Chapter 30
The woman on Blaze’s lap is beautiful.
Young with perfect, porcelain skin, thin, leggy, sleek hair, I can’t see her face, but I’m sure it’s just as perfect as the rest of her. I doubt there are any scars hidden beneath those skin tight leather pants, no mess inside her perfect little skull. It’s no wonder he’s kissing her, Cole leaning forward to watch, his eyes glued to them.
They look good together.
Wonder if she likes to share too.
Something stabs inside my chest, my hands shaking as I stare at them, noticing more and more the longer I look.
His arm wrapped around her back, his dark eyes boring into hers, her hand on his chest, his easily covering it, holding her close.
The sob threatens to choke me, clogging my throat as burning heat rushes to my eyes. Bodies are bumping into mine where I stand at the edge of the fray, but I hardly feel them jostling me. Strangers’ skin touching my own. Wondering if this is why he passed me over to his brothers, practically shoving me off of his lap to get me out of the way.
For her.
He said they were here for a business meeting.
I’ve never known business meetings to be so up close and personal before.
Flint got a text from one of their crew saying there was a problem with something in another tower, so Phoenix watched me get back to this point, making sure I was safe, before rushing off to deal with whatever issue they’ve got. I wonder what would have happened if he’d come all the way back with me and seen this. Would he have been surprised? Laughed it off? Lied?
Blaze is laughing now, eyes heavy lidded, he’s got that slick smirk slashed across his features, lounging back in the chair. And Cole’s beautiful eyes are glued to them, his mouth moving with words I can’t hear but I sure can imagine.
Sickness rushes up my throat, burning my chest as I try to keep it down. That’d be the next best thing, puking in front of them, everyone pointing and laughing at the pathetic girl who fell for pretty words and violent touches all too easily.
Acid burns my throat, and I rush to turn away, elbowing my way through the mass of sweaty bodies. My bottom lip trembles and I bite down on the inside of my cheek to stop the tears. A stuttered breath makes its way in, and I hold it tight in my lungs.
“Woah, there, pretty girl,” a deep voice laughs, clutching at my forearms as I bump into him, my skin instantly burning, but the name, that fucking endearment, I shiver. “You okay?” the man asks, his glass green eyes boring into mine with concern.
“Fine, thank you, sorry,” I say quietly, trying to tug my arms out of his hands, but his dark tattooed fingers tighten around my forearms making me wince. “Please, let go of me.”
I suck in a deep breath as the man smiles at me, tight, dark afro curls hang over his forehead, the sides of his head shaved, a little like Flint’s but this guy’s scalp is covered in tattoos.
He chuckles, wrenching me in against his chest, my elbows smacking his hard stomach, “Ohh, I can see why my cousin likes you so much.”
I frown, furrowing my brow, “Cousin?” I ask.
His smile grows, one of his canine teeth capped in silver glints, “Mm, he’s soft too, that’s why he’s the runt.”
“Let go of me,” I pull sharply down on my arms, his fingers biting aggressively into my skin. “I’ll scream.”
The man really laughs at that, a deep-rooted chuckle as someone steps into my back. Head snapping over my shoulder to find two someones crowding me. Both men, blonde hair, brown eyes and white skin look exactly the same as one another, twins. Muscular and tall like the man in front of me gripping my arms.
“She is pretty,” one of them says, his head canting to one side, “I say we keep her,” he rumbles, running his gaze leisurely up the length of my body, licking over his teeth.
I stiffen instantly, my joints locking, “Let me go,” I order, knowing they can hear the panic in my voice, even with the heavy music pounding like the building has its own heartbeat. “I won’t tell them,” I say, the man holding onto me’s pale green eyes lighting up. “They’ll kill you if they see you touching me, but if you let me go, I won’t say anything, I won’t tell anyone anything.”
The man bends himself lower, ducking his face to meet mine, his lips almost touching my own, but I don’t move, frozen in fear.
“We just want to show you something, pretty girl,” that’s how I know, it’s not a coincidence, because this time, he says it with a snarling grin, the mocking words laced with poison. “Boys,” he says then, his gaze flicking over the top of my head, the men at my back each grabbing hold of my arms and wrenching them back.
The man takes his phone out of his jeans’ pocket, scrolling with his thumb for a moment, the blue light of the device lighting up his features like a devil. Then he taps the screen, once, twice, before flipping it onto its side, turning it towards me.
I scowl down at the dark screen, already dreading whatever it is he’s going to show me.
Then he hits play.
The screen turns quickly to a video of security footage, it’s grainy, in black and white and clearly filmed on a phone from a screen.
There’s a girl, stepping out of a door into an alleyway she should never have been in. She’s in a short dress with fringe tassels around the bottom of the skirt. Her blonde curls are pulled back in a half-up-half-down hairstyle, lips painted a dark colour that, despite the greyscale footage, I know to be red.
Because this footage is from the night of my eighteenth birthday. When I got kidnapped and woke up in hospital a few days later with a missing organ.
The police said there were no cameras on that alley.
Blood rushing in my ears, deafening me to the music and everything else in the room. My heart pounds so hard in my chest it threatens to punch its way free. I’m sure I would sway if I wasn’t already being held up, the floor feeling like it falls away from under me, everything slanting.
I watch as three big, tall men, faces hidden behind black balaclavas, burst out of the shadows, grabbing the girl -me- and immediately covering my mouth with cloth. My struggling body goes limp in the tallest one’s arms banded around my waist, arms pinned at my sides, then he tosses me over his shoulder, lifting a phone to his ear. We disappear from the screen. I stare at it, the footage still rolling, seconds ticking by, almost thirty now, but nothing is happening, the alleyway is empty.
I frown, glancing up at the man holding the phone, “Keep watching,” he smiles, and as instructed, I do, dropping my gaze back to the footage.
Only a few more seconds pass before there’s more movement from the back door in the video, the one I exited through. I squint down at the screen, staring at the man as the door closes at his back, his steps slow as he peers around, gaze following off camera to where the men carried my unconscious body away.
He turns, his black eyes lifting, dark brown hair in loose curls blowing back in the gentle breeze to reveal his face as he stares right into the security camera.
My bottom lip wobbles, my knees giving out as I stare at the man on the screen.
“I could be a better boyfriend than him,” the guy before me whispers, re-pocketing his phone as my head drops forward, “if you ever decide to try love again.” His finger slips beneath my chin, angling my face up to his, a deep wracking sob suffocating me from the inside out as I hold it hostage behind trembling lips. “Just ask my cousin Phoenix where you can find me.” He looks at the men holding me up, both of them releasing me in unison, all of them stepping back, leaving the humid air around me several degrees cooler than the rest of the room. “See you around, pretty girl,” he winks, backing up from me, before the three of them disappear like shadows into the crowd.
Legs weak, I stare forward, fists pressing into my belly as if the rough touch could cure the rotting sickness swirling inside my gut. And as I peer into space, my entire body swaying with dizziness, I try to understand why it was Blaze McCoy’s pretty face staring back at me on that screen.
TO BE CONTINUED…