Perfect Ruin (Unyielding #2)

by Nashoda Rose

  At first I hadn’t recognized her. She appeared stronger, the baby softness gone from her cheeks, and much taller. She looked to be seven or eight years old then. It was her eyes that were the same, a sweetness lingering within the depths as she spoke to the boy beside her.

  I took a chance, knowing I’d suffer worse than I could imagine. I ran across the hall to the classroom and both of them jerked to a stop, eyes wide and fearful. Then Chess recognized me and went to throw her arms around me when I quickly shook my head.

  I had seconds.

  “I’ll kill her, Chess. One day, I’m going to kill Mother. Don’t give up on me. No matter what. There’ll be a time, Chess. A time to end this.”

  Seconds and time did matter because I was caught. The handler came around the corner and saw me with her and the boy, and I was taken away to the pit. I didn’t fight. I heard my sister’s choked sobs so I walked away with my head up. I even glanced over my shoulder and winked at her.

  “You killed her.” It was a statement and it was like she had to say the words herself to believe them. “What about the farm?”

  “We’ll find it.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she stiffened. “You haven’t found it though.”

  “Not yet.”

  She reached up to the bookshelf and the candlelight caught the edge of her chin where a purple bruise glowed. Vault never marked a face and they’d left Chess alone for years. “Who hit you?”

  “Connor.” She walked over to her bed, reached under her mattress and pulled out what looked like a necklace. She scrunched it up in her hand and put it in her pocket before I had a good look. “Not his fault. The drug is unstable and Mother knows it. Or she did, that’s why they aren’t using it on any others yet.” That was why Mother agreed to let London live after Deck rescued her from the auction. “He can’t control the rage. It’s like he’s pumped up on something and it has nowhere to go, so he loses it. Not all the time, it’s sporadic and, Kai, he has no idea what he’s doing. His memories are all screwed up.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “A couple of days ago. I overheard the guards mentioning Connor leaving for Toronto.”

  Fuck. We had to get to London. “We need to go, Chess. No one will know Mother’s dead until tomorrow. If we’re lucky, the next day.” I dropped my black bag on the floor. “I have her laptop and we can find what we need on it.”

  “That’s if you can get into it.”

  True, but it was all we had. “Our flight leaves in an hour. Pack what you need.”

  She sat on the end of the bed, her hand in her pocket.

  I was silent, too. There was no excuse for how I lived my life. I’d accepted my decisions and I’d done what I thought I had to. And now, I was doing what I had to. Chess was alive. My sister lived and breathed and stood in front of me and I wasn’t leaving without her. “I did what had to be done, Chess. There is no other reason than that.”

  Her eyes softened. “I know, Kai. I never asked you to save me.”

  No, she hadn’t.

  “You need someone on the inside.”

  I tensed and a wave of cold shifted through me.

  “With Mother dead, the board members will meet here. There’s a chance I could—”

  “No.” I picked up my bag again and threw it over my shoulder. We had until morning before anyone noticed Chess was gone and even then, if the goon who delivered her breakfast didn’t pay attention, we had longer. “Put your pillows under your sheets so if they check on you they’ll think you’re sleeping.”

  “Kai, he’ll be here. I know it’s him. I know he’s the one who had the farm when it was moved.” I knew exactly who she was referring to—the one board member who kept his face hidden. “Maybe I can get a good look at him and sketch him. Then I’ll be able to send it to…” she stopped.

  “Tristan?” I said, brows rising.

  “You know him?”

  “You’ve been feeding him information ever since you got your ‘privileges.’ It’s how he knew about Georgie—Chaos. You’re his contact on the inside.”

  She whispered, “He promised.”

  I didn’t know what he’d promised, but the pieces were falling into place. Chess cared about him. It was all over her with the way her shoulders slumped, her head hanging forward, hair curtaining one side of her face. But the most telling was her hand in her pocket fisting around the necklace.

  Tristan had been the boy she’d been talking to that day coming out of the classroom. “How did he escape the farm, Chess? Did you help him? You had to be only what…?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, fourteen, maybe. It was the only way.”

  “Jesus, Chess. You didn’t get out and he did.”

  She looked at me. “We needed a diversion.” Fuck. That was why Tristan had spent his life working to get to this point. “It was impossible for both of us to go.”

  “He didn’t know that though, did he? He thought you were coming with him.”

  She nodded.

  “Fuck. They put you in solitary.”

  “It was worth it. I’d do it again.”

  And that was Chess. Where I had no heart, Chess had two of them.

  She sighed, her head lowering. “That look on his face… he was climbing to his feet, ready to run to help me. But we had a pact.”

  I knew exactly what their pact had been. Instead of never leave a man behind, it was the opposite.

  “I was never meant to go with him.”

  “Is that why you tried to escape a few years ago? Was he helping you?”

  “No. He didn’t know about it.”

  “I don’t get it, Chess. Why then? Why did you try and leave Vault?”

  She raised her chin, eyes hard. “I’m not like you, Kai. I can’t do what they want me to.”

  My sister was stronger than I anticipated, but I understood her. I wouldn’t have years ago, but now… I knew what it was like to care about someone. To willingly sacrifice everything for them. Maybe she could never be broken because she’d already cared. Loved. Her feelings for Tristan refused to be buried. I understood that now.

  “Kai, get out of here. They’ll find Mother’s body and the board members will question me. I might be able to find something out. If I do, I have a way to email Tristan.”

  “And they could simply kill you.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance.”

  “No.”

  “Kai.”

  “No.”

  “This isn’t your call,” she said.

  “Fine, it isn’t, but I have a feeling he thinks it’s his and he won’t allow you to stay another second here.” I nodded to the corridor. “Either come nicely, or I’ll live up to my reputation and make you. Choose.”

  She stood, eyes narrowed. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

  I smiled. “Down the road. Waiting. Impatiently. I suspect if we take much longer, he’ll attempt to storm this place himself and you know how that will end.”

  That did it.

  “We have until mid-morning before they’ll notice I’m gone. I’m allowed to wander the property for a few hours then.”

  I nodded. Cutting it close, but it was enough.

  “I hope you have a way out of here.”

  I grinned. “Front door.”

  “And you expect to walk out of here with me?”

  “No. You’ll take a slightly different route.” She frowned and had every right to because she wasn’t going to like it. “Kitchen. There’s a fish truck waiting out back. He just made a delivery and is waiting for the extra cargo.”

  “You’re sneaking me out in a fish truck?”

  I shrugged. “He’s a greedy bastard. And you might want a sweater.” Because she was going to have to hide in a refrigerated container filled with cold raw fish. The fish guy was also the man who removed dead bodies for Mother when needed; except this time, he was removing a live one.

  “I really hope you know what you’re doing, Kai. Because you�
��ve started a war.”

  “No, I’m ending the war.”

  She scanned the room as if searching for what to take with her. But she didn’t take a single thing except the necklace she still had in her hand. She pushed past me and headed down the corridor.

  TIRES CRUNCHED THE gravel into the dirt road and my head jerked up. I pushed away from the tree I’d been leaning against for the last two hours and jumped across the ditch to stand on the shoulder of the road.

  I’d been calm, steady, determined and confident since I was fifteen and realized Chess wasn’t coming with me. I’d escaped the farm as a boy, but seeing her dragged away and knowing she’d sacrificed herself for me… it made me into a man. Age had no factor. I knew what I had to do and despite my world being blown apart, I’d do anything to get there. And I had.

  That day was finally here.

  My nerves sparked, nerves that had been dead for years. My heart drummed and my hands at my sides curled into fists as I saw the billow of dust in the distance.

  Chess.

  The fish truck appeared around the corner then stopped a few hundred feet away from my car. Kai pulled past and parked at an angle in front of it then got out. He spoke a few words to the driver then passed him an envelope, which I knew contained a shitload of money.

  Kai disappeared around the back of the truck and everything inside me that had been stirring like wildfire—stilled.

  The quiet before the storm.

  Chess. My best friend, the girl who decided to save one boy. Who did fuckin’ save me.

  Finally it was my turn. I’d waited for this moment. Dreamed about it. Prayed for it. Jesus. None of the money mattered. None of the houses or cars or trips. It was all to get here.

  Underneath the truck, I saw her feet as she climbed out of the back. The doors slammed shut and latched, followed by a loud double knock on the back, and the truck rumbled away leaving a trail of dust behind it.

  I stood waiting for the dust to settle. Waiting to see with my own eyes that she was alive. Our sporadic emails had been short, formal and gave me nothing of who she was now.

  And nothing could’ve prepared me for this.

  We were like an iceberg that had cracked and separated, floating on different currents until years later, the two pieces finally drifted back together and sealed perfectly.

  That was us. Chess and I.

  I’d imagined her. Every single fuckin’ day I imagined her, thought about her. She was what drove me to succeed when all the odds were against a homeless boy with nothing but a handful of change and a cesspit full of nightmares.

  For years I hadn’t even known if she were alive and there was no way for me to find out if they’d killed her or let her live. But it didn’t stop me. I knew about her brother, Kai, from that day at the farm when he approached us. Took me years to track him before I finally found him in Toronto.

  I set myself up in the same city. Watched him. Made my money. Made my way in the world knowing that one day, I’d be standing here staring at the girl who risked everything for me.

  I walked toward her and it was the longest walk of my life. She stood still, eyes narrowed, arms crossed and her body vibrating from the refrigerated truck.

  “You broke the pact,” she blurted, lips quivering.

  God, the sound of her voice was like sucking in fresh oxygen. All these years I’d been suffocating under a dark cloud, breathing in soiled air. But Chess standing a foot away, stiff, cold and trying to be stoic and brave, was like being woken up from a nightmare.

  It was relief.

  It was comfort.

  It was finding colors in a world of grey.

  “Chess.”

  Her back straightened. “I was better on the inside. Now, we don’t have anyone.”

  “Chess,” I repeated.

  I stepped closer, so I was inches away. Her breathing was harsh and ragged as she stared up at me. She was trying so hard to be the tough one, just like she’d been at the farm. Always looking out for the younger kids, taking the blame for shit that went wrong. “No more, Francesca.” I used her full name because I was making it clear, she didn’t need to do this anymore.

  “Damn it, Tristan, what about the farm? Kai doesn’t know anything yet and he killed Mother and the board will—”

  “No!”

  She stiffened and I raised my brows, daring her to continue with that line of thought. “You’re not being the sacrificial lamb, Chess. Not anymore. Now I have something to say about it.”

  “But—”

  I stepped in to her and cupped her chin. “No.” She shut her mouth. “We’ll find them. But not with you at risk. That’s done.”

  “If the kids are killed because of this—”

  “If they killed you because of this, how do you think that would’ve gone down with me? For once, stop thinking about the farm and think about yourself.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  Fuck. “I know, baby.” She couldn’t because she was afraid if she did, she’d fall apart.

  A tear slipped down her cheek and contradicted her tense posture. “Fuck, Chess.” I went to pull her in to me when she tried to slip away. I caught her forearm then gently pushed her against the side of Kai’s car.

  She looked at me, strands of hair lying across her face, her eyes blazing with determination. I closed my eyes as the wave of relief hit me full force.

  “Chess,” I whispered. “God, Chess. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”

  We’d been connected by circumstance, me brought into Vault when I was eight, torn away from my family, scared and alone. And Chess… she’d taught me how to survive the farm. She’d been seven years old and I’d been a terrified eight-year-old screaming and crying for his mom, dad and sister.

  “It’s time to end this.”

  She looked at her feet and said quietly, “How can we end it, Tristan? How can it ever end?”

  I slid my palms over her shoulders, down her arms, gently unfolded them then entwined our fingers. Her eyes closed and she took a deep breath. “Because I need it to. Because I need you back and I’ll do anything to have you.”

  Her breath hitched just before my mouth came down on hers. I’d never kissed her before, yet it was like finding home. It was never a place; home was a feeling. It was someone you held in your arms.

  And for me, it was Chess.

  Her quivering lips were cold, but within seconds, they were heated by my own as I kissed her. I felt the moment she gave in to me when her mouth opened and allowed me entrance as I tasted the sweetness of her. It was hard and unyielding then soft and gentle. It was discovery and a yearning for more.

  I’d always loved her, but the physical hadn’t been there for either of us. Maybe we’d been too young. Maybe because of the situation we’d been in.

  But when the fish truck pulled away and my eyes locked on her, I knew. She’d been my best friend for seven years and it was like we hadn’t been separated at all.

  I pulled back and cupped her now flushed cheek, my thumb stroking back and forth over the smooth skin. “You smell like fish, baby.”

  She made a half-huff and leaned in to me again and it was the best feeling ever. Chess giving in to me. “I missed you,” she whispered into my shirt.

  Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the necklace I’d made for her when I was twelve. It took me months to find the right stones and I stole fishing wire from the storage room. The hard part was finding a cut stone sharp enough to carve with.

  She laid it in the palm of her hand and I glanced down at it. I’d carved one stone into a chess piece, a rook, because Chess was so protective of everyone. The other was a heart. I’d told her no matter what happened to us, my heart would always be inside her beating.

  “You were with me, Tristan. It’s what kept me strong.”

  I ran my finger over it. She kept it. Somehow she managed to keep it all these years.

  Kai’s voice was abrupt and cold as he said
, “We miss this flight, London is dead. You decide what I’ll do if that happens.” He folded in the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

  I knew exactly what he’d do because I’d do the same thing.

  “Who is London?” she asked.

  I curled her hand around the necklace. “Kai’s girl.”

  “My brother has a girl?” The corner of her lip turned up and her eyes sparked. “Is she willingly his girl? Because I can’t see her being with my brother any other way.”

  I kissed her forehead. “Fuck, I love you, Chess.”

  Toronto

  I NODDED TO Deck and Vic who stood on either side of the doorway then glanced over my shoulder in the direction of Josh who was on the roof of a neighboring house with his sniper rifle.

  Tyler was in the SUV on his computer, taking out the security cameras around the perimeter. Since there were no alarms blazing, he’d been successful—so far. Or we were made to believe that.

  Either way, we were going in and coming out with London.

  I stepped onto the porch and put my eye up to the scanner. The door clicked and I pushed it open with the toe of my boot.

  I had my hand close to my knife as I walked inside.

  Two feet into the foyer, I glanced at the camera up in the right corner then crouched to tie my boot. A signal for Tyler to black out the screens for five seconds in the foyer. If he took them all out at once, they’d lock down the basement and we’d never get in unless we blew up the place, and that wasn’t happening with London inside.

  Deck came in behind me then Vic and we moved in quiet unison across the marble floors to the oil painting. I nudged the frame of the painting with my palm on the frame and it swung open. Then I punched in the code for the door to the basement.

  This was our only chance to get her out. Once Mother’s body was found, security would be almost impossible to break through and then they’d move London most likely to the one place we had yet to locate—the farm.

  But it had to be done this way.

  I opened the door and started down the stairs with my back against the wall. I reached up to the bulb hanging in the stairwell. It was hot as hell, singeing my skin as I unscrewed it until it flickered off, masking us in the shadows.