Chapter Twenty-Five
In which some people really do not know when to give up.
Wallace…
I always shower first. After a job I clean up before entering polite society again. I’m not the lunatic showing up reeking of smoke with ash in my hair, but my need to see Scarlett takes precedence over my ritual.
She’s safe, I know she’s safe.
Gio is one of Lucas’s best men, and I have two other MacTavish guards who will work in rotation with him. We land on top of the MacTavish International building and I change out of my tach suit in the car on the way to the SkyBox.
“Look at ye, ye precious newlywed!” Logan grins.
“Dinnae make me punch ye in the throat,” I shrug on a sweater. “I promised your wife that I’d try to stop doing that.”
Taking a deep breath in the lift shooting up to the restaurant, I try to focus. The flame inside me is quiet. For now.
The girls are all laughing in a corner and I’m thinking they’re three or four cocktails in.
There’s no Scarlett.
“Where’s my wife?”
Everyone looks up, startled. “Hey, Wallace.” Kenna stands up to give me a hug. “Hmm… you’re still smelling like ye set half the Cairngorm Mountains ablaze. Scarlett just went to the loo, dinnae worry, Gio’s with her.”
Gio is waiting outside the ladies’ room, hands folded in front of him, scanning the area.
“Any problems tonight?” I shake his hand.
“No boss, though she found it entertaining that I searched the bathroom first.”
“How long has she been in there?” I ask.
“Four minutes.”
I’m thinking a quickie on the counter might be in the future. “Anyone else in there?”
“Three ladies went in a couple of minutes ago, giggling,” he shakes his head. “One tried to grab my arse. They’re out for a Hen Night.”
Another minute or two passes by and I feel it, the insistent tapping at the back of my head that something’s wrong… it’s wrong… hurry.
I dinnae bother to knock, kicking the door open and pulling my gun.
Scarlett’s standing there, eyes wide with terror with three women clustered around her.
One’s holding a gun to my wife’s head.
Scarlett…
Five minutes earlier…
“Hey, Gio. You really don’t have to follow me into the bathroom.”
“Sorry ma’am, part of the job.” He makes a quick search of the sleek-looking bathroom, with gleaming white counters and stalls and gilded faucets fancy enough that I almost expect real gold to pour out of them.
“You’re clear.” He heads for the door. “I’ll be right here out in the hall.”
“Thank you, Gio.”
That’s going to take some getting used to…
The door opens again as I’m washing my hands, three women hanging onto each other as they squeal with laughter. I smile at them in the mirror before I look closer.
The blonde, with the short bob and bangs, wearing a too-tight dress is Marlena. The smile slips off my face as one of the women guards the door and the other heads for me.
I don’t have a gun. I back away.
Bodyguard outside. I open my mouth to scream and Marlena moves with impressive speed, yanking a revolver out of her purse and pressing it to my forehead like she’s trying to drill right through my skull.
“Shut your mouth or I’ll blow a hole through that empty fucking head of yours,” my Wicked Stepmother hisses.
“I’m married, Marlena. You’ve got no sacrificial lamb for this alliance unless you’re willing to step up to the plate.” I lift my chin. I’m not cringing in front of her. An odd, shamed expression flits across her face and I wonder if she offered and got turned down.
The woman behind me grabs my arm in a seamless motion, pulling it up behind my back and I grit my teeth against a scream. She’s going to rip it out of my shoulder socket if she pushes any harder.
“I’m not going back,” I say between clenched teeth. “Don’t you get it? The MacTavishes and the Taylor Mafia will not let you live if you try to take me.”
Marlena scoffs, “Marriages are annulled all the time.” Her wig’s crooked and her eyes are bloodshot. This last week has not been good to her. “You ungrateful bitch! You will do your part. This is your father’s dream and we’re going to build it back up.”
I want to claw at her face. Rip her stretched too tight skin and fake swollen lips right off her skull. “Don’t you dare talk about my father! You killed him, I know you did. You’ve made the Banner Syndicate the laughingstock of our world right now.”
She doesn’t seem upset. “We will own the East Coast by this time next year. Now, unless you want me to have your friend Morgan dragged out into the street and shot, you will shut up and come out the kitchen exit.” I knew this woman was disgusting, subhuman, but I underestimated her.
“Maybe I’ll have her hanged, just like in the 1600’s. ”
“You do not touch her.” My fingers curl into claws. “I will make sure Wallace burns your entire life to the ground.”
“If you want her alive…” She shows me a video, Morgan moving back and forth in her apartment above the spellshop, shadows dancing on the walls. “Close your mouth. We’re going.”
This can’t be happening. Will they kill Gio when we walk out? Could they spray bullets across the restaurant, hurting my new people?
I can’t let Morgan die. I clench my teeth against a scream as the woman behind me yanks up my arm again. She’s short, but it must all be muscle.
“Move!” Marlena shrills, and I take my first, reluctant step toward the door… as it explodes inward, Wallace striding through the debris like my avenging angel for the second time.
“Put your gun down!” Marlena snarls.
The woman who was guarding the entrance is face down on the floor, unconscious after Wallace kicked the door in.
The one behind inches my arm up and a moan escapes me.
How it felt when I’d landed on the grass after that two-story fall from the office building was nothing compared to this.
My tendons are swelling and stretching and my muscles screaming in agony.
“You’re not getting out of here alive if ye hurt her.
” Wallace is deadly calm, almost conversational.
Behind him, I can hear the multiple clicks of safeties released on guns and there’s got to be a hallway full of guards surrounding him.
“This was fecking stupid, Marlena. I dinnae like killing females. But if ye dinnae get that gun away from my wife’s face, I will send you through all nine levels of hell before I finally let ye die. ”
An unholy grin fights against Marlena’s facelift. “Maybe. But your sweet little wifey here will still be dead.”
The woman behind me leans closer to her. “Hold her hostage. Safe passage out of this building. We’re surrounded, we’re not shooting our way out.” This one’s a professional, she doesn’t even sound concerned.
Sweat’s dripping down Marlena’s face. From the corner of my eye, I can see her finger tightening on the trigger. Oh, god. She’s going to do it. She hates me more than she wants to live. Shaking all over, I look at Wallace. I want to see his face.
With a growl, the woman behind me releases my arm and jams her weapon into Marlena’s back, knocking her hand holding the gun away from me. “MacTavish, I didn’t know this job involved your family.”
She sounds remarkably calm for a woman with maybe eight guns pointed at her. Wallace takes two big steps forward and pulls me behind him.
“They told me it was a simple extraction. I’ll trade this one-” she pushes the gun harder into Marlena’s back, “-for safe passage out of here. No harm, no foul. I just saved your wife’s life.”
“I know you.” It’s Gio, moving into the bathroom, his gun still up. “Russo, right? You’re moving up in the world.”
Russo snorts. “No interest in a chat. Give me your word, MacTavish.” Now that she’s holding Marlena hostage, I can see that she is short, but probably just as heavily muscled as any of the guys here. Brown hair in a ponytail, the kind of woman who can fade into the background.
Wallace’s hand tightens on his gun, I can see his knuckles whiten. “Send Marlena back as a warning,” I whisper. “They’ll know they lost.”
“Ye dinnae want her to die?” It sounds torn out of him.
“I just don’t want you to do it.” I wrap my arms around his waist from behind. “I don’t care what happens to her. But you don’t kill women.”
“I’ll do it.” Kenna shoves her way past the guards, mouth tight and furious.
“Oh, no problem, I know how to use a gun.” It’s Luna, and Logan hastily wraps his arm around her waist to hold her back. “I’m an excellent shot.”
Wallace’s chest is heaving, and he finally lets out a long sigh. “Gio, take Russo, see what she knows before letting her go. Logan?”
Logan cautiously releases Luna, stepping into the bathroom, uncharacteristically grim. “Aye?”
“Take that.” He gestures toward Marlena. “Send her back. Make an example of her so they start running now.”
Marlena’s growling, thrashing against Logan’s grip.
“If I see any of you again,” Wallace says precisely, carefully, “I will chain ye all inside one of your buildings and I will torch it. Ye and your shite sons can watch the smoke rise, coughing, eyes watering as your lungs crisp. The flames racing across the floor to ye, fast and hungry, ready to turn ye into ash. It is unimaginably painful. Do ye understand me?” She’s silent now, face pale under her fake tan.
Logan pulls her out of the room, Gio follows with the woman who nearly ripped my arm out of my socket. “Someone clean that up,” Wallace nods at the unconscious guard, still crumpled on the ground.
As everyone clears out of the room, he spins around, wrapping his arms around me tightly. “Are ye okay? Did they hurt ye?”
Pressing my face into the base of his neck, I breathe in deep. His crisp peppermint scent is buried under a sharp blanket of smoke.
It smells like safety. Like Wallace.
“You came right from the job, didn’t you? Thank you for not stopping to shower first. Your timing…” I’m trying to be all tough and calm about this, but a full-body shudder shakes me.
“I’ll always get here in time,” he promises, kissing the top of my head, my wet cheeks, my lips. “Are ye okay with the smell? It’s not giving ye PTSD or anything?”
“No…” I shake my head vigorously, burying my nose against his neck. “I associate the smoke with you, my guardian angel.”
His chest rumbles against me. “I’m no angel.”
“You keep saving me.” I rest my chin on his chest, looking up at his beautiful face. “Maybe you need some wings tattooed on you.”
“Maybe so,” he chuckles.
The vision of the angel tile from Morgan’s reading rises up in brutal clarity. An angel, falling to earth, his wings on fire, pure white crisping to black.