Chapter 14 #3
“I’ll die to make sure everything goes Scarlett’s way. Could you say the same, Adrian?” Ash drawls all of this over his shoulder before turning back around and showing us to another door, just before the hall hooks a sharp right. “You’re a selfish brute. Almost an animal.”
“True. I am an animal. It’d be so easy for me to kill you, and I wouldn’t lose a second of sleep over it.
” Widow releases me, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath, like he’s trying to pull all of that unfathomable calm into himself.
He’s perfectly composed until…he’s just not.
If Widow doesn’t get an explanation soon, he could lose that careful control of his. Find himself lost in a red haze.
I get it.
“Don’t bother,” Ash responds glibly. “I’m sure the mob will take care of that for you.
May as well use me while I’m still breathing.
” He unlocks the door with a skeleton key—very atmospheric, rich boy—and then knocks.
Three sharp raps with his knuckles as Bohnes slinks around behind us, smashing vases and yanking expensive paintings off the wall. Ash throws him a questioning look.
“Checking for cameras,” is what Bohnes says, and that might be true, but it might also be that he’s just decompressing.
Widow looks like he wants to amp up the carnage, lips pressed tight and eyes narrowed.
He keeps pushing his tongue against the inside of his cheek, eyes on Ash like he’s hunting him.
Ash shakes his head and turns away, stepping back when Alexei opens the door.
The pair of them have a look at each other before Alexei’s sea-glass-green eyes fall on me. He’s standing ramrod straight, snapping the latex of his gloves against his skin. He doesn’t look at the other men, but he does address Ash in that imperious, princely tone of his.
“About time. How dare you lock me in.” Alexei strides over to me, closing the distance between us in seconds. He puts those sexy germaphobic hands on my elbows and looks down at me, frowning as he takes in my expression with a quick sweep of his eagle eyes.
He’s the primary target here, the coup de grace in Jonas’ world. Kill Alexei and silence him. Keep the mob from ever realizing that Alexei is on their side and it’s Jonas that deserves their wrath and retribution. He should be nervous, but I don’t think he is.
“Widow just kissed me, so my mouth is probably tainted—”
I don’t finish that sentence.
Alexei’s mouth is a rapier, sharp and cutting. He presses it to mine and makes his mark, covering up the taste of Widow with mint and something sweet, like wine. A glass of beautiful burgundy catches the light on the table beside his discarded chair.
I thread my arms around his neck, pleased when he pulls me up against him.
“You sure you’re okay, clean freak?” I tease, feeling the proof of his arousal against my stomach. “I might have cooties.”
“You might be dead,” is what he says to me.
His latex-dressed hands skate over my ass, bunching the fabric of the too-short black dress and discovering my bare cheeks.
He drags one single finger across my opening and then dips the fingertip into his mouth.
Sucking it. Teeth catching on the latex at the tip.
He’s greeting me and tasting me in the same breath. So bold. So forward.
“I’m pretty difficult to kill, Marie.” I run a finger across my lips, noticing his eyes as they track the movement.
Alexei just did something filthy and disgusting and totally inappropriate. He’s also not panicking about contamination. He likes it when I get him dirty.
“My apologies, Scarlett,” he continues, lifting his chin.
“Murdering Ash before cooperating with him would’ve been a grave mistake.
If anything, the mob will finish him for us.
There may be nothing we can do about that.
” Alexei sounds apologetic, like he more than anyone can see how losing Ash would break me.
“My…lover made a reasonable request of me, and I made a terrible fool of myself. You care deeply for him. Because of that, I should be preserving his life and not ending it.”
My eyes are wide on his. Whoa. Alexei’s buttering me up for something.
That date we’re supposed to have. The date he was so desperate to go on before they screwed me over on the track.
I extricate myself from him, tugging the dress back into place and feeling the brush of my rings against my thigh.
The fingers of my inked hand brush down the bare skin of the other, tracing goose bumps.
“You’re all getting punished later, regardless of whether you apologize or not.” I pause, swallowing a knot of weird feelings. Gross ones. I’m more than happy to put those aside for later. “Although I do appreciate it.”
I glare at Widow, and he looks right back at me. Immovable. Unhappy. Tense.
Ash sweeps past us all, collecting four more wineglasses from the in-room bar. He pours wine for everyone, and then tries to hand the glasses out.
But these are Prescott boys I’ve got with me.
Bohnes laughs, shaking his head and moving over to the sink. He taps his skeleton-inked fingers against the wineglass as he pours it out. Rinses it. Fills it with water instead.
“That was a rare vintage.” Ash chugs his entire glass and pours another, red liquid sloshing haphazardly. “What a waste.”
“Can’t risk my mental clarity in a place as hostile as this.” Bohnes shrugs, eyes glinting.
I take a sip from my own glass, and Widow just scowls. He didn’t accept either. His own glass sits on the edge of the bar, untouched. Ash drags it toward him and drinks that, too.
“What are we doing here, Kelly?” Widow gruffs, bloodied fists on his hips and drywall dust in his glorious hair.
“Care to explain why you thought to bring us to your dad’s place, to the very heart of the problem?
Where’s your shit-ass sperm donor? If he isn’t actively being tortured by the mob then he’s in the wrong place. ”
Ah. Yes. Widow isn’t going to apologize to me: he’s going to double down on his Ash hatred. He’ll follow me to hell and back, but he’s going to complain while doing it. He’s going to distrust Ash until something personal changes between them. It could take years to mend their relationship.
Ash says nothing, elbows on the bartop, the delicate stem of his wineglass clutched in his right hand.
I nurse my drink—not really a wine girl, but eh, a nice red goes well with sex and murder—and let my gaze trail around the four fuckboys present.
Huh. Always thought I’d enjoy having a harem of hard cocks at my disposal, but this shit is tiring.
These men are trouble, and I’d be more likely to cut one loose than I would to add another stallion to my stable.
You fucking liar. You weak-hearted, soft-hearted, too-nice motherfucker.
I’m in love, and it sickens me.
Look at what love did to Lemon. Look at what love does to everyone in Prescott. It chews them up and spits them out, just saliva-soaked cud and bullshit. Loving someone is a fast track to losing everything else that matters. My sisterly love for Alexis nearly cost me my life.
And yet…here I am.
I am in love.
In someone like me, that becomes a weapon.
Ash turns around, shirtless and fatalistic and dramatic as he drapes his lithe body into an aristocrat’s slouch.
“I brought you here because of Bolin. He was hunting the four of you. Easier to lure him here than chase him down.” Another sip of wine, a desperate attempt to drown the melancholy in his eyes.
Ash turns to Alexei next. “I’ve shot and wounded the police chief.
He’s alive and awaiting your care in my bedroom. ”
Ash smiles at him, and Alexei is taken aback, putting a gloved hand to the front of the white hoodie he’s wearing. He’s still dressed in his emo-core, uwu-sad-boy best, so I know he hasn’t been here long. Where he was before he came here, what he was doing, I’d like to know that.
“I see.” Alexei stands straight, cultured and disciplined in his response. His eyes are on fire with the reality of Ash’s statement, at the thought of finally, finally having his father’s murderer under his control. “That is…well, I suppose that was very thoughtful of you.”
“You shot the chief of police in your own home?” Widow breathes, like Ash is the dumbest man he’s ever laid eyes on. His disbelief is evident. Bohnes chuckles, like he finds the situation amusing.
“Like you can talk, cop killer.” Bohnes’ commentary is not helping. “You shot yours in public and left his body in the McKenzie River.”
“Sorry that I haven’t murdered so many fucking people that I’m an expert at it. My bad.” Widow crosses his arms, seething. If I’m missing information, then he’s operating in the pitch-black of uncertainty. He doesn’t understand what the game plan is here.
“A problem that can be corrected, fortunately.” Bohnes lifts his glass in Widow’s direction, like he’s toasting him with unholy water.
“Why set my house on fire?” I ask, interrupting what’s actually a cute conversation.
If the boys can get along with each other, we can win this thing relatively quickly.
It won’t be easy, but I know we can do it.
The five of us, plus Nisha and Basti and the rest of my crew.
It’s enough to wage some guerilla warfare.
“Chet,” Ash explains, flicking his tongue across his teeth in disgust. “He sent Cody to Scarlett’s place to…retrieve her, and to burn the last holdout on the block to the ground. I headed that off.”
“You certainly did.” Widow’s voice is inflectionless.
He truly believed that Ash was going to shoot him, didn’t he?
There’s more than one dead man walking in this room.
“And then you dragged us behind enemy lines. What happens if someone figures out that Alexei is here? Isn’t his capture the be-all, end-all for your dad? ”