36. Atticus
Atticus
It is fucking six a.m. when the alarm starts shrieking. The shrill sound cuts through the absolute silence and pitch-black darkness of my room. The kind of dark where you can almost hear the blood in your own ears, where the walls press in close, and every shadow feels like a watcher.
I knew it would.
I’ve been lying here for hours, every muscle wound tight, eyes snapping open at every tiny nighttime noise. I was so sure that alarm was going to go off that I couldn’t go to sleep last night. But Phoenix waited until six a.m. to fucking run away.
At least she’s running for the right reasons. If there is such a thing .
I rub the sleep from my eyes and shove on my glasses, going immediately to my phone and pulling up the GPS signal for the AirTag I slipped into her old sneakers. Her sneakers are the only thing I knew for a fact she’d take if she ran.
Nobody runs away in six-inch stilettos. Nobody runs anywhere in six-inch stilettos. I don’t care what the porn Maverick likes to watch says.
The screen’s glow slices the dark, numbers and coordinates spilling across it like a heartbeat.
No, a woman like Phoenix is smart. She’s practical. The girl doesn’t own a car. I’m not even sure she has a license. She’s always gotten around on foot, and that’s how she’d leave.
I watch the tag for a second, seeing it move about a block down the street from the resort as I shove on my own clothes, tucking a revolver into the back of my pants and adding three knives from my collection to my holsters.
I may not be quite as enthusiastic about knives as Storm, but I do have a love for a gleaming blade.
“Get up,” I yell, banging on the wall into Storm’s room. The sound reverberates through the thin wall, sharp enough to jolt him out of whatever half-dead sleep he was in.
My phone app tracks the tag. She’s only about three blocks from the casino, but she hasn’t moved in at least a minute. That can’t be good.
Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe I’ll wake everyone up and, by the time we’re ready to hunt her down, we’ll open the door to find her standing there, ready to apologize. Maybe she’s standing three blocks away, rethinking her terrible life choices, and she’ll come back.
God, I hope that’s the case.
Once she’s done apologizing, I’m going to take her into the playroom, put her in the shackles, and punish her. All by myself this time. I’ll have her chained in the fucking stocks while I stripe her ass.
“What’s wrong?” Storm asks, suppressing a yawn and rubbing his eyes.
“Phoenix left, and we need to go get her. Now.”
“What?” Storm asks, but I’m already halfway across the suite, pounding on Con’s and Maverick’s doors .
“Get the fuck up,” I yell. “Phoenix left, and those assholes are after her. They’ll know we’re willing to pay to get her back. We need to move before it’s too late.”
Storm’s face pales. Then his jaw tightens, and he gives me a single nod. I see the shift in his eyes—the psychopath is in charge. Good. It’s the psychopath I need right now, not the broken man. Say what you want about crazy, but crazy gets shit done.
Storm disappears into his room and comes out a moment later with his blade and a few others tucked into his pockets.
Maverick emerges wearing nothing but jeans and a scowl, sliding a set of brass knuckles onto his fist.
Con isn’t fucking around. He tucks a revolver into the back of his pants, grabs a collapsible steel baton, and slips it into his pocket—a gift from his father after he got caught beating a cheater with a baseball bat. The baton’s easier to conceal.
“Where is she?” Con asks.
I check the GPS. She still hasn’t moved. That’s not good. “Follow me,” I say, making a few calls as we head out .
“Who the fuck are you calling?” Maverick growls.
“The marina,” I say through clenched teeth. Before we even get out of the elevator, I have the staff rushing to get our yacht ready and clearing the entire marina. There will be no witnesses to what we’re about to do.
“How close are they?” Con asks.
“Less than three blocks.”
“Good,” Storm says with a gleeful smile. “Just out of the cameras’ line of sight.”
No one talks as we march downstairs and through the casino lobby. The early Savannah air is thick with humidity, carrying the briny tang of the river. Streetlamps flicker in the mist, their light pooling across wet pavement like molten gold.
I check the map again. She still hasn’t moved.
We walk in a tight line until we see a black van parked at the curb. I spot the flash of Phoenix’s coppery-blonde hair as she backs away from a group of men—five of them, plus one massive tub of lard .
We still say nothing. I tighten my hand around the hilt of my blade as we pick up the pace.
“Well, look at what we have here,” a tall man in a leather cut says as he grabs Phoenix by the throat and looks us over. “You boys here for the?—”
I don’t break stride long enough to engage in conversation. His words cut off when I drive my knife up through the bottom of his jaw. The resistance is brief—cartilage, bone, then the warm slide through the soft palate. His eyes go glassy before his knees even give out.
I do appreciate efficiency.
“We tried to tell you…no one touches her but us,” I say through clenched teeth, ripping the blade free. Blood splatters across my face, and I should probably be concerned about hepatitis and other diseases, but honestly? I don’t give a shit.
The other men freeze for a heartbeat. Maverick winds back and smashes one in the jaw with his brass knuckles. Teeth and blood spray in an arc, hitting the pavement with a wet clatter.
That’s enough to snap the rest out of their stupor. Two scramble for the van, but Storm is already there, knives flashing. Con beats another man down with his baton, each strike thudding against flesh and bone, while Storm giggles like a drunk hyena as he carves.
Boots scrape on asphalt. A man’s wheeze turns into a choking gargle. The air smells of copper and sweat, thick and metallic in my throat.
With the others handled, I go to her.
She’s frozen, her hands still up in a defensive posture from clawing at the man’s grip. Her gaze is locked on his corpse. I grab her arm and turn her toward me.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She stares blankly for a second, then nods. Her pupils are blown wide, breath uneven. She smells like fear and the cheap cologne the man who grabbed her wore.
“You’re in so much fucking trouble,” I growl. “This time, it’s just me. This lesson’s going to stick.”
Tears well, but she blinks them back and nods.
“Are they all dealt with?” I ask .
Storm’s covered in blood but uninjured. Maverick has a split lip, Con a scratch on his arm. The men who scared Phoenix are dead at our feet.
“I’ll get the car,” Maverick says. Good—he’s the cleanest.
I turn to Phoenix. “If you want to walk after your punishment, go calm Storm down.”
Confusion flashes in her eyes, then she sees him—wild, panting. She runs to him, pulls him close. He holds her tight, tucks his knife into her back pocket.
He doesn’t trust himself with it.
Maverick pulls up. We line the trunk with trash bags and load the bodies. Storm refuses to let go of Phoenix and pulls her into his lap in the back seat.
I hate that he’s the messiest of all of us and he never cleans up his fucking mess.
But whatever.
We bleach the blood spots staining the pavement until the air stings our noses. The police will know something happened, but they’ll never find the bodies .
And that’s exactly all I care about. I don’t give a shit if they know people died here. I only care if they can build a case.
At the marina—empty, just as I ordered—I shut down every camera feed. We carry the bodies to the yacht, stacking them on a tarp. Storm stows Phoenix below deck.
We sail twenty miles out, into deep water. The yacht rocks beneath my feet, the ocean black and endless. Amorphous shapes circle beyond the deck lights, curious, then frenzied when the first pieces of blood and bone hit the water.
We strip wallets, shred IDs, chum the water with flesh. Clothes, tarp—we shred everything. The smell of bleach and blood burns my nostrils.
It’s almost ten before we’re done scrubbing. My knuckles ache. Every muscle hums with the residue of adrenaline.
Seized with the sudden need to look at Phoenix, make sure she’s okay, I duck down into the cabin where we stashed her. She’s curled on a narrow bunk, knees to her chest, damp hair clinging to her face. A blanket is wrapped tight around her like she’s holding herself together .
She looks up at me, eyes still too wide. “Are you…done?”
“For now,” I say, stepping closer until my knees bump the bunk. I can smell the soap from the yacht’s tiny shower, sharp against the faint scent of fear still clinging to her.
Her throat bobs. “You were fast.”
“You’re welcome.” I lean down, bracing a hand on the wall beside her head. “Next time, you don’t run. Or I won’t be.”
Her lips part, but no words come out. I leave her there, blanket pulled tighter, and head back up to finish the work.
“I’m so sorry,” she says to my back.
“You’re not yet,” I tell her. “But you’re going to be.”