Chapter 37
37
FROM ANCIENT BLOOD brEAK TO NEW MUTINY
Rio
The only thing I can think about as I navigate the streets to Prime Vault is how, moving forward, sleeping without Ivory is going to be hell. Rolling over and feeling her next to me. Pulling her into me and melting in her warmth. Waking up to find her naked in my shower, just waiting for me to toss her back in bed and have her for breakfast?
Yeah, I can get used to that.
I almost asked her to move in with me after she admitted she was all in, that she was mine, but I know it’s way too soon—even if the selfish, mercurial bastard in me thinks it’s a great idea. I’ll just have to wait, though it won’t be so easy after a decade apart.
Pulling up to the hunter green security gates, I punch in my access code and wait as they roll open. Prime Vault Storage is just outside of city limits off a beaten road, making it the perfect spot to unload new product and temporarily store it before distribution. Hell, with an entire row of climate-controlled units, packers come out here and get shit done on the spot. One roll of the door and they have all the privacy they need.
Of course, the fact I’ve paid off the owners to remove security cameras and turn the other cheek helps, too, but still, the remote location keeps any possible heat off the hotel.
A couple turns and two long straightaways to the very back of the massive lot, I find only Zeb and Clarence waiting with two of the unit doors rolled open.
No box truck in sight.
Easing the Yukon to a stop beside Zeb’s electric blue WRX, I step out onto the pavement and hustle over to them. “Where is everyone?”
Zeb shrugs. “Tony said he’s running late. We’ve been here almost an hour already.”
Fucking Tony.
He’s been delivering for my family since I was a kid. I’ve told my dad he’s too old to still be making these kinds of trips, but the man refuses to fire him. “We go way back, Rio. I can’t do that to him,” I can hear him now and roll my eyes.
Lugging my phone out of my pocket, I tap into my contacts and scroll down to Tony’s name. That’s as far I get before a drop down notification appears at the top of my screen. I’m clicking the preview before the ringer finishes chiming.
Petal
Every time I get hit with a flashback, I’m texting you since they’re your fault. If I have to relive it, so do you.
Start the counter: 1
Do not fucking smile. Don’t do it.
I barely manage to keep a straight face as I type out my reply, mentally clapping myself on the back for dicking her down so good, the whole night is playing on a loop inside her filthy little mind. I want her foaming at the mouth next time I see her.
Me
Tell me which part has you wet for me rn…
ALL of it.
Nah, be specific. I wanna know what’s working you up so I can do it over and over again.
Srsly, all of it. I think I was high at one point lol.
Taking notes here.
Repeat last night.
Yes, please.
“He’s here,” Clarence announces in that grunting tone of his, right as the rumbling sound of the box truck and the alerting beeps as it reverses break through the silence of the lot.
Keep that counter coming. I have plans for the final tally. G2G. 143.
Those plans being making her come equally as many times. Shooting off the text, I shove the device back into my pocket and sidle up beside my guys. Zeb’s ADHD ass is already bouncing on his toes, taking a long pull from his vape while Clarence is stoic and calm as ever. They’re night and day, these two, but they’re like brothers to me.
“That Belucci you were texting?” Zeb asks around a megawatt grin.
I hit him with the most unamused expression in my arsenal, which only earns me a choked laugh. “Shut up, man.” I jab him with my elbow, noting through my peripheral how badly Clarence wants to laugh, too. “Both of you.”
Clarence lifts his beefy hands in surrender but says nothing. He’s a man of few words, always has been. I appreciate that now more than ever.
“Hey, I get it, brother.” Zeb knocks into me jovially. “She’s fine as hell, and you guys have a past. Believe me, I get it. I’ve never been able to move past Cira, and I don’t think I want to.”
I reply with nothing more than a hum, focusing on the box truck as it looms closer and closer. Much like Alvaro and Leo, I’m not ready to divulge the dirty details to them just yet. Perhaps it’s out of habit, after having to keep it under wraps all those years ago, but I’m holding what Ivory and I have close for the time being. Really fucking close. It’s more pertinent now than ever before. More precious .
Time will tell when we have to come clean.
As the truck finally stops, a mere five feet shy of the units, Zeb breaks the short distance to roll the door open. Only it shoots up before his fingers graze the handle, the sound akin to a rumbling crack of thunder, revealing Benedikt Koshka and a handful of his men inside.
This is why Tony was late. He was ambushed. Where is he?
I’ve barely grazed the shell of the Glock holstered at my back, shoving all thoughts of my father’s friend aside for the moment, when bullets go flying—one of them blasting Zeb between the eyes. It happens in slow motion, I swear to fucking God. One minute he’s there, alive, ready for an unexpected war, and the next he’s falling limp to the ground, a fountain of crimson pouring from his head as his weapon clatters to the asphalt.
Dead.
Gone.
My jaw falls slack, but the pop of another bullet sucks me out of the vortex in time to find Benedikt far closer than I’d like. Two of his guys grab me and disarm me in a flash, hauling me into the empty storage unit as if I weigh nothing. Idly, I hear Clarence grunting and groaning amongst the chaos, but I can’t see the big oaf, only Benedikt and that fresh cut emblazoned on one side of his face.
It’s flaming red and angry as fuck.
He says nothing as he closes in on me, his lip curled in a malevolent, purposeful snarl. Nothing until I feel the blade puncture my abdomen, sucking the air out of my lungs. “How was it you said last night? I’ll show you impulsive?” he growls, pulling the blade free, then promptly jabbing it in a different spot.
I feel every inch of it penetrating my insides, I do, but the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through me blocks out the actual pain. I’m rarely stunned, rarely taken by surprise, always anticipating any and every move an opposing player could make.
I was not anticipating this.
“Benedikt Koshka isn’t afraid of waging a war, son.” My father’s sound advice from that night in the club rings out loud and clear as Benedikt impales me with the blade a third time. The words blend and warble for a few seconds before I hear the bastard’s from that same night in the pit.
“You have what I want.”
Then last night…
“Ah, Ivory. Tasty little thing, yeah?”
“I just saw her today, actually. Shame our conversation didn’t end as I’d hoped, though.”
“Probably shouldn’t mention she was begging me to fuck her then, huh?”
A savage roar rips free from my chest as the image of him and Ivory reconfigures, my entire body thrashing against the two men holding me captive. “I’ll fucking kill you!” I seethe, flinching as a tidal wave of pain finally shoots to the forefront, sticky, wet warmth streaming down my torso.
Koshka throws his head back and howls a laugh, wiping my blood off the weapon onto his perfectly pressed slacks. “I don’t see how a dead man can wield a blade, but go for it, Guerra. I’d love to see you try.” He leans in close and spins the knife my way, offering me the handle.
I stare down at it, then back at him. His smile and the way it slowly spreads across his pretty boy face says it all. I underestimated him, stupidly, I should add. I knew better, but was riding the high of the hunt, of leaving my mark without thinking about the repercussions of my actions. Even when Ivory brought it up after the fact, I waved her off flippantly and misjudged his ability to fire back. I got way too cocky, and that inflated ego, that big ass head of mine is going to be my demise.
He’s going to kill me.
I’m gonna bleed out right here in this fucking storage unit, and then he might go after her. No, he’ll definitely go after Ivory now that he knows whatever affections she threw his way were complete and utter bullshit.
I can’t let that happen.
Despite how weak I feel, every limb in my body suddenly heavier than an anchor, and the dizzy spell conjuring three sets of my target, I move. I don’t know how, but I do. I hawk a loogie right in his face and successfully slam my head against his. As Benedikt bellows and trips backward several feet, the clatter of his blade sounding off along with it, I throw my head back against of one the motherfuckers behind me and forcefully kick the other in the shin, effectively worming my way out of their grasp.
Everything hurts. Fuck, it hurts so goddamn much, but I prowl the space like a blind man for my gun. I find it somewhere near Koshka’s feet, who’s just regaining his footing and charging toward me .
“Steady. Hold steady,’ my father’s voice and all those years of training ground me to the spot… Until Benedikt gets close enough and I smash my fist into his windpipe on a brutal roar, sending him crashing into the storage unit’s wall. I go right for the open wound on his face, knowing it’ll incapacitate him in double time.
One punch.
Another.
A third.
I’m seconds away from unleashing a fourth, relishing every caterwaul tearing from his lips as his life source clings to my knuckles, when sirens blaze like a calvary in the background.
“We gotta go!” his men, those who are still alive, belt out in unison.
I’m thrown aside a blink later, literally throttled to the ground like a piece of trash. I don’t have it in me to get up this time, struggling to breathe as my injuries finally take hold.
“Clarence,” I growl in agony, hoping to God that hulk of a man is still alive, my disoriented gaze honed in on Zeb’s dead body and the pool of blood he’s lying in.
A similar one streaming out on the concrete beneath me.
The last thing I remember as Clarence throws me into the backseat of the Yukon is how Benedikt’s getting away.
How my girl’s in danger and I?—
Black.