Chapter 33 #2
“Well, we all know that Uncle Burt would never send police to our new residence.” Alexei is just standing there, and I didn’t even notice him coming into the clearing.
Yep. I’m messed up and useless, nursing a broken hand and bad memories.
I am the one who was triggered today, not them.
Me. “So, is this Daddy’s work then, Ash? ”
“Either him or Chet,” Ash agrees, a small streak of blood on his temple and the sword held against his chest like a teddy bear.
He’s looking up at me like he’s concerned about my feelings.
I narrow my eyes at him. Who the fuck does he think he is?
Like he knows me or somethin’. “But yes, most likely Daddy’s work. ”
“I know you’re both trying to make a joke,” Scarlett begins, pausing at the sound of her phone buzzing in the pocket of her leather jacket. She tugs it out, giving Alexei a warning look. “But Daddy is only a word you’ll use for me in the bedroom. Call Jonas what he is: a walking dead—”
Scarlett stops talking when she spots what’s on her screen.
I lean in toward her, our hands still clasped tight together, and I see it.
I see what’s caused her to fall silent like that.
There’s a video of Ash and Alexei on her phone. A video that Bohnes just took. Ash’s dissociated eyes while he sucks dick, and Alexei’s lower stomach muscles contracting as he cums. Sex tape. A new nightmare of mine. Fresh hell.
The phone rings, and even though it’s an unknown number, Scarlett answers it on speaker. Just like she did the first time Burt called.
But it’s not Burt this time.
“I don’t know which of them it is that you have, and I don’t care. It’s mine, and I want it back.” Jonas’ voice, smooth and cool and heavy with threat. Possession. Control. Malice.
It.
He’s talking about Ash.
Without thinking, I steal the phone from Scarlett’s hand and growl into it.
“If you ever come near your son again, we’ll make you regret it. I don’t care if it takes years. If it takes lifetimes. I will hunt you to the ends of this earth and well beyond the borders of the next. Leave him alone.”
Ash scrambles up to a standing position, dark eyes too wide and hand trembling on the hilt of his sword. He’s looking at me, and I’m staring straight back at him. If love, loyalty, and vulnerability are met with love, loyalty, and vulnerability, it’s the perfect storm.
This is my perfect storm, and I’m in the eye of it.
It’ll take violence to keep it safe.
“Your choice: keep the cocksucker or throw it out the gates. If you offer it up, that can be the end of all our interactions.” Mayor Kelly is struggling to keep his voice even.
To hold his emotions in. He just said ‘cocksucker’, didn’t he?
Glancing at the text message again, I see that the video of Ash and Alexei came from the same number. Jonas sent it.
He’s a child abuser. He tortured his son. He’s hunting him even now.
How. Dare. He.
“You aren’t in charge here, Mr. Mayor,” Scarlett interjects, letting me keep the phone in my own trembling hand.
Bohnes is staring off through the trees in the direction of the road, his pale blue eyes narrowed to slits.
Alexei is the one who exits the trees to stand on the driveway in front of the Stingray, addressing a car that’s just pulled up outside of the gates.
“We tell you how things are going to be, and here’s how things are going to be: you’re fucking with the family, Kelly.
Your son is dead to you. Forget he ever existed. ”
There’s a beat of silence. A beep. The call’s ended.
The wind rustles pine needles and dead leaves across the forest floor, knocking them against the toes of my boots.
“Isn’t that Mr. Lawless’ car?” a voice asks from the other side of the front gate.
I recognize it. Glancing over my shoulder, I spot my parole officer through the trees.
The first cop car pulls up behind him, and I feel my heart drop.
We might have a leg up in the underground, with the family neutral towards us and all. But what about catching murder charges?
Being locked in cages for the rest of our lives, separated from each other, is what hell looks like.
“Go.” Scarlett steals the phone from me, giving me a sharp look and an order.
“Widow, hide inside the house and don’t come out until I tell you to.
” Her gaze pans over to Ash, standing beside us with his eyes shut tight.
Bohnes has climbed into a tree with a big-ass gun while Alexei takes command of the situation with a single casual hand tucked in the pocket of his suit jacket.
I press a kiss to Scarlett’s lips, and Ash, after a split-second’s hesitation, does the same. Right. He sucked and swallowed with that mouth. I feel for ‘im.
Together, we blend into the shadows, working our way back toward the mansion.
There are crows circling above the fountain, like they’ve spotted something dead to eat.
“Is this what it’s like?” Ash wonders softly, following me to the house’s side door and pausing behind me while I move cautiously inside.
If there’s someone hiding around the corner, I want to catch them first. Ash is standing behind me, and I realize with a start that I definitely trust him to watch my six.
“Having a brother that doesn’t try to kill you? ”
I stop walking and look back at him. No other way to respond to that than with the truth.
“Never had a brother, so I have no idea.”
We creep into the house and find the panic room with Nisha’s help, sitting side by side together in the dark.
“It’s easier,” Ash whispers into the silence, sitting so close to me that I can feel the heat of his body.
It’s not sexual. For me, it’ll never be.
But it’s human, and it’s comforting, even if I hate to admit it.
Goddamn it, I keep buying into all these fairy tales.
First, romance. Now, friendship? What the fuck is wrong with me?
“To face the dark with somebody else instead of all alone.”
I shut my eyes and put my forehead against my knees.
“Just a bunch of lost boys trapped in love together,” I answer back, and then we don’t talk again because Ash falls asleep, his body leaning heavily against mine.
I barely notice (which is actually a big deal for me), my mind wandering.
That spot where Ernest died, did anyone get a chance to clean up the blood?
Evidence of the police chief’s untimely demise is not something we want on our property.
Hah. Our. Us. We.
Our property. Mob property.
Scarlett, the woman I love, is forever tied to organized crime—and now, so am I.
I’ve really lived up to my nickname, huh?
My phone goes off, and I wrestle it free from my pocket. If I said I wasn’t careful about jostling Ash, that’d be a lie. Quick glance at the screen shows me that same unknown number that was on Scarlett’s phone. There’s another video there, one that I almost don’t want to click.
“The hell is it now?” I whisper, turning the sound down and hitting play.
I’m treated to a video of a woman in a maid outfit being shot in the head, her body tumbling off the stool where she was sitting. Lying in a pool of blood, crimson soaking into her uniform. The text that follows reads: send it home or they all die. One every hour on the hour. The entire staff.
I turn the phone screen off and leave it in my lap, listening to the soft in and out of Ash’s breathing. One of the maids is like a mother figure to him, isn’t she? Shit. My attention drops to his face, fixed with a peaceful expression as he dozes on my shoulder. His father called him ‘it’.
Ash doesn’t have to see this. It won’t change anything. Scarlett won’t let him leave.
I won’t let him leave—not even to save a bunch of innocent strangers.
I put my phone away and leave him to sleep it off.
God knows my friend needs it.
TO BE CONTINUED…