by Lovell, LP
* * *
Jackson pulls up in the alleyway just around the corner from O’Malley’s. I called him on my way over because I sure as hell need backup and when it comes to fighting, Jackson’s always handy. He gets out of the black SUV and fastens the buttons on his jacket. His dark hair is shaved short in a buzz cut, making him look every bit the enforcer he is. He eyes me with a tight expression as he opens the back door. Moving beside him, I stare at the woman on the back seat, her stomach swollen and her face streaked with tears.
“I have no desire to hurt you. Call Darren. Now. Tell him where you are and that if he doesn’t come alone, I’m going to kill you.” A ragged sob comes from her. Fuck me, I don’t have time for this shit. Jackson hands her a phone and she takes it, her hands shaking and her eyes darting between Jackson and me. She touches the screen and then puts the phone to her ear.
“Darren!” she cries, her voice breaking. She draws several heaving breaths, tears and snot running down her face. “I’m in the alley one block over from the bar. He…he’s going to kill me.”
Snatching the phone away from her, I put it to my ear. The sound of dull music is in the background, as if he’s in a hallway or a side room away from the main bar. “You have something I want, Mr Derham. So you are going to come and meet me, alone, or I am going to blow your pretty little girlfriend’s brains all over the dirty fucking street.” My voice rises and then I hang up, tossing the phone to Jackson.
“Point a gun at her head. You see any more than one guy walk around that corner, shoot her.”
“Oh god.” She starts whimpering and crying before she clasps her hands together and starts praying under her breath. I have no sympathy for that shit, and you know why? Because if you get involved with a mafia guy, this is to be expected. And if she didn’t know he was mafia…well, that just makes her stupid. The mafia are all about protecting women and keeping them out of it, they create these rules that make them untouchable, rely on honour, and it works…until a bastard like me comes along. I don’t have any fucking honour and I’ll use any means necessary to get what I want. If he wants to take what’s mine, he can be damn sure I’ll take what’s his.
A few minutes later, a figure appears at the mouth of the alley. He’s alone but his fingers are wrapped around a gun. “Who the fuck are you?” he asks, his voice strained.
I laugh. “I’m the guy with a gun to your woman’s head.” I point towards Jackson who has his gun trained on the back seat.
“Darren!” she screams, and I see his eyes pinch slightly, his lips pressing together.
“What do you want?” he asks through clenched teeth.
I approach him and place my gun under his chin. He stares me straight in the eye. “I want Una.”
He laughs. “She’ll already be dead.” I ram the barrel of the gun into his throat hard enough to make him gag and choke.
“You had best hope not, because at this point, her life is tied to dear Polly’s here.”
“O’Hara has her,” he says through clenched teeth.
“Where?”
“The cellar of the bar.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” I pull the trigger and a bloody gaping hole appears in his throat. He’s seen Una’s face, knows who she is. He’s a liability. The girl starts screaming and it’s loud enough to wake the fucking dead. Jackson leans in the back of the car and then it’s silent. He closes the door and opens the trunk, handing me a semi-automatic.
“Grab his feet.” I pick up Darren’s shoulders and Jackson gets his ankles. I don’t have time to fix this now, so we just throw him in the trunk.
Only one guy guards the back of the bar. We duck down in the shadows behind a dumpster and watch for a second.
“Boss, we’re walking into the Irish stronghold,” Jackson says. I don’t respond because I’m fucking aware. “Is she really worth getting killed for?”
Is she? I don’t know. All I know is I fucking want her back. I’m not ready for my vicious little butterfly to meet her end. If anyone is going to kill her, it will be me.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” I say, pushing to my feet. The guard turns to face us and Jackson shoots him, the muted pop from the silencer the only sound before he hits the ground. I’m hoping that they’re all too drunk to pay too much attention and honestly, he’s right, this is their stronghold. It’s the last place they would expect a hit.
I fire off one round at the lock, yanking the old door open. I have no idea what I’m walking into, but I don’t care. She has me fucking suicidal for her.
22
Una
“I don’t work for free, Mr O’Hara. And honestly, I expect a certain level of professional courtesy.”
He laughs. “I’m showing you it by not killing you.”
I smile, narrowing my eyes and lounging in the chair casually. “Haven’t you heard? I’m untouchable.”
He moves closer. “No one is untouchable,” he says, glaring down at me. “So what will it be? You work for me or I use you and torture information out of you.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “You might as well just kill me now. You’d be wasting your time.” I spring up from the chair, clasping the curved metal of the handcuff in my fingers and raking the serrated edge over the side his neck. He staggers back a step in surprise, and I get a clear line of sight to the guard on the left of the door. I throw the slim blade in my other hand at said guard and it hits him in the side of the neck. Blood spurts from the small nick like a hosepipe being turned on. The other guard glances at his friend before pointing his gun at me, but I duck behind his boss who provides an ample body shield. Of course, O’Hara has recovered from my earlier swipe. It was only a flesh wound and although there’s a lot of blood, he’s annoyingly fine. The door flies open on a bang and the quick pop pop of silenced gunfire has Finnegan grabbing a handful of my hair and turning us to face the door. He forces me in front of him, ramming the barrel of his gun into the side of my neck.
“Nero.” I barely breathe. He stands in the doorway looking like the devil himself come to mete out his wrath. His chest rises and falls raggedly and the muscles in his jaw pulse beneath the skin. Jackson lingers in the hallway just behind him. His gaze briefly touching on mine before he goes back to keeping watch.
“Well, well. I see ya finally found the balls to come after me yourself.” O’Hara taunts, pulling my hair harder.
Nero tilts his head to the side slightly. “Oh, no. This one’s all on Una,” he says casually, but the meaning is all too clear, this is my fault.
“I can see why you’d want her back.” O’Hara presses his face into my hair and sniffs. I scowl and try to shrug him off. “But this is a risk. Isn’t that her job?” He laughs.
Nero’s eyes lock with mine, dark and turbulent and promising nothing but pain and retribution. Something passes between us, a mutual understanding of necessary violence. Anyone else might hesitate, but I see the minute twitch of the muscle in his shoulder before he pulls the gun up. Grabbing O’Hara’s right wrist, I shove it away from me, digging my finger hard into the nerve that runs through his forearm. I twist my body side-on as I do. Two bangs ring out, and then he’s falling. O’Hara lands flat on his back, gasping desperately for air as a red stain slowly bleeds out across the centre of his chest. Nero comes to stand beside me and fires one shot at the dying man’s head. He then turns, wordlessly, and walks straight out of the room, climbing the steps that lead to the hallway. There is no time to hang around, so I follow him and Jackson falls in behind me. I can practically see the anger swirling around Nero. His back muscles are tense and the way he walks, it’s as though he’d flatten small buildings with his rage. For once though, it’s warranted. I feel like an idiot and I wonder how I got here. I’ve always been meticulous and know that mistakes and rash action are what get you caught. Acting out of desperation could have gotten me killed. And Nero…I’m supposed to be taking out his targets so he’s not associated with it, so why come after me? He’
s just implicated himself and for what? To play the white knight?
We loop around the back of the bar and walk one block over before he turns into a dark alleyway. A black SUV and the Maserati are parked under the cover of darkness. “Get in the car,” he says without looking at me. He makes me feel like a chastised child, so on pure principle, I lean against the back of the car and cross my arms over my chest.
“Take the girl to the hospital,” he says to Jackson. What girl? “And get rid of him,” he says cryptically. He grabs my arm and shoves me towards the passenger side of the car. “Do not fucking push me right now.” His voice is a low rumble, rolling thunder that signals a storm is about to hit. I get in the car and sit, anxiously. The driver’s door slams and he revs the enormous engine, wheels spinning past the SUV as he pulls out of the alley. The tension in the car feels like a physical force, wrapping around me and pressing on my chest until it’s stifling. His anger is a palpable thing and his silence is ominous, to say the least.
By the time he pulls into the parking garage at the apartment, I can’t wait to get out of the car. Throwing the door open, I watch as he slams his door and storms toward the elevator. I don’t particularly want to be in another confined space with him, but I get in and the doors slide shut, feeling more like the door to a tomb rather than an elevator.
When I can’t take it anymore, I glance sideways at him. “Are you going to say anything?” I ask.
He cracks his neck to the side and tilts his head back, his jaw flexing over and over. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you myself,” he says on a low growl.
“I thought –”
He shoves me back into the elevator wall and slams his fists against the metal beside my head with a loud bang. “You don’t get to fucking think,” he hisses, blowing hot angry breath over my face. My heart pounds in my chest so hard it’s all I can hear. I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow heavily. “You fucking disobeyed me.”
My eyes snap open and I frown. “I’m not one of your soldiers, Nero. You asked me to do a job. How I do it was not part of the agreement.”
His hand slams around my throat the same way it always does when he’s mad. “He knew you were coming and you better believe he would have killed you.” The elevator pings and the doors slide open but neither of us move.
“Those are the risks of the job.” His hand physically trembles against my neck before he shoves away from me and turns his back.
“Damn it, Una,” he roars, dragging both hands through his hair. I walk straight past him and can feel him following me, stalking me. “I hired you because you’re the best. This shit…this is not the best.”
I turn on him, jabbing my finger into the centre of his chest. “You didn’t hire me! You blackmailed me. There’s a difference.”
His head tilts to the side and his eyes narrow. He looks at me in that way that has me taking a step back. He takes a step forward as a result. “So, what? You feel slighted so you rush headfirst into a bullet between the eyes?”
“No, I…” I keep moving backwards into the apartment and he stalks forwards. “Why do you even care?” I snap. “I didn’t compromise you. He already knew it was you.” My back hits the kitchen island and he places his hands on either side of me, gripping the edge. “Why do you care?” I repeat. I need to know, because right now, I’m freefalling through the unknown and my stupid little heart is hoping he’ll catch me, determined that there must be a reason why he saved me. Meanwhile, my head says he’ll stand and watch me hit the ground and smile as my body breaks and shatters in front of him.
He leans in until his lips are brushing so close to my face, his breath caressing my lips as he speaks. “I told you, Morte, you’re mine,” he growls before his lips crash against mine brutally. He kisses me like he wants to crawl inside me and consume me, and I let him, because his possession, his brutal need…I want it. No one has ever risked a damn thing for me before, but I know he risked his life coming for me. In his own warped and depraved way he cares. No one has truly cared about me since I was eight years old. I never knew I wanted or needed it until this exact second. Nero makes me feel safe and the realization shocks me to my core, because he’s anything but safe. I don’t need protection and I sure as hell don’t need a white knight, but I want this savage creature. I want his complete lack of morals, his violence and his need for power and blood. Kissing him back, I tug at his jacket and push it past his shoulders. He shrugs out of it as his lips tear away from mine and ravage the side of my neck. I tilt my head to the side, allowing him more access.
“You make me so fucking angry. I want to fuck you until you bleed,” he snarls, and I shiver, my breath hitching in my throat. “And that damn dress.” He roughly grabs the skirt and shoves it up, a low groan escaping his throat when his fingers brush all the way up to my hips. I’m not wearing any underwear because the dress is skin-tight. He grips my thighs and lifts me easily. I wrap my legs around him, clinging to his broad shoulders as he moves. He slams me against the wall and one of the paintings sways dangerously. It’s nothing but hands and teeth and lips as he drives his point home. My fingers thread through his hair, pulling at the thick strands, wanting more, wanting his punishment just as much as his pleasure. He bites down on my neck hard enough that I actually feel his teeth puncture my skin. Throwing my head back against the wall, I pant when he drags his tongue over the wound. I run my hands down his chest and grab the collar of his shirt, wrenching it apart. The buttons scatter, hitting the tile like rain in a storm, an apt backing for the hurricane that is Nero. His lips slam over mine again, fighting, demanding, taking. His hot, bare skin presses against the inside of my thighs and I’m so desperate for him that I reach between us and yank at his belt buckle. I’m consumed with this unexplainably heightened need to feel him inside me, and he gives me what I want, shoving his pants and boxers over his thighs and ramming his cock inside me. It’s like retribution and salvation all at once, pain and pleasure, light and dark, right and wrong…it all blends together until the lines that define us disappear and it’s no longer him and me, just us. We are one and the same, the embodiment of each other, two splintered halves of the fractured whole.
His forehead presses against mine and his hand wraps around the back of my neck, holding me there, forcing me to share the same air as him. I grasp his face in both my hands and close my eyes, feeling every rough thrust of his hips, the small spike of pain that comes with having him buried so deep inside me. I listen to every feral groan and staggered breath, and I embrace it all, letting him dominate and own me for just a few precious moments.
The picture on the wall crashes to the floor, the glass smashing and flying across the tile. He only fucks me harder, pounding into me until I don’t know where he ends and I begin. I throw my head back against the wall, my mouth falling open on a long moan. His lips rest against my throat, his teeth touching my skin but never biting down as he groans. Everything in me tightens, and I cling to him as my body detonates, sending wave after wave of pleasure tearing through my muscles, setting fire to my nerve endings and electrocuting my skin. He growls into my neck, biting down on my shoulder as he thrusts into me harder and stiffens. A pained groan leaves his lips and then he relaxes again. He braces his hand against the wall beside my head and breathes heavily against my neck. My body trembles and my heart is thrumming in my chest, pounding against my ribs. I stroke my hand down the side of his neck as I try to catch my breath, and he pulls back, his eyes meeting mine. We stare at each other, saying nothing and everything with one look. His hand grips my neck roughly.
“The next time you do something like that, I will fucking kill you myself,” he says, and I smile.
He storms away, leaving me standing there alone.
* * *
My hand shakes, my heart hammering in my chest so hard that my pulse thrums against my eardrums, a symphony of fear and heartbreak.
“Please,” I beg, lifting my eyes to Nicholai.
His expression softens as he
steps closer to me, reaching out and brushing a tendril of hair away from my face. “Become what you were meant to be, little dove.” His thumb trails over my jaw, and I close my eyes as a tear slips down my cheek. “Put a bullet in his head or put a bullet in your own,” he says harshly. “You cannot live with weakness. Fix it one way or another.” His lips brush over the side of my face.
I lift my gaze, staring over his arm at the far wall. “Please don’t make me do this,” I beg. Tears blur my vision, and I don’t care that I look weak.
Nicholai looks at me in disgust. “See what he does to you? You are a weapon and weapons don’t weep. Make a choice.”
The concrete walls of the room seem to press in on me until I can barely breathe. Nicholai’s hand slips away from my face and he steps back. My trembling finger rests over the trigger of the gun, and I swallow heavily, hating the fact that I’m so weak. I lift my eyes to Alex, chained to the far wall. His torso is bare, covered in slices that bleed down his torso. Sweat mixes with the blood, coating the chiselled muscles of his body in a crimson glow. His dark hair is damp with sweat and a few loose tendrils fall across his face. I stare into his beautiful green eyes, so full of pain, so full of longing. Longing for what can never be. Longing for a fantasy, a dream, but dreams don’t exist in this place. This is where the damned are born and created, shaped and moulded until there’s nothing left but the cold urge to kill, to take and destroy. I thought I’d found a brief reprieve in Alex’s arms, an oasis in this warped version of hell, but I was wrong. Because there is no escape from yourself, from what you’ve become. Alex made me forget, for just a second. He makes me feel things that I haven’t felt since I was taken, since Anna. Love. Kindness.
