9. Chapter 9 #3
I want to kill someone. I need to kill someone. If Jenson were here right now, I would tear him apart with my bare hands and not stop until there was nothing left but red pulp and broken bone.
Before anyone can tell me otherwise, I rip the pages with her name on them out of the ledger. The Council doesn’t need to know about Reese unless she wants them to.
Thorne and Fox continue going through the evidence. I hear Thorne curse under his breath. I hear Fox’s sharp intake of breath.
“This is bigger than we thought.” Fox’s voice is grim. “He has not just been trafficking girls. He has been running a blackmail operation. There are Council members in here that he has dirt on, not even related to trafficking.”
“And there is more.” Thorne holds up another folder. “He has been selling Raven secrets to outside organizations. Financial records, security protocols, Council member locations. He is a fucking traitor.”
I process this information distantly. It matters. I know it matters. The scope of Jenson’s betrayal changes everything for the Ravens.
But right now, all I care about is one woman. My baby girl.
I go to her and pull her against my chest, needing to feel her in my arms. She is still breathing normally, but I can tell she’s forcing herself to remain calm.
Reese pulls back from my chest and wipes her eyes. Her mascara is smeared, her face is blotchy from crying, and she is still the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
I hand her the pages. “These are yours to decide what you want to do with them.”
She takes them from my hand and just stares at them.
“Do we have everything?” I glance over at Fox and Thorne to see them zipping up the empty bags we brought.
“We’re good here, brother,” Thorne replies. “Let’s fucking go.”
Everyone hurries from the room and then I tell them to wait. I slide my bag off my shoulder and pull out a container of lighter fluid and hold it up to Reese.
“If you want to burn it down, now is your chance.”
“Tate,” Fox snarls. “We didn’t discuss—”
“I don’t give a fuck what we discussed.” I hold my hand up to him, but keep my focus on my girl. “Baby girl, tell me what you want to do.”
She takes the lighter fluid from me and reenters the room by herself and starts spreading it everywhere. She’s screaming and crying as she frantically covers what she can until she throws the container against the wall.
I pull out a match and step forward to grab her by the arm, pulling her back into the hall. I hold up the unlit match up to her. “Are you ready for this?”
Reese nods and I immediately strike it on the outside wall. As soon as it’s lit, I hand it to her.
She stares at me and gives me a small smile before closing her eyes then tossing the match in the room. It catches and starts to slowly go up in flames. She looks at the papers in her hands with her name on them. She balls them up in her fist and tosses them into the flames.
I pull her to me and kiss her. The kiss is soft and full of everything I want to say right now but can’t.
She melts into me, and the horror of this room is burned away.
I know it’s not as easy as that. My girl will continue to fight the demons.
But I’m the fucking devil and her demons will answer to me each and every goddamn time.
“Hate to interrupt.” Fox breaks the moment. “But we have a problem.”
I pull back from Reese but keep her hand in mine. “What kind of fucking problem?”
“There is a car coming up the front drive.” Fox is at the window, peering through the curtains. “A black sedan.”
Fuck.
I move to the window beside him and Reese follows, placing her hand on my back as she peers out the window. The driver opens the back passenger door and a man steps out. Reese’s body goes rigid behind mine.
“That’s Michael Collier.”
My blood turns to a boil at the sound of his name.
Michael fucking Collier. The man who paid extra to hurt her. The man who haunts her nightmares. The man whose face she sees when she closes her eyes.
And he just stepped out of a car in the driveway of a house that we just set on fire.
“Why would he be here?” Ivy asks from behind us.
“He must be here to see my father.” Reese’s voice has gone flat, detached. “The butler will let him in and he will come up—” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to.
The smoke is starting to thicken in the hallway. We have minutes before this whole floor is engulfed.
“We need to move.” Fox is already heading for the stairs. “Now.”
“Wait.” I grab his arm. “If we go down, we’ll run right into him. He will see us. He will know something is wrong.”
“He is going to know something is wrong anyway.” Thorne gestures toward the smoke billowing from the room behind us. “The house is on fucking fire, Tate.”
“Which means he is going to call for help. The fire department and police will be here sooner than we want. If anyone sees us leaving—”
“Then we make sure no one sees us.” Fox’s jaw is tight. “We go out the back, the same way we came in. We move fast and we stay quiet. Now.”
“And Michael?” I look at Reese. Her face is pale, her eyes fixed on the window. He has to be inside now. “We could end him now. Why just let him walk away?”
“We don’t have a choice.” Fox is already moving. “We will grab him another day. Right now, we need to get out before—”
There are footsteps on the main stairwell.
Everyone freezes.
“Jenson?” Michael’s voice carries through the house. “What the fuck is that smell? Is something burning?”
As soon as he reaches the hallway, he is going to see the smoke.
“Back stairs.” Reese’s voice is barely a whisper. “We can still make it if we go now.”
The others move toward the way we came. The smoke is getting thicker, stinging my eyes, burning my throat. Behind us, I hear Michael getting closer.
“What the fuck?” His voice tells me he’s not far away. “Fire! There is a fucking fire!”
Fox takes point, his weapon drawn. Thorne is behind him with the evidence bags. Ivy holds Reese’s hand, pulling her closer to the direction we need to go.
And that is when I see him.
Michael Collier appears from the other direction, coughing, waving smoke away from his face. And then our eyes meet.
For a split second, neither of us moves.
“Who are you?” His voice is sharp with confusion. “What the hell are you—”
He doesn’t finish the sentence because his eyes land on Reese.
The expression that crosses his face makes me want to rip his throat out with my teeth. The room is on fire about to take the rest of the house with it, and this fuck is looking at her with a hunger that makes me physically ill.
“Reese.” He says her name like he has control over her. “What are you doing here? Your father has been looking everywhere for you.”
Reese clutches the back of my shirt.
“Get her out of here.” I don’t look away from Michael. “All of you. Go.”
“Tate—” Fox starts.
“I said go.” My voice leaves no room for argument. “Get the women outside.”
Fox hesitates for only a second. Then he nods and pushes the others toward the stairs. Ivy pulls Reese along, but Reese resists.
“No.” She yanks her hand free. “I am not leaving you.”
“Baby girl—”
“He hurt me for years.” Her voice is shaking, but her eyes are fierce. “I am not running from him anymore.”
Michael laughs. The sound makes my skin crawl.
“Is this what you have been doing, Reese? Spreading your legs for whoever this lowlife is?” He takes a step toward us, and I move to block his path. “Your father is going to be very disappointed. You know how he feels about you giving it away for free.”
“Don’t speak to her.” My hand goes to the gun at my hip. “Don’t even fucking look at her.”
“Or what?” Michael’s smile is ugly, confident. He doesn’t understand the danger he is in. “You are going to shoot me?”
“I’d prefer to kill you much slower than that and let my girl carve whatever pound of flesh she wants from your sorry ass.” I take another step. The heat from the fire is at my back now, the flames spreading faster. “But dead is dead.”
“Your girl?” Michael’s eyes dart to Reese, then back to me. He laughs. “She’s—”
“Allow me to introduce myself, you bastard. I’m Tate Sinclair.” I am close enough to touch him now. Close enough to see the fear starting to creep into his eyes. “And you are never going to touch my girl again.”