Chapter 18
Three years.
I lasted three fucking years.
I’d folded her into a box that only rattled on the quietest of nights. Now all that self-restraint has come undone with a short temper and a tug.
Ripping back the throttle, I lean into my Harley and drive into the blizzard head-on. Can’t see for shit, but it doesn’t matter. I know the winding ribbon of these mountain roads like the back of my hand, and even if I didn’t, I’d still take the risk just to get away from the coast. From Her.
“Skip,” I mutter. The sinner in my ear cuts off mid-sentence, and the next call plays. I know it’s Raj the Gambler within the first two seconds by the self-pitying sigh that fills my helmet.
Gritting my teeth, I skid around a deep bend and snap at Siri to skip again. I’m not in the mood for Raj’s monthly woe-is-me ramble that comes every time he wastes his paycheck on the races.
I need something darker. Something that breaks the loop of her breathy voice fizzing in the black.
You’re scaring me.
Of course I scared her. Scared my-fucking-self too when she burst into my garage mid-panic attack and my gut twisted into a shape it’s never made before.
I wanted to make it stop and strangle whoever started it.
The next call is from a new sinner. She’s chained her husband to a water pipe in the basement and won’t let him out until he admits he’s fucking the new girl at work.
I turn up the volume to max when she mentions she’ll give him until the weekend to come clean before she shoots him point blank in the dick with his own hunting rifle.
Her confession. The howling wind. The deep purr of the engine beneath me. They blur into white noise, but it’s not long before it darkens to pink.
Those two flimsy triangles covering her tits are etched into my fucking eyelids. Forget the look in her eye when she begged me to take her secret to the grave, or the fact she doesn’t drink, or that she suddenly stopped driving yet told me she never learned in the first place.
The girl’s a confirmed sinner based on that body alone.
“Siri, play my favorites,” I grit. This caller has started crying, and I’d rather turn left off the mountain ridge than listen to it.
There’s a beep in my ear, followed by a robotic voice.
“This is a prepaid call from—”
Mildred Black states her name.
“—an inmate from the Washington Corrections Center for Women …”
The voice goes through the usual spiel about the call being recorded and monitored before Mildred’s smokers cough rattles down the line.
“I really thought Danny was The One. He looked like Brad Pitt in his hey-day, just a few inches shorter, and unfortunately, not as rich.”
The sound of her voice makes my thoughts slow down and my shoulders drop a few inches.
Mad Milly calls like clockwork because she calls from prison. Hers are the only calls I answer in real time because inmates can’t leave voicemails. Every Thursday at noon, I pick up, mute my microphone, and listen. I’ll press record too if it’s worth it.
Though with Milly, it’s always fucking worth it.
By the time the ghostly outline of the gates emerges from behind the haze, my brain is so full of her psychotic ramblings there’s barely any room left for my own.
I park between a Lambo and a beat-up truck, shake the snow from my leathers, and head into the house.
The gentle sound of music drifts down the hall, and the ice in my bones begins to thaw. Tucking my helmet under my arm, I follow it to the family room, then lean against the door.
Luan’s at the piano, spine curved, scars dancing down his back in the firelight. He plays to the storm battering the far window, and though his fingers barely move, they strike chords that could haunt a house.
He was born to play. But he was also born to Petrit Dritan, the head of the largest human trafficking ring in Albania, so his talent stays within the walls of this chalet.
Leaving him to it, I continue down the hall.
I nod at Kwame through the window of the therapy studio—he’ll be walking again within the month at this rate—and pass through the kitchen, where Jason is cooking up Sinigang on the stove.
It’s his mama’s secret recipe, and even Arben has given up trying to beat it out of him.
I find Denis in his usual haunt and in his usual stance: crouched over the snooker table in the games room. His shoulders tighten as I approach, and when I click the door shut behind me, his gaze slides along the length of the cue and flicks up to mine.
“You killed Seb.”
My lungs clench, and I run a hand down my throat. “Fuck.”
“I’m kidding.” He taps the white ball and straightens to watch it connect with the green. “But you blew out his knee and he hit his head pretty bad on the way down.”
I let out a tense breath. On any other day, he’d eat my knuckles for that joke. “Where is he?”
He jerks his chin to the ceiling. “Sulking in bed and watching Netflix.” Raking an eye over me, he asks, “Why the friendly fire?”
I walk over to the drinks fridge and grab a beer. “It was a warning shot.”
“Warning him about what?”
About taking another fucking step into the garage.
I’d fired the first shot because the thought of another man seeing what I was seeing made me feel violent. The second shot was at the light because I wasn’t worthy of seeing it myself.
But I need to work on my damn reflexes because I was too late.
I’d already seen the soft dip of her hips and the curve of her chest. Had already committed the outline of her nipples to memory.
I could even look at a color wheel and pick out the exact shade of pink that flushed her skin when she caught me staring.
Plunging us into darkness was the worst thing I could have done. Because then the temptation to touch her like she’d touched me was too great. It eliminated the ability to see the fear in her eyes and her seeing the Devil take over mine.
You’re scaring me.
I scare every woman, and I’m perfectly fucking fine with that, but there’s something about scaring her that makes me do stupid shit.
Like rocking up to her house again to teach her how to get out of the trunk I folded her into.
Like cutting her out of her restraints before I could even show her how to free herself.
Self-loathing bubbles through my blood and heats to boiling point. I take it out on the closest inanimate object, the PacMan machine, and drive my fist through its screen.
“Oh no, my high score,” Denis drawls, chalking his cue tip.
The rage in my veins simmers, and I let out a breath of amusement.
Fucking Denis. Nothing fazes him. Then again, compared to the shit he deals with in this house daily, my little outburst is child’s play.
He’s my right-hand man, left side of my brain, and the heartbeat of our army.
He works behind the scenes making sure my men are fed, watered, healthy, and sane before shoving them back over the front line to me.
Need stitches? You go to Denis. A good beating?
Denis. Passports, translators, tech support.
He does anything and everything to keep the organization ticking over.
Heir to the largest illegal timber logging company in Gabon, Africa, he was born into this life too, but he wasn’t built for it.
Not physically, with his lean runner’s build, pressed shirts, and glasses as thick as a bible.
Not mentally either—when I first met him on our first day in Hell, he’d brought only a Rubik’s cube and a book of crossword puzzles with him.
Right then and there, I knew his heart was too big, his conscious too heavy.
There were three of us once.
The last gulp of beer tastes bitter. I grab another and sink down on the sofa to watch him play.
The roar of the storm whipping through the mountain ridges.
The occasional clunk of balls dropping into pockets.
The soft melody drifting out from under Luan’s fingertips and down the hall.
The chalet’s soundtrack usually has a way of dulling the constant ache between my ribs, but not tonight.
Tonight, I’m too distracted by the words brewing at the base of my throat and the fight to stop them spilling out into the room.
I let out a hot breath through my nostrils, rest my elbows on my knees, and glare down at the carpet; I can’t fucking look at Denis while he leans on his pool cue and studies me.
“This isn’t about Rafe’s men, is it?”
I give a tight shake of my head.
He sighs. “Her.”
He knows better than to say her name.
A ball rolls into a pocket; I feel the thud in the pit of my stomach. Silence follows, all the heat trapped in Denis’s glare.
“It’d take me five minutes to find—”
“No.”
No.
Three years.
I’ve lasted three fucking years.
She’s perfect, in her little box. My little angel with wings from . With a touch too warm for my skin; with a name too sweet to ever pass my lips. I want to keep her there forever. A reminder of all the good in the world, of everything I’ve never had or deserved.
I swore I wouldn’t dig, though now I’ve seen her fucking body, it’s getting harder to resist finding out what she’s hiding beneath it. And maybe if I found out she isn’t so perfect after all, I could set her free.
But that’s the problem. The Devil himself couldn’t claw Her from me.
I grit my teeth and drag my gaze up to meet Denis’s.
“Fine,” he mutters, his shoulders sagging. He cracks his neck, runs a hand over his short braids and tightens his grip on the snooker cue. “Buckle up; this is going to hurt.”
Good.
I close my eyes and brace for the blow.