8. Rory
Rory
When Darren melts into view from the shadows of the small vendor parking lot, I nod at the dead guards slumped on the ground.
He nods back, then his eyes flare with surprise as they land on Kiara. “Was she unconscious before you bid on her, or did the sight of your ugly mug frighten her into a coma after the fact?”
“Very funny. Hide those two for me.” With a grunt, I haul the rest of Kiara’s body into my arms and book it to the van.
Darren snipes even while dragging the bodies into some bushes. “Is Sleeping Beauty why you took so long?”
Ignoring him, I crush my body and Kiara’s against the back of the vehicle until my fingers connect with the door handle.
In the process, her scent crawls up my nose again. Sweet and a little spicy, like brown sugar mixed with cloves.
Her unconscious face is close to mine.
Urgency boils in my stomach, making me sweat. Paranoia chews at my skin like a school of piranhas.
Whoever this girl is, she’s important. Those guards recognized her immediately, and soon, everyone will realize she’s missing. We should have been out of here already, but those guards slowed me down. Shooting them didn’t feature into my original plan.
And now this .
Her relaxed expression, peaceful as a fucking angel’s, angles at me like a mirror reflecting the worst part of my self.
With difficulty, I slide the door to the van open and gently set her down in the depths of the cargo space. The back has no windows, and it’s so dark that the only body part I can identify are feet.
Even looking at them , limp and unmoving, pisses me off for some unknown reason. Darren brushes past me, climbing into the van and snapping me back into focus.
“I knew you hadn’t hooked up with anyone lately, but I didn’t realize things were so dire that you had to buy a woman at a black auction.”
“Do you think maybe you could stop testing out your comedy routine and restrain her, or do I need to suffer through a few more shitty jokes first? On the plus side, if we wait long enough, Leo will find us and shoot me in the head, which I suppose is one way to end my suffering.”
I slam the van door in Darren’s face before another word falls out of his smart-ass mouth.
Or did I do that because I don’t want to watch him zip-tie her ankles and wrists together?
Or gag her mouth?
I rip the driver’s side door open with too much force and throw myself behind the wheel, turning the engine over with the same speed.
Why won’t my heart stop pounding like a manic drum?
My eyes flit left then right, scanning the perimeter as I swing the van out of the private lot and onto the same unnamed access road that led us here.
A voice in the back of my head keeps insisting this is too easy.
What’s so easy about it? I want to shout back. Sneaking into the auction without blowing our cover wasn’t easy. Mingling with a bunch of sleazy cocksuckers while in search of a breakthrough and contending with all that pressure isn’t easy. And then there’s her…
I flinch away from thoughts of the unconscious girl in the back who crashed into me like an offering from the gods.
Guilt gnaws at my gut. Anger follows.
Do I really need to remind myself that any woman who’s a close associate of Leonardo De Luca’s is trash?
Kiara experiencing a change of heart doesn’t alter that truth.
She claimed that she stole something valuable from him, which would explain her desperation to escape.
That could be a lie, though. She could just as easily have betrayed him by sleeping with another man.
My molars grind together. The visual of Kiara with Leo or anyone else stokes red-hot fury in my veins.
Such bullshit. The only emotion I should associate with Kiara is disgust.
Darren appears, climbing into the passenger seat. Why does it take everything inside me not to ask him how she is?
“See anything?” I grit out instead.
“Nothing.” In my periphery, Darren shakes his head. “This must not be a property the De Lucas own. None of their usual security measures were in place.”
“No tree cameras?” Handling the wheel as the road bends to the right, I steal a glance at my friend, who looks about as shitty as I feel.
“Didn’t clock any.”
“Check again.” It’s my paranoia talking. I know that, and so does Darren, but he doesn’t argue with me. He gets up to go do another sweep from one of the lookout window panels built into the back of this vehicle.
Kiara’s small, subtle smile comes back to me.
The light of hope that brightened her eyes when I agreed to help her hide from Leo…
I jerk my head. She may be young, but that aura of innocence she radiates is obviously an illusion. No woman who spends time with Leo De Luca could be anything close to innocent.
Still, her naivete seems real enough. The fact that she trusted me so readily pisses me off .
For someone who’s probably been involved with men like me for a long time, I’d expect her to possess better defenses. Not go along with me like she’d known me all her life.
Manipulating her was uncomfortably simple.
I want to punish her for acting like such a fool while also kissing her senseless again.
Fucking focus, Rory. I zero in on the road ahead. The combination of nightfall, no streetlights, and no traffic renders this back street dark as hell.
We’re only half an hour from the estate. I didn’t know it could even get this dark so close to the city.
The twilight just reminds me of her hair and how my fingers invaded the bun at the back of her neck, digging into the soft strands as I held her face to mine.
Why did she have to be sweet? The pointless, absurd question glows in the recesses of my mind.
Of all the shitty times for lust to strike like a sledgehammer. In my over three decades of life, I’ve yet to experience an attraction remotely as strong.
Maybe I just need to get laid. Like Darren alluded to, it’s been over a month since I last hit up Madden to pick up a bed partner for the evening. Our premier nightclubs are always swimming with hot women, and I never struggle to find someone to scratch the itch when one arises.
A million years ago, I used to treat women right. Like a gentleman, the way my mother taught me. Back in those days, I would have met a woman like Kiara and asked her out on a date.
I already knew that man was long gone. I just never realized he became the kind of guy who drugged and abducted women.
My fists tighten around the steering wheel leather. I release one hand to pop my knuckles, reminding myself once again that Kiara is involved with the De Lucas.
That’s when I see the red under the moonlight.
Blood caked under my square fingernails.
Kiara’s blood.
The memory of me shoving her through the corridor and then plopping her body into the van like a heap of dirty old clothes without even realizing I scraped her delicate skin in the process leaves an uncomfortable sensation prickling in my gut.
I used to be an okay guy who sometimes did monstrous things to monstrous people to demonstrate my loyalty to the Kings and protect my brothers-by-choice.
Somewhere along the way, I became an actual monster.
“Rory!” Darren roars my name, ripping my attention back to the present moment.
A deer freezes in the road ahead. The speedometer shows I’m doing seventy. We’re going to crash.
We’re going to die .
I stomp on the brake and jerk the wheel to one side with all the strength I have.
The van tires scream against the asphalt as our ride spins out. My brain flips into hyperdrive. The world drops into slow motion.
I watch from outside my body as the van rotates right off the road and into a copse of trees. When we jerk to a stop, my head snaps forward.
The force of the impact would have totaled a regular car.
Our armored truck disguised as a service van managed to survive unscathed.
The airbags didn’t even deploy.
“ Fuck …” Darren rubs his neck and repositions himself in the seat. Cocky fucker wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. He’s lucky the crash didn’t pitch him through the windshield.
My mind immediately shifts to the woman in the cargo hold. She wasn’t buckled in either.
I’m out of my seat before my vision resumes in full focus.
My wild heartbeat accelerates as I climb into the back, listening for any audible signs of injury.
Not a peep. She must still be unconscious. Or worse.
Fear digs icy claws into my neck as I knock my fist against one of a few light switches.
There she is, lying half beneath the row of seats that line one wall.
Her forehead’s bleeding from a fresh cut.
Dropping to my knees beside her, I snatch her wrist, desperation shredding my lungs.
Her pulse throbs a steady beat beneath the pads of my calloused fingers.
She’s alive. No thanks to me.
I maneuver the lower half of her body out from beneath the seats and hoist her up onto the leather cushions above.
By the time I make it back to the front, Darren’s strapped himself into the passenger seat. The deer that came close to committing a triple homicide has disappeared. Fucker probably trotted over to his buddies so they could all snicker about the dumbass human driver.
I half collapse behind the wheel, the aftermath of the near-death experience slow to release me. What a nightmare.
“I’ve got an idea. How about we try not to get ourselves killed before we get home.” Darren glances out the side mirror before spearing me with a look. “Ready to tell me why we’re abducting a woman?”
“Later.”
I shift the van into drive and ease back onto the road. At the same time, I ease myself away from worrying over Kiara. I can’t let anything distract me, least of all our pretty little hostage.
My resolve tightens the closer we get to the estate. It’s like my brain is screwing the lid shut on the jar of my emotions and sealing them away.
Other than tech, my ability to lock up my feelings is my only true superpower.
Shoving them aside. Blending in with my surroundings. Pretending like nothing much gets under my skin.
Acting the way I’m supposed to act.
I’m good at it because I know how to hide the guy I am on the inside so well that nobody remembers he exists.
Sometimes, even I don’t.