by Callie Hart
“You arrived just in time for the show,” Alaska says. She hovers next to Michael, running her hand down the front of his suit jacket, her black nail polish shining almost as brightly as her heels under the strip lighting.
Michael slaps her hand away, suddenly alert. He rips his gaze away from the woman on the gurney, fixing a look of such cold, unending fury on the redhead that I’m surprised she doesn’t freeze and shatter into a thousand pieces under the force of it.
“Why?” he snarls. “Why would you do this?”
On the other side of the room, the veins in Zeth’s neck are straining under his skin. His eyes are wild, wilder than I’ve ever seen them, and Lowell looks genuinely afraid.
Alaska laughs softly, flicking her arrow straight hair over her shoulder. “I have to admit, this wasn’t my idea. I did think it was a little in poor taste, but I deferred to Denise. She seemed to think this would get under Zeth’s skin. Looks like she was right. I don’t think she expected him to strangle the life out of her, though.”
Lowell struggles harder, kicking, nails now drawing blood from Zeth’s hands and forearms. “Help…me…” she wheezes. “Tell…him.”
Alaska pulls a face, reacting like a teenager. “Urgh. All right. All right. I’m not standing within a fifty-foot radius of that nightmare, though. Michael, you’re going to have to pull your boss off Denise. And I’d do it quickly if I were you.”
Moving painfully slowly, Michael turns his whole body so he’s facing Alaska. “And why in god’s name,” he asks coldly, “would I go and do something like that?”
Alaska beams brightly in response. “Because there is an explosive device located somewhere in the grounds of this stadium, and if Denise doesn’t check in with her partner, in…” Her eyes flicker downward, checking a watch that she isn’t wearing. “Fifteen minutes, we’re all dead. That’s you, me, Zeth, your sick little friend over there…and, of course, Sloane, too.”
Well, shit. This place is huge, and fifteen minutes isn’t a great deal of time. Definitely not enough time to scour the structure from end-to-end, looking for an incendiary device. Michael’s clearly conflicted. He looks down at the broken body lying in front of him, and his shoulders sag even further. He rushes across to Zeth then, placing a hand on his shoulder. Zeth doesn’t appear to register the contact. He’s swept away by his fury, lost in a sea of it, drowning in it as the seconds pass. Lowell’s frantic, but the fight is leaving her, her feet now dangling limply below her as she tries to pry Zeth’s fingers from around her neck.
“Zeth,” Michael says. “Zeth, let her go. We’ll deal with this another way.”
Zeth can’t, or won’t hear him, though. He pushes forward into Lowell, leaning all of his body weight against her. Her eyes roll back into her head, her face a deep crimson.
“Zeth!” Michael tries to pull him away, but the guy is a fucking mountain, huge and unmovable. Reaching back, Michael draws his fist back to his ear, and then he punches Zeth as hard as he can in the face. I can feel the rattle of the impact from where I’m standing—it has to come close to knocking Zeth out. The man reels sideways, stumbling, releasing Lowell as he tries to right himself. Lowell drops to the floor, coughing and spluttering, sinking to her knees before crawling away, putting as much space between her and Zeth as possible.
Zeth whips around, snarling at Michael like a cornered animal. There’s madness in his eyes, which are so dark they are almost fully black from pupil to iris. “Get the fuck out of my way, Michael.”
“I can’t do that.”
“It wasn’t a request.”
“If I let you kill her, Sloane dies. Is that what you want?”
Zeth growls, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists at his sides. “She’s lying,” he grinds out. “She’s fucking lying to save her own skin.”
Michael’s voice is soft when he says, “Is it worth the risk? Are you willing to call her bluff and find out?”
A seed of doubt must bloom in Zeth’s mind. He falters, the murderous look in his eyes fading just a little. “She’s planning on killing her anyway,” he snarls.
“But we can’t stop her if we’re all dead, too,” Michael reasons.
Lowell is hacking on the floor, making ragged wheezing sounds as she tries to recover herself. “You’re not going to stop it. You can’t. Not unless you want to be responsible for the deaths of your friends.”
Zeth bares his teeth. I’ve never seen him look so frustrated before. I’d heard his name before I started training at the gym. Everyone in Seattle who works below the line of the law has heard it. I know enough of from my own personal experience of him, along with his reputation, to piece together how badly he wants to tear this bitch’s head off. Both of their heads.
But he takes a step back.
“Very wise,” Lowell says. Her face is still red, and there are burst capillaries in her eyes, but she’s almost able to talk without coughing now. “Go and stand by your sister’s body,” she spits. “Go and take a long, hard fucking look at what I did to her.”
With leaden feet, Zeth complies. He drags himself over to the gurney, looking down at the pieces of the dead woman that lay there before him. The hatred that pours off him is stifling. Lowell gets to her feet, staggering sideways, then goes to stand behind him. She places a hand on his shoulder and smiles, her face utterly bloodless.
“That’s for stealing my dog.”
NINETEEN
ZETH
“Let’s go and find the lovely Sloane, shall we?” Alaska says. “Here. I’ll bring…what was your sister’s name again, Zeth? Laney? Lauren? I didn’t even know you had a sister until Denise showed up with this mess,” she says, pulling a disgusted face as looks down at the gurney.
“Her name was Lacey,” Lowell says. “And she was a whore. She fucked people on the street for money before she came to Seattle to leach off her brother. I bet you didn’t know that, did you, handsome?”
I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing that she’s affected me. Inside, my temper is raging, though. Lacey wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. She was broken and flawed. I never found out all the terrible things that happened to her before she found her way to me, but I’ve always known it was bad. She may well have had to sell herself in order to put food in her belly. If that’s the case, then I sure as shit don’t hold it against her. We all do what we need to survive. But for Lowell to call her a whore?
She’s just dug her grave five fucking feet deeper.
I’m already planning what comes next as Alaska takes hold of the gurney and pushes it out of the room, disappearing down the hallway, back the way we came. Lowell rubs a hand at her neck. “After you,” she snipes. I try to make eye contact with Michael, but Lowell lashes out with her gun, the weapon connecting with my temple. Not hard enough to really hurt, but hard enough to piss me off. “Don’t look at him. Look at me. Look at Alaska.”
I snarl, low and threatening. I’ll have my moment with her. I’m gonna have it real fucking soon. I walk between the two of women, trying to not look at what’s lying on the gurney as we move beneath the stadium. Michael and Mason bring up the rear. Everywhere I look, one hall way branches off into another, into another, into another. I’m sure Lowell picked this place because she thought it would turn me around. That even if I did escape, I wouldn’t be able to find my way out, or find Sloane for that matter, before she found me. This bitch is always underestimating me, though. Always. I know exactly where we’ve been and how the fuck to get out of here. I’m just biding my time. Waiting.
Eventually, Alaska stops in front of another heavy steel door. She raps her knuckles against the steel and hovers there, waiting. Her brow crinkles when no one answers.
“Clay? Ben? Goddamn it, answer the door, you assholes. We’re waiting out here.”
No reply.
She knocks again.
Again, we’re met with silence.
“Motherfuckers,” Alaska hisses under her breath.
She turns the handle and the door swings open, much to her surprise. She was obviously expecting it to be locked. Her mask of shock turns to one of complete rage when she looks into the room beyond. There’s blood everywhere. Everywhere. Up the walls, on the ceiling, gathered in glistening crimson pools on the floor. Amongst all of that blood, two bodies have been abandoned, one of them with their fucking throat ripped out.
“Where is she?” Alaska fumes. Her eyes glitter with unbridled rage as she stalks into the room and kicks at the closest mangled body with her high heel. “Where the fuck is she?”
A smug warmth floods through my veins. Michael got her out, or she got herself out. Either way, these two cunts aren’t going to be able to lay a finger on her now.
Darkness swirls at the edges of my mind, unleashing new ideas and new possibilities. Now, I know Sloane is safe…these ladies are in for a world of fucking hurt.
As if on cue, Lowell’s phone begins to vibrate in the pocket of her pantsuit. She whips the phone out and hits the answer button too quickly—she doesn’t realize what she’s doing. She doesn’t realize what this means, now. If she’d thought about it for more than a second, she’d have made sure to keep her gun trained on me, that’s for fucking sure. “Yes, I’m fine. We have everything under control,” Lowell bites out. This is the call she was waiting for—her partner, making sure everything is in order, calling to confirm that he shouldn’t blow up the entire stadium with us inside. She scowls as she hangs up and slides the phone away. Alaska spins around, her outrage spluttering out as she turns her attention to Lowell, then to me. And then over my shoulder.
Michael must be smiling. There must be a grin on that fucker’s face a mile wide, because he knows these two have nothing to hold over me now. And he knows I’m about to tear them into pieces.
I’m about to ask Lowell if she has any last fucking words, but then a cellphone’s ringtone echoes down the corridor behind me—weirdly, it’s the Game of Thrones theme song. I spin around, and the Barbieris are standing there behind Michael and Mason, covered in blood and looking bored.
“Can we have the redhead?” Sal asks.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You told us to find Lowell. We found her. We also found your girlfriend. And those guys.” Theo jerks his chin in the direction of the bodies on the floor. Huh. So it wasn’t Michael and Mason who got Sloane out, then. It seems I have the Barbieris to thank for that.
“You’d better back the fuck up,” Lowell says stiffly. It seems it’s just occurred to her that she is now in an untenable position, with no means of escape. She hurried into the room after Alaska. She bulled ahead without thinking it through, and now there are five angry men barring her escape. “Don’t forget…the explosives,” she says. “If my partner—”
“You just spoke to your partner. You told him everything was fine. That must give us…what?” I ask Michael. He looks up, making a show of thinking.
“At least fifteen minutes.”
“Hmm. I think you’re right. We can get a lot done in fifteen minutes,” I growl.
“Don’t be fucking stupid. I’m DEA. If you kill me, the cops will know it was you. They’ll come for you.”
“Actually, our father already has a number of the Seattle PD in his back pocket. And the DEA?” Theo barks out a single harsh laugh. “Roberto Barbieri and the DEA go way back.”
Interesting. That’s obviously how Roberto got hold of the case Lowell has spent so long building against Sloane. The bitch takes a considered step to the left, and I immediately know what she’s doing. The body she was so proud of parading in front of me a moment ago, Lacey’s dismembered, disfigured and disrespected body, is now a thorn in her side. Seems as though Lowell is no longer interested in displaying her handiwork and riling me up.
I hand myself over to the dark, wicked thing inside me that has been pleading for the reins so desperately, and I think Lowell sees it. Her face blanches, turning a dull, sickly grey color.
I’m going to enjoy this. Really enjoy it. “You. Are. Fucked.”
“Zeth, wait—”
No more waiting. No more sitting back. No more letting her get away with this shit. She’s had plenty of opportunities to walk away. She knew I walked away from my old life when Charlie died. She saw me set up a legitimate business and try to build a regular life with the woman I love, and what did she do? She desecrated my sister’s grave. She tried to have Sloane killed.
She fucked up.
Big time.
“Yeah,” I finally answer over my shoulder to Sal. “You can have the redhead.”
Alaska looks stunned. Hurt, even. What the fuck did she think was going to happen? I would send her on her way after this? Forgive her? Allow her to keep on breathing? No fucking way.
Defiance replaces her surprise. She lifts her chin, narrowing her eyes at me. “At least do me the honor of killing me yourself, Zeth.”
“Theo and Sal will do a better job, I think.” I step forward, looking her up and down with disgust all over my face. “I’m gonna turn my fucking back on you now, just as I always have done, and I’m not going to look back. I’m not even going to watch them as they destroy you. Because I don’t give a shit about you, Alaska. I never have, and I never will. After tonight…I’m never even going to think about you again. You will be forgotten.”
Tears well in her eyes, on the brink of overflowing, and I know it: my casually spoken words have hurt her more than my actions or my countless rejections over the years ever have. I make good on my promise, turning away from her, and I do not look back. Theo and Sal surge into the room, and Alaska’s scream bounces off the concrete walls, high and terrified.
Reaching into my back pocket, I withdraw the single tool I took from my black duffel bag before I came here. The knife is vicious-looking, jagged and cruel. The teeth that run along its spine are made for ripping and tearing flesh, the most efficient hunting knife on the market. I don’t need it for hunting, of course. My quarry is right in front of me, cornered, trapped and shaking from head to toe.
“Please,” she says. “I’m sorry. I know I was wrong. I’ve…I’ve been obsessed. I’m not…not well. Be…better than me,” Lowell says.
I flip the knife over in my hand. “I tried being something I’m not already,” I tell her. “You drove me from that. So here I am. The man you’ve been chasing down all this time, live and in motherfucking Technicolor. Now you’re gonna deal with the consequences.”
A part of me wonders what Sloane would have me do if she were here right now. Would she ask me to walk away? There’s a chance she would; there’s so much good inside her. I know Lowell, though. Letting her go wouldn’t mean an end to this. She would lick her wounds for a day or two, and then she would come for us again. Nothing will stop her until she gets what she wants. Her madness isn’t the kind to fade and die, but only flare and grow stronger.
I take no pleasure in driving the blade into Lowell’s chest. I honestly thought I would. Lowell gasps as the metal cuts through skin and muscle, scraping against bone. Blood spews from her mouth, and for the very first time since I met her, she looks young and afraid. I step back, the job already done. She’s not dead yet, but she will be, and soon.
Michael takes the knife from me. Lowell drops to her knees, so he has to bend slightly to drive the knife into her stomach. Just once. He needs the closure, the vengeance, the finality of this just as much as I do. Michael offers the weapon back to me, but Mason intercepts it. “You’re not the only ones,” he says. “You’re not the only ones she fucked with.”
Lowell’s eyes are hazy and unfocused as Mason stands over her. “Just do it, then,” she rasps. “Get it fucking done.” Mason drives the blade up, underneath her ribcage, grunting with the effort of his blow, and the woman topples sideways, panting. She has seconds left. Nothing more.
The room is filled with death.
“What are we going to do with Lacey?” Michael whispers.
God. Lacey. I
can’t even look at her body. I feel sick to my stomach every time I do. “We have to leave her,” I say, choking on the words. I know it’s our only option, but it still hurts. It still destroys me to admit it. “We don’t have time to take her with us. And besides…that’s not her anymore. She left this place a long time ago. She’s already fucking gone.”
******
Sloane runs across the parking lot, throwing herself into my arms. She sobs, her heart visibly hammering in her throat as I catch her up and hold her to me.
“Never do that again,” she commands. “Never leave me. I thought…Jesus, I thought you were dead.”
I set her on the ground so I can tangle my hands in her hair, pressing my forehead against hers. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.” It took me so long to give in and kiss this woman. The act was too personal, too deep, too intense, but now when I place my lips on hers, I completely lose myself to it. Let it be intense. Let it be deep. I fucking drown in her as my mouth crushes against hers. We share our breath as we taste each other, savoring each other, clinging onto each other for dear life.
“Come on,” Michael says, placing a hand on my shoulder. “We have to go.” He turns to Theo and Sal—nightmares made flesh, soaked to their skin in blood and gore. I didn’t see what they did to Alaska, but it must have been horrific. Sloane doesn’t flinch at the sight of them, but Pippa does. “You take Mason. Head back to the city,” Michael tells them. And then, to me, “I’ll make sure Pippa is safe. You and Sloane head home. We’ll all reconvene later, when things are a little calmer.”
The Camaro is right where I left it. Sloane and I get in, hurried, both of us keen to leave this godforsaken baseball stadium behind. Theo, Sal and Mason disappear in a silver sedan, and Michael…Pippa and Michael have already vanished.
We’re three blocks away when the explosion rips through the night, sending billowing mushrooms of flame and smoke upward into the night. The ground literally shakes with the force of the blast. I clench my jaw, watching out of the window, observing the people on the street who scatter, running for cover.
