Chapter 42 Saint
Saint
San Quentin - Nickelback
I crossed a fucking line when it came to Indie.
Fuck, I crashed over it, then went back and incinerated any evidence it ever existed.
I shouldn’t have ever entertained the idea of her, but she was always fucking there.
In the neighbourhood, at school, when I hung out with Rex. She was impossible to ignore, and I fought for years to shake the obsession with her.
By the end of my last semester at uni, when she rubbed her fucking ass against my dick at the pool table, the restraint snapped.
I tried to tether the strings of thread back together with a crooked needle.
In the end, I lost.
It’s the only game I’ve ever happily been the loser in. Because she’s fucking worth it all.
And looking at her now, seeing I have my very own archangel?
I’m glad I let my urges win.
Even with my darkened future ahead of me, I didn’t want to bring her into my world. There was a time I never thought I’d see her again, wanting to distance myself from the violence and heinous acts I’d seen and been a part of since my adolescence.
I still don’t regret it, because it’s led me to this moment.
All of them combined kept me in the realms of my normality, but Indie?
She kept my humanity intact.
Kept my heart beating.
She gave love to a monster that shouldn’t have allowed it in the first place. Though having her back after all this time, mirroring my own darkness?
I’ll never let her go again.
She tells me to fuck off?
I’ll chase her.
She ignores me?
I’ll fill the room with her screaming my name.
When you’ve been starved of the one thing you crave the most in this world, you’ll allow nothing to come between you getting it ever again.
My hand glides up the silkiness of her skin, goosebumps rippling in my wake along her inner thigh.
“Stop exploring and buckle that onto my leg already, you fiend,” she whispers, and I glance up from the floor to see a wicked smile edging her lips.
My heart cracks in my chest, looking at her.
Sometimes I stare at her in disbelief, bewildered by the woman she’s turned into.
She still has the girl I fell madly in love with inside her, but this wild cat that dominates her personality?
It drives me fucking feral.
I’d let this woman destroy me into nothing, then smile about it.
Sheathing the knife against her thigh, I slap her pussy against her panties, reaching to my full height to look down at her.
Her eyes are narrowed on me, not amused at my actions in the back of Dawson’s van, but I don’t miss the change in her breathing.
I lean down into her ear, brushing the loose strands of fake blonde hair over her shoulder to whisper in her ear, “Is it tight enough?”
Her throat flexes on the deep swallow, brushing against my lips as I hold my head beside her.
“Yes,” she breathes, and I smile, pressing a kiss against her neck.
“Good. Because I’m fucking you with that on when we get home.”
Pulling away, I inch backwards to drop in the seat across from her, watching the blush creep up her cheeks as she unsteadily sits down.
We’re about fifteen minutes out from the spot Dawson and Rex will park at before we swap vehicles. Turning up to the Montgomerys’ manor in a fucking TV hire van would draw too much attention.
A bit like the dress options Indie had laid out in her room.
She decided to wear a long, sleek black dress, a discrete split up the thigh. It’ll blend in with everyone else at the event, but she could turn up in the most basic of scrap material and still steal the show.
The black made her feel more comfortable, but it makes my dick feel uncomfortable in these pants.
She was crafted by some superior being, a true beauty that’s too good for this world.
Too good for me.
I’ve said it before; I am a selfish bastard.
Anyone even glances at her for a second too long tonight, might have me putting this whole night in the fucking air.
She studies me from across the other end, now strapped in beside Dawson’s security setup. She’s nervous, that I can tell.
Her leg subtly bounces as it’s crossed over the other; either that or she’s alive with the electricity on getting her hands on the ones who caused her darkened way of life.
I’ve been distracting her through the day, worried her mind might drift too far into an area she doesn’t allow it to often.
The van grinds to a stop. Rex gets out from the front, leaving one of our guys to keep watch, Dawson still zoned in on his laptop.
The double doors open, revealing the pre-evening sky.
“You got weapons?” Rex asks from outside, and I nod.
“Blade on us both, no guns as per your request, mate.”
Ross is helping with security, patting us down before entry when we arrive at the manor.
I’ve warned Indie the men on the door are usually a bit more intrusive, but she’ll come in with me, and Ross won’t be as heavy handed.
He likes keeping his hands.
The thought of anyone touching her and making her uncomfortable sends an ancient wrath through my blood.
“Here,” Dawson says, placing a bud into Indie and I’s hands, then pointing to the pin on my suit jacket. “Camera is on and live.”
I shove the earpiece deep into my ear as I glance up at his screen, seeing it reflect the image of Indie in front of me.
She fluffs the loose strands of hair framing her face; she’d got it all pinned up and messy, make-up heavy to take away from the natural beauty she’s always sported.
Her eyes are almost hooded with the weight of those fucking lashes she has on, but I’d know her face anywhere, spending hours engraving it into my memory.
I could draw it with my eyes closed.
A quick glance with an untrained eye, she’s unrecognisable.
I drag my fingers through my beard. I’ve had to let it grow in the last two weeks to add to my own disguise, along with the tips of grey Shona’s added through it and my hair.
It’s fucking ridiculous, but needs must.
The stuff she’s caked onto the rest of me to hide my tattoos makes my skin feel claustrophobic. God help if anyone pisses me off, because I might rip theirs off to make myself feel better.
Rex hops inside the van, tipping his head towards the street outside. “Car’s here.”
I run over the plans one more time for everyone.
“We’ll take a look around, get a lie of the land and see what type of security they have. We’ll stick around until the main event.” I glance at Rex, and he flexes his jaw. “A crew will be watching for when it’s over…and we’ll grab one of them.”
Indie stands at the same time I do. “What if something happens? They’ll be protected, won’t they?”
I glance at Rex, but it’s Dawson who says, “We’ve got the place surrounded. Anything happens, we’ll send in the lot.”
My breath comes out slowly; I watch her to gauge her reaction, and thankfully she doesn’t ask any more questions.
Rex clasps my shoulder as I pass to exit; unspoken words travel between us as we stare at each other. I hop out and turn to face Indie, lifting her by the waist off the steep step so she doesn’t buckle in those ridiculous heels.
Both of us walk over to the car parked behind, slipping in the backseat, and I greet one of my men who’s acting as our chauffeur.
Glancing over at Indie, I watch her stare out the blacked-out window. She’s been quieter than usual since we left. Likely dealing with a build-up of everything she’s been working towards the past five years, walking right into the snake pit.
Albeit, that den is much more dangerous than she first assumed. It’s filled with every venomous reptile you could imagine; there’s not a single person in there that wouldn’t leave you for dead.
Or worse.
She’ll get her chance at her revenge. I’ll make fucking sure of it.
It just might be slightly delayed.
“You okay, darling?” I ask in a low voice once the car takes the roads. She turns to look at me as she pulls on her jacket, piercing my soul with those baby-blue eyes.
She gives me a shy smile. “I have you.”
Placing her hand in my upturned one and squeezing, she voices the same words she said to me earlier this morning.
She doesn’t know what they do to me; they were words I desperately wanted to hear from her all those years ago.
That we could get through anything together.
That I would always be there to protect her.
I might have been young, but there was never anyone else for me. The minute I gave in to what I truly coveted, I told her she was mine.
No one else in this fucking world can capture my attention quite like she does.
“Do you remember your safe word?” I ask.
Dawson and I decided it was best she have one. Her earpiece will pick it up in the event we get separated, or if she feels too uncomfortable and needs an escape.
“I do, but again. I have you; I’ll be fine.”
“Say it,” I growl.
She rolls her fucking eyes at me. “Ultio.”
I lean over the seat, my hand gripping behind her bare nape, pulling her to meet my lips. It’s an aggressive kiss, a silent warning about rolling those eyes at me when it’s not my dick causing them to.
“Good girl.”
I can feel her smile against me, my brows dipping when I feel a burn, and I abruptly pull back. “What the fuck is on your lips?”
I wipe my mouth with the palm of my hand.
Was that a fucking reverse curse?
She chuckles like a wicked little gremlin, rolling them together to smudge the red coating them. “Shona put this lip gloss on me; it should be illegal. It makes your lips plumper, so they look fuller.”
I scowl and continue to wipe while she laughs, shaking her head.
I don’t know how the fuck she’s sitting so unbothered by whatever that is, because mine feel like they’re on fire.
Indie already has full lips, and I thought whatever Shona had done with her make-up was just part of whatever witchcraft she knows about changing appearances; now I know she’s got some toxic fucking gloss on them.
“Make sure that’s the last time you wear that. I don’t want that shit stinging my dick,” I groan, my cock retracting at the thought of being burned alive.