Page 66 of Diary from an Inked Throne

“I love every part of you. Singed or otherwise.”

X kissed her gently and then put his arm around her, making sure his body was between hers and the fire. Whip and Levi enclosed both between them, and Dax and I stepped back, joining Nyah and Luca a few steps away.

Nyah scowled at me and Luca. “We’re going to have words about what just happened.”

I glanced at her. “We can talk, but I’m not going to apologize for making sure you were safe. I doubt Luca will either.”

“Not a fucking chance,” he practically drawled.

Nyah faced off with Dax, and he shook his head too.

“Don’t look at me. I would have held you back as well.”

She huffed her annoyance with us, and it was so fucking cute I kissed it off her mouth.

Then went back for seconds, pulling her into my arms and kissing her deeply, because all I could think was it could have been…should have been…us in that car.

The thought churned my stomach.

I pulled away, tucking her hand into mine, and we rejoined Violet’s group, all of us staring at the fire while sirens wailed in the distance, surely heading in this direction.

I nudged X, standing beside me. “You okay? What happened?”

He rolled his head to one side and cracked his neck audibly. “I don’t know, exactly. I opened the car door and hit the start button on the dashboard.” His expression turned sheepish. “It’s cold. I wanted to turn the butt warmers on before I actually sat down. But instead of the car starting it made a weird ticking noise.” He shrugged. “It was only gut instinct that had me back away. It sounded like the ticking of a bomb, and that’s never a good thing. The shock wave got me, and I went wheeeee…” He held up his arm, his sleeve torn, his skin cut up beneath it and made his hand fly through the air in an arc before slamming it into his other palm. “I hit the road pretty hard. Rolled like I was in an action movie. Got dizzy. Then hot. Thought I was on fire. And you know the rest.” He looked over at me, his expression serious. “I hate to tell you this, but I think someone tried to kill you guys. They couldn’t have known I’d decide to drive your car home at the last minute.”

Luca sighed heavily.

Dax grimaced. “So, what’s new?”

I hated that he was right. How the hell were we back here again? Carlos was dead. Enzo wouldn’t dare come back here with the level of media coverage he was getting. He’d be spotted instantly if he tried stepping foot back in Saint View or Providence. Both towns were baying for his blood, the “Bring Baby James Home” movement stronger here in our hometowns than anywhere.

But this had Guerra war written all over it. It was exactly what they’d done to Luca once before, and it made sense they’d be targeting us again, since they hadn’t succeeded the first time.

But with neither Carlos nor Enzo here to orchestrate it, I had no idea who had stepped up into their shoes.

Or if maybe we’d been wrong all along.

I’d seen then grief in Carlos’s eyes when he’d spoken at that press conference, confirming his son was dead. I’d thought him a good actor.

But maybe it had been honest. Maybe he truly had thought Luca dead and it was someone else all along.

Either way, it was clear to me we still had an enemy out there. One who still wanted us dead and wasn’t going to stop until they’d achieved it.

21

DAX

Dear Diary,

I thought we’d finally made sense of everything. Then Bruno opened his mouth.

We sat in the hospital waiting area until X was given a clean bill of health and discharged into his family’s care.

He slapped me on the shoulder as he walked out with a limp and a bandage covering half his face where he’d taken a spray of shrapnel. “Thanks for a great night, everyone! We should do this again soon!”

I squinted at him. “Your rib is fractured, and you had foreign objects removed from your skin.”

X grinned, always willing to find the good in a situation. “Yeah, but I did it with my best friends around me. None of you had to sit here in the waiting room but you did.” He shrugged. “That’s a great night to me.”