“Nice? You call that nice?”
“You’re not dead yet! That’s pretty damn good if I say so myself,” I said proudly. “Let’s get the fuck outta here before there are any more hiccups. Fire will be happy to see his baby girl.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?” I asked, confused by her cryptic banter.
SOLD
Ty
“Just leave it alone,” I swatted my hand at him as I stormed out the office door. “I’m leaving.”
“You aren’t going anywhere without me, and we’re going to Fire’s. Hopefully returning you will get me off the hook for killing Matiglio.”
I spun around toward him, but continued for the exit, walking backward. “You’re cute. You really think that returning me is going to do anything for you? You might as well dig two graves—one for me and one for you. But we’ll probably end up in a dumpster on fire if we leave it up to dear old Dad.” I turned to continue my trudge toward the front exit.
“Wait!” He snatched my arm and yanked me back. “Wait a minute!”
Our eyes locked. The angry passion billowing between us thickened as he moved in closer, pressing his hard body against mine. The electricity from his hand resting against the small of my back descended between my legs as I closed my eyes, waiting for the obligatory kiss to follow; which never came.
“Open your eyes,” he whispered, placing his knuckle under my chin, lifting my face closer to his.
I willingly complied.
“I’m not gonna kiss you until you ask me to—until you really want me to.”
“What makes you think I ever will?” I asked.
“You will,” he replied confidently, releasing me from his hold, brushing by me as he headed out the door.
I raked my bottom lip between my teeth to numb the growing butterflies in my stomach as I watched him walk away.
He turned back to me. “Are you coming?”
I shook the moment from my head as the reality of the situation regained its position at the forefront of my mind. “No!”
Larry yelled from the bar as he guzzled down a bottle of vodka “She’s fuckin’ hard headed. Good luck with that one.” He pointed and laughed.
I flipped him off and then turned back to Mace, who had already disappeared into the daylight. I ran over and flung the door open to the blinding rays of the sun.
“I wasn’t done talking to you,” I yelled as I blocked the sun with my hand.
“Well, I’m done talking to you. I’m tired of your cryptic shit, Ty. Go—don’t go—it’s your funeral.”
“More like your funeral,” I yelled back.
He whipped around and stormed back over to me, his face only inches from mine. “I’m in this mess because of you.”
“And how do you figure?”
“If you hadn’t let yourself get kidnapped by this asshole, then maybe dear old Dad wouldn’t have had to come after Larry, and I wouldn’t be here having this conversation with you,” he snarled. “And why wouldn’t you ask for help before now? We are always at the club. Fuck, you could have slipped one of us a note—a smoke signal—something.”
“Uh, nuh, nuh, nuh,” I waved my finger in his face. “You’re in this situation because you like the action—you like shooting people—and you like being the hero. It probably pisses you off that you can’t save me.”
“Save you? Save you? I’ve already saved you a few fuckin’ times today alone!”
I chuckled. He really didn’t know the whole story. I pushed him out of the way and started down the sidewalk with nothing to my name but a tight mini skirt, a matted fur vest, and a leg wound for my troubles.
“Where are you going now?” he yelled from the parking lot.
I threw my middle finger in the air as I walked away from the club. About a block down, he drove up in his Mustang. “Get in!”
“Take a hint, asshole. I’m not going anywhere with you. Don’t you get it? I’m dead with Larry, and I’m dead with my dad. I’d rather die on my own terms in the fuckin’ streets.”
“No, I don’t get it. Why are you so damn frustrating, woman?” he asked, banging his palm on the steering wheel.
Before I could answer him with a smart remark, his phone rang.
Mace
I picked my phone up from the passenger seat. “Hello?” I answered as I drove two miles per hour following behind Ty.
“Where the fuck are you, Mace?” Blain asked on the other line.
“There’s been a bit of a snag. She doesn’t want to come,” I replied as I watched Ty’s hips sway down the sidewalk.
“I don’t give a fuck if you have to drag her here kicking and screaming. Get her whore ass down here. Fire is waiting, and he said all is forgiven if you deliver Ty to his front door.”
“I’ll get back to you, Blain,” I said, sliding the phone from my ear.
“Mace,” I heard Blain yell from the ear piece.
I positioned the phone back over my ear. “Yeah?”
“Don’t get attached to this one. You know the fuckin’ rule. Don’t make me have to go there with you,” he said as the phone clicked off.
Enough was enough. I hung up the phone and slammed on the brakes, screeching the car to a halt, then jumped out, cutting off her escape route.
“Give me one good reason why I should let you go?” I asked earnestly. “I’m tired of being a step behind.”
She looked away; almost ashamed of what she was about to have to tell me. “Larry didn’t take me.”
“Then why in the hell would you work for Larry when your dad is fuckin’ Ariel Peruzzi? You had all the money in the world.”
Her head whipped around. “Think about it, asshole—how in the world is someone able to leave Ariel Peruzzi?”
“Are you trying to say Fire did this to you?”
“No—I’m trying to say Blain did this to me.”
My heart fell into my stomach. “I don’t believe you. I know Blain, and he would never do shit like this. We’re in the business of protection.”
“Sorry to have to tell you this, Mace, but your boss is in the business of money.”
“Why would Blain even do anything remotely close to what you’re saying?”
“You don’t wanna know,” she said as she crossed her arms and kicked a small pebble around on the ground for what seemed like forever.
I got tired of waiting. “Get in the car, Ty. I’m gonna get to the bottom of this,” I said, holding my hand out for her to grab.
“I’m not going back,” she spat, stoic in her reply.
“I’m not taking you back,” I reassured her, my hand still hanging midair.
Slowly, she uncrossed her arms and laid her palm upon mine. I knew then I was taking on everything she had just run away from; that she needed me to keep the world, and all things that wanted to hurt her, at bay.
I got her into the passenger seat, then took off down the road toward the freeway. I needed to be able to have escape routes available while she explained to me this whole sordid story.
My phone rang. I hit the button to accept the call then pressed speaker phone. “Yes!” I yelled, looking over my shoulder to change lanes.
“Where the fuck are you, Mace?” Blain asked angrily.
“I can’t talk right now,” I said as I hung up the phone.
She looked over at me. “He’s gonna be pissed at you.”
“Fuck Blain.”
“Fuck Blain—’til Blain fucks you,” she said as she pulled the visor down to wipe the running mascara from under her eyes.
“Tell me your side,” I asked calmly, knowing if I came at her harshly she would just lash out at me like a cornered animal.
I looked over at her as she bit her nail. “He sold me.”
“What?” I asked, leaning in to hear her better.
“He sold me, goddammit! He sold me to Larry!” she yelled as she angrily flipped the visor closed.
“How the fuck did Blain sell
you?”
“My father asked him to. People tend to do whatever my father asks,” she replied in a soft voice as she returned to nervously biting her nail.
“Why would he sell you?” I asked, passing a car going fifty-five in the fast lane.
“Fire caught me sleeping with someone outside his list of approved suitors. You know how much my father loves outsiders. So after my father made him disappear, he turned his angry attention toward me. He said if I wanted to sleep around like a whore, then he would show me what it was really like to be a whore. That’s when he called Blain.”
“But why would Blain help?”
“Blain needed someone to disappear, and Fire offered an exchange of services.”
A volcano was erupting inside of me; all I could see was red as I struggled to weave in and out of traffic, so I found a clearing and pulled over onto the emergency shoulder. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It’s like we weren’t talking about the same person.
“Blain? Blain needed someone to disappear? Who?” I inundated her with a barrage of questions.
“I don’t know who, exactly. It wasn’t really high on my priority list of things to know. I was sort of dealing with my own shit at the time.”
“So if Fire asked Blain to get Larry to turn you out, then why send Matiglio to kill Larry?”
Trying to get information from her was like pulling teeth. I should know since I had done it a couple of times in the field. At least back then I had the proper tools.
“He wasn’t sent to kill Larry,” she said as she turned toward the window, trying to wipe a tear from her cheek without me seeing.
I took her hand. “Hey—what did I tell you in the apartment?”
She turned from the window looking at me solemnly. “That you’d take care of me,” she murmured.
The moment was one of the first real ones we’d had since this morning; her eyes were honest, and she was finally starting to soften up.
“I’m gonna help you,” I said.
“How?”
“I have a place in the woods. It’s nothing special, but it’s definitely secluded.”
“How do I know you’re not gonna take me up there to kill me?”
I put the car into gear, then looked at her. “If I wanted you dead, baby, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
“Don’t call me baby,” she said with an attitude as she tried to tune the radio.
I chuckled. “So fuckin’ hard headed.”
“You like that shit.”
“I might.”
We drove for what seemed like hours to the old cabin my father had built when I was a kid. No one knew about it, and it was off the grid. Regrouping was the first priority at this point.
The sun had already started to wane as we drove through a clearing that passed right through a thicket. Over the horizon, the outline of a small cabin began to reveal itself. The wood had started to splinter in some spots, and there was a hole in one of the windows, but all in all it still looked pretty inhabitable.
I turned to her, she was fast asleep, using my leather jacket as a blanket. I shifted some of the hair that fell over her face and lodged it behind her ear.
I shifted my gaze back to the narrow dirt path that led up to the door as she woke up.
Yawning, she said, “Are we there yet?”
“Looks like it,” I said, parking right in front of the door.
She looked at the cabin. “Do they deliver pizza here?”
I smiled, shaking my head. “Let’s go.”
We both got out of the car and headed for the door. I reached above the door frame, feeling for the spare key.
“You leave a spare key above the door?” she asked.
“Where else would I leave it?”
She crossed her arms and looked around the porch, kicking over an old glass bottle that looked like it had been there for years.
“When was the last time you were here?”
“Right before I went into the military.”
“So you were a SEAL, huh?” she asked as she slowly followed me through the doorway.
“Sounds about right,” I replied as I looked around to make sure there weren’t any squatters or wild animals that had taken up residence.
“So if BlaX only hires SEALs, shouldn’t you guys be good?”
I stopped searching and looked at her. Her eyes were earnest while she waited for an answer. Unfortunately, I didn’t have one. SEALs are supposed to be beyond reproach, but if I were to believe what Ty was telling me, it meant Blain had gone off the rails.
“I have no explanation for you. You’re telling me about a man I know nothing about. Blain was my mentor, and honestly, I’m having a hard time believing you.”
“So you’re calling me a liar?”
“I didn’t say that. Why would you lie?”
“Yes, why would I lie?”
“I don’t know. All I know is until I get to the bottom of things, you are much safer with me. So, tell me about yourself.”
“There is nothing important about me—just another way for them to make money. I’m not a whore by choice. Larry owns me. I’m his property.”
“With my help, no one is going to own you.”
She smiled. “There is no help for me—no redemption for the things that I’ve done.”
“Things you had no choice in. There is absolutely redemption for you,” I encouraged.
She rested her hand on my thigh. “I’m broken.”
Her eyes were solemn in her reply. I knew she had been destroyed, whittled down to this point, and it would take more than a few transient words to win her trust.
Ty
He didn’t seem like the rest. They were so quick to do what they had to do to save their own asses, a bunch of pussies, but not him. That deep, honey-coated voice was more than enough to make me wet. Make any girl wet, for that matter. Six feet of solid, finely chiseled muscles—so damn sexy. And those sea-blue eyes? I could stare at those eyes forever.
“Tell me about yourself,” I asked.
“Like you, there is nothing important about me.”
I chuckled. “Touché.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“Fine, I’m fucking lying! Is that what you wanna hear? What do I care? I don’t even know you,” I scoffed as I stood and walked about the room to stretch my legs.
“Did I fuckin’ say something to upset you, princess?” he scoffed.
“You’re a man. Men always say upsetting shit.”
I picked up the remnants of a used cigarette from the table, lighting it with the brass lighter lying next to it.
“Cigarettes aren't good for you, you know.”
I chuckled. “Really? I’m not worried about a little nicotine.”
Blowing a puff of smoke to the ceiling, I closed my eyes, trying to relax.
“I’m telling you—put that shit out,” he said as he opened the cupboards.
I took one last puff and smashed the rest of the cigarette on the table.
“They are coming for me. Just take me back to them. You’ve done enough.”
“You seem so calm about all this shit. Get mad!”
“I’ve already been through the five stages. I’m firmly planted in acceptance now,” I said as I looked over my shoulder to look through the window to the rustling bush, where moments later a skunk crawled out from beneath.
He shook his head, his anger sweeping through the room like a hurricane.
“You don’t even know me. Why are you so angry about my lot in life?” I asked, plopping down on the dusty brown couch.
He turned to me. “Why aren’t you?”
I stood back up and headed for the bathroom.
THUD!
The sound of my right wrist smacking hard on to the ground echoed throughout the room, followed by my loud wail of pain.
There I lay, sobbing on the cold floor, having tripped over a small footstool in the middle of the roo
m.
“Ty, let me help you.” Mace kneeled next to me and took my arm.
I didn’t even want to look at him. I was ashamed he had to see me this way. I was trash, and although I would never admit it, he was too good for a girl like me.
I shoved him and wiped the tears from my cheeks. Slowly, I pushed myself off the ground, putting all my weight on my left wrist.
“Ty, look at me,” Mace said, pulling me back toward him to look at my wrist. “It’s not sprained.”
Wide-eyed, he looked up from inspecting my wrist, and through our silent exchange, I knew everything I needed to know about him.
“You really should forget about me. I’m just a dead woman walking, better to stay as far away as you can.”
“Fuck that! I’ll kill anyone who lays a hand on you.”
I shook my head, massaging my throbbing wrist as I searched for another cigarette long enough to get a puff or two from.
THE CABIN
Mace
While she looked for what I could only assume was a cigarette, I searched the cupboards for anything viable to eat, as venturing into town would be suicide at this point. I found an old can of beans and decided to cook it outside on the old fire pit my family used to sit around to tell scary stories.
“The stars are so bright out here,” she said, looking up at the sky.
“Yeah, well, you don’t have all those city lights drowning them out,” I said, eating a spoonful of the beans.
“How are they?”
I smiled with the beans still in my mouth. “Disgusting.”
“Yeah, I didn’t wanna catch hell for saying it,” she said with a slight chuckle.
“So what are you going to do after all this is over?” I asked.
“Honestly, I don’t expect to make it out of this alive. If my father wants me dead, then that is what’s going to happen. Whether it’s today, tomorrow, or twenty years from now, if you’re on his list—then you’re on his list.”
“Now you’re on my list.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means—what are you going to do after all this is over; because it will be over.”
Depravity (The Captive Series Book 2) Page 4
