Chapter 6 #2
Chop reaches into the car through the rolled-down window and pulls out a baseball bat. He taps it lightly against his palm, then strokes the polished wood.
Something doesn’t add up here. My brow furrows, and I’m gasping for air. The cold, humid air burns my throat. The guy… doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t tell them to stop molesting me.
“I think you’d better leave, kiddo. While you still have your legs.”
Chop and Elijah look at each other when the guy doesn’t move. He’s wearing dark jeans and a gray hoodie, its hood pulled low over his face. Only his lips—pursed into a thin line—are visible. A menacing, scornful smile plays on them.
“Are you deaf?” Elijah snaps. “Get the fuck outta here!”
The guy’s indifference makes the boys angry. It makes me curious. Why isn’t he afraid?
Chop steps up to the guy and shoves his shoulder. My heart is in my throat, and I’m gasping for air, tears burning in my eyes. I want the stranger to help me, but I don’t want him to get hurt.
“Run,” I mouth silently, “and call the police!”
His face is hidden beneath the dark hood, yet I can still feel his eyes on me. I watch, my mouth agape, as his head gives a small shake. No.
His reaction shocks me—and the gang too. He reacted to what I told him. He didn’t react to anything they said.
“Can’t say we haven’t warned you.” Bo spits the words from behind me. “Get him, boys!” he barks the command. Elijah and Chop jump at the figure.
“No!” I moan.
Chop raises his baseball bat as if he’s about to hit a ball flying toward him.
He swings, aiming for the man’s head, but the man evades the bat at the very last moment.
The bat draws a circle in the air, Chop overbalances and stumbles, crashing into Elijah and stopping him from punching the man in the ribs with his brass knuckles.
The man’s movements are unbelievably fast and precise.
The streetlight glints on something… A knife slides out of the sleeve of the gray hoodie. My eyes fly open.
The man buries the knife in Chop’s throat and leaves it there. Chop gasps for air, gurgling, his breath rattling. The baseball bat drops from his hand, thumping against the wet pavement.
He staggers toward the man on unsteady legs, his hands clawing at the knife lodged in his throat.
The man hits Elijah in the groin, yanks the knife from Chop’s neck, and drives it into Elijah’s eye.
Blood sprays everywhere. Chop and Elijah let out blood-curdling screams. The dark figure twists the knife in Elijah’s eye socket.
Bo’s grip on my arm weakens. He watches in shock as his crew is slaughtered.
“Goddamnit! Get him, Frankie!” Bo sends his last remaining crony to the man. I know he’s going to die just like the others.
A few quick motions and a few shouts, and all the three guys are lying there dead.
My ceaseless trembling eases a little, but I can’t make a sound. It feels like an icy hand is clamped around my windpipe—but when I come to my senses, I realize the cold comes from a pocket knife Bo is holding to my throat.
“You think you’re tough, eh?” he asks. The blade presses tight against my skin. “Another step and I’ll cut her throat!” he threatens.
The man halts, then crouches down. He places the knife—slick with the mingled blood of three men—down next to his trainers.
“Who the fuck are you? And why is this whore so important to you? Or are you some self-appointed hero?”
The silence drags on.
“Answer me!” Bo shouts at him, then kicks the pebbles under his feet—they hit the man, but he is visibly unbothered by this desperate gesture.
“Ask him who he is,” he commands me, grabbing a fistful of my hair. I let out a small hiss of pain and, little by little, swallow down the acidic nausea burning my throat.
“Who are you?” I ask in a barely audible, hoarse voice.
“Good girl,” Bo says. My body tenses—he sounds as if I belonged to him.
The man throws back his hood. Slowly, he lifts his face and after a few nerve-wracking moments, he looks at me.
When I recognize him in the light of the streetlights, it feels as if someone had yanked the ground out from under my feet.
My knees buckle as all my strength drains away. Not even Bo can hold me up.
I fall to the ground. Literally. I’m on all fours, looking up at him.
I’m panting, inhaling the smell of sewage mixing with the cool, humid air. My breath hangs in the cold. My skin is covered in a cold layer of sweat, because I’ve never seen such dark light in his eyes as tonight.
The tight, icy smile on his lips makes my heart skip a beat.
Chase is here.
He has come to avenge me.
Bo doesn’t pick up on our wordless exchange. He doesn’t understand why I’m clinging to his feet—trying to find refuge with one monster from another.
When he raped me with his gang, my soul was screaming for Chase to help me, to avenge me. To punish them. But after all these years, the first man I think of is someone else. It’s the man who holds me in his arms at night and puts up with my fits of anger and my panic attacks. Cyrus.
Bo kicks me, making me let go of his leg. “Get off me, little Grace. I’ll deal with this asshole, then we can continue our little party. Thankfully, I won’t have to share you with anyone now.” He yanks my head back. “But please, don’t keep moaning Chase this time.”
The air is knocked out of my chest, and my heart slams against my ribcage.
Chase looks at me.
For a second, our eyes meet, and my heart skips a beat. Still, I know that everything I felt toward him was because of my Stockholm syndrome. Nothing else. After he’d taken Poppy from me, I had nothing but him.
“Say it again,” Chase demands. His hand, hanging beside his shoe, clenches into a fist, making the thick veins on it stand out even more.
Bo yanks me up by my hair and pulls me closer. Pussy. He uses me as a living shield.
“What?” He lifts his chin. He wants to show he’s the alpha here. But I know he’s not at the top of the food chain.
“What you just said before.” Chase straightens, towering over us. He’s always been taller than me, but I’d forgotten by how much. He looks enormous.
Chase never had a six-pack—I don’t think he has one now, either. His body has always been fit and strong, with powerful biceps and relentless stamina.
“When I was fucking this whore,” Bo yanks me, snapping me out of my indecent thoughts, “she was moaning the name of another guy.”
“Fucking or raping?”
“I only took what was mine,” he answers with a self-satisfied grin.
He grabs my jaw and pulls me closer. He wants to kiss me, but I thrash so wildly I manage to hit him in the face. It doesn’t stop him—he kisses me roughly on the lips anyway.
“This is what I love about her. She’s a fierce little bitch. And her sister lets me fuck her in the ass for a line of coke.”
I don’t have to turn my head to know Chase is standing next to me. The smell of his clothes has always made me feel as if sunrays were caressing my skin. It reminds me of jasmine and fresh, juicy honeydew.
“What the—?” Bo starts, but Chase grabs him by the throat and rips me from his grip.
“Nothing. Nothing you ever took from her was yours.”
I scream when Bo’s arm whips toward Chase. I throw my hands up in front of my face and step between them without thinking. Bo’s pocket knife leaves a paper-thin cut across my palm. Pain sweeps through my body in waves.
“It seems you only love it when I draw your blood.” Bo licks his upper lip and spins the knife in his fingers.
Chase picks up the baseball bat and swings it in a casual, elegant motion.
The wood crashes into Bo’s face with a crack.
His head tilts to the side, and he spits blood.
I back away until my back hits the wall.
I’m gasping for air, my heart twisted into a tight knot, the world around me reduced to a far-off spot on the horizon.
I can’t see clearly—neither the shapes around me nor the bodies.
Dark shadows chase each other through my mind while I’m unable to take my eyes off them.
And the sounds… wood crashing against flesh, bones cracking, Bo shouting…
I’m trembling as I watch the brutal execution. It’s not the first time Chase has killed to protect me. This murder rips open all the wounds I tried to forget, sending my mind into a storm of emotions. The long years of loneliness, pain, and anger set my veins ablaze.
When Chase starts walking toward me, my breathing grows even more frantic. The metallic taste of blood mixes with the spicy scent of honeydew.
Chase pins me against the wall, his closeness overwhelming me. My back presses to the cool surface as he pushes his chest against my body and inhales my scent. My body trembles, and an aching desire burns low between my legs.
“Grace,” he whispers in my ear while twisting a lock of brown hair around his finger. His voice is dark, warm, intoxicating—and sly at the same time. “You still smell as amazing as I remember. I’m sorry this is how we have to see each other again.”
I look at the dead bodies, my vision still blurry.
“I think I’m in shock,” I mumble.
That annoying dark lock of hair falls across his forehead… and in that moment, I cease to exist. His lips twist into a menacing, dark smile.
He embraces me with both arms and holds me tight. My heart slows with every beat, and my breathing evens out. All my strength leaves my body—as the adrenaline drains from my system, exhaustion and weakness take hold. My eyelids grow heavy and slowly close halfway.
“That’s it. You’re doing great, Grace,” he says in his deep, resonant voice. His closeness, his scent, and his voice calm me down—he always knew how to soothe me after he had beaten me.
“You’re so beautiful.”
He sweeps my hair out of my face and traps my lips in a deep, intoxicating kiss. My body trembles, and my pores exude desire as pleasure coils low in my belly. His warm palm cups my face. This connection feels so natural.
He and I.