Page 2 of Under His Skin

“Good luck, Foley,” though I swear Franklin called me Fooley. For once, that’s exactly how I feel…like I got played for a fool.

Chapter Two

Simon

February 24th…

I wish my bodyguards, Anthony Kasey and Tommy Johnson, weren’t so damn good at protecting me. There are days I honestly believe catching a bullet could be the best thing to ever happen to me. Plus, I might see it coming and I can thank the person putting me out of my fucking misery. But that would mean I get what I want and I know better than that. I never have before, so why would the universe start cooperating now?

When I wanted my dad to stop hitting me, using any excuse he could to ‘teach me a lesson.’ A belt scoring my back because I ‘needed to man up.’ I was five. Or a fist to the face for not finishing my broccoli at seven. Being locked in my room for two days due to crying when I was ten after my mom died. A cigarette burn for…well, you get the idea.

All I had to do was bide my time until I could leave and I’d never have to see him again. I’d start my own business, become my own man and make a name for myself that would help whitewash the stain he’d given it. Do something that would earn me respect, not the fear he seemed to thrive on, from others.

Then he died and my dreams were buried with him, and I had nobody to mourn those with. Fuck him. I was glad he was gone and I hope he suffered. Hell, I wish I’d been the person to take him out. But my hopes of becoming a baker, of sharing my mom’s recipes that she’d gotten from her mom and so on, of opening a shop? I’d never spoken those to another. They were mine and I didn’t want them tainted by the people from this life. The very existence I wanted to forget I was a part of.

The old man got the last laugh, though. Dealing the final blow that he knew would kill me piece by piece, taking the humanity I clung to in order to separate me from him, turning me into the mini version of him that he’d always wanted.

Fucker might as well have been the grim reaper. He stole my life, my soul, and any chance of happiness.

Not that I can ever show that or how I really felt about him. No, I have to put on a façade, pretend to mourn the man, act as if all I ever wanted to do was be just like him.

Because Ihavebecome him.

The things I’ve done, that I’ve allowed to be done…there’s no coming back from them. Not even death will absolve me. It can’t. Not where I’m surely going.

“Good morning,” Anthony and Tommy greet me as I step into my doorway, still technically shielded, my gaze peering around. Trying – hoping – to find something that’ll remind me there’s still beauty in this world.

I haven’t found it in years, not sure why I still even search for it, but when my eyes land on a figure across the street, I pause. My guards bitch and moan, neither liking that I’m not already behind the bulletproof glass in my car. “Sir?” Tommy asks, clearly wanting to usher me to safety yet unwilling to risk pissing me off.

Anthony, having been with me longer, tries to silently nudge me forward, but I ignore both of them. I know how stupid this is, know full well my enemies are always looking for an opportunity to take me down. For once, I don’t want that to happen.

If it does, then I’ll never get a chance to know why the woman not two hundred yards from me seems to have cast a spell on me. Without even glancing my way, she’s managed to make me do something, tofeelsomething, I haven’t in over a decade.

Hope.

And that, to a man in my position, is dangerous.

Chapter Three

Bristol

March 3rd…

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re dodging my calls like a kid in gym class,” Uncle Drew says in his voicemail. “I also know they,” meaning the talking heads that sit in their fancy offices upstairs and move us around like chess pieces, “aren’t telling me everything.” Frustrated sigh. “You will. When you’re ready.” A harrumph. “So, you ready yet?” I can’t help it, I laugh. Kinda hard not to.

It’s been tough not talking to him about it, but I know what his reaction will be and I don’t have the money to bail him out. Not that he’d let me. In terms of stubbornness, he’s got me beat by a landslide. I put up a hell of a fight, though.

Finger hovering above his name, but just before I connect with it – and I was going to this time, honest – I realize I need to get going in order to stay on schedule.

For the past week, I’ve maintained a certain route, one nowhere near my neighborhood, soaking in, err surveilling, Simon Roanoke.

My target.

He has such a presence it isn’t difficult to see why others blindly follow him, pledging their undying – and some dying – allegiance to him.

However, there’s a vulnerability, too. Call me crazy for thinking it. I mean, it’s not like I spoke to him, or even got close enough to see what color his eyes are, but it’s there nonetheless. Hidden under numerous layers, the least of which is the suit and tie he dons, lurks a man that wants more.

Like recognizes like, it seems. My armor merely consists of tattoos, a bad attitude, and a reluctance to let anyone close. Uncle Drew snuck in there when I was a kid, but I locked it down tight after that.

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