Chapter 44 A Blackened Soul
A BLACKENED SOUL
Brendan
It was everything I could do not to dive across the room and tackle Ezra fucking Huntington to the floor. I felt like a leashed wolf, rabid in a cage, as I took in Simone’s appearance: dirty, bound, her shirt torn, and the gun to her head.
“Whoa, man.” Mac’s hand found my arm, pulling me back. “Give it a beat. He’s not going to shoot her. She’s his collateral.”
Together, we scanned the room quickly. His men had been quickly dispatched, both of them knocked out and zip-tied.
Right now, it was just us against Huntington, who unfortunately had the benefit of three hostages: Simone tied to a chair in the center.
Her sister passed out on the floor, and the little girl, Kylie, huddled under a big table behind them.
Huntington had positioned himself behind Simone’s chair, his hand around Simone’s neck while he held the gun.
All I could see was murder. And the glassy fear in my girl’s blue eyes.
“I don’t have a clear shot,” Mac murmured. “Get him talking.”
He slid back into the shadows, but not before Huntington took note of him and the other detail I’d brought with me.
I’d come with an army. Not that it did me any good.
“Simone,” I said. “Baby. I’m here. It’s gonna be okay.”
Tears brightened those oceanic eyes. “I know. I knew you’d come.”
“Did you?” Suddenly, there was only one thing to say.
It was everything I could do not to dive straight for her.
Take the shot myself if I could. But if that didn’t work, and the worst happened, I needed her to know one thing.
“I love you, you know that? I love you more than fuckin’ anything.
Whatever happens, know that, all right?”
Her lower lip trembled. “I know. I do. And I love you too. I’m sorry I left, Brendan. So sorry.”
“It’s okay, baby. I’m here now. We’re going to get out of this. I promise.”
How could one small exchange make me want to throw myself to my knees and commit murder at the same time? For the first time in my life, emotions were clouding every instinct I had.
I never thought this woman would ever need the cold, calculating bastard inside me, but right now, he just might save her life.
Right now, Simone didn’t need her Brendan. She needed, of all people, The Black Prince.
“This is all very touching.” Huntington shoved the gun harder against Simone’s temple, causing her to squeak. “But there’s only one thing I want to hear right now, ‘Black Prince.’ What are you going to do to save your damsel in distress?”
Somehow, I managed to tear my eyes from hers. I took satisfaction in the way the fucker shuddered when my stare found him. Even with the gun, he was scared.
Spineless fucking degenerate.
“What do you want?” I demanded. “Let her go, and we’ll negotiate. You got the farm. She doesn’t have anything else to do with this since your fight is with me.”
“No, my ‘fight’ is with your entire fucking empire,” Huntington snapped. “And you know exactly what I want. Did you think I would settle for a measly fucking farm when I want an empire? I took it for leverage, Black. You were getting played on top of that building, and you didn’t even know it!”
By the time he was finished, his voice had risen at least an octave in his excitement, like the possibility of outsmarting me was better than any deal he actually accomplished.
“What if I could get it back for you?” I said.
“The Ventnor deal. You and my brother can finish what you started. Build your suburban wasteland out here if that’s what you want.
Just let them free, and I’ll draw up the paperwork today.
I promise. It will be the start of your own empire.
One you built instead of one you stole.”
Unfortunately, my idea didn’t fly.
“My father disowned me entirely because of you, once he discovered the properties you sold me were useless.” Huntington sounded more like a spoiled brat than a grown man.
“‘Patchwork garbage,’ he called it. Now, I’m stuck doing business out of a shithole building in fucking Woonsocket, and you get to dump everything I’ve worked for over the last five years? I don’t fucking think so!”
As he spoke, it became clear that nothing I could offer was ever going to be enough. Ezra Huntington wasn’t looking to build his own accomplishments; he wanted his daddy’s approval. Which, in his mind, was only going to happen in one way. Destruction. Or revenge.
I shook my head. “I can’t give you what you want. That’s not possible, and you know it.”
“Oh, no?” He pulled out a wrinkled packet of papers from his coat pocket and tossed them onto the floor for me to take.
I picked them up and spread them out. “A contract?” I almost had to respect the guy. Almost. At least he was prepared.
“A sale,” Huntington amended. “For half your shares in Blackguard Holding. A seat on the board. Voting rights.”
“You want my company,” I said. It was basically the same thing. “And I get what?”
“Aside from her life?”
“Brendan, don’t do it,” Mac whispered next to me. “Just keep him talking. I’ll get a shot eventually.”
“The farm.” I paged through the contract, something I’d never in my right mind sign under duress. Probably never at all. But…yep, he’d thought of everything. “You included the farm. My shares in exchange for the farm.”
“Brendan, no, it’s not worth it.” Simone’s voice shook with the effort not to lose it.
The gun at her temple didn’t move, but when I looked up, fear had creased her normally smooth brow, and a thin line of sweat fell over her temple. She looked like she was about to fall apart.
“Please,” she whispered.
I looked at Huntington. “You wouldn’t really do that. Commit murder. Where do you think you’ll be then?”
“How do you know what I wouldn’t do?” His eyes dilated, and I wondered if there was some other substance besides pride driving this insanity.
“Aunt Simone?” The small voice of Simone’s niece, the little girl who had been kidnapped just days ago, broke through the chaos as she crawled out from under her table to sit at Simone’s feet. She looked up at the gun pressed to her aunt’s head and screamed.
That was when the gun started to shake.
Fear choked every word I had.
No, I didn’t know what this fucker was capable of. What kinds of mistakes he might make if this standoff continued.
It only took one slip of his finger to pull that trigger, even by accident.
I knew what I had to do.
“Brendan, don’t,” Simone called. “He won’t shoot me. He won’t. He can’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do!” Huntington’s shriek was nearing Biblical levels right before he slapped Simone across the face.
I lunged again as the gun moved, flinching when I thought it might, just might, go off.
Only Mac’s arm held me back. “Easy, Brendan.”
I could only feel one thing: the desperate, soul-searing need to see my girl safe. “Jesus, Ezra, don’t—Christ, fine, I’ll sign it. You can have it. You can have whatever the fuck you want. Just let them go. Let them all go.”
“So your goons can rush in here and take over? I don’t think so.” He nodded at the papers in my hand. “Sign it. Then we’ll talk.”
I could feel my carefully constructed world crumbling around me. My brothers would never forgive me. The board would revolt. Everything I’d ever worked for would be gone.
It only took one last look at Simone to know the rest didn’t fucking matter.
In a flurry, I signed the documents.
“Brendan, no!” Simone cried.
“It’s fine, angel,” I told her, though my voice shook on every word as I finished going through the contract.
Shares, gone. Board seat, gone.
My legacy.
Gone.
I finished the last page and held it out to Huntington. “You want this? Let her go.”
He sneered. “First, you disarm your men. They put their weapons on the floor and sit next to you.”
“And then you leave us the fuck alone.”
Huntington just stared.
I turned to Mac, who was already shaking his head in disapproval. “Do it. Bring the others.”
My head of security, looking very much like he wanted to murder Huntington and his other men, barked a few orders.
He then released Huntington’s two men, and all four of my security team abandoned their weapons and somehow managed to cram their big bodies to the floor beside me, leaving a clear lane for Huntington to leave.
“Done.” I tossed the contract to the floor where Huntington still stood, that fucking gun still aimed at Simone’s head. “Now, let her go. And get the fuck off my property.”
Huntington gestured at his own men to collect the contract. They all pulled out their guns and pointed them at us. And it was only then that Huntington finally dropped his from Simone and allowed them to shelter him on his way out the door.
“See you at the next board meeting,” he called on his way out.
I didn’t answer. I was too busy cutting Simone loose from the chair and pulling her into my arms.
“Mac?” I called over my shoulder.
“On it.”
I barely noticed the way he and two of his men crept out of the building while one stayed behind to administer aid to Simone’s sleeping sister and Kylie.
I was too busy consoling my girl.
“I’m here, baby,” I said as I picked her up, if only to take her seat and gather her onto my lap. “I’m here. You’re safe, I promise.”
“Selena,” she mumbled, shoulders shaking. “Kylie.”
I glanced at where the little girl was sitting next to her mother, trying to revive her along with the security agent. Selena coughed as her eyes opened, though she was clearly still groggy. “They’re safe now. You’re all safe.”
Her eyes finally lifted, glassy with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Angel.” I stroked her hair, dusty and wet with tears, out of her face. She’d never looked more beautiful. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I shouldn’t have left without talking to you. I thought—God, I was so mad, Brendan, but I shouldn’t have—”
“Stop.” I swiped her tears away with my thumbs. “It’s not your fault—that’s on me. If I hadn’t been so goddamn selfish…if I hadn’t been such a heartless prick from the beginning, or at least told you what was going on, none of this would have happened—”
“But—”
“But nothing,” I cut her off gently then because I had to drop a kiss onto that perfect mouth.
A sigh rumbled deep in my chest.
Home.
That word again.
It wasn’t anything to do with my house or her apartment or bread or anything other than her.
I was a bad man.
I’d always known that.
But even the worst parts of me needed this woman, and somehow, that made them better.
Then she was kissing me too, with the kind of bite I was used to administering, not taking from others. Her hands threaded through my hair and yanked, that sweet mouth opening, her lithe body pressing into mine.
Take me, she seemed to say with every swipe of that delicate tongue. I’m yours.
How can that be when I belong to you? I wanted to answer.
I decided to stop wondering and just accept her love for what it was. A shining bright twin of my own.
“But…your company,” she whispered, breath hitched when we broke apart.
“Listen to me.”
My hands framed her face, forcing her to focus those big blue eyes on me. To see the truth in what I said. “I don’t care about anything else. Not the company. Not the goddamn boardroom. Just you. Always you.”
Her fingers curled tighter into my shirt, as if she could anchor me to the promise. But before she could answer, we were interrupted by Mac’s voice at the door.
“Brendan.”
I turned to where my head of security had just returned. “Yeah?”
“We tracked down two. One drove off with the papers, but we caught the other and Huntington on the property line. We have them secured in the forest. What do you want to do with them?”
I stood, Simone still cradled in my arms. “I’ll be right there.” Carefully, I set her on the floor. “I’ll be right back, baby.”
But Simone’s hand on my sleeve begged my attention. “Brendan, just let them take care of it. Please. You don’t have to do anything else.”
I wanted to stay with her. I really did.
But I also knew I’d already sacrificed too much to save her not to see it through to the end. To make sure, at least, that this fucker would never hurt me or mine again.
As I followed Mac out to the edge of the forest on the other side of the road, my phone buzzed with a text from Ronan:
Ronan
Found her yet?
I stared at the screen for a long moment, then typed back:
She’s safe. I’ll tell you the rest later.
His text came back almost immediately.
Ronan
I’m going to have a fucking mess to clean up this time, won’t I?
I stared at it for a long time. Yeah, mess didn’t cover it.
Don’t worry. I’m doing the dirty work for you this time.
Then I turned my phone off and accepted the gun from Mac that had been recovered during the pursuit.
Deep in the forest, I fired two shots.
I knew I’d hear their echoes for the rest of my life, but I welcomed the legacy. A reminder of my brutality and what I was willing to do for the people I loved.
Because even in the darkness falling over the farm, even as the sirens sounded in the distance, I knew I did the right thing.
Simone was my saving grace. She always would be.
My soul was black from the beginning. It could take a few final marks to save hers.