by A. Zavarelli
I can’t keep myself from glancing over at him. Seeing his shadowed profile lit only by the light of the moon and the headlights of passing cars. I only get glimpses of him, and it’s never enough. Tiny flashes of the man I fell in love with, but wasn’t supposed to.
He’s hauntingly beautiful. Those eyes of his hold so many different memories between us. I wonder if he’ll look back on them when I’m gone, or if he’ll shut me out forever. That would hurt worse than anything. But what does it matter? I’ll be dead.
Someone else will be in his bed, feeling his body move inside of them. Feeling his warmth when he comes in right before dawn and pulls her against his chest. Wearing his shirts and smelling his cologne on the pillow beside her. I hate her already. I hate the bitch who gets to have those things with him so much I want to scream.
It isn’t fair. None of this is fair. But I won’t tell him that. I won’t beg. I’ll only ask one thing of him, even though my heart is breaking. I just need him to keep his promise about Scarlett. And maybe something else. Maybe he could find out what happened to Talia.
I know she’s probably gone, like I’ll be soon too. Maybe we’ll find each other again somehow in the next life.
Lachlan pulls over and turns off the car. When I glance out the window, I see that we’re on a side road, surrounded by nothing but forest. This is the place he’s chosen for me. I wonder if he’ll ever visit my gravesite.
“Get out.”
His words are sharp, but even still, he can’t hide the emotion that lies beneath. I want to believe that there’s another option. One where neither of us has to die. But this isn’t a game anymore. It’s as real as it’s ever been, and I’m just nowhere near as tough as I thought. I’m not ready to go, but I’m not selfish enough to let him die either.
I get out of the car. It’s cold, and I can see my breath in front of me, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll be very cold soon enough. I walk on wooden legs to stand before him. The headlights are still on, illuminating his figure against the inky blackness of the forest.
“Can I…” I reach up to touch his face. “Can I just have one more…”
“Shut up, Mack.”
His lips are on me, hot and savage, echoed by the movement of his hands. Whatever cold surrounds me, I no longer feel. I’m safe here in his arms, if only for a little while. They are warm and familiar and comforting to me. Really, I couldn’t think of a better way to go. I hope he holds me close like this when he does it. I don’t want to know it’s coming.
He yanks my dress up and rubs his palm between my legs. I’m still sore from earlier, but just this touch from him… the knowledge that he still wants me after everything… is enough to make me crave him desperately.
I don’t have to beg him. He’s got me flipped onto my back and pressed against the hood of his car in no time. I half laugh and half sob when he unzips his pants and I realize what he’s doing. He told me he’d fuck me on it. And now he is.
He pushes inside of me, harder than steel and so fucking big I feel like I’m being torn in two. I welcome it. This sweet brutality. I want it to go on forever. I claw at his back and kiss his neck and murmur things against his skin. Confessions, admissions, declarations. It drives him crazy.
“Say it again,” he tells me with each thrust.
I repeat whatever irrational thought goes through my head in the moment. I tell him I wanted to keep him. How I love the way he fucks me. How much he’s rubbed off onto me, and how goddamn beautiful he is. I talk about his accent, his ass, even his fighting skills. It’s all coming out in half pants and sobs.
“Have ye anything else to say?” he whispers in my ear. “Like ye did earlier?”
Tears are rolling down my face when I look up into his eyes and tell him.
“I love you.”
He thrusts harder.
“I love you,” I repeat.
Another hard thrust. He wants to hear it, and yet he’s punishing me for it.
“I fucking love you!” I scream. “I love you goddammit! You fucking asshole. I hate you for making me love you.”
He comes inside of me with a grunt and collapses on top of me. His fingers are still working my clit, and I’m sobbing when I come too.
“Just do it,” I plead. “Do it already. I can’t wait any more. I need you to do it.”
He’s staring down at me, his eyes filled with pain, but he isn’t moving. He’s inside of me. On top of me. Everywhere around me. This is pure torture now.
“Just fucking do it!” I scream.
He grabs me by the throat and slaps his other hand over my mouth. My body goes lax beneath him, and relief courses through my veins. But after a moment, I realize the pressure isn’t there, and I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
“Cop onto yourself, sweetheart,” he says.
And then he takes his hand off my mouth and replaces it with his lips. They’re soft and gentle and sweet and completely fucking sadistic to do this to me.
“Lachlan…”
“Shut up, Mack.”
He pulls out of me and zips himself back up. And then he helps me up off the hood of the car. I can’t even find the energy to ask what the hell he’s doing when he walks me back to the passenger side and deposits me onto the seat.
He gets in beside me, and then we’re driving again. In silence. Through the goddamn woods. Lach’s fingers are threaded through mine the entire time. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. What he’s doing. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I’m trying to silence the insane thoughts looping through my brain.
And then we pull up to a house. But not so much a house as a fortress in the middle of nowhere.
“What is this place?” I ask when he cuts the engine.
“Shut up, Mack.”
Again, he helps me out of the car. He leads me across the yard, pausing just before we get to the door.
“Alexei can’t hear properly,” he says. “Ye need to look at him when ye speak.”
I blink, and he squeezes my hand tighter.
“Don’t be obvious about it, Mack.”
That’s the end of the conversation, because a moment later, another man is opening the door.
“Franco.” Lachlan nods in greeting.
“Mr. Crow.”
“I need to speak with Alexei.”
The man opens the door wide and gestures us inside. “Of course, sir.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mackenzie
We sit in a lounge area, waiting for this man named Alexei. I still have no idea what we’re doing here.
Lach’s got me pulled tight against his chest, his arm wrapped around me possessively while his fingers rub up and down my back. I feel his gaze on me, but I can’t look at him. There is too much uncertainty about what comes next, and I’m barely holding on by a thread. I fear that one look at him will unravel me completely.
Finally, the man in question enters the room.
The man who I presume to be Alexei doesn’t make a sound as he takes a seat across from us. He’s a large man, tall with broad shoulders and an athletic body. He’s also quite handsome, but there’s a haunting sadness about his face. Melancholy blue eyes snap to me before he fixes them on Lachlan.
He says something in Russian, to which Lachlan replies, shocking the hell out of me. After a moment of this back and forth, the room goes silent again. A housekeeper comes in and pours the men a drink and then asks me if I’d like one as well. I shake my head and thank her anyway.
Lach drinks the expensive Cognac slowly, but Alexei downs his in two gulps. And then pours himself another glass.
“Have ye sorted out your problem with Katya?” Lachlan asks.
Alexei’s only response is to take another shot. That’s why he looks so haunted. He’s heartbroken, obviously. If only he knew how much I could relate to him in this moment.
Is this how I’ll be if Lachlan decides to keep me alive? A shell of m
y former self with only alcohol as my companion. A shudder moves through me as I consider it.
The men talk in a mish mash of broken Russian and English. Lach seems to have the basics down, but isn’t completely fluent. I don’t have to see Alexei’s eyes darting to me to understand who they’re talking about.
After a while, they seem to come to some sort of agreement. And then Lachlan pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to Alexei. It feels like there’s glass in my throat when I realize it’s the photo of Talia.
“What are you doing with that?” I ask.
Lachlan doesn’t reply. He’s staring at Alexei, watching him, so I do the same. His eyes are roving over the photograph with laser precision, like he’s downloading every detail to memory.
“Does he know what happened to her?” I accuse.
Lach shoots me a look. “No. He’s offered to help you find her.”
Everything else fades away. All the horror and pain of this evening and the events leading up to it. And for the briefest of moments, my world is filled with sunshine and everything becomes clear again. Alexei glances at me, and I try to see through him. Past his cold exterior to the man who lies beneath. He keeps dragging his bloodshot eyes back to the photo as if he can’t stop himself. Hope springs up inside of me like an oasis inside of the desert. Even the cynical part of me is jumping onboard with this, too inflated by the possibility to accept any impending rejection.
“How will you find her?” I ask.
Lachlan answers for him.
“Alexei is very good at finding things,” he says evasively. “He works with… computers.”
This is the only explanation I get. And it dawns on me that Alexei must be a member of their alliance. The Russian syndicate. Lach sounds unwavering in his belief that Alexei can find her, and I want to believe it. He appears studious. Quiet and cultured and dangerous too, but in a more calculating manner than the other men I’ve seen. Can he really find Talia? I don’t know. But he’s the only hope I’ve got left.
Alexei takes the photograph and says something in Russian. And then he leaves the room.
I’m still too infused with relief to understand what’s really happening here. But when Lachlan pulls me close and starts peppering my face with kisses, it dawns on me soon enough. This is the moment I realize that our traumas never really go away. They live inside of us, in the deepest darkest pits of our own tiny hells. Cocked and loaded, waiting for someone to come along and pull the trigger.
Lachlan is pulling that trigger. He’s leaving me. Alone and afraid… and without him. My heart threatens to cave in under the weight of the pain.
“No.” I grab onto his coat and hold on. “What are you doing?”
His answer is the faintest brush of his lips against mine.
“No,” I say again, weakly.
“Mack.” He closes his eyes and buries his face in my neck as he holds me close. “I’m not handing ye over to the Russians, okay? Alexei is a mate, and I trust him. No harm will come to ye here, but I have to go.”
“No.”
I seem to have lost the ability to say anything else.
“Sweetheart, I have to.”
“You can’t do this to me,” I sob. “Don’t leave. Stay.”
He strokes my face, my hair, his eyes soft and completely devoid of any anger as he looks down at me.
“Ye’re beautiful, sweetheart,” he says. “There was no avoiding you, Mack. It was always meant to happen this way.”
“Don’t go back,” I plead. “I’m sorry. But just don’t go back.”
I know it isn’t fair. Or even realistic. But Lachlan gives me a pass for acting like an emotional two-year-old. He takes off his gold medallion and drapes it over my neck, still warm from his skin. I want to protest, but I cling to it instead. Like if he leaves it with me that means he’s going to come back for it too.
“Do ye remember when ye asked what a man like me wants?”
I let out a god-awful sound of despair in answer.
“I already have a family,” he explains. “And I will abide by whatever they decide for me, Mack. That’s how this works.”
I’m shaking my head, a protest on the tip of my tongue, but he just continues anyway.
“But if I was going to marry,” he says. “I’d have wanted it to be you.”
I crawl into his lap, clinging to him, hoping that he won’t be able to shake me off. That this isn’t happening how I think it is.
“Please…” I wrap my arms around his neck and sob against him.
He places one of his palms over my belly, and stares at it longingly. “I wanted to have a baby with you. Can ye believe it?” He looks up at me. “I’ve never wanted that with anyone.”
“You still can,” I insist.
I’d tell him anything right now to keep him from leaving. But it isn’t a lie. I’d have Lach’s babies. I’d have a whole brood of them if he wanted me to.
He kisses my ear and then my throat. “You’ll be safe here, Mack. I don’t want ye to worry about that. Alexei has given his word to keep ye safe.”
“No, Lachlan.”
He picks me up and tries to pry me off of him, but I keep fighting off the distance.
“I’m not letting you leave. I’m not letting you go back there without me. I can explain. I can try to fix things. I’ll make Niall understand. Anything… anything.”
He brushes his fingers over my lips to silence me. And then he leans in and whispers in my ear. “Ye must’ve been chewing on four leaf clovers all along,” he says.
I blink up at him in confusion.
He smiles. “I’m completely mad for you, sweetheart.”
Hands grab me from behind and drag me away as I scream. Lachlan gives me one last glance, and then he’s walking away from me. Out of the door, and out of my life forever.
I try to fight off whoever’s holding me back, but I can’t. I’m too emotional. It’s too much. It’s all too fucking much. It doesn’t matter anyway. Because when I feel another needle in my arm, I realize they aren’t giving me a choice.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Lachlan
I’ve always said you can’t trust a woman.
Mack wrecked every bit of common sense I had left in me. I was blind to it. Blind to everything else but her. Now there’s only one thing left to do.
I call Niall first and organize to meet him at the club. And then Ronan. He tries to argue my decision as I knew he would, but it’s useless. I will hand myself over to Niall and abide by whatever penalty he feels is necessary.
So long as it’s nothing to do with Mack.
I love her. Can hardly believe it myself, but it’s true. I’m fucking mad about the girl. I’d like to believe that if she’d only told me what the problem was, I’d have helped her. But I can’t say for certain that is true.
I knew Talia was trouble when she started working at the club. She was a bit too fond of one of the Russians. Dmitri, his name was. He wasn’t part of Alexei’s faction, but Ivan vouched for him at the door. That should’ve been my first clue. If I’d had any concrete evidence it was him involved in whatever happened to Mack’s friend, then sure I’d have sent him into the cellar for Ronan to deal with.
We do not tolerate that kind of shite in our club. You touch our women, you meet with Ronan. Simple as that. But Talia had only been working at Slainte for two weeks. She told me she was going on a holiday and she needed some time off. When the cops started sniffing about the place, Detective James mentioned he had reason to believe she ran off to Mexico for one reason or another. So I left it at that. The girl never saw anything, didn’t know anything, so it was no bother to me what she wanted to do with her life.
All of these events culminated to bring Mack into my life. I’d like to say that I’m sorry for it, that I wished it never happened, but that isn’t true. I am sorry for her mate. If anyone can find her, Alexei will.
Mack will be s
afe with him too. I know that much. It’s all that matters now. She didn’t do this with evil intent. I on the other hand have done plenty. I lied to her, hurt her… planned to hand her over to the Russians for my own selfish reasons. I don’t know what that says about me. But I meant what I told her.
I’d actually considered a life with her. How fucking stupid is that? Bringing a woman into this world is always a liability. This whole situation has wised me right up. Regardless of what lies ahead for me, the best thing I can do for Mack is to let her go. It’s the unselfish thing. The hard thing, too. I don’t want that. I wanted none of this. But I’ve no choice now.
Alexei gave me his word. He will get her out of the state. Set her up with a new identity. And Mack will never know if I live or die because she’ll only be told one thing.
To her, Lachlan Crow is and always will be- dead.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mackenzie
When I wake up in a pitch black room in a bed that feels unfamiliar, dread snakes its way inside of me. I’m disoriented, exhausted, and for a moment, I have no idea where I am.
But when I sit up and glance out the window, I remember with painful clarity.
Lachlan.
Where the hell is he? And how could I just let him leave without me?
I’m in the middle of nowhere, but that isn’t going to stop me. I’m going to get to him. I’m not going to let him sacrifice himself for me.
I find my shoes near the end of the bed and pick them up so as not to make any noise. This house is much bigger on the inside, and from my vantage point I’d guess I’m on the second or third floor. When I get to the bedroom door, it opens without protest. I creep down the hall, pausing at a cracked door with a light on inside.
