Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
COOPER
Her screams are muffled as she pounds with her feet against the boot. Our car rocking as she tries to break free.
“And here I was thinking you had fucked the feistiness right out of her. That’s what you said, right?”
Hand to heart with a slack jaw, I turn to my brother. “Hey, I did my job; she was floating on cloud nine when she left me. Whose idea was it to lock her in the boot?” I counter.
“Drugging and incapacitating two people at a packed party, I wasn’t exactly spoilt for choice on getaway strategies.”
“She is gonna kill us. You know that, right?”
“She has to get to us first.” He grins wickedly. “Open the boot, Coop.”
“Why the fuck am I opening the boot?”
“Because you touched her when we explicitly said we wouldn’t.”
“Temptation is a hard thing to ignore. I tried my best.” It’s a lie that he sees right through; sometimes this twin shit is a curse.
“Fuck did you. I seem to remember vividly how much you were enjoying our little temptation.” I see his fists bunching as the memory of the two of us on that video call plays out in my brother’s head.
The fucker knows he has me. “Now open the fucking boot.” There’s no wiggle room in his order this time.
Ebony’s impatient yells are getting louder, and this car park may be deserted, but we have no control over who’s occupying the surrounding buildings.
If we get caught down here with a battered crazy woman tied up in the trunk of our car, we’ll be up in front of a judge again faster than perverts joining a free Only Fans meet and greet.
“And pull up your mask,” Caleb adds as he takes a step back to a safer distance.
Ebony might be small, but I know from experience her ability to damage when backed into a corner like this.
I tighten the red handkerchief around my head and dip my hat so all she’ll be able to see is my eyes. I glance back to see Caleb doing the same, rolling his shoulders and prepping his stance to run at her if he needs to.
“You think you’ll need to protect me? That’s sweet,” I tease, reaching out to knock the brim of his hat.
“I’m protecting myself. Sucks to be you.” The grin hidden behind the handkerchief sparkles in his green eyes. He’s fucking loving this.
I lift the latch, unprepared for the spitfire lunging for me as she swings wide with a tyre iron.
I double over as it connects with my ribs, stumbling back into a trash can that clatters to the ground.
Thankfully, the small space she’s been cooped up in means she can’t get as much power behind the blow as she wants to, but the crack that rang out let me know the steel had connected enough to leave a lasting mark. Ribs are a bitch to heal.
Ragged breaths rock her chest as she scrambles to get up from her knees. Using her bound hands in front of her to push herself up to standing, she holds the tyre iron out at us like it’s a sword. Waving it in the air as her eyes dance between us in a panic.
“Fuck, she looks pretty all riled up like a wild cat,” I splutter out the thought as I straighten to my full height with a groan. I know my brother doesn’t want to admit he agrees, but I see the lines around his eyes crinkle as he smiles under his disguise.
Caleb pulls the gun from his waistband and directs it her way.
“Bullet trumps iron—drop it,” he orders, and realising she isn’t invincible, she lets it clatter to the ground in defeat. He tucks the gun away into the back of his jeans and moves to kick the tyre iron out of her reach.
She stumbles, her hands flying up to her face as she paws at the broken skin around the nastier of the two wounds Bobby left her with.
“What…?” She tugs at Caleb’s t-shirt that is covering her body and skimming her thighs. Bobby had done a number on her dress, and we didn’t want her waking up in there with her underwear on full display.
My brother refuses to answer her unasked question, instead relaying the facts as a doctor would his patient. “You’ll feel a little hazy for a while. We’ve given you something to make you feel a little more alert. He really did a number on you.”
We’d hit her with a pretty powerful concoction of drugs, so while she’ll feel unnerved by what happened at the party, her body aching from the assault and her wounds still not patched up, she will be able to function relatively well.
“You didn’t have to do anything. I can handle myself,” she squeaks petulantly, trying to mask the way her body shakes as the memory of her ordeal becomes clearer the longer she’s awake.
“Yeah, you certainly were a force to be reckoned with while unconscious with your skirt pulled up around your waist,” I snap back and immediately regret it.
Her cheeks flush crimson, and she bites on her lip nervously at being reminded of how she was found out the back of the party.
It wasn’t her fault, and I want to reassure her of that, but I don’t.
We came here to punish Ebony, not soothe her.
That being said, it doesn’t quieten the urge raging through my head to prise her lip from between her teeth with my own. Even looking all Kill Bill like this, her hair sticky with sweat, dirt caking her legs, and blood staining her face—fuck, I want to kiss her.
I’ll tell myself for a while longer that what happened between us was all a cruel trick to gain her trust.
Liar.
My cock hardens at the mere thought of her begging me for more, and I have to knock my side into the car to shift it. I grumble through gritted teeth as the spark of pain whizzes up my side, my body stiffening. Thankfully, it’s the easiest way to get my cock back to flaccid status.
Caleb’s rage is palpable as he passes me to approach her. His brows pinched, his teeth clenched as he tries to tamp down the emotions he’s feeling. “Handle yourself? The man that had his hand in your knickers says otherwise. You need to pick better friends.”
Reaching into the boot of our car, he hauls Bobby out and lets him fall with a thud to the floor at her feet.
The scene plays out as you would expect, like my brother is a cat presenting a dead rat to his owner.
Slipping out my blade, I gesture with it to the man contorted and hog-tied into an uncomfortable position with my ropes, and she harrumphs childishly.
Guns apparently make her skittish, knives not so much.
Bobby’s not complaining, we injected that handsy fucker with something a little more LSD experiment and a little less FDA approved; his haze has long since dissipated. I wonder if our little Dove knows he was a serial rapist or how far he would have gone if we hadn’t found them out there.
“You put me in the trunk with a dead man?” she wails as she kicks him in the gut. He groans tiredly, his eyes fluttering as he circles the pan of whatever comedown he’s on.
“An unconscious man—we broke all his fingers and tied his hands behind his back; you were never in any real danger.” Caleb is tense, and I can see the visceral pain it is causing him to keep his distance from Ebony.
I felt the pull the moment I saw her arrive at the party, and after he was forced to witness our little closet fun time, he must be wound up to near breaking point.
“Besides It’s a two-seater car; strapping him to the hood seemed a little too showy, even for our tastes,” I add to sway her attention back to me. The persistent vitriol glares she’s throwing my brother’s way are doing nothing to help Caleb stay calm right now.