Chapter 30
Xavier
I haphazardly park the car and turn off the engine, but right before I jump out, there’s a grating voice right next to me. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
I glance at Orion, who’s holding up a giant saw like it’s a toy to him. “You asked me to bring it.”
I snatch it out of his hands and jump out of the car. “Thanks.”
I shut that door and waltz toward the building.
“Wait, she’s here?” he asks. “What’s she doing here?”
“Don’t ask,” I reply.
I don’t want to be spilling her secrets when I don’t have her permission.
I scan the area to make sure no one is watching before we go inside.
“Okay, then what are we waiting for? Let’s go,” Orion says impatiently, as he pulls open the creaky door.
I push past him and waltz inside, only to come to a full stop when I spot her standing barefoot against the concrete wall with her skirt pushed up and her panties torn. Her hands are cuffed to a pipe, and in front of her is a single chair.
But her face is covered in saliva, and a sticky white substance cakes her skin.
And my eyes begin to twitch.
Grinding my teeth, I march over to her. “Who did this to you?”
A twinge of a smile forms on her face. “Cute. Very cute.”
She looks me up and down, and jerks at her cuffs, but it’s no use. No wonder she called me.
“It was Atreus, wasn’t it?” My nostrils flare. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”
She raises her brow at me. “Xavier … don’t.”
Her stern voice makes me suck in the air as I stand before her, wondering if I’m going to cut off his balls or skin him alive while she watches.
But then I’d have to drag him from his goddamn station all the way back here, and that would certainly draw eyes.
Not to mention the fact that she’d probably be pissed off if I went and left her here, all by herself with Orion, while I went on some quest for vengeance.
“Focus,” she says. My mind instantly reels back into place as if ordered to comply, and I swallow back the rage.
“Use the saw to free me.” Her eyes skid down toward the saw in my hands, and I nod a couple of times as I look at the cuffs around her wrist.
I can do this, no problem.
Orion strolls closer, amused. “Holy shit, Sunny, I can’t believe you got yourself into something like this. And I thought you were the type of girl who would never let a man chain her up.”
“Watch your mouth,” she tells him. “Or I might have to chain that up once I’m out of here.”
He shivers in place.
“She hasn’t lost her spunk, that’s for sure, my raging queen,” Orion muses.
“Help me with this,” I say. “I don’t want to cut through her skin.”
Orion holds her wrist to keep it safe while I saw through the metal cuffs, making sure I don't damage her precious skin. It takes a while to get them off, but finally, the cuffs drop to the ground, and Sunny is freed once again.
She rubs her sore wrists, and mutters, “Took you both long enough. Thanks.”
She grabs my shirt, and panic takes hold, but instead of murdering me for not being quick enough, she uses the fabric to clean off her face. “There, much better.”
I don’t even know how to respond.
“Seems like you had a bit of fun without us,” Orion says.
“If you wanna call it that,” Sunny replies, and she attempts to stroll away.
I grab her arm and wait until she finally looks at me. “Tell me if you want me to kill him. I will hunt him down for you. No questions asked.”
A hint of her smirk forms on her face. “Sweet, but unnecessary. I’ll manage on my own.”
She tries to walk off, but I'm tired of her running away from whatever is bothering her conscience.
I’m desperate…
“Talk to us, please,” I say.
Desperate to connect with her.
She pauses near the warehouse door, clearly still affected by whatever went down here.
I’m sure it was Atreus. There’s no way it was anyone else. She wouldn’t let them.
But Atreus Foley definitely is the kind of man to try to chain a woman like her down.
He needs to pay for what he’s done.
“I can’t let you pretend nothing is wrong,” I say. “Let us help you.”
She glances at me over her shoulder, the pain in her eyes so visceral it cuts too deep to leave without scars. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
And frankly, I don't know what I could ever ask from her, either. Because I’ve invaded her life, against her will, out of my own obsession with her. And I can’t seem to let it go, no matter what.
But I don’t want to be the one to slowly unravel her. I don’t want to be her downfall. Yet when I look at her, I’m drawn to her like nothing else. She’s an enigma, a magnet for my every wicked desire. I am deathly afraid of her, but also very much in love.
But I could never, ever say that out loud.
“Nothing,” I say.
She nods a couple of times, then adds a sweet smile. “I’m going on another hunt. Don’t try to stop me.”
I don’t intend to. “I’m coming with you.”
“Me too,” Orion says.
She frowns as she glances between the two of us. “What?”
“I’m serious. No more hiding,” I say.
“You’ll only get in the way,” she rebukes.
But I keep stepping closer. “I won’t.”
“You’ll die trying to help me.”
That won’t deter me. “Then so be it.”
She sighs out loud as I stand right in front of her. But I’m already as close to death’s door as I can be just by being in her vicinity. There is nothing left to fear when you’re already facing your biggest fear.
“You’re really not going to let this go, are you?” she asks, clutching the door.
Orion picks up the saw with a big grin on his face and throws his blond hair over his shoulder in an outrageous manner. “Nope.”
Orion
We go to the back entrance of Crescent Vale City Hospital and wait for a janitor to bring out a couple of bags of dirty staff clothes, masks, and gloves.
When he’s gone for a minute, we make our move.
Xavier rips open all of the bags, and Sunny searches through the clothes until she finds a nurse’s outfit that’s suitable for her.
She swiftly changes in the back alley, putting it all on before checking back with us to make sure she looks okay.
Xavier and I manage to find some belonging to the cleaning staff.
Dirty jumpsuits, but they’ll do. We put them on, and I pull some cologne from my bag and spritz it on.
“Ugh, the stench is revolting.”
“Are we ready?” Sunny asks, as we all put on nets over our heads so our hair is tucked in.
“Ready,” Xavier replies, tucking his knives into his pocket, before putting on the gloves he stole from the waste.
I check my bag one more time to make sure I brought my notebook and my pen. I’m fairly certain I’ll get plenty of inspiration from a heist like this. I’ve no clue what’s going to happen, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy every inch of bloody darkness along the way.
When the cleaning guy opens the door again, Xavier knocks him out with a single punch before he’s even realized we’ve stolen the clothes he was meant to bring to the container for cleaning purposes.
We swiftly shove him behind the dumpster so no one will see him.
He’s not dead, but he won’t remember what happened to him until it’s too late.
“Tie him up, boys,” Sunny says. We do as she says, making sure he won’t move a muscle until we’re done here.
I stuff one of the dirty clothes into his mouth and tie it behind his head so he can’t scream either. “Much better,” I say.
Poor guy won’t know what happened to him when he wakes up.
Xavier steals three masks from the bag and hands us one each, which we all put on to disguise ourselves a little more.
Sunny checks her watch. “It’s time. Let’s go.”
Xavier steals the guy’s badge and clips it onto his shirt, and we enter the building, making our way through the hallway of the busy hospital.
No one looks at us like we don’t belong, exactly as planned.
Sunny glances at a nurse who’s walking in our direction.
She nods, and I nod back, and as I walk up front, I accidentally—on purpose—bump into the nurse.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.” I grab her by the shoulders to steady her and squeeze a little, so she won't notice that Sunny snatches her key card from the wire attached to her pocket.
“Are you okay?” I ask the lady.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. No worries.”
I nod a few times and smile politely. “Hope you have a great day, Erica,” I say after checking the badge on her chest. I add a little wink so she gets all flustered.
“You too,” she says with a smile as she walks off, blissfully unaware that we just stole her access key.
Sunny attaches it to her pocket, and we make our way through the hospital and into the elevators. We go up to the second level where the surgeries take place. The doors open, and we head into the hallway on the left, and Sunny uses the key card to get us inside the off-limits area.
Sunny’s eyes flicker toward the board in the corner across the big hall. There’s a whole host of names on there of everyone who is on active hospital duty right now, and one of them is Sunny’s target.
This is gonna be a hell of a hit.
I swallow as we continue to make our way to the break area. There are only two people in here, and one is just about to finish up. Sunny stares at the guy sitting at the table eating a sandwich, still in scrubs. He has no clue what’s about to happen to him.
The lady who’s done with her food leaves the room after smiling at us. I go to grab a coffee from the machine so we don’t look suspicious while Xavier rummages around the lockers. Sunny approaches the man and scoots back the chair right next to him.
She leans onto her elbow to support her chin with her manicured hand while she stares him up and down. A wicked smile slowly forms on her face, and a myriad of emotions rushes over his face while she taps her sharp nails on the table.
“Hi Mike, how’s the side job been going for you? Gave any more free anesthesia?”
The panic slowly taking hold of his eyes is magnificent.
And damn, I’m about ready to pull out my notebook and write down the sickest line I’ve ever written in my life.
Because this hostility right here is like drugs to me.
Her violence, and the idea of being in the shoes of the man she chose. Watching is the next best thing.
She grins as he slowly backs away from his own lunch while turning ghastly white.
He obviously knows her too. I just don’t think he expected her to come for him.
The scream that follows is immediately silenced by a needle that’s jammed into his neck. Sunny squirts a white, milky liquid into his veins, and within a few seconds, he’s gone.
Xavier and I move in sync. We grab his body as it slumps in the chair and take him by the arms so we can drag him toward the hallway, where there’s a stretcher right next to the door. We lay him on top and throw a blanket Xavier found in the lounge over him, which reaches all the way to his neck.
The medicine she gave him will allow him to breathe on his own, but he can’t move, can’t see, can’t stop what’s going to happen to him.
We wheel him back into the elevator, and Sunny plucks out her card to get the elevator all the way down to the basement. The morgue.
When the doors open up, we ride him down the hallway, past all the rooms used to dissect corpses. We check each window to see if there’s anyone inside. She picks one of the empty rooms, and we roll him inside, and lock the door behind us.
While I gently roll down the blinds that cover the window to make sure no one is watching, Sunny rips off the blanket, and Xavier ties heavy straps to the man’s limbs. The spectacle of torture that’s about to unfold in this room is going to be the show of a lifetime.
Xavier opens his bag, and Sunny holds up her hand like a surgeon waiting for her tools. “Saw, please.”