I heard something dripping in the background and could hear Roark’s men shifting with anxiety to get their shots in. I was a life-size pi?ata and they couldn’t wait to tear into me. I told myself I had to wait an hour. I could survive an hour before the cavalry showed, that was if Reeve did what I told her to do and didn’t try something foolish like taking matters into her own hands. Realizing that struggling against the cuffs was getting me nowhere, I went lax and instead wrapped my fingers around them and just dangled there. Roark wandered a few steps closer to me.
“Maybe she did, but she never saw through the man that made me. You really believe Novak would be so selfless, or even slightly altruistic enough to take out a man that killed his hooker girlfriend? You think Novak cared about anyone else enough to get involved in their petty drama? The answer is no. He was a businessman and Reeve was a pretty girl. The boyfriend owed him money for a stash he blew by snorting it up his own nose. He wouldn’t pay up, so he got taken care of. It was just coincidence that Reeve showed up begging for retribution. The guy was a dead man before the girlfriend was even in the ground. Novak was a clever man. He knew Reeve might prove useful down the road, so he let her believe for years that she was the catalyst . . . that she had it in her to be a killer. He kept her on a string and it was beautiful. I thought she could be my doll too.”
He leaned closer and I saw my chance. I used the leverage my hands had on the cuffs and wrenched my entire lower body up from the waist. I kicked my legs out so that I could hook them around the Irishman’s smug neck and started to squeeze. He punched at me, struggled, but I just closed my thighs tighter and tighter. I was going to choke the life out of him and I didn’t care if I took a bullet in the back.
“People aren’t toys.” I huffed the words out and just as Roark was turning purple, and really looking like he was going to go down to his knees, something cracked across the back of my skull hard enough that it made me go immediately limp. My head fell forward and I felt blood start to run down the back of my neck in an untamed river.
Something dripped. Something landed with a splat. Something rattled. There was a clank and a whoosh. I faintly heard a thud and all I could do was silently swear and groan as my brain throbbed hot and heavy in my skull. The beating had begun in earnest.
“Fuck you. You’ll kill me before I break.”
“All of this over a girl. Really, Detective King, I thought you would prove to be much more of a challenge. She made you soft. She made you weak. All of the men in this city forgot there was a war going on when they got distracted by their dicks twitching. No girl is worth dying for.”
I coughed and spit up another mouthful of blood and let my head fall forward as I gasped out a wheezing laugh.
“You can kill me. You can burn this fucking city to the ground. You can do your worst to anyone and everyone that dares to call this place home, but even after you lay waste to the whole city, you still won’t have what you want . . . a girl that is worth dying for. She’ll kill you first.” I hoped it didn’t come to that but I knew she would if he pushed her to it.
“No matter what you do to me or to this place, it won’t change the fact she chose me and the Point over you. You’re just as twisted and messed up as your father and you sure as fuck weren’t ever good enough for my girl.”
“Your girl?” The accented voice was hard, furious, and I knew I had hit a raw nerve.
“Mine.”
“She chose wrong. I could have laid this city at her feet.” He sounded almost like a lovesick lad, a character he was trying to portray instead of the murderous asshole he really was.
“If she wanted the city at her feet she would have put it there herself. That’s why you never deserved her, you prick. You never understood she could run circles around you in the misplaced-rage and need-for-revenge department. Only she was smart enough to know that there had to be more to life than that. I’m her more. You were just a means to an end.” I should’ve just kept my mouth shut because my heated words were what had him shoving the gun in my mouth and the metal clicking warningly against my front teeth. He looked at me coolly, with victory and insanity shining out of his dark eyes, and I saw his finger twitch on the trigger. It was time to end things.
The world exploded . . .
BANG!
I saw Roark jerk violently as bullets started to fly all around the cavernous warehouse space. His eyes stayed locked on mine as he fell to his knees in front of me, the gun in his hand falling harmlessly to the side. Roark’s guys started to scatter as the room was suddenly swarming with guys in tactical gear and other guys wearing black jackets embellished with US MARSHAL across the back. I ducked my head uselessly as a bullet pinged against the pipe above my head, and looked around at the chaos that was ensuing. A familiar face appeared as a man dressed in a polo shirt covered in Kevlar dashed into the fray and stopped at Conner’s body. He kicked a guy aside as he bent down to check Conner’s pulse and frowned. He looked up where I was dangling and then maneuvered around his men and the bodies of Roark’s crew where they lay.