Branded

by Scarlett Finn

  Nya couldn’t argue against that point given where they were standing, and why they were here. “Seeing you upset last night… I got so mad at myself for letting you down. If you push my buttons just right, I’ll give you the whole damn world. I will do whatever you fucking ask me to, I fucking know it.”

  And she could tell the power of their connection pissed him off. “But you have a rep,” she said, assuming the male ego was once again in play. “And I can’t have you running around after every lost kitten just because it puts a smile on my face.”

  “We have to be careful about who we give information to. It’s not always as simple as somebody asking, handing me money, and me dishing out everything I know. There are times when I withhold for good reasons and if I tell you that’s what I’m doing, I need you to accept that without giving me shit.”

  “Ok,” she said. In the interests of honesty, she made a clarification. “But if I believe something is worthy enough, I will bring it to your attention and if I push you, I will expect more than just a no.”

  “As long as you’re not doing it every day, I think that’s ok,” he said. “Now, show me around.”

  It wouldn’t surprise her if he knew the layout of the whole place, he’d probably seen the plans. He was the kind of guy who would do reconnaissance before thinking of attempting a raid. But they went through every room and corner anyway. In the cellar where the stock was kept, Archer waited while she counted barrels and took notes. She showed him around the office, around the bar and the dance floor and every secret closet in the place.

  They went into the cloakroom, which she found to be a mess, and made further notes to chastise her staff, who’d been running the place in her absence. When she found there was money left in the registers of the admission booths, she was ready to issue reprimands.

  Ranting on at him about how irresponsible people could be and about making the place vulnerable, she tried to identify the staff members who would’ve been on shift. Giving him a rundown on their histories, their strengths and flaws, she didn’t even notice which door he’d directed her through until she turned around and saw the couch.

  Stopping dead. Her words vanished.

  “Why are we in here?” she asked. Spinning away to try to flee, she came up against his damming body.

  “You have to face it. You have to stand in here and face it.”

  Her tears came back and this time she began to shake. “No,” she said and her breathing began to speed up as it had the last time she was here. The constriction in her chest returned. “No, I can’t be in here.”

  “You can. I’m here. What do you think can happen to you while I’m here?” he said, walking her forward. With his strong hands gripping her shoulders, he took her right to the middle of the room. “They had you there.” Aiming her body towards the wall she’d been pushed up against, he wouldn’t let her shy away. “Were you scared?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I was and I hated them for it. I hated them for coming into my space and making me vulnerable. But I couldn’t give in to fear. I focused on Jamie instead of myself.”

  “And what did you see?” he asked, his voice was low, even, understanding, yet firm.

  Squeezing her eyes closed, she shook her head, and wet globes seeped from her tear ducts. “I told them to stop. I shouted. I screamed. But they wouldn’t… I don’t think they heard me. Jamie tried to fight but they fought back. He hit her so hard…” Her voice trailed into a sob.

  “It’s ok,” he said, rubbing her arms and when she opened her eyes, she saw that he’d turned her around to face the couch and the floor where Jamie had been assaulted and killed.

  “She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t dead when we left. I saw bubbles, in the blood, she was breathing.”

  “She was unconscious,” he said. “And never regained consciousness. They made a mess of her body inside and out. Even if she’d made it to the hospital, they would never have been able to save her. There was swelling in her brain, bleeding, he hit her so hard that he fractured her skull.”

  Whipping around, she grabbed his tee shirt in both fists. “How do you know that?” she asked in a rush of desperation.

  “I’ve seen the police report, the ME’s report.”

  “You have? When?”

  “You told me you wanted to go after these guys. I had to know who we were dealing with. Rapists, like serial killers, quite often have an MO. I figured if I could work out his routine, it would help me figure out who he was.”

  “Identify him, you’re already trying to identify them?”

  “Sure.” Putting both arms around her, he gave her something to hold onto. “I knew you weren’t ready, that you’d have to deal with coming here first. Coming back was always going to be emotional for you. You need a cool head for revenge; I’d never have let you go after them in anger. If we deal with this and build you back up and you still want to go after them, I wanted to be ready. The more time I have, the more subtle I can be. It didn’t matter if it took six days or six years. As soon as I figure out who these fuckers are, I can monitor them, and I’ll be ready to hand them to you, baby, with everything you need to know to take them down. I swear it.”

  Lost for words, her jaw loosened. He wasn’t just blowing smoke; he was taking action, anticipating her needs before she’d declared having them. Predicting her intentions because he had a clue what they were. If he kept going like this, she’d never be able to stop herself from falling in love with him.

  “Jonno,” she said. “He’ll know who they are. Were they all Hexam’s men?”

  “No. I know who four of the seven were.”

  Disbelief, gratitude, and pride merged in warmth inside of her. “Four of the seven,” she exhaled.

  “Jonno doesn’t work for Hexam. Three of the guys did.”

  “Who did Jonno work for? Did the other three work for him?”

  “Jonno works for himself and I would bet at least one of the other guys was with him. But I haven’t had a sit-down with Jonno, I won’t ‘cause I don’t want to tip our hand, not when I still have other avenues to work. If we can come at them from behind it’ll be better.”

  “The element of surprise,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  He kissed her forehead and she thought about the incredible talent he had for focusing her mind. It started with a distraction, like surprising her with what he already knew. The distraction cleared her mind of the clawing emotion and helped her concentrate on what was practical until once again her breathing began to return to normal and the blur departed her eyes.

  “We can get them,” she said. “We can pick each one of them off.”

  “Yeah. I thought Hexam’s men wouldn’t be so easy because their boss is a bastard. But with Hexam leaving the country, a lot of these guys are, I guess you could say, independent contractors.”

  “So when Hexam leaves the country,” she said. “They’ll be unemployed, moving onto other jobs?”

  “Probably. It might make it harder to keep an eye on them. But it will make them easier to get to when they don’t have Hexam’s protection.”

  “So how did they all end up working together?” she asked.

  “It’s like I said before, mutual benefit. Jonno wanted Taggert. Hexam wanted Taggert. I wanted Taggert. It came out in conversation when we all showed up in the same spot that we were all looking for the same man. So in a kind of unofficial meeting, we agreed if one found him, we’d notify the others.”

  “And that’s how you all ended up in Sizzle?”

  “Jonno found you,” he said. “I mean, I knew you existed, knew Taggert had a girl he cared about. I figured you guys were screwing. I hadn’t invested time to research you ‘cause going after a guy’s girl is not my style.”

  No, he would rather go after the guy and just chain him to the bathroom floor until he spilled his guts, resorting to hacking off body parts if the need arose. “You knew I existed,” she said. Having not known Archer existed, it was weird
to think that she’d been on the radar of dangerous men while remaining oblivious.

  “If I’d had to, I would’ve come to you,” he said like it was nothing, in his usual half-sighing, lazy voice. “Jonno wasn’t patient. We weren’t working together, so I didn’t know what he was doing until I got the call to say he was coming here, that he’d called Hexam’s guys and they were cooking some plan. I work alone as much as I can, they didn’t bother to include me in the details. I nodded along, and told them I wasn’t interested in being part of his roundup gang. But he was coming for you and I was in the area…”

  “You were in the area,” she repeated. He told these stories like they were no big deal. Something so incidental had changed the course of her life, saved her life, and to him it had just been a logical convenience to stick his head round the door to see what Jonno had turned up.

  “I figured I’d drive by and ask Jonno what you’d said, though I didn’t think he’d get anything out of you. Women are loyal to the point of stupid when it comes to men they’re in love with.”

  Back then he’d been sure that she was Tag’s girl. “Then you saw the bodies outside?” she asked and he nodded.

  “Thought what a fucking mess they’d made. But I was too curious not to look in.”

  Too curious? Too nosey. The man had to know everything and he had seen dead bodies and known who’d stolen the lives. Bingo, he had lucrative blackmail to tuck into his back pocket for later.

  An idea perked her up. “We can hand them Hexam’s men. The cops. What’s to stop us trading Tag’s freedom for the freedom of Hexam’s men? We tell Hexam, if he doesn’t forgive Tag then I’ll go to the cops and tell them exactly what happened that night.”

  “We have no evidence,” he said. “And you can’t testify to a thing ‘cause all you saw was a bunch of guys in masks. You don’t know anybody’s names except Jonno’s, which you learned from me. You wouldn’t be able to track him down—”

  “But you could,” she said, inspired with hope.

  “And what am I gonna do?” he asked. “Go to the cops and tell them, ‘Yeah, I know exactly who Jonno is and I saw the whole thing too.’ They’ll want to know why I was here. They’ll want to know why I wanted to find Taggert and how I knew Jonno and his buddies were there. Soon as they find out I knew what was going on before it went down, boom, I’m in the cell right next to Jonno.”

  She didn’t want him going to jail. “Ok, but we must be able to build a plan from there somehow.”

  “It’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” he said and she’d be offended if brutal honesty wasn’t his inherent style. “You’re asking Hexam to forgive Taggert by putting yourself in his direct firing line. Do you think you’ll last any longer than the guy who’s been holed up in an apartment for months, hiding from a guy he knows will delight in torturing him?”

  “But—”

  “You stand up for Taggert, great, you feel good for twenty minutes, until you find yourself chained to somebody else’s wall and I guarantee that my brand will be insignificant in comparison to what those guys will do to you.”

  “You could protect me,” she said, tucking in close in the way she knew he liked.

  His body betrayed his enjoyment of her wriggling act when she came into contact with the reaction she’d caused in his jeans. Perhaps in respect for where they were and what had happened here, he eased his pelvis away a fraction of a second after she felt it.

  “I could,” he said. “You’re damn right I fucking could. But you won’t like the way I protect you.”

  Drawing back an inch to seek an explanation in his expression, she wasn’t satisfied. “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Because my way of protecting you would be to chain you to my fucking floor again.”

  “Your floor?” she asked. “What’s wrong with the bed?”

  “Not into that S and M shit.”

  “Still you’d think you’d let your girl have some comfort, and how would you earn a living if I was taking up space in the place reserved for your victims?”

  “If I was protecting you, it would be my full-time job. ‘Cause I know as soon as you got the chance to wriggle out, you would be off. I got a taste of what losing you was like last night and that ain’t never gonna happen again.”

  If her way wouldn’t work then they’d have to rely on whatever Archer was planning. “You said there might be a way to appease Hexam?”

  “There might. But I’m still working it out.”

  Sizzle wasn’t open yet and it wouldn’t be for a couple of hours. There were things she could do around here, the staff would be coming in soon, and the place needed its manager back. But she was too tired to think about doing a good job.

  “I need to rest,” she said, blinking to try and reawaken her heavy lids. “I just need to close my eyes for a while.”

  “I have people to talk to tonight. As soon as we can get this Taggert crap sorted out…”

  “The sooner we can get back to normal?” she asked, although she wasn’t sure what normal was going to look like for them.

  “And to start thinking about what you want to do next.”

  Like going after Jamie’s killers. They did have a lot to think about. After resting up, she’d have to work out what she was going to do about security at Sizzle because it would have to be concrete before she started thinking about going after gangsters.

  If they were part of any kind of network, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out what she was doing. She and Archer might be able to take down two or three, and then the others would want to come for her.

  She’d be putting herself in a very unsafe position and it wasn’t Archer’s responsibility to give up his life to protect her. So she’d make sure that her club was as safe as it could be before she thought about inviting trouble.

  “Take a night off,” he said.

  “From us?” she asked.

  “From here.”

  All this time he’d been holding her, and now he began to turn her toward the door. He locked both arms around her shoulders to press her back into his chest as they proceeded outside. His physical signals reassured her that he was a force who could shield her from harm.

  He had let her cry and talk and made up for his negative kneejerk reaction the previous night. Their relationship wasn’t perfect, but like he’d said, he was human and made mistakes.

  “I’ll take you home,” he said and she trusted him to lock up the club while she sat in the car and waited.

  She did need rest, physical and emotional rest, and he did exactly what he said he would. Not only driving her to her apartment, but walking her up the stairs and unlocking her door for her.

  Opening it an inch, he handed her the keys. “I’ll wait here until I hear you lock it,” he said. “I know you’re tired, but try to eat something after you’ve slept, and take your pills if you need them.”

  Managing a loose nod, she accepted his kiss on the corner of her mouth and then turned to go inside. Her eyes were already closing and her body felt like stone. She was so grateful for the proximity of her bed. But before she was all the way inside, she stopped.

  “When you’re done with your work tonight…” she started. Turning around, she offered up the metal loop on her cuff. “Will you come over? I’ll feel better if you’re here.”

  “Sure,” he said, curling his finger around her loop. “But we can take the night off if—”

  “We had last night off.” She put the keys he’d just handed her back into his palm. “I might be unconscious, but I want to wake up beside you.” Because he didn’t answer right away, paranoia seeped in. “If you want to spend the night in my bed that is.”

  “Damn straight,” he said and lunged down to kiss her more thoroughly than he had all day, in a kiss more alike the ones they’d shared before.

  Too soon he took his tongue from her mouth. Sex now would be half-hearted. She would rather wait until they were both energized and ready to do it properly.r />
  “Get as much rest as you can,” he said, kissing his way to her ear. “I’ll be depriving you of the luxury of sleep for a while. Won’t take me long to exhaust you again.”

  twenty-three

  Just as she came out of the bathroom the next morning, Archer disconnected her cellphone. “Taggert called,” he said.

  Instead of returning the phone to the kitchen table, he focused on it and his thumbs moved across the screen. “What did he say?” she asked, straightening her towel and waiting for him to put the phone down. Her cell was all she had, there was no need for her to have a hard line.

  “Asked if I spent the night,” he muttered, reading her phone. “Does he keep notes on your sex life?”

  “Sort of,” she said and that admission was enough to make him raise his head. “Looking for anything special in there?”

  Her expectant brow raise was supposed to precede an apology for his snooping; instead he went back to his prying. “Old boyfriends, naked pictures, internet search history.”

  Honesty, she couldn’t fault him for that. “You think about asking?”

  “You know what I do,” he said. “Don’t expect to keep any secrets. Any chance I get to pry into your life, I’ll take it.”

  “Maybe I want to keep secrets,” she said, but got no response. Seeking a reaction, she dropped her towel and ran her hands through her damp hair. “Fella, you wanna come over here?”

  They hadn’t had sex last night. She hadn’t heard him come in and by the time she knew he was in her bed, he was already snoring.

  “In a minute,” he mumbled.

  Cupping her breasts, she trailed the tips of her middle fingers to her nipples and began to circle, stimulating them to taut peaks. Sashaying over to him, she curled her fingers around her phone and tried to take it from him, but he didn’t let go and tugged it back, forcing her another step toward him.

  “You ever play with yourself in front of a guy before?”

  Shock made her lose some of her prowess. “Archer,” she whispered in a gasp.

  “I want to know,” he said, tossing the phone to the table.