Chapter 17 #3
“Friends?” Alexei laughs, lording over Ash.
The pair of them take a long look at each other.
Ash is panicked. Alexei is disgusted. If I wasn’t at stalker-level-obsession with both of them, I might not notice their tells.
Jonas is perceptive, but he also couldn’t tell Ash and Aspen apart.
“I’d hardly call the pair of us friends. ”
Alexei withdraws his thumb and then spits into Ash’s open mouth.
Spits. Into. Ash’s. Mouth.
I curl my arms around Lemon to keep from dropping the box.
Uuuuuuh.
“Swallow, Aspen.” Alexei is not smiling.
He is not playing games. This is a Borisov taking his pound of flesh.
Ash seems to understand that. In the same way he slaughtered Maryanne for Widow or shot Ernest for Alexei, he’s willing to do this, too.
Any degradation. Any humiliation. He feels like he deserves it all and he wants it in the way a martyr wants to die for his cause.
Ash swallows without my input and Alexei tightens that hand on his throat, the black latex of his glove creaking as he squeezes hard enough to cut Ash’s airflow off.
There’s a look of sheer, beautiful brutality on Alexei’s face.
A fire in those pale green eyes and a horribly satisfied smirk to his cosmopolitan mouth.
Ash’s eyes darken and his hands fly up to claw at the strong tendons in Alexei’s wrist, a natural struggle response to being choked.
But he isn’t fighting anymore, not really.
“Don’t you dare kill him,” I mouth silently, allowing Alexei his moment to shine.
He’s caught up in a game with Jonas that I don’t particularly want to play.
Rich people politics are disgusting. I’d rather stab-stab-stabby-stab-stab with my knife, you know?
One day, I’d really like to hurt Mayor Kelly.
“If I wanted Aspen dead, I’d leave him here, rodnaya,” Alexei replies loudly, and I swear to fuck, if that little Russian endearment he tucked on the end means something derogative, I’ll stab him in his squeaky-clean balls later.
“We have to play with him before we kill him. Show Jonas that the only place a Kelly boy belongs is on his knees in front of a Borisov.”
Ash’s eyes are on mine as his heavy lids slide closed and Alexei releases him with a flourish, leaving him to topple to the side where he hits the stone floor with a thunk. The air smells like rot and wine, and the box of Lem’s ashes is the heaviest burden I’ve ever carried.
“The family’s business is their own, but that boy is mine.
” Jonas has stopped walking, standing in a stately hall with dim lighting and a blue suit with a patterned tie, colors for his persona and not his true self.
Jovial. Fun. The colors of a happy-go-lucky mayor with the people’s best interests at heart.
“If you choose to remove him from my home, I’ll—”
I grab the phone from Alexei’s hand before Jonas can finish, chucking it as hard as I can at the wall. It crashes into a bottle of wine, breaking the glass and perfuming the air with its luxe fragrance. The phone is trashed, screen cracked, sweet alcohol seeping into its insides.
Alexei turns away from Ash and promptly throws up all over the floor, clutching at the front of his hoodie with his latex gloves, teeth gritted to hold back another wave of sick.
You’d think he was the one who had his mouth spit in.
He rips the gloves off and throws them on the floor, pouring sanitizer across his trembling hands.
Ash is slumped on his side, peaceful and adorable in his sleep in a way he rarely is when he’s awake. There are fingerprints on his neck, and I’m such a nasty bitch because I’m into it.
“Is there a problem?” Alexei gasps out, turning to look at me over his shoulder with a pale face and bloodless lips.
My fingers tighten against what’s left of Lucy Bree Hall, feeling the bitter cold of her ghost in the air around me. My skin ripples with gooseflesh. My throat goes dry. My Prescott-honed instincts are singing with the violence of well-sharpened steel.
I meet Alexei’s stare with a grave heaviness.
“We need to get the fuck out of here—now.”
I can barely breathe, adrenaline tightening my chest and strangling out all of my feelings. Only my logic remains. The chair beside Jonas’ was empty. Chet’s chair perhaps? Also, Jonas said Ash even though Alexei called him Aspen. This is bad.
Jonas knows we’re in the house now. Chet could be in town. Goons could show up. Answering that phone was a mistake that I can’t help but wonder if Ash made on purpose. Might have to use a choke chain to drag him away from this dog park he calls self-sacrifice.
My plan was to record a message with Alexei and Ash inside the house and then send that to the mayor after we left. Sigh. People with dicks have brains that just work different. My God. Each screw-up of theirs makes it more fun for me later. Punishment games, baby.
Alexei is practical before he’s a germaphobe. He rises to his feet, liquid and graceful, and hauls Ash up with him. He tosses our poor comatose boy over his shoulder.
“Jonas called him Ash, didn’t he?” Alexei remarks, perceptive as always.
I lead the way up the cellar steps, two at a time.
The urgency in me is trenchant now, sharp sickles of adrenaline slashing at my heart.
I let us linger. No more. Jonas’ mask rarely slips.
He’s meticulous about maintaining his cheerful persona. But not today. That’s a bad sign.
“Yup. And he really wanted to keep us talking,” I murmur, reaching the door at the top of the stairs.
“Won’t be long before someone shows up here that we’d rather not run into.
Seems like our little sleepover in the Kelly manor is officially finito.
” I pause at the sight of Bohnes, leaning against the wall just outside the door.
My heart slams into my ribs, already riled up from the Alexei/Ash display downstairs.
Feelings are luxuries. So is arousal. Fuuuuck.
“The chief of police is safely trussed and resting-in-peacefully in the trunk of the GT500 out front.” Bohnes is being cute, teasing and flirtatious. But then he sees the look on my face and he snaps to attention. “Tell me.”
Oo. Damn. That whiplash command is both sexy and annoying. I blow some loose hair off my forehead.
“We need to make like a tree and get the fuck outta here,” I reply with a labored sigh.
Needles of dread stab through my skin, like a sociopathic acupuncturist is having a field day with my body.
Bad, bad, bad. “I’ll get Gram and Emma Jean.
I need Widow to come with me. Alexei, find a nice car for us to steal and throw Ash in the trunk.
You, Nightmare, will take care of Trish and set the house on fire. ”
Bohnes wets his lips, but he doesn’t argue. His eyes are ice picks and his mouth is a haunt that’s taken full possession of the young man he might’ve been in another life. He nods and stalks down the hall in the direction of the living room.
“Mr. Lawless, we have a problem,” he singsongs as I turn back to Alexei, wearing my Queen of the Crimson Crew crown.
I’m done arguing with these men. Are they all competent and capable?
Sure. It’s why I like them. Given the chance, I’m sure any one of them could lead me to safety and victory at the end of the tunnel—but at their own expense. Not acceptable.
Alexei is stern-faced, the edges of that silk-stocking mouth turned down in a concentrated frown. The very second a shower is available, he’s going to throw his body into the heat and scrub himself until he bleeds. In a crisis, he’s levelheaded and practical and so sophisticatedly cruel.
Ash is groaning, draped bonelessly over Alexei’s strong shoulder.
His freakishly long and sexy eyelashes flutter but don’t open, his lips part.
His face is a wonder of genetics, identical to Aspen in every way yet somehow impossibly different.
Even unconscious, he looks dazed and strung-out.
Thank goddess we’re rescuing his ass today. He didn’t have long left.
Alexei’s lip is curled, sweat dripping down his temples, but he doesn’t drop Ash.
He treats him with respect because Alexei respects me.
When he says he’ll never doubt me again, I believe him.
He didn’t have to pull me from the McKenzie River.
He didn’t have to give me his virginity.
He doesn’t have to break all of his own rules, contaminating himself with all the blood from Ash’s body.
“Thank you, Alexei.” I adjust the box of Lemon’s ashes to my other arm.
Ash doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going in the trunk.
He won’t be driving. And if I know Bohnes—hah, if, LOL—then he wouldn’t have risked bringing the Chevelle or the Devil or anything else to this hostile place.
Yep. We need four cars. “For confronting Jonas like that. You did Ash a solid with that display. Also, if you can find it, I’d love that Shelby Cobra, for old times’ sake and whatnot. ”
“Scarlett,” Alexei begins, his voice heavy with something that’s not worth talking about just now. An invitation, stapled to Cody’s chest. “Perhaps I should tell—”
“There are feral hounds snapping at our bare ass cheeks and no time for feelings. Go get the cars ready. Look for GPS trackers. Unlock the front gate. Whatever needs to be done.”
Alexei purses his lips as I race back to the living room and then up the stairs, collecting Widow on the way.
“What happened, Scar?” he growls, trying to take Lemon from my arm.
I slap his hand away and continue jogging barefoot up the steps.
He smells like pine and plums and blood.
He moves like a lycanthrope with a grudge.
Later, we’re going to sit down and…gulp…
talk about feelings and stuff. For right now, I just need him to be my muscle.