Chapter 18
C onnor
A cry of terror ripped through the air, coming from outside Everly’s house. Sitting on her bed, and with my skeleton bandanna over my lower face, I cocked my head at her French doors which lay open from my entrance.
It wasn’t her. I knew every noise she made.
Either way, my tracker told me she was already in the house.
Dark thoughts of the woman swarmed my brain.
My first kill had been on behalf of Everly. She’d been hurt by a man, an acquaintance of her father’s who’d spent a drunken evening at the mayor’s house, a group of old boys talking politics and money. She’d been fifteen at the time, and the man had cornered her in the hallway. Felt up her tits. Pawed her between the legs. She’d managed to get away but had never told a soul until a year later when she trusted her new stepbrother enough to relive the trauma.
Cold through and barely seventeen years old, I’d stolen my mother’s car and gone after the man. Drove two hours south to where he lived. He’d opened his door to me, listened to my clenched-teeth statement, then laughed in my face.
Hours later, under the cover of night, I’d lurked down the road from his favourite pub and waited for him to emerge. His route home took him over a bridge and down a shadowed canal towpath. I’d had no experience, no sense other than of vengeance and love, but it was enough. I’d prowled after him, ran up silently behind the red-faced, rolling man, hugged my arm around his neck, and kicked his legs out to take him down to the gravel path. Then I’d wrestled his upper body into the deep water and pushed him down.
His thrashes and kicks.
My strength barely enough to keep his head under.
The risk of someone walking by.
Sweet submission when his life force gave out and I was able to drop him in the rest of the way to slither under the water, a floating shoe the only sign he’d been there.
As killings went, it was sloppy as fuck. I got away with it, though. Sometime later, the mayor had laughed about the news with another of his cronies, at how Phillips had been a sloppy drunk and deserved his watery grave.
At home, I’d told Ev, and she’d cried. Held me. Kissed me.
I’d stopped her from taking it further between us. In the short time our parents had been married, we’d become a port in each other’s storm. I already loved her in a way that would change my world forever. I’d kill for her again and again, but I knew what she’d suffered, the shite her da put her through, and the obligations she felt and that I never wanted her to feel for me.
She hadn’t told him about the paedophile because he would have done nothing other than blame her. He controlled every part of her life. He did the same with my mother who’d held the job Everly did now, an executive assistant.
A week later, Everly had come back to my room, stripped her shirt then her shorts, and climbed on top of me. Her hands had shaken; mine had, too, as I accepted her onto me.
It had been the first time for both of us, and it cemented everything between our hearts, permanently, at least in my case.
The door burst open, and Everly threw herself inside the bedroom, twisting the lock behind her. With a sob of anger or fear, she launched at the nearby chest of drawers and dragged it to the door.
The memories rushed away from me.
I dropped the needle I’d been holding. Moved to join her.
At my hand landing next to hers, Everly jumped and spun around. I shoved the furniture into place, right as someone thumped at the door.
“Open up, right now,” a male voice called.
The guy she’d been to the fucking restaurant with. The one her father had brought home but had chosen to send her out with solo.
I prowled to her, and Everly backed away across the darkened room, her astonished gaze flitting from me to the barricaded door.
“Leave me alone,” she called towards the hall.
From the street, someone shouted.
“Everly?” The mayor’s voice followed, coming from downstairs. “What’s going on outside?”
“Go find out, I’m not leaving my room,” she replied.
If I wasn’t mistaken, resentment played out in her voice, along with upset. Then the faint light from the balcony doors fell on her dress and revealed a tear in the material at her chest. Scratches marred her perfect skin. Her panic and furniture-moving painted one fucking terrible picture.
Red mist descended over me.
“The bastard trying to get in, he did that?” I queried, low and deadly.
Everly held her hands out and whispered, “He only grabbed me. You can’t intervene.”
Fuck that. I stared down the bedroom exit when the fucker, the dead man walking, had the nerve to thump again and rattle the handle.
“Everly, you’ll let me inside or I’ll break the fucking door down,” he replied.
“Why?” I growled to her. He had one chance for her to redeem him.
She hung her head. “He’s important to my father.”
Aye, well, that was no longer a priority for either of us. I was taking control.
I’d come with that very intention.
A day of being without her had me losing my mind, waiting on updates from the crew watching her and checking her tracker like a man possessed. It had driven me to an edge I hadn’t realised I was near.
It broke something in me.
And desperate men took desperate measures.
Repeatedly, Everly had put her father ahead of me. Worse, ahead of herself. I’d told her I was better at looking after her than she was, and now I had to prove the fact.
Though tonight she hadn’t asked for it, I stooped and grabbed my needle. Held it up for her to see, then with a smile and an inability to hear her objection, knocked her the fuck out.
Further noises came from outside in the street, raised voices, a woman sobbing. Something was going on, but all I could see was her. I laid her on her bed and stroked her hair.
“You’re so fucking perfect,” I told her unconscious form. “I’m never going to let ye go again. No matter what. Understand?”
Sirens wailed, multiple ones, coming in fast.
Reluctantly, I moved to the curtains and peered from the balcony. Everly’s room was at the back-left of the mayor’s mansion and had a view down the side of the neighbouring plot. In the driveway, three people stood in a huddle, a woman pointing to the house with her shoulders shaking.
“…blood everywhere,” carried on the light breeze.
I stilled and focused in, trying to hear more.
“We only just came home,” the woman sobbed. “…no idea how long she’s been like that.”
“Piers, come downstairs,” the mayor called.
Piers, as I now had a name to put with the butt-ugly face, gave one last shoulder barge of Everly’s door then swore, and his footsteps moved away. His voice joined the mayor’s downstairs. “What is it?”
“The bitch next door is screaming that their house-sitter has been murdered,” the mayor answered. “They walked in and found her body.”
Shite. A warning tightened my muscles. Another woman had been killed in Deadwater. Without the details, my fear could be a speculation, but the proximity to Everly’s house after she’d been in danger from the gang only days ago was a wake-up call.
I needed to get her out of here.
In that lay a problem. My plan, such as it was, had been based on me carrying Everly away, but I’d anticipated being able to use the same route out as last time. The incoming police would be all over the next house which my escape route skirted.
Sauntering past the cops with a body over my shoulder wasn’t a good look.
I returned to the bed and picked up her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. “Ye can’t hear me, but I’m going to get us out of here.”
Everly needed her possessions, so I collected the holdall she must’ve left here earlier and pulled out the work clothes, stuffing a better selection in their place. Soft leggings and long t-shirts. Her favourite hoodie. Pretty dresses that would suit a night out or seeing her friends, but not a work function.
Comfortable underwear along with the sexy-as-fuck stuff I wanted to see.
I tossed her laptop but left everything else in the bag. Makeup, her vibrator, contraceptive pills.
I lingered over the last item, and a new thought took over my mind. She’d wanted a baby more than anything. Above a career, and definitely above me. It was no effort to convince myself she didn’t need them anymore, but I’d need to convince her of the fact, which could take some time. Instead, I snapped a picture and sent it to my dealer, Marcus.
Shade: Make me a new pack of these, identical but sugar pills.
His reply was almost instant.
Marcus: Easily available. I’ll have them ready tonight.
Then we were ready to leave. No matter what, I was keeping Everly. Even if I had to trap her to make her stay.
As quietly as I could, I scoped out the house and garden. The mayor and his flunky were at the front door, talking together in low voices. Blue flashing lights lit the street.
It was now or never.
Bundling Everly in a sheet and tying a second one to it in a thick knot, I carried her to the balcony, checked to see no one was below, then slowly lowered her over the ledge, bracing myself to give her the softest descent. This was risky as fuck, but the alternative was…non-existent. When she touched the ground, I tossed her bag, climbed over the rail, and dropped noiselessly to the ground.
I held my crouch and unwrapped her, lifted her into my arms, then jogged down the path, heading for the tree line at the bottom of the garden. Out in the night, I was in my element. Arran had given me the nickname ‘Shade’ based on my preference for lurking at the back, being the watcher from the shadows. I knew how to use them and how to stay out of sight.
Sounds were louder in the dark, so I could hear a bark of complaint from the mayor out on the street then a retort from the police as they exited their vehicles, throwing around orders as if they could make a difference and undo the dead.
They’d done fuck all for the other women who’d died. Cherry had been discounted as a victim of her sex worker career, and Natasha’s death had been pinned on an internet stalker, debunked, then forgotten. Later, I’d find out what had happened here and if there was a connection, but right now, I needed to get Everly to safety.
Ducking through a hedgerow, I got us to the cover of the trees. Soft earth crumbled under my shoes.
“Everly?” a call chased us.
Through a gap in the branches, I made out the dickhead man who’d tried to break into her room. He stood on the patio under her room, the draped white sheet in his hands.
He was a big fucker. All fake muscles and a clean jaw.
I was going to enjoy taking him apart.
He glared down the garden and strode out. I could maybe outrun him and get to my car which was down the end of the alley again, and that would need to be quick as the cops were no doubt closing down the scene.
Strolling past with an unconscious lass would be a lark, but not so good for my objective for the evening.
“Everly, don’t you fucking dare run from me.” Piers drew closer, raking over the bushes with a mean gaze. At his sides, his fists were bunched.
He wanted to hurt her.
I’d kill him for even thinking it.
Gently, I placed her on a patch of leaf-strewn ground then turned, prowling down the line of the trees and echoing Piers’ path. He didn’t know the layout, I guessed. Where the exit points were. The fact there was a serial killer hidden and waiting to pounce.
“Come out,” he instructed. “I’ll forgive this once but not a second time. You will regret it.”
So fucking dead.
He closed in on the oak tree where he could duck under without dirtying his pretty clothes. Without even showing my face, I snapped out a fist from the leaf cover, smacking into the side of his face with a satisfying crunch.
Piers groaned and wheeled away. “You fucking slut. Was that a log?”
My mouth fell open in delight at an idea. If I could let him come to me again and get another hit in, I’d let him think it was Everly. Give her some small revenge for whatever shitty evening they’d had. Dark amusement sank power into my next hit. An uppercut. Piers rose from the floor then dropped like a stone.
I shook out and flexed my hand.
He didn’t get up.
“Oh, come on.” I exited the trees and stood over his prone body on the neat lawn. His head lolled to the side, his mouth open and bleeding. A sharp kick to the ribs brought a crunch of cracked bone but no reaction.
Disappointment rode my entertainment. That was far too easy. “Two hits, and you’re down. Never had a fight in your life?” I asked the body. “Come on, Piers. Fucking get up.”
I booted him again, this time in the head.
In the distance, more sirens wailed. I scowled and remembered what I was doing. Not a beatdown for an ugly fuck of a man, but an extraction of my woman.
Returning to Everly, I shouldered her bag and carefully brought her back into my arms, dusting a dried leaf from her hair. Then I sprinted. Down the edge of the neighbours’ garden on the access track with the broken light.
Thank fuck, it still didn’t work. At the corner, I edged around until I could see the front of Everly’s neighbours’ mansion. The driveway was at the other side of the house, and two police cars lit with blue blocked the entrance, a collection of people beyond. They weren’t moving yet or making any attempts to explore. Far enough away for me to slip off in the other direction, so long as no one looked our way.
A wail of sirens came from our right.
For fuck’s sake.
I tracked them coming up the road, their timing shocking. Drawing every fucking eye our way. The end of the track had a low gate, closed, but it was only made of spindly railing. No real cover if the new cops glanced over as they passed.
Maybe they’d even park this side of the building.
There was no time to change the plan. Nowhere else to go.
With a curse, I crouched, huddling over Everly to hide our hands and faces, me all in black and her in a torn purple evening gown.
I held my breath. For her, I’d make this work. I didn’t know how, but failure was impossible. Having her go back into that house with Piers, whose fault it was that we were seconds late from being safe and whom I really should’ve hit a few more times, wasn’t happening.
Together, we waited in the dark alley, the faint blue from the police cars up the road mixing with the lights from the incoming ones. They climbed the walls, the sirens filling the air.
They reached us. Slowed.
The siren abruptly cut out.
My damn heart beat so fast that all I could hear was my blood rushing in my ears.
Then they moved on. Lifting my head, I sighted the clear end of the alley. Then I crept to the corner, checking up the road. All eyes were on the new cops.
We had the smallest opportunity, but I’d make it work.
I lifted Everly and slunk low down the front garden to clear the gate, then took a risk, rounding my car to enter from the other side so anyone glancing down the pavement wouldn’t see a shadow.
The door’s clunk sounded a hundred times louder than it should’ve. I slid Everly onto the back seat, setting her bag down in the footwell, then I shut her in and waited.
Nothing happened. No shout came.
I took a breath. Opened the front passenger door. Eased inside, over the central console, and into my seat. In my rearview, the cops were climbing out to join their buddies. Thirty seconds on and they’d be surrounding the place.
Time to go.
I gunned the electric engine and glided out of the space, unseen, and kidnapped the mayor’s daughter, again.
Or, from my point of view, driving my lass to safety.
Everly was mine now. Every part of her. Asleep was better than awake, at least for what I had in store for her next.