by Evie Monroe
Breathing heavily, I straightened up and crept toward the door.
As I did, I heard someone—it sounded like the leader they called Blaze—bark out, “Get her. Bring her up to her father’s office. Now.”
I backed away as the door flew open and my two guards filed in, predatory looks on their faces. I struggled to get away as they easily overpowered me, each man taking an arm. They dragged me out into the corridor and back into the elevator. We climbed slowly up to the top floor in a tense silence.
As they dragged me to my father’s office, my eyes darting about wildly, hoping to catch sight of Nix one last time. But the hallways were dark and empty.
They threw me down on the chair across from my father’s desk. His chair was occupied, but this time, by Blaze. He had his big, dirty boots on the desk while his eyes followed me, a curl of amusement on his lips.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked him, my voice quivering.
He laced his fingers on his lap in front of him and said, almost nicely, “What did I tell you about questions? Don’t talk, bitch. You’re better looking when you don’t talk.”
Behind me, one of my captors snickered.
Blaze looked over my head at them and his smile faded. “Leave us,” he barked.
They snapped to, recruits under the thumb of a drill sergeant. I heard the sound of retreating footsteps., and a moment later, the door clicked closed behind me.
The leader dropped his feet to the ground and slid to the edge of the chair. Pressed his palms flat on the desk, his eyes not leaving mine. “The thing about Phoenix Nash,” he said, very quietly, with a control that made me think he had to be insane. “He and I are in a bit of a friendly competition.”
I stared at him, doubtful.
He smiled. “Okay, not so friendly, actually. You see. I don’t like your boyfriend very much. In fact, I hate that fucking prick.” He growled that last word, making my fingers tighten in a white-knuckled grip on the arms of the chair.
“I don’t care,” I said to him. “Why would you think I care what you think of him?”
He spit out a dismissive laugh. Checked his fingernails in a leisurely way. “Sure, you don’t. But here’s the thing. I pride myself on thinking there’s not a thing Phoenix Nash can have that I can’t.”
He rose slowly from his chair and came around the desk as it dawned on me what he was saying. He sat on the edge of the desk and leaned over, leering at me as his callused finger grazed its way up the bare skin of my arm.
I flinched.
“Don’t be afraid, darlin’,” he said, reaching for his belt buckle. My stomach clenched as he started to undo his pants. He unfastened the button, drew down the zipper on his fly. The front of his jeans strained. He was already hard, getting off on this. “Bet a hot little thing like you loves to suck dick.”
Shaking my head, I pushed myself as far as I could to the back of the chair. “If you make me put my mouth on that, I will bite it off.”
He stopped reaching into his pants, and suddenly threw his head back and laughed, long and hard. “You’re saucy, aren’t you, little girl? I can see why Phoenix likes you.” He reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol, which he rested on his thigh. “But you will, baby. Or I’ll put a fucking bullet in your head.”
I dug my fingernails into my thighs, willing myself to keep from shaking, from showing fear. I tilted my chin up to him and said, “You can’t. My father—”
He leaned forward. “Your father can’t do shit. He belongs to me. Just like you do. So you’d better do what I say. And right now, I want you to suck me dry, or I’ll put a gun in your mouth instead.”
Trembling, I said, “You were going to do that whether or not I gave you a blow job. So I don’t think I will.”
His smile of amusement faltered. He picked up his gun, cocked it, and then, very slowly, pointed the gun right between my eyes. Then he dragged it down, over the tip of my nose, and brought it to my lips.
Everything inside me tensed up. I closed my eyes and flashes of my life scrolled before my eyes. Dancing, shopping with my mother, my father teaching me tennis during happier times, being with Nix. Suddenly, they were gone. My mind was a blank slate. All I could feel was overwhelming fear. This was the end.
Blaze breathed, “I’m a fair man. So, I’ll give you a second chance. You have about ten seconds to change your mind.”
He set his gun on the desk behind him, then reached for my shoulder, yanking me toward him. With his other hand, he tugged down his pants, bringing out his enormous, hard cock. I winced as he leaned down and said, “You’ll suck it, and you’ll like it. If you don’t smile the whole fucking time you’re going to meet your maker a lot sooner than you think.”
I straightened, looking him right in the eye. “Fuck you.”
Pure rage flashed in his eyes. He brought the back of his hand up, ready to bring it down across my face. I braced myself, my sweaty hands wrapping around the arms of the chair.
Just then, the sounds of a small army cut the tension in the room, boots marching in the hallway outside the door. Voices, muffled. Blaze heard the commotion, too. He stiffened.
Suddenly, the sharp rap of someone knocking on the door. “Blaze. They’re here,” a voice called through the door.
My pulse quickened. He’s here. Phoenix is here, for me.
Blaze muttered a curse under his breath and pushed his cock back into his jeans, zipping the fly, tucking in his black t-shirt, and buckling his belt.
“Put them in the next room. Give me a minute,” he called.
He still watched me closely, noting the flush of excitement that crawled over me the moment I heard the news.
“Your boyfriend’s here, huh?” he said to me with a scowl. His finger trailed its way down my cheek, to my collarbone, lifting the strap of my tank top and sliding it down, exposing my breast. My nipple puckered in the cool air. “Mmm-mmm-mmm.”
He licked his lips, gazing longingly at my bare breast.
“Those are some pretty tits, girl. Maybe I’ll make him watch while I fuck you. I’ll take you while you scream and I come all over your pretty face. Then I think I’ll let some of the other boys take a turn with you. How do you think he’d like that?”
He stared at me, waiting for an answer. But this felt like my last chance. My last chance to fight and do something to get us free. So I took a deep breath, jumped to my feet and shouted at the top of my lungs. “PHOENIX NASH! Get out of here! It’s a trap! It’s a trap! It’s--”
I couldn’t get any more out. The second I began to scream, Blaze grabbed his gun. Before I could think, he brought the butt of it down, hard, onto the side of my skull.
I felt the ground rushing up to meet me. I wanted to brace myself, but I was too dizzy and disoriented, not knowing up from down. My body felt like it was falling through space, my vision clouded and bended, and pain screamed through my skull.
Blackness enveloped me, and the last thought that went through my broken head was that I hadn’t done enough. Now Nix would be captured and killed, too. We’d never be allowed to leave here alive.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Phoenix
I found Michael Anderson’s building in the dark, empty streets of an office park. It was well after business hours, when even workaholics had the sense to go home. Not even the moon made an appearance, hidden behind a mass of clouds. I waited at the pre-arranged meeting place in a nearby parking lot, watching the moon rising high over the bay as more and more Cobras started to arrive.
As they all rallied together, laughing and smoking, I stood in a tight circle with Cullen and the other men, talking low.
“If the two of us go in there alone, you know we’ll be signing our death warrant,” he said coolly, taking a drag of his cigarette.
“Yeah. I know,” I said. “Our only chance of getting Liv out of there is to out man them.”
“And we can’t do that,” Zain said. “They have more than double our numbers.”
“So we use the element of surprise. This is what we’re going to do. One of the Cobras has a brother who worked in Anderson’s building. There’s a side service entrance and he has a key card for it. Jet and Zain are going to take a few of the other Cobras and go in the side door. They’ll leave the door propped open.” He looked at me. “You and I will go in the front and meet with them. Drake and Hart. I’m wearing a tracker so Hart can let Jet and Zain know exactly where in the building we are. You two will also stay out here and be our lookouts. As soon as shit starts going down, we’ll need your help.”
Every person in the circle nodded.
After a few minutes, Cullen called everyone to silence and stood up. “All right. You guys know why you’re here. Hell’s Fury has declared war on us, and this is retaliation. We’re going into that building, and we’re going to take back what’s ours, once and for all! Make sure you’re locked and loaded. This ain’t gonna be pretty,” he announced.
“We should save our ammo. Just burn the fucking place to the ground, with all of them in there,” someone mumbled from the back of the group.
I stood up. “No. Don’t just go in there with your guns blazing. There’s an innocent girl in there and if anything happens to her, I’m going to come after your ass.”
I frowned hard as Cullen nodded next to me. “If you’ve been called on to go up there with Zain and Drake, I want you to wait for their signal before shooting. If you’re here on the ground, wait with Jet and Hart before going in. Got it?”
The men all nodded. Cullen looked over at me, exhaled smoke from his cigarette, and punctuated his orders by flicking the butt onto the ground. “Let’s go.”
I nodded at the other guys and got on my bike. Gunned the engine, nodding a goodbye to my boys. Then, Cullen and I rode to the front of Anderson’s building. We got off our bikes at the same time and I loosened the strap on my helmet and hung it on my bike. I reached into the saddle bag on my bike and pulled out a backpack with the contact information.
It was bullshit. They’d get our contact information over our dead bodies. There was never any doubt of that.
The backpack also contained two of our back-up weapons, fully-loaded Glocks.
Turning toward the building, I looked up at the windows, wondering if Olivia was in there. If she was in trouble. If she was waiting for me to save her.
I walked to the revolving doors with Cullen at my side. As we strode across the wide courtyard, he said, under his breath, “Guarantee you there are about fifty Hell’s Fury behind those mirrored windows, watching us right now.”
“Then I should fucking give them the finger.”
He chuckled softly. “Say you’ll only hand over the contacts to Blaze himself, once you know that Olivia’s safe.”
“Got it.”
We pushed through the revolving door to a large, several-story-high lobby. There were escalators on either side, rising up to a second-floor catwalk. Large, multicolored flags hung from the rafters. I noticed all these things briefly, because a moment later my eyes fell on two men standing in the exact center of the lobby, in front of an enormous fountain, watching us.
I knew the older of the two men by name.
The man with the graying beard was Jig, as in jigsaw. He’d gotten that name because his face was missing a few pieces. A few teeth, but more noticeably, an eye. He wore a patch, like a fucking pirate. He was a good fifty years old at least, a grandfather compared to some of these men. He was a tough old son of a bitch, though. He stared us down as we approached, a snarl on his grizzled, fucked-up face.
The name of the younger, taller, muscled guy, I didn’t know, but I’d seen him around before. He still had acne all over his face and was wearing a scowl like he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
They both had automatic weapons slung over their shoulders, their fingers on the triggers. They didn’t flinch as we approached.
“Give us your weapons,” Jig said, stretching his palm flat in front of us.
We knew they’d ask. Cullen and I reached behind our backs and handed the guns over.
They walked around us, prodding and poking us with the butts of their guns to see if we were packing anything else. “You got any more?” he said, eyeing us suspiciously.
We shook our heads.
He motioned with his chin to the bag in my hands. “What’s that?”
“It’s for Blaze. It’s what he wanted.”
Jig shook his head. “Aw, Nash. We all know you ain’t gonna just hand over what we want all easy like that.” He grinned, sporting his missing teeth. “What’s in the fucking bag?”
“Like I said,” I ground out, my voice louder now. “We’re only going to give it to Blaze once we know the girl is safe.”
“Well, let me just take a peek, then.” He snatched at it, but I pulled it away.
Cullen took the bag from my hands and threw it at them. “Just fucking take it,” he muttered.
Jig unzipped the bag and peered inside. “Well, look at that.”
He pulled out one of the Glocks and turned it on his finger. The kid shook his head and said, “Fuck me. You assholes.”
“Rather not,” Cullen said, digging his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“And this is no surprise,” Jig said, turning the backpack inside out and shaking it in front of us. “There’s no information in here. Who the fuck do you think you’re dealing with?”
I stared them down, a challenge in my eyes. “We told you, it’s what he wanted,” I growled. “By calling us here this way he’s begging to get lead in his face.”
“In case you didn’t notice, boy, we’re the ones with the firepower right now,” Jig snarled. “You’re the one who’s gonna get lead in his face. And I’m gonna smile the whole time.”
“No contacts?” The kid’s voice cracked. He looked at the bag. “Well, what do we do now, Jig? We shoot ‘em right here?”
The kid fidgeted. I got the feeling he was fresh out of high school and had never been in a gun fight. Tonight, he would learn some things though.
Jig shook his head. No doubt he’d love to put a bullet in each of us. “Oh, we’ll get your contacts, boy. You’ll see. Seems these boys think they can play games with us. But it ain’t anything we didn’t expect.”
Cullen let out a low laugh. “We have what you need, boys. But before we hand it over, we have a few demands of our own. But we’re not talking to the lackeys. We need to talk to the man himself. So stop dragging your ass and show us to him.”
Jig let out a sour laugh. “Demands? You never were very bright, Cullen, you know that?” He looked at the kid and shook his head. “By the time Blaze gets done with them, kid, they’ll be begging for mercy.”
The kid laughed. I squared my jaw and said, my voice rough, “Let’s get going, then.”
Jig motioned with the barrel of his gun for us to follow him. We marched beside him and the kid to the bank of elevators. When we got inside, he pressed the button for the top floor.
There was a tense silence as the doors closed and the elevator rose up the six floors to the top of the building. We stepped outside to a darkened hallway. Only one light streamed from underneath a door at the far end of the corridor.
They shoved us with the barrels of their guns, toward the light. When we got there, Jig knocked on the door. “Blaze. They’re here.”
There was a long pause while we waited for an answer. I looked at Cullen, who seemed as calm as ever, like he was waiting for his order at the local sub shop. He was legendary when it came to this shit.
Then, Blaze’s voice, hard edged and annoyed. “Put them in the room next door.”
The room next door. Fuck. That was probably where he had his boys waiting. I knew they were around here somewhere.
Suddenly, I heard my name. “PHOENIX! PHOENIX NASH!”
No mistaking it. It was Olivia’s voice, loud and clear, but strained and afraid. She was in that room with Blaze, a true sadistic asshole if ever there was
one. Where Cullen had worked his way to the top with bravery and loyalty, I’d heard that Blaze had made his way to the top in the most brutal way possible—ruthlessly murdering and fucking over anyone who got in his way. He was a fucking beast.
What was he doing with Olivia? I didn’t even want to think about it.
“Olivia,” I murmured. I glanced at Cullen, who nodded at me, giving me silent permission to do whatever the hell I wanted to do.
Her voice came again, the syllables all running together: “Get out of here! It’s a trap! It’s a trap! It’s—”
It was followed by the sound of something crashing to the ground. Her whimper. Something sliding to the floor. Then, silence.
Fuck me. If he fucking touched her…
Red-hot fire pulsed through my veins. What I wanted to do was break down the door and go to her, but that wasn’t an option. I only had a split second to act. So I took it.
I lunged for Jig, grabbing his gun and fought to wrench it from his grip as the goddamn thing went off. Gunshots pinged through the air, loud and in quick succession. Cullen dove for the kid, toppling to him to the ground, though the kid was probably a good six inches taller than him. His gun went off, too, hitting the ceiling, raining bits of broken ceiling tile down over us.
I got Jig in a headlock and punched him in the side of the head repeatedly, as he scrambled to stay in control of his weapon. In the darkness of the corridor, I could only see flashes of movement.
Finally, I freed the gun from Jig’s grasp and raced down the black-as-night corridor to find a place to hide, no fucking clue where or what I was running into.
Behind me, Cullen shouted words that were drowned out by the sound of more gunshots piercing the darkness. I dove for cover behind a low cubicle wall, turned, and got the weapon into position.
The war between the Cobras and the Fury had begun.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Olivia
I regained consciousness after what felt like forever, my eyes bleary and my head aching like I had just collided with a freight train. I was lying on the thin, scratchy Berber carpet, in front of my father’s massive executive desk.
