I nodded. “Yeah.”
Before she turned away completely, there was a small frown that passed across her face, confusion perhaps, but she didn’t voice what was on her mind.
I wanted to hold her, wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon trapped in her arms with her giggling against my chest. I wanted to be the man that put a smile back on her face right now, but I needed some time to calm down.
She exited the room with Paul, and I ran my hands down my face in frustration.
Another knock sounded at the door and Mason strolled in.
“What happened?”
“I’m a jackass.”
He shrugged and sat down in a chair in front of the desk. “You are, but why does Alisa look like you’ve just killed her favorite pet and danced in the blood?”
I pursed my lips and shook my head.
“Okay,” he said as he scratched at the beard on his face. “Couple’s fight. Fine.”
“Paul’s taking her to the loft. I told you about that weird room that was separate from the main apartment?”
“Yeah, some building code thing on that floor?”
“Right, it was part of the deal. Not something we’d use, but it has a separate kitchen and it’s huge. If he still wants the job, he can set up easily in there when he’s with her. He looked like he wanted to murder me in my sleep when he left, so I guess we’ll see.”
Mason snorted. “Oh, so it’ll be like living with me again. Did you tell her?”
“About the apartment? No, I think telling her that she’s moving in with me, finding out that her father isn’t her father, and that I killed a man all in the same day might be a little too much.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “What the fuck? Okay. Wait, you told her?”
I nodded. “Yeah, Mason, I told her. I told her about some other things too. I don’t want to lie to the woman that I want to be with for the rest of my life. If she finds out about it later, what then? She thinks I’m trying to push her away. If I'm not honest with her now, then I run the risk of her leaving over something I should have told her. She thinks I made it up, and short of dumping the body in front of her, she doesn't believe me. She needs to, though, because I’m not going to change at this point.”
“Alex is going to kill you.”
“I didn’t mention the three other people that were in the room. Just me, I delivered the final blow.”
“Mick, we all share that. It wasn’t just you. All three of us went there today. And the fucker deserved it. No one touches that woman without consequences.”
That excuse grated on my nerves for a moment. It was yet again another argument to justify what we’d done.
“What are we doing, Mason? We were in law enforcement. Our father is the Chief of Police. What the fuck are we doing?”
He rolled his eyes. “Well maybe he’ll call you in on the case.”
“Mason. Jesus.”
He pinned me with a serious look. “What we’re doing is fixing this city. If that takes killing every last one of their henchmen that comes after us or someone close to us, then they’re going to have a lot of dead bodies on their doorsteps.”
“You’re the one that wanted me to stand down the day I wanted to shoot her father’s hands off. You’re the one that balked at it. And now what? You’ve suddenly changed your mind?”
He gestured toward the door angrily. “You want that guy out on bail and hunting down Alisa again in a week? That’s how this works. Sometimes you have to commit a crime to fight crime. She’s been through enough and they don’t get to hurt her. She’s family now. If he was as connected as he said he was when he was spitting up blood, then that’s what the reality would have been.”
“I heard him. The last part…I wonder how much he took for the job. I think he said she was worth a mint.”
“Yeah I heard that. Worth a fortune dead? What about the father thing?”
Shaking my head, I sighed. “No idea, she said it when we were arguing. I should have asked, but I was angry. He insinuated that her mother was possibly raped by the brothers. It may have just been how she took it.”
“Jesus,” he said, looking horrified.
“The thing is, she has no idea that she’s trading one shitty life for another with a man that literally can’t go a day without being insane around her.”
“It’s better than feeling nothing. And don’t try to tell me that’s not where you were before she came along. You’re my brother, always will be, but watching you burn yourself down was like watching you try to kill that too. Whatever you did, fix it and if you can’t, I don’t give a fuck, do it anyway. Her life with you means I have a life with you.”
I groaned and ran my hand over my jaw. “Have you ever loved something so much that you couldn’t give it up? But you knew there would be a day that you might tarnish what you loved? That’s how things have been for me.”
“Figure it out, man. Before she decides you’re not worth it. Right now, she thinks you are, and something like that doesn’t come along every day.”
Eyeing him, I nodded without comment and changed the subject. “How’s Alex?”
He knew what I meant when he gave me a shrug. Of all the people in that room, Alex was the least likely to take what we’d done well. He hadn’t shown an aversion to it, but it didn’t mean when he got home and crawled in bed tonight that he’d be happy with it.
“He’ll be fine, I don’t think you give him enough credit. Or maybe you do, and you can’t see that he’s just as bought into this as we are.”
“I think he’s going to crack.”
“You’re not the only one that owns a share of anger issues, Mick.”
I withheld my opinion on it. “The body? Clothes?”
“Jack and I will take care of it later. You sure you want to do this?”
Giving a brief nod, I said, “It’s too late to change direction now.”
I pulled out some paperwork. Talking about bodies just made me think about a past I knew I couldn’t go back to and haunted me nightly. There was a deep yearning in me to leave. To go to Alisa and kiss away whatever hurt I’d inflicted today.
“I found some discrepancies with some of the receipts. Things that would be questionable if we were ever investigated. Granted, they’re not our mistakes, but we’re about to adopt them.”
Mason leaned forward to look at the invoice I laid in front of him. He frowned at it for a moment then picked it up.
“So, we’re paying for liquor from a local distributor?”
“Distributor would be a nice word. It’s a family run business. If he’d gotten caught they would’ve taken his liquor license. And by the look of it, he was paying them half of what the shipments were worth. I was going to ask Holly tomorrow, but…”
He tapped the sheet and looked like he was considering something. “Let me look into this. Don’t stop the shipments yet, though. I think I know what’s happening with this family. Long story, but I think they’re one of the businesses here locally that the King fuckers on the force were extorting money from.”
“Why would they do that?”
“You’re seriously asking me that? They’re the King family. They do this to half the city, and if I remember correctly, for some reason they came down on these people pretty hard last year. I’ll deal with it.”
I waved it off, as I grabbed my keys from the edge of the table and eyed them. They’d been an instrument of torture when I’d slammed them into the fucker’s face earlier. I’d gotten the blood off them more than an hour ago, but they still looked dirty to me. They always would now. Grabbing my laptop, I headed to the door.
“I’m headed to the apartment,” I said over my shoulder as I left.
As I drove, I tried to wipe away the events of the day. The ugly feelings that still churned in my chest about everything. It shed from me, piece by piece, as I drove through the darkening city streets. A light drizzle of rain came down, washing over the windshield. City lights came on bathin
g the sidewalks in a faint amber glow.
Twenty minutes later, I was there. As I drove by the four-story building, in the heart of the city that I’d started renting the week prior, I wondered what her face might have looked like had I brought her here in different circumstances. Together, as a surprise. Whether she would have been happy.
While she’d been at work, I’d been busy. It didn’t take long to find something that suited what I thought she might like. Four bedrooms, open layout and very close to her brother’s office. I’d had my furniture removed from storage, bought a few more things I hoped she liked.
It was assumptive on my part to think she might want to live with me for a while. I’d been hoping that maybe she’d choose to on her own given enough time. We couldn’t continue to live with Mason, regardless, and I wouldn’t let her live with another King, including her brother. On her own, in the apartment she’d rented, I would have worried, would have spent restless nights likely camped out in front of the complex. I’d had Alex’s secretary bring her things here instead, telling her that it was what Alisa was insisting and rather than talking to her brother about it, needed her to do it privately. I told Alex while she was in the hospital and hoped that she’d stay.
When I parked beside Paul’s vehicle in the garage, I thought of her upstairs exploring the place. I needed her and yet, I hesitated. As much as she said I scared her, she terrified me.
I chuckled and turned off the car. She’d probably tell me to fuck off if I told her that. That was, if she was still talking to me.
Entering the building I looked for the doorman but didn’t see him. He was nice, and supposedly part of the security feature of living in the building. I doubted the truth in that, given the dopey eyed look he gave me when I’d met him.
When the realtor had shown me the area and property, she’d mentioned several times that the balding, middle-aged man, named Bill, was a deterrent against unwelcome guests. Unknown to the realtor, I did my own background search on Bill before I put any money down. Nothing. Bill was clean. He still wasn’t much of a threat though, and clearly, “guarding” four lofts, was too much for him if he couldn’t stay at the desk to watch the front entrance.
Taking the elevator up to the fourth floor, it opened to a long hallway that led to our apartment, and a bit further down the hall there was a door to Paul’s studio apartment, if he wanted the job long term after today.
I grabbed my phone out of my pocket when it began buzzing. Mason calling.
Frowning I answered. “Hello?”
“Hey, heads up, we’re clean, headed to a place Jack knows minus his right hand. We’ll dump that on daddy’s car on our way back.”
“Careful,” I replied while eyeing my door.
I noticed a scuff mark on the wood. I regarded it before I tried the handle. It was unlocked. Something I’d have to talk with Paul about. With a lazy employee downstairs and no specified codes on the elevator, it was a security risk. Something I’d be bringing up with management soon enough.
Stepping into the house, it took a moment to process the scene in front of me. The once inlaid glass on my entry table laid scattered in pieces on the wood floor.
“Mason,” I said.
“Yeah?”
I scanned the living room, setting my bag down quietly. There was groaning coming from my right. When I stepped into the kitchen, I saw Paul laying on the floor. Blood coated his shirt over his shoulder. I rushed to him, crouching down to look. He’d been shot, but hadn’t been killed, a minor wound as shots went. His head turned to the side as he let out another moan, likely from the welt on the side of his head.
“Alisa…” I started to ask, before I heard something further into the apartment. A banging sound like a rubber mallet on a wall.
“Come here. Emergency, Paul’s down but breathing,” I said as quietly as I could then set the phone down on Paul’s chest.
Grabbing a knife from the holder on the counter, I cautiously made my way toward the sound. When I rounded the corner to the hallway that led to the master suite my eyes fell on Bill’s unmoving body.
Then I heard it, a muffled sound and water splashing.
Running down the hall, I checked the bedroom quickly, an open suitcase lay on the bed with clothes strewn on the floor. Another pounding sound to my left and I barreled through the bathroom door.
A man, dressed in black, with shoulder holsters, was bent over the bathtub. A small hand flailed against the side in desperation and a leg kicked out. He was holding her down in the water, drowning her as she struggled against him.
In a rage I tackled him, knocking him down to the floor. He cried out then tried to flip over to face me.
Alisa’s body came out of the water in a rush, her face red, gasping for air. She was coughing, spitting up water and crawling out of the water as fast as she could. When she hit the floor she scrambled away, her naked body slick with water, skidding across the tile as she tried to escape.
I flipped the man under me, as I snaked my arm around his face. He threw his head back connecting with my jaw. Twisting him again, I wrapped my legs around his like vice grips, preventing him from moving any further.
Alisa sobbed in the corner, knees curled up as she looked on in horror.
The knife I’d brought with me had fallen to the ground inches from us. I grabbed it as the man started to once again, twist out of my grasp.
Every muscle strained as I held him in place. Everything in me felt molten hot with anger that I couldn’t control. He’d tried to murder her in the bathtub. Tried to drown her for me to find no doubt. In the unclothed state she was in, I had no idea what damage he’d done before he’d attempted it.
Rage filled me before I brought the knife to his neck and cut so deeply that the arterial spray hit the floor, my clothing and dripped down my arm as I held him. He struggled, making gurgling sounds as he tried to breathe through his open windpipe. I roared my anger into the tiled room as he jerked against me, roared from the adrenaline, and Alisa’s terrified face.
Only her sobbing reached me as I felt the intruder go limp against me. Only her tears tamed the ugliness that overwhelmed me.
“Alisa,” I whispered as her beautiful blue eyes met mine.
Chapter Eighteen
Alisa
I shivered, my body wracked with terror at what had just happened. Crouched in the corner, as the man that had tried to drown me had his neck split open by the man I loved. I cried, convulsing with shock as Mick’s roar of anger filled my ears.
When he looked up at me, for the first time I saw the depths of what he’d warned me about. The thing that Paul said he saw, the thing that Mason knew, slithered behind his raging black eyes.
This man, the man I loved with everything in me, was wild with something I’d never seen. He was showing me, what it meant to be loved by him, what I could never in my life define before now. He wasn’t evil, even now, covered in my brutal attacker’s blood, but he was, to the depths of his core, willing to skirt along those edges to protect me. He could have taken another course, but as I looked at him, I knew if he’d let the man in his arms live, Mick’s demons would have haunted him.
Catching the guy, turning him in like he should have, would have rankled and soured with his inability to mete out justice in his own way. He killed for me, because of me, and maybe a little bit for himself, so that he could sleep at night knowing that he’d done all he could to remove any threat.
It was so wrong in so many ways to take the man’s life. Everything about this screamed that, as much as I feared my father and family, he was equally capable of the same cruelty. Instead of being turned toward me and taken out on me, though, it was for me. To protect me. I didn't know if that made it better or worse to see it as acceptable. Or if I was just as fucked up as he was for seeing the sanity behind his insane actions.
I saw the truth of him now. There was no denying it when he whispered my name. He worshipped some part of me, called out to me, needed me in a wa
y that would be impossible for him to let go. I was his and he was mine. It might have been twisted to think that way, but I couldn’t help being drawn into his soul as he gazed at me.
He dumped the body to the side like a ragdoll and crawled to me across the blood streaked floor. His eyes examined my huddled form as he got closer. He ripped the now blood-soaked shirt he’d been wearing off his chest and tossed it aside. His arms were covered in the crimson liquid of a man’s now extinguished life.
Maybe he saw my involuntary flinch as he tried to touch me, or something registered in his mind. He looked down at his hands and sneered as he stood up, turned then plunged his arms into the clear bath water. He washed, then washed again, slopping water on the floor. The soap turned red and he furiously cleaned himself, his arms turning the same color as he scrubbed himself raw. He bent his head at last and stopped, breathing heavily when he did.
“Mick,” I whispered.
His eyes met mine again with a tortured look.
“Did he hurt you? Before he tried to drown you? Did he…”
I was confused about what he was asking, and my lack of response had his anger returning.
“Did. He. Do. Anything?” he growled.
I shook my head, understanding dawning on me at last. He meant had he assaulted me. Lucky for me, it hadn’t been his intent. “No, I was already in the bath. He just shoved me under the water.”
“Thank fuck. God, I’m sorry, Alisa. I’m so sorry, baby. I had to do it and now I can’t touch you. I had to. Fuck. He tried to kill you. I can’t live without you and now I can’t touch you.”
“I need you,” I whispered as I began sobbing again. “Please, Mick.”
I could see the debate slide over his face. “I’m a monster, baby. How can you want these hands on you? I’ll ruin you.”
I uncurled from my position, watching him as I inched across the floor.
“Mick, I love you.”
His eyes swung up to mine and he hissed as he put out his hands for me to stop.
“Baby, you’re going to get blood on you. Please.”
Mick_Kingston Corruption Book One Page 19
