Chapter Twenty-Nine
Raven
My heart had raced as Viktor’s SUV had woven down residential streets that quickly turned into wider streets with ten foot fences that hid giant mansions.
I’d almost laughed to myself when we coasted through wrought iron gates and right into a Mediterranean style mansion with terracotta tile roofs, and a stone and stucco exterior.
It was over the top. It was massive. It was also exquisite.
Another gilded prison.
I’d been here for almost an hour now. I just hoped that the Steel Demons were coming to save me and Falcon. Though I had no idea if my brother was here too.
“What are you thinking about, Daisy?”
I cringed at the sound of that name. If I never fucking heard it again it would be too fucking soon. “Nothing much,” I answered softly. “Just this place. This is your specialty, isn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“This,” I waved my hand around. “The beautiful mansion and the designer clothes and shoes. The travel. It’s all supposed to be everything a woman could want, so that she forgets that she can’t leave.”
There it was again, that flash of anger. He wasn’t as good at keeping it in check as he used to be. “Why would you want to leave all this?” He asked the question without a trace of sarcasm or irony.
“Never mind.” I didn’t want to get into a philosophical debate with a psychopath, and I didn’t want to piss him off too badly before the Steel Demons came.
“You are just being contrary,” he decided with a heavy sigh.
“No, I’m not. I’m just stating a fact. If you had everything you have now, but there was a man bigger and more powerful than you in charge of your freedom, would you be all right with that?”
He laughed, but he didn’t answer.
Just what I thought.
“Your friends killed five of my men.” He spoke through gritted teeth, which revealed that he cared more than he would ever admit. “That cannot go unpunished.”
My shoulders almost fell, but I tensed every muscle in my body to stop the instinct even as unease settled low in my gut. He would punish me and he would enjoy it, but this time I wouldn’t just take it. I planned to fight back every step of the way.
If it came to that.
“You lied,” he said in a voice so low I wasn’t sure I heard it.
“I know you, Viktor. Of course I lied.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Your lie cost me five good men, Daisy.”
Suddenly, the door opened. “Ah good, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he said to me with an evil smile on his face.
Two of his men walked through the door, each supporting one of my brother’s arms as they dragged him in. They let him go and he slumped to the ground. His eyes were wide, but his mouth was taped, muffling what I knew would be angry, shocked words. “Falcon,” I said softly.
Tears threatened but I swallowed them down. I couldn’t show any weakness, or it would be used against me. I gasped when Viktor’s hand landed on my shoulder.
He squeezed it almost gently. “I have not decided who will be punished for my men, you or him. But to show you that I am not completely without compassion, I will let you two spend your last hours together.” His tone suggested he was trying to be magnanimous, but I didn’t buy that shit for a second.
Ice shot through my veins at those words. Your last hours. My gaze narrowed at him. “So you do plan to kill him?”
“No,” he answered without equivocation. “But we leave first thing tomorrow so either way, this will be the last time you two see each other.” I didn’t trust the gleam in his eyes, but I kept it to myself. As long as Viktor thought he was winning, he would be calm.
That gave me and Falcon time to think. To plan our escape. I still had the tracker hidden in my ponytail, and I knew Steel Demons would try and rescue us, but I couldn’t just rely on that. Right now I had to focus on survival, and that meant trying not to anger Viktor.
There were a lot of things I wanted to say to him in that moment, most of them of the four-letter variety guaranteed to piss him off and kickstart his violent streak. Instead I smiled sweetly up at him and nodded. “Thank you, Viktor.”
Viktor offered a tense smile to me before he turned to Alexei with a quick, almost imperceptible nod.
Alexei ripped the tape off my brother’s mouth with a devious smile before he joined Viktor, and they left the room together.
I waited thirty seconds before rushing across the room and wrapping my arms around Falcon.
“Oh, thank fuck.” I hugged him the way I used to when I was a little girl.
Every single time he came home, I was so happy to see him, even if he’d only been gone a few minutes.
“How the fuck did you manage to get yourself picked up?”
He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “Good to see you too, Raven.” He squinted. “Though I’m not sure if that is you. You sound like my annoying little sister, but you look like someone else.”
“I had to dress the part,” I whispered, shooting my eyes to the door where Alexei and Viktor left from. “He’s calmer when you keep him happy.”
Falcon’s eyes flashed with anger and his nostrils flared quickly. “This motherfucker doesn’t own you, Raven.”
“Yeah, I know,” I shot back angrily. “But I couldn’t exactly piss him off when he showed me video of you tied to a fucking chair, now could I?”
“Yeah, I guess not.” He flashed that crooked smile that I missed every day when we were apart. “I still don’t like it.”
“I know,” I sighed. “I don’t like it either, but we are where we are.”
He nodded. “And exactly where the fuck are we?” He looked around the mansion as if he was only seeing it for the first time now.
“Some mansion on the other side of Vegas. We might be in Henderson or beyond. The driver took a lot of turns, probably to confuse me.”
“Not like you know the area all that well,” he said sarcastically.
“Right.” I nodded, running my fingers along the split in his lip and the bruise that was forming around his eyes. “Are you okay, Falcon? I mean really, and don’t give me any of that tough guy bullshit.”
“But I am a tough guy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, what the fuck happened?”
He sighed. “Danny, the prospect? He fucking sold me out. The fucker stopped me at the gas station. I was filling up the bike when he approached me, distracting me from the guy who came up behind me and knocked me out.” He shook his head, anger taking over.
“They didn’t knock me out completely, so I heard Danny talking to one of them like they knew each other. ”
“Shit.” My mind raced to all the weird vibes I got from Danny over the past few weeks. “He must’ve been the one who gave us up at the safe house. Both times. I couldn’t figure out how they found us, but now it makes so much sense.”
“The prospects got the houses ready for you. They got multiple houses ready, which means they probably hit ‘em all looking for you.”
“That asshole,” I growled. “But, why?”
“Who knows,” he spat. “Who fucking cares? Could be blackmail or extortion. Anger. Dissatisfaction. Could be a lot of reasons, none of them make this shit all right.”
“Why are you so fucking calm?” It was unnerving, especially when I was freaking out on the inside.
“Because I’m thinking. I can’t think straight when I’m fucking furious, which I am, by the way.” He glared like it was my fault that he was furious.
“Oh. Okay. Good. I thought maybe you were losing your mind.” I scanned his body just to assure myself he was fine, while he kept on glaring at me. “Are you hurt badly anywhere?”
“No. Just what you see.” He studied me for a long minute before he shook his head. “How did it go at the coffee shop?”
I shrugged. “It was going to plan until he showed me the video of you tied to this fucking chair.” I told him about the deal. “He promised he would leave you alone, all of you, if I go with him.”
“No way, Raven. No fucking way.”
I sighed. “I knew you’d say that. I knew everyone would say that, which was why I didn’t ask. This is my decision.” It wasn’t like I wanted to hop on a plane to god only knew where with him, but I knew the carnage he’d leave in his path if they tried to protect me. “What other option do I have?”
He let out a bitter laugh. “So you’re just going to give yourself back to that asshole? To endure the same hell as before? Un-fucking-believable.”
“It won’t be the same,” I whispered, just in case Viktor was listening. “This time I won’t be as docile or as accepting.”
He scoffed. “So, what? Your plan is to get yourself killed in exchange for all of us?”
I looked away. “This is all my fault, which means it’s my problem to fix.”
“Bullshit. That’s not how we do things.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, that’s not how you all do things, but we both know they only tolerate me because of you. This is a fair deal.”
“You are full of shit, and you know it.”
I refused to meet his gaze. “Fine, think whatever you want. Maybe I just need a change. This is happening.” If the Steel Demons didn’t come through for us before morning, I would get on that plane with Viktor to keep my brother alive. “Try not to do anything to get yourself killed before morning.”
“What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing,” I answered quickly.
“Seriously, what’s up? You’ve been weird all week, staying in your room and avoiding everybody.”
I rolled my eyes. “Viv told me you think I’m distancing myself. Who knew you were into head shrinking.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
I grinned. Fighting with him like this felt normal.
Like we weren’t inside a mansion where one or both of us would die.
“I’m not being anything, Trav. I’m just trying to be realistic here.
I know the risks of this plan, and I didn’t want to see everyone’s sad eyes. Plus I got to spend time with TJ.”
His expression sobered at the mention of his kid.
“Don’t be stupid, okay? You have a woman and a kid who need you to come back to them, and that’s the only thing I want you to focus on. Not me. Not Viktor. Just getting back home to them.”
“I can do both,” he insisted, his tone arrogant as hell.
“No, you can’t. I’m doing my part because I don’t want him to kill you to punish me. Don’t give him a reason to kill you. Please.” I pleaded with him because my brother was tough. He was a protector and he wasn’t easily intimidated, but he didn’t understand how high the stakes were.
“Don’t look at me like that, little sister. I’m not letting you just hand yourself over to that freak show.”
“You’re not letting me do anything. This is a done deal because you’re here. If I don’t hold up my end of the bargain, he won’t hold up his, damn you.”
“He’ll probably kill me anyway.” He wore a smug smirk as if he thought he’d cornered me in this argument.
“Maybe, but it’d be nice if you stayed quiet long enough to stay alive until the MC comes. If he has to kill you tonight, we’ll leave before morning and that’ll be that.”
“Fuck,” he groaned as his shoulders dropped. “You don’t play fair.”
“Good. Remember that. This isn’t easy for me, either. I never wanted to be back here or in this position, but here I am. Just keep your mouth shut until we get a rescue or until I’m gone, yeah?”
He nodded. “You can’t get on that plane, Raven. If you do, nobody will ever see or hear from you again.”
I swallowed hard because I knew that. More than anyone, I knew what Viktor was capable of doing.
“Then don’t do anything that will force me to get on that fucking plane.
” My stomach lurched and I smacked both hands over my mouth, running around the room until I found an expensive vase to throw up in.
My stomach lurched and hitched as I filled the vase until my throat burned, my eyes watered and goosebumps covered my skin.
I had another reason why everything had to go to plan.
It wouldn’t take Viktor long to realize I was pregnant, and unless he made me have sex with him as soon as we left, then he’d know the baby wasn’t his, and we’d both be dead.
I didn’t think I had a life back at the clubhouse anymore, but the only way for me and my baby to survive all this was if we got as far away from Vegas as possible.
I put my hand over my belly, instinctively trying to protect the life growing inside me, but I felt my brother’s gaze on me, full of concern and curiosity and I pulled my hand away.
“What’s going on Raven?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “Nothing at all.” And as soon as we were free of his place, I’d take my nothing and build a life away from Steel City.
Away from Hades, who would choose my brother over me.