My gaze moved to the only thing that mattered to me in this whole room, this whole city in fact. And I found him watching me back, a feral look on his face as I smiled at him and Glenda did a backflip in my chest. That was what was real. Me and him and a house far, far away where two beautiful, twisted souls and my cuddly pooch were waiting for me to come home.
Niall winked at me, his hand snaking up the back of Esteban’s neck and suddenly he slammed his face down onto the table, then flipped him off his seat right up onto it. Esteban cried out as my mother screamed and the dealer lurched backwards in alarm. Niall was upon him in the next second, climbing onto the table, pressing his knee into Esteban’s back and yanking his pants down to unveil his ass. He started shoving Esteban’s chips between his ass cheeks as two security men came running from across the room. But Niall wasn’t done, he started playing Esteban’s ass cheeks like a bongo while my mother continued to scream, Esteban flailed beneath him and a bunch of people started recording him on their phones, though the hat that Niall had stolen was somehow perfectly positioned to hide his own face from their nosy cameras like it was in on the joke too.
A wild laugh tore from my lungs and I clutched my sides as I fell completely apart, watching my madman of a husband slapping his huge, inked hands down on Esteban’s ass and playing a pretty neat tune with surprising skill.
“Wendy!” Esteban shrieked at my mom, but she just stared on, like her mind couldn’t quite catch up to what she was seeing.
Niall slapped Esteban’s ass up so good it was turning bright red, and my head bobbed in time with the tune he was playing. I was pretty sure it was Can’t Stop by Red Hot Chilli Peppers, so I started singing the backing singer bit under my breath and filled in the guitar part in my head.
The security men made it to the table, but Niall jumped up fast, leaping off of it and kicking Esteban in the head as he flew over him and landed heavily on the floor.
“Wendy!” Esteban cried louder and my mom finally snapped out of her stupor, lurching forward and scooping piles of chips out of her husband’s ass crack.
I shoved all of my chips at my cow man friend, snatching the tie thingy he’d gifted me and waving him goodbye. He stared at me in shock as I wheeled away and ran to meet Niall as he came barrelling towards me through the crowd.
I was so small I couldn’t see above all the people who were swarming forward to try and get a look at the commotion. I pushed and shoved to get through them, hunting for my Hellfire as my heart jerked and kicked in my chest.
“Niall!” I called to him and a man in front of me was knocked down like a toothpick snapping in half as he appeared, snatching my hand into his grasp as he grinned big at me.
“Time to go, Spider.” Niall dragged me along and I ran with him as fast as we could go, racing left and right through the tables before we finally found a door and made it outside before anyone could stop us.
Our driver man was already there and he yanked the back door open and ushered us inside.
I fell into Niall’s lap as the door shut behind us and the driver man leapt into the car, taking off down the road just as the security people spilled out of the casino and looked left and right for us in confusion.
The two of us laughed so hard, I swear one of my lungs was gonna leap out of my throat, but instead Niall’s mouth came down on mine and he crushed me against him.
Our laughter turned to panting and suddenly he was yanking my dress up and I was shoving down his pants as we clawed at each other ferally.
“If you look back here even one time, I’ll cut your eyes out, throw them in a wishing well and wish for all your nightmares to come true,” Niall warned the driver, who nodded stiffly before putting up a partition between us.
It was the perfect end to a perfect night, and I couldn’t wait to tell Mateo and Jack all about it.
M y muscles recovered slowly, sensation returning to them piece by piece as I sat in the chair across from Mateo and listened to him talk. We’d slept too, both of us having little choice other than to fall asleep in our chairs and hope that the other wouldn’t wake first with the use of our limbs and murderous thoughts.
But to my surprise, when I’d woken it hadn’t been to the feeling of his hands around my throat or some weapon driving into my flesh. It had simply been to his keen eyes observing me, assessing me, taking in everything about me in a way that none of the people I’d spent time with during my incarceration ever had.
Like I was a worthy adversary.
It was so much more interesting than the simple fear I usually commanded due to my size and unpredictable nature, and I couldn’t help but rise to the challenge in his gaze.
No one had paid me this much attention in a long time. No one aside from her. And when she looked at me, it wasn’t like this, like one predator assessing another, searching for weaknesses, strengths, ways to use or manipulate the other.
“We have a common enemy,” Mateo said as I yawned, pushing my long hair away from my face and adjusting my position in the chair. My stomach was growling with a demand for food, but I was used to being punished with starvation under Madam Lucille’s watch back in Eden Heights, so I ignored it.
“Niall,” I grunted, knowing what he meant and already prepared for this conversation. It hadn’t been hard to predict. Over countless chess games, Mateo had continued to make observations about me, my behaviour, my appearance, and not least, our current situation. I knew he was trying to secure an alliance with me against the man who had collared us like dogs.
“Together we can end him,” he hissed. “You and me. If we work together, one of us can distract him while the other strikes. All I need is thirty seconds where he doesn’t manage to activate my collar and I can have him bleeding out beneath me.”
“Then?” I asked, waiting to hear the rest of his plan and wondering if he would admit that that would leave the two of us with nothing to cement our union anymore.
“Then I can give you money. More than enough for you to start up a new life wherever the fuck you want to go. That’s why Niall hasn’t killed me in all the time he’s held me – he knows I have it and he wants it. Wants to buy his own freedom from the cage his family have erected around him. I couldn’t really give a fuck about his motivations. Point is, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. You’ll have everything you need to start up a fresh life well away from the gang whose mark you bear on your flesh.”
He bobbed his chin at the ink poking out from beneath my shirt and I grunted. He’d figured out that small hint of my past quick enough, though it wasn’t much of a stretch for anyone to put two and two together when gang ink was involved.
My mind drifted to the life I’d once pledged myself to. The one which had offered me an outlet every time I snapped the way I did all too often.
But the rage in me had only gotten more unpredictable as time went on. Often unleashing when my boss had no use for it, and I wasn’t a beast made to fit chains or attack on command. I was volatile, unpredictable, a loose cannon as he’d once called me. And what good was a soldier who lost his shit at the slightest provocation and paid little to no attention to his orders once the rage took me?
That entire enterprise had been headed for disaster since the moment I’d sworn in and gotten my ink. Problem was, there was no backing out of that kind of organisation once you were in. No way out for anyone aside from death. Or perhaps insanity.
My lips twisted in amusement at my work on that front and Mateo’s eyes narrowed as he caught the movement.
“Rook,” I said simply, pointing out the flaw to his plan because she was clearly fond of the Irishman who kept us captive, and I wasn’t willing to hurt her in the attempt to end him. Nor was I inclined to leave her behind with this motherfucker and just head off on my way the moment we freed ourselves from his grasp.