"Got a tattoo, and the pain's alright" -Coldplay, Ink

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Sallow County, Florida

"Fucκ, Ghost," I cursed, letting out a loud moan. "There. Right...there."

"Stop that ѕhit," he muttered, shooting me a glare. He put the tattoo gun down, breathing out a sigh I could hear over the heavy metal he was playing on his phone. "Final warning."

I bit my bottom lip, stifling a laugh. "Noted."

He resumed finishing up the tiny black Latin cross onto my left bicep. Instead of tattooed teardrops fucκing up my face, I figured the simple cross-a vertical bar passing through a longer horizontal bar-would be more aesthetic.

Ghost finished up, cleaning the newest addition to the smattering of crosses on my arm before wrapping it. "You're gonna get yourself killed," he muttered, tracing his fingertips down my bare arm.

I got off the leather seat and stood over him. "I was wondering when you were gonna say something," I told him, going to the only wall mirror in his booth and tying my dark hair up with an elastic band. At the moment, it was a mess-split ends and ѕhit-but I didn't have the time to visit Benito, the only person I trusted with my nest.

"I always say something," Ghost pointed out, leaning back in his chair.

I caught his eye in the mirror. Fucκ, was he sexy. I couldn't get over that, even to this day. Couldn't get over the way he was the complete polar opposite to the boy who'd left to join the army.

He'd filled out-wider chest, thicker neck-and his once unblemished golden-brown skin was smattered with ink. His arms were a sleeve of tattoos, and they went up his neck as well. There were changes that weren't obvious to someone who didn't know him, too. Like how his face had gotten harder. And those eyes. Sometimes, they looked dead, like there was nothing inside. When he'd returned home after six years of service to find both our fathers dead, the first things I'd noticed were those dead eyes. His nickname made sense.

Marlon had died a long time ago, and I was fucκing his ghost.

"Yeah. You talk a whole lot," I informed him, and I caught the ghost of a smile on his face.

"And you need to stop chasing cheap thrills."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Cheap thrills? I'm looking for my sister, Ghost. I'm not fucκing my way around South America and getting a tan." Although, when I looked at my arms, they were a nice, even brown tone beneath my sleeves of ink, darker than my usual glow.

"You need to let it go," Ghost told me, his voice grim. "Zeus did."

I stiffened. "My father didn't let it go. He pretended Camila never existed. Don't be a dicκ."

"Baby," Ghost said softly, "I just want you to understand how dangerous the ѕhit you're doing really is."

I moved to straddle him where he sat. "I do what I have to do. Just like you do. You know that."

He shook his head, and his messy black hair fell in his face. He slid his arms around my waist. "Difference between the two of us," he began in a quiet voice as he looked up at me, "is that I've looked death in the eye and I fear it. You don't."

Ghost's time in the army had changed him-for the better, for the worst... It was fifty-fifty. There were moments when I'd see glimpses of Marlon-my friend-but those moments rarely happened, at least, not with me. He was President of the Phantoms now, and everything had changed.

"Why should I fear something that'll inevitably happen?" I asked him, tracing a finger along his prickly jawline.

Ghost sighed. "Can't argue with that." He paused for a moment. "What was his name?"

He always asked me, always wanted to know. Year in, year out, his questions never changed.

"Villa," I replied. "Antonio Villa. I cut his throat while he had his eyes closed waiting for me to suck his limp dicκ."

His grip on my sides tightened. A look I couldn't decipher passed across his face. "Did he deserve that?"

"He treated women like objects to be bought and sold-innocent women who were taken from their families." I swallowed. It was never lost on me that Camila was or had been one of these women. If she was still alive. "He deserved worse."

Ghost nodded. "Fucκ, yeah."

Talking about this with him, it was like he was a part of it-which, in a way, he was. Without Ghost's training, I probably would've gotten myself killed a long time ago. Probably wouldn't have survived taking on men physically bigger than me.

"You really believe Camila's still alive, Pusѕy?" Ghost wanted to know, looking somber.

I nodded, despite the war raging in my heart. "I have to believe. If I don't believe, that's as good as killing her myself."

He stared at me for the longest time, and I had no idea what was going on his steely grey eyes. Eventually, he smacked my ass through my tight jeans. "I got work to do. You need to go."

"Okay." I leaned in, brushing my lips against his. "I'll leave...if you really, really want me to."

He returned my kiss, grasping my hair with one hand. "You play too fucκin' dirty."

He pulled. I let out a sharp gasp.

"I'll see you tonight," he said softly against my lips.

"Nah," I told him. "Probably not. Poker night with the girls, remember?"

"Gotta be fucκing kidding me." He made a face.

I laughed, flicking him on the nose. "Nope. Your dicκ can wait another day."

"He can't," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching. "He heard the word tonight and got a little excited."

I cocked a brow. "Is Ghost making a joke?"

"I do that sometimes."

"You should do that all the time."

The smile left his face. "I got some ѕhit I need to do at the clubhouse, and you need to get your asѕ to work."

"I'm my own boss, remember?"

"I'm your boss."

"You fucκing wish."

But since the Wreck-a nightclub-was owned by the Phantoms, and I happened to work there, he kind of was my boss.

Semantics.

***

"Fucκ, marry, or date...Sin," came Eve's slurred voice as she threw back the rest of her beer.

My girls-Monroe, Smokey, Jude, Jessa, Stevie and Fish-hooted with laughter, sitting around the scarred wooden table, barely coherent.

"Fucκ. Definitely fucκ," said Monroe with an exaggerated sigh. She was still in her white chef's jacket; had come straight from work at Zhou Zhou, one of the best restaurants in Sallow County. "Sin looks like he knows what to do with his dicκ."

I rolled my eyes. "Looks can be deceiving."

"Speaking from experience?" Jude, who was sitting beside me, elbowed me in the side.

"You know I'm not," I mumbled. Sin was the vice-president of the Phantoms. I wasn't about to fucκ things up even further by fucκing the VP as well as the President.

"Leave Pusѕy alone," said Eve, suddenly sounding sober. "You know who she's meant to be with."

"Not this corny ѕhit again," muttered Jessa, rolling her dark brown eyes. Like most of the other women here, we went way back. "Someone should burn your Kindle to ash."

"Oh, go fucκ yourself. Pusѕy knows what I'm talking about." Eve fixed her blue eyes at me. They were a lighter shade than the electric blue hair on her head. "Right, P?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I stared at the cards in my hands. "Can we play some fucκing poker, or do you wanna flick each other's сlits while we talk about how cute we think the quarterback is?"

If there was one positive that came from my father's untimely demise, it was that I had inherited his safe house. It was a compound of smaller houses encircling the main house, and had been built on a couple of acres of land that had once been the local cemetery.

I loved it.

My dad, as rightfully paranoid as he'd been, had fixed the entire place up with bulletproof windows and titanium-reinforced doors, and for a lot of the women here, it was an actual safe house. As loud and confident as Stevie was, she had been trapped in an abusive relationship when I'd met her. Living here permanently gave her a sense of safety, and I was glad to be able to provide that. I was glad to have helped Fish-Rachel-off the streets. I was glad to have helped Eve... I didn't even want to think about what Eve had been through. Thinking about all this depressing ѕhit could get a person down, but tonight, my girls were getting drunker by the second and I finally had to admit that poker night was a bust. When money was involved, these bitches could get mean, and since alcohol was in the mix, I wasn't going to put it past one of them to stab another for being a cheating asѕ.

We moved to the games room-really just the living room, but with a pool table on one side and a football table on the other-listening to Smokey talk ѕhit about her good-for-nothing husband. Same old, same old, but I listened intently, eager to know what married life was like, since I would never get to experience it.

I talked a good game-made everyone think I couldn't give a ѕhit about this whole happily-ever-after bullѕhit-but really? Really, I was like a little boy looking in through the window of a cake shop, knowing that he would never get a taste of the sweet goodness inside.

Smokey went on and on about poor Jason, and eventually, the conversation moved to fucκ-marry-date Jake Ford. I tuned that mess right out.

I could feel Eve's eyes on me-she always knew when something was up-but I ignored her. Eventually, I left the room and went outside, sitting on the porch with my beer.

"We never really talked about your trip," Eve's voice came from behind me, and I turned around to find her standing by the door.

"I didn't find her, did I?"

"Well," she said quietly, sitting down beside me, "there's always next year, right?"

"I don't know, Eve. I don't know if I can keep chasing false hope."

"Maybe it's time you talked to your mom."

I snorted. "Why?"

"You never know, Pusѕy. She just might know where Camila actually is, and then you'll realize you've wasted all these years chasing a ghost because you wouldn't go see your mom."

I let out a heavy sigh, thinking it over. It wasn't the first time Eve had mentioned this. Hell, even Ghost had urged me to visit my mother in the past. "Maybe you're right, Evie."

I highly doubted it, but hey-it had been a while since I'd visited Sallow County Women's Penitentiary.

Question: Out of curiosity, what time zone are you guys in? (You don't have to give an exact location. For example: South Africa's time zone is GMT +2)