Chapter 2
? Arden ?
They called themselves Ravens, and they were the answer to S.I.N.
. Every asset purchased was taken to a townhouse similar to the one I was trapped in and given time to rehabilitate.
They were then offered a choice I was never given: stay and join the cause or take Alexander’s money and start over at a safe house.
Creed was too valuable to let go of. Alexander meant it as a compliment, but I still would’ve liked to have been given that choice.
The penthouse, the kidnapping—it was all to put the blame back on Halden for Creed’s disappearance.
As far as Halden knew, I’d been taken by masked individuals, my last known footage at the rest stop, while the guys had removed their own trackers and disappeared in the wind.
Alexander, having been our Buyer, now was capable of holding it over Halden, demanding that he be delivered new assets, especially since he knew his sister was trapped there.
Delivery, Halden promised, wouldn’t be for another few months.
I was sick thinking of what Florence would be forced to endure, and it was evident Alexander was too.
He seemed to spend every waking hour negotiating with S.I.N.
Sellers, trying to get Halden to release his ‘prized assets in training’ earlier.
It was no use. I knew better than anyone that Halden was a perfectionist. “Ask for the assets to be untouched,” I told him. “For virgins or an equivalent.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him why, but I knew he could see it in my eyes. I swallowed. “Demand it, Alexander.”
He did, and that was when I started to let go of some of my resentment toward him and the Ravens.
Around week three, he took me to one of the foster homes the Ravens operated. There were so many kids, all of them free, and I realized that even if I’d been given the choice, I would’ve chosen to save more. I never could’ve walked away from what he had built. I don’t think any Creed could have.
“This still doesn’t mean I’ll willingly wear your ring,” I told him as we stood at the edge of a green backyard, kids with healing bruises playing on a swing set.
Tears burned in my eyes as I watched them, hating myself for the envy I felt.
If there’d been an Alexander when I was a girl, then the smiles I saw could’ve been mine.
The amount of pain and suffering that those kids would never, ever have to endure was thawing me from the inside out, no matter how hard I tried to keep my walls up around him.
“Bringing you here wasn’t about that.” Alexander wasn’t in a suit that day.
He’d dressed down and told me to, as well.
Suits and wealth made the kids wary, rightfully so.
It was critical we arrived as just us, not as Buyers.
He was in a black hoodie and jeans, a baseball cap shading his eyes, and I was in my jeans, converse, and leather jacket, Viktor’s lighter tucked in my pocket.
I remember watching his profile and thinking how much younger he looked without the facade, the sunlight bathing him in golden rays.
“Bringing you here,” he said with a small shrug, “wasn’t really about you at all. I just wanted to come and see them.”
I grinned when a little girl maybe five or six chased a boy around us, the two giggling. “It’s healing.”
Alexander glanced at me. “It’s fuel for the fire.”
I met his gaze, understanding passing between us. “These days, what isn’t?”
“Seems we finally agree on something,” he muttered, holding my gaze for a few seconds longer before ripping it away when one of the older girls approached us. “Hey, Mel,” he said, smiling at her. Then he gestured at me. “Melody, this is Arden.”
“I know,” she said. She was a beautiful girl with big blue eyes and ginger hair.
She reminded me so much of a younger Leah, but my stomach dipped with queasiness at the four letters tattooed on her forearm.
“He talked about you a lot,” she told me, setting a chill down my spine.
“Viktor. He said I’d be just like you one day and worth all the money in the world. ”
I forced a slim smile and shoved up my sleeve, showing her my own DOLL tattoo. “Can I tell you a secret?”
She nodded, reaching a finger out and tracing my ink.
Her touch trailed down to where CREED sat in thicker lettering, and I tucked a ginger curl behind her ear.
“This,” I said, reaching down and running my thumb over her ink before lifting my palm and pressing it firmly against her chest, “never meant more than this.”
I dropped my hand as she pulled away, a blush staining her cheeks. “You’re pretty,” she said. “Your eyes are cool.”
I laughed, and she giggled, and for a second, I believed in hope again. It was strange and perfect, and some part of me wished I could bottle it up like the medicine I needed it to be.
“We’ve got a meeting,” Alexander said, drawing my attention as Melody returned to play with the other children. “In Los Angeles.”
I stiffened.
“I need you to talk to him.”
“So that’s why we’re here.” I glared at him. “You need to put a leash on Rafe, so you thought you could butter me up with kids?”
“Are you saying you don’t want to see him?”
I clenched my jaw. “You know I do, but this was manipulative.”
Alexander adjusted his cap and walked toward the limo. “I want to see him too. It’s time.”
I rolled my eyes. “Because you think of yourself as a damn Messiah.”
He simply side-eyed me as we got into the car. I sat as far away from him as possible, having to scoot closer to accept the glass of brandy he offered. I took a swig the same time he did, our glares set.
The rest of the Ravens, my family included in their flock whether I liked it or not, were spread globally.
Creed, Alexander explained, was known most as a group, but individually we still held great power.
No one expected any of us to be alone, least of all Viktor and Halden.
To stay off their radars, we needed to remain spread out until further notice.
What he failed to understand was he had four bombs to control. None of us, myself included, held ourselves back without another Creed close enough to stop us. When I tried to explain that, Alexander only said, “I told you I wanted explosive from the very beginning, didn’t I?”
He…continued to surprise me. He never touched me unless it was necessary.
He only made me wear the ring on official business, and he kept his word about proof of life.
I was given a phone that couldn’t call out or do much of anything, but it received his messages without fail.
Every morning, I watched the videos he sent, my heart bleeding each time.
Thorne was sent to Hong Kong, learning from a Raven who specialized in cybersecurity and hacking.
He assisted with infiltrating S.I.N.’s encrypted networks, locating auctions and sending Alexander fresh coordinates daily.
Kane was sent to London, where the Ravens held a strong foothold in S.I.N.
’s underground fight clubs. He spent most of his nights getting beaten to a pulp, but he ended them by getting a kid to safety.
Both brothers, at least, seemed to be settling somewhat.
They acknowledged that Alexander was attempting to save people, even if his methods appeared unconventional—chaining me to him in marriage being one of them.
At the time, I still had no clue what that maneuver was for Alexander, but it clearly held some kind of weight.
Rafe was in Los Angeles, and he was having the hardest time adjusting.
He’d barely been given an assignment, lashing out at any Raven who came near him.
Alexander had him set up in what looked like a luxury apartment, but Rafe tore it to shreds searching for a weapon or a way out.
He was meant to be helping with the Raven foster homes in Los Angeles, a task I knew he would’ve done in a heartbeat if he’d understood what was actually happening.
My leg bounced as we neared the airport.
Alexander had a private jet, and again I chose the seat furthest from his.
I nursed my liquor, staring out the window at the clouds.
The longer I watched them, the more anxious I grew.
I didn’t expect to see Rafe again for months.
I wanted to see him, of course, but I was also terrified it would reveal something to Alexander that would be used against me.
I startled when the devil dropped into the seat across from mine. “Take a hint,” I grumbled.
“We touch down in 30. I need to know your plan,” he said.
“My plan?” I dragged my gaze to him.
“I need Rafe functional,” he continued in his infuriating calm, pragmatic tone.
I huffed and finished my drink, setting it down with a clunk. “We’re people, not machines.”
“And people, like machines, can be highly dysfunctional. Case in point: your sharp shooter beat the shit out of the Raven watching over him, escaped into the city, and is now chained in one of our holding facilities.”
“What?” I gripped my chair, livid. “The video you gave me this morning showed him in his room still.”
“It was a fake. The only fake,” he corrected as I grew angrier. “I needed to stall while I had the situation assessed—”
“Listen to me you fucking prick,” I spat, pressing him into his chair with my fist around his throat in the span of a blink. “We had a deal, and as far as I’m concerned, you just broke it.”
Alexander swallowed against my palm. “Light the plane on fire and you’ll never know where he’s being held.”
Light the—I frowned when I realized I’d withdrawn my lighter, the flame bobbing next to us.
Christ. I snapped it shut and pocketed it, keeping my grip tight on his throat.
“If there’s a fucking mark on him, I’ll let him kill you.
” I released his throat with some reluctance, and Alexander grinned, boiling my rage to a new height.