5. Officer Burns
FIVE
OFFICER BURNS
LUCA
“ W hat are you— ow !”
My stomach twists at her cry of pain, but what else can I do? I’d rather her be blissfully unaware of what happens next. Whether it’s a ride in the trunk or… or whatever Devil has planned for her, it’s the least I can do.
Or is it?
Before I can see the renewed look of fear and terror and hurt in her big, brown eyes, I firm my resolve and grab the trunk. I feel the shake all the way to my bones, and only hope there’s enough oxygen in there to keep her breathing.
Devil is already in the back seat by the time I’m sliding into mine behind the wheel. With the engine on, I shift the car into drive and peel off down the empty street.
I don’t say anything for the first few minutes of the drive. My thoughts are with the girl in the trunk and how I laid her out on trash bags meant for a bloody body. I haven’t prayed in years, but I find myself muttering ‘Our father…’ under my breath as I sneak a peek in the rearview mirror.
Any car that I use to drive Devil around comes with a glass divider. I prefer it. There are certain elements of the business that I was uncomfortable with at first. I didn’t need to hear the details of how the girls upstairs are trained and treated—especially when more than a couple of them offered me a freebie once they realized how screwed up I am—or where and when a gun drop-off would be happening. He’s the boss. I’m the driver. I’ve earned his trust, and I did that by insisting on keeping that divider up.
We both have a control to lower it. If Devil has directions for me or other orders, he can drops the divider so that he doesn’t have to raise his voice. In the three years that I’ve been his driver, I’ve never used the control on the dash.
Until now.
I don’t know what comes over me. I can see that he has his phone up to his ear; from the shape, style, and color on the back, I know it’s the phone he uses for business, not the one that is devoted solely to his wife’s calls.
I clear my throat, catching his attention. “Boss?”
“Hang on, Royce.” Devil lowers his phone. “What is it, Luca?”
I drop my gaze from the rearview mirror, staring out through the windshield instead so that I can’t see the boss’s reflection as I ask him plainly, “Can I have her?”
I don’t have to say who.
Devil sucks in a breath. “What do you mean? You wanna keep her?”
Yes .
What?
“No. Not like that. Not like?—”
“You mean, not like Devil who blackmailed his wife into marrying him so that I could keep my Ava?”
There’s a dangerous edge to his voice when he reminds us of his first wedding to his wife. Most of the Sinners don’t know the true story of how Devil convinced his wife to marry him for the first time. Their second wedding was a syndicate affair; after a large church wedding, they even had a reception at the Devil’s Playground that we all attended. But their first wedding is an open secret in his inner circle—including the driver who sometimes hears more than he should.
It worked out for him. Ava Crewes is head over heels for Devil, and the mother of his child. She would do anything for him…
…and, suddenly, I have an idea.
“Let me keep her, boss. Let me make her mine. If I win her heart… if I win her loyalty… she won’t snitch.”
“A dead girl won’t snitch, either,” Devil says. “I’m sorry, Luca, but facts are facts. The DA’s salivating over someone who’s willing to talk. You know how many Sinners and Dragonflies we’ve had to disappear because they were willing to turn state’s witness against me and Damien? Fuck, no. Especially with Winter close enough to buy off Collins, we can’t dick around. The girl has to go.”
My fingers flex around the steering wheel. I dare a peek in the rearview mirror. “What if I take responsibility for her? Make it so she won’t blab?”
“She’s a liability.”
“She doesn’t have to be.”
For a moment, Devil stares into my soul, dark eyes meeting mine in the reflective surface… and then he lifts the phone back to his ear. “Royce? Yeah. Take care of Collins for me.” A pause. “No. Don’t worry about the girl yet. I’m still making up my mind on that. Yeah.” Another pause. “Right. Call you back. Oh, and tell Nicolette sorry for pulling you out of bed. If it makes you feel any better, me and Luca won’t be turning in anytime soon, either. Bye.”
Devil drops the phone against his meaty thigh. ““Go on. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I don’t even know what I’m thinking, only that those pretty brown eyes of hers are seared their way into my brain. But I try my best as I navigate the streets that have become as much a part of me as the blood in my veins. All of my attention back on the road even as my thoughts are with the girl in the trunk— Is she okay? Did the sedative take? Will she hate me…— I make my case.
Devil lets me ramble as we roll. When I’m done, all he does is lift his phone back up again after selecting a contact.
I wait, heart beating wildly in my chest.
“Burns? It’s Devil. I need a favor…”
Tanner explained that, once injected with the sedative, the effects will last for at least four hours. Depending on the height and weight of the person I used it on, it could be a little longer, a little shorter.
Banking on the fact that I should have at least the four hours—though, realistically, it would be longer since the girl in the trunk is smaller than a full-grown man—I didn’t waste any time.
Officer Mason Burns—Mace for short, though most of us just refer to him as Burns—is a cop on Devil’s payroll. About a decade older than me, give or take, he’s been a beat cop his entire career. He likes it that way, too, walking around the city, patrolling with his new trainee, and reporting back to Devil for a heft deposit to his bank account at the end of the month.
He’s not the only cop that Devil pays for. At least one-third of the Springfield PD is bought by the Sinners Syndicate, with another chunk serving on Damien Libellula’s dime. But when I asked Devil if I could have the girl, he immediately got in touch with Burns.
On the one hand, Rolls and Devil agreed that the vice mayor’s body needed to be found. If only to remind the rest of Springfield not to even think about rising up against the Sinners, he needed to be made an example of. Plus, the battered, bloody, and bullet hole-riddled corpse would be a message to Johnny Winter, too.
Rolls, Killian, and Juan are responsible for relocating the body away from the scene. A heads up to Burns and his fellow officers—including his lieutenant—meant the murder would be a ‘tragedy’, but not necessarily a crime. Some of the straight cops might try to investigate it as such. They won’t get too far, and with Mayor Harrison desperate to keep his secret about fucking male aides half his age while presenting himself has a happily married, doting Christian father of four, he’ll have a new vice mayor by the end of the week, no questions asked about what exactly happened to the last one.
That’s the thing. Without someone reputable to admit they saw what happened, it’s easy to get away with murder. A bubbly girl at the wrong place at the wrong time could be the Sinners’s downfall if the right cop or the right judge took up the case.
Maybe we could buy her off. Everyone in Springfield has a price, and it’s possible that Devil could’ve found hers. Then again, maybe it would just be easier to make her disappear. Walking around Skid Row alone after dark… wasn’t she just asking for trouble?
That’s how Devil sees it.
Not me.
I’ve never thought of myself as a white knight before, but something about her… I know we only had one conversation, but even before she opened her mouth, I was struck dumb by her beauty. I haven’t felt such instant attraction to anyone since Emily, and there are times I remember her and wonder if I wanted her so badly because she was Emily or because she was the only girl my age in the HCofJD.
Devil doesn’t say it, but I get the vibe that he only agreed to give me the girl because it’s the first time I’ve shown any interest in one since I’ve been a Sinner. I try not to look too closely at that. If he’s telling me I can basically babysit our captive until the vice mayor sitch is all taken care of or I can convince her to keep quiet, I’m not going to second-guess it.
I’ll do anything to keep her from becoming another casualty.
Should I be so enthralled by a woman I barely met? Of course not. But I blame myself. If she hadn’t knocked on my window… if I hadn’t been parked on the street, waiting for the boss… if her pouty lips and bright eyes and wild curls hadn’t distracted me… she wouldn’t be sprawled out on a cot in Mace Burns’s basement.
That’s exactly where we are. In a small mountain town about an hour-and-a-half outside of Springfield, Officer Burns has a wooden hunting cabin that he uses to flee the big city with his wife. Devil knew about it, and the favor he asked of the cop? Was to let me bring th girl in the trunk up to the mountains where I’ll keep her with me until everything blows over—or Devil has to make another decision.
He doesn’t need a driver. He’s perfectly capable of driving himself around, and if he wants to keep up appearances, he can just grab one of the other Sinners while I’m out of town. Without any family that I’m in contact with, it’s not like I need to be around for the holidays. If I want the girl, I have to keep the girl, and that means as my prisoner in a bonafide cop’s secret basement.
There’s a cot down here. A shower and a toilet down here. A lock on the basement door, and—more importantly—the cot comes equipped with a pair of handcuffs looped around the headboard bars, plus chains perfect for what Devil has in mind: well and truly making this girl my prisoner until I can make her my… my…
Fuck if I know what she’s going to be. But I’ve made myself her protector, and that’s what I’m going to do.
It’s been three hours now. That’s how long it took for Burns to meet us at the Playground to drop off his keys, then for me to drop Devil off at Paradise Suites before I stopped at my place to pack whatever shit I thought I’d need for a while. I was taking the town car with me—obviously, considering the precious cargo in the trunk—and with Burns’s address plugged into the GPS on the dash, I started the ninety-minute drive a little past midnight.
Burns’s doesn’t have any neighbors. His cabin is at the end of a long, winding, dirt path, surrounded by trees. I parked the town car behind it to be on the safe side, and after opening up the cabin, turning the lights on, and finding the door that leads to the basement, I went and retrieved the girl.
Devil already searched her over. She has no ID so, for now, she’s just the girl in the trunk. She told me she left her phone at home, and she must’ve because she doesn’t have one of those, either. In fact, the only thing we found was a tube of lip gloss and some cash.
She’s still sleeping now, wearing the leather jacket she had on and a pair of black winter boots. I leave them on as I lay her out on the bed. Seeing the handcuffs, knowing I have to even if I don’t want to, I reach for her nearest hand.
Her nails are short and manicured, the pink polish impeccable. No rings on her fingers—and, yes, I looked purposely—though I do see that she has a faded tattoo peeking out from between her thumb and forefinger.
It’s an ‘H’. Drawn in a vaguely cursive style, that’s all it is. An ‘H’.
I wonder what it means?
I run my thumb over the web of her hand, absently tracing the inked ‘H’ hidden there when her hand is closed. Her skin is so soft, I can’t stop myself from fantasizing about what it would be like if she was touching me .
Stroking me.
Fondling me…
Fuck .
What are you doing, Luca? She’s at your mercy. You brought her here to keep her safe, not to fantasize about shit that will never, ever happen.
I need her loyalty. That’s it. If that means I need to steal her love, too, I will. To keep her alive, she has to want to protect me and my fellow Sinners above all else. If I expect that she’ll go running to the cops first chance she gets, Devil won’t even be the one to put her down. It’ll be my responsibility.
She is my responsibility.
And the first thing I have to do is make sure that she can’t leave me before I can convince her that she wants to keep quiet about what she saw…
Holding her arm over her head, laying it on the pillow, I use the free side of the handcuff attached to the headboard to keep her on the bed. She’s motionless and still, the sedative holding her under as I quickly drop to my knee.
Trying not to think about what Burns and his wife do down here with a pair of handcuffs and a shackle and length of chain connected to one of the cot’s legs, I fish it out from under the bed. It’s sturdier than the cuffs, and because it’s heavy, too, I make sure to loop the metal shackle over the top of her jeans to protect her ankle.
There. One hand cuffed to the headboard, a leg chained to the cot. She’ll stay right where I put her until I can explain why I had to take her. I don’t want to hurt her. I’ve basically kidnapped her to keep her safe, but despite the naivety she gave off earlier tonight—walking around Skid Row without her phone, for one—I don’t think she’s going to be happy to wake up and realize she’s trapped in this mountain cabin with me.
She will be. I’ll make her love me. I’ll do whatever it takes so that this innocent creature will never betray me. I’ll be her captor and her savior, and when I’m sure that I own her completely, I’ll let her go somewhere far away from Springfield, where she can be safe and Devil won’t consider her a threat to squeal on us.
Crouching low, I trail my fingers across her forehead, stroking the top of her hair.
God, she’s so fucking beautiful. I only wish that we’d met in a different life, or in a different way. Before my parents fucked me up, or Emily shattered my heart to the point it’s basically unusable. Before she was there in the aftermath of Devil killing Collins. Before she ran and I had to chase her…
I might have been able to love her. Already, I feel this kinship with this woman. Like I was meant to rescue her, and she was meant to stumble into my life if only so I could protect hers. I’m finding it difficult to refrain from touching her. Even now, I’m caressing her skin before brushing her curls out of her face so that I can marvel at the length of her eyelashes, or how her lips curve slightly even as she’s unconscious.
I might have been able to love her, but I won’t be able to set her free until I’m sure she trusts me. It’s the only way I can trust her. And then she can return to her life, I’ll go back to my steering wheel, and we can both forget any of this happened.
Because, if we don’t, she’s dead.
And as loyal as I am to the boss, I just… I can’t let that happen.