Darius had.
She wanted so desperately to reach out. But Darius remained untouchable. “They must be good
people.”
“The best. I should have accepted what they offered me long before I did.” A wisp of wind could
have carried the soft words away, but other than the rustle of sheets as Darius moved, there was
only the sound of his voice. “But I didn’t stop doing the things my dad taught me.” His fingers
bunched in the sheet as he pulled it higher. “I loved speed. I loved drag racing. I loved cars. And I
loved stealing them. I was one of the Black Warriors. And I thought they loved me, too. But I didn’t
have a clue.” He turned his head, finally looking at her, one half of his face in light, the other in
darkness. “That’s what I did to Sally and George. To the people who tried to help me. Gave them
heartache and worry.”
“I’m sure they understood, Darius.” But she realized the useless platitude in that even as she spoke
the words. Words that did nothing to ease his pain.
“I left the Black Warriors when I was sixteen.” He paused, stared at the far bedroom wall as though
he could actually see his life playing before him. “Or maybe it’s better to say that they ceased to
exist.” Nathalie stretched out her hand, across the wide chasm of mattress between them as he told
her, “That day with Perseus, I at least learned I didn’t want to be a bully. And I never did that shit
again. But the Black Warriors were different. The lowest on the totem pole always got picked on.
That was our way of life. It happened to me, it happened to all of them. Until you weren’t the
lowest anymore.
“We had this kid who wanted to be one of us more than anything. He was like a gnat, always
buzzing around. And he couldn’t do anything right. His name was Eric, and they called him Eric
Moore after that old TV show.” He shook his head at the wall, still watching the movie in his mind.
“They didn’t let up on Eric. It was freaking endless. But he kept coming back for more. You just
wanted to tell him to give up. It was never gonna happen. He’d never be one of us.” Even his voice
changed as he spoke, dropping letters off his words. “But ya gotta understand how badly you need a
family out there. You’ll take any kind of abuse just to belong.”
She closed her eyes, held her breath as her heart broke in two for him. That was Darius himself, the
kid who’d taken any abuse just so he could be a part of them. She wanted to cry for him, scream for
him, take care of him, never let him hurt ever again.
“Eric couldn’t drive for crap. And someone got the brilliant idea of giving him his absolute last
chance to make it with us. They wanted to set him up in a car, let him race, and watch him crash.
’Cause they were all sure he’d crash. I saw Eric talking to himself, a pep talk, psyching himself up.
He was gonna do it. This time he’d get it right.” He gritted his teeth. “Dark—we called him that
because he had the Darkest fingers and could pick anything out of any pocket—he stood there
telling the Moore he had shit for brains and he couldn’t do it, he was nothing, would always be
nothing, and this would prove it. On and on. And I watched. All I did was watch.”
He stopped speaking, then stayed silent so long she thought the story had cost him his power of
speech.
“He lost it,” Darius finally said in a soft voice, one she could barely hear. “The way they all thought
he would. Sideswiped another car. That was it. His last chance. And he was out. I can still hear them
laughing at him. Until he made them stop.” He closed his eyes, shuddered. “I guess he snapped. He
turned the car around, and he plowed right through them.” His tanned skin had gone white, as if the
memories were draining all the blood from him. “He killed Dark and two other guys. Then he
slammed into a wall head on. Killed himself, too.”
She couldn’t manage to hold in her gasp at Darius revelation, but less than a heartbeat later, she
needed him to know, “You didn’t bully him. You didn’t do anything.”
He looked at her then, and she swore she could see him shutting off the movie screen in his head.
“That’s exactly right. I did nothing. I let them drive him into the ground. I never stuck up for him
the way I did for Perseus. Perseus was an outsider, an innocent. Eric, he wanted to be one of us. So I
let them haze him to death. Literally. And he took the guys I thought were my friends with him. If
I’d done something long before then…”
“Could you really have stopped it? Or would they simply have beaten on you like they did when
you stood up for Perseus?”
He shook his head sharply. “It doesn’t matter. I never tried. A crime of omission is still a crime.”
She understood then why he drove so fast. It wasn’t so much a love of speed as it was a way to run
from his memories, his past. “And you’re still racing after all these years,” she said aloud.
His eyes were simultaneously full of emotion and totally bleak. “Yes. I still love speed. Still need
speed. Still feel like I’ll go off the rails if I don’t have enough of it. Being with you is like that,
Nathalie. A total rush. You fill up all those empty spaces. And even though I’ve known all along that
I shouldn’t let it happen, I haven’t been able to stop. Haven’t been able to make myself do the right
thing and leave you alone.”
She couldn’t stand it anymore. She couldn’t lie still in his bed. She either had to touch him—or run.
And she knew which one he thought she would pick. Almost as if every word he uttered was
designed to make her leave. To force her out. To make her throw his words of love back in his face.
But how could she, when everything was now so clear? Darius had been a small boy who was
horribly used. And yet, he’d turned into a man who would champion her brother and teach a small
child to swim. He’d been a broken little boy who, with help and love, had glued himself back
together again.
And now, he was a man who loved her.
All along she’d been telling herself this was just hot sex with a super hot guy. Nothing more than a
thrilling ride in a fast car. But the truth was that Darius had managed to touch her in all the places
she’d been afraid to let anyone near. Not since her parents died. Not even since she’d lost the old
Zion. She’d never let anyone in. Not until Darius had pushed past her barriers, her walls, each of
her fears, one by one.
The honest truth? She was terrified. Terrified that if she truly gave her heart and then something
happened to him, how could she possibly keep moving forward without him the way she had
before?
“So you see, Nathalie, I’m really not a nice guy in any way.”
As his voice thrummed like a chord inside her, she crawled across the expanse of his bed. She
couldn’t let him believe that horrible lie for one more second.
She straddled his lap and took his face in her palms. “I don’t want a nice guy. I only want you. The
best man I’ve ever known.” Putting her hand on the tattoo of his youth, she bent to kiss the inked
skin. “Sally and George forgave you no matter what you did. And so do I, Darius. So do I.”
But she knew she needed to say more, needed to explain why she wasn’t echoing his beautiful
words back to him. “My not saying those words...it’s not because you aren’t worthy. And it’s
definitely not because I’m too smart to fall for you. I’m falling, Darius. You have to believe that. I
just—”
She’d been planning to seal the confession with a kiss designed to ease his pain and loss, but he cut
off her halting words, pulling her to him, his mouth a breath away.
“It’s enough to know you’re falling, Nathalie. And that one day, maybe, if I’m lucky, you’ll let
yourself fall all the way.”
She kissed him then, with everything she had in her. Tasted him, savored him, and took his hard
heat between her naked thighs, putting on protection at the same time. Then she took him deep
inside. So deep that their coming together stole her breath, his breath, even stopped the beating of
their hearts for one endless, perfect moment.
“Nathalie.”
She drew everything from him then, with her body, her soul. Over and over, faster, harder, her
hands, her mouth, taking him higher, deeper, until he cried her name, guttural words spilling out.
She recognized love, she recognized you. And for the first time, as she followed him over the edge
of a greater bliss than she’d ever known, she let herself fully drink in his emotion...and the
undeniable truth that he was quickly becoming everything to her.
* * *
Darius had never known peace. Not until this moment. He’d always been fighting—to make more
money, to best a business opponent, to drive the fastest car, to introduce his clients to the perfect
caviar or the ultimate Swiss watch, to find the one thing in the world that everyone wanted and only
he could provide.
He’d been fighting his whole life to erase the kid he’d left behind in Chicago.
Until Nathalie made love to him...and he realized he didn’t need to fight anymore.
She hadn’t said she loved him, had even told him she needed more time. He understood that
Nathalie—and Zion—had been hurt enough by men like him that she needed to think, to process,
and to make absolutely sure she trusted him. But he swore he could feel her love in the way she
looked at him with such emotion, in her touch, in the way she’d taken him to heaven and wouldn’t
let him leave.
She rested her fingers on his tattoo. “If it bothers you so much, why haven’t you gotten rid of it?”
“It reminds me of where I came from.” He could have left it at that, but she’d just given him so
much. More than he’d ever hoped for.