Chapter Forty-Eight
“I choose you.” H er face crumpled and her lips formed words I’d been waiting to hear for seven years. “ I’m choosing you .”
Except it was wrong.
Off.
Twenty-two hundred, her son asleep inside, thin material covering her full breasts, the taste of the past fresh in my mouth, the look of pity in her eyes—I needed to leave before it was too late.
But insatiable need fueled an addiction for her I couldn’t conquer, and my mouth opened. “What did you think it meant when I said I wanted to own you?”
She blinked. She drew a breath. She formulated. “I think you were abused then abandoned, by no fault of your own, and I think you have issues with permanence and an emotional need to be wanted. I think by you saying you want to own me, you think it means you get to keep me… no matter what. And that, right there, is probably the root of all of this. An anxiety over being left because first your mother, then your father left you. But they didn’t only leave you, they didn’t protect you.”
Rage.
Mine.
Hot, red, consuming.
Pity.
Hers.
Contemptible.
Regulating my breath, counting to twelve, I corrected her inaccuracy. “I never knew my father.”
“Then the man who was living under the same roof as you. It doesn’t matter who he was. The sentiment is the same.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t matter who he was.” He was dead. I’d stabbed him when I’d turned eighteen, then I’d buried him where no one would ever find him. It was the second time I’d let my anger out. Seven years ago in this very house was the third time, and I was dangerously closing in on a fourth time.
I walked to the bike.
“Preston?”
I threw my leg over and started it.
“Preston.”
The one hundred and ninety-seven horse power engine roared to life, and I yanked my helmet on.
“ Preston. ”
Gunning the throttle, I took off.
Breaking every speed limit, I pulled up to the warehouse in record time, but I wasn’t alone. A Maserati was parked out front with a blonde behind the wheel.
I opened the warehouse garage door and pulled the bike in.
The blonde got out of the Maserati. Following me inside, Summer smiled. “For such a hot guy, this is a shit address.” She looked me up and down as I got off the bike. “But it works for you.”
Fuck her. “How did you find me?”
“I can be resourceful when I need to be.” In a see-through shirt with a bright bra underneath and shorts so short the shirt was longer in length, she winked. Hair curled, makeup on, she looked older than last time I saw her.
Scanning the street, I looked for trouble. “So resourceful that you get in bed with a sex trafficker?” Disarming the alarm, I unlocked the door in to the living space.
“Who says I was in bed with him?” Going on tiptoe to look over my shoulder, her tone said she took no offense, but she should have. “Going to invite me in?”
“No.” Her red Maserati would be stolen within minutes, unattended.
She dropped the smile. “Look, my arm’s still sore, and my back’s killing me. I just came to say thanks, and you know… talk. Can I please come in?” She gestured behind her. “This isn’t the greatest neighborhood.”
“Tell me how you found this location.” Luna wouldn’t have told her. Neither would the kid.
“Then you’ll let me in?” She smiled hopefully.
Across the street, two figures moved in the shadows. “Then you’ll leave.” My 9mm was inside where I’d left it this morning.
“All right, here’s the truth.” She dropped the pretense. “I can’t sleep. I jump at every fucking noise I hear, and if I so much as close my eyes, I’m reliving getting shot. I just thought that you… I mean… I don’t know. Forget it.” She turned to go.
The figures emerged from the cover of the building across the street. Watching her, they walked straight at us.
Uncontrolled anger festering, I told myself I didn’t have a choice. I justified what I was about to do, reasoning that she was already injured. I couldn’t leave her on her own. Grabbing her good arm, I stepped out and put her behind me. “Give me your keys and go inside.” I held my hand out.
She dropped them in my palm, but she didn’t go inside. “Shit,” she whispered. “I didn’t realize—”
“Go,” I clipped, staring down the two men. “Lock the door behind you.” One man carried a crowbar, the other had a knife. No guns.
The door shut behind me.
Striding in front of the Maserati, I scanned the street for more of them. “Do you know the speed with which thought signals travel to the brain?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Twenty meters per second. Faster than you can walk toward me.” I never should’ve told Mercy about my past.
“So what, motherfucker? Hand over the keys to the Maserati, and we won’t beat the fuck out of you.”
I pocketed the keys as they separated, coming at me from the left and the right. I’d given up control the second I’d told her about my childhood. “Do you know the speed at which nerve impulses send pain signals to the brain? Zero point six one meters per second. And the nerve impulses for muscle control? One hundred and nineteen meters per second.” I could taste the velocity of my fist in his face. I wasn’t going to give up control again.
“You fucking deaf or just plain stupid?” the second one asked. “Hand over the keys.”
Hungry for blood, needing that adrenaline rush, I stood perfectly still. Ten seconds, nine, eight…. Damp night, heavy humidity, rank sweat coming off both of them, I counted.
Everything.
Six more steps.
Five more steps.
Four more seconds.
“Before your brain can register the impulse to flee, you could’ve already been running.” Four more steps. Six more seconds. Street clothes, sinewy muscles, eyes darting, they both looked like junkies.
The first one slapped the crowbar against his palm. “We’re not the ones who should be running, motherfucker.”
Three more steps.
Four more seconds.
“Touch signals travel to the brain at seventy-six point two meters per second. You’ll feel the impact of my kick a hundred and twenty-four point nine times faster than the pain.” Two more steps. “But trust me, you’ll feel the pain.”
One more step.
They were both in position.
I pivoted.
My elbow flew out before the first one raised his arm with the crowbar, connecting with his face as I kicked out behind me. The first one grabbed his broken nose as the second one dropped to the ground, grabbing his balls.
Following through on the kick, my body spun. My second kick struck the first man at the back of the knees. I brought my arm up for a strike to the back of his neck, and the second man jumped me. His knife in one hand, his other going around my neck, he made a crucial error in judgment.
Height.
I had it. He didn’t.
Swinging wildly, he caught my upper cheek with the tip of the knife, but that’s all he managed.
Grabbing his forearm, I flipped him over my shoulder and slammed him to the ground. His head bounced, the knife flew out of his hand, and air left his lungs in a rush as the wind was knocked out of him.
Grabbing the knife, I sank one knee into his chest. “Do you want to live?”
“Fuck… you,” he panted, blood pooling behind his head.
The first man stumbled to his feet.
“Answer the question,” I warned.
“You’re dead, motherfucker,” the first man sputtered, lunging for me with a raised arm holding the crowbar.
For the fourth time in my life, I let the anger out.
I slit his fucking throat.
The crowbar clanked to the pavement.
Blood spurted from his carotid artery.
He dropped to the ground, dead.
I shoved to my feet and looked down at the first man. “Again. Do you want to live?”
Eyes wild, his gaze shot between me and the crowbar.
“That’s a mistake,” I warned.
He made a play for it anyway.
I was faster.
Grabbing the crowbar, I finished him off with one blow to the head.
I watched his last breath leave his body just as I’d watched Sam Rollins take his. Shoving the memory away, I wiped the crowbar clean and dropped it next to him. Then I wiped the knife clean and put it in his hand. Searching his pockets, I found a cell and dialed.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“Help.” I threw my voice. “A guy with a crowbar tried to kill me. I cut him. My head’s bleeding.”
“Okay, sir. What’s your location?”
I rattled off the street name and closest cross street. “I need help. Hurry.” I hung up, wiped the phone and put it in his other hand.
Stepping over the two bodies, I took my blood-spattered shirt off, wiped my hands and pulled the Maserati key out. I got behind the wheel, cranked the engine and backed up, avoiding the bodies, before pulling the car in and shutting the garage door.
Standing by the entrance to living space, Summer’s eyes went wide as she watched the garage door go down. “Holy shit.”
I shut the car door and handed her the key. “Inside, now. You can’t leave yet.” I held the door to the living space open.
She checked out the ink on my arm. “Are they dead?”
“Where’s your security detail?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you could call him that. It took me five seconds to ghost Mr. Cowboy Hat.” She walked inside my place. Two small bandages on her lower back showed through her shirt.
“How did you lose him?” I locked the door.
She smiled sheepishly. “Said I needed to use the ladies’ room and that I needed privacy because it was a girlie thing. He couldn’t walk away fast enough.” She glanced around. “Wow, nice place. I didn’t expect this.”
I took my cell out and called Thomas.
Answering on the first ring, he was out of breath. “I can’t really talk right now, Preston. Little busy looking for someone.” Doors opened and closed, his footsteps echoed at a fast clip.
“She’s here.”
The sound of his steps stopped. “What?”
“Summer Amherst.”
“Yeah, um, I figured that. Where’s here?”
“My place.”
Summer walked around the living area, then headed for the kitchen.
“No shit?”
I didn’t say anything.
He laughed embarrassingly. “Okay, yeah. Got it. I’m on my way to pick her up. What’s your address?”
“Situation out front. Give it a few minutes.”
“Shit. What kind of situation? Because I gotta admit, Luna and her daddy don’t know she’s missing yet.”
“She’s not missing. She’s here. It’s a police situation. Unrelated.” I didn’t count it as a lie.
Summer looked in my fridge.
“Well, if it’s unrelated and it’s all the same to you, I’m coming now. I’d rather have eyes on her before Luna gets wind of this.”
He wasn’t five-three with brown hair and amber eyes, I didn’t care what the fuck he did. “Fine.” I gave him the address.
“Okay, copy that. Thanks, man, I owe you.”
She closed the fridge.
“No, you don’t.” Not after the other night. “Word of advice?”
“Never let them go to the bathroom unattended?”
“Never,” I confirmed before hanging up.
Sighing, Summer crossed her arms. “Let me guess. Mr. Cowboy’s coming to get me?”
Sirens sounded outside as I pulled up my security feeds on my cell. “In a few minutes.” Two police cruisers, followed by an ambulance, drove up. They didn’t even glance at my warehouse.
Summer pointed at my face and waved her finger around. “You’re cut. You should do something about that.”
Ignoring her, I watched the security feed as first one cop then another approached the two bodies. They signaled for the paramedics. One paramedic got out and checked vitals. Then the paramedic and the cops stepped back as one cop made a call.
I dialed Luna.
“Luna.”
“Bad time?” He knew it was me calling.
“No, hold.” A few seconds later, he spoke again. “Okay, I’m back. What’s going on? One of the guys in the control room said a nine-one-one call went out for a location in front of your place. Police scanner says its two bodies. The ME was called. You good?”
“Yes.”
“Something I need to know about?”
“Apparently two junkies went after each other.”
“ Apparently ,” Luna stated dryly. “Right. I’ll read between the lines on that one and make sure no backlash comes your way. Anything else?”
Summer took a couple paper towels and wet them.
My respect for Luna went up a level. “Yes.”
“Shoot.”
“Summer Amherst is here. Thomas is coming to retrieve her.”
Luna swore in Spanish. “He didn’t tell me he lost contact with her. He was supposed to be keeping a close eye on her. She was getting drugs from Estevez in exchange for her tipping him off on potential chicas he could nab and sell. Whether she knew what he was ultimately doing with the girls is another story. But Amherst wanted his daughter watched closely in case she went looking for another supplier now that her old connection’s dried up. Regardless, not sure I should be glad she showed up at your place or not. How’d she find you?”
I glanced at Summer who was still holding the wet paper towel. “How did you find me?”
She rolled her eyes. “After I got your number off Mr. Cowboy’s phone when he wasn’t looking, I had a hacker friend track it. He came up with this address, and here you are.”
“ Mierda ,” Luna swore. “I heard that. I’ll talk to him.”
My eyes on Summer, I spoke to Luna. “Thomas won’t lose her again.”
“He better not,” Luna warned. “Leo Amherst is one of my biggest clients.”
“She won’t lose him again. She’ll cooperate.”
Fine , Summer mouthed petulantly.
“All right.” Luna took my word for it. “Thanks for letting me know. See you in the office tomorrow.”
“Copy.” I hung up.
Summer stepped forward and dabbed the wet paper towel to my cheek. “For the record, I’m only going to play nice because you asked me to.” Her hand landed on my chest, and she caressed my pec.
I grabbed her wrist. “Summer—”
The door to my garage opened and Mercy walked in but then she immediately turned to pull the heavy door closed behind her. “You weren’t at the house, and since you gave Nash the code, I figured it’d be okay to use it, and by the way did you know there are cops….” She trailed off as she turned back around, looked up and saw us. Her eyes darted from my bare chest to Summer’s wrist in my hand and her face fell.
I let go of Summer. “Mercy.”
She turned and fled.