Chapter Sixteen
In which we learn the true meaning of, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire."
Ethan…
After I kick the bodies over to take their guns and make sure they’re dead, I look up at Sloan. She’s crouched in her little alcove, hands over her mouth and enormous violet eyes staring at me.
“Are ya hurt, darlin’?”
It takes her three attempts but she finally manages to talk. “N- no. I’m okay.” She’s staring at me like I’m the boogeyman and I most likely look it, blood spray across my face and still holding my dripping knife. “Your leg,” she says, “we have to-”
“OY!”
I whirl but don’t aim my gun. I know that voice. The cavalry has arrived. A bit late, the lazy bastards, but here all the same.
Jack comes racing across the bridge and stops short when he sees the bodies.
“Ach,” he says, deeply disappointed, “ya dinna save any for us, ya selfish prick?”
“Sorry,” I put my hands on my hips, breathing deeply. The bullet in my leg is makin’ itself known. On the bright side, they shot the other leg this time so I’ll have matching bullet holes.
Jack looks up the rock face, resting his rifle on his shoulder. “I’m guessing ya might be Miss Sloan Masters, aye? I’m Jack. I’m the better-lookin’ cousin.”
She waves weakly. “Hi, Ethan’s cousin.”
Michael’s next across the bridge, followed by Uncle Dougal’s boys, Logan and Ewan. And then, my Da, who’s lookin’ all kinds of enraged.
He squats next to me, opening the first aid kit. “Anyone above us, son?”
“One unconfirmed kill, but she got him pretty good in the side and he never surfaced, so…”
“Wait.” He pauses in wrapping my leg. “She shot one?”
I grin, despite my leg hurtin’ like a bitch. “She took out three, clinging to me like a baby monkey and shooting over our heads.”
“I like her already,” Logan says approvingly.
Jack swaggers over to the cliff face. “Darlin,’ while Uncle Cameron patches my busted-up cousin, we’re gonna get ya out of there. I’m gettin’ on Michael’s shoulders and I’ll help ya down, aye?”
“Feck you,” Michael says, “I’m standing on your shoulders.”
“Da,” I groan, “please go save Sloan before these arseholes make me shoot them.”
From there, it’s a short walk over the bridge and to the ATVs clustered at the base of the hill. Da helps Sloan down with great care after I warn him about her broken ribs and puts her behind me on an ATV.
“Are you okay to drive?” she whispers, her arms wrapping around my waist.
“Aye, all bandaged up,” I pat her hands gently and start the engine. The feel of her warmth against my back is good, and when she rests her cheek on my shoulder, I grin.
I can hardly feel my leg at all.
Sloan is quiet as we climb into the Range Rover, and I fasten her seat belt. The loud laughter and repeated demands for all the details on the way down the mountain on the ATVs seem to have silenced her and she seems happy to doze on my shoulder as Da speeds toward Glasgow.
“Michael and Jack are staying behind to pull what ID they can from the bodies, then they’ll dump them,” he says cheerfully, “there’s half a dozen nice deep holes around there.” I hear a quiet gag and I realize Sloan’s awake.
“Ya got a doctor ready?” I ask, “Sloan’s pretty banged up.”
“That’s not true,” she pipes up. “Sir, your son successfully landed the jet with nothing but vapor in the fuel tanks, got cut up everywhere and we pulled a six-inch metal shard out of his back. And he had to carry everything - including me - down that cliff. He deserves the first look from the doctor.”
Da smiles at her in the rearview mirror. “Call me Cameron, and not to worry, lass. There’s plenty of medical personnel waiting for ya. You’re a hell of a shot. Thank ya for keeping my son alive.”
“That’s the definition of irony, aye?” Logan speaks up behind us.
“Why?” Sloan’s puzzled.
“Well, the Scottish Demon’s usually the one doin’ the killing, and here ya are-”
“Shut your fecking face!” I snap, but the damage is done. Her face is dead white as she stares at me.
“Even I know about the Scottish Demon,” she whispers. “That’s you?”
“It’s not what ya think-” I try to explain, but she’s already shrunk in her seat, pressing her shoulder against the window to get as far away from me as possible.
Sloan…
I can’t breathe.
I’m such a sucker. After surviving that crash, our trek through the mountains that make the Himalayas look like a kid’s sandcastle, the gunfight - while on a rope - and the moment last night when I more or less molested him in my sleep, I thought…
It doesn’t matter what I thought. This is the Scottish Demon. My family was only on the outskirts of organized crime but of course I had heard the horror stories about him.
He told me he “found desired objects and people.”
Ethan MacTavish the Scottish Demon has murdered dozens of people, maybe hundreds . Sometimes, they just disappear but he’ll often leave a horribly mangled corpse as a warning, or a lesson, or whatever the psycho who hired him wanted done with what was once a human being.
He’s going to murder me, make me disappear. My scumbag stepfather probably wants him to torture Nate’s location from me first. I don’t want to be tortured, oh god, I don’t. I don't want to know what it would take to break me enough to betray my brother. I’ll kill myself before I tell Ethan where my brother is. Nate’s going to make it. He’s going to live a long, happy life and I will not let him get hurt again.
That must be the reason Ethan refused to give me up to the other gunmen. He wants my stepfather’s money, but he probably enjoys his work even more, breaking a human body until there’s nothing left.
All the cautious warmth and camaraderie I’d felt when we were rescued disappears like a popped bubble. The harsh sound of their accents, the rolling a’s and soft burrs sound cruel. They’re laughing secretly because they know what’s going to happen to me. The stupid rabbit, run to earth by the predator.
Ethan’s nearness feels like claws scraping down my skin, his cousins are leaning over to talk to him and I feel their breath on my neck. And his father! Smiling at me in the rearview mirror, the sadistic asshole.
Suddenly, my terror dissolves into fury, the way it always does. The way rage allows my body to unlock and my brain to unfreeze. I’m no fucking bunny. And I’m not going to make this easy for these MacTavishes.
The first signs of the city are making themselves known, a thicker concentration of traffic, more shops and then office buildings. I need a red light and a busy intersection. I couldn’t have run if you set my hair on fire back at the bridge, but my legs have had a chance to rest and my fury gives me strength.
I feel hurt. Seriously? I’m hurt? I’m so stupid from some orgasms and a show of strength that I really thought Ethan wanted to save me from my stepfather? Rubbing my knuckles absently against my breastbone, I wish I could make it dissolve, this knot of humiliation and injured pride. Pulling all my waves of anger around me again like a coat, I focus on regulating my breathing.
Ethan’s not paying any attention to me now. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I saw hurt in his gaze but that can’t be right. His soul is as black as his eyes. Now he’s leaning in, talking to his father in low tones.
They must not use this SUV for transporting prisoners because there’s no safety lock engaged. All I need is a red light and a busy street. I can run like the wind.
“...then your Uncle Lachlan said he was going to set the entire building on fire if…” Ethan’s laughing at his father’s story and his cousins Logan and Ewan are chatting between themselves, something about girls they met at a family club.
The first intersection isn't right. Not busy enough. I can’t look for a police officer, this is MacTavish territory and I’m sure they own the law enforcement around here. I just need to disappear.
There was one time in London when two men were following me. I turned a corner and glanced back and recognized one of them, one of my asshole stepfather’s employees on the “dirty” side of the books. I bolted down an alley, knowing they would follow me, but they didn’t know was that I’d researched this neighborhood. I knew every alley that had an exit, whether it was a locked fire door or a gate into someone’s backyard. This particular one had an unlocked back door to a bar that was always crowded that time of day.
I could hear their footsteps echoing off the brick walls, their low curses when I darted left and into the bar, slamming down the red-tabbed lock on the door. By the time they rounded the corner and angrily paid the entry fee to get in, I was wiggling out a window in the ladies' room. There was a nice woman there, mid-thirties, touching up her lipstick. She watched me wrestle open the window, fluffing her hair.
“I never saw you, right?”
Halfway out the window, I gasped out, “Yes, please.” I disappeared into the crowd of people outside the bar and it was my last close call.
Until now.
Pushing back my self-disgust, I focus on the street. The light ahead of us turns red and Cameron slows down, still talking to Ethan. The instant the wheels stop turning, I click my seatbelt and rip open the door, nearly getting clipped by the car to our left.
Fucking drivers on the wrong side of the road…
Digging in my heels, I race across the intersection, flinching at the horns and a shout that I know is from Ethan. Oh, god. He’ll send those cousins of his after me. He can’t catch me with a bullet hole in his leg.
Breathlessly mouthing apologies, I weave through pedestrians, eyes scanning for the next turn. There- a sandwich shop, one of the chain ones where there has to be a bathroom and a back door. Bursting through the door, I flush when everyone turns to stare at me. I race through the shop and into the kitchen where a woman slicing bread stops to stare at me.
“S- someone’s chasing me. Someone who wants to hurt me,” I gasp, “please let me go out the back door.”
Her faded blue eyes harden. She’s older, wearing a name tag that says ‘Flora.’ “No, ya get under there.” She points her knife at a cupboard with a sliding door. There’s just enough room and I bend my legs like I’m folding up a card table and dig my fingertips into the wooden slab to close it.
This is such a fucking risk. I’m trusting her to keep quiet. What if she knows the MacTavishes? What if-
“Fecking hell!” It’s Ethan, out of breath and panting. “Ma’am did a girl run through here? Pretty rough-looking?”
My eyes narrow over the hand I have covering my mouth.
Asshole.
She’s quite the actress, her voice irritable and confused. “Aye, racing out the back door like her shirt was on fire. Is she on drugs, then?”
“Thank you, uh, Flora.” His footsteps thud and I hear the kitchen door slam shut. It’s silent, aside from some light humming from her and the snick-snick sound of her knife cutting through bread again.
“Stay right there, lass,” she murmurs. “Let’s make sure he dinna circle back, aye?”
“Thank you,” I whisper through the crack in the cabinet door, “so much.”
She shakes her head, chopping hard at the loaf of bread. “It’s always the pretty ones, the bastards. They think they can get away with anything. You just stay still for a moment.”
So, I do.