Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Hella
Millie leans against the wall beside me, sipping Coke through a straw. She still can’t stomach anything stronger without gagging. Three weeks of trying to corrupt a nun, and the best I've managed is getting her to say “shit” without apologizing.
“You're a real asshole, you know that?” Her voice is low, but there’s no real threat in it.
“Yeah, I'm aware.”
“Melissa looked like you ripped her heart out and stomped on it.”
“Good.” My eye twitches. “That's what I was going for.”
“Was it?” Millie turns to face me fully. “Because from where I'm standing, you looked about two seconds from chasing after her.”
I take a long pull from my beer. “You see me chasing?”
“No, but right now?” Her brow curves. “You’re squeezing that bottle like it personally offended you.”
“Drop it, Millie.”
“Can't.” She shifts her weight. “Not when you're using me like this. Making her think we're—” She gestures between us. “Whatever she thinks we are.”
“I told you what this was from the start.” I light a cigarette, needing something to do with my hands before I put my fist through the wall.
“I help you stay safe, help you find your little stalker, and you keep me from doing something fucking stupid, like begging on my knees for a woman who wants nothing to do with this life.”
“She wants you.”
I finish my beer and hiss, placing my bottle onto the bar. “She wants a version of me that doesn't exist.” Smoke curls from my lips. “The one who doesn't kill people. Who doesn’t live outlaw.”
Millie's quiet for a moment. “That’s not it, Hella. She doesn’t care about any of that. This has to do with her being afraid that you’ll hurt her. Why are you pushing her away?”
I’d already looked at it from Millie’s perspective, so nothing she says is new. “I think if I don't push her away, I'll destroy her.” I flick ash onto the floor. “Better she hates me now than watches me become the monster she's terrified of.”
“Hella—”
“How's the stalker situation?” I cut her off, needing to change the subject before I crack. “Any new notes?”
Her face goes tight. “Two more. I don't know how he's getting the shots.”
“We'll figure it out.” I pull out my phone, scrolling through the photos she sent me last week. Cryptic riddles in emails. A photo of her at the grocery store. Another of her sleeping at the nunnery.
“Beast has someone working on it.”
“What if he's here?” Her voice drops. “What if he followed me?”
“Then we'll deal with it.”
“That's it? We'll deal with it?”
“What else do you want me to say?” I pocket my phone, jaw clenching. “You stayed with me because you were scared and didn’t want to involve your sister or niece. I'm keeping you safe. End of fucking story.”
She laughs, but it's brittle. Hollow. Like something cracking apart.
“You know what's funny? When I first got here, I thought maybe God sent me to help you. To be some kind of—” She stops. Swallows. “I don't know—light in the darkness or whatever.”
My lip curls. “How's that working out?”
“Starting to think I’m delulu.” She finishes her Coke. Before I can respond, Millie's eyes track across the room. “She's leaving.”
I follow her gaze. Melissa's pushing through the crowd toward the exit, her shoulders hunched and tense.
Fuck.
“You should go after her,” Millie says.
“No.”
“Hella—”
“I said no.” But my hands are shaking. My pulse is hammering. Every instinct screams at me to follow. To fix this. To fall to my fucking knees and beg her to stay.
Can't do that. Won't do that.
Millie watches me for a long moment. Then she smiles. Actually smiles. “You're such an idiot.”
“Excuse me?” Fucking nun.
“You love her. She loves you. And you're both too stubborn to admit it.” She pushes off the wall. “I'm going to check on her. Make sure she's okay.”
“Millie—”
“Don't worry. I'll tell her the truth.” She starts walking. “That we're friends. That I've been helping you with ‘research’ while you help me with my problem. Nothing more.”
“You don't have to—”
“Yes, I do.” She glances back. “Because despite being an asshole, you're a good man, Hella. And she deserves to know that.”
Then she's gone, disappearing through the same exit Melissa took.
I stand there, cigarette burning down to my knuckles, fighting the urge to follow them both.
Hart women are going to be the fucking death of me.
My hand moves to my wallet without thinking. I pull out the worn photograph I've been carrying for fifteen years. The edges are soft from constant handling. The colours faded.
Tippy stares back at me, his weathered face split in a gap-toothed grin. And next to him, small and blonde and gap-toothed herself — Melissa.
She couldn't have been more than five. Six, maybe. Wearing a too-big rugby jersey and holding a hot dog bigger than her head. She's laughing at something off-camera. Tippy's hand rests on her shoulder.
I've memorized every detail in this photo. The bridge in the background. The vendor cart to the left. The way Tippy's looking at the little girl like she hung the fucking moon. Don’t know why he never had Millie, and when he mentioned his “girls”, I assumed he meant his daughter and wife.
“Everyone needs someone, kid. Even strays like us.”
“They think I'm dead,” he told me once. “Better that way. Better they have a chance at a real life without me dragging them down.”
When Melissa walked into my life, I recognized her immediately. Those eyes. That smile. The way she moves like she's two seconds from starting a fight or running away.
Tippy's Wild Child.
All grown up.
Struggled to tell her since figuring it out. That her father is for real dead and how I know this. I definitely don’t want to until I can separate my gratitude to Tippy from what I feel for her.
Because loving Melissa Hart has nothing to do with owing her father a debt. It has nothing to do with guilt or obligation or some misguided form of repayment.
I love her because she's fierce and damaged and whole all at once. Because she looks at the worst parts of me and doesn't flinch. Because when I'm with her, I feel human instead of monstrous.
But that's exactly why I can't have her.
She deserves better than a monster.
I pocket the photo and drain my beer. Across the room, Beast and Yana are tucked into a corner booth. She's talking animatedly about something, her hands moving in wild gestures. Beast stares at the wall behind her head, his expression blank.
Wrong.
She's all wrong for him.
Yana's sweet. Nice. The kind of woman who volunteers at animal shelters. The kind of woman any sane man would be lucky to have.
But Beast isn't sane. And she sure as hell isn't what he needs.
I think about the girl we found not long after our Vanguard escape.
Fourteen years old. Chained to her father.
More dead than alive. Beast killed her old man and carried her for three miles through the streets while I provided cover.
We got her to a friend’s house. Well, it was Beast’s friend.
No fucking idea how the hell he made a friend, but didn’t ask questions either.
He made sure she was safe before we continued our trip.
Meadow, I think her name was.
Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if we'd kept in touch. If Beast had found her again when she was older. If he'd — she's dead.
The thought cuts off like a switch. He got the news not long after she arrived at his friend's place. Overdose. Couldn't handle the demons her father put inside her.
Gone.
Like everything else good in this world.
I light another cigarette and watch Beast pretend to care about whatever Yana's saying.
This is what we do. We destroy everything we touch.
Better Melissa hates me than — The doors burst open.
Travis barrels through, wild-eyed and bleeding from a cut on his forehead. His shirt's torn. His knuckles raw.
“They took them!” His voice cracks across the room. “Somebody fucking took them!”
Everything stops.
The music. Conversations. Laughter.
The world narrows to Travis's words.
They took them.
I'm moving before he finishes his sentence. Crossing the room in three strides. My hand fists his collar, slamming him against the wall.
“Who?” My voice doesn't sound human. “Who the fuck did they take?”
“I don't—I was outside—I heard screaming—” Travis gasps for air. “They grabbed them. Put them in a van. I tried to stop them but there were too many—”
“Who. Did. They. Take?”
“Millie!” The name explodes from his mouth. “And Melissa! They took Millie and Melissa!”
The world ends.
Stops.
Like someone cut the power to reality.
I shove Travis out of the way, and he slides down the wall, talking, but I can't hear him anymore. Can't hear anything over the roaring in my ears.
Melissa.
Millie.
Gone.
Beast appears beside me. “Hella. Hella, look at me.”
I can't look at him. Can't look at anything. My vision's tunneling. My chest is too tight.
They took her.
Someone took her and I wasn't there.
I pushed her away, and now she's — “Hux!” Beast grabs my face, forcing eye contact. “I need you focused. Right fucking now.”
“They took her.” The words scrape out of my throat. “They took both of them.”
“I know. And we're getting them back.” His voice hardens. “But I need you thinking, not losing your shit. Understand?”
“I pushed her away.” My hands won't stop moving, fingers curling and uncurling against nothing. “I told her I didn't care. I made her think—”
“Hella.” Beast's grip tightens. “Save it. You can fall apart after we get her back. Right now, I need my VP. Not a lovesick asshole.”
His words slice through the fog in my head. Not enough to clear it completely, but enough that I can breathe again.
“Okay.” My voice finds solid ground. “Okay. What do we know?”
Ripper shoulder-barges the others. “Travis saw three men. White van. No plates. Drove south toward the highway.”
“Security cameras?”
“Checking now.” Frost's already on his phone. “But the exit angle's shit. Might not have caught anything.”
“Get me something.” I turn to Travis. “You said you tried to stop them?”
He nods, slumped against the wall. “I was having a smoke by the bikes. Heard someone yell. By the time I got around the building, they were shoving Melissa into the van. Millie was already inside. I tackled one of them but—” He gestures to his face.
“Got clocked with something. Gun, maybe. When I came to, they were gone.”
“Did you see any of their faces?”
“Masks. All of them. Metal things, like nothing I've seen before.”
“Fuck.” I hesitate, but then turn to Beast. “This is professional. Not some random grab.”
“Agreed.” Beast's jaw is tight. “Someone's been watching. Waiting for an opportunity.”
“Millie's stalker?” Ripper asks.
“Maybe.” My insides clench, knotting themselves into something cold and wrong. This isn't random. Someone's been planning.
Yana appears, her face drained of colour. “What can I do?”
“Nothing.” Beast doesn't even look at her. “Go to my mother's house with the other women. Lock the doors. Don't leave until I tell you.”
“But—”
“Go. Now.”
She flees.
Jada pushes through next, Phoebe right behind her. “I'm staying,” Jada announces before anyone can argue. “Don't even try.”
“Same,” Phoebe adds, her jaw set. “Melissa's my best friend. I'm not sitting this out.”
Beast looks at me. The resignation in his expression tells me everything—he knows these women, knows that look in their eyes. They won't back down. Not for this.
His jaw works before he speaks. “Fine. But you follow orders. No heroics. Understand?”
They both agree before Phoebe goes back to panic mode, tapping on her phone and calling whoever.
“Frost, what've we got on cameras?” I ask.
He's on his phone, reviewing footage. “Got them leaving the building. Melissa first. Millie about thirty seconds later. Both headed toward the parking lot.” His face hardens.
“Van pulled up. Three men. Grabbed Melissa first. Millie ran toward them—looks like she was trying to help. They grabbed her too. Whole thing took less than forty-five seconds.”
“License plate?”
“Covered.”
“Of course it fucking was.” I pace. Someone planned this. Someone who knew exactly when to strike.
“Inside job?” Ripper suggests. “Or using the chance of the wedding with people going in and out to finally hit?”
“Maybe. They've been watching for a while.” The words taste bitter. I turn to Beast, my jaw tight. “We need to lock down the compound. No one in or out until we figure out what's happening.”
“Agreed,” Beast says, silencing the room. “Everyone inside. Now. Prospects, secure all entry points. Bull, check the perimeter. No one leaves without my say-so.”
People scramble.
And I'm left here. Wondering what the fuck I'm going to tell Olive.