Chapter Nine
Neko
I once thought I rather be anywhere else on earth...I was wrong then.
Now, now is when I rather be anywhere else. Because Jesus, it is freezing. My head feels as if it's been shoved inside an ice bath then battered against cement. My hands hurt. It is a pain I am all too familiar with.
Cold iron bites into my wrists when I try to move.
The darkness surrounding me is absolute—thick, heavy, and damn cold. I blink, trying to force my eyes to focus, but there isn't a sliver of light to catch. Panic tries to claw its way up my chest, when I smell lilacs. I know that sweet scent anywhere.
He took her. He took my princess.
"Noemi?" My voice is a raspy whisper, my throat raw.
A quiet, shuddering breath answers me from somewhere to my left. I sit up, pulling at the binding holding my right arm above my head. Taking a shuddering breath, I try to focus. To concentrate. What happened?
We went to her father's offices for lunch. I had his men go ahead of us to scope it out. It's been a few days since we've had any sightings of her stalker, so I was on edge. How the hell did he get inside her father's offices? How did his men fuck this up so badly?
"Noemi, answer me. You good, princess?" I call out, panic wrapping vice tight around my lungs.
"Neko...?" Her voice is thick, slurred, trailing off into a confused murmur. The sound of her shifting against the dirt floor is painfully slow, heavy with the weight of whatever sedative he forced into her system. "It's... so heavy. Why can't I... move anything?"
"Don't try to move," I urge, my voice tight as I try to mask the terror rising in my stomach. "Let me figure out where the hell we are."
"Were at home. At my father's estate," she mutters, still sounding off. "Well, one of them. The one he hated since...since we lost mother."
"There was another house? Jesus, baby, I failed you. I let him get close, I swore I would not let him. I should have known about a second house. I let what I feel for you confuse the situation. I did not do my fucking job!"
"I seem to recall someone saying they're crazier than whoever was in the shadows. Is that not true, Neko?"
In the darkness, I smile. Because that right there, that is why I am ass over head in love with Noemi Lane. I have met my match in her. It does not matter I am more than a decade older. That I have blood on my hands. It does not matter where she came from or who she knows.
Noemi is mine, I am hers, the end.
It is about damn time I remember I am her bodyguard.
Because she is right. I am a hell of a lot crazier than the man who brought us here.
Crazier about her, willing to tear the world to the fucking ground to keep her safe.
I lost sight of things for a moment—hearing her come for me and call me daddy is to blame—but I am hyper focused again.
Just as I am about to promise her I'll get us out, the air changes. I sense him standing somewhere in the darkness, watching us. A coward to the core. Hiding in the dark just as he’s done for months—stalking her, sending her letters, fawning over the pathetic fantasy he built in his head.
"Pretty dramatic, Vance. Kidnapping? Assault? A little B&E? Just want to load up that rap sheet, huh. Go big or go home I guess. It's just...you made the worst fucking mistake of your life, chief," I murmur, chuckling as his footsteps give away he is stalking closer.
"Got the woman I love out of her gilded cage. Brought her to the one place she was happiest. Took care of her controlling daddy?"
Ah, good, he took the bait. "A place she was happiest?
Got it wrong, Vance. Being with me is where she is happiest. Of course, you saw that, did you not?
Happening right before your eyes. Saw her falling in love with me while I kept you at bay.
This is a mess, yeah? You got worried, panic was drowning you while you watched her being happier with me than she would ever be with you. "
"Shut. Up. Noemi loves me. This house was her mother's favorite place. If you think you know her, how come you never knew it existed?"
I wince in the darkness before a blinding light flicks on. I am quick to take stock of where he has us. It's a basement, but nicer than most with stucco walls and stone columns. It is so cold because there is no power, no heat, no lights.
Noemi sits tied to the center of the room in the big purple armchair stolen straight from her bedroom.
Her wrists and ankles are bound to the frame, turning her favorite seat into a cruel display.
The low rumble of a small generator fills the space, powering a single harsh light and a tripod camera aimed directly at me.
"Vance? You mean...this is the man who...who has been following me for months? Who father hired you to protect me from?"
Rage floods Vance because she has no fucking clue who he is.
I can't help it—I laugh. Because he is so desperate for me to believe they had some special, unbreakable thing between them.
Her not even remembering the few months he was on her security detail while he built this entire scheme to carry on the relationship he believed they had is laughable.
"Noemi loves you? Chief, my girl has no clue who you were in her life. There was never anything between you two. Not for her, at least. Look at my princess, she is so upset. Untie her, Vanc. I am going to give you one chance to fix this, to undo your mess before you upset me."
"Noemi, babydoll," he coos, dropping in front of her to reach out to her. "I love you. I promised I would get you out of there. I kept my promise. He could not keep his. He swore to keep men away from you. Your father, his men, his partners, they were all too close. He never kept his promise!"
"V-vance? I...oh, I am so sorry, but I do not remember you. I do not love you. I never even...I never even k-knew you. I love Neko. He is the first good thing to happen to me...."
The crack of his hand across her face does two things. It stops her words which he did not deserve to begin with. It also ignites a rage inside of me. I was upset fighting for my life against foreign armies. I was livid after I fucked up in Panama and lost my best friend and a woman I loved.
Now...this rage is not even close to anything I have felt before.
With a painful twist, I dislocate my wrist, an old parlor trick. Pulling my wrist through the cuff, I wince as I push to my feet. Pain blooms in my head from the blow that knocked me out earlier. I've had much worse. Only this is made worse because them getting the jump on me means he got my girl.
"Gave you a chance, chief," I roar as I close the distance between us in two huge steps, my good hand come out to knock him sideways.
Blood spurts in the air, raining down on me.
I welcome it. I want him to bleed on me, I want stains of what I am about to do to him.
"You think you have a right to touch her?
To hurt her? To drag her down here to your fucking fantasy land?
Noemi was never yours, Vance. Because even before I got hired to keep you the fuck away from her, she was mine. "
"No, she was mine! I just have to remind her what we had!
"I do not know you! I never loved you! What have you done to my father? Why did you bring me here, I hate this house! Neko, please....I need to get out of here!"
Turning, I see she is in full fight or flight mode.
My brave girl wants to fight, even if she is asking to flee.
I will get her out of here. I will keep my promise to protect her from anything that could ever hurt her.
Even if that means protecting her from me too.
Not that I think she will let me do that.
Twisting back just in time, I catch Vance's kick. It is strong and well-aimed, reminding me that I am dealing with a well-trained threat. Not just some nutter off the street. Still, he is out of his mind with delusion, so he is not on point—even if he was, I am so enraged, he stands no chance.
Throwing his leg to the side, I thrust my fist out to connect with his groin.
It is such a powerful hit, it lifts him off his feet.
Not hesitating, I aim two hard blows to his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.
He stumbles back so, I throw my own kick, sweeping his feet out from under him.
He goes down hard, gasping for air as he sputters in pain.
Rushing over to Noemi, I undo the tape at her hands and knees. Seeing the marks they leave, knowing he touched her at all, has that rage flaring up inside of me again. Only, she is there to stop it. Cupping my jaw in her hands, she lowers her head to touch her brow to mine.
"I love you, Neko. You did not break your promise. I love you."
"Oh, baby, I love you too. I do. It breaks all the rules, but I don't care. There is not a single fucking rule that could keep me from loving you the way I do. You brought me back to life."
"Can you take me home now? Not to the Lane estate..."
"No, none of these estates are your home now. With me, where I go, where I sleep, where I can protect you, that is your home now."