Chapter 5
Saint
throne - bring me the horizon
Present Day
Indie’s perfectly arched brow cocks at me next to me from the sofa in the meeting room. “What are you thinking about?” She smiles through her whisper, my hand clutched at the base of her neck, fingers kneading into the tight muscles in her shoulders.
Despite me fucking her brains out for the past twenty-four hours, that tension’s still there. Still wound deep into her being, no matter how many times I turn her into a sobbing mess at the end of my dick. But it’s more so for me; I hate when Ultio loses someone.
These people are like family to me; we’re all fucked up in our own ways.
They knew the risks; it came with the security front we put on. The fact that one of those Omnia fucks took someone from me?
That hit different.
I try to steer the storm in my head in the other direction, filling it with better memories.
The images of her flash through my mind.
That moment I knew I wanted her and began noticing small details I’d never seen before. How nervous she was around me but still went out of her way to make sure my dad didn’t skin me alive.
She was so blatantly innocent and shy. Life hadn’t handed her any troubles at that point.
Now I’ve obtained a silent huntress that prowls the night, taking down members of a society who wronged her.
Took from her.
Took her from me.
Each time I look at her, thinking of all the versions of her I’ve seen, each one forces me to stake my claim on them. Those scars that splay across her mind only make me love her more.
It’d be easy to say they made her stronger, but she had no choice. My darling had to survive it all.
The evil bastard in me wants to shred them all to pieces, forming her psyche back together with my bare hands, just so she can say the only thing she had to survive was me.
The darker she gets, the further I want to sink my claws into her. She’s my very own version of paradise, and fuck does she tastes like heaven.
But my desire for her burns like hell.
She nudges me when I don’t answer, and my grip tightens at the base of her neck in warning, causing her to gasp. “Just admiring the reason I go to fucking war.”
Her lids lower, falling for the spell only I can enchant her with, and I press a harsh kiss against her temple. Every word is true.
Right now, we’re on the brink of it. Omnia is hunting for us, for her.
They’ve already got my face, but they’re close enough to finding out about Indie and Regina’s revenge plot.
They’ll likely have reviewed their footage from the event, and it won’t take long for them to spot me and her slinking around the manor.
The only grace we’ll have is that the disguise might buy her time, but if Louisa reviews it?
She’ll spot the two of us from a mile off.
That paired with the fact we never paid for Jenna’s fee, hence the gun fight.
Her sister’s a smart woman; she didn’t get to where she is through naivety. Time will tell where her true loyalties lie. And whether or not she values blood ties over blood oaths.
The more I think about it, I’m going with the fucking latter.
She stood on that stage with her head held high, and it might be true what I said that she was unwillingly brought into it. But now?
She’s made her choice.
The psychiatrist Shona contacted walks through the doors ahead of us—Dr Beverley—a woman with dark hair and in her late fifties who often dealt with victims of human trafficking.
She’s retired, but Shona pulled some strings, along with offering her the fee we’d have paid Omnia for her to be on hand to support Jenna.
She’s agreed to stay at the Pit for a couple weeks to fully assess her, create a treatment plan for whatever they’ve done to her.
Rex is hot on the doctor’s heels. He’s stayed away the moment she arrived, hardly said a word to anyone since we put her in the van with us.
“Mr Blackwood, may I have a moment?” Dr Beverley asks, and I nod to the opposite sofa, watching her take a seat.
She flattens her pencil skirt with her hands, interlinking them as she nervously assesses a coiled-up Rex, then does the same to me. One look at us, and she likely thinks we resemble the kind of criminals she helps victims escape from.
“I’ve suggested Jenna have a few more days’ rest before anyone attempts to speak to her, and for the foreseeable, any visitors should be kept to females she’s previously been familiar with.” She glances up at Rex nervously.
I watch the muscles tic in his jaw, but he gives a sharp nod.
“Usually, victims of these particular experiences can display signs of PTSD, along with a variety of other complex trauma traits. Your on-site doctor also provided me with her blood tests.”
“And what did you find?” Rex growls, causing the doctor to jump.
“Well, there were various mixtures of compounds found. Nothing I’ve researched so far matches anything in the pharmaceutical market. I’d like to look into this further, possibly with the support of your medical team on site.”
I tilt my head, looking up at Rex.
Jenna’s an adult; she’s also classed as vulnerable right now. Her parents can’t be contacted, because that puts them in danger. They moved out of state a couple years after her death, and it’s the only blessing we have that they’re out of the Omnia reach.
“How is she?” Indie asks.
“She was very hostile due to being disorientated, which is a natural response. Especially if victims have been provided with drugs to keep them compliant or even sedated. She might begin to suffer withdrawals depending on how long they’ve been provided to her.
The next few weeks will be tough for her. ”
I nod. “Anything else we should know?”
She shifts her gaze over at Indie, giving her a small smile. Dr Beverley spoke with her and Regina when she arrived last night, giving her their background and relationship to her.
“As much as you want to see your friend, she needs time to make decisions for herself. She’s displaying some dissociative behaviours.
Whilst it could be a result of the drugs leaving her system, I won’t fully know until I can get her into a position of being completely lucid.
I should have a treatment plan completed for her by the end of the week. But…why don’t you write her a letter?”
Indie locks up beside me, and my fingers resume the kneading in her muscles.
“What kind of letter?” she asks, her voice small, laced with emotion, and I feel her swallow it down beneath my fingertips.
“Nothing too taxing for Jenna. I’d avoid asking questions for the time being until I’ve had a couple of sessions with her. I’d even start with your feelings on her being back, maybe even a happy memory you share with her. Something that can help her find those better moments in her life.”
Indie gives her a faint smile, one that barely lifts at the corners. “I will. I’ll let Regina know as well.”
Dr Beverly gives a curt nod, grabbing her phone as she dismisses herself. The minute she closes the door, Rex takes her place on the sofa, holding eye contact with me. “What are you thinking?”
Cracking my neck from side to side, I unwind myself from Indie and lean forward with my elbows on my knees. “I’m thinking those drugs she mentioned could be something to do with Clarke.”
We have a medical team on site for various reason, mostly because there’s always someone getting fucking injured during training sessions, but they were permanently implemented when the security jobs we provided would end up with someone being shot.
You’d patch them up the best you could until we got back to the Pit, but they needed proper assistance.
“You think he was testing them on their victims?” Rex asks, jaw grinding as he glances to the door behind me.
The man’s coiling up like a snake. He’s never admitted it, but his feelings for Jenna are more than just lust.
He loves her, his story similar to Indie’s and ours.
Except, he’d gone years believing she was murdered, the loss dragging him under until he no longer knew what being alive meant. “Could be. Maybe making his own concoction with legal substances. I don’t know enough about it. We won’t know until Jenna speaks—that’s if she even knows.”
If Jenna’s been subjected to whatever they’ve been giving her, her memory could be hazy. I have no doubt Clarke’s vital role was providing those substances to their victims; now they don’t have him, that’s caused a massive clink in their operation.
Hopefully putting it up in the fucking air.
“We’ll get the doc to find out,” he murmurs.
Indie shifts beside me, and I look at her glaring upwards to the ceiling, mind drifting to a place I don’t want it to go.
Leaning back in my seat, I wrap my hand around the top of her thigh, squeezing it as she pulls her focus back to me. “Dawson got any updates?” I ask Rex, not taking my eyes off hers.
“Montgomerys are back to being underground, security’s been upped at the manor, clients are moving on with life as they always have.”
“What are you planning on doing with them all?” Indie asks, the pools of blue swirling around her pupils.
Six names we have to deal with.
Six highly powerful and influential names.
Killing them all in one go by myself would be a sure fucking way to end me behind bars.
I want to stagger them, but by the time I reach the Montgomerys, they’d already have time to divulge a plan.
Reluctantly, I drag my gaze from her to Rex. We’ve discussed this with Dawson and my dad so many times over the years. Multitudes of plans being rolled out, backups, and even failures.
Taking out the Omnia hierarchy and the Montgomerys eradicates that group from ever forming again. Their clientele? They’ll live on.
The underworld can never be eradicated in one lifetime, and I doubt this will be a loss to them; there’ll unfortunately be plenty of other likeminded individuals running similar games.
The whole world is infested by it.
As long as this one only exists as a memory, that’s good enough for me.
Selfish? Of course.
I’ve never hidden how much of a selfish bastard I am, especially when it comes to my woman.
Our organisation will still exist, still provide security. Fuck, this is these guys’ livelihoods. We’ll merge them under my father’s legitimacy; this is merely some illegal playtime for them.
“We’ll need to work fast; we can’t allow them time to expect us. The Montgomerys are last either way,” I answer.
I want those three fucks to know we brought them down, and that their legacy will never live another day past them. Saying all this out loud makes it sound like it’s simple.
I know it’s not.
I’ve a target on my back. I’ve worked for some of the men that stood within that manor, used them to get where I want to be.
They’ll send their dogs for us, and I can’t allow anything to fucking harm her.
Indie nods, standing as my hand slides from her thigh. “I’m gonna find Gina.” She gives me a faint smile, and I squeeze the back of her knee as she walks past me to leave the room.
Rex leans forward. “How is she dealing, knowing about Louisa and Barry?”
I glance over his shoulder, making sure she’s not hovering around the door. “She said she wants Louisa dead.”
The minute those words left her mouth yesterday, I could tell there wasn’t a solid conviction in them. She’s angry, feels betrayed. But Indie killing her sister?
I honestly don’t know if she’s that cold.
That would wreck a deep part of her, but I won’t be one to judge. I’ll be here to hold the pieces together if it does. Because Louise is a fucking dead woman walking in my eyes. So if I need to take the weight of it from Indie, then so be it.
There’s not a scar or a depth I wouldn’t bear for her.
“That’s fucking dark. Nothing less than she deserves though,” he says, sneering.
Indie is dark; they made her that way.
I played the part in corroding her innocence behind closed doors, and if she wants to truly walk on this path of darkness with me?
This is certainly one way to earn the fucking ticket.
I adore my angel of destruction, and if she wants the entire world to burn, I’ll make sure it’s saturated for her.