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

by Vivi Paige

  “Maybe,” Will’s brow furrowed. “That’s an excellent point, Scarlett. I should have thought of it. Unfortunately, there’s only one way to find out.”

  He picked up the phone and tapped the call button, holding his finger to his lips.

  The call was in speaker mode, so I heard Hart’s familiar voice. “Have you got my money yet? That toe should have loosened him up some.”

  My heart jumped into my throat, and Will ended the call. When our gazes met, I knew he realized my panic at the sound of a voice I’d heard since childhood.

  “What are we going to do?” I rasped.

  “We’re going to go unravel this at the source.” Will’s voice was grim. “We’re going to talk to your father. Now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The sun sank below the horizon, casting the marshy woods into darkness broken only by silver shafts of moonlight wafting through the canopy. Scarlett and I picked our way carefully through the woods, keeping to firmer ground as best we could.

  Scarlett was a natural, picking up on the overland travel technique quickly. She automatically scanned ahead for patches of ground bearing clumpy vegetation or rocky surfaces. I was impressed because I’d seen soldiers in the field who never really quite learned the technique.

  Fortunately, we were not overly concerned with moving quietly. It was a long, slow walk, and it took nearly two hours just to cover three miles of terrain and reach the highway. Along the way, Scarlett and I spoke about the nighttime sounds, how peaceful the woods were, and pretty much anything other than the fact it appeared increasingly likely that either a close associate of her father’s was behind the kidnapping, or perhaps Hunter Shaw himself.

  “Look at that.” She paused to point her freckled arm at a spectacle happening in a copse. A mockingbird flashed its white striped wings as it pursued a squirrel about, chirping madly the whole time.

  On occasion, the squirrel would stop and turn as if it wanted to fight, but the cagey mockingbird wasn’t having any of it. We both laughed as the bird successfully drove the fluffy-tailed rodent away and then flew up to perch upon a branch, puffing its chest out like a conqueror.

  “On paper, a two-ounce bird versus a three-pound rodent doesn’t seem like a fair fight,” Scarlett chuckled.

  “It’s not always the size of the dog in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the dog.” I gave her a wry grin. “You weigh two hundred pounds less than Navajo Joe, but he’s the one laid out in the cabin.”

  She shook her head dismissively as we continued on our trek toward the highway. “Yeah, sure, I’m a real bad ass when I sneak up on someone and hit them over the head when they’re not looking.”

  I laughed and stepped over a wide expanse of boggy creek. Then I offered my hand to Scarlett to help her across. When she stepped down on the other side, our bellies wound up tightly pressed together.

  Our eyes met, and then by mutual unspoken agreement, so did our lips. We broke it off before it got too heavy—we had a lot to do before morning—but it was intense enough that she giggled and patted my growing erection.

  “Sorry, Big Bad Wolf. You’ll have to wait to ravage Little Red Riding Hood until later.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I asked with a low growl.

  “Pretty sure.” She twirled her hair around her finger. There were still bits of arrow shaft tangled in her crimson locks, so I picked them out. Her face grew suddenly serious. “Will, what if my dad is behind the kidnapping? What am I supposed to do?”

  I grew tight-lipped because I had no real answers. When I felt even a minor betrayal by family, it made me run and join the armed services. I can’t imagine what it might feel like to have your parents willing to sacrifice your very life for their financial gain.

  “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” I finally said at length, and she graced me with a smile, though the darkness quickly returned. “As of this moment, all we have is an unproven theory. Maybe it’ll turn out this is all a big misunderstanding.”

  I didn’t believe a word of what came out of my mouth, and I knew Scarlett didn’t either. But she had the good grace to nod in agreement, giving lip service to my unsubstantiated theory.

  We reached the highway at last and hiked a half mile to a gas station. There I borrowed the clerk’s phone and used a ride service. In order to keep us from having a paper trail—though I suppose these days it should be called a digital trail if one is being literal—I had the clerk pay with his credit card and handed him a hundred dollar bill, which was three times the proposed fare cost.

  The car arrived, driven by a delightfully mundane fortyish single mother who wasn’t feeling especially chatty, which suited my mood perfectly. It suited Scarlett’s mood as well. I could tell that the closer we got to confronting her father, the more upset she became.

  When the glittering skyscrapers of Manhattan loomed in the windshield, Scarlett reached over and clutched tightly at my hand. I dragged her over into my embrace, and she leaned her head on my shoulder and silently wept. My heart felt a cold stab of sympathetic misery, and I vowed right there that no matter what, I would make sure no one ever made Scarlett cry ever again.

  “You okay back there?” called the driver, concern knitting her already furrowed brow.

  “We’re fine, thank you,” Scarlett sniffled a bit and wiped her tears.

  The driver took us to Brooklyn and dropped us off at a self-serve storage depot. Scarlett stood very close to me, shuddering. It wasn’t the nicest of neighborhoods, which was why the storage depot was protected by an eleven-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire. Some scraps of clothing and a red stain on one of the fence posts told the tale that even a daunting fence wasn’t always enough to keep out the urchins, but it was better than nothing.

  I used my card to swipe the gate open, and then we walked inside hand in hand.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “I need to pick up some things for our op,” I murmured.

  “Our up?” she questioned, her lips pursed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Not our up,” I said with emphasis. “Our op. Short for operation.”

  “Oh, I love it when you talk all military.” She flashed me a grin, but darkness still lurked within her emerald gaze. Until we resolved the issues between her and Hunter Shaw, she would know no peace.

  I took a moment to think about how crazy the last few days had been. When this all started, Scarlett had been merely a job. Sure, I thought she was hot, but I usually didn’t allow my personal taste to interfere with my professionalism.

  But the only problem was, when it came to Scarlett, my Little Red Riding Hood, professionalism went right out the window. I knew from almost the moment I laid eyes on her that I was in danger of getting emotionally involved. The fact that Scarlett was not a vapid, brain-dead heiress but an intelligent and creative soul with ambition only made it that much harder.

  Then there was her hard-luck story, common ground we had by not getting along with our families. Yeah, I didn’t stand a chance, really. The fact that she looked like a goddamned Victoria’s Secret model was more incidental than some might think, but it certainly didn’t hurt matters.

  We strode through the parking lot to my storage unit, passing under a buzzing streetlamp awash in swarming insects. A black bat darted through the cloud of bugs, zipping with grace and speed as it gobbled them up wholesale. I wondered if Scarlett and I were the bat in the current situation, or the insects waiting to be devoured.

  I stopped in front of the orange corrugated garage-style door labeled #66 and dug out my key. Once I’d convinced the stubborn, rusted lock to open, I bent over, grabbed the handle, and yanked upward.

  “Holy shit.” Her eyes went wide, mouth forming an O as she beheld the largest and most expensive item in the storage unit—my orange and black 1962 Triumph Spitfire. The chrome gleamed in the half light as she moved inside the unit and ran her hands over the glossy polished hood. “This is awesome.” Scarl
ett turned back toward me, her face drawn up with suspicion. “Are you sure you’re not James Bond?”

  I laughed and flipped on the lights, revealing several industrial metal shelves filled with neatly organized boxes. “I would never be caught dead in a tux outside of my wedding day.”

  “Are you dropping hints?” Scarlett asked hopefully. When she saw my astonished, gaping face, she laughed. “Calm down, Will. I’m just teasing.” Her expression darkened, and tension stiffened her posture. “We have to survive the next twenty-four hours before we even think about the future.”

  I set down the box I had been about to open and went to her, gathering her in my arms. “Hey, hey,” I murmured as she stiffened in my grasp. “It’s all right. We’re not going to die.”

  I left out that someone would probably end up dead even if it wasn’t either of us. I was trying to be comforting, after all.

  Once I had her calmed, I dug around in the box until I found what I’d been searching out—a pair of dangling diamond stud earrings with a hidden feature. They were what we used to call “bugs” in the parlance of our family business. I would be able to listen in and hear everything Scarlett and her father said to each other.

  Of course, Scarlett had no idea of any of this when I handed them to her, placing them in her soft palm.

  “Is now really the time to accessorize?” She quirked a red brow.

  “They’re listening devices,” I replied. “Set up to feed into this burner cell phone. We can record everything you and your father say and play it back at will.”

  Scarlett nodded and removed her golden studs to replace them with the diamonds. Then we climbed into the Spitfire and made our way out of town. Like a lot of rich types, Hunter Shaw only had his business address in the city. His home was about five miles out, occupying a rocky twenty acres and featuring its own private drive.

  When we reached the end of the private drive, Scarlett got in the driver’s seat and I prepared to hike across the manor grounds in a black sweatshirt and hood.

  “You look more like a kidnapper than ever,” she chuckled.

  “Be careful, Scarlett,” I replied, pausing to kiss her deeply. “Try to give me at least five minutes to make it into position.”

  “Position,” she giggled. “I’m sure there’s going to be all kinds of ‘positions’ once you get me back to your place.”

  I kissed her again, and then we parted ways. The terrain was a bit rough, but also featured plenty of cover. I made it up to the house without incident, spotting Scarlett parking the car in the circle drive.

  I grew up with affluence, but Shaw’s manor was still pretty impressive. Four stories, a grand ballroom on the ground level just past the entrance foyer, and polished marble floors. There was a shooting gallery built into the back yard, set up so a rocky rise would absorb the rounds fired.

  I tried to imagine Scarlett growing up here, but I just couldn’t picture her as anything but a—very busty—adult woman.

  Hunter had a thug on guard duty, a muscle-bound oaf who looked like he took protein shakes intravenously. He didn’t concern me at all, as he was easy to avoid. Besides, guys with beach muscles weren’t nearly as dangerous as they looked. They had to give up a lot of strength to be so defined.

  I tracked Scarlett’s progress through the house and wound up crouched in the shrubbery under her father’s study window. As soon as the door opened and they saw each other, I knew Hunter Shaw was behind the whole thing. There was surprise in his eyes to be sure, but he didn’t seem like a man who had just recovered the precious daughter he’d been worried sick about.

  No, not at all. Frustration and rage boiled up in his gaze, not relief.

  “Dad,” Scarlett said at length when he stood staring at her in silence. She ran to him, threw her arms around his waist, and hugged him tightly. Hunter made no move to return the embrace, however, and she pulled away, a hurt expression in her green eyes. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

  In response Hunter turned his back on her and walked over to the far wall of his study, right next to the window I peered through. He reached up and messed with something I couldn’t see as he spoke.

  “No, I’m not happy to see my pinko liberal hippie offspring, who is fully intent upon bankrupting me and destroying the family business,” he snarled. “I tried to handle this by proxy, I really did, but if you want something done right…”

  Hunter turned, and he had an elephant gun in his hands. A fucking elephant gun.

  I prepared to spring into action, abandoning all stealth. No one was going to hurt Scarlett ever again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Dad, what are you doing?” I blurted, stepping back quickly in a panic. My heart thudded so heavily I feared it would crack my ribcage and pop out onto the floor. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I screamed, Where is Will? at the top of my mental lungs.

  Deciding I was too scared to wait for his arrival, I turned to run, but as soon as I reached for the knob, the door to the study flew open and Tharpe Saucer blocked my way with his massive body. Bigger even than Will, I cringed back from my father’s guard’s mere presence. I was trapped between the two of them.

  “You’re going to shoot me, Dad?” I snapped, my fear fueling my sudden anger. “In your own house? How are you going to spend all your money from a prison cell?”

  “Prison?” my father’s lined face drew up into a cruel sneer. It shamed me that I could see my own face in his, especially the nose and the brows. I didn’t want to have inherited anything from that psychopath. “Prison? You think men like me go to prison? I golf with the fucking district attorney! I contributed to the election campaign of three quarters of the sitting judges in the entire city. I’m not going to prison. Now or ever.”

  His sneer changed into a pitiless smile.

  “Besides, no one’s going to find your body. The kidnapping is well-documented. I assure you I can sound sincerely miserable and terrified upon cue. You’re just going to disappear, Scarlett. No one’s ever going to find your body, but don’t worry, I’ll be sure to name a wing of the Shaw Munitions Museum after you.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” I snapped. The idea of him using my death to “honor” everything I’d ever fought against turned my stomach. “How can you be like this? Doesn’t family mean anything to you?”

  “Oh, so now you want to talk to me about family, Scarlett?” he growled, gripping the gun tightly in his fingers. “Family is supposed to look out for each other. Is that what you’re saying?”

  I bumped into Tharpe as I backed away, and he grabbed me by my arms. I knew I couldn’t escape his iron grip, and I fervently checked the window. I nearly collapsed in relief when I spotted Will peering in. He held his finger to his lips and then disappeared from view. I decided to try and keep my father talking to stall until Will could take action.

  “That is what I’m saying, yes,” I replied.

  “Well, then why have you spent the last five years of your life—living on my dime, I might add—trying to bring down the very thing that gave you such a fat trust fund? Huh? Why are you trying to destroy the family legacy? If family is so damn important to you.”

  His words hit me like a blow, and I flinched in kind. Tears welled in my eyes as I struggled to reconcile this angry monster before me with the man who taught me to tie my shoelaces. Then I remembered… the nanny taught me how to tie my shoes. Dad was always busy. I guess he was always an asshole, and I just didn’t want to admit I knew as much.

  “Nothing to say, huh?” he snapped. “Yeah, your tears don’t mean a goddamn thing to me. You’re so like your mother. She was always riding my ass, too.” My mouth dropped open, and he snarled, jabbing the gun in my direction. “Don’t you dare think that! Your mother’s death was an accident. Unlike yours.” His eyes grew suddenly cold, and his mouth closed. He was done talking. “Put her against the west wall, Tharpe,” my father spoke as if he were ordering a Caesar salad. “The masonry is cheaper to r
eplace on that side of the room.”

  The sound of breaking glass heralded Will’s arrival. He landed in a low crouch, but then sprang in an instant, stretching out his body like a pouncing jungle cat.

  He drove his shoulder right into my father’s midsection, folding the older man in half. Tharpe released me in order to draw the automatic pistol he always kept in a holster at the small of his back. I assaulted him with my nails, raking bloody lines down his face.

  Tharpe stumbled backward, temporarily blinded, and I used the opportunity to snag the pistol right out of its holster. When he opened his hate-filled eyes, he saw the barrel of his own weapon pointed at him.

  “You didn’t even take the safety off,” he said, bluffing, because I knew damn well I had.

  “Think so?” I asked with a sneer. “Then take a step, Tharpe. I fucking dare you.”

  I backed away until I was near the spot on the floor where Will had put my father into a choke hold. Will’s muscles strained as he altered his grip.

  “Say good night, Hunter,” he snapped.

  “No, Will,” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Don’t kill him.”

  “But he deserves it, Scarlett.” His voice trembled with rage.

  “Yeah, he probably does, but we’re better than him. Aren’t we?”

  It came out as more of a query than the statement I’d intended, but Will released my father. Then he squatted down next to him and played the recording of his confession. Every. Single. Word.

  “I’ve got your ass,” Will informed my father. “Confessing to felonies galore. One hair comes to harm on Scarlett’s head, and you’ll beg me to let you die. Understand?”

  My father is many things, but he’s not stupid. He nodded his agreement, but that wasn’t good enough for Will. The massive Wolf’s hand encompassed my father’s throat.

  “I want to hear you say it.”

  “I understand,” my father croaked out in a strangled voice. “I won’t hurt her, I swear.”