Page 16 of Ink

“Ink, Lucia was mere feet away from these guys. In my parents' home. Who help me with her!” Her voice begins to climb in anger and fear. “I don’t feel safe here now.”

I take that, run with it, and use it to my advantage. “You’ll always be safe with me. Pack your bag. Pack Lucia’s. Come stay with me. I’ll take care of you both. I swear to you. On my life. I will watch over you and Lucia and no harm will come to you again.”

“What about my family, Ink? What if I go with you and leave them behind? Are they always going to be looking over their shoulder, wondering if someone is going to come back for them?”

“You have my word that no harm will come to them.”

Her parents’ cries and murmurs get louder and I just ignore them. Carmen looks over at them and I can tell that she’s torn. I know that she depends on her parents a lot to help her with the day-to-day with Lucia and financially. It’s the middle of the night, she just dealt with something very traumatizing and now here I was invading her parents' house and clearly, I am going to be a wedge between them. If I trusted her to be safe anywhere else but with me, I would let her be but tonight has proven that she needs to be with me.

She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, thinking. I hold my breath, and when she starts speaking, it’s low and even in Spanish. I don’t know all of it but I hear her say lo lamento and it gives me hope that she is apologizing to them because she is leaving. She reaches out and latches her hand onto mine. Holding hands in front of her parents. I am still kneeling on the carpet in front of her as she speaks to them. I don’t bother looking over at them, I already know what I’ll see: anger, resentment, disappointment.

I school my features to remain neutral and I keep my eyes locked on Carmen. If I could give her all my strength I would but I have a feeling she doesn’t need it. She is strong. She’s a fighter. And right now she is standing up for herself. The back and forth goes on for another minute with her parents. Her dad is getting more upset with every word. Her mother has to reach out and hold his arm back when he starts waving it back and forth.

“Ink.”

I blink and soften my face for her. “Yes, baby?”

“Get up off your knees. It’s late and you’re too old to sit like that for long.” She gives me a small mischievous smile and it makes me take a breath because I know she was going to be okay in the long run. “Can you stay here with me till the morning?”

“Of course. I’ll do whatever you need me to.” I hesitate for just a second and look over at her parents. "Is it going to be okay with them?"

She gives me a small nod. “In the morning, I’ll need to explain to Lucia why we’re leaving here.”

I close my eyes in relief and squeeze her hands in mine. “I promise baby, it’ll be ok.”

“I’m betting it all on you, Ink. Don’t let me down.”

I lean forward and give her a chaste kiss. Wanting to do more but not wanting to rock the boat, I get up off my knees and avoid her parents. Carmen leads me out of the room and we slowly make our way to the stairs. She doesn’t speak another word as we go up the steps and when we get to the second bedroom door down the hall she pushes a finger to my lips, expressing for me to be quiet. I’ll do whatever she wants, she doesn’t have to ask. I’ll do whatever she wants forever.

Carmen

I am beyond exhausted. I’m running on fumes—two hours of sleep, adrenaline, and something between rage and shock. To top off this banger of a night, my whole life is imploding in my living room. Ink probably doesn’t know enough Spanish to track the conversations we were having, but my father told me if I was going to associate with Ink—if I was going to choose to go with him—then I wasn’t coming home again. I am twenty-four years old. I have a job, I go to school, and I’m a good mom. I’m a responsible adult—my mommy isn’t going to tell me what I can and cannot do.

If my parents would only give Ink a chance, they would see that he isn’t just the tattoos and leather vest that he wore. He’s smart, funny, and loyal. He has a good job and even owns his own home. He may never be someone they can make small talk with, but he will always be truthful, honest, and respectful. They didn’t want to hear that though. They only wanted to judge, and I wasn’t going to let him be judged by them. Not when they didn’t want to understand him, so I made my choice.

We walk into the bedroom, and I have Lucia’s night light illuminated. I motion to the chair in the corner and for a brief moment, the memory of the giant man flashes in my mind and my shoulders tense and I feel the panic attack starting. Ink silently comes up beside me and wraps his arms around me. I take a deep breath and attempt to slow my heart rate down. Ink leans down and whispers in my ear so as to not wake up Lucia. “Are you ok? Is this where it happened?”

I do a slow blink and nod my head.

He whispers in my ear again. “Will talking this low wake her up?” He gestures towards Lucia on the bed as he inches closer to the chair in the corner by the window.

I whisper back to him. “No. She’s a pretty heavy sleeper but she does have a tendency to wake up at least once in the night. She’s already done that. Thankfully, she didn’t wake up when the incident occurred.”

He holds my hand in his and gently rubs his thumb back and forth across my knuckles. “Tell me what happened. Please.”

I dread telling him more because from the brief glimpse I got of his face downstairs when telling him what happened, he’s going to lose his shit, and for real this time.

I rip the proverbial band-aid off and just tell him. “It was two men. I don’t know how they got in the house. When I went to sleep the window was closed but when I woke up it was open. One of them ripped me out of bed as I was reaching for my phone. The other was sitting there.” I gestured towards the chair. “One held their hand over my mouth while the other came up to me and spoke. He was huge Ink, I mean you’re a big guy but he was huge. He had to be almost seven feet tall. As he got closer, I could see he was wearing a cut just like you and the guys but his was different.”

“Different how?”

I reach up with my free hand and run it over the stitching on his leather vest. “The stitching was a different color and their logo was blue and red flames. The big one, he had a patch on his vest that said Vice President.”

One of Ink’s eyebrows immediately shoots up to his hairline while his brow furrows. “Let me get this straight, the VP of the Nordic Fire MC was in this bedroom tonight?”

“I mean we didn’t exchange names or anything but unless he was wearing someone else’s clothing then I’m guessing it was him from the way the other guy behaved.”

“Explain.” He gritted out almost as if he was in physical pain having to hear me talk about the incident.

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