I was so small I couldn’t see above all the people who were swarming forward to try and get a look at the commotion. I pushed and shoved to get through them, hunting for my Hellfire as my heart jerked and kicked in my chest.
“Niall!” I called to him and a man in front of me was knocked down like a toothpick snapping in half as he appeared, snatching my hand into his grasp as he grinned big at me.
“Time to go, Spider.” Niall dragged me along and I ran with him as fast as we could go, racing left and right through the tables before we finally found a door and made it outside before anyone could stop us.
Our driver man was already there and he yanked the back door open and ushered us inside.
I fell into Niall’s lap as the door shut behind us and the driver man leapt into the car, taking off down the road just as the security people spilled out of the casino and looked left and right for us in confusion.
The two of us laughed so hard, I swear one of my lungs was gonna leap out of my throat, but instead Niall’s mouth came down on mine and he crushed me against him.
Our laughter turned to panting and suddenly he was yanking my dress up and I was shoving down his pants as we clawed at each other ferally.
“If you look back here even one time, I’ll cut your eyes out, throw them in a wishing well and wish for all your nightmares to come true,” Niall warned the driver, who nodded stiffly before putting up a partition between us.
It was the perfect end to a perfect night, and I couldn’t wait to tell Mateo and Jack all about it.
M y muscles recovered slowly, sensation returning to them piece by piece as I sat in the chair across from Mateo and listened to him talk. We’d slept too, both of us having little choice other than to fall asleep in our chairs and hope that the other wouldn’t wake first with the use of our limbs and murderous thoughts.
But to my surprise, when I’d woken it hadn’t been to the feeling of his hands around my throat or some weapon driving into my flesh. It had simply been to his keen eyes observing me, assessing me, taking in everything about me in a way that none of the people I’d spent time with during my incarceration ever had.
Like I was a worthy adversary.
It was so much more interesting than the simple fear I usually commanded due to my size and unpredictable nature, and I couldn’t help but rise to the challenge in his gaze.
No one had paid me this much attention in a long time. No one aside from her. And when she looked at me, it wasn’t like this, like one predator assessing another, searching for weaknesses, strengths, ways to use or manipulate the other.
“We have a common enemy,” Mateo said as I yawned, pushing my long hair away from my face and adjusting my position in the chair. My stomach was growling with a demand for food, but I was used to being punished with starvation under Madam Lucille’s watch back in Eden Heights, so I ignored it.
“Niall,” I grunted, knowing what he meant and already prepared for this conversation. It hadn’t been hard to predict. Over countless chess games, Mateo had continued to make observations about me, my behaviour, my appearance, and not least, our current situation. I knew he was trying to secure an alliance with me against the man who had collared us like dogs.
“Together we can end him,” he hissed. “You and me. If we work together, one of us can distract him while the other strikes. All I need is thirty seconds where he doesn’t manage to activate my collar and I can have him bleeding out beneath me.”
“Then?” I asked, waiting to hear the rest of his plan and wondering if he would admit that that would leave the two of us with nothing to cement our union anymore.
“Then I can give you money. More than enough for you to start up a new life wherever the fuck you want to go. That’s why Niall hasn’t killed me in all the time he’s held me – he knows I have it and he wants it. Wants to buy his own freedom from the cage his family have erected around him. I couldn’t really give a fuck about his motivations. Point is, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. You’ll have everything you need to start up a fresh life well away from the gang whose mark you bear on your flesh.”
He bobbed his chin at the ink poking out from beneath my shirt and I grunted. He’d figured out that small hint of my past quick enough, though it wasn’t much of a stretch for anyone to put two and two together when gang ink was involved.
My mind drifted to the life I’d once pledged myself to. The one which had offered me an outlet every time I snapped the way I did all too often.
But the rage in me had only gotten more unpredictable as time went on. Often unleashing when my boss had no use for it, and I wasn’t a beast made to fit chains or attack on command. I was volatile, unpredictable, a loose cannon as he’d once called me. And what good was a soldier who lost his shit at the slightest provocation and paid little to no attention to his orders once the rage took me?
That entire enterprise had been headed for disaster since the moment I’d sworn in and gotten my ink. Problem was, there was no backing out of that kind of organisation once you were in. No way out for anyone aside from death. Or perhaps insanity.
My lips twisted in amusement at my work on that front and Mateo’s eyes narrowed as he caught the movement.
“Rook,” I said simply, pointing out the flaw to his plan because she was clearly fond of the Irishman who kept us captive, and I wasn’t willing to hurt her in the attempt to end him. Nor was I inclined to leave her behind with this motherfucker and just head off on my way the moment we freed ourselves from his grasp.
Mateo shifted in his seat. “My chica loca will be well provided for with me,” he said slowly, some darkness filtering though his expression, like he wasn’t entirely convinced of his own words and I didn’t like that one bit.
I tapped my finger on the arm of my chair, uncertain about whether or not I wanted to indulge him in his plans.
The drugs had done the job of calming me at least, so my mind was clear enough for me to form my own plans, and I wasn’t sure they had a whole lot to do with the man sitting opposite me.
That said, I would be happy enough to relieve him of the money he claimed to have and take him up on the offer of a free life. I just doubted I’d leave him alive to have much say in what I did with it.
The sound of a car pulling up the drive made both of us look around and my slow pulse began to pound a little harder as I felt the need for the fight surging within me.
“Now or never, gigante,” Mateo urged as he pushed to his feet and I nodded, standing too, my legs still a little wobbly though strong enough to support me at last.
“Now,” I agreed, walking towards the door with him and positioning myself on the opposite side of it to him as we awaited our prey.
Brutus raised his head from the blankets on the far side of the room, the enormous grey dog baring his teeth at us like it could sense what we planned to do and didn’t much like it. I eyed the beast warily, not liking the way it was looking at us and half expecting it to pounce at any moment.
The sound of Brooklyn singing came from outside and I exchanged a look with Mateo, wickedness coating his skin as he rolled his shoulders back and the scent of death curled around us on the air.
It had been a long time since I’d been so free to unleash this part of me at will and I cracked my knuckles as I forced myself to hold still, battling against my nature which was far more inclined towards an outward show of aggression than lying in wait for my prey.