by S. Massery
Oops.
My body aches, but I register that I’m safe here. At least for the moment.
My life has narrowed to moments.
I peel off my soaked socks, then the dress that did a shitty job keeping me warm. The hem in the back is burned black, and parts of it flake off under my touch. It’s an inch or two shorter than the front. I add my underwear to the pile and turn on the shower. I crank it as hot as it’ll go and wait for steam to fill the room.
At some point, I stopped shivering. But my hair is a wet disaster plastered to my scalp, and my skin has pruned.
I carefully undo the Velcro straps around my ankle and remove the knife. I set it on the counter, then eye my bag. It’s zipped up tight, but I wouldn’t put snooping past Aiden or one of his goons.
I sift through it and find the tiny travel bottles of shampoo and conditioner. It seemed natural to pack light—like I’d be held hostage and then released, beaten and defeated.
I had been mentally preparing for a fight. Or punishment. Instead, my core tingles and pulses like I’ve never been touched before.
Well… I haven’t.
I touch my lips. He kissed me, and more… with a witness.
Ugh.
I step into the shower. The water is scalding, but I need the cleansing fire after what I just went through.
Priorities, Gemma.
I need to figure out what Aiden wants from me.
This was never…
Don’t be daft. This was always going to be a permanent thing. My father’s sorrow before he and Colin left echoes inside me.
They abandoned me.
I shake my head at the intrusive thought. No. Dad instilled in us that family comes first, always. That doesn’t mean leaving someone behind. I’m meant to save Colin—but not at the expense of my own life.
I’ll make my own plan of escape.
They can’t keep me in this building forever.
Or… can they?
Knowing Aiden, he might try.
We’re two stories above the restaurant. The view out the window—in both the bathroom and the bedroom—allows me to catch a glimpse of the buildings around us and the tiny street below.
If I want to get out, I need to get down more than nineteen flights without being seen.
Or sounding an alarm.
I finish washing my hair and scrub my body. My back stings when the soapy water rushes over it, but I can’t twist around far enough to see the damage. There’s a bit of blood in my ears, although the ringing has faded.
I’m glad my hearing returned.
Once I’m clean, I step out and get dressed as quickly as possible. The knife first, then the jeans and thick socks, a t-shirt, and the sweater over it. Last are my boots, still soggy, but I don’t have another choice.
I like layers. Colin always made fun of me for being eternally cold.
I had a disposable phone hidden in the bottom of my bag, but I don’t immediately spot it. My search becomes a bit more frantic.
How am I going to contact my father?
My own phone is probably a crispy shell now, unless the toilet miraculously saved it. I couldn’t risk taking it with me after I sent the last message.
This burner cell was my one lifeline to the Wests.
Someone bangs on the bathroom door, and I almost jump out of my skin.
“Open up,” Aiden says.
I shove everything back into my bag and stand, hesitating for a moment. Then I open it.
He leans against the frame, glowering at me. “What were you doing?”
“Showering. You told me to.”
He rolls his eyes. “Come on. You’ve had your solitary hour. It’s time to go.”
I sling my bag over my shoulder. Pain bursts across my skin, and I cringe.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” I lie. I can barely take a deep breath.
He watches me. He could be trying to figure out if I’m telling the truth or not.
He snatches my bag and tosses it on the bed, maneuvering me around. I stiffen with him at my back. His fingers are gentle, though, as he pushes my t-shirt and sweater up.
“Fuck, Gemma,” he groans. “You should’ve mentioned this.”
“I don’t even know what this is,” I snap. And then, quieter, “How bad is it?”
He ghosts over a spot on my lower back, near my spine. “A burn. It’s… not great. You’ll live, though.” He tugs my shirt back down and takes my hand. He grabs my bag with his other.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
He leads me down the hall, back to the elevator. “Up. I don’t trust you here.”
We glance around at the same time. This floor seems quiet.
“You don’t trust me here,” I repeat, putting the emphasis on a different word. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust me here, on this floor. I’m the issue.
Once we’re in the elevator, he releases me and fishes something out of his pocket.
I suck my lower lip between my teeth. My phone—the burner, not the cell phone. Which means he went through my bag. I knew it, but the confirmation is… unpleasant.
“Give that—” I reach for it.
He tuts, sticking it back in his pocket.
“Are you going to tell me anything?”
Aiden grins. He’s thoroughly enjoying this. “No.”
I narrow my eyes, fighting a wave of exhaustion. I just want today to be over. “Why did you tell your dad you claimed me?”
He glances at me, then back to the closed doors. “Truth?”
“Please.”
“I knew you would belong to me when I found you crying on the curb three years ago.”
We jolt as the elevator zooms upward.
I’m dumbfounded. Then?
No.
“Come on, Gemma. You either come with me or I’ll let my cousins do what they’ve always dreamed about doing to a West princess.”
The door dings and opens to reveal a small lobby-like entrance. There’s only one door ahead of us, and he unlocks it with a keycard. He steps aside to reveal a huge apartment, then leaves me standing in the elevator with his threat hanging above me.
My legs carry me out. Seems like I have a sense of self-preservation after all… Well, my brain does.
I’m not so sure about my heart.
3
Aiden
I close my eyes, and Wilder’s death plays out in front of me again.
The crack of a gunshot, the spray of blood. They got him in the chest, slightly off-center. The guests screamed and ducked, hiding in the pews. It’s the natural response to fear: to flinch away from it.
Luca and I didn’t. Violence moves in our veins the same way blood does.
He went after the bride, Amelie, and I located the shooter. They were in the choir section on the second floor, but by the time I got there, they were gone.
It had Lawrence West written all over it, but we had no proof. The place was in chaos. We shuffled everyone to my father’s estate in Beacon Hill. We’d spent a lot of time there in the summers—everyone escapes Manhattan in the summer—and the wedding party had been preparing it for the reception for most of the week.
It ended up being a refuge for our shocked guests.
My father told us that Wilder hadn’t made it. They were on their way to the hospital, but he died in the ambulance. The rage I felt was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It lived inside me, festering for weeks.
It didn’t help that some boneheaded cousins sought immediate gratification and attacked the Wests. They, in turn, tried to intimidate us on our own property. No one close to Lawrence, the head of their family—no one under his direct orders would be so stupid. Jameson cracked down on our family, too.
Everything was tense.
I followed the trail from loose-lipped acquaintances and business partners to seedy bars. The Wests were practically untouchable, but I wasn’t looking for the law to side with me. I was looking for enough evidence to
exact my revenge.
The only way to pay for Wilder’s death was through blood.
Then finally, finally, someone gave me a valuable piece of information.
Colin and Kai had been training at the shooting range for months. Both of them ran into Wilder a week before his death and threatened to end the DeSantis line. Cocky teenagers running their mouths is what it was brushed off as.
Wilder was the heir, after all. He was going to take over for my father. He was poised to take control of everything—and he wasn’t meek. He would’ve gone after the entire city, pushing the Wests to the suburbs. Greedy or optimistic… I couldn’t say which he was.
Smart, though. Devious.
He wanted to rule in an official capacity.
We played two different games, and Wilder was too confident in his safety. In his power. He might’ve let his plan slip a little, and in doing so painted a large target on his back.
No one could tell me where Colin and Kai were on my brother’s wedding day.
More proof, but too flimsy.
There’s a scuffing noise behind me, and I’m on my feet with my gun out before I’ve fully registered the movement. My apartment is nearly infallible—but that doesn’t mean people haven’t broken in before. Usually, assholes wanting something from me… or one of my brothers.
Just one brother.
I’ve learned that nothing is truly infallible.
But on the other end of my firearm is Gemma West, her eyes open impossibly wide. She opens her mouth and then closes it, and I can’t tell if she wants to scream at me or pretend I’m still not pointing a gun at her.
I stow it back in its concealed holster and go to her.
She backs away from me.
“I do love a chase,” I say.
She shakes her head but stops moving. Good.
“What time is it?” she asks.
“Almost nine.”
She slept for fourteen hours and still seems exhausted. When I found her in that house, she was more ghost than girl. And her eyes held a haunted look, as much as she tried to hide it. I recognized it because it was a mirror of my frozen expression for a solid month after my first kill.
Gemma is soft where I’m hard. Quiet and meek. But she didn’t go down without a fight, I’ll give her that. And running back into the burning house took courage.
It scared me half to death. How someone could care that much about a structure that they’d risk their life for it. If this place caught on fire, I’d walk out with nothing but the clothes on my back.
“When’s the last time you slept?” I ask, if only to curb my line of thought. “Before today.”
She shrugs and glances away.
A better question occurs to me. “When’s the last time you ate?”
Her stomach growls in response, and I smile. Food, at least, I can do. My parents were no help in the cooking department, but I learned to take matters into my own hands when I moved into my own space. What began as a terrible experiment transformed into something fun.
She follows me into the kitchen.
This apartment takes up half this floor and a quarter of the one above it. Once upon a time, Wilder lived above me. Dad liked to keep all of us close, and I think he bought into the idea that a skyscraper was easier to control than a neighborhood. That’s not to say he doesn’t have spies all over the city—and beyond. If he wanted to raise an army, he could easily do so.
But it certainly takes less energy to keep us all in a one-block radius.
I fill a pot with water, and try not to focus too hard on Gemma. She’s an enigma. Something about her called out to me when I first met her, and she managed to tattoo herself in my brain. I’ve kept a tight lid on my fixation, but having her in my apartment is almost too much.
She slides up onto the counter and pulls one leg up, wrapping her arms around it.
Her blonde hair is wavy—something I don’t think I knew about her. In public, it’s always been ironed straight or pinned up.
I like this. It’s not much of a difference; just another layer that’s peeled away.
“What are you making?” Her voice is low and haunting.
I glance over my shoulder. “Spaghetti.”
She frowns. “Why are we here, Aiden?”
I step away from the stove and lean against the counter opposite her. I can easily recall the way she squirmed beneath my fingers, and my heartbeat picks up.
“The doc checked your back while you slept.” I raise the cream he gave me, then return it to its spot on the counter. I had to carefully lift her so he could wrap gauze around her torso, but I keep that quiet. She was putty in my arms—both asleep and when I had her pressed to the wall. What I wouldn’t give to do that again.
Now isn’t the time.
The family doctor needed a good amount of persuasion to even look at her. He eventually did—there might’ve been a threat to kill everyone he loves if he didn’t, but Gemma doesn’t need to know that.
She doesn’t need to know a lot of things.
Like why she’s here.
“This will help with the pain,” I say.
“And my phone?” She raises her eyebrows. “And my life? What’ll help with that?”
I step closer, stoked by her dramatics. “Your life is mine.”
She keeps her knees pinched together, and I notice she’s still wearing her boots. Even when she passed out in my bed.
I grab her boot and yank it forward. “Why did you sleep in these?”
She cringes, and my curiosity piques. She doesn’t stop me from unlacing it and dragging it off. Such a simple action, but I find myself savoring it. I drop the boot and try not to get fucking turned on that she has a knife strapped to her ankle.
It’s half covered by her sock—and, I’ll admit, an impressive hide. The leather of her boot made it nearly impossible to feel.
She snatches the hilt and yanks it free, pointing it at me.
My attention goes from the trembling tip, hovering inches in front of my nose, to her face. I have to take a moment to register the emotion whipping through me. It’s glee. It’s the ever-present violence—and the challenge she presents.
“I hope you’re prepared to use that,” I say.
Her fingers tighten. “I am. Let me go.”
I nod and drop her ankle. The sudden shift of her weight sends her off-balance, and she slides forward, off the counter.
As much as I’d love this to play out, part of me is concerned she might actually stab me. I grab her wrist, twisting it until she cries out. The knife falls to the floor between us, and I spin her, putting my palm between her shoulder blades and lifting her wrist. The pressure folds her in half. Her face hits the counter. I’m careful not to touch the burn when I lean over her.
“Maybe one day I’ll show you how to use a knife with intention.”
Her foot stomps down on my toes, and I groan. I only removed one of her boots. She digs her heel down, putting all her weight behind it. Damn, it hurts. But the pain only serves to wake me up—and I have to wonder if she likes this, too.
“What’s your goal, princess?” I move my foot out of range. It isn’t like me to wander around without shoes—lesson learned around this girl. “To spy and send information back to daddy dearest? To bring home my head?”
Dark thoughts, indeed. I’ve been turning over the puzzle of why she’s here all day, to no avail.
She just… gave herself up.
Who does that?
“Why didn’t you go with the rest of the women in your family?”
I’d never seen such a large exodus of West women. It was impossible to miss, even if they thought they were being sly about it.
It’s in my nature to keep an eye on things.
On everything.
Gemma presses her forehead to the counter, giving in to my hold. “I couldn’t.”
I grunt and haul her up. “I’m beginning to think your family doesn’t deserve you, Ms. West.”
She’s eager to put distance between us. I can tell in the wideness of her eyes, the way her lips are parted. The predator in me wants her to run—because the chase is half the fun. But right now, she’s not at full capacity.
I box her in and lean close. “I’ll figure you out, Gemma. That’s a promise.”
She stiffens. “I just want to pay my penance and go home.”
That brings me up short. Penance for what?
“Your water is boiling,” she says suddenly.
I automatically glance behind me, and she slips under my arm.
Damn it.
4
Gemma
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Last night, he guided me into a bedroom and disappeared, and it wasn’t long before I fell asleep. I have a vague memory of him lifting me into his arms, but the crash I was anticipating happened sooner than I expected—and it left me no choice but to surrender to his mercy.
Luckily, I didn’t wake up tied to a bed or surrounded by sex workers.
I stomp upstairs, and I breathe easier with some distance between us. But I can’t stay here forever. Not when my hunger is so bad I can barely stand. My stomach cramps, and I press my palm to my abdomen.
I yank off my other boot and throw it into the room Aiden put me in. My meager possessions are still in the bag on top of the dresser, but the thought of unpacking nauseates me.
Spaghetti doesn’t sound bad—and that’s why I’m questioning what’s wrong with me.
Eating with my enemy.
I wouldn’t have thought we would end up here. I cross to the window and look out. Rolling clouds block out the stars, casting a dark gloom over the city. Any higher and we’d be inside the clouds.
Sighing, I leave my boots behind—sans knife—and go back downstairs.
The apartment must’ve been designed with an industrial theme in mind. There are metal rafters visible through the drywall, and besides the monochromatic color scheme, everything is bare. No photos, no extra decorations.
It’s like he lives here as a visitor.
I go downstairs and pause on the bottom step, focusing on Aiden in the kitchen. His presence is too much. Impossible to ignore. I let my gaze sweep over him. The way he moves quietly and efficiently. He is so distinctly different from any man I’ve ever met.
