His Little Red: A Possessive Dark Romance (Mayhem Ever After Book 1)

by Vivi Paige

  “I guess I remember falling asleep in front of the fire while my nonna knitted. Simple times, much simpler. Before I realized the kind of family I really wound up with.”

  I found the key inside of a red and white painted birdhouse and opened the door. It smelled a bit musty inside, but I figured opening the windows and airing it out would alleviate that problem. Nonna, even nearing ninety years of age, never left the cabin without making sure it was tidy. There was no dust, and the kitchen utensils hung neatly organized from hooks driven into the wood wall.

  The cabin had the usual trappings, like a taxidermist-created big mouth bass hanging on the wall, and a gun rack with well-maintained small-caliber rifles. And of course, the aforementioned bear skin rug.

  “This place is actually pretty cozy.” Scarlett nodded with approval. Her eyes lit up. “Ooh, is that a fireplace? I love sitting in front of an indoor fire. I can’t explain why.”

  “We’ll make one soon enough.” I took down one of the rifles and made sure it was loaded. It was. Good old Nonna. “First I need to check the perimeter and make sure we’re truly alone.”

  “Check the perimeter,” Scarlett said in a deep voice, mocking me again. “You sure talk like an action movie hero despite your many protestations to the contrary.” I cocked an eyebrow at her and grinned, but her face grew somber. “Will, who were those guys who attacked us on the yacht? Did they… Did your family send them after us because you wouldn’t cut off my toe?”

  “I’m not sure,” I replied, my smile fading. “It’s not really my family’s style, but where else could they have come from?”

  “I don’t know. My dad maybe?”

  I considered it, though it seemed unlikely. It seemed to me that all Hunter Shaw would have to do, if he didn’t want his daughter back, would be to not pay the ransom…

  Sort of like he was doing. But I could have been wrong about his motivations.

  “I doubt it, but I suppose nothing can be ruled out.” I picked up the landline phone and dialed star sixty-seven so the number couldn’t be traced—a trick that didn’t work with modern cell phones—and dialed Devlin’s number. I was surprised when he answered almost immediately.

  “What the hell, Devlin?” I snapped before he’d even finished saying hello. He sighed heavily into my ear.

  “Look, Will, this is the way the game is played, but I’m sorry about the toe. We can do a lock of hair if that makes you feel better…”

  “This isn’t about the fucking toe, Devlin,” I growled low.

  “Then what is it about? If you’re getting tired of babysitting the girl, I can find someone else.”

  The thought filled me with nameless dread and nigh-on panic. “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  “Are you sure? Because I’m starting to wonder where your loyalties lie, bro.”

  “Is that why you sicced your goon squad on me?” I blurted.

  “Goon squad?” Devlin’s voice seemed to be sincerely confused. Maybe I was wrong about him. “What in the hell are you going on about now?”

  “How about six heavily armed Russians—fucking Russians! Why did you use them? You know they always go overboard—shooting up my boat. That ring any bells?”

  Devlin’s scoffing laughter bubbled up into my ear, and right away I knew I’d been hasty to accuse him. “Shoot up your… Shoot up your boat?” He gave in to another fit of lusty guffaws. “Why would I need to—never mind, I’m offended you think I’d hire Russians more than you think I’d try to have my own brother rubbed out.”

  “Well, you’ve never really acted like my brother. Have you?” I snapped. Scarlett shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot while she watched my face go through multiple emotional contortions.

  “This again?” Devlin sighed. “Look, Will, she was a grown ass woman, and you were too… intense for her, all right? I’m more laid back, always have been, and we just vibed better. That’s it. If you’d been paying more attention to what she was saying, what she was feeling, instead of being worried about me, it never would have happened anyway.”

  He didn’t say a single thing that I didn’t already know to be true, but still it stung.

  “Well, if you didn’t sic a goon squad on me, then who did?” I said at length.

  “That, I don’t know.” Devlin’s voice carried an aura of menace. “But I intend to find out. Nobody takes a shot at one of the Mayne brothers unless they’re tired of life. I hope you understand that I’ve got your back, bro—Will.”

  I heaved a sigh, my anger largely deflating—both what I felt at that moment, and the anger I’d been carrying inside for many years. “Yeah. I do understand that, Devlin.”

  “Good. So you’ll bring the girl to me so we can sort this whole thing out.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “No dice, Devlin.”

  “No dice? What do you fucking mean, no dice?” Devlin sputtered. “Did you forget the pecking order at the firm, Will? When I say jump, you say how high. You feel me?”

  “Yeah, I feel you, but I also feel you don’t have control of this situation any longer,” I snapped back. “You didn’t even know that someone attempted a hit on your own brother. So, what I said stands. No dice. I’ll keep watch on her until this whole thing is settled. And that’s that.”

  “Goddamn it, Will, I’m on your side.” Devlin sighed. “Fine. I was afraid you would cop this attitude, so I took some precautionary measures.”

  My blood ran cold, and I instantly peered out of the window at the fading sunlight dappling the forest. It seemed peaceful, tranquil, but appearances could be oh so deceiving.

  “What did you do, Devlin?” My tone low, flat.

  “What I had to do, baby bro.” Devlin almost sounded apologetic. Almost. “What I had to do. I’m not about to let you get shot, but I did dispatch an old friend to ‘remind’ you of where your loyalties are supposed to lie. Good luck.”

  With that he ended the call, and I slammed the receiver down hard. I exchanged glances with Scarlett and then walked over and handed her the loaded rifle.

  “I hate guns, Will.”

  “I know you do, babe, but please, just keep it for now. I’m going to check the perimeter.”

  “What did he say that has you so scared?”

  Silence was the only answer I could give.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The mood in the cabin grew dark fast while Will had been on the phone with his brother. I sensed a great deal of turmoil inside of him, lurking behind his blue eyes as he checked another rifle while he prepared to head outside.

  I didn’t press him for details and instead just watched as he pushed open the door and headed into the twilight-purple wilderness. Then I turned around and sighed, regarding the rifle in my hands. What had I sunk to? Carrying the very thing I’d said I would destroy.

  A thought occurred to me. Wouldn’t it be ironic if…

  I turned the rifle around, so the barrel pointed at the floor, and checked the stock. Yup, wouldn’t you know it? A Shaw Rifle. It seemed like I couldn’t escape my father’s legacy no matter what occurred.

  While Will did his perimeter check and ran around the woods feeling all manly and stoic, I looked for something to eat. The pantry yielded a lot of dried goods. Some of it I expected to find, like instant biscuit mix, but there were vacuum-sealed foil bags of milk as well.

  There were a lot of dark plastic wrapped items, which had the initials MRE on them. When I read the acronym, it apparently stood for Meals Ready-to-Eat. I guessed they were military rations, which made sense if a person wanted to spend time in a cabin many miles from what some considered civilization.

  My mind raced back to the events on the ocean, when those men were trying to kill us. I had been terrified, of course. How could I not be scared when people were shooting military-grade assault rifles at me? But the funny thing was, I hadn’t been nearly as scared as I probably should have been.

  Traveling in the suitcase, handcuffed and gagged while locked inside of the
stifling trunk of Will’s car, had been far, far scarier. Even though I wasn’t in any immediate danger while trussed up in the trunk, it had seemed so much worse.

  I considered the differences in the two situations. The biggest factor in determining my level of fear response, I believe, was my ability to act and affect the outcome. While in the trunk, helpless and tied, I couldn’t do anything at all to alter my fate. But on the yacht, I was able to take action to do something about what was happening to me. Plus, I could breathe, and see, and didn’t have to deal with my own panties trying to slide down my throat and suffocate me.

  So, in the last couple of days I’d been kidnapped, trussed up like a damsel in distress, zipped up in a suitcase, carted about in the trunk of a car, and shot at on the high seas before pulling off some stunt work that would make Tom Cruise proud.

  My old life, that of sitting around in cafés and making video blogs, seemed so far away. I wasn’t sure if my circumstances were truly the only differences. I thought instead that perhaps it was me. I was no longer the same woman who’d gone to that rave because she wanted to look cute and dance the night away.

  I was hardly a gourmet—the debacle of the burned pancakes had proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt—but I set out several boxes with the plan to create some form of meal. The instant biscuits box promised an easy dish within half an hour—literally just add water. There was a sealed can of sausage gravy which I set out next to it, and then I rummaged about for something, anything, that might resemble a vegetable.

  The closest thing I could find was Borracho beans, and they joined the assembly on the counter. I started at the sound of the door opening and turned to smile at Will as he entered the cabin.

  It was obvious he was feeling a good deal less tense. His brow was no longer furrowed, and his shoulders had lost the tight posture they’d held before. Will leaned the rifle against the door frame after clicking on the safety and then came across the floor to embrace me.

  “I’m sorry I got a little testy,” he mumbled into my hair.

  “It’s all right.” I squeezed him tightly. His smell, tinged with humus and sweat, drove me crazy and I felt a tingle between my legs. “I take it there aren’t more Russians lurking out in the woods?”

  Will laughed and pulled away enough to look me in the eyes. “No, I didn’t see anyone.” He cupped my cheek with his calloused palm. “We’re quite alone.”

  He moved to kiss me, but I fended him off. “Uh-uh,” I waved my finger at him. “No pussy until you feed me. And don’t try being cute. I’m talking about food and you know it.”

  He arched a brow but then burst into laughter. “All right, fair enough.” He moved into the kitchen and frowned at what I’d laid out. “What is this?”

  “I was going to try and cook something.”

  “Ah, I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Will.” I put my arms akimbo and glared at him. “Are you trying to insinuate I’m not a very good cook?”

  His mouth worked silently, but no sound came out. That was probably the best move he could have made at the time.

  “Of course not,” he said at length, finding his tongue at last. “But this old wood-burning stove is tricky, so maybe I should handle the food prep this time.”

  I chuckled and kissed him on the cheek, getting up on my tiptoes to manage it. “Okay, nice diplomatic dodge. This time. I’ll just go start a fire under the mantle while you cook, then.”

  “You’ll need some kindling to start the fire,” he called. “I’d check the clearing a stone’s throw out the back door. It gets plenty of sun and the deadwood should be dried out.”

  “Thanks.” I opened the back door. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Scarlett, wait,” he turned around and frowned.

  “What?” I asked, a bit impatient. Was he going to be overprotective to the bitter end?

  “Take the rifle with you,” he gestured at the gun leaning next to the door.

  I rolled my eyes, but I did as he said.

  “Make sure the safety is off before you try firing it—not that you’ll have to,” he stammered.

  “I know. I know,” I grinned. “I’ll be careful, Will.”

  “There’s a wicker basket next to the back door you can use to carry the kindling in. In fact, there might even be some in it already and you won’t have to go anywhere.”

  I pushed the door open and peered down to find a very empty wicker basket on the deck. “No such luck.” I picked it up by the handle and slung the rifle over my shoulder like an action movie bad ass. “I’ll be back in a flash.”

  I hummed as I headed out the back door and through a short span of woods to reach the clearing. The evening’s first stars were out, twinkling merrily from a dark azure sky rapidly darkening toward black. Night insects chirred in the foliage, mixing with the mating calls of toads and bird caws as I crunched through dried out grass into the clearing.

  There I found thin, dry twigs, some of them with shriveled leaves attached to the stems. I filled the basket bit by bit, moving around the clearing and humming to myself the whole time. It felt nice to be doing something so mundane, so normal. The thought that I would soon eat a delicious meal—Will was quite the cook—and then spend the rest of the evening having hot, hot sex gave me a little extra spring in my step, a little extra lilt in my voice.

  I knelt next to a pile of twigs apparently swept along by flood waters into a washout—a veritable gold mine of kindling. My humming gave way to singing as I gathered it up, filling my basket to the brim.

  Something hard pressed into the back of my head, and I froze.

  “Don’t move,” a voice from behind me hissed. “Or I’ll ventilate your skull.”

  My heart thudded a rapid tattoo in my chest, and I instinctively raised my arms in the air. “Don’t hurt me, please. I’m all alone. I won’t give you any trouble. I swear.”

  “Nice.” The deep baritone laughed, and I felt the presumed gun move away from my scalp. “You lie pretty well. Where’s Will Mayne?”

  I started for a moment. I hadn’t heard Will’s last name mentioned as of that point. The man behind me took my reaction to mean something different, however.

  “Yeah, I know about Will, and his nonna’s cabin, and the fact that you’ve been sucking him off or something and his head is all twisted around. I’m here to take over babysitting you while also reminding Will where the pressure lies.”

  I shuddered. The idea of being removed from Will’s custody and placed into that of a total stranger was terrifying.

  “Stay right where you are,” I heard him say. There was a sound, a shuffling sound, which may have been the stranger putting his presumed gun into a holster. Then I felt a tug on my hair, which caused me to instinctively flinch away.

  “Hold still,” he snapped, grabbing the back of my neck and squeezing hard. I shivered as he held a shiny metal-tipped arrow in front of my eyes. “Or you’ll be breathing through a new hole in your neck.”

  I grimaced as he tangled the arrow shaft up in my hair, twisting it around on its horizontal axis and forming a handle with which he could control me. He wound up placing the arrow’s sharp tip under my chin and used it to prompt me to my feet.

  “Up.” I caught a flash of him with my peripheral vision as I struggled to my feet. A big man, bigger even than Will, with rusty red skin, jet black hair with threads of gray, and glittering eyes full of the promise of violence. In that one glimpse, I realized I never wanted to give this dangerous man any reason to hurt me because I knew he would. In a heartbeat.

  “Let’s go,” he jabbed the arrowhead into my skin almost hard enough to draw blood, but not quite. “And don’t even think about screaming a warning. I’ll take your larynx out before you finish drawing in enough breath.”

  I believed him and offered no resistance as we reached the cabin’s rear door.

  “Open it,” he hissed through clenched teeth. I did so with a trembling hand, and then he walked me inside
ahead of him.

  Will turned around, his smile draining away as he beheld the two of us. He held a kitchen knife in his hand, which he flipped around so he held the blade part in a throwing position.

  “Don’t embarrass yourself, Will,” my captor said mockingly. “We both know you can’t hit shit at this distance.”

  Will straightened, the hand holding the knife dropping to his side. “Navajo Joe,” he sneered. “I should have known they’d send you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  My nonna’s cabin had been invaded by a six-foot-ten-inch, three-hundred-pound Native American who also happened to hold an arrowhead to my woman’s throat. Not the most auspicious of reunions with a man I always saw as an unofficial uncle.

  “Navajo” Joe Barrow had been in my family’s employ since before I was born, working his way up through the firm when it was still in its infancy. Joe was a special forces vet, born a little too late for ’Nam but just in time for the micro wars and regime changes during the Reagan era. If he had been born in time to go to Vietnam, the war may have gone much differently.

  While every stiff in organized crime had a story about their resident boogeyman, most of the time those stories were heavily exaggerated. No one’s an invincible killing machine, and I mean no one.

  But Navajo Joe was one of those guys where the myths and legends blurred with reality. My father told me a story once about how Joe got into a brawl with a Ju Jitsu expert, and used a unique way of breaking free from his opponent’s joint lock—by biting the man’s index finger off at the third knuckle.

  There were other stories, most of them spun by Joe himself. Supposedly he’d been surrounded in Latin America by a thinly disguised Soviet hit squad and walked out the only survivor, albeit with multiple bullet wounds. Joe once threw a Harley at a group of bikers hassling my grandmother… It’s easy to get the gist.

  All of this made me very, very wary that he was here in Nonna’s cabin, holding my woman hostage.