28. Chapter 28
twenty-eight
Doubt Me - Beartooth
Someone hauled Jackie to her feet after the front door closed behind Dimitri and Talia. She looked around her, assessing the situation.
It wasn’t great.
In fact, it looked pretty grim.
She landed back on Nikita. His smug grin was gone, replaced with cruel calculation.
She tried to keep her anxiety at bay so as not to show it.
She dropped her eyes to Nikita’s feet. Slowly tracing her way back up to assess him and what his next move might be.
His eyes did the same. The air in the room stilled as they stared at each other.
“Why?” Nikita asked, stepping closer.
“What?” Jackie scoffed back.
“Why hand yourself over like that?”
“Talia had nothing to do with this.”
“Neither did you,” he countered, stepping closer until he and Jackie stood chest to chest. “Dimitri Fraser is the problem. Yet here you are, taking the fall for him.”
Jackie stared at him, hating what he was suggesting as if Dimitri hadn’t spent the last month and a half fighting with Jackie to stop putting herself on the line. As if he hadn’t practically begged her in front of every man in that room not to hand herself over in exchange for Talia.
“I wanted Talia back. I wanted this finished. I’m what you wanted to end it. So here I am.”
He considered her a moment before nodding to himself. Finally, he peered over Jackie’s shoulder at the man who still stood behind her. “Take her to the car. I want to be out of the city by the time Fraser comes back for her.”
“He won’t,” Jackie said, not fighting when the man grabbed her arm and led her toward the hall behind the bar.
“You have eyes all over this place, don’t you?”
Jackie smiled. “Eyes in the skies.”
“So I should just kill you now and be done with it then,” Nikita suggested.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Jackie shrugged.
Nikita’s lip twitched before he turned and led the way down the hall.
He ducked into a room at the back, but the man behind Jackie kept her moving out the back door and into the employee parking area.
Another black SUV with dark-tinted windows waited there, surrounded by a few others.
The man opened the back door and pushed her in.
He stood with his back to the door, leaving the others exposed.
Jackie took in her surroundings, trying to decide whether it was worth running.
She leaned toward the door, trying to look up at the man guarding it before surveying the lot around them.
Beyond the cars was Lake Ontario. Given how cold the winter had been, there was likely a decent ice shelf she could safely run across to get away.
In a perfect world, Nikita and the others would assume she’d gone the other way.
But the risk of the ice not being thick enough to hold her weight was too high.
If she broke through and fell, she’d almost certainly drown.
The only other escape route would be to go back around the front of the club.
But that would mean running past the man standing guard and, if it was really poorly timed, possibly the rest of the Bratva as they left the club.
All escape options also hinged on the man standing guard not noticing her leaving the car, which was highly unlikely.
She settled into the bench seat with a heavy sigh.
She was stuck. There would be no running.
Not here at least. She wondered if Nikita planned to drive or if someone else would.
A second person in the car would complicate things.
If Nikita was behind the wheel, all Jackie had to worry about was incapacitating him.
If they were already on the road, she’d either need to take the wheel once he was done or hope they crashed just right to avoid any serious injuries for herself.
Her mind raced with all possible options and plans. No matter what, she knew her chances of walking out of the parking lot were slim. She’d be limping out if she were lucky.
Her throat tightened. Talia was safe. That’s all Jackie cared about. Talia was safe. Dimitri was safe. Neither was probably happy with her, but she could live with that. As long as the two people she loved most in the world were safe, she could accept whatever came next.
The door next to Jackie opened, and she found Nikita standing there, watching her expectantly.
The man who had been standing guard marched back toward the club.
She shifted over to the other side of the bench, providing him space to climb in.
He stared for a moment at the back of the driver’s seat as if waiting for Jackie to say something.
“We’re not going to get very far if we’re both sitting back here,” she snarked, even more curious about who would be driving and where they’d be taking her.
“You can stop pretending your hands are still bound,” Nikita said, finally turning back to her.
Jackie’s chin raised, surprised by his frankness—and that he’d assumed she had broken out of the cuffs already.
“How did you know?” she asked, curiosity getting the best of her. She also hoped that by keeping the energy casual, she might avoid an all-out brawl. She dropped the cuffs in Nikita’s lap before leaning against the door and settling her hands into her own.
“How long were they off?” he countered, staring at the cuffs.
“The pick was in my hands before old Serg had them on me.”
Nikita scoffed, shaking his head. “Fraser warned me not to underestimate you.” He picked up the cuffs like they were dirty and tossed them into the back before turning and leaning against the door to face Jackie. “I hate him even more for being correct.”
Jackie smiled innocently, flattered by the compliment, even coming from Nikita. “What did he say to you before he left?”
Nikita’s eyes trailed down Jackie’s body. She hated the way he looked at her like she was a meal to be consumed. Not savoured and devoured like Dimitri often looked at her, but utterly consumed and spat out like waste.
“Who is Neil Patterson?” he asked.
Jackie’s face dropped before she had a chance to stop her reaction. Her mind raced, wondering how and why Nikita knew that name.
“Fuck Neil Patterson,” she spat. If her face had already given her away, might as well lean in.
“Why did he use Theo Clarke as an intermediary, paying for your protection?”
Jackie fixed her face into a scowl, making herself hold it that way to not give herself away anymore. Nikita seemed to think he was interrogating her, but really, he was answering a lot of questions she’d had for several months.
“Fuck Theo Clarke,” she spat again. She had too much spinning around her head now. “What did Dimitri say to you before he left?”
“That if you didn’t kill me, Neil Patterson would,” he replied, looking unimpressed with the whole ordeal.
He leaned forward, as if he might crawl across the seat to her.
“What makes you so special to a man like him, hm? Are you some unrequited lover? Are you truly that good at your job? Pardon me for finding that hard to believe.”
“Fuck you.” She shook her head.
Nikita’s smug smile finally returned as he started crawling across the bench toward Jackie.
“I do like it when you say that word. I heard it often when you and M?kail had your dalliances, no matter how far away he took you.” He paused when his face hovered inches from Jackie’s.
“Please scream it loudly when I make my first little clip for Fraser. If you do as I say, I’ll make it good for you that first time. ”
“And if I don’t?” Jackie asked with a raised eyebrow.
Nikita chuckled softly. “You’ll still be loud. But you’ll be unrecognizable when I’m finished. Whether it’s the first time, or it takes me a thousand times, I am going to rape you, and beat you until the guilt is so unbearable that Dimitri Fraser kills himself for me.”
Jackie tried to keep her breathing steady, despite how her heart clamoured in her chest. She schooled her face into indifference, not wanting to let him know how scared she was.
No matter how scared she was, she could take it.
The thought of Dimitri being hurt—or worse, hurting himself—that she couldn’t take.
Morbid curiosity got the better of her when she asked, “Then what?”
“Then you’re useless to me, and you can join him.”
"Even if I'm a good fuck?" Jackie asked, trying to keep the conversation active while she figured out how to get out of there.
"I suppose I should have taken M?kail up on his offer to share you when he suggested it."
"He offered that?"
Nikita nodded. "I think the worst part of you killing him is that if circumstances had been different, M?kail would have gladly made an honest woman out of you.
" Jackie scoffed. "You know, if you weren't a liar, and a cheat who was using M?k like I warned him you were.
" Jackie rolled her eyes. "He like you more than he should have and you killed him for it. "
"He tried to rape me."
"And that's nothing compared to what's in store for you now."
Jackie nodded, deciding her next move. She was sick of hearing Nikita talk. She needed to incapacitate him before anyone came out of the club. She didn’t know if he had told the rest of the group to stay there, or what, but she didn’t like that she hadn’t seen anyone else since Nikita arrived.
She looked Nikita in the eyes for a moment, wondering what his next move would be, but acted before he had a chance.
Her knee came up between his legs hard, sending him forward. She dodged, rolling onto the floor of the back seat as his face connected with the dark-tinted window.
He roared in pain and anger as he corrected himself.
Jackie climbed to her hands and knees, trying to get up before he could grab her, but her wide hips caught between the front and back seats, slowing her down.
Nikita reached for the back of her neck and tossed her into the door.
She felt her neck crack with the impact, but refused to dwell on it as long as she could still move.