Chapter Twenty-One
Parker.
“What’s wrong with him?” I question Aleksi, using my head to point in Niko’s direction, who’s currently staring at his phone groaning like he’s gonna be sick.
Aleksi chuckles. “He’s loooovvve sick.”
I quirk a scarred brow and let my head fall back to look at the young giant.
“Few weeks ago Niko was out by Boston on a lead for the rest of the Rogue Bear idiots trying to percolate the clubs. But he ended up in a weird standoff with one of them in an alleyway behind Inferno and… well, you ever seen Nikolai in action?”
I shake my head.
Aleksi’s eyes darken and there’s an edge to his voice as he lowers it. “Let’s just say… Niko likes red. Anyway, he’s fists deep in this guy's viscera, and he hears a little squeak, looks over… it’s a woman holding a trash bag that had gone to throw it out and saw everything.”
“Oh shit?”
“Yup… she ran away before he could get to her cause he was still busy with the uhhh…”
“Viscera,” I interject when he trails off.
Aleksi snorts. “Exactly. Well, he figured her out. Followed her around for a bit. Found out where she moved to, her new job, broke into her new place when she moved, and had cameras put up everywhere. Now he’s watching her all the time.
Not really doing much of anything but keeping a close eye on her, really.
Make sure she ain’t talking. He won’t admit it, but he's gotten obsessed. I catch him just watching her with a smile on his face when he thinks no one is watching. It’s cute.
” He whistles lowly at him. “Ey, Niko. How’s she doin’? ”
“She’s got some fucker at her apartment.
” Niko growls, getting up and paces the library like a nervous animal, mumbling to his phone like it’s personally offended him.
Then flings his phone at the wall, shattering it into a million pieces.
His chilly blue eyes go wide. “OH FUCK! Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Aw, geez. Why did I fuckin’ do that?
!” He marches toward it, hands visibly shaking.
He bends forward to pick up whatever is left of his shattered phone.
“Kristos, she’s driving me up the fuckin’ wall.
First, she don’t talk to me. Now she’s got some mutherfucker—aw, Jesus, I’m going fuckin’ nuts over some broad that’s scared of me.
” He clicks his tongue at the ruined phone, walks over, and throws it into the trash.
Shaking his head, Niko sits back on the small leather loveseat in the middle of the room, throwing his legs over the arm and laying down, fingers on his forehead, aggravatingly contemplating his entire existence.
He throws his other hand up in the air and makes a swiping motion.
“It’s fuckin’ fine. I’m fine. I don’t gotta watch her. I got shit I gotta do.”
Aleksi peeks over at me, clearly amused, lips rolled in, trying his damndest to hide his smile. I don’t know if Niko’s talking to us or himself at this point.
Niko sniffs, sits back up, lies down, then sits up again, putting his elbows on his knees, grimacing.
If he wasn’t around me for the last few days, I’d swear he was going through withdrawals and aching for another fix.
He scrubs his hand over his face, but more like he’s annoyed with himself.
He lets out a frustrated groan, mutters something I can’t understand in Russian, swipes at his mouth, and then practically shouts at us. “Aleksi, you got an extra phone?”
Chuckling and with a shake of his head, Aleksi opens his backpack, plucks out a box, and throws it at Niko. “It’s the third one he’s broken,” he murmurs. As soon as the box lands in Niko’s hands, he tears it open like it’s Christmas Eve and his parents told him he could only open one gift.
I’m about to crack a joke, but there’s movement on the screen in my periphery that catches my eye. I sit straight up. “Oh, fuck. Aleks—”
His grin falters. “What the fuck… is she doing?”
“Uhhhh… hold steady. I’m not sure. I have a feeling you’re gonna have to loop the cameras. Can you loop them, but we can still see exactly what she’s doing?”
“Yeah. Give me a sec." His fingers work like they’re on fire just as the door to the library opens and Raven rushes in with her phone in her hands and shows me the screen. Her trio comes in not even seconds behind her.
Soul-Sister: Not yet.
Two words. That’s all she was either able to send, or she’s going on a recon mission alone.
Fuck. I rub at my chest then zero back in at the screen just in time to see Sabrina in a fucking balaclava, wearing all black with my switchblade in her hand.
She tucks it into the back of her waistband.
I look over at Karma. “You give her that?”
She rolls her lips inwards, grins sheepishly, gives a slight shrug, and then lifts her hands. It’s my lucky one.
“That does not make me feel better,” I grumble. “I don’t feel right about this. Niko.” I pull him out of his shroud of self-hate. He snaps up and puts his self-torture device away. “Get some men on stand-by. We need to be ready to go.”
Niko gives me one curt nod and leaves the library quickly.
Raven crowds behind me as we watch Sabrina stick her head out of the door and look both ways.
When she realizes it’s not only dark, it’s empty, she slinks one leg out and then the other smoothly, keeping her back to the wall like she’s not completely noticeable.
My pulse skyrockets. The hallway is fucking empty because they’re all downstairs where I bet she’s headed. “Fuck.”
I just about lose my goddamn mind when Raven starts playing the fuckin’ theme song to Pink Panther behind me on her phone.
Aleksi and the other guards do what they can to control their laughter, Jonas having the most issue with keeping his self-control in check as he keels over gasping, but his eyes are watering with the need to laugh.
He groans while shaking his head, holding his stomach, then makes a shooing motion for me to look away.
Damon and Maverick scowl at their little hellion. Raven winces and stops the music after I glare at her, then puts her phone away. “S-sorry.”
Once Jonas is able to compose himself, we keep our eyes glued to the screen and stare as Sabrina has not only made it downstairs safely, but she’s in a totally separate wing now, hiding behind a wall as a guard passes her, going into another room.
Before the door closes all the way, she keeps her hand on the knob, twists it, and lets it close softly.
She leans into the door like she’s listening in on what’s going on, untucks the switchblade from her waistband, then slips inside.
“Do we have cameras in there?” I ask Aleksi.
He moves his hands fast, moving from one feed to another. “Must be a bathroom. No feed.”
“Oh God, baby, what are you doing?” I wonder out loud the longer she takes in there. But after fifteen minutes, we don’t have to wonder anymore.
Another guard goes in and we watch through the camera facing the bathroom.
As soon as he has the door open, Sabrina jumps on his back, switchblade ready, and her arm moves in a swift swipe along his neck.
Crimson pours all over the ground. The door closes a bit hard, catching the attention of the last guard at the end of the hall.
He stands to go check on his colleague. This time, the door stays open as we see Sabrina do the same thing… and then drag his body by the feet.
“I think she’s stacking the bodies in the shower if there is one,” Aleksi murmurs quietly like Sabrina can hear us and we’ll fuck up her concentration.
After another twenty minutes, she sticks her head out of the bathroom and looks around.
She wipes the switchblade on her pants and sneaks out again, but not before sticking her hand into the bathroom one last time.
“She locked the door,” Aleksi breathes out.
We all let out a soft sigh of relief as Sabrina runs straight to where we’ve had Maksim’s feed since this morning. She knocks on the door, and she’s hauled inside and into his arms.
Wrapping her legs around his torso, she pulls off the ski mask and drops the switchblade as Maksim closes the door quietly then locks it behind them, kissing our girl with a hunger I’ve seen every fucking time we’ve fucked her together.
“Get out,” I order them, Aleksi immediately looking away.
Raven tries to linger and watch, but I push her away and Jonas covers her eyes with one large hand, getting onto her for being a peeping Thomasina.
She makes an unhurried, unashamed exit while reminding them Sabrina has caught them all in a few compromising positions over the past few months, and it’s only fair at this point for her to at least watch the tip go in.
Maverick bends at the waist and scoops her up with a gruff, “Oh, I have a tip you can watch go in. Just the tip since you want to be a fucking brat.” I hear a few other words from Damon and Jonas I do not care to repeat.
“Stay on standby,” I call out after them. Raven salutes me with a grin on her face. I cringe at that with a shake of my head when Jonas looks back and casts a more than mischievous grin that matches Raven’s my way.
I wait for them to leave the library, and then I tug my dick out, completely unashamed about watching this next part.