Chapter 3
Chapter three
Scarlett fought with all she had–elbows, knees, and fists everywhere.
I turned into the side passage and headed for the iron gate, moving fast, keeping her high on my shoulder so she couldn’t get her feet under her. I needed her contained and in the SUV before the block woke up and the guard’s two brain cells finally rubbed together hard enough to spark.
I adjusted my grip without slowing as she fought like hell, refusing to give in.
Her fists hammered between my shoulder blades, hard enough to smart even through my coat.
She tried every way possible to make me drop her.
She bucked hard, as if she’d rather break her spine than let me carry her one more step.
And God help me, how she fought—feral and relentless, every bad instinct in me screaming to tie her up and fuck her all night.
My lip throbbed with every jolt, blood warming the corner of my mouth. My knee and shoulder ached from our scuffle, the tumble onto the step, and the chaos at the altar.
And fuck me, my cock was hard as stone.
Not because I enjoyed being beat to shite by the mayor’s little saint. Not because I was some depraved bastard getting off on holy blasphemy in a church.
But because she’d looked at me with that wicked smile right before she tore into my lip.
Because she’d ground her ass back into me, knowing exactly what she was doing.
Because she’d come at me with that mouth begging to be ruined.
And none of it matched her story. Not even close.
I tapped Lachlan’s name on my phone with my thumb and put it to my ear.
Just as the call connected, she twisted hard, snapping her teeth at the back of my neck.
“Do that again,” I snarled, “and I’ll turn you over my knee and wear your ass out.”
“Jesus, Lucian—”
Scarlett made a sound that could’ve been a laugh or a snarl.
“All that muscle,” she taunted, “and you still can’t handle a woman who won’t behave.”
“Shut it,” I muttered, hauling her toward the gate.
Lach chuckled.
“Get your ass out front—now,” I snapped, and ended the call.
She shifted, trying to reach the wall. Her fingers clawed for anything she could grasp.
I pocketed my phone and tightened my grip until she hissed. Just enough to remind her I was bigger. I was stronger. And I didn’t lose what I’d caught.
“You’re not taking me anywhere!”
“Watch me,” I said, shoving my shoulder into the iron gate. It flung open with a metallic groan that ricocheted through the passage.
And the little demon in my grasp—smart and quick—threw herself sideways.
She latched onto the gate frame with both hands.
“Fuck you,” she hissed. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you—”
“Dammit,” I bit out, planting my feet and yanking against her hold.
She didn’t budge.
It became a tug-of-war—me trying to drag her out, her clinging to the gate as though it were a lifeline. Her grip was unreal.
I should’ve admired it.
Honestly I did, in some dark corner of my head.
“Let go,” I ordered, breath steaming from my mouth.
“No!”
I shifted my hold, pinned her thighs harder with my forearm, and used my free hand to pry her fingers loose.
I swore under my breath. “Fuckin’ hell—will ya stop—”
Her last finger popped free, and she lunged again, but I had her.
I hauled her out into the open.
Snow hit my face as thick flakes drifted down under the streetlight’s glow, muting the city around me.
The next thing I knew, she sucked in a breath and screamed bloody murder.
A raw shriek tore down East 90th and echoed off the brick facades. It turned every window into a watching eye.
My blood went cold.
“Jesus Christ,” I snarled, shifting her higher on my shoulder again.
“HELP!” she roared, “HELP ME—”
“Shut your mouth,” I bit out, and slapped the back of her thigh.
She bucked and kept screaming anyway.
Of course she did.
The bored guard outside jerked upright as if he’d been shot with adrenaline, dropping his phone on the ground. He fumbled for his gun, eyes wide, face going pale as he finally realized what was happening.
He didn’t assess the situation.
He did the one thing idiots always did when fear grabbed their spine.
He raised his weapon and aimed it at the biggest target.
Both of us.
My rage hit so fast it almost blinded me.
This useless piece of shite was going to shoot through Hayes’s daughter to get to me.
“Don’t,” I snarled.
The guard’s hands shook as he barked, “Drop her! Drop her—”
Scarlett twisted, craning her head to see.
The guard panicked, then fired.
The first shot cracked through the night.
Then another.
Then another.
Even with the snow, the sound ricocheted off buildings, echoing down the street. Muzzle flash flared in the icy darkness.
He was spraying the space where we stood. The fucker couldn’t hit the side of a barn if he tried.
For a split second, I saw exactly how it would go if I moved wrong with Scarlett still over my shoulder. A bullet clipping her ribs. Her throat. Her skull. Her blood on the snow.
Pure white-hot fury flooded my veins.
I spun hard, shifting my body so she was further away from his wild aim.
Then I drew.
My new SIG sat heavy and perfect in my hand—fresh from Luca’s ritual. My grip was confident. I’d always had a natural affinity for handguns.
The guard fired again, the shot whistling past us.
I leveled the gun and aimed low.
One shot.
A single, precise crack.
The round hit his knee dead-on, the impact brutal.
Bone fractured with a splintering snap. The guard’s leg buckled sideways, the joint collapsing at a horrifying angle that didn’t belong on a human body.
He screamed in agony—high and desperate, humiliating. He hit the ground hard, palms slapping slush, gun clattering away as he grabbed at his shattered knee and howled into the night.
Blood flooded the whiteness beneath him fast, soaking his pant leg in a spreading bloom.
My finger stayed steady on the trigger, but I didn’t fire again.
I could’ve ended him.
It would’ve been easy.
But a dead body outside a church on Christmas night was a media shitstorm you couldn’t bury. A private contractor with his knee blown out? That was a warning. That was a lesson.
Scarlett stared at him for half a heartbeat, her face pale under the streetlights, hair wild around her shoulders.
Then she was a blur of motion, wrenching free of the loosened hold I’d had on her, and took off running.
She launched down the sidewalk, her boots pounding over the slush. There was no hesitation from her. No looking back.
My chest tightened—part rage, part shock.
“Scarlett!” I barked before I could stop myself.
She didn’t even flinch.
She ate the distance in seconds, sprinting straight down 90th toward the park and the riverside—toward the secure grounds that protected the mayor’s residence.
“Dammit.”
Behind me, the guard kept screaming, the sound carrying loud enough to drag people out of warm beds and to windows.
NYPD would come. Fast.
I pivoted toward the curb just as tires crunched over icy pavement.
Lachlan’s SUV fishtailed and skidded into place. The headlights illuminated the guard on the ground, the blood, the gun, the wreckage of my plan.
The passenger door popped open and I dove inside.
Lachlan gunned it, and the SUV surged forward.
“What the fuck happened?” he snapped, eyes flicking from me to the street to the guard writhing in the rearview. “You get mauled?”
“Shut up,” I bit out, pointing hard through the windshield. “Follow her. East. Now.”
I scanned the street and sidewalks ahead and spotted her.
“There! On the right.” I gestured to a shadow sprinting beside a couple of parked cars, hair like a flame behind her, legs pumping, boots throwing slush.
Lach cursed and punched the gas.
We chased her at a distance—close enough to keep her in sight, far enough not to appear as a kidnapping in progress on a quiet street only a couple of blocks from the mayor’s home.
My heart hammered against my ribs, adrenaline still spiking.
She was fast as hell to be in winter boots.
She took the corner hard, cutting toward the park and East End Avenue, never slowing. The snow made everything brighter, the streetlights reflecting off it in a glare that turned her into a flicker—there, gone, and there again between parked cars.
“She’s headin’ for Gracie Mansion,” Lach noted calmly.
“Aye,” I snarled. “She knows exactly where she’s going.”
It was about half a mile, and she’d covered it like greased lightning—she could taste safety behind those gates. She knew I wouldn’t risk grabbing her where the mayor’s security network thickened.
I watched her close in on the secured grounds, the dark shapes of guards near the entrances.
We couldn’t slow down too much. Couldn’t creep. Couldn’t stop.
Not with sirens converging back at the church.
Scarlett hit the steps at the perimeter and sprinted up them, disappearing into the protected world.
In an instant, she was gone.