CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LONDON
Relief.
That’s what I felt, more than anything else.
I think I was supposed to be afraid, maybe cry and beg for mercy. Instead I wanted to cry with relief just because it was finally over. Jessica would live or die, but there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it at this point.
The instant I pulled the trigger, I’d known that I’d made the worst mistake of my life. They say God shows mercy on drunks and fools. That I believed, because despite my resolve, the gun didn’t fire. I wasn’t entirely sure why and I didn’t care—if they killed me, so be it.
It was a strange realization. Reese and I hadn’t even been together a full week. I didn’t truly know what kind of man he was, ultimately. But I knew he had people who loved him. He’d been crazy about his wife, he’d raised two children by himself, and he’d protected me with his own life.
I had no justification to shoot Reese Hayes, no matter what was at stake. Period.
Let it be.
During the short ride to the Armory I drifted, thinking about everything and nothing … They’d bundled me roughly into the back of my own van, which I supposed would have to disappear along with my body. I wondered how they’d explain things to my employees, then figured it didn’t really matter. None of them knew anything that could get them in trouble. They’d just have to find new jobs.
On the bright side, job hunting is rarely fatal.
Horse and Bam Bam drove me, with Gage in the backseat by my side. They’d cuffed my hands in front of my body, which was fairly considerate under the circumstances. I sort of expected a burlap bag over the head before being stuffed in a trunk. This seemed luxurious, all things considered.
After what felt like hours and still no time at all, we pulled up to the Armory and they opened the gate into the back courtyard. The pale sunlight showed a very different picture from the way it’d been the last time I was here. The tables had been put away, and instead of laughing people, a grim circle of men wearing Reapers colors stood waiting for us.
Reese wasn’t among them.
I opted not to meet their eyes when Gage opened the sliding door and caught my arm, dragging me out of my seat. He pushed me roughly across the pavement toward a sunken stairwell at the back of the building—a basement entrance, leading down into darkness.
You know, I’d been nervous the first time I walked into the Armory. It’s an intimidating place and the men are rough and scary looking. Now I kept waiting for the numbness to lift and the fear to set in.
Nothing.
They hustled me along a barren, dimly lit concrete hallway lined with doors that looked like prison cells. One of them stood open, and I saw a small cot with a nasty little mattress. Definitely a prison cell. I wondered what’d happened to the last person in there, then decided I really didn’t want to know.
I’d tried to make death quick for Reese, and as painless as possible. I could only pray he’d do the same for me.
Gage shoved me through a door farther down the hallway. Two bare-bulbed work lights hung suspended from rusty hooks in the ceiling. A rope hung down, too—it’d been strung through a metal loop bolted into a massive support beam. Gage nudged me forward, looping the rope around the chain between the handcuffs.
Bam Bam caught the other end and pulled it, stretching my arms up and over my head. Shit—were they going to hang me from the ceiling? I’d just reached the point of discomfort when he stopped. Bam tied off the rope to another loop bolted to the wall. Horse watched me the entire time, as if he expected me to say something. Were they waiting for me to beg for mercy?
They’d be waiting for a while. The thought made me smile, and Gage finally broke the silence.
“Are you on something?”
I looked at him, startled. “What do you mean?”
“You’re way the f*ck too calm,” he said slowly. “Did you take something? If you’re about to OD, tell me. Drowning in your own puke isn’t the way you want to go.”
I shook my head.
“It’s just that this is a huge relief,” I said. His face showed the first emotion I’d seen. Surprise. That struck me as funny, and I started laughing—not gentle, dignified noise. These were real, genuine belly laughs. The kind where you snort your drink out your nose because it catches you by total surprise, and then your friends make fun of you and everyone catches it and you’re all laughing like crazy people. You know what I’m talking about.
But these men weren’t my friends and they weren’t making fun of me. They were staring at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.
“Christ, she’s falling apart,” someone muttered. That was even funnier. I snorted again, then choked a little bit on my own giggles. I laughed so hard my throat hurt and tears streamed down my face.
A wall of cold water hit me, shocking me into silence.
I shook my head, blinking rapidly. Reese stood in front of me, an empty bucket in his hands. His eyes were cold and there was so much coiled tension in his body I could feel it, like electricity crackling through the air during a storm.
The bucket fell to the floor with a jolting clatter, and he kicked it out of his way.
“Shut the f*ck up.”
Eyes wide, I shut the f*ck up because this was Reese, but not a Reese I’d ever seen. This couldn’t possibly be the same man who’d laughed with me, made love to me …
I couldn’t find my Reese in this man’s face.
That first night at the Armory, he’d scared me. Then I’d fallen for him, and while my brain remembered he had darkness inside, my body convinced me it wasn’t true. Now I realized I’d never seen the real Reese at all—I’d only seen hints of his true capacity.
Holy God.
This was the reality of Reese Hayes, and it was darker than I ever imagined.
He terrified me.
Expressionless, Reese stepped toward me, reaching down and slowly wrapping his fingers around the hilt of the big hunting knife he wore strapped to his leg. The thing was huge, and it’d freaked me out the first time I saw it. Then I’d gotten used to seeing it and it became just another part of him.
Apparently the part he used to murder people.
The wicked blade glinted as he brought it up, testing the edge with his thumb.
“You’re going to kill me,” I whispered, feeling my own mortality wrap around me like a suffocating blanket.
He didn’t answer. Nope. Just started walking around behind me, circling out of my line of sight. I glanced toward the other men, wondering if they’d stop him or say anything, but their eyes were dead, and I saw my own end clearly reflected back at me. One of these Reapers would bury my body later tonight. Nobody would ever know what happened to me, and I would never learn what happened to Jess, either.
“Will you wait until we find out whether she’s alive?” I asked hesitantly.
“Not the time to be askin’ favors, sweetheart,” he said with quiet emphasis. Suddenly he caught my hair, jerking my head backward hard and fast. The knife flashed, and then I felt the blade digging into my throat. A line of fire crossed my neck. This was it. Reese Hayes was about to slit my throat.
I waited to die, the sound of his breath harsh in my ear. Then he laughed.
“You don’t get off that easy, bitch.”
That’s when I realized he hadn’t severed my windpipe … The blade still pressed at my throat, and I felt a faint trickle of blood slide down my neck. He’d cut me, but not badly. Just enough to part the skin.
“Now tell me everything,” he whispered. “Don’t leave out anything, whether you think it’s important or not. Got it?”
I started to nod and he jerked my hair back violently.
“Bad idea to nod when you’ve got a knife at your throat,” Horse said casually from across the room. “Might wanna be a little more thoughtful in your movements right now, London. Just a suggestion.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice so hoarse that it came out with a croak. I cleared my throat, then tried to talk again. “Um … you know Jess got mad at me and went down to her mom, Amber? Well, the guy Amber was living with is holding Jess prisoner. You already know she was scared of the men at Amber’s house, told me she wanted to come home. That was Wednesday morning. Then my house blew up Wednesday night, and you brought me out to your place.”
Reese’s fingers tightened in my hair hard enough that I wondered if I’d have any left in a minute. The knife shifted painfully.
OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!
“So you know about that,” I continued, almost thankful for the cuffs holding up my wrists. I wasn’t sure I could’ve stayed on my feet without their support. “The next morning I called Jess and she said she’d changed her mind. That was in your bedroom, remember? Looking back, I think they’d taken her already. She didn’t sound like herself, something was off. That night I came out here for the party—” Reese growled, low and deep in his throat. He jerked me into his body, still holding the knife to my throat, and I felt his cock hardening against my ass. Must’ve been remembering our time together out in the courtyard.
A hint of desire built between my legs, and I wondered just how much more twisted my lust for him could get. He’d made me feel free, adventurous … guess that sense of adventure ran deeper than I realized, if I could get turned on by him holding a knife to my throat.
In the unlikely event that I actually made it out of here alive, I really needed to look into some serious counseling. The thought struck me as funny, and a snort of laughter escaped. Nobody else laughed—guess they couldn’t quite appreciate the humor?
“Your daydreamin’ bullshit is only cute on days you haven’t tried to kill me,” Reese murmured in my ear. “F*ckin’ talk or I’ll cut you.”
I swallowed, forcing myself to focus.
“So the next morning the girls invited me to go out with them and get pedicures. That was Saturday. We had a good time and got some lunch after. Then I left because I needed to get to work. I went back to my van and the front window was open. There was an envelope on the seat and I opened it. There was a phone, the same one you probably found in my purse. It’s black.”
“Didn’t occur to you that maybe opening a strange envelope was a bad idea?” Bam Bam asked, his voice casual. “Your house had already blown up, and then you find someone’s been in your car? Not real bright, London.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you that one,” I said, biting back the urge to laugh again. God. What was wrong with me? Oh yeah … imminent death … “Not smart at all, but I did it anyway. They sent me a video chat request, and I answered it. Jess was there and I talked to her, and then they held her down and cut off one of her fingers while I watched.”
Reese’s breath hissed in my ear, and for the first time I saw the carefully blank expression on Horse’s face crack a little. He looked … disgusted?
“So they cut off her finger and told me that I had to take pictures of papers I found in Reese’s house,” I said slowly. “They told me they’d kill her if I didn’t, and I believed them. I think they might have done it already … They didn’t care about hurting her, and they have no clue what they’re dealing with. She’s not a normal kid, at least not medically. Not with that shunt in her head. Other stuff isn’t quite right with her, either—her brain doesn’t process cause and effect correctly. Fetal drug effects. Amber did a lot of drugs while she was pregnant, so Jess came early and spent months in the NICU over at Sacred Heart. We’ll never know if the hydrocephalus is connected to that …”
“Shoulda told me,” Reese gritted out. “Shoulda told me about Jessica’s medical shit, shoulda told me somethin’ was wrong. Gave you lots of chances.”
“F*ck, London,” Gage said, shaking his head. “Why the hell didn’t you come to us?”
“I hardly know you,” I said, and for the first time I felt something that wasn’t numbness or fear. Anger. “Why the hell would I come talk to you? Crazy men have my cousin and she’s in danger, and all I really know about you is you throw great parties and everyone says you’re criminals.”
“Nice to know our time together meant so much to you,” Reese whispered, and I’ve never heard so much menace in a man’s voice before. But his cock was still hard against me and my nipples tightened in response.
Serious f*cking counseling.
First thing on my to-do list, right after not dying in this basement.
“Think about it from my perspective,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “I don’t know you very well. Her life is at stake. Would you risk Em’s life based on a relationship that’s only a week old?”
Silence fell, so terrible I actually heard my own heartbeat.
“Babe, I wouldn’t risk lettin’ you flush a f*ckin’ toilet at this point.”
“This is getting off track,” Horse muttered. “Pic, hold it in. We gotta figure out the situation, then you can deal with her, bro. Hear me?”
“I hear you,” Reese said. He let go of my hair abruptly, which scared the hell out of me because the sudden release pushed my throat deeper into the knife. Then the knife pulled away, and his hand wrapped around my throat instead, big fingers catching me under the jaw and pushing my head back into his shoulder.
Now I felt the full length of his body behind me, cradled in his embrace. How could this be the same man who’d held me before? I’d felt so safe in his arms. Now all I felt was terror.
Terror and unholy lust.
“So what does this mean in terms of them holdin’ Jessica?” Bam Bam asked, his voice tight. “She need special drugs or somethin’?”
“No,” I whispered. “But she’s really vulnerable to infection and head trauma. That shunt gets damaged, it’ll take her out fast. She can’t be handled rough, it’s too dangerous. I did what they said. I searched as much of the house as I could, although I didn’t find anything.”
“We know,” Reese told me, tightening his hold until I could hardly breathe. “We watched you.”
I closed my eyes tightly. God. I’d been so stupid.
“You knew all along?”
“Not all the details,” Gage said, his voice soft. “But we knew you were working for them. That’s why you had Puck on you.”
“I guess that’s not a huge surprise,” I admitted. “It all felt wrong—I kept thinking you knew. Not that it matters. I couldn’t find anything for them, and then they called me again today. I talked to Jessica, and then I watched them throw her down on a concrete floor. She hit her head and started having a seizure. He told me I have to kill Reese or she’ll die. If he dies, they’ll dump her at an ER. So I tried to kill him.”
“Did you ever see their faces on the video?” Reese asked, his voice like ice.
“No, they only let me see Jess.”
“Where did you get the gun?”
“They gave me an address and I drove there using the GPS on my phone. Up north of Hayden. It turned out to be the middle of a field, and a man met me there. He showed me how to use the gun. I didn’t learn his name or anything.”
“What then?”
“Then I went to Nate.”
The air in the room changed. Sudden menace radiated from Reese, and his hand tightened so hard on my throat that I couldn’t breathe and my vision started to swim with black dots.
“Let her go,” Horse said suddenly. “You’re gonna hurt her, Pic.”
I squirmed, desperate for air.
“F*ck,” Bam Bam said, his voice urgent. “Pic, let her the f*ck go. You don’t wanna do this, bro. Believe me.”
Reese let me go, stepping away as I collapsed down in the handcuffs. I gasped for oxygen, vision hazy as Reese stalked around me, tossing his knife back and forth between his hands. He wasn’t looking at me, though. No, he stared down his club brothers like a force of nature.
“Get the f*ck out,” Reese said, the words soft and calm and more terrifying than anything I’d ever heard before in my life. “Or I’ll kill you.”
“F*ck, bro—” Gage started. Reese shook his head slowly.
“Not playin’ games,” he told them. “Get out. My woman, my business.”
Horse cocked his head, eyes assessing. Then he gave a sharp nod and left the room. Bam Bam followed, smacking his hand hard on the wall as he passed through the door. Gage stayed, studying us.
“Don’t kill her,” he said. “You’ll regret it. Walk away.”
“Last chance,” Reese said, the words quiet and cold. Gage sighed and gave a sharp nod.
Then he walked out, leaving me alone with a madman.
He turned and our eyes met. I searched his, trying to identify what I saw there. Hate? Anger? Maybe rage or betrayal?
None of those words were strong enough to describe the air of cold menace filling the space between us. Menace, but also a flicker of awareness. There was something broken in my libido, I decided. I shouldn’t be turned on by this. Not even a little bit. He started stalking toward me, lifting the knife and touching the side of the blade to one cheek.
“You went to Nate.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed.
“I didn’t want to kill you,” I whispered. “It’d gone too far. Looking for papers is one thing, but shooting a man is another.”
“Yet you pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger.”
“That’s because of Nate,” I replied. He lowered the knife and raised his hand, brushing a finger down my cheek. Then he caught a strand of my hair and slowly wound it around his fingers, until it pulled and I couldn’t move my head. He leaned forward, brushing his nose against my cheek and whispering in my ear.
“Did you f*ck him?”
The hot touch of his breath sent a thrill through me, some sort of twisted lust mixed up with fear and adrenaline, and a sick, savage pleasure that he wanted to know, ’cause nothing f*cked up about that, right?
“No,” I said, the word hoarse. “I met him at a diner. I told him what was happening, and what they were trying to get me to do. Then he said he knew all about it and that he’s the one that blew up my house.”
“Told you he wasn’t a very nice guy,” Reese said, sucking my earlobe into his mouth. I moaned, and he twisted my head back, forcing me to look up at him. His mouth ghosted across my skin, and he nipped at my lip. I gasped, almost expecting a kiss, but instead he asked another question. “Let me guess—he’s buddies with the guy holdin’ Jessica, and this was all a setup?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “He said he … He said he had sex with Jessica. That he gave her money. Melanie told me she had an older boyfriend who bought things for her. I think it must’ve been him. He told me I had to kill you and that the police couldn’t do anything to help me.”
“So you came home and tried to shoot me?”
“Yes.”
“That was very, very stupid,” Reese said, his voice growing hard as he pulled back from me. “And now you’re going to pay. But you’re a very lucky girl, did you know that?”
“Why?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
He offered a feral smile.
“Because I still want to f*ck you.”
More of that sick lust tore through me, all mixed with fear as he raised his knife. Grasping the neckline of my shirt, he slowly slit the fabric in half, exposing my upper body and bra. Then he tugged the bra down, popping my breasts out the top.
I saw the pulse pounding in his neck, smelled a hint of musky sweat. It was messed up and horrible and wrong in every way, but I wanted him inside me. Desperately. That’s my only explanation for what I did next.
Licking my lips, I spoke, taunting him.
“You wanna talk or you wanna f*ck? ’Cause I know which one I’d prefer.”
His cheeks flushed dark red and then the knife whipped upward, slashing through the rope holding my handcuffs. I collapsed instantly, and he caught me, throwing me roughly over his shoulder as he carried me out the door. I had a vague impression of bare concrete, bright white lights, and a grim-faced Gage as we found the little room with the cot. Reese slammed the door shut behind us with his foot.
I hit the bed hard, knocking the wind right out of me. Then I heard a slithering, whipping sound, and Reese was cinching my hands to the top of the bed with his belt. Seconds later my pants came down around my ankles. His hands grabbed my hips, lifting them high and I felt his cock at my entrance.
Then his eyes caught mine and he snarled.
I screamed when he slammed home, because it hurt and I was scared and it felt incredibly good and my brain just wouldn’t work anymore. Reese wasn’t a gentle lover under the best of circumstances, but this was brutal. He stilled and braced above me with those strong arms of his, smiling.
It wasn’t a friendly or loving smile.
No. This smile was a baring of teeth, and in his eyes I saw rage, pure and simple. Rage and hate and some kind of unholy, twisted desire that cut through both of us, no matter how sick that was. Holding my gaze, he pulled back and thrust again, this time harder. It burned and I cried out, but he didn’t stop. I didn’t want him to, either. I wanted more—I wanted him to pin me and fill me with his come and I didn’t care anymore whether that was wrong or right.
I just needed this terrible tension building between us to break. I needed him.
“That the best you can do?” I demanded, laughing almost hysterically. He growled and my laugh turned into a shriek as he showed me that no, it wasn’t the best he could do. It was just the beginning, because Reese started thrusting into me so hard my body could hardly take it. My legs spread wide and my hips pressed back into the thin mattress and I screamed again. I had never, ever in my entire life felt anything so amazingly good as the sensation of his body tearing into mine.
This wasn’t sex—this was revenge and it was perfect.
He pounded into me without mercy after that, our eyes glued to each other, lips snarling. There were no tender kisses, no playful giggles. Just the raw desire of two people whose lives had crashed together in the worst possible way. My orgasm didn’t build slowly and wash over me. Nope. It slammed through me, ripping apart my existence until I cried out and tears ran down my face.
Reese didn’t even acknowledge that it’d happened.
He just sank deep inside over and over again, driving my body toward another explosion. I think my synapses weren’t firing right, because I knew I’d be raw and bruised after this. I just didn’t care. I wanted to take all of his hate and pain and anger and own it because I deserved it, but instead of suffering he just kept filling me and it felt way, way too good.
Then it hit again. I blew apart, my fragile mind all but shattering with the intensity.
This time he came with me, groaning painfully as his hot seed shot deep inside. His arms quivered and his heavy frame hung over mine as I crumpled, utterly exhausted. I’d used up my adrenaline, lost the edge of fear in favor of lust, and couldn’t even bring myself to think about poor Jessica. My brain had had enough, and my body agreed. Reese pulled away from me without a word, and I realized we hadn’t used a condom. Oh well.
My life span probably wouldn’t be long enough to worry about STDs anyway.
I heard the sound of him zipping up, and then his big hands came down around mine, pulling the belt free but leaving me cuffed. He turned and walked out of the cell, slamming his hand against the wall as he went. The door clanged shut and the bolt slid home with a thunk.
I blinked in the darkness, trying to figure out what had just happened.
Holy. Shit.
I had no place to store this in my head. I didn’t want to think about what we’d done, how much I enjoyed it, or whether it meant anything. Considering this situation too carefully was scary, and I couldn’t afford to be afraid right now. Not if I wanted to survive and save Jessica.
My natural pragmatism kicked in. I was alive. I had no idea how much longer that would last, but I had to make the most of it. I closed my eyes and started taking deep breaths, counting to ten on each inhale and exhale. The relaxation technique had served me well over the years, and it didn’t fail me that night.
Eventually sleep crept in, bringing an entirely different kind of release than what I’d found with Reese.
The cold woke me.
I tried to reach for the covers, to pull them up and over my freezing body. Then I realized there weren’t any, because I was on a cot in a cell in the Armory basement. My shirt and bra were ripped apart, my hands were cuffed together, and my wet jeans were still tucked around my ankles.
Other than that, things were great.
I rolled onto my back, bemused. I hadn’t really expected to make it this far. I sort of assumed that I’d tell them everything and they’d shoot me. The end.
Finding myself alive threw me.
I tried to think, figure out what the next step should be. Nothing came—all of this was so far beyond my ability to process that my brain just spun out.
None of that changed the fact that I was cold. Maybe I could do something to fix that?
It took me a couple of tries to stand up because my legs were cold and rubbery. One of my feet had fallen asleep, too, which wasn’t such a bad thing once I caught my balance. The tingling pins and needles helped me wake up and sharpen my perspective. I set about pulling my pants up, which was harder than you’d think, because they had that cold, wet, clingy thing going on that makes jeans so unpleasant sometimes.
My bra was a lost cause, but I managed to stretch my shirt across my chest. It wasn’t great, but it was better than just sitting around all naked and vulnerable. I walked around the cell, testing the door with my cuffed hands. It didn’t open—big surprise there, right?
By that time I was getting seriously cold. I sat back down on the bed and realized that what I’d thought was the mattress cover was actually a thin, woolen blanket wrapped over the padding—one of those striped army surplus ones from three wars back.
Crawling under it wasn’t easy, but I figured the wool might help me stay warm. Theoretically, wool holds in heat even when it’s wet. Practically, huddling under a wet wool blanket in a basement sucks ass, and I’m saying that as a lady who tries not to cuss. My teeth started chattering as I considered my options.
I still wasn’t quite sure what to make of that last little episode with Reese. I felt sore between my legs and dirty in my soul, but I couldn’t deny it’d been the best sex I’d ever had in my life. Messed up, but I don’t believe in hiding from the truth—apparently scary life-and-death situations turned me on.
Or at least they turned me on when Reese was involved.
Go figure.
I supposed I could use that to try to stay alive, manipulate him somehow—I was over the whole “I don’t care if I live or die” numb feeling from the night before. When the shit hit the fan and Reese whipped out that big knife of his, I had very much wanted to live.
Okay, so I had that figured out. I wasn’t going to just lie down and die. Good to know.
But what was I willing to do to stay alive? Yesterday I’d decided to kill an innocent man to save Jessica’s life. That hadn’t ended so well for me, and I was forced to admit the truth. I really wasn’t a very good assassin. This limited my options, which was probably just as well.
So what should I do next?
The answer seemed clear. I’d do whatever I could to help the Reapers fight their enemies, because despite my little episode with Reese, I knew who the real bad guys were. Nate and his drug dealer friends down south. They’d killed Amber, they were killing Jessica—if they hadn’t already—and they’d almost made me kill Reese.
A knife at my throat followed by crazy monkey sex in a basement wasn’t all that bad in comparison. I tried to shoot him. In exchange he’d given me two orgasms, so I guess in some ways that counted as a win?
Maybe the Reapers would be able save Jessica, although whether they’d be motivated to try was a whole different question. I certainly couldn’t do anything more for her at this point, and the cops obviously weren’t an option. A*sholes. If I got very lucky, Jessica might live. If cooperating with the Reapers raised those odds in any way, I’d consider helping them my new goal in life.
And if Jessica died?
Well, then I’d spend whatever time and freedom I had left hunting down the f*ckwads who’d done this to us. I might be a crappy assassin, but I was a fast learner and I had a sneaking suspicion that Reese would be a hell of a good teacher.
Sound crazy?
Probably, but what other options did I have? The only ones who hadn’t lied to me or used me were Reese and his brothers, and we shared a common enemy. Wars have been won with less, so maybe we could pull something off.
Assuming they didn’t kill me first.