"Wow." I folded my arms across my chest to keep warm. "I get toweled off too?"

"Try not to get too excited." Mo winked. "I towel rough."

"I can do rough."

"Not this kind of rough."

"Just don't injure what doesn't like being injured... gentle, you know the meaning of that word don't you?"

"I was always horrible with school, you should know that." Mo called from beyond the door. She returned with two white fluffy towels and tossed one at my face. "You dry the upper half, I dry the lower half."

"Score."

"Keep talking."

"Sorry." I grumbled rubbing my face and hair with the towel and moving down my arms and chest. I stopped briefly to look up since Mo hadn't started but her eyes were trained directly on me. "Uh, this isn't a theatre Mo, if you didn't pay you can't stay, sweetheart."

A blush stained her cheeks before she started vigorously rubbing my legs taking several leg hairs with her, d.a.m.n it!

"Okay." I pushed her hands away.

"That's enough nurse for the day."

"But you're still wet." She pointed at my thighs.

I looked down, she looked up.

It really couldn't have been timed any worse. I'd always prided myself in being able to control my body and my l.u.s.t, I was easily able to keep myself in check around Nixon especially when I checked out Mo. So why the h.e.l.l was my body rejecting every sane ounce of logic I threw at it?

"Er..." Mo dropped the towel and looked away. "Um, I'll just, you can finish up and then I'll..." She twisted her hands. "Help you out of the shower and to the bed-to sleep!" I winced as she shouted the last part in my right ear.

"Sleep, because you need rest."

"Thanks, Mo." I nodded. "Pretty sure I know what sleep is for."

Her cheeks stained even redder before she walked out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. The woman had seen me naked countless times before. h.e.l.l, technically we were married, and she was still blushing around me like she'd never seen a man before.

I wanted to remedy that.

Correction, I wanted to be the only guy to remedy that.

With a sigh, I stood on wobbly feet and slowly made my way out of the shower, I was at least able to make it to the counter before I had to stop. Mo quickly grabbed my arm and without saying another word helped me to my bed.

What happened next was probably my fault.

I was suffering blood loss.

So really, she shouldn't have expected anything less of me.

When I fell back on the bed, I took her with me, and ripped her towel off in the process.

"Two hours," I ordered softly in her ear.

"Two?" She squeaked.

"Yeah." My arms tightened around her body. "Please?"

With a defeated sigh she whispered, "Okay."

Part Two.

From the Ashes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise above the ashes. aAnne Baxter Phoenix THE ANSWER IS NEVER as simple as the question. And when Luca asked me the question, I had no idea what my answer would be. In a million different scenarios I never imagined I'd be back where it all started. When you're a kid you're always told that your choices will haunt you, that they become like blocks you build off of.

My freaking blocks were destroyed.

And I was smothered beneath the rubble, just waiting for death to take me, because honestly? I should be dead.

I wanted to be dead because maybe then this sick feeling in my chest would go away, maybe if I was dead I wouldn't have the nightmares.

Maybe if I was dead, I wouldn't want what I literally had no business wanting.

Life.

"What the h.e.l.l did you do?" I screamed jerking against the IV and hospital equipment. The hum of instruments made me so sick I puked in the van. "Luca! Answer me d.a.m.n it!"

"We had an agreement."

"Bull s.h.i.t!" I roared. "Why! Why can't you just let me die?" The rage that had been my constant companion my whole life was threatening to take over, I looked for a weapon, for anything to end my own life, to go to h.e.l.l where I belonged. The shine of a scalpel caught my eye; I snagged it from the table and held it to my throat.

"I'll do it! Don't think I won't!"

Luca's eyes took in my shaking hand. "Son, you're story isn't over."

"Who are you to decide that?"

"Who are you?" Luca asked calmly. "I saved your life so you could save more lives-I offer you something better than death."

"Oh yeah?" I hissed. "What's that?" The rage was pounding against my skin screaming to be set free.

"Redemption."

The knife clattered out of my shaking hands, I watched as it banged against the floor of the van and swayed a bit as his words. .h.i.t me square in the chest.

And just like that, the rage I'd kept inside for so long, broke.

I broke.

And burst into tears.

"I can't-I can't."

"You can." Luca joined me on the gurney. "And you will."

"I have nothing." I whispered.

Luca held out his hand. "You have blood."

"Phoenix? Are you even listening to me right now or are you seriously stupid enough to stare at the wall while I lecture you?" Nixon paced in front of me. d.a.m.n it, felt like I'd been sitting in his office for hours. Pictures of me and the rest of the guys lined the walls. They may as well have been years ago, eons. I wasn't that same person, didn't even recognize that face in the picture. It looked so casual, so carefree. I had been anything but that.

I refused to look at the smile on my face.

In fact it made me so d.a.m.n sick I wanted to puke up every ounce of food I'd had for the past week.

My life had been such a joke.

And now, it was about to get worse.

"Yeah," I whispered and leaned forward. "I'm listening, man, and I'm sorry I kept so much from you, but-"

Nixon's fist came flying so hard that when it hit, I heard bone crack in my jaw before I fell to the ground in a b.l.o.o.d.y heap.

"That," Nixon spat, "is for being a complete a.s.s to Trace. I'm still not over it, and it's going to take more than you saving my life for me to be completely calm with you two in the same room."

I wiped the blood from my mouth and felt my entire body sag with defeat.

"Understood."

"Don't get up." Nixon pushed his boot into my back and pressed me hard against the area rug. "I will end you if you as much as look at her with anything other than indifference. Do you feel me?"

h.e.l.l yeah, I felt him; his boot weighed a hundred pounds. "Yes, sir."

"You work for us, you don't work for yourself. You protect us, you protect the girls, and you tell me every d.a.m.n detail. Yes?"

"Yes, sir."

He removed his boot. I expected a kick to the side. What I got? An outstretched hand. Confused, I took it as he pulled me to my feet.

With a grimace, Nixon pulled me into his arms and hugged me so tight I almost stopped breathing. "Another thing," he said gruffly. "I'm so d.a.m.n happy to see you."

I.

collapsed against him, embarra.s.sed that I didn't even have anger as a shield anymore, but defeat, so much d.a.m.n defeat and regret that I stank of it. I wanted to sob, I wanted to wrap my arms around my ex-best friend and apologize until my voice was hoa.r.s.e, but the thing about messing up like I did?

Leading the life I did? Words mean absolutely nothing. It was like throwing feathers into the wind and hoping they'd make it to China.

Words hold no value when you've used them your whole life to hurt people rather than heal them.

So I had action.

And they were about to see a lot of it.

Nixon released me and pointed to the leather seat across from him.

I sat and leaned forward, suddenly uncomfortable with the tense silence and vulnerable exchange.

"You look like h.e.l.l." Nixon grinned and leaned back in his chair, his lip ring catching some of the light from the otherwise dark study.

I smirked. "Yeah well, I've been to h.e.l.l, seems they don't treat guys like me well down there, so I came back with a few... b.u.mps."

"Your hair's brown, your nose looks like it's been broken four times since I've seen you and you have circles under your eyes bigger than Tex's mouth.

What the h.e.l.l have you been doing?"

I licked my lips. "Oh you know a little of this a little of that." With a shrug I relaxed a bit in my seat. "I've been working for Campisi, couldn't look like a De Lange so let my hair grow all natural and got in a few skirmishes trying to prove my worthiness."

"And Tex's sister?"

I froze.

"Phoenix?"

Swallowing, I licked my lips nervously. "Sorry, yeah, she's... safe."

Just thinking about her made me a nervous wreck. I had her to thank for the broken nose and dark circles. Woman never slept and tried to kill me the first night I watched over her.

"Name?"

"Bianka." s.h.i.t, saying her name made my entire body tight. "But I just call her Bee." She hated that nickname, and what do ya know? That's where broken nose number two came from. I'd learned long ago never to fight a woman, never to make them feel small. So even though it hurt like h.e.l.l to get the c.r.a.p beat out of me, I let her hit me, I didn't fight back. Ever. Fighting back brought too many memories... memories that made me feel like the devil himself. So I allowed my nose to break knowing it would hurt a lot less than the sickness in my soul.

Nixon scratched the back of his head. "Well d.a.m.n, we'll need to meet her."

"Not now," I said quickly. "Not with The Commission coming up, we'll have to keep her in hiding until Alfonso's out of the picture."

"Any idea where he is?"

"No," I said honestly. "But I can find out, I still know some of his men and money makes them talk... a lot. Well money and whiskey which thankfully Luca has in spades, so I usually do pretty well."