Chapter 19
Nineteen
MATEO
My brothers have left, and I return to the living room, where Violet is curled up on the couch again, watching the lights of the Strip through the window.
How she’s still upright after the beating she took and with all the adrenaline gone, not to mention the emotional exhaustion from the past hour of talking with my brothers, I have no idea.
She’s going to crash, and it’s going to be hard.
Rather than sit across from her, I join her on the sofa and wrap her in my arms.
“I know you said you’d help me,” her voice is so small, it almost breaks my heart. I press a kiss to her shoulder. “But if you don’t trust me now, or if I hurt you and you don’t want—”
“Listen to me, Savage.” I turn her so she’s facing me and ghost my fingers over her forehead, gently swiping the loose red strands there aside.
“I really fucking hate that you felt you had to lie to me, that you didn’t trust me not to be a piece of shit, and most of all that you walked into that warehouse tonight on your own.
You took ten years off my already-too-short life when I saw you in there. ”
“Why is your life already short?”
I grin and lean in to kiss her nose. “Because of what I do for a living. Short lifespan. But in case you didn’t get the message before, I’m going to make it as plain as I can.
You’re mine. From this moment on, there are no more lies between us.
Not from me, and not from you. There’s no need to stalk each other, no more games.
If we’re going to find your sister, we need to let go of all that bullshit and focus. ”
Now her eyes fill with tears, and she tries to blink them away, but it’s no use. They spill out onto her cheeks, making my heart clench.
“Don’t cry, baby.”
“You’re really going to help me.”
“We’ll find her.”
She swallows hard, and her big blue eyes are so wet and so full of sadness, I have to lean in and kiss her.
“What if she’s dead?” It’s a whisper, as if voicing the words would make them real.
“Then we’ll get the answers you need.”
We sit in the stillness for a long moment, and just when I’m sure she’s fallen asleep, she says, “You said that you guys want Damien dead for personal reasons.”
She tips her head so she can look in my eyes. She’s so damn beautiful, even all battered and bruised.
“Why? What did he do?”
I blow out a breath and kiss the top of her head. “Well, let’s see. He killed Carson’s wife, and then Carson spent time in prison because of him. It’s a long story, but that’s the crux of it. Every damn time we think we have him, he slips away again.”
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “Poor Carson. I’m so sorry that I ever thought—”
“Like you said earlier, you didn’t know.” I kiss her head again because I just can’t stop. “I think that’s enough talking for tonight. I want you to sleep so you can heal up. Seeing you hurt makes me want to kill someone.”
“You did kill someone,” she reminds me. “Several someones. Thank you for rescuing me. I know that I had the gun, but I don’t honestly know if I could have pulled the trigger.”
She was trembling and bleeding and so fucking scared it made me want to burn the world to the ground.
“You’re not a killer,” I murmur into her hair. “And you never have to be because you have me to do that for you.”
With my girl still in my arms, I stand and carry her upstairs to the bedroom.
After undressing both of us, and seeing that the bruises on her torso have only darkened, I gingerly help her into bed, then work my way through the penthouse, setting the alarm and making sure we’re secure in here.
I’ve never done that a day in my life, but now I have someone precious to protect.
She’s already sleeping deeply when I return. I ease my way into the bed with her, and even in sleep, she shifts so she can drape herself over my chest, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders, tucking her safely at my side.
She shifts, and then her voice, thick with sleep, murmurs, “Why 12:37?”
I smile into the darkness, thinking of the watch that she etched into my side.
“That’s the first minute I ever laid eyes on you, and it changed every moment after for the rest of my life.”
“How is she?” Diego asks as he joins me outside my cells in the basement of my building.
“She’s still sleeping.” It’s past noon, and my girl woke up long enough to take more medication for the pain and then dropped right back into sleep. I didn’t want to leave her, but Diego and I have business to see to down here.
First, we walk into the cell holding Miguel. He doesn’t look so good. His burns are infected, and his breathing is labored. If I leave him in here, he’ll die soon without my help.
“Kill me,” he rasps, barely conscious.
“Lucky for you, the information you gave me was right. I’d prefer to draw this out, but I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”
With thoughts of what I’ll do to the man next door in my mind, I pull the gun from the small of my back and put a bullet in the side of Miguel’s head, then stride out of the cell.
“I’ll call the clean-up crew,” Diego says as we stride over to the other cell, where one of the men that dared put his fucking hands on Violet has been waiting all night.
I push through the door and see that my men did as I told them to, which was to strip him naked and put him all fours on the dirt floor, chained, so his broken nose had to fight against gravity all night.
That fucking hurts.
“Name,” I demand, and when he doesn’t answer right away, I kick him in the side, taking the air from his lungs. “I won’t ask fucking twice.”
“Paulie.”
I cringe. “You go by Paulie like you’re a fucking four-year-old? Do you still breast feed too?”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re definitely not my type.”
Diego smirks as I cross to the tool bench and choose a box cutter. I always prefer fire. Always. Julian’s typically the knife man. But the box cutter hurts, and this motherfucker needs to suffer for what he did to my Savage.
“So, Paulie, who do you work for?”
He shakes his head, and I slice over his rib cage. He cries out as he starts to bleed.
“That’s for breaking my woman’s ribs. Now, answer the question.”
“Doesn’t matter if I tell you, I’m dead either way.”
“True.” I nod and toss the knife back on the tool chest. “You’re going to die today.
But you see, if you talk when I tell you to, I might make it quick.
If you’re a little prick, I can make this last for days.
Frankly, I have shit to do. I have a woman to take care of because you and your buddy thought it would be a good time to beat the fuck out of her.
I have businesses to run and, you know. A life.
But I can put a lot of that on hold to stay here and make sure your last few days are a living hell if that’s what gets you off. ”
I lean over and look beneath him at his pathetic, flaccid dick.
“Doesn’t seem to. If that’s what you look like hard, you’ve been a lonely man.”
He doesn’t reply, he just squirms. His knees have to be numb by now. And the thing is, I don’t fucking care.
“Who’s your boss?”
“You know it’s Damien.”
I nod, pleased that he isn’t lying to me.
“Where is he?”
“No one knows. He bounces around, and I’m just a foot soldier. I don’t have the clout to know shit. I was supposed to sell girls to the highest bidder. That’s it, man.”
“That’s it.” I turn to Diego, who’s fucking seething. “That’s it, D.”
“I heard.”
“I do what I’m told,” Paulie says. “Christ, you have guys like me on your crew.”
I squat in front of him and yank his head back so he can see my face.
“Do I have foot soldiers? Of course. But not one of my men is like you. We don’t sell women.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Should give it a try. Makes a shit ton of money.”
The man’s head is blown off in front of me, leaving him hanging by his hair in my fist and me covered in blood and brain matter.
I lift an eyebrow and look over my shoulder at Diego, who’s reholstering his weapon.
“The fuck?”
“He didn’t know shit, and he was running his mouth. Boss.” He clears his throat, and I let Paulie’s face smash to the floor with a slop sound and wipe my hands on my jeans.
“Damn it, I liked these pants.”
If any of my other men were here, Diego would be in deep shit. No one dies unless I give the say-so, but Diego has his own demons that he battles.
I stand and rest my hand on my second’s shoulder. “This one time, in the privacy of this cell, I’m going to let that slide. If that ever happens again, particularly in front of anyone else, I won’t hesitate to slit your throat.”
He holds my gaze with respect. “Boss.”
“Clean it up,” I order as I walk out of the cell. “I’ll be upstairs. Has there been any word from Bobby?”
I had the man keep eyes on Violet’s apartment, just in case.
“Not a word,” he replies behind me.
“Good.”