Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“ARCADE” BY DUNCAN LAURENCE
AERON
Iblink furiously, willing my vision to clear as Dove’s scream rips my heart in two. The picture comes into focus slowly, the old speakeasy a complete shithole with Soldiers surrounding us, weapons drawn.
I ignore them all, searching for her, my whole body going ice-cold when I finally lay my eyes on her.
Some Soldier scum has her pulled so close to him that I have to clench my fists hard to stop from storming over there and ripping his fucking hands off, but what makes terror fill my veins is the long, sharp blade against her beautiful throat. The blade that we gave her earlier.
I fucking knew we should have left her behind. Fuck, I should have tied her to the bed to keep her there.
“Boys!” The sound of that scum Rufus Jackson makes my jaw ache.
“Nice of you to join us.” Shit. He knew we were coming.
I can see it by the delighted gleam in his fucking bright blue eyes, the same color as hers, our bird.
I just wonder which of my men set us up.
I’ll rip their innards out myself when I discover who it was.
No one fucking betrays the Tailors and lives.
“You took so long, I thought that you’d never get here,” Rufus continues, strolling over in our direction as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
He looks like shit, like some wannabe MC president, in his leather cutoff and dirty jeans.
Fucking disgusting, and I let the expression show on my face, curling my lip at him as he gets closer.
His face tightens. “Always so fucking high and mighty, aren’t you, little cunts?
Always think you’re better than the rest of us. ”
“That’s because we are,” Jude says, and I have to hold back a laugh as Rufus turns an ugly shade of purple.
“Bob,” Rufus growls out, not looking away from me.
A feminine gasp has me darting my gaze behind him, seeing another Soldier step up to Dove, his arm moving in a flash. The sound of tearing fabric fills the room, and he steps away to reveal our girl, naked and now bleeding where the knife cut her as that dead scum cut off her clothes.
“You fucking piece of shit!” Knox roars, stepping forward, then grunting as two massive beasts of men smack him around the head with a baseball bat, forcing him to his knees.
In seconds, we're all being given similar treatment, pain lancing across my skull as a bat connects. My legs buckle as my knees are kicked out from under me, and I fight with all that I have, desperate to get to her, my rage lending me strength. A scream stops us all short. Her scream.
“No…” I whisper as I watch the knife pierce her side.
“Any more of that shit and I’ll push it all the way in,” Rufus snarls, holding the handle of the blade that is partway into our girl’s porcelain skin.
Red drips from the wound, and all I can hear is the thrash of my heartbeat in my ears as I see the pain in her beautiful, crystal eyes.
“Better.” She gasps as he pulls the knife out, her breasts heaving with her panting breaths.
“Now that I have your full fucking attention, here’s what’s going to happen.
” He pauses for dramatic effect, and I want to spit at him, but I can’t stop seeing the knife that’s so close to my Dove.
To our girl. Our soul. “Take their weapons.”
All of us are roughly manhandled, Knox prostrated on the ground as four Soldiers divest him of his weapons.
I don’t move, just allow them to take mine, my eyes never leaving hers as two Soldiers hold my arms behind my back while another takes everything I have on me.
Tears stream down her cheeks, and she’s so fucking beautiful when she cries, but only if we’re the ones making her do it.
My jaw clenches as a swift kick lands on my gut, my head snapping to the side as a brutal punch lands on my jaw.
“You said you weren’t going to hurt them!” I hear Dove scream over the ringing of my ears, and I shake my head because surely I misheard her. “You promised, you piece of shit!”
I look back at her just as Rufus backhands her across the face, the knife at her throat nicking her and sending a trickle of blood down her neck.
“Nightingale?” The note of devastation in my brother’s voice tells me I wasn’t the only one to hear her.
I watch as her gaze swings to us, fresh tears spilling over her cheeks. Her jaw works, but no sound comes out, just silent tears as she looks at each of us.
“Of course!” Rufus claps, still holding that damn knife, stained with her blood, a wide smile on his face.
“You don’t know who your snake is, do you?
” He stalks over to us, the gleam in his eyes turning malicious.
“I’ll give you a clue. We know her as the Soldier’s Darling, but I hear that she’s known as the Tailors’ Ruin.
Fitting name really, all things considered. ”
“Little Bird?” Knox rasps, barely able to get the words out. “What the fuck is he talking about?”
A sob leaves her chest. “W–we don’t get much choice in this life.”
I turn to look at Jude, his brow furrowing and then raising as his own words come back to haunt him. “Oh, Nightingale.”
I turn back to her, the blood pounding in my ears as a guttural roar sounds from Knox.
“We could have fucking helped you!” he screams at her, and I see her flinch with every word he throws. “We were going to kill them all for you!”
Rufus laughs a dark and evil sound that sticks to my skin like fucking tar. “Kill us all, boy?” Chuckles sound throughout the room, and it sets my teeth on edge to hear the sound. “The eight of you against the eighty of us? Even a crook like you must see ten to one are not good odds.”
I look properly around then, a heavy feeling in my stomach as I take in the sheer number of men, of Dead Soldiers that fill the room.
He’s been recruiting, heavily by the looks of it.
It’s like an ice bucket has hit my core, my very being frozen as I take in our situation.
The situation that I led us into. I drop my gaze.
“I see you realize your position, boy. Just how much you’ve fucked up.
Gotta grate a little, right? You being the future leader and all.
” My eyes raise to find Rufus standing in front of me, my head tilting back as I take him in from my knees.
“But don’t worry, I’m not gonna kill you boys yet.
No, I’m gonna trade you for whatever the fuck I want from Daddy Tailor.
I’ll send him bits of you until he agrees to my terms, that’s the sort of language you Tailors understand, right?
” I don’t answer, just narrow my eyes at him.
“Take the four boys to the cages. Kill the others.”
“No!” I try to lurch to my feet, but one of the men holding me pulls my arm up sharply until it feels like the bone will snap, and I’m fucking useless to stop them as I’m dragged away, watching as the four Tailors who joined me and the guys tonight are shot in the back of the head, their bodies crumpling to the ground.
Just before I’m pulled through the door we came through what feels like hours ago, I catch bright blue eyes, sparkling with tears as she tugs against her own captors, calling our names.
The door shuts just as Rufus pulls his fist back and punches her in the stomach, making her double over and breaking our contact.
The beast inside me roars, desperate to help her, even though she betrayed us, and my soul feels torn in two as I think about her words.
“We don’t get much choice in this life.”
She’s right, we don’t. I didn’t when I was forced to shoot her mother. Jude didn’t when he held June in his arms as she died.
But Dove did have a choice.
We gave her a choice. We gave her the choice of freedom with us. Of a life with us. I even promised that I’d get her brother out. Yet she chose to betray us regardless.
And that is not something I can choose to forgive.
Not quite the end…
Want to know what happens next? Read Addicted to the Ruin now to see if The Tailors will ever forgive Lark.
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