Transcending Darkness

by Airicka Phoenix

  Killian took that as a cue to keep moving. All the while, he couldn’t help wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into and how the hell he was going to get out. Unlike Arlo who had no qualms about using and abusing the weak, Killian had no such fetish. The girl was clearly someone in way over her head, or worse, she was some girl kidnapped from her country and shipped over. The Dragons were certainly not averse to human trafficking. It was, after all, their biggest trade, next to drugs and guns. Killian had never, nor would he ever, sell a human. His father hadn’t. His grandfather hadn’t. It was not the type of business the McClary’s had ever dealt in, because, despite how good the money was, they had morals. Oh, there was a time they dabbled in guns and there was an uncle, or cousin who had gotten himself into the drugs business. But he started dipping into his own product and wound up choking on his own vomit and dying and that had been the end of that. But the McClary’s had always been shippers. Transporters. They specialized in the safe passage of cargo and took forty percent of every cut, but that was before. All that changed after Killian’s dad died. It had taken years, but the entire company had been scrubbed to a near legal cleanse. The McClary Corporation no longer did transportation of the illegal kind. The money was less, but he still made a pretty coin through his many other business ventures. In no way was he a good, upstanding citizen, but he no longer had to play two sides of the law and that was something his family had never done. His grandfather would have been appalled.

  Hands buried deep in the bowels of his pockets, Killian stalked to the limo waiting for him just were the gravel smoothed out to solid concrete. Most of the warehouse district was designed the same way, with gravel used as an almost alarm to forewarn the guilty of an oncoming presence. It was a pain in the ass and it left streaks of white on his best pair of trousers.

  He glowered down at the white powder marring his hems and ruining his shoes.

  That was his punishment for dealing with the matter himself, he thought miserably.

  From his right, Marco hurried forward and yanked open the back door and held it.

  Like Frank, Marco was one of the trusted employees Killian had kept on even after the purge. Everyone else had been fired the moment Callum McClary had been lowered into the ground. Their inability to protect his father had not been tolerated. But Marco was simply a driver. His father hadn’t trusted him with his life and Frank hadn’t been there that afternoon. His father had taken to dragging Killian everywhere since his mother’s death. Killian wasn’t sure if it was just to keep him close or because looking at Killian reminded his father of the woman he’d lost. But he’d sent Frank off to handle a different matter. It was an unusual move. His father rarely ever went anywhere without the giant. Sometimes Killian couldn’t help wondering if his father would still be alive had Frank been there.

  A cool evening breeze swept through the group. A shiver passed through him that he brushed off with a roll of his shoulders. Behind him, the group stopped when he did. Without their feet disturbing the gravel, silence quickly followed.

  He turned to face them and the girl. His gaze moved over their heads to squint at the looming structure and the anxious guard watching them with apprehension. But it was the snake he was guarding that prickled the sixth sense Killian had inherited when stepping into the family business. The one that warned him to be cautious.

  “Call Jacob,” he told Dominic. “Tell him to be prepared.”

  The dark haired man on Killian’s left inclined his head, but his brows were furrowed. “Think he’s stupid enough to double cross you?”

  Killian gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “I think he’ll do what he can to avoid having to explain this to his father. Not that it will save him.” He smoothed a hand down the front of his suit. “I have every intention of letting Juan know exactly why I’m taking his money.”

  “Arlo won’t like that.” While it was said with a straight face, there was amusement in the statement.

  “That’s just too bad for him isn’t it now?” He rounded his attention to the other men waiting for instructions. “Take the car. I need a word with our guest.”

  The girl flinched as though he’d reached out and smacked her. Her grip on her purse intensified until he was sure the cracked and peeling fabric might pop. But she didn’t run, or back down when their gazes met. He held hers for a full second before focusing on the figures fanned out behind her.

  “Not you, Frank,” he said when the giant began to turn his massive frames in the direction of the SUV parked just ahead of the limo. “Ride up front with Marco.”

  The giant gave a curt bob of his bald head before ambling to the passenger’s side door of the limo. But he didn’t get in, nor did the others make a move towards the SUV. He knew they were waiting for him to get into the limo first.

  He faced the girl. “Ladies first.”

  Her gaze darted past him to the open door then back, filled with a trepidation that almost made him arch a brow.

  “Are you going to sell me?” she blurted.

  No accent, he noted. Her English was clear, but that didn’t mean anything. Not all kidnapped girls were foreign.

  “I don’t sell people,” he said evenly.

  She licked her lips and he was momentarily distracted by the wet sheen across the plump curve. It took him a second to realize she was speaking once more.

  “Are you going to hurt me?”

  He regarded her calmly, taking in her hollow cheeks, the darkness beneath her eyes and the exhausted slump in her too thin shoulders. She had the look of someone who had once been healthy, but unavoidable circumstances had sucked the life from her body. He wasn’t overly picky about the physical appearance of his women. Big or small, they served the same purpose. But this girl … there was something in her eyes that made him want to stuff her full of food.

  He derailed that thought before it could grow roots. For all her big, doe eyes, she wasn’t his problem. He refused to make her his problem. He would drive her to the bus station, buy a one way ticket to wherever the hell she wanted to go and never think of her again. That was the plan.

  “Are you going to give me a reason to?” he said at last with an almost challenging quirk of his dark eyebrow.

  He wouldn’t. He’d never hurt a woman in his life. But she didn’t need to know that. Maintaining order sometimes required fear, a subtle reminder that he was in control.

  She shook her head a little too quickly, sending loose tendrils of hair swinging wildly around her ashen face. “I won’t. I promise.”

  He motioned her forward with a sweeping brush of his hand. “Then we shouldn’t have any problems.”

  With a reluctant jerk of her head in a nod, she started for the gaping hole waiting for her to climb into. Around her legs, her skirt twisted with the breeze. It lifted her hair around her face in a tangle. Her knees shuddered visibly with every step. But she made it to the door when Marco stepped forward. Killian had been expecting it. The girl had not.

  She jumped and scrambled back away from him.

  “I just want your purse,” he told her in an almost gentle murmur.

  Rather than abide, her gaze shot to Killian’s. “Why do you need my purse?” she asked. “I don’t have any money.”

  “I don’t want your money,” he told her. “It’s merely a precaution.”

  She hesitated a full second longer before gingerly unhooking the strap off her shoulder and passing it over. Marco wasted no time tearing it open and rifling around inside. Killian had a suspicion there wouldn’t be much in there, especially not a gun. Somehow he doubted Arlo armed his whores. But he had learned from experience to never trust a pretty face.

  As he expected, the purse was returned to her.

  “Against the car, please,” Marco said, motioning with his chin towards the side of the limo.

  “Seriously?” Juliette blurted, horrified. Her wide eyes jumped back to Killian. “I’m not carrying.”

  “Precaution,” he said again.r />
  Visibly biting back the retort he could see shining in her eyes, she moved to where Marco pointed and set her purse down on the ground. Then she planted both palms on the hood, smudging the spotless black paint with sweat. But even while she braced herself for his hands, she jumped when they lightly brushed her shoulders and started down her sides. Her eyes squeezed shut tight when they moved along her hips and down her legs. Then back up the inside to her thighs. Marco was quick. It ended reasonably fast and she jerked away the moment Marco stepped back. She snatched up her purse, her face bright with the first sign of color Killian had seen on her.

  She glared at Killian. “I don’t like guns,” she told him sharply. “I’m not a threat.”

  Unconsciously, the word threat drew his eyes to her mouth and he almost snorted at her outright lie. Everything about her was a threat and made even more dangerous by the fact that she clearly didn’t realize it.

  “Precaution,” he said yet again, oddly fascinated by the fire reflecting in her eyes. He found he preferred it to the fear and emptiness he’d seen there so far. “You can never be too careful.”

  Her gaze slanted to where his men still stood, silent and watchful. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and nibbled anxiously before returning her attention to Killian. Lips he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of opened only to be snapped shut by the resounding bang of metal that split the evening silence. The explosion sent a flurry of chaos into motion. Killian leapt into action without even pausing to consider.

  He grabbed the girl. His bruising hands cut strips into her skin as he jerked her forward into his chest. One arm closed firmly about her middle as the other lifted to thread rough fingers through her hair and cup the base of her skull. Her face was shoved into the soft fabric of his dress shirt even as he whipped them around in a fluid and powerful twist of his body. Her back slammed up against the side of the limo and held there by the solid length of him as he tried to shield her from whatever was happening in the background.

  “Whoa! Easy. It’s just me!” someone shouted into the chaos they’d created.

  Killian pulled back from the girl just enough for a quick once over to make sure she was all right. He was met with those big eyes of hers and parted lips. Even with heels, she barely came to his shoulders and the slightness of her affected him far more than he was comfortable admitting. But it was the feel of the rest of her that had him jerking away. It was the graze of her taut little nipples through both their clothes that temporarily made him forget why he didn’t pick girls like her. He tried not to let himself look, knowing full well that it would end with her flat on her back across the limo floor and him tearing at her clothes like some starved animal.

  Christ, what was wrong with him? Sure it had been a while since he’d been with a woman, but it hadn’t been that long.

  He turned away, quickly and struggled to assess the situation. His men stood in a half circle around him and the girl, guns drawn and aimed at a kid barely eighteen, waving a white envelope in the air.

  “Arlo wanted me to give this to her.”

  He gestured at the girl. Her eyes flicked towards Killian, uncertain and dark. He stepped aside and let her accept the envelope the boy handed to Dominic, who passed it to her. She took it with a quiet murmur of thanks and frowned. Her gaze shot up to the boy, questioningly.

  “Boss said to hang on to this,” the boy answered with an airy shrug.

  It was clear from the bemused line crinkling the place between her brows that she had not expected the gesture. She turned it over in her hand and froze. Killian couldn’t see what she’d spotted, but whatever it was had her head jerking up and her eyes going as round as the O shape of her mouth in surprise. She forgot the boy and turned her attention towards Killian. Part of him wanted to ask, while the other determined they’d been in that driveway long enough and his skin was beginning to itch.

  “Get in the car,” he told her, his hand already on her elbow, propelling her.

  She didn’t fight him. She let him nudge her into the leather seat. Killian followed her as she abandoned the bench and moved to the one adjacent. The harsh halo of light spilling over them from the single bulb overhead shimmered through her unbound hair and illuminated the bleakness of her face. It intensified the rings beneath her eyes and the smudge of dried blood still staining her lip from her earlier nibbling. She wedged herself into the seat, perching rigidly on the edge with her purse stuffed into her lap and her back unnaturally stiff. She watched him the way most people watched a chainsaw wielding maniac.

  Not far off, the voice in his head said dryly, and was ignored.

  The door was shut behind them and they were alone in the semi silence. Somewhere ahead, he could just hear Marco and Frank climbing into their seats in front.

  “What’s your name?” he asked as the car started its smooth departure.

  “Juliette,” she whispered.

  “Juliette what?”

  “Romero.”

  A dark eyebrow lifted. “Juliette Romero?”

  She met his gaze with a warning he found immensely amusing. “My mom really liked Shakespeare.”

  She seemed to think of something and quickly dropped her gaze. Her hands trembled as she stuffed the envelope into her purse.

  “Where are you from?” he pressed.

  She zipped the top of her bag before lifting her eyes to him. “Yorksten.”

  Surprise flickered through him. “That’s only twenty minutes from here.”

  Juliette nodded.

  Clearly not kidnapped then, he thought, sitting back.

  “How much are you in with Arlo?”

  She blinked as though he’d caught her mid thought. “I’m sorry?”

  “How much do you owe him,” he clarified.

  Genuine offence pursed her brow. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because I said so.”

  She looked like she was ready to argue, but thought better of it. She grudgingly averted her eyes when she spoke.

  “Hundred thousand.”

  He knew to most people that would have been shocking; a hundred grand was a lot of money. But in his world, that barely sparked an ounce of surprise. The crackheads and dope fends ran that bill up easy.

  “Drugs?”

  Juliette shook her head. “It’s not my debt.”

  Curiosity had his head tilting a notch to the side. “Whose is it?”

  His question seemed to bother her. Her lashes lowered to her lap where her hands were twisting restlessly into the strap of her purse. Her teeth assaulted her already brutalized lip, uncaring that she was agitating the wound. She stayed that way for several long minutes. Killian waited, refusing to budge on the question.

  “My father’s,” she murmured at last. “He got in deep after my mother passed away from cancer. He started playing the tables and the machines and…” she trailed off with a twist of her lips. “Anything that promised a big payout really.”

  “He gambled,” he finished for her.

  Juliette nodded. “And he drank heavily. I didn’t know about Arlo until he showed up at our house after my dad was shot during a drive by and demanded money or my sister.”

  He said nothing for a damn long time. Instead he studied the woman across from him, traced the beaten lines of her body. She had a very nice body. He was certainly not immune to it. She had long legs and curvy hips. Truthfully, there was nothing about her he found remotely unattractive, nor could he deny his own body’s awareness of her.

  He wanted her.

  It was jarring because he didn’t normally find girls like her remotely appealing. The women he was used to were professionals, clean and carefully selected by him. They knew what he wanted. They knew the role. Girls like Juliette, girls who came off the streets and gave themselves to men for whatever little money they considered themselves worth, were a risk. They were dangerous.

  “Are you lying?” He squinted at her through the shadows, scrutinizing her every movement carefully
. “Because if I find out you’re lying…”

  He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. She struck him as a clever girl who would get his meaning without him needing to paint a picture.

  Instead, she frowned at him like he just asked her to reenact Swan Lake.

  “Why would I lie about having a sister?” she wondered with a hint of annoyance.

  “You’d be surprised the things people lie about,” he stated evenly. “But I meant about why you owe Cruz. Is it drugs?”

  Juliette shook her head. “I don’t do drugs and I’m not lying.”

  It was impossible to tell if she was telling the truth or not. She didn’t falter or even bat an eyelash, yet something about her continued to nag at him. Something about her just didn’t fit everything he was seeing and it was pissing the fuck out of him.

  Outside, city lights flared past the windows, coloring the glass the electric pink and blue of the neon signs. The weekend had the younger crowd haunting the busy streets, club hopping and living their carefree lives. Juliette’s attention was snapped away by a group of scantily clad women darting down the sidewalk, arm in arm, laughing and staggering drunkenly into each other. A taxi honked noisily when they bolted blindly across the intersection. They laughed riotously and disappeared down the block.

  She continued to watch them long after they had vanished from sight and the longing in her eyes only intensified his curiosity. The shadows of sadness haunted the corners of her downward tilted mouth. Her teeth were back to nipping at her bottom lip and it took all his restraint not to reach over and pry it free, not to smooth his thumb over her self-inflicted injury. The leather beneath him rustled when the temptation had him shifting in his seat. The sound turned her focus back on him and their eyes met across the distance. Hers were so impossibly open. The vulnerability in them filled him with a frustration he had no idea what to do with, yet wanting to do something.

  “Is your name really the Scarlet Wolf?” she asked quietly.