Sweet Retribution: Ruthless Games #2

by Rose, Callie

  Ryland stiffens at the mention of Luca’s name, his finger slipping onto the trigger of the gun. Theo steps forward, his eyes narrowing. “How the fuck do you know about that?”

  Jordan smiles, revealing red-tinged teeth. Some of the fear seems to have bled out of him, and the cocky smirk that plays across his lips grates on my nerves.

  “It’s an open secret among Luca’s close acquaintances. We keep our ears to the ground, pay attention to what he’s up to, because it affects us too.” His smile broadens. “And if you really are Luca’s guys, then you know he doesn’t take kindly to people interfering in his business. I’ve been letting him use my office as a front for years. I’m a valuable asset to him. You fuck with me and you’ll pay for it.”

  “Shut up,” Marcus barks.

  “You think he cares about her little vendetta?” Jordan shakes his head, jerking his chin toward me.

  My skin chills. I know this tone. It’s the tone he always used when he promised me that no one would believe me if I reported him—that I’d only be ruining my life, not his, if I tried to tell anyone what he’d done to me.

  I take a step forward, my fist lashing out before I can stop it. I catch Jordan just below his eye, in the same place Marcus hit him earlier, and he grunts in pain. When he slowly turns his head back to face all of us, I can see fury burning in his eyes.

  I recognize that too.

  “You think they can protect you, you little bitch?” he hisses. “Luca doesn’t care about them. He’s got this game set up so there’s no way he loses, no matter who wins. If they cross him, he’ll just take them out and find three more to take their places. They’re not worth shit. You’re not worth shit.”

  My heart is pounding harder and harder as I stare down at him, the wild organ threatening to break through my ribs.

  My voice shakes as I speak, but it has nothing to do with fear this time.

  It’s pure fury.

  “These men are worth a hundred of you,” I bite out. “And so am I.”

  Ryland moves to stand beside me, and I jerk a little in shock as he unclenches the fingers of my hand and presses the gun into my palm. The grip is warm from his skin, and the metal is smooth and hard. The whole thing feels so solid that all I can do is blink down at it for a second.

  “I wouldn’t care if he was Luca’s fucking brother,” he murmurs quietly, drawing my attention back to his face. His hazel eyes burn with conviction as he gazes down at me. “He deserves to pay for what he did.”

  “What the fuck?” Jordan sounds truly furious now, but underneath the anger, I catch a hint of surprise… and fear.

  His connection to Luca was his trump card. Luca D’Addario is the one person in this city no one would dare to cross. The consequences for angering him are dire, and Jordan was counting on these three men to know that.

  What he didn’t count on is that they do know.

  They just don’t care.

  My hand tightens on the heavy weapon in my grip, and I brush my finger over the curve of the trigger, my heart thudding heavily in my chest. I can feel Theo and Marcus on my other side, all three men gathered close around me.

  A united front.

  A family.

  My family.

  Maybe Jordan finally realizes what’s truly at stake here, because he strains against the thick layers of tape that bind him to the chair, grunting as he struggles to get free. When I look back at him, his light brown eyes are bloodshot and wild.

  “I took you in, Ayla.” His voice is ragged, and the sound of my name on his lips sends a shiver of revulsion through me. “I gave you a place to stay, a roof over your head. I took care of you. I gave you everything you could ever need. And all I took was one little thing.”

  The fury that pours from each of the men around me is so strong I swear I can taste it in the air. Something hot and unpleasant floods my veins, making it feel like my blood is on fire.

  “One little thing?” I whisper. The gun is heavy in my hand, but my arm is steady as I raise it, aiming between his eyes. “That’s what it was to you? My virginity. My innocence. It was one little thing?”

  He blinks, his head jerking back as if that could save him from a bullet through the face. His skin pales, then flushes slightly, and when he speaks again, the false bravado has left his voice.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” He’s breathing heavily, his gaze bouncing between me and the barrel of the gun. “But I didn’t wreck your life, right? You’re still here, aren’t you? You’re okay. You’ve got these guys on your side.” He shoots a gaze over my shoulder before quickly returning his attention to me. A calculating look flickers in his eyes as he narrows them slightly. “Are you really willing to wreck their lives just to get your revenge on me? Because if you kill me, Luca will make them pay.”

  You’re okay.

  Does he know he’s repeating the words he said to me so many times I lost count? Does he even remember? Or was it all so fucking inconsequential to him that he’s forgotten?

  My finger tightens a little on the trigger as anger and pain and hatred roar through my veins. I want to block out his words, to shut them out of my head, to pretend they’re not true.

  If I do this, the three men behind me will pay for it.

  My chest rises and falls fast. My hand feels like it’s frozen into a block of ice around the gun’s grip, and I’m staring so hard at Jordan’s forehead that it’s blurring in my vision.

  “Angel.” Marcus’s voice is soft. I feel him before I see him in my periphery as he steps up beside me. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do this.”

  His hand slides around mine, the warmth of his palm unfreezing my joints as he takes the gun from me. My fingers feel shaky, my arm suddenly so light it might float away without the heaviness of the gun to weigh it down.

  Marcus catches my chin with the fingers of his free hand, turning me toward him. Earth and air, the purest shades of brown and blue, gaze back at me as he shakes his head slightly.

  “You don’t have to. You shouldn’t have to. This man is a fucking monster, angel, but he never defeated you. No matter what he did to you, he never won. Because you didn’t let yourself become a monster too.”

  He smiles at me. There’s so much warmth, so much love in his eyes that my chest aches from it.

  He palms the back of my head and kisses me as his other hand raises the gun, aiming it at Jordan’s head.

  And then he fires.

  Chapter 24

  The reverberations of the shot travel through Marcus’s body and into mine through the connection between our lips.

  I feel it in every part of me, all the way down to the tips of my toes.

  He fires two more times, and I kiss him harder as our bodies vibrate from the kickback. I kiss him like I’m trying to crawl inside him, and he kisses me like he’s trying to eat me alive.

  The echoes of the shots fade, and the room falls silent except for our heavy breaths. Jordan never even got a chance to speak again. I’m pretty sure the first bullet ended his life—the next two were just for Marcus.

  For me.

  I press myself harder against him, clinging to him with an arm around his back, as the familiar scent of blood seeps into my nostrils. It mingles with Marcus’s clean leather scent, filling my heart and mind with a cacophony of remembered images and sensations.

  Three shots.

  It’s always been three shots.

  That’s why Marcus shot him three times.

  His lips are hot on mine, and it’s only when I taste salt that I realize I’m crying. They’re not sad or happy tears, they’re just… release.

  I keep kissing him, ignoring the fact that I’m smearing tears all over his face, and even when our deep kiss finally ends, I press small pecks to his lips in between words.

  “You didn’t have to do that. Marcus, you didn’t have to—”

  He catches my chin in his grip, tilting my head up as he pulls away to look down at me. “Yes, I did, angel. Of course I did.
I wanted to.”

  Slowly, we both turn to take in the body of the man in the chair. He’s slumped backward, his head lolling to one side. A small trail of blood trickles from a bullet hole in his forehead, and there are two more holes in his chest. His light brown eyes stare blankly up at the ceiling, and his mouth hangs open slightly.

  “He doesn’t deserve your pity, Ayla.” Ryland’s voice is a deep rumble.

  I nod. “I know.”

  My gaze stays glued to the man before us for another long moment. The sight is gruesome—horrifying, really—but I force myself to keep looking until I’ve had my fill. I know I’ll never see this man again. This will be my last memory of him.

  Honestly, out of all the memories I have of Jordan McCabe, this is the one I’ll hold on to the longest.

  None of the men say anything else until I turn away from the man’s corpse. Then Marcus tugs me a little closer with the arm he’s slung around my waist, looking over my shoulder at the other two. He doesn’t even ask the question before Theo answers.

  “We’ll take care of the body. Get her home.”

  I feel Theo’s lips brush my hair, and Ryland turns my face to press a kiss to the corner of my mouth. Then the two of them move toward Jordan’s body as Marcus ushers me upstairs.

  We take one of Theo’s cars, and Marcus presses a few buttons on the steering wheel, flipping through a few songs before he settles on one he likes. Soft music fills the car as we drive through the deserted, darkened streets, heading back toward Halston proper.

  It’s quiet, just like it was on my drive out with Theo, but I don’t mind that. It feels nice. Comfortable.

  I know I should probably feel guilt or disgust or horror over what I just witnessed, but when I examine my feelings, all I can find inside myself is peace.

  Whether I knew it or not, whether I admitted it to myself or not, Jordan McCabe has haunted me since I was fifteen. A part of him stayed with me long after I left his house, tormenting me even as the man himself moved on, all but forgetting about the girl whose life he had irrevocably altered.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be glad he’s gone, but I am.

  It’s late by the time we arrive back at Theo’s house and Marcus pulls smoothly into the garage. I can feel exhaustion somewhere in my body, and I know Marcus needs sleep, but instead of pulling me toward the bedroom when we get inside, he stops in the kitchen.

  His mesmerizing eyes are hard to read as he draws me over to the sink and grabs a few paper towels, running them under the water to wet them. It’s only when he begins to clean off my arm that I realize I’ve got small spatters of blood on me. He’s got little spots of blood on his skin as well.

  They’re not large droplets, just small specs that dot my arm and shoulder, but they turn the paper towel pink as he scrubs it over my skin.

  There’s blood on my shirt too, and I lift my arms willingly as Marcus tugs it off over my head. He lets it fall to the floor before rubbing the paper towel over my neck and shoulder. He drops it into the sink when he’s finished, but his gaze keeps roaming over me, his fingertips tracing the same paths the paper towel just traveled.

  His focus switches from my good arm to my damaged one, and I shiver pleasurably as he follows the outline of the red flowers.

  “It’s so fucking beautiful,” he murmurs. “Just like you are.” His gaze flashes up to mine before returning to my truncated limb, and he lifts it a little so he can examine the full tattoo. “I was there when you got it. Every single session. I could tell some parts hurt more than others, but you never told him to stop.”

  I blink at him, my heart skipping a beat in my chest.

  Things have changed so radically between us since Marcus and his brothers first exploded back into my life. Sometimes I forget how long they watched me, how many months they spent hovering at the periphery of my life like dark, ruthless angels.

  And sometimes I forget that I didn’t know they were there.

  When I look back on those times, it’s hard not to feel them watching over me, to feel their presence in my life as if they were a part of it all along. As if I knew them, even before I knew them.

  I catch Marcus’s hand as it traces the ink on my damaged arm, and he looks up from his examination of my tattoo. His hand is large and calloused, and I interlace my fingers with his, brushing my thumb over the finger that pulled the trigger.

  “Marcus?” I whisper.

  “Yeah, angel?”

  “Will Luca be pissed?”

  “Yes.”

  His answer is honest and simple. There’s no fear in his voice though. Not a hint of regret.

  “Marcus.” I repeat his name, but it’s not a question this time.

  It’s a call.

  An invocation.

  His gaze flicks up from our joined hands to my face, and he takes a step closer to me. “Yeah, angel?”

  “I love you.”

  Something shifts in his face, and his smile is fucking breathtaking. It’s like his features have been half in shadow ever since I met him, and now I’m looking at them in full light, seeing every single detail clearly.

  Seeing all of him.

  I remember thinking once that the word “love” wasn’t enough to contain everything I feel for this man and the two friends he calls his brothers. But it turns out the word can grow to fit the need, because as soon as I say it, I realize it is enough.

  I love Marcus Constantine.

  The truth is both as simple and as complex as that.

  “Angel?” he murmurs, still beaming that heart-stopping smile at me.

  “Yeah?”

  “I fuckin’ love you too.”

  Then his arms slide around my back, hauling me toward him as his lips crash down on mine.

  This kiss is everything all at once.

  It’s tender.

  It’s fierce.

  It’s possessive.

  It’s sweet.

  It makes my knees go weak, but that hardly matters, because Marcus is holding me so tightly that I don’t need to stand on my own. He half walks and half carries me backward, and when my ass bumps against the kitchen island, he lifts me onto it as if I weigh nothing.

  He already got my shirt off, and he growls hungrily into my mouth as he skims his hands over my bare skin, shoving my bra cups up so he can squeeze my breasts, kneading them and tugging at my nipples.

  Little zings of sensation shoot through my body with every pull, and I wrap my legs around his waist, drawing him closer.

  The numbness in my body from earlier, the fear of being touched, feels like a distant memory right now. So much has happened that it’s hard to believe it’s only been hours since Theo found me pressed against the wall upstairs and not weeks.

  “I love you, angel,” Marcus repeats, murmuring the words against my skin as he pulls away from my mouth and begins to trail his lips down the line of my throat.

  I tilt my head back, my eyelids drooping as he bites the tender skin over my collarbone then licks away the sting. He continues down between my breasts, reaching behind me to unhook the clasp before drawing it off my arms and tossing it carelessly away. His hands are rough as he massages my breasts, smashing them together so he can draw both nipples into his mouth at once.

  The overload of sensation makes me gasp, and he growls softly, releasing my tender, swollen flesh and pressing kisses down my abdomen as he moves lower. I’m squirming on the counter now, my clit throbbing as my body anticipates where he’s headed, desperate to feel him there.

  When he reaches my jeans, he pops the button and draws the zipper down, and I shift my weight to help him pull the material over my hips and off my legs. They disappear to wherever my bra went, and Marcus’s eyes burn with hunger as he grips my thighs in both hands, sliding his large palms over my delicate flesh.

  Cool air hits my clothed pussy when he spreads my legs wide, making me viscerally aware of just how wet my panties are. Marcus’s gaze drops to the apex of my thighs, and he groans.

&n
bsp; “I have to taste you. Fuck, I’m addicted to you.”

  He throws my legs over his shoulders, dropping his head to bury his face between my thighs. His hot mouth latches onto the fabric of my panties as he sucks hard, like he’s trying to draw out every drop of my arousal.

  “Marcus!”

  His name nearly gets stuck in my throat as my whole body jerks under his touch. My toes curl as goose bumps erupt on my skin, and Marcus releases my pussy long enough to lower my upper body down onto the countertop.

  The smooth marble chills my heated skin, making my nipples harden even more. He must like that, because he tweaks and rolls them between his fingers as he works his way back down my body. This time he scrapes his teeth lightly over my clit, still through the barrier of my panties.

  My hips jerk upward as bolts of pleasure edged with pain shoot through me, and I reach down to grab a fistful of his hair, pulling his head closer as I grind against his face.

  “Goddammit. I love that you need this as bad as I do,” he grunts, the words barely intelligible as he follows my urging and attacks my clit with fierce hunger.

  I think he must be on a mission to completely ruin my panties. He hasn’t taken them off yet, and if they were wet before, they’re fucking soaked now. He keeps teasing me by running his tongue up my fabric-covered slit, pressing a little harder each time, so close to giving me what I want.

  My heels dig into his back as I try to leverage my hips higher off the counter, offering more of myself to him, demanding more pleasure.

  Finally, his teasing control snaps. There’s a sharp sting and a ripping sound as he shreds my delicate panties from my body, and when his mouth meets my bare clit, I arch my back so hard that my entire body nearly leaves the countertop.

  My breath is coming faster, pleasure building up inside me like steam, when Ryland and Theo suddenly appear in the doorway. They’re both covered in small streaks of blood just like Marcus and I were, and they stop just inside the kitchen, their eyes heating at the sight before them—me, laid out like a fucking feast on the marble island while Marcus devours my pussy.