25. Chapter 25
25
Chapter 25
Blue
Blue squirmed in Jonah’s grasp as he held her in front of him like some sacrificial lamb, thumb and fingers jammed up under her jaw so hard, she could feel his nails piercing her skin. “Jonah, don’t do this. You don’t know what will happen to us.”
“He won’t listen, Bluebell,” Dad said.
But she couldn’t stop. She pried at his fingers, and tried to lurch free, but she was well and truly stuck. She only stopped fighting him when the man in the shadows moved. Slowly, like a wraith, he drew her attention, and sent ice through her veins. It couldn’t end like this. Not now! Not after everything they’d been through. After everything they’d lost.
The man slowly closed the distance, his tall frame casting a long shadow. His cheekbones and jaw could cut glass, and even though he was lean, there was muscle under his black three-piece suit—muscle that probably aided in shredding men to pieces with his bare hands. His dark, slicked-back hair spoke of deadly precision, not a hair, article of clothing, or person under his command out of place, and the tattoos on his hands told stories as dark as any reapers—and she didn’t even need to see them to know that. That was just what Made Men did. They marked their conquests in ink for the world to see. As he sauntered forward, she caught sight of shoulder gun holsters under his jacket, each carrying a Glock. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had blades on his person either.
He was the angel of death come to collect her father and deliver her into the hands of The Outfits’ most notorious underboss. The man who made ruthless look placid.
She swallowed hard as he continued his slow, but sure, forward progression, making barely a sound on the cement floors of the building as he moved. When he was about halfway across the space, she spotted a deep scar on his jaw—in the same place where Dominic had been cut on his eighteenth birthday. Her gaze darted up to his eyes, and in the deep indigo blue, the exact shade as her own, she saw a gleam. A sparkle of amusement.
Blue sucked in a breath. “Dom?” she whispered. He was older, so much older, but so was she. How had she missed it? It was so obvious now.
Behind her, Dad heaved in the air as well.
“I got them both, just as you asked,” Jonah told Dom.
Dom passed her and went straight to their dad. He squatted in front of him, and . . . appraised him. Dad clenched his jaw, and leaned back—fear and anger rippling through every muscle with such intensity, Blue half expected him to Hulk out of his ties. Dom took a puff of his cigarette, stood, and came over to Blue. Her body quivered. Was this still the boy she once knew? Or some mangled version of him?
He looked her over the same way he had their dad. Studying her like she was an insect under glass—it felt like he was looking through her instead of at her. Only as he turned away from her, did she see that twinkle in his eye again. It threw her off, made her stomach lurch as she remembered seeing the same thing in his eyes on multiple occasions when they were kids—when he was being mischievous. Like he knew some secret that no one else knew.
“This isn’t them,” he said to no one in particular as he turned to head off.
“Where are you going?” Jonah called out.
“To see Ian,” Dom said.
Ian. Blue jerked at the name. At the reminder of their friend at the fairgrounds. The one Dom was supposed to kill but didn’t. Was this a message? Was Dom trying to tell her something?
Jonah glanced around at his men, then quickly let go of Blue, rushed forward, and grabbed Dom’s arm. Guns cocked all around them, the click of metal-on-metal echoing through the room audible even in the storm that beat against the skylights. “It is. It’s Ryker and Vittoria Rockefeller!”
Dom glanced down at where Jonah held his arm, then up again. In a slow exhale, Dom puffed smoke in Jonah’s face.
Jonah coughed.
Smiling, Dom started to say something when the bang of a gunshot pierced the air. To Blue’s left, one of Jonah’s men lurched back, his gun flying from his hand. He screamed, cradling his bloody, mangled hand to his chest in the quiet room.
There was a moment of stunned surprise, where all anyone could do was stare, then all heck broke loose: shots went off, and people ran around, ducking for cover, yelling.
All Blue could think was, He came! Sean had found her somehow and he’d come for her.
In a move so quick, Blue almost missed it, Dominic dropped and swept Jonah’s legs out from under him, then was up and pulling a knife. Within a space of a blink, he aimed and tossed the weapon right at her. Past her. It zipped by her ear and hit something behind her. She spun around in time to watch one of Jonah’s thugs drop to the ground clutching his upper thigh where the hilt glinted.
Dom had saved her. Twice.
She turned back to look for him, but he was gone. Like a puff of smoke. Like he’d never existed. Her stomach fell to her knees.
“Bluebell!” Dad yelled.
She ran to him. “I’ve got you.” She frantically worked at the knots and got one arm free before someone grabbed her by the back of her hair and yanked her to her feet.
Jonah whispered in her ear. “You’re coming with me.”
Her ex-fiancé dragged her off through the maze of tens of thousands of dollars worth of toys he’d found more valuable than her life as bodies fell and bullets buried in metal.