Chapter Five, Present Day
Spinning around a pretty girl on a nightclub dancefloor, music pounded in my head only marginally quieter than my heartbeat and rage. Memories laced with poison tried their best to taunt me, but I wasn’t having it. I was pretending everything was fine. In fact, everything was fine – I was going to be in denial so fucking hard that it became the truth.
Easy.
I was in a suit. A fancy three piece one made of a deep navy, with real leather shoes and all the other bits of rich man bullshit. Misha had lent me one of his suits, and I liked it. And sure, the Amor Loungewasn’t a classy place. But it was a special event, and I was in the mood to dress up for it and play rich boy businessman.
The special event being that I was playing hitman and blending into my surroundings with the other rich assholes who were here to buy an unwilling girl for an hour or two.
Or worse.
My date for the evening was far too beautiful for such a place, especially on her seventeenth birthday. A day that not so long ago she might not have made it to at all, thanks to the types of people that surrounded us. But whatever. She was fancy as fuck in her floor length black gown, made of silk, that had slits on either side showing off far too much of her thick thighs and a new floral tattoo that trailed down half her leg, courtesy of Kellan and his talents. A thin black choker was around her pale neck, a pair of sky high heels were on her feet, and she looked happy and stunning. Even more so with the Red Diamonds tattoo that was also freshly healing on her wrist. She’d even curled her newly dark purple locks and brushed them out so there was only the slightest of waves left behind.
I had the urge to run my fingers through it and see if her hair was as soft as it looked. Then I realized how fucking weird that would make me, so I tamped that shit down and pretended to be normal inside my brain.
“Lilah.” I sighed her name as the beat of the music bounced around my brain far more than my grief and anger did. “You look perfect, and I’m glad to be here with you, but if I have to dance for much longer, I think I’m going to go insane.”
Delilah shrugged. Her big grey eyes, coated in a delightful amount of black eyeliner, narrowed at me as we kept spinning around.
“You think I’m not already insane? This entire plan is bananas. But that’s fine. We can be batshit together and see what happens, and I can bet my new fancy shoes on something happening soon.” She grinned and the neon lights bounced off her shiny white teeth, that were accentuated by her black lipstick.
She looked like a gothic princess and I fucked with it more than I should have, considering she was my currently comatose boyfriend’s little sister. Adopted sister. Sort of boyfriend in a semi-open but not relationship. But still, Delilah was a weakness of mine; a hot goth with thick thighs that would look even better wrapped around my face. I loved goth girls. Always had. But I liked them even more when they were kind and had held me for nearly twelve hours without complaint as I sobbed over most of my family being dead and how I had been too late to help.
I liked girls the most when instead of leaving me alone each night to cry into my pillow; they stayed with me singing songs until I passed out, only leaving my side when I was securely off in dreamland.
Fuck, Delilah was a distraction, and I was in trouble. I was in a lot of trouble if I kept letting my brain think stupid fucking thoughts. I needed to think of Kellan’s nan or something instead. Or maybe my old English teacher, Mrs Kane, who’d been a mardy old bitch that stunk like anchovies. That ought to have been enough to make my head reset itself and get back in the game.
That would have to be enough to make me stop behaving like a fucking idiot and remember there were more important things for me to think about and do right now than mess up my friendship with Delilah. Because aside from the danger we were in, crushing on my comatose boyfriend’s little sister was not a smart fucking choice. It was either the start of a brilliantly angsty romance book. Or a recipe for disaster. Either way, it was fucking with my head a bit too much and I had enough to deal with.
“I like bananas. But only if you eat them upside down. Did you know that’s the right way to eat them?” I said.
Maybe I was talking shit to calm myself. Or maybe I was right and people who ate bananas wrong were simply fools. Or perhaps I needed another distraction from the sight of Darius bleeding out in Sapphire’s mansion, his glasses askew and his chest rattling out of my mind.
He wasn’t dead. I’d come to after the crash, finding Angel had called for his aunt, and then and her men had taken an unconscious Kody to be treated. Raya had dragged Kellan, Angel, and me back to Sapphire’s as soon as she was sure we were mostly okay, and we had made it before the stench of gunpowder had even left the air. Three minutes after that we had seen the bloodbath that waited for us – the corpses that littered the ground – and one of my best friends damn near dead.
A crying and bloodstained Delilah had kept enough pressure on the bullet hole in Darius’ chest that, with the help of Raya’s doctors, he made it to live another cursed day.
He was one of the lucky ones.
There had been over a dozen bodies we had disposed of that night.
More than one with my blood running through their veins.
More than one person I loved.
Rocky had never been a part of the plan, and it was my fault that I hadn’t thought he would be a threat until it was too late, and now I could feel the guilt eating me alive, far more than anything else I had done lately had.
I was already in trouble for my sins but the things I’d done before now were nothing in comparison to letting my family down.
“Is there a right way to do something? I always thought everything was open to interpretation.” Delilah stopped moving suddenly. Then she got on her tiptoes and moved her lips right beside my ear so I could smell her lavender perfume and taste the bubblegum in her mouth. “Ten o’clock. Prick with a gun on his hip. Can I kill him, Widow? I wanna kill him.”
Pretending to still dance, I spun her, swapping our places with as much smoothness as I could muster. I wasn’t a dancer, but I knew enough not to make an ass of myself. My aunt Nessa had told me that if I wanted to make dates like me, I ought to have learned not to embarrass myself or them on a dancefloor, and she had been right. I wondered, now that she was dead from a handful of bullets in her back, if she had ever thought there would be a time I would actually appreciate her advice and not laugh it off.
I wondered what she thought of me when I hadn’t made it home in time to save her life.
I would have hated myself for it.
“Easy, psycho. We have to pick the right guy at the right time.” I checked out the gangster Lilah had spotted, confirming his weapon and that there didn’t seem to be anyone else with him.
The Jackals were dumb as shit. Obvious considering Kalvin Mercer had cut a deal with John O’Malley, screwing over Sapphire and offering Gods knew what to the Irish devil in exchange for three things.
More power than Sapphire had let him have.
Promise of protection from Sapphire and the Red Diamonds.
And Henley.
Henley-Jade McCormack, a little girl whose entire family were now buried in shallow graves because some sadistic little fucker had decided he could take one look at her and scream mine like a fucking seagull or some shit. As though she was not a person far too young for him, who ought to have had her own choices in life. Fifteen was no age for her to be dead or stolen. Least of all when she was still alive and willing to fight.
At least I hoped she was still alive.
I was presuming she was.
Turned out Kalvin liked to pander to his son’s ego and though we had thought Rocky would be nothing more than a thorn in our side to be dealt with later on, he was far worse than that. Far, far worse. We were lucky Beau had found out about the betrayal, but not lucky enough. His warning had come too late. Too late for my family. For the stolen women who’d been nothing but fodder in a battle they had no part in.
Too late for Henley.
“The Jackal is on his own and I don’t think he can make it to his gun before we got him.” I muttered as I spun across the sticky dancefloor, closer to the guy, wanting to get as near as we could before he had the potential to recognize me and my pretty face.
I wasn’t being conceited, but we were in Hendrix City and people knew me here. They knew my father, and I looked like him, even if I hated it.
Delilah bared her teeth at me in the best sort of feral grin. “Can I kill him now?”
She was in the mood for something violent and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Just like Henley, she had been brought into a world and fight she should never have witnessed. She had been taken and hurt and almost ruined entirely if not for Tanner playing a hero like he always did.
I could understand why Delilah had a darkness in her big gray eyes that flickered with an anger that I would never comprehend.
“If you can get him into the bathroom with you in less than three minutes, then sure.” I let go of her just out of the guy’s eyeline and stepped back. “Make it fast and be safe.” I warned, before turning on my heel and heading into the nearest bathroom and standing guard a few feet from the door.
It was just around the corner, down a single set of squeaky stairs, right before another set that led you to the shitty basement. I hoped it was both empty and had what we had come for. Either option wasn’t fun, considering what went on down there, and I couldn’t decide which one would be worse in the end.
The bathroom stunk like piss and stale beer, the light blue tiles went from floor to ceiling and looked far too sticky for me to want to touch, and there wasn’t a single window or anything nice to look at. Just a couple of stalls, urinal and a set of sinks on the wall that made me shiver. It was fucking grim and desperately needed a candle or something to help burn away the stench of nasty ass men and their filthy habits.
The door banged open before I could ponder which scented candle would do the best job to hide the disgusting odor, and I pulled my gun higher, the silencer on the end more than eager to do its job for whatever piece of shit crawled through the door and had the misfortune of joining me.
“You’re so fucking hot.” A rough voice growled as Delilah entered the room, the giant oaf of a gangster behind her, his eyes on her ass.
She had a nice ass. Not that I looked. I swear. But someone like him had no right to look at her, let alone comment without an ounce of class. Like how hard was it to say something sweet about how pretty Delilah looked when she smiled, how smart she was, or how she had loads of talent? Rather than just sexualizing her and being a fucking dick-faced-little-bitch.
I wanted to cut his tongue out for speaking to her, then his eyes for looking at.
Fuck, I was in trouble.
Reign it in, dickface. She’s not your girl. You can’t do this shit.
“Too hot for you, douchebag.” Lilah replied, as she yanked the twat into the bathroom, kicked out her leg so he collapsed onto the ground, and let the door swing shut behind her with far too big a grin.
The gangster let out an oomph when he fell, but he was by no means injured and hurried to reach for his gun. At least he tried to; he was no match for me booting him in the face, and Delilah hurrying to yank his gun from his side holster. We made a pretty good team so far, if I could say so myself.
“Alright, shithead. Here’s how this is going to go.” He scrambled away from me and backed against the wall, his enormous nose pissing blood as he scowled between the two of us.
“Who the fuck-” He tried to spew bullshit our way but was cut off when Delilah yanked a blade from her thigh garter and slammed it into his shoulder with a smoothness I hadn’t been expecting but found ridiculous fun.
She hadn’t been on a mission before tonight. This was her first time being truly violent on purpose and she was taking to it rather… well.
She pulled her blade out again, twisting it as she did for maximum damage. “Stop whining and answer our questions.” She scoffed as blood sprayed her cheekbones and the ground, seemingly unaffected by it all.
I didn’t know if I should find her violence hot or wonder if she needed psychological help. I mean, I also laughed and enjoyed playing games with my victims, but I wasn’t well in the head, according to my mother. She had got me tested years ago when she claimed I was a fucking menace to society, and the doctors had claimed I was a tiny bit ADHD. But what the fuck did they know? I was just cool, and they couldn’t handle it. Nobody could aside from my boys.
And Delilah.
Delilah Rose Montana – now that she’d legally joined the Montana family with her new ID. God, even her name was pretty. It was unfair for my concentration levels. They were quickly becoming… less than stellar. And I needed to concentrate. I needed to concentrate more than I had ever concentrated in my life. This was serious shit. Super serious.
Life or death.
The man wailed and moaned, and I knew we were lucky the club was so loud – lucky the music covered every ounce of his pain and our impatience. Not that I cared about the police presence, nor would any cops get inside the club. We had backup with bigger guns and fingers that were more than trigger happy. But still. It was more convenient when there weren’t a handful of little piggies trying to take on the big bad wolves.
The wolves being the Red Diamonds. Not me. I was more like a piece of the mud the pigs played in sometimes.
“Okay, I’ll try again.” Forcing myself to concentrate, I cocked my gun, pointing it at the gangster sallow face as Delilah wiped her blade on his shirt and slid it back into her garter in a totally not-hot move. “You are going to answer my questions, and if you don’t, you get hurt. But if you do, then you get to live for a bit longer. Do you understand?”
The gangster hesitated, his wild eyes darting between Delilah and me, no doubt trying to find weaknesses and coming up short. There was no empathy or hesitation in the room. Not for this. Not today.
Eventually, he nodded. “What do you want?”
There were a million ways I could have worded my question, but for some reason the idea of speaking her name – saying it in such a place, for the reasons I was – made my throat dry up and my hand shake. Enough so that Delilah noticed and instantly reached into my jean pocket, pulling my phone out with ease. She unlocked it and spun the screen around, showing the gangster the picture I’d found purely for tonight, as she took over our interrogation without a word about my moment of weakness.
Weakness was my one pet peeve. I couldn’t be weak. Not just because we were on an important mission right now. But because I knew better. My dad had beaten me black and blue my entire life so that I wouldn’t be weak and I was too spiteful to ever show him otherwise, even when he wasn’t in the damn room.
“Seen her?” Delilah asked, voice calm and deadly.
The gangster glanced at the picture and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Where?”
He hesitated, and I shoved away my bullshit feelings, concentrating on nothing but the rage and fear I needed to survive – the one that had been keeping me going since the crash and everything that had gone wrong.
With a hiss between my teeth, I bent down, pushing my gun against the piece of shit’s forehead. “She said, where?”
His tongue darted out, licking his lips as he took far too long to respond to me. My impatience burned once more, and I cocked my gun back, smacking him in the face with it, before I pushed it against his skull again, desperate for his response. I knew being whipped with a pistol hurt and I figured he wasn’t as used to it as me; he would talk before I had to do it again and if he didn’t, he would regret it.
I needed to know where to go in this hell hole more than I needed to breathe.
I needed to know where to find our girl so I could bring her home.
“She’s in the basement in one of the rooms for clients.” He said, and just like that, the world went quiet.
The music stopped, the world ceased moving, and everything inside me went deadly still.
In a room for clients.
Clients for a whorehouse.
“Lilah. Kill him.” I barely forced the words out of my lips as the gangster sucked in a breath, no doubt going to spew more bullshit, as he realized I had no intentions of letting him go anywhere.
He’d been dumb to think it – dumb to presume I wouldn’t kill every member of the Jackals in retaliation for what they had taken part in. For what they had done to my family. To the innocent stolen women who had been entirely defenceless when they had been sprayed with bullets and left to rot.
Considering she’d never killed before, Delilah did a great job. I didn’t know if it was the anger in her heart or the frustration that burned beneath her skin, but it worked. She dropped the gangster with a single bullet to his brain like she hadn’t only been using a gun for a matter of weeks, or part of a gang for even less. I was proud of her for it – proud she was getting back against the kind of men who had harmed her. She was a cool fucking girl and though I hated how we had met; I was really glad we had. She was far more fun than Tanner had ever described her.
Far better than I could have imagined.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” She frowned as she straightened herself up and glanced my way. “I’m worried you’re having a brain meltdown or something. Henley said you had them all the time.”
“I’m just glad we’re friends.” I explained, pretending that hearing my cousin’s name didn’t feel like razor blades dancing along my skin. “And I was just thinking that you were pretty cool and circumstances aside, I’m glad I met you.”
“Me too, przystojniaku.” Delilah wiped her cheeks with a paper towel and pulled her gun back into her hand, holding it steady. Far steadier than me.
“What does that mean? I’m hoping it means hottest man alive.” I stepped over the body, not a care for leaving it behind as I tried to force myself to be nonchalant and not on the verge of a meltdown.
We weren’t being secretive – once we’d killed Jackals, we didn’t care what happened next. Beau was already making an example of Kalvin Mercer that nobody for miles would miss and the Red Diamonds who had joined us were doing similar things.
“Close.” Delilah winked as she headed for the door and opened it up for me, the music from outside finally breaking through the numb in my mind. “I don’t know if we’re good enough friends for me to tell you all my secret little nicknames. Maybe you need to make me a sandwich or something when we get home to solidify it.” She teased, trying to lighten the anger on my face.
Playing along for a moment, I said, “Don’t even. Me and you are tight now. We just killed together, so that makes us, like legit friends. Ride or die ones that are gonna go on a shootout and rescue mission.”
She grinned at me, and I almost fucking melted, despite everything going on.
“True. So come on bestie, let’s go do some murdering so I can earn this tattoo and my new surname for real.” She waved her Red Diamond ink as she referred to how the paperwork for all the girls had come in days earlier, most of which wasn’t needed now.
Delilah Montana.
Yeva Montana.
Diamond Montana.
Those were the only forged documents required. Not a single other Persephone woman had need for one.
They had no need for anything anymore. The same way my family didn’t.
Fuck.
“Don’t die on me, okay? I don’t wanna have to find your ghost to beat some sense into it.” I kissed Delilah’s cheek and moved in front of her to head down the steps to the basement first. “Now come on – let’s go get our girl back.”
She gripped her gun tighter, nodded her head, dropped her smile and I instantly felt the change in the air.
Delilah wasn’t an innocent girl anymore. She was a woman on the first steps to taking back her life from the types of people who had wanted to ruin it.
She was embracing her new surname in the same way Sapphire acted when we did dangerous things.
She was taking back control.