by Nicole Casey
She opened her eyes as her face went pale, and I moved my ass out of her way as she flew off the bed and made a mad dash for the toilet. I followed her and held her hair back, knowing this might be the last time I could do this for her. After this morning, she would have to face this and everything that came after alone.
I hadn’t given up hope that I’d survive, but let’s face it, the odds hadn’t ever exactly been stacked in my favor. I’d found Scar though, even if I’d had no right to take her the way I had. Still, all the shit I’d lived through, it was worth it to have had this bit of time with her.
She sat back hard against me when her stomach had finished revolting, and I held her. I just held her because, in a few minutes, I was going to have to let her go. I’d been up most of the night, but I’d let her sleep until the last possible minute. She’d looked so exhausted, and honestly, I was half-afraid she’d find some way to talk me out of this.
That meant this was goodbye. So, I did what I always did. I buried it down and smoothed my features into an unreadable mask—though it was more difficult to do than ever before.
When her stomach had settled and she’d washed her mouth out, I helped her get dressed. She probably didn’t need my help, but I didn’t want to stop touching her. Not yet. Just not fucking yet.
I even kept hold of her hand to retrieve the envelope I’d set aside for her in the closet. It contained the bank account information she’d need to access my accounts, money, deeds to the properties I owned, and a will that bequeathed all of my worldly possessions to her. I wasn’t going to need them where I was going. No doubt, far wealthier men had tried to buy their way out of hell and failed.
She didn’t ask what was inside when I handed it to her. She was looking past it, to the wall inside the closet. There was one picture tacked up there—my wall of family portraits, I supposed. A single picture of Marcos and I outside one of his private estates in the Cayman Islands. She reached for it without a word, and I didn’t stop her when she pulled it down and slipped it into the envelope.
My eyes stung though, so I released her hand and turned to busy myself with random shit. Not only was it a pussy thing to do, but I didn’t get to cry. I’d created this mess, and I deserved this, to have to force her to leave and watch as she drove away with my fucking hard in her hands. I deserved this.
She stepped ahead of me and grabbed one of the boxes from the floor by the bed. I had no idea what was in it, but I didn’t care. Maybe she intended to make good use of the wicked clamp toys after I was gone. Who the fuck knew, but aside from the sexy image it put in my head, what difference did it make? It was all hers—everything I owned.
“Time to go, Scar,” I said. My voice actually sounded hoarse. Maybe I was coming down with something.
She nodded, though she made no move toward the door. She stood there with the envelope and box hugged tight to her chest. I could see the tears dripping down her cheeks, and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her so close despite the box and papers between us.
Eventually, we made it down the stairs. Michael was waiting there. I’d given him her boarding pass, and one for him—in case he wanted to go with her and leave Mexico behind to deal with its own messes. He was tempted—I could see it. Scar had that effect on people. And it brought me comfort to think she’d have him there to help her.
“I’ll join you as soon as I can,” I told her, brushing her hair back from her brow. I wanted to be able to see her whole face one last time.
“You better,” she said, her voice fierce.
It made me smile. She was going to be OK. Scar was strong. I didn’t know anyone stronger. Hell, I wasn’t sure a stronger person existed.
When I kissed her, her lips were just as fierce as her voice had been. I was glad. As much as I loved her submissiveness, I didn’t want that right now. I needed to feel her strength, to know she was a fighter. To know she was going to be fine without me.
Then she was gone. I led her to the garage and watched as Michael drove off with the most important person in the world. The woman with my heart in her hands disappeared down the drive, and she was gone.
Gone. Pain tore through the empty cavity in my chest. She was gone.
I watched the gate close through blurry eyes. Tears—fucking tears!
But with my heart now gone, it was time to be the cold motherfucker I was deep down. I wiped my eyes and strode back into the house. There was no fucking way Mateo Lopez was walking away today. I might die too, but I was taking that son of a bitch with me.
I brewed coffee and made breakfast. Showered and dressed. Then I sat on the sofa with a scotch in my hand and waited. No last-minute planning. No going over the plan again and again in my head. I knew the plan. I wasn’t nervous. I was ready. Ready to kill, and ready to die. It was for Scar, so I was ready.
Three hours later, my phone rang from where I’d placed it on the coffee table. I expected it to be Mateo or one of his goons confirming the time.
It wasn’t.
“Derek, I don’t know what the fuck happened, but she’s gone.”
Michael’s words didn’t make sense at first. Gone?—of course, she was gone. I’d put her in the car and watched her drive away.
Fuck, I caught up fast. “What do you mean, she’s gone? Gone, where?”
“I don’t know. We stopped at some shitty diner because she was starving and because she was dancing around on the seat like she wasn’t going to be able to hold it a minute longer. She made a mad dash to the bathroom and never came back out. Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m already back on the road looking for her, but I don’t know where the fuck to look. If they got her…”
“They didn’t,” I said with absolute certainty. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to see it. Maybe I just hoped she’d see reason once Michael had her away from here. But now, I knew exactly what had happened.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know Scar. I should have seen it, but I was so busy making plans to keep her safe, I wasn’t paying attention to what I should have seen all along. She never intended to go along with it. She’s on her way back here, Michael. She’s going to be there when Mateo shows up, and he’s going to…”
I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say out loud what I knew. That if Mateo got his hands on her, he’d rip her apart before my eyes just to make me suffer. “Fuck!”
This wasn’t fucking happening. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my fingertips, and all I could see was red. The entire world had been shrouded in a red gaze. Even my mind was shrouded by it, making it impossible to think.
I needed to get it together. Right. Fucking. Now.
“Michael, head back here. You know where Lopez will be. Meet me there in two hours, behind the rear hangar. If you run across Scar on the way back, get her off the road. Ram her car into a fucking ditch if you have to. Whatever you have to do.”
The guy hadn’t signed up to go head-to-head with Lopez. For all I knew, he was going to drive off in the other direction, but I didn’t think so. Hell, I knew he wasn’t going to do that. He genuinely seemed to care about Scar, and beyond that, he had a personal bone to pick with Lopez. What it was, I didn’t know, but I hadn’t forgotten the way he’d responded when I’d told him his name. Between his affection for his long-lost niece and his hatred for Lopez, Michael would be there.
“I’m on my way,” he said, as if in confirmation with my thoughts.
I was racking up debts I’d never be able to pay, but if it kept Scar alive, I didn’t give a fuck. I’d play his personal errand boy for the rest of my life to keep her safe.
I hung up the phone and ran through the modifications I was going to have to make to the plan. And entertained for the briefest of seconds what I was going to do to her when all this was over. When thoughts of what Mateo would do to her crept in though, I lost all interest in disciplining her. Alive. I just wanted her to live. That was all that mattered.
14
Derek
I paced the living room
floor, waiting for the moment I could go roaring out of here. I couldn’t sit anymore—Scar’s little escape artist stunt had effectively squelched my calm.
When the moment finally arrived, so much adrenaline was coursing through my veins that I felt like I could have run there at twice the speed of the car, carrying my whole damned arsenal on my back.
Thinking better than to let the adrenaline guide me, I slid behind the wheel and mentally checked my body one last time. Two guns on my chest, two at my back and two ankle holsters. I had steel-toed boots on, and I wore brass knuckles on both hands—a gift from Marcos as a reward for taking out a rat. The only thing I needed now was a miracle. Yeah, I wasn’t holding my breath on that one.
The drive passed too slowly as if the whole world was moving in slow motion. I needed to get there. I needed to get to Scar, but I had to shut that part of me down. It wasn’t going to help her.
When I neared the site, I slowed, taking in my surroundings. An abandoned car, three hangars, two empty planes on the tarmac and an admin office on the other side. I rounded the airstrip and pulled in behind the third hangar.
Michael was there. His car was nowhere in sight, but the sun caught the steel of his gun from in the brush. He stood once I’d shifted the car into park, telling me there’d been no sign of Mateo or his men yet. I waited with bated breath, hoping Scar would stand up beside him.
She didn’t. She wasn’t here. Where the hell was she?
“I’m sorry, Derek,” Michael said as he approached. Either the wind had blown sand into his eyes, or he was feeling rather choked up over what had happened too.
What was I supposed to do?—say it was OK? No worries? Yeah, fucking right. Of course, this was all my fault, but things weren’t OK and I was more than a little worried. So, I just nodded and turned my attention to the hangars. There didn’t seem to be any movement in any of them, but my gaze kept shifting back to the abandoned car. Fifteen yards from the first hangar. It was out of place. It didn’t belong in this scene. So, why was it here? It was obviously empty—the driver’s side door had been left wide open.
Scar. It was the only logical explanation. But if she was already here, where the fuck was she? I wanted to go charging through every hangar searching for her, but I resisted the urge. Something wasn’t right.
“She’s here,” I told Michael, who’d come to stand beside me and his gaze focused on the same abandoned car. Not abandoned. She hadn’t left it there out in the open. She was too smart for that. She’d been corralled there and dragged out of the car.
I was shaking. I was shaking because I didn’t know if she was alive or dead, or what they were doing to her at this very minute. The scene in the basement where I’d found her before flashed through my mind, and I turned just in time to hurl into the bushes instead of on Michael’s shoes.
I debated swallowing a bullet just to end this because I wasn’t sure I could survive it if she’d been hurt like that again. But I couldn’t do it. If there was any chance she was still alive, I wouldn’t abandon her. Never.
Michael sat down hard on the dirt ground, his knees bent and his trembling hands hanging loosely over them. I remembered him asking me just days ago if it ever ends. “No, it doesn’t,” I’d said, not knowing just how true those words had been.
“Pull your shit together,” I told him, though the message was probably just as much for me since I was the one who’d been puking in the bushes. “We need a plan. Now.”
“I have these pills…cyanide, in case I ever got captured. I’d thought about giving her one…I should have…” he said as his eyes grew brighter with unshed tears.
“Don’t fucking talk like that. Do you understand me?” I was standing over him and my fingers itched for any one of the guns concealed beneath my clothes for what he’d just said. But then...maybe he was less selfish than me. I wanted to find Scar and save her no matter what. He didn’t want her to suffer.
“Let’s just find her and kill every one of those motherfuckers,” I said.
He nodded and got to his feet. “Sweep the buildings?” he asked.
No. If she was here, she was in the first hangar. It was the closest one to the car she’d been dragged out of, and the furthest from the main road, making it most difficult for me to escape with her. But was she still here?
Yes, I decided, not just because I wanted it to be true, but because Mateo would want me to see what he did to her.
He probably knew I was here then, and it was best to assume he knew Michael was here too.
“She’s in the first hangar,” I told him matter-of-factly.
“How can you be so sure?”
How? Because I wasn’t so different from the monsters in there, and it was precisely what I would have recommended to Marcos not that long ago. And maybe, just maybe, because I could feel her. Here. Close. “I just know.”
“We’re going to be outnumbered,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“You still want to go in there?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Fuck, yeah. Let’s go get her back.”—Definitely a man after my own heart.
We moved fast, keeping close to the buildings. We made it to the hangar without interference, and no one was there to intercept outside the door. That meant he wanted me inside.
And I was happy to oblige him.
“Stay here,” I told Michael—there was no sense in giving them two targets. “Take out what you can from here, and then wait until you’re sure you can get to her.”
With a nod, I withdrew the guns from the holsters at my back. It was show time—and bullets and blood had always been some of my finest masterpieces.
I charged in and took aim at every living target. No one would have been expecting that. They would have been waiting for me to try to creep in. No fucking way. Everybody was going to die until I had Scar safely out of here.
A bullet grazed my arm, but I barely felt it—a flesh wound at best. Two men went down in front of the Challenger plane. Two more rushed out from behind it. They didn’t make it three steps, and the bullets they’d managed to fire ricocheted off the wall somewhere behind me. No, they definitely hadn’t been expecting me to come in with guns blazing.
I strode forward, cognizant of what was to the left and right of me, but I had my sights set on the destination in front of me. Beyond the empty space behind the plane, there was a car parked. I could see two pairs of shoes behind it, but they were just Lopez’s goons. Lopez was in the car, and Scar was in there with him. She had to be. There was nowhere else to hide her in here.
A staccato of loud bangs and suddenly my shoulder was on fire. It should have hurt. It should have been fucking excruciating, but all I felt was heat. No pain. The adrenaline would keep it at bay.
I found the source of the gunfire and took aim. The guy scrambled back, but it didn’t matter. My bullet burrowed into his forehead in the blink of an eye.
I kept going, shooting while bullets flew past my ear and the prickle of heat told me another shot had grazed through the flesh of my thigh. Stupid fuckers couldn’t kill a target if it walked up to them with a bull’s-eye on its chest.
I was five yards away. Michael and I had nearly cleared the room, aside from the guy cowering far off in the back corner. He was maybe eighteen years old. New at this. Probably had never fired a weapon in his life. Did I let him live to become a monster like me, or did I kill him now to make sure he never did?
He was young, like Scar, not just in age but in the terror and innocence in his eyes. Before Scar, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Now, I kept a watchful eye on him as I strode closer to the car.
Two more feet though, and the passenger door flew open. Scar stumbled out in front of Lopez. He was using her as a shield—the fucking coward—and he had a gun pressed against her temple.
But that wasn’t all I noticed. A puffy, purple bruise marred her skin just above where her cheek had all but healed, and blood trickled slowly from a cut on her soft lips. Her shirt wa
s torn right down the center, and another angry bruise peeked out below her bra.
My stomach churned violently, but I met her gaze and my breath caught in my throat. Her eyes…like I’d never seen them before. Not terrified. Not hopeless. They were red and puffy from crying, but within their green depths, angry fire shined bright. It was as if she was burning with it from the inside out, and if Mateo stood close for too much longer, he was going to go up in flames.
I had no right to feel proud—whatever contribution I’d made to her life hadn’t ever been positive—but I was so fucking proud of her.
Still, I was going to tear Mateo apart forever laying a hand on her.
“Let her go, Mateo, and I’ll consider killing you quickly,” I told him, pleased that my voice was as calm and cold as ever.
He cocked the gun and my heart leapt into my throat. He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t possibly be that stupid. If he shot her, there was nothing stopping me from tearing him apart one slow piece at a time.
“She killed three of my men, Derek. Obviously, I can’t let that slide.”
The evil glint in his eyes made me worry. Could he possibly be that crazy? I couldn’t risk it.
“Take me. I’m worth far more than three of your useless lackeys.” I looked around at the dead bodies that peppered the floor to emphasize my point.
“That is an interesting proposition,” he replied as his fucking hand grazed over Scar’s breasts and down her ribs. When his hand settled on top of the apex at the top of her thighs, I wanted to cut off every one of his fingers and shove them down his fucking throat.
“But you see, the men she killed were the ones I had lying in wait for you. You never would have seen it coming, but instead, they had to go chasing after your disobedient, little slave. It’s all right though; I do understand why you like her. She has so many…charms,” he said, using the hand between her thighs to press her back against him. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind sampling her right now. Here. While you watch. Try to stop me, and I’ll blow her brains out.”
