26. Ash #2
Kaleb doesn’t acknowledge him, but I know he has it all planned. I nod, standing up, ready to get the fuck out of here and call a meeting with my men. I take my first breath when I sit on the leather seat of my motorbike turning to Kaleb.
“Scope out the harbor before the delivery; no doubt there'll be Wraiths lingering around ready to take what's not theirs.” Kaleb gives me a single nod. “And bring me back one of them. I need to tear someone's flesh from their body.”
This gets a reaction from Kaleb, if only slight.
His lip curling up a millimetre as he nods, throwing his leg over his back and revving it to life.
I rev mine but don’t follow behind him. Pulling out my phone, I text Leon and get him to give me the location of Maddison.
He replies instantly, giving me the location of a restaurant where she's having a meeting.
I fly down the street to the location he sent me, and I instantly see her through the glass windows, my eyes gravitating toward her in an instant.
She’s seated at a long table with her father and three men I don’t recognise. But they all look the same with their gelled hair and dark suits; relaxed postures, the casual confidence of people who think the world bends for them.
My angel sits perfectly straight.
Her smile is in place. That flawless, practiced curve that I fucking despise. The one that fools everyone but me.
Though once you’ve seen the real thing, the smile that shows off her impeccable teeth and glints in her hazel eyes, the difference is so stark it has me grinding my teeth.
There’s no light in her eyes now. No spark or heat. The woman who danced days ago, uninhibited and sinful, is gone. What’s left is the haunted, hollowed-out version I found her as.
Her father leans in, scotch in his hand, and his dead eyes are cold in a different way that my angels aren't.
Haunted, yes, but with that added cold evilness. Minutes drag by as the men talk; glasses are refilled. She glances toward the window once. Not searching. Not hopeful. Just tired.
Something in my chest tightens.
Finally, she pushes her chair back, saying something I can’t hear. One man reaches for her hand, far too confidently, and she extricates herself smoothly, leaving the table.
I memorise the man’s face, and vow to rid him of that hand, once this war is over.
I wait until she’s through the doors, following quickly behind her. She rounds the corner, shoulders slumping the second she’s out of sight of the restaurant. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a clip, her perfect body hugged tight in her sexy as fuck office outfit.
I finally feel calm; the racing thoughts and heavy weight giving me a moment of relief. I stride behind her.
“Angel,” I breathe.
Her entire body stiffens in front of me, but she doesn't turn back. Faltering for a few steps, she continues her walk. My brow furrows, heart beginning to race again.
“Angel,” I grind out. She gives me nothing. “Fuck this,” I mutter, gripping the back of her neck and pulling her into an alleyway with me.
She gasps as her back hits the wall, my hands coming up on either side of her face, caging her in. Her chest rises fast beneath the silk of her blouse, breath uneven, eyes falling shut.
My palms stay braced against the wall, close enough that she can feel the heat and anger rolling off me, close enough that every breath we take belongs to both of us. The city hums behind me, but here, in this narrow pocket of space, it all fades.
“You want to tell me why the fuck you're ignoring me?” I growl, faltering when I see the look in her eyes. She doesn't even look up at me, that glassy, haunted stare stuck on the ground. “Look at me,” I grit out, hand coming to grip her chin, raising her face to meet my gaze.
Lungs heaving, I invade her space. With our faces inches apart, she can’t pretend I don’t exist.
She looks so fucking beautiful, yet she's not the same Maddison that she gave me on Friday night. Of course she isn't. Who could be the same after what happened? My thumb brushes her bottom lip as it trembles.
“You don't get to ignore me,” I whisper.
“Enough, Ash, please,” she murmurs, her voice broken and soft enough that I pull back, my eyes narrowing on her.
“Enough, what?” I ask slowly, unable to keep the fury out of my voice.
“Enough of everything!” She pleads. “Enough death.
Enough sin. Enough Devils... I'm done. This isn't me. That is not my life. This is my life,” she gestures back towards the restaurant, where the scum of the earth drink and laugh and talk about their disgusting endeavours.
“I can't do this anymore. Ash, you need to let me go.”
Slowly, my head shakes side to side, and I feel my face twisting with the rage that is exploding through me.
“It's my fault...” I start, my hands squeezing down on her soft cheeks, “for giving you the impression that you had a choice,” I bite out each word, soft and slow. Pushing up into her space. “You did have a choice. You took it. There's no going back now.”
“And my choice killed someone, Ash!” Her voice takes on a panicked edge. “Killed someone in the most brutal of ways. Thomas... he...,” her voice cracks, her words pausing as she shakes her head. “I did that.”
I snarl, stopping her words. “You didn't put the knife to his throat. You didn't take his last breath from him. You are not responsible for his death, baby.”
Her eyes fall closed. Defeated. Opening back up only to give me that haunted reflection. It kills me, makes my breath stutter out of my lungs.
“I may as well have,” she whispers.
I step back, scoffing at her.
“So what, you're just going to work amongst the Malcolm’s and the Howard’s and the fucking disgusting elitist pricks, like before?
You think you're better because your clothes have a higher price tag, your offices are in fancy buildings?
You think that's better?” She doesn't reply.
She can't. She knows the truth. She's not fucking stupid.
“You think, just because we wear leather and ride bikes and we wear our wickedness on our sleeves that we are worse than the people you eat lunch with?” My head flicks back towards the restaurant where I know some of the sickest people sit right this second. “News flash. Angel, they're worse.”
Her chest heaves up and down as she tries to ignore what I'm saying. I won't fucking let her.
“Maybe you're all monsters. We are all monsters,” she corrects honestly, on a soft whisper that I barely hear, but the words sink in.
They hit their mark. Monster. For a second, I'm twelve again. For a second, I stand over my dad's dead body. Gun shaking in my hand. I see my mother's blue eyes widen as she screams in horror.
“What have you done, Ash? What have you done?” Her cries echo in my mind, her voice hysterical as she jumps on top of Dad and tries to stop the blood from pouring out of his throat as if he wasn't dead the second it hit him.
I still remember the way her voice shrieked as she said, “You're a monster. You are a monster.”
My teeth grate as the memory assaults me so hard my jaw pops.
“Come to the club, Angel... tonight. We need to talk.”
“No,” she whispers. “I'll never step foot in that club again.”
I charge back at her, my hand wrapping around her throat as I shove her against the wall. I squeeze just enough to make breathing difficult for her. Her eyes are wide, mouth parted as she stares at me.
Finally, fear glints in those eyes.
It's not the way she used to look at me, but it's an emotion at the very least.
And maybe it's the emotion she should have had the entire time.
If she wants me to be the monster, then that is what I’ll be. I’m fucking good at it, at least.
“You will come to the club tonight, or I will find you in your workplace, and I know how much you don't want daddy dearest to see you with a disappointing, disgusting monster like me,” I snarl, inches away from her face.
Her eyes shut as she lets out a shaky exhale. But I'm already turning, my anger making my entire body vibrate as I jump on my bike and let the deafening roar of the engine drown out my murderous thoughts.