5. Rowan
FIVE
ROWAN
We planned this out perfectly. Every possibility had been considered, every contingency planned for, every single alternate route and knee-jerk reaction accounted for.
It wasn’t supposed to go wrong. Not a single hit in all our seven years working for the Guild had ever run off the rails like this.
Angel did his part, and with his recon, the three of us could easily corral the target to the dead end where she now waited, knife in hand like a warrior princess. I was just ready to slice off a lock of hair as the contract demanded and then turn her over to Nash for torment and eventual death.
The fear in her eyes as we rounded the corner and she realized death was imminent was beautiful. It was like the first drink of water on a hot summer day. Cool, refreshing, and oh-so satisfying. I relished the familiar rush of adrenaline as she brought that knife in front of her face and growled like a little, angry chihuahua, prepared to bite the ankle of the giant determined to bring her down.
I yanked the knife from her grip and tossed it to the side like it was nothing, gripping her tiny wrist in my big hand as I yanked her against me. She was a fighter, that was for sure, her hackles raised as she searched for any opportunity to flee my deadly embrace.
Her lithe body tucked itself against mine as she struggled, her back pressed tight to my front. She’d obviously taken self-defense courses, but those only worked when your assailant was afraid of pain. Her heel came down on my instep, and I merely growled in her ear, irate and not in the mood to play games with her.
"Those tactics don’t work on me, little girl," I snarled, gripping her swinging ponytail in one hand like a leash. I yanked her head back and dragged my nose up the side of her neck, relishing the scent of fear that clung to her, mingled with sweat and the faintest hint of her body wash under the thick miasma of grease and motor oil. "You might as well give up. It’ll be quicker that way."
She stiffened in my embrace, all the fight draining from her as she tried another tactic—going limp. It might’ve worked better if she wasn’t a mere hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet. If she had some weight to go limp with, I might’ve struggled some.
Instead, I just hoisted her up around her waist, lifting her feet off the ground as Angel and Nash came around the corner, their sadistic, leering grins making them like twins. Angel strolled as if he didn’t have a care in the world, and hell, maybe he didn’t—with looks like that, I wouldn’t give a damn about anything around me. Nash's hair hung in his face like a curtain, shielding his scars from the world. He’d probably look more human and less deranged dog if he cut it, but it was his security blanket. Kept him safe behind a sheet of self-defense.
I brought my knife up to her throat, listening to the whimpers leaving her like a starving man at a buffet. I needed this, needed to know I was in control, that I was the one with the power.
She flinched away from me as I yanked her ponytail off to the side, preparing to cut off the lock of hair our client had requested as proof. She hadn’t said a word yet nor pleaded for her life, which was odd—typically, they’d be screaming for us to let them go.
Unluckily for them, when the sun went down in Port Wylde, not even the police could help them anymore. This town was as lawless as the Wild West, and in the dark, the Guild ran free, unhindered by rules and regulations and laws the ordinary citizens convinced themselves were for protection.
And she was ours.
Nothing could stop us now.
"She’s so pretty," Nash growled, inching closer with one hand on his knife and the other trying to rub away the erection building behind his pants. "Such a shame to scar her up, but it’ll be nice to listen to her scream, and to watch her bleed all over that pale white skin."
Most girls would have fainted at that declaration. Or pissed themselves. The occasional one with a bad heart might’ve had a heart attack on the spot.
Instead, this one laughed. The sound was vaguely familiar, in that unnerving way that happens when you know you’ve met someone before but can’t figure out where or when.
"I’d be careful laughing at him," Angel drawled, his brow quirked playfully at her. "He’s not exactly known for his kindness or his sanity."
She shook in my arms, laughter bubbling out of her uncontrollably. She sounded unhinged, like something inside her had broken a long, long time ago. It was a shame she was our target. She would have fit right in with the other crazies in the Guild.
"Would you just hurry up and take a lock of the hair?" Nash sneered, waving his knife in her direction. "Let her go, and I’ll do it myself. I like ‘em when they’re moving."
I shrugged and turned the girl loose, not surprised when she didn’t immediately try to run. Hell, she let Nash get close enough to reach out and touch her hair, his fingers threading through it as amusement turned to frustration and, finally, anger on his features.
She dodged right past Angel and down the alley again, leaving us all stunned and angry and now in hot pursuit.
Angel got to her first, but it was Nash who grabbed her hair and yanked her to a stop, her whole body jolting with a sickening crunch when she landed on her back in the gravel and gods knew what else. He straddled her on the ground, his macabre skeleton facepaint bleeding off him from the sweat. I watched as he dragged his blade across his tongue, whetting it and leaving some of his own blood behind as he prepared to kill her on the ground in the middle of an alley that smelled faintly of piss and rotting garbage.
"Time to say goodnight, bitch. Maybe if you’re nice, I’ll make it quick for you."
She squirmed beneath him, refusing to give in, her eyes wide open and yet refusing to beg. I had to give it to her; she was a tough bitch, or she was stupid. And she certainly didn’t seem stupid.
And then she opened her mouth just as Nash raised that blade and the blood in my veins ran ice cold.
"Hell will never be good enough for men like you. But I’ll see you there, fuckwad."
With a sick sort of clarity, borne of years of self-torture and internalization, of lost moments and memories I’d buried deep, deep in my psyche, hoping to never see again, was the realization that I knew that voice.
And as he knocked her glasses from her face in the struggle over the knife, her eyes met mine over his shoulder. Those eyes held all the condemnation of seven years of secrets, of lies, of a life she had been forced into by myself and my brothers.
Fuck.
Fuck!
"Stop!"
My hands tore at Nash’s shirt collar as I yanked him backward, the knife lost in his struggle as he scrambled to his feet to turn his attention to me.
"What the fuck gives, asshole?" he spat, his anger mounting, manifesting in his fists as he landed a right hook to my jaw that made me see stars. "Why’d you stop me? It’s my turn, you promised ? —"
As his hands gripped my throat and he shook me, choked the life out of me, I gasped a last breath of air and prayed he could hear me through his rage.
"It’s her, man—it’s Harper. "
I’d never before seen him go so still so quickly, and we’d been brothers since I was born. His hands released me and I fell to my knees, gasping for air, my eyes drawn to her standing before Angel like some sort of vengeful hellspawn, crawled from my nightmares to specifically torture me in new and unpleasant ways.
I thought I’d never see her again. Thought she’d be far away from here, living out her life in peaceful bliss and ignorance, I had never imagined ever gazing into those eyes in my lifetime once more.
And here she was, living right under our noses, her hair a shade I’d never seen it before, fake glasses, and no doubt colored contacts to hide her identity.
Nash froze, his eyes searching the back of her for some recognizable trait that would prove she was the same girl we’d ‘killed’ seven years ago on our father’s orders. Something to reinforce the truth that had dragged its way out of my throat. Of course, the only way to tell was hidden from view, and there was no way he’d even remember?—
"Show me your scar," Angel whispered, his eyes already trailing down her body to rest on her right side. I knew what scar he meant—hell, we all did.
We’d all seen the evidence of her devotion to those she cared about the summer she earned that mark. She wasn’t shy about hiding it behind a layer of clothing. No, not Harper. She slapped on the skimpiest bikini she could find and paraded around like it was a war medal or something.
Her eyes narrowed, and I could practically hear the gears in her head whir to life as she tried to make sense of how we knew about something she’d likely never shown anyone in the seven years since the incident. "Who are you assholes?"
"It doesn’t matter," Nash muttered, all in now himself as we crowded around her. Well, they did—I didn’t need confirmation to tell me what my eyes were seeing, what my heart was feeling, what I knew deep in my gut.
This was our step-sister, Harper Daniels. Or whatever she was going by these days.
Alive, well, and right down the street from where we slept each day.
Nash and Angel were getting impatient, their fingers twitching at their sides as the girl—Harper, it had to be—eyed them warily. "You were just three seconds away from killing me," she pointed out, her brows furrowed. "And now you want me to take my clothes off for you. Sounds kinda sus, I’m not gonna lie, boys."
I bit back the barking laughter that threatened to mark me as a maniac at her reaction. She wasn’t scared anymore, nor was she showing them any fear. She refused to give them what they wanted without her own answers. Answers we couldn’t give her unless we were ready to put our own lives, and hers, on the line.
Angel sighed, and Nash took that as permission—he lunged forward and ripped her shirt up so fiercely it tore in two. She slapped her hands over herself in a flash, but the attempt was pointless.
Standing there in nothing but a tattered shirt, a black lacy bra, and her ragged, grease-stained jeans, was the evidence they needed to dispel their disbelief. They’d seen the jagged mark above her hip, as plain as day and undeniably the same scar Angel helped her patch up for weeks until it healed.
"But you’re dead," Nash muttered, clearly still struggling with what was staring him in the face. "You died seven years ago."