Darkest Night

by Megan Erickson

  “What do you mean by ‘code’?” Fiona asked.

  “As you said, each guy was a color, right? Well, these girls they want back are all animals. I noticed them mentioning Pink Zebra, but I’d assumed the code was for a product they wanted, not a specific girl for a specific man. So whoever Zebra is, she’s been requested by the guy who goes by Pink. Dade’s right. They’re bringing back their favorites.”

  Fiona’s heart stopped. She remembered now. White had called her…“Lion,” she whispered. “My hair…he referred to me as a lion.”

  Roarke nodded, eyes sweeping her face. “Yes, there are several references to locating the white lion.”

  “Where is the party?” she asked.

  “We can’t figure that out,” Roarke said. “Dade doesn’t know, and he’s trying, but what we really need is to get a lead and follow someone there.”

  “What about the other girls?” She dared to ask the question as the sinking feeling in her gut deepened.

  Roarke opened his mouth, but Jock cut him off. “No.”

  Roarke whipped his head to face him. “What do you mean, no?”

  Jock only glared, his jaw tight.

  “What?” Fiona asked, not understanding.

  “Jock,” Wren said, “what is it?”

  Roarke and Jock were in a stare down, communicating something silently, a battle of wills over…what? Fiona wasn’t sure. Until finally Jock swore, smashing his fist into the arm of his chair. Jock looked away first.

  But Roarke didn’t look victorious when he craned his neck to peer up at Fiona. “They have all the girls already. They are waiting to find you and then the party starts.”

  Fiona’s heart bottomed out. Oh God, the girls. The other girls were currently in their clutches, probably scared as shit. And what was worse—they knew what was going to happen. They knew the pain and the terror, and they were just waiting. Waiting for her. And she was selfishly hiding.

  She pressed her fist to her mouth as tears burned the backs of her eyes. She turned furiously to Jock, needing to yell and scream, and he was the easiest target. “What, you didn’t want Roarke to tell me the truth? You wanted to keep that from me?”

  “Because I knew you’d get upset,” he fired back. “Dade got in your fucking head, and now you want to use yourself as bait to save those women.”

  “Wait, what?” Wren said. “No way. No.”

  “Dade suggested that?” Roarke said.

  “I’ll do it,” Fiona said, still glaring at Jock because anger was the glue holding her together. “Help get me out of this townhouse and find a way for Chamberlain and his friends to locate me. I’ll lead you to the party, and we’ll rescue everyone.”

  “No problem. Let’s just steal the Eiffel Tower while we’re at it and fly to the moon,” Roarke muttered. Wren smacked him.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, what is it about you women wanting to do the most dangerous shit?” Erick said. “Marisol entered the enemy’s house posing as a caterer. Wren used herself as bait to catch Darren. You just want to waltz into a goddamn sex ring party. What the fuck, for real? Next mission, no one is valentine or bait.”

  “You want to know where this is, right?” Fiona asked. “They’ll all be in one place. We can rescue the other girls and arrest the men. And do whatever computer voodoo you all want to do. There. Done.”

  Jock’s eyes bulged out of his head. “Are you fucking serious? And what if we somehow lose you? What if they hurt you the minute they grab you? There are so many goddamn variables, and I’m not okay with any fucking one of them!” he roared.

  “I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like it!” she yelled back, her hands trembling where they rested on her thighs in fists. “This is what I want to do. I want control. I want to go in and face them and watch them go down. That’s what I want, and you don’t get to sit there and take that away from me!” She ended on a screech and the entire room went still and silent. Her heart was racing, and she felt nervous sweat drip down her neck, but still she held her ground. These guys were the best, right? They could perform miracles. They’d taken down Darren. They could get her in and out of this party safely. Or she’d go down trying.

  Finally, Sundance broke the silence. He inched forward on his belly and whined, clearly uneasy with the tension in the room. Fiona lowered her hand to him and he eagerly nosed it, his eyes big and round and apprehensive. “Sorry for yelling, buddy,” she murmured.

  “Fine.” Jock’s voice rumbled across the room. “You want the control, we’ll give you the control.”

  She waited to see encouragement in his eyes, strength, anything to give her something to go on, but all she saw was anger, swirling there like a tornado. He was cutting her off. She could see it plain as day, and it felt like he’d lopped off her arm.

  All she could do was swallow and nod. “Thank you.”

  “You sure?” That was Wren.

  “Positive,” Fiona said.

  Roarke began to talk, laying out how they’d get her noticed, how they’d protect her, and what they’d do once she was at the party. A lot of the words went over her head, and she knew they’d explain all she needed later. So for now, she got another cup of coffee, more cake, and didn’t look at Jock. It hurt too much.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  This was over. It had to be. He’d told her there was nothing good in his core, and she’d figured it out. He could see it now in her eyes, in the way she looked at him. He could only hope that, after all this was over, she wouldn’t regret letting him touch her. He knew he’d carry the memory of her for the rest of his life.

  Fiona wanted to act fast. She seemed frantic about the other women, and Jock wished she didn’t have such a big heart. Why couldn’t she be selfish? Hide away and let this all blow over? Let them find another way? If they had more time, they could look harder at the codes on the message boards, on the shopping lists. They could crack where the party was. They could…protect her.

  All Jock wanted to do was protect her.

  “So what does Chamberlain and his crew think about the guy who tried to take her in New York?” Erick tossed a couple of salted peanuts in his mouth while they waited for Fiona to get ready upstairs with help from Wren and Marisol.

  “Don’t know. They’ll never find him,” Jock said.

  “Never find him?” Erick frowned.

  Jock shook his head. “Got a guy.”

  “You got a guy that takes care of bodies?” Erick’s voice went shrill at the end.

  Jock just stared at him.

  Erick blinked a couple of times and sighed. “Never mind. I’m not surprised.”

  Roarke turned from where he was fiddling with something on the kitchen counter. He held up a half-inch-long metal cylinder. “This is her tracker. Easiest place to implant it will be in her scalp right at the back of her neck. Her hair will cover the cut.”

  Once she came downstairs, she’d get a tracker embedded beneath her skin, and Jock didn’t feel one ounce of regret for the pain she’d feel. He wanted to know where she was at all times. “The plan,” he said. “Let’s go over it.”

  Roarke lifted his brows. “Oh? So you’re the crew leader now, huh?”

  “Last time, you led because it was your woman. This time I lead—” He cut himself off and gritted his teeth. “This time I lead.”

  Erick opened his mouth as if he wanted to ask a question, but Jock shot him a glare so quick that Erick’s jaw shut with an audible clack.

  “You’re still on their secret forum, right?” Jock asked Roarke. The man nodded. “Good. So you post asking for more information on the White Lion. Once they give it to you, slip that you’ve seen her around town. When they press for details, you’ll tell them she’s always at Trikes Coffee over on Sixth every day around three. You know because you work across the street. She’s hot and caught your eye. Got it?”

  Roarke nodded again.

  “I want a list of every animal and every color mentioned on the forum. Get Dade’s help if you
have to. I want to try to link every color to one of these men and identify as many women as we can. How many women we looking at?”

  “Twelve. Fiona would make a baker’s dozen.” Erick tapped on his laptop’s track pad. “Seems like they’re getting antsy about finding her. Chamberlain won’t give up.”

  Jock curled his lip. “That’s what we’re banking on.”

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the men turned to look. Wren and Marisol came down first, Fiona after them. She wore a pair of jeans and a soft top—casual sweatshirt material that somehow looked elegant as it hung off her shoulder. She wore Converse shoes. And that rock on her finger. She looked like a happily engaged woman about to grab coffee with friends, except her eyes were troubled.

  Jock didn’t say a word. He stayed motionless because he was worried that if he moved a muscle, his body would take over for his brain and his only actions would involve locking Fiona in the bedroom and not letting her go. So he stayed put and listened to Roarke talk to her about the plans. She nodded, eyes wide, and he could see she was trying to be brave. While Roarke implanted the tracker in the base of her skull and Marisol gave her a couple of stitches, Fiona kept her eyes on Jock.

  He still didn’t say anything, but he held her gaze.

  “Are you sure about this?” Roarke asked.

  Fiona nodded. “It’s for the other girls. I mean, it’s kind of for me, but I can’t sit by and know there are other women like me suffering. So yes, I’m sure, even if I’m scared.”

  Jock wanted to tell her this was killing him. He wanted to say he was sorry, he wanted to kiss her, he wanted to do a million things but he couldn’t bring himself to do a single one. He felt out of control and he hated that feeling—the heavy beat of his heart in his chest, his damp palms.

  When Fiona grabbed her purse and gave a round of good-byes, Jock’s gaze drifted over her shoulder. She didn’t come to him, and he didn’t go to her. She walked to the garage door.

  “Jock?” Wren whispered.

  He still didn’t move.

  Fiona looked at him one last time and he stared at the wall in front of him. He felt her disappointment, her hurt; it thickened the air around him and his heart, and he was surprised he didn’t collapse under the weight of it.

  The door opened and shut.

  Marisol hissed, “You’re a fucking dumbass.”

  He moved to glare at her, and that one movement unfroze him because he was already moving toward the door to follow Fiona.

  * * *

  Fiona’s heart felt like it was breaking. Jock had looked right through her, as if they hadn’t shared everything, as if he hadn’t promised he’d care for her. He’d told her he didn’t want to talk about his past, and she’d prodded and lost him. So that was that.

  Despite all of it, she knew she wouldn’t want anyone else at her back. Jock was nothing if not thorough and duty-bound.

  She started to pull the garage door shut behind her but something stopped it. She tugged again and then turned around to see what was the matter.

  Jock stood in the doorway, his large frame blocking out the light from inside the house and his hand firmly on the doorknob. She tugged again. “I’m trying to shut the door.”

  “We need to talk.”

  She stared at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Talk,” he barked at her.

  Oh hell no. “I think we’ve both said all we’ve wanted to say.”

  He pulled the door right out of her hand, shoved his way through, and shut it behind him so they were alone in the garage. He towered above her, and when she stepped back, he moved forward. He never took his eyes off her. “Have we?” he said, his voice deceptively soft, and the tone sent a chill down her spine.

  She swallowed. “I thought we had, and now might be too late.”

  “Maybe but I still got things to say.”

  “And I’m just supposed to listen now that you finally decided you have something to tell me?”

  His brows dipped, and his chin jerked down. “I—Will you please listen to what I have to say?”

  He’d asked and said please, in that voice, the one that he used when she called him J.

  She nodded. “Okay then.”

  His shoulders dropped a bit, but he didn’t speak right away. He stared down at the floor, and his lips twitched, as if he was mouthing words. It was one of the most endearing things she’d ever seen. He wanted to get it right, her big, silent man who hated full sentences. He was trying for her. If that didn’t make her heart start stitching back together, then she didn’t know what would.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said, and just those two words made her knees weak. “For what I said last night. I—” He winced and then said under his breath, “Fuck, I hate talking.”

  “Keep going.” She didn’t want to move for fear that she might spook him.

  “I said I was over my past, and I wasn’t lying. But I didn’t know better. Lived this way for so long that I didn’t realize I’d just grown to live with the…” He fisted his hand in his shirt over his heart. Hard. “Anger. It’s so deep in my DNA now that it’s me, who I am, and I didn’t stop to think that my past still lived there. I’d let it fester, and it’s like a cancer that’ll never kill me, but I’ll live with forever.”

  She could barely breathe. He’d said all that. Just vomited it all out right there on the oil-stained garage floor of the townhouse they’d lived in for a week. She hadn’t known he was capable of speaking all those words in succession, let alone baring that much of his soul.

  “I want you to get better.” His voice was dredged up over broken glass, or maybe that was the ragged edges of his heart. “I want you happy. Maybe I’m not made of dirt the more you dig, but I’m sure as hell made of scar tissue and fucked-up shit. I can’t even…can’t even talk to you about why I’m so fucked up. Don’t want that in your head. Some days, can’t believe you touched me, and other days, I think I never should have let you. But I was weak. And I love you, Fiona. In a fucked-up way with whatever real emotions I have left in me. Not much is there, but all of it loves you.”

  She gripped his shirt, needing to anchor herself, needing to know this was real and not a dream. But no, he was right there. This was Jock’s smell, and his skin, and his soft, familiar T-shirt. These were his blue eyes on hers and his full lips mouthing those words in that deep, syrupy voice.

  Tears slid down her cheeks and he watched them but stayed silent. He’d dropped everything—all the walls, all the fortifications. This was J, spilling out his heart to her. And she refused to believe there wasn’t much of it. Absolutely refused. It was big and warm and beat solidly beneath her palm as she laid it over his chest.

  He loved her. He—big, dependable, loyal, and strong Jock—loved her, a woman with a messed-up past and not much to show for it besides a shoebox full of photos and a dog.

  She’d never known how much she wanted to hear those words until she met Jock. She’d never wanted to hear them from anyone else, and she hadn’t thought she would as long as she lived. She’d earned that, his love. She’d fucking earned it.

  He slid his hand into her hair, his hot palm cupping her cheek. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and her temple. “It’s going to kill me to watch you do this. But I will because it’s important to you. Sorry I can’t be what you want, but I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you’re happy, even if I’m not by your side.”

  She was tired of him speaking, something she never thought she’d feel. She reached up, gripped his face, and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was full of salty tears as Jock slid his tongue inside. She moaned into his mouth and pressed closer to him. He held her tightly, his kiss pouring desperation and love down her throat. When he finally broke the kiss, he pressed his forehead to hers, panting slightly.

  He stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets, and she could see the walls coming up, the ice freezing over in his eyes. “You need to get going.”

  She did, but she wasn’t
ready. Not now that he’d dropped all this on her.

  “Jock,” she said, the tears coming faster now. “J.”

  He flinched at the name, like he always did, and she wanted one last thing before she left. “Tell me who called you J,” she asked. “Someone in your past did, right?”

  The ice was moving fast, and he was nearly frozen over until he blurted out one word. “Brother.”

  “Your brother?”

  He nodded and took another step back, toward the door. Even as she asked, she knew the answer. “Where is he now?”

  Jock opened the door. “He’s dead.”

  Two words. Two words that gave her a glimpse inside. How much more would he give her if they had the time? How much pain could she take away if only he let her?

  “Good luck, Fiona. Remember you got us at your back,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He gave her a nod, ice cold, and shut the door.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The coffee had been a bad idea. Maybe Fiona would be happy about it later, when she needed to keep her wits about her and not crash. But right now, the caffeine was surging through her system, making her hands shake. She’d already spilled it on her hands three times as she walked quickly away from Trikes Coffee Shop. She truly did like it there. The one barista was a nice college kid who flirted with her, and they had really great cranberry orange scones. Maybe she should have bought one. Would she have the chance to get another?

  The back of her neck itched where the tracker was embedded, but she didn’t dare touch it. Its irritation comforted her. That was her link to the crew, and even if she wasn’t sure she’d get out of this party in one piece, then at least the tracker would lead them to the other women.

  The memories were coming back now. A few names, a few voices. Women she’d long forgotten about—blocked out, because it was bad enough she had to relive her own memories—she didn’t want to relive others’, too. But they had been there. Young, like her, scared out of their minds, drugged and bruised. As far as she’d been aware during her time in captivity, they’d let all the women go. It sounded crazy, but it just went to show how fucking untouchable their captors all thought they were. They’d been right, at least so far. But not anymore.