“And if we don’t?” Grave asked.
“No, please,” Brynn wailed through her tears.
Lars chuckled. “If you don’t? You’ll break that poor woman’s heart. Because I’ll start sending this bastard back in pieces.”
I drew in a deep breath, ready to say my peace. Ready to try and reason with the boss of all bosses. But Toxin clapped his hand over my mouth. My eyes widened and I whipped my head around, meeting his ferocious glare. He shook his head curtly as Brynn continued crying in the background. Her sobs tugging at my soul as Toxin slowly slid his hand from my mouth.
Only for him to put his finger to his lips.
There had to be something I could do. As Grave continued talking with Lars over the phone, both Brynn and I were shuffled out of the room. I didn’t like it. I didn’t understand how we could hear that part of the phone conversation and not be privy to the rest. But I also knew when to not question things. I wasn’t an idiot. Just stubborn. I took Brynn into my arms as the guys guided us into the hallway. Telling us to stay put while they figured out what to do next. And as Brynn’s tears dripped against my chest, a thought occurred to me.
I was in a prime position to reason with them.
I mean, I’d been their hardest-working employee for a while now. Constantly being praised for my work. For my selling tactics. For how well I listened and obeyed rules. Never once had I needed to be reprimanded for anything. Hell, they’d been considering me for a promotion at one point! I had a bit of sway with them. And I knew if I contacted Phillip, I could use that sway.
They weren’t all bad men. They hid me away from Ivan without a second thought.
I have to call Phillip.
After getting Brynn settled down into her room, I went back into mine. Not Toxin’s, but the one I was afforded before so many things got complicated. I walked over to my cell phone and sat down. Shit. I only had fourteen percent left on my battery’s life. But it was still enough to make this phone call. Still enough to make this work.
So, I dialed Phillip’s number by heart.
The only number I’d ever memorized out of need.
I knew Toxin would be pissed, but only for a little bit. Because once I proved to them what I could really negotiate with Phillip, I knew they’d be on my side. He wasn’t bad. Phillip had been my savior. My angel. My way out in a desperate time of need. I didn’t know Lars personally. But I knew he’d vouch for me.
Just like he had before he got me that job at the casino.
Come on, pick up.
The phone rang and rang. I pulled it away from my ear just to make sure I’d dialed the right number. Phillip never wanted me keeping his personal cell phone number in my phone. Just in case I ever lost it, or it got stolen. Which I understood. I double-checked the numbers before putting the phone back up to my ear, waiting for his voice mailbox to pick up.
Until I heard his voice.
“Natasha. Where are you?” Phillip asked.
I smiled. “Oh, it’s good to hear your voice. We need to talk.”
“Where. Are. You.”
I furrowed my brow. “It’s okay. I’m safe. I wanted to call you and try to figure something out now that the heat has died down.”
“I’m not going to ask you again. This is dangerous. Where the hell are you? I’m coming to get you.”
“No, no, no. You have to listen. I don’t have a lot of time to talk.”
“Natasha, you don’t get it. Just—”
His statement was cut off by shuffling around. I furrowed my brow and softly called his name, trying to get him back on the phone. I heard murmuring voices. Many of them. Two, or three different voices. Where the fuck was he? Had something gone wrong?
“Phillip? Phillip, are you there?”
Then, a voice came alive in my ear. But not the one I wanted. Not the one I needed.
The one I’d been running from.
“Hello, Nat.”
I felt faint. “I—Ivan?”
“I really have missed that voice of yours.”
Tears rushed my eyes. “Ivan.”
“It’s been a while, beautiful.”
“Where’s—what did you do with Phillip?”
He chuckled softly. “You mean my friend?”
“He’s not your friend anymore. He’s—”
“Your friend? Oh, Nat. I really thought you were more perceptive than that.”
I felt nauseous. “What?”
“Did you really think I hadn’t known where you were this entire time? Working for the mafia, in that rundown casino, stuffing ones and fives into your bras every night?”
Tears streaked my cheeks. “What?”
“You’re cute, but you’re dumb. Always been your downfall, beautiful.”
“You—Phillip, he—”
“You’ve never met Lars in person, have you?”
I swallowed hard. “No.”
“Ah, well. You’d see the familial resemblance if you did.”
I paused. “Fa—familial?”
He snickered. “Yes, Nat. Lars is my brother. Older, to be exact. Always willing to do me favors. Like keep an eye on my toys that run away.”
I swallowed the bile working its way up my throat. Ivan was Lars’ brother?
What kind of nightmare had I stepped into?
“I know where you are, Nat. I know where all my toys run to. And I know who you’re hiding with. It’s never been hard to track you down, and it never will be. So, I’ll make this deal a bit more tantalizing for you.”
I licked my lips. “What—what deal?”
“You’re so cute when you sound scared. It’s my favorite side of you.”
I sniffled. “What do you want, Ivan?”
“I want you back, beautiful. I’ve always wanted you back. So, if you come back, I’ll release this Diesel friend of yours. No harm, no foul. Your new girlfriend gets her husband back, and his children don’t grow up without a father. However, if you choose not to come back, I’ll be the one personally slicing him up and sending him back in pieces. One piece for every other member of that crew I’ll slaughter until you’re back at my side where you belong.”
I whimpered. “Please, don’t. Ivan, there has to be some other way that—”
“And if you really want to fight me, I’ll make you watch as I slit every single one of their throats in front of their own fucking children. Do you hear me, Nat?”
I hung my head as soft sobs fell from my lips.
“That’s it. It’s okay, beautiful. I’m right here. You let it out,” Ivan said.
I drew in a sharp breath. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I’ll come back.”
“You will?”
It’s the only way out of all this. “Yes.”
Ivan snickered. “You promise?”
I can save Toxin this way. “I promise, Ivan.”
“You know what happened the last time you broke your promise.”
I stomach turned. “I do, yes.”
“Don’t make me fork over all that money for another hospital visit. It can all be avoided if you simply do as I’m asking you to do.”
“And I just gave you my word.”
He tsked. “We’ll have to work on that mouth once you get back. Captivity suits you, beautiful. Remember that.”
Then, he hung up the phone. Leaving me to question the whole of the past two years as I sat on the edge of the bed. Crying silently, listening to the guys yell at one another, and catching the muted sounds of Brynn crying on her bed from across the hall.
17
Toxin
“What the fuck are we going to do? We can’t just stand here with our thumbs up our asses.”
“Brynn’s crying like a damn child at this point. That woman has never broken down like this.”
“Can you blame her? This is fucking Diesel we’re talking about.”
“And you know damn good and well Lars will make good on his word if we don’t say somethin
g.”
“All of you shut up! I’m thinking, all right?
I sighed as I listened to the guys yell at one another. Which would get us fucking nowhere. I pinched the bridge of my nose and kept peeking back toward the hallway. Something in the pit of my gut told me there was more to this. More to simply taking Diesel and wanting his daughter back. Sure, he wanted to kill Cage. But the slaughtering of that crew was months ago. Why still get on it? Yes, he was a loose end. Yes, Cage could identify him in the killing of his own father. But with the life Cage led, it wasn’t as if he’d just waltz into a police station himself and start rattling shit off.
There was something more to this we hadn’t caught yet.
“Something about this feels off.”
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels that way.”
“I think Lars is hiding something from us. Some other motivation other than Sutton and Cage.”
“I agree. I think we need to look deeper into that.”
“We can look deeper once we fucking have our goddamn president back!”
Grave roared across the living room and the guys kicked up again. These meetings were fucking chaos nowadays. I walked over to the window and stared out at the sun hanging high in the sky. I looked out at the road with my hands clasped behind my back. I needed to clear my head. I needed to go for a ride. I needed to get out of this fucking clubhouse and get away for a little while. Because if I felt stifled, then I knew the rest of the guys felt that way.
Which was a recipe for making mistakes, in our line of work.
A moving shadow caught my eye and I diverted my gaze. I squinted as I saw a figure moving quickly toward the tree line. And it didn’t take me long to figure out who the fuck it was.
Shit.
“Toxin, where you going?”
“Toxin, what the—”
“Toxin!”
I slammed out the front door and leapt off the porch. I planted on my feet, feeling electric shocks travel up my legs. But the pain didn’t stop me. I panted air through my nose as I took off, following Natasha’s path. Following her footsteps in the dust and dirt as she made her way for the only shaded area this coastline had for miles.
“Natasha!” I roared.
My legs pumped. Wind whipped through my hair. I leapt over holes and humps in the ground as I watched her pick up speed. What the fuck was she doing? Had everything been a lie? Was I an idiot to trust her?
Was she going back to the mafia now that her job had been completed?
Quickly, I gained ground on her. For the length of her legs, she was shit at running. I lunged for her, catching the back of her shirt. And when I yanked her back to me, she stumbled. She cried out. I caught her in my arms as she fell back, her eyes wide and filled with tears.
Natasha was crying?
“Let me go,” she hissed.
I helped her up to her feet before she shoved me away.
“Where the hell are you going?” I asked.
She tried taking off again, but I reached for her waist. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her into me, feeling her kick and buck her ass back into my groin. I growled against her ear. I shushed her softly as she slowly collapsed against my grip. I held onto her, refusing to let her go anywhere. And after she was done fighting me, her cries took over.
Until her tears dripped against my arm.
“Please, I have to get back. They’re going to kill him if I don’t get back.”
I closed my eyes. “Deep breaths, Natasha. You need to breathe.”
“I need to get back. He knows where I am. He’s going to kill you all if I don’t get back, Toxin. Please.”
I nuzzled my nose against her ear, shushing her softly. I nuzzled down her neck, kissing her skin as sighs left her lips. I held her in my arms. I wrapped myself around her before falling against a tree. Propping myself up so I could focus all my attention on her.
“Who called you?” I murmured.
Natasha shook her head. “I called Phillip.”
I sighed. “Why?”
“I thought I could reason with my friend.”
“They aren’t your friends, Natasha.”
“Phillip was my friend. He saved me, Toxin. After I ran from my ex, Ivan, he took me in. Clothed me. Fed me. Helped me heal. Hired me a damn doctor to look after me. Hid me in that casino. They took care of me. Phillip was my friend.”
I ground my teeth together. “What happened on the phone call?”
She sniffled. “Ivan picked up.”
I paused. “Your ex?”
She nodded slowly. “My ex is Lars’ brother.”
Her sobs filled the space around us as I digested those implications. Holy shit. Natasha had been caught in a whirlwind she never actually escaped. Phillip never helped her the way he said he had. Ivan probably knew where she was the entire time. She’d never escaped. Never really gotten away from him.
Which meant he knew where we were. Who we were.
I have to tell the guys.
“Natasha, I need you to listen to me. Are you listening?” I asked.
She sniffled. “Yeah.”
“Everything is going to be all right. But it’s late. Or it’s getting late. We have to get you somewhere safe. Because if Ivan has known where you were this entire time—”
“Then my presence with you guys puts you all at risk. That’s why I left, Toxin.”
She pulled out of my grasp, but she didn’t run. Instead, she turned around. With a renewed sense of strength as she wiped her tears away.
“You can’t leave. We can protect you, but we have to segment the threats and tackle them one at a time,” I said.
She snickered. “Ivan isn’t a threat. He’s a disease. And he won’t stop until he has me back.”
“Then, we stop him. I’ll protect you. I’ll be by your side the entire time. But soon the sun is going to start setting and the places where we can stash you right now are limited.”
“I’m going back to my apartment and figuring out what comes next.”
I sighed. “You already know why you can’t go back there.”
“Doesn’t matter. I have to. If Ivan’s waiting for me there, then maybe I’ve got a chance to bargain for Diesel’s life with my own.”
“That isn’t an option. We can save everyone in all this.”
“Can you really, though?”
I paused. “Why the fuck would you question that?”
“Oh, come on, Toxin.”
“I don’t want to fight about this. Please, just—”
I reached out for her, but she backed away again.
“How long have you guys been fighting with the mafia?” she asked.
I licked my lips. “Just come back with me. That’s all I’m asking.”
“How. Long. Toxin.”
I gnashed my teeth together. “A few months now.”
“Right. And in those few months, how many chances did you have to take the mafia down, even though it meant offering up someone’s life in the process?”
And when I didn’t answer, she nodded.
“Exactly.”
I shook my head. “No. Not ‘exactly.’ That isn’t how this fucking works.”
“It is right now!”
“No, it’s not!”
I lunged for her and wrapped my hand around her wrist.
“Let me go,” Natasha said.
“No. I refuse to let you go. Because I refuse to believe that the only way out of this is to hand your life back over to a bunch of thugs.”
“I said, let me go.”
But I pulled her closer. “Here’s what’s happening. We’re getting you out of this shithole and we’re saving Diesel. End of story. And if you’re so hellbent on going back to your apartment, then I’m coming with you. Keeping watch. Making sure they don’t come after you. Because if they already know you’re here, there isn’t anything we have to hide from them.”
“Please don’t do this,” she whispered.
I pul
led her against me and wrapped my arm around her. Gazing into her eyes as I cupped her cheek.
“Please, don’t think offering your life is the only way out of this. Because all Lars and his goons want is carnage. Bloodshed. They want the scales tipped in their favor, and that’s it. They don’t care about who they slaughter unless it gets them closer to their end goal. If you go back, they won’t kill you. They’ll give you back to Ivan, and he’ll make your life a living nightmare. I’m not going to allow that to happen. Is that understood?”
She sighed before her forehead pressed against my lips. I kissed her softly, cupping the back of her head. I placed her face into the crook of my neck as we stood there, with the sun slowly sinking down behind our backs. Over the ocean. Cloaking us in a soft curtain of darkness.
“I’ll take you back to your place, but I’m staying with you. End of story,” I murmured.
And when she nodded her head, relief rushed through my veins.
I walked her back into the lodge and the guys stared at us with confusion etched in their foreheads. I didn’t give a shit, though. I packed up a few of my things, announced I was taking her back to her apartment, and not once did the guys argue with me. Not once did they question what the fuck I was doing. They knew better. They knew when I set my sights on something, I didn’t stop until I’d completed the task. Or gotten what I wanted.
Then, we headed out the door and slipped onto my bike.
Feeling Natasha cling to me as she fed me directions felt like heaven. She kissed my neck softly, thanking me in my ear for everything I’d done for her. I stuck to back roads and kept my eyes peeled for anything that pertained to the mafia. Anything that looked suspicious. Anything that seemed out of place.
And when we pulled up to the rundown building Natasha lived in, I felt sick.
Because the place was a fucking shithole.
I parked my bike in their underground garage and we started for the elevator. She lived on the fourth floor. All the way down at the end. The small studio apartment was barely big enough to house one person. Let alone, anyone else. But I saw Natasha ease right into the place. Like it was home.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” she said softly.
“I’m going to search the apartment for bugs or cameras that might’ve been placed in your absence.”
Toxin: Dead Souls MC: Prospects #5 Page 11
