Taking Meghan: Disciples 5

by Sweet, Izzy

  He’s ready to die, his eyes tell me, and I almost hesitate.

  Almost.

  My hand shakes and I wrap my other hand around the barrel to steady the gun.

  Then I close my eyes, ask God for forgiveness, and pull the trigger.

  I expect a little recoil and maybe even a warm splash.

  What I don’t expect is for the gun to click and nothing to happen.

  What the fuck?

  I open my eyes slowly to see the massive man smirking down at me.

  Shit.

  4

  Gabriel

  Normally when someone puts a gun to my chest with the intention shutting down my beating heart, I rebel against that very notion and stop them.

  But something about the way this girl’s deep blue eyes look up into mine stops me from moving.

  Feelings that are completely alien hold me in place as I stare into her eyes. I don’t even get to give her a grin before she pulls the trigger.

  Click, smack.

  I’m not sure who’s shocked more, me, her, or the guys behind me.

  There’s a lot of smoke and loud sounds echoing through the church, but that click of an empty chamber resonates through my ears as if it’s a big fucking gong.

  I can’t help but smirk at the little woman standing in front of me when the gun doesn’t go off.

  “Damn, that bitch was gonna cap your ass,” James shouts as he jogs past me, heading toward the back of the church, chasing after the fleeing Russians and Irish.

  I just stand in place as the men flow past me. I was the first in and should be the one leading the charge, but I can’t seem to move my feet. It feels like I’ve been fucking cemented to the floor. Like I’ve been weighed down with cement boots and tossed into the river. I’m floating down, down into the inky blackness.

  The trigger is pulled again and panic begins to fill her eyes, her cheeks red and flushed from whatever emotion is flooding through her.

  I don’t know exactly what the emotion is, but I’d say it isn’t exactly murderous rage that I was trying to kill her future husband.

  “Thing isn’t going to kill me itself, girl. You need to reload it,” I say loud enough so that she can hear me over the sudden roar of gunfire coming from the doors behind the cross.

  “Fuck,” she groans as her fingers go slack around the metal grip of the gun.

  “Yep.”

  Reaching out, I cradle the small, delicate hand holding the pistol with my own and pry it easily from her fingers.

  Pocketing the gun into the back of my jeans, I reach out and take her hand again in mine, then I yank her along with me. I guess I got us a prisoner of war or something. Ain’t tortured a chick in a long time, though. Not sure if I’m going to be down for that. Not one with a set of balls as big as this blue-eyed girl’s got.

  “We gotta move. You gonna be a problem I have to take care of?” I ask as we move down the aisle toward the entrance of the building.

  It’s probably going to get a bit hectic if she’s going to be putting up a fight.

  “I… I…” she stammers as we come out of the church’s entrance.

  Cars screech across the cold asphalt of the parking lot, and the gunfire hasn’t stopped out back either. Fuck.

  “Michael,” I say through our comms. “You get the tracker tags on the black Audis?”

  “No, too many guards. Simon, do you have visual through the city?” Michael asks.

  “Not yet, but I will. How many men are down?”

  “I count five inside, four outside. Not sure how many got out, Alexei wasn’t one of them.”

  Fuck. We needed to hit Alexei.

  “What about the Irishman?” I ask.

  The bride beside me freezes up instantly as I try to get her to the black Tahoe I came in.

  Shit, that’s right, that’s her dad. She was supposed to marry Alexei. I’m not entirely sure where my head is at right now, it’s somewhere between the delicate hand I have clutched in mine and the need to unleash catastrophic violence on the men who we came to kill.

  Racing around the corner of the church, two more Audis swerve away from us as they try to escape the havoc that’s being unleashed.

  Split-second decisions suck at a time like this.

  Yanking the chrome .45 from my hip holster, I unleash half a clip into the back tire and window of the last car.

  Shattering glass and a swerve send the vehicle slamming into another parked car.

  Even now, in the moments of death and smoke, I feel the little dark-haired girl trying to pry my fingers from around her wrist.

  “Stop it,” I growl to her as I pull her along with me.

  “Let me go!” she yells as she slaps at my shoulder.

  I gotta admit she’s got some fight in her, but she’s all mine and she had her chance to get away when she tried to kill me. Sucks for her that the gun was empty.

  “I need a situation report for the front of the building, Gabriel,” Simon says over the comm piece in my ear.

  Tilting my head to the side to activate my controls, I say, “One of two black Audis got away. I’ve immobilized the one that didn’t. Anyone able to come up and give me backup? I need to check who’s inside. I’ve also picked up the bride. Currently making sure she doesn’t try to put a bullet in me.”

  “Oh, how I wish she would,” I hear Simon mutter through the comms.

  “On my way,” Jude’s voice says in my ear. “I’ve got a priest with me in tow. Might be able to get some answers out of him.”

  “That’s fucking funny, a bride and a priest. We just need a groom…” James laughs into the comms channel.

  “On my way, as well. All Russian and Irish threats are down,” Andrew says.

  “Any intel on them?” Simon asks quickly.

  “Very little, except some cellphones and a few wallets,” Andrew responds.

  “James, as good moral strengthening, I need the thumbs of each man there,” Lucifer says into the comms.

  Aw fuck, poor guy. That’s a messy job.

  Walking toward the Audi, I tug the girl behind me but keep a tight grip on her wrist.

  Ignoring the whining and bitching of James, I say over my shoulder, “You had your shot at getting away, and there might be more bullets flying soon. Don’t fucking move from behind me, you hear that?”

  “Why?” she stutters.

  “Because I’m a shit ton bigger than you and I can take one,” I say before I put her hand on my leather belt. “These guys aren’t going to be happy you’re with me. Keep your hand on my belt and don’t fuck about.”

  “Okay,” she says quietly, and I feel her wrap her fingers tightly about my belt.

  Releasing her wrist, I pull a new clip from the band on my hip and change them out.

  “Oh yeah… You run, you’ll most likely die. I’m your only option,” I say as I move us toward the car.

  Inside I can see a figure slowly turning around in the backseat. A barrel moves into view, but my finger pulls the trigger a microsecond before his. His shot goes wide as my two shots slam through his head. Another head moves in the vehicle and I blow four more shots into the back window, stopping all movement.

  “Two down inside. Doesn’t look like any movement,” I say into the comms.

  “Coming up behind you, Gabriel,” Jude says loudly from behind me to make sure I don’t accidentally shoot him.

  “Driver and front passenger aren’t moving. Can you check ‘em?” I ask.

  “Moving into position,” Jude says as I pull both me and the lady in white behind a car for protection.

  “So...” Lucifer drawls over the comms. “Any sign of Alexei or Brady Callahan?”

  “Negative in the back. Both got into the cars,” Andrew says. “Heading forward, I’ll assist James with the thumbs. We need to get moving.”

  “Who has the priest?” I ask over the mic as some thought deep in the back of my brain lights up with an awfully interesting idea.

  “Left him pissi
ng and quivering inside the front doors,” Jude shouts back to me as he puts two bullets through the men in the car’s front seat.

  “Why?” Simon asks through the radio.

  Looking down at the little bride-to-be beside me, I notice the ample cleavage that’s been pushed so far up her dress it looks painful. Dragging my gaze back up to her face, her deep blue eyes are almost too intense for me. It’s like she’s looking so fucking deeply into me she can see all the shit that’s wrong inside me. She can see all the horrible things I want to do and will do to people.

  She’s not backing down though, and I like that. I’ve got at least a foot on her in height, and I can’t even begin to guess what her weight is compared to mine. She’s tiny…

  Tiny, but her body has curves… like holy fucking stripper curves.

  “Seems like a perfectly good day for a wedding, is all,” I say, and pull the girl by her hand as I walk toward the front of the church.

  “What do you mean by that?” Simon asks over the radio, and I can’t help but grin.

  “You wanted bedlam and mayhem,” I say as I look down at my would-be killer.

  I’m not entirely sure what my plan is past the next day, but something about her makes me want to keep her around. She’s beautiful, and she took her own destiny in her hands when she tried to put a bullet through my chest.

  “Sorry about your wedding being ruined like that,” I say as we pass by Michael who’s come out of the church carrying a black trash bag, most likely full of cellphone and wallets.

  It’s only when we walk into the church that I notice how red her exposed shoulders are from being out there in the cold. I have a long-sleeved black shirt on, but this little one had nothing but fucking lace and whatever the hell dresses are made of.

  “I wasn’t exactly a willing participant in it,” she mumbles.

  Her hand briefly tries to pull away from me as we pass a dead body, but then she freezes up as if I’m going to hurt her or something.

  “I can’t let you go, girl…” I say as I bend over a cowering white-shrouded priest.

  “Why not?” she asks loudly as I yank the man up by the collar.

  “Get the fuck up,” I growl at him before I notice the huge yellow stain on the front of his robes. “Did you fucking piss yourself?”

  “He did. Did it right beside me when you guys were shooting,” she says beside me and I hear the tiniest of laughs when she says it.

  Looking back at her bloody and dirty dress, I don’t see an ounce of yellow anywhere on it.

  “Looks like you kept your shit together,” I grin at her.

  “Right up to the point where the gun didn’t work,” she grins right back at me.

  I shrug my shoulders. “So you didn’t like the fucker this priest was going to marry you to?”

  “I’d rather have slit my fucking wrists. It would have been me or him tonight if we were married,” she says.

  “Lord help me,” the priest moans quietly as I begin to yank him down the aisle with me and the girl.

  “What’s your name?” I ask, ignoring the little bitch of a priest.

  “Meghan, why?” she asks before she stops dead in her tracks.

  She’s so rooted to the floor, I stop to see what’s caught her attention.

  James looks up at us with a frown as he snips a guy’s thumb off. “I call dibs on the next bride. I’m done with thumb duty for the next couple of lifetimes.”

  “Quit your bitching,” Andrew says with a gruff laugh as he elbows him to continue.

  Pulling both the quivering priest and the now pale girl past the thumb show, I say, “Andrew, I’m going to need your help.”

  “With?” he asks as he tosses the bag of thumbs to James.

  “Need a witness, I think. Shit, I don’t know. I ain’t ever been to a wedding,” I say, and look over at Meghan.

  “I’m Gabriel, by the way,” I add, wondering when she’s going to look at me.

  She’s still staring at James even though she had to turn around almost completely to do it. She’s not really staring at him though, it’s more like staring at what he’s doing.

  That’s good she isn’t staring at him. I’d hate to have to snap his neck.

  Pulling her and the priest along, I look up at the large cross hanging behind the alter, then at the surrounding bodies left by the bullets that tore through them. It’s an odd feeling that all of these men died and I ended up only taking a ghost round through the chest.

  “What are we doing?” Meghan asks as I stand us before the alter and shove the priest in front of us.

  “Guaranteeing I piss off your old fiancé as much as possible. He’s going to be wanting you back,” I say with a smile.

  “By what? Forcing me to marry you?” she squeaks out now that she’s figured out my plan.

  Her voice hits a high octave at the end, and I’m pretty sure she’s not gonna be happy about this.

  “Force ain’t got nothin to do with it, darlin'. You marry me or you stay our prisoner. You can’t go back to the Russians. We can’t let you go. My side or yours will be using you as a chess piece,” I say and elbow the priest.

  “A chess piece?” she growls at me as her nails dig into my hands.

  She’s trying to get me to let her go.

  Yeah, that won’t happen.

  “There’s no fucking way!” James shouts.

  All four of us turn to James as he starts cursing loudly.

  Oh shit.

  Trying to contain my laugh, I watch as James tries to wipe the blood off his face that squirted up from one of the stiffs.

  “Oh, dear lord, I’m going to be sick,” the priest murmurs before he turns his head and starts to retch.

  “Fucking hell,” Andrew growls as he grabs the priest by the collar.

  “He pissed himself earlier…” Meghan says as she looks at everything going on around her.

  Shaking her head, she looks up into my eyes. Her eyes are starting to look a little dazed.

  Looking down at her small hands enveloped in mine, I can’t believe just how soft they are, how delicate they look compared to my big hands.

  “I can’t do this!” she moans loudly.

  “If you want to live past sunset, you will,” I respond.

  “How the hell did I end up in an even worse situation?” she asks as she tries to tug her hands from mine.

  I don’t let go. I’m not going to hurt her, but if she runs now, she’ll get hurt just as quickly from my side or hers.

  “My boss will use you as a pawn. An unbelievably beautiful pawn, but a pawn all the same. I keep you by my side, you stay safe.” The words come from my mouth unbidden, but it’s the absolute truth.

  I know it deep down.

  Meghan stands before me, staring up into my eyes, her eyes full of pain and hurt. She’s in a deadly position right now. Whatever union she was going to enter with Alexei and the Russians wasn’t to her liking, but this one might be even harder for her.

  “You’re going to force me to marry you, just like Alexei. You’re no better than him!” she shouts.

  “You’re right,” I say with a rising of my shoulders, and she is.

  “If you try to touch me, I’ll slit your throat when you sleep,” she snarls.

  “I get it,” I say again with another shrug of the shoulders.

  And I seriously do get where she’s coming from, but it isn’t going to change her current situation, or mine. She’s going to be fucked no matter what she does. She’s in a completely shitty situation. I feel for her, I truly do. I’ve been there myself, but it ain’t going to stop me. I went to prison for ten long years for the crimes of another, she’s going to marry me because she’s a pawn in a deadly war.

  Life fucking hurts and it’s murder.

  “I’ll make you a deal. You don’t fight, and I’ll make sure you no one touches you without my say so,” I say to her and stare into those deep blue eyes.

  She’s beautiful. I know I’ve noticed this alre
ady, but it keeps slapping me in the face every time I look at her.

  Little things I haven’t discovered keep standing out and grabbing my attention. The way her full lips have this natural pout to them. Her bottom lip sticks out just enough that I want to capture it with a kiss so hard that it bruises. There’s a small smattering of freckles splashed across the bridge of her nose, and I can’t help but wonder where else she has freckles. I’d like to peel off that damn abomination of a dress she’s wearing and search for them.

  Long dark eyelashes open and close as she peers up at me. She isn’t showing any fear now. No, she’s got her backbone straight and she’s looking at me with challenge.

  Nodding to the priest, I say to Andrew, “Get him started.”

  “What the fuck is going on right now?” Simon sneers over the comms. “We don’t have time for this shit.”

  “Mayhem and bedlam,” I say with a chuckle into the comms. “Get me a marriage certificate fully approved. List our residential address as Cherry’s address. If it wasn’t these fucks who blew up the house, it wont hurt anything. If it was, it’s a message.”

  “Well thought of, Gabriel,” Lucifer says through the comms.

  “Dearly beloved,” the priest stumbles through the beginning of the ceremony.

  A look to Andrew gets the process moving.

  Andrew jabs a gun into the priest’s side.

  “Let’s move to the important parts here, Father. We need to be moving,” Andrew says quietly.

  “Calls are making their way into emergency services. I’m unable to stop them all. We need to get out now,” Simon says into the comms.

  Pushing the priest away from us, I look into Meghan’s eyes and ask, “Do you accept my protection?”

  She stares for so long into my eyes that I swear she’s gone mute, but she hasn’t. She’s studying me, reading into those deep, dark recesses inside of me.

  “I do,” she finally says and then adds, “Do you accept that I’ll cut your dick off if you ever touch me without my permission?”.

  “Oh fuck, that’s fucking awesome!” James crows from nearby.

  Staring back into the deep abyss of her eyes, I look to make sure I still see her soul. She’s putting it out for the world right now. She wants to know what type of man I am.