Her brother had asked her to show up and claim she needed him in order to get him free of the place. That was what he had said. What he had planned.
He had said nothing of the foundry.
She glanced at the pot on the table. Paper, coins, and notes were piled high. She looked back at Norton, grabbing his arm and stepping close to him as her voice dropped to a stern whisper. “Whatever you think you have here, Norton, you don’t. You will not win. I guarantee it. You need to walk away with me now. We will figure out a way to cover whatever you have lost, but you need to come with me now. I need you.”
“No, Nic. Don’t you see? We can have it all back.” His hazel eyes were wide, his hand jerking away from her grip and swinging around him.
She leaned into him, trying not to breathe in the air of whiskey that burned her eyes, making her gag. “What will this cost you, Norton? Everything?”
For a moment he paused, stilling, and his eyes went sad. But in the next moment he blinked and looked away from her to Bournestein. “Acceptable?”
Bournestein bit down on the end of his cigar, chomping it as he stared at Norton, and then Nicolina for an elongated moment. Too long. He grabbed the cigar from his teeth. “It will do.”
Norton jumped, a crazed smile on his face as he ran back to the table and took his seat, tapping his cards on the table.
Nicolina rushed after him. “Norton, what do you mean, will what do?”
She only made it two steps before the paw hand landed on her shoulder from behind, stopping her so fast she lost her balance. The thug’s meaty fingers gripped into her shoulder and started dragging her backward.
“What? Let me go, you boor.” She twisted, clawing at the back of the brute’s hairy hand. “Norton—”
“Not now, Nic.”
“Norton.” This time she screamed his name.
Her brother looked up at her. “Don’t worry, Nic. I won’t lose this.”
Her eyes went wide. “Lose what? What are you not going to lose?”
His eyes twitched at her and he turned back to the table.
She yanked her body forward, trying to break the clamp on her shoulder. The brute’s grip only went tighter, reaching her clavicle, pressing the bones near to snapping. “What are you not telling me, Norton? Norton? Norton?”
The brute grabbed her free upper arm and yanked her backward, pulling her to a corner. A rabbit in a trap, she wrenched herself sideways, kicking, scampering, trying to free herself from his hold.
She didn’t see Bournestein get up from the table and walk toward her until he was standing in front of her, a blur of purple and orange as she twisted about attempting to escape.
A sudden hand around her neck tightened and slammed her into the brute behind her. It stilled her even as she gasped for breath, her panting sending her chest into spasms.
Bournestein stared at her. Calm. Patient. The smile was there. The snake smile. He was squeezing her neck. And he was smiling.
At her silence, his smile went wider. “Yer part of the pot now, Kitty. So stand here like a sweet little pussy, and let ole Bournestein win ye before I break ye.”
He leaned in close, his pockmarked nose almost touching her cheek, his sticky breath invading her pores. “Ye left St. Giles before I could entice ye into me brood. I’ll not let ye escape so easily this time.”
Her eyelids dropped, closing herself off from the bastard. From the brute behind her. From her brother.
Closing herself off from the room. From the world.
A shadow.
She needed to be a shadow.
A shadow could survive this. A shadow could survive anything.
A shadow.
A wisp of wind.
Disappear.
{ Chapter 13 • To Capture a Rogue }
The laughter at the table rang in her ears. Jeering, cruel. Bournestein released her neck and moved back to the table.
She still had a chance. Norton.
Her eyes cracked open to find her brother at the table.
He hadn’t joined in with the laughter. His lips tight, he stared at her, his face sinking to a grey pallor. Her look dipped down to the card he had just picked up. It shook.
No. She had no chance. Norton didn’t have the cards.
Her eyes darted about the room. The five extra brutes, just as beefy as the one holding her, stood positioned along the edges of the room. Even if she could wiggle free from her captor, she wouldn’t escape the room. Her dagger couldn’t even help her at this point.
Her eyes slid closed once more. She would just have to suffer this. Suffer whatever was about to happen until she could escape. Uncle Felix had taught her how to escape almost any situation, but even he could have never imagined her needing to guard against a room of eleven rabid men.
The card game commenced with posturing by the players, barbs thrown to and fro. Laughter. Chuckles that were not happy—chuckles that shook with fear, with viciousness.
She refused to look but could hear all of it. The cards falling. Coins clinking into a pot. Every second excruciating.
How had her brother descended this far into the mad world of these men?
“Gentleman, is it too late to join the game?”
Her eyes flew open.
No. Not Gareth. Not now.
Her heart stopped, her head swiveling around the room. The brutes along the walls had all taken a simultaneous step toward the doorway—toward Gareth. Panic clamped onto her chest, stealing her breath.
The men at the table instantly fell silent, all eyes going to Gareth. Standing by the black curtain of the door, Gareth’s casual countenance offered no indication of why he had suddenly burst into the back room of the Joker’s Roost. He looked about the space, seemingly innocently wanting to join the game.
He didn’t offer the slightest indication he knew anyone in the room until her idiot brother opened his mouth, his drunken eyes swerving to Gareth.
“Callison?”
Bournestein instantly glanced at Norton and then back to Gareth. He stared at Gareth for a long moment, his fingers rubbing along his chin. His beady eyes swung back to Norton. “You know this man?”
Norton squirmed in his chair, avoiding the question as his scattered look went from Gareth to Nicolina.
Bournestein watched it all. His eyes narrowed as his look settled back on Gareth. “I know you.”
Gareth took another step into the room.
Frozen in place, Nicolina’s eyes went desperate, her head shaking silently, trying to stop him. No. Not another step. Not further into the room.
Gareth met Bournestein’s stare. “You do?”
“Yer the ass that dragged Greyson out of here two nights back. He was in the middle of a game.”
Gareth nodded. “He was in the middle of losing.”
“And yer interfering where ye shouldn’t be, boy.”
Gareth’s head tilted to the side, his gaze shifting, one by one, to every man at the table. “Is the game open?”
“No, boy. The game not be open. And ye not be draggin another man from me clutches.” Bournestein flicked a finger to one of the brutes by the door just to the left behind Gareth. “Ye cin leave on yer own. Or I cin have ye helped from the premises.”
Nicolina’s look seared into Gareth, willing him to leave. Just three steps backward and out the door. She could suffer whatever was about to happen, just as long as he was out of here. As long as he was safe.
Horror crept from her chest into her gut as Gareth’s muscles coiled, ready to attack. She knew every inch on his body, knew how every muscle tensed, and he was about to strike.
No. Please no.
But in the next second Gareth relaxed, offering Bournestein an easy nod. “As you wish. I will leave. But I will be taking my wife with me.”
“Gareth, no.” Her words spit out, desperate as she curled over her belly, her legs going weak.
Bournestein perked up, his eyebrow raised as he glanced at Nicolina and then back to Gareth
. “Yer wife?”
Gareth nodded, not looking in her direction.
Bournestein chuckled, leaning back in his chair as he set a hand atop his protruding belly. “This be interesting.” His look swung to Norton. “Yer sister be a widow, Skinnies.”
“She is—was—he is alive,” Norton sputtered.
Bournestein nodded, staring at Norton, his beady eyes turning venomous. “Ye be willin’ to wager another man’s property like that? There be no honor in that, Skinnies.”
Norton shrank back in his chair, his crumpled cards dropping from his hand onto the table.
Bournestein looked to Gareth and flicked his forefinger up, swirling it around at the six brutes in the room. “Ye be sure she be worth this?”
Gareth didn’t blink. “She is my wife. She is worth everything. I will do whatever it takes to get her out of here.”
“Gareth don’t be stupid—go, go now.” Nicolina jumped forward only to be yanked back into place by the brute behind her, her neck snapping. She squirmed under the pain from the clamps on her shoulders, her eyes not leaving her husband. “Go while you can. Leave—”
“Shut her up,” Bournestein snapped.
The brute’s hand clamped over the bottom half of her face, putrescence touching her lips and souring her tongue.
Bournestein’s gaze swung back to Gareth. “She be worth that? Everything? Then I was not wrong—she’ll be a worthy addition to me stables.”
Nonchalant, Gareth took another step into the room, his voice dropping, vibrating with vehemence. “What you don’t understand, Bournestein, is that I would fight a thousand men for her. And I would win.”
Bournestein chuckled, his lips turning into a sneer. “A thousand men? That, I would like to witness. Perhaps we should start with five.” He looked about the table at the other men seated around him, his voice echoing grandeur. “Let it not be said that I don’t possess a decent man’s honor. And taking another man’s wife—well, that is beneath me.”
He paused and his look swung to Gareth, his beady eyes pinning him. “So let us turn this wife back into a widow.”
Bournestein nodded to the brute standing next to Gareth.
Hell.
The world slowed in front of Nicolina.
Five of the brutes advanced all at once. The one holding her stayed back, clamping her to the front of his body around her waist, his meaty paw still over the lower half of her face, cutting her air. But she could see perfectly. See her world being destroyed once more. And this time in front of her.
The thugs collapsed in on Gareth. Two drawing knives, the glints of silver flashing in the dim light from the lanterns hanging along the walls.
Gareth struck first, before they could trap him, diving forward against one and slamming him back against a wall. So fast she almost missed it, Gareth knocked the thug’s head into the wall and the man slumped down to the floor, unconscious.
A second brute grabbed the back of Gareth’s coat before he could turn, yanking him into the middle of the floor. His dagger drawn in one quick motion, Gareth sank it into the man’s thigh, sending him to the floor before another brute could attack from the front.
A knife swung at him from the left and Gareth jumped back. Another swipe he ducked, deflecting it and swinging back around to cut the brute in the arm. It bought him only a moment of surprise, just enough to dip and send his blade slicing through the tendons behind the thug’s knee.
The shortest brute growled, lunging, and just as Gareth spun, his blade at the ready, the other one still standing slammed his fist into Gareth’s jaw. It sent Gareth stumbling, and the short brute managed to grab his right wrist and twist it down, slicing the blade through Gareth’s thigh. Gareth’s dagger dropped, and the short brute snatched his left arm and wedged them both behind Gareth’s back before he could gain his balance.
The short brute yanked Gareth around to the other standing guard. The fat thug wasted no time, moving forward to land a crushing fist on Gareth’s jaw. The beast smiled and stepped back, gaining a step to ram forward and deliver another blow. And then another. And another.
The sound of skin smacking into flesh, of bones cracking filled her ears.
The fifth blow sent Gareth to his knees, his eyes barely open, his head rolling senselessly about. One more crack of the fist and Gareth’s head snapped backward, blood droplets flying and splattering in all directions.
Blood. Gareth’s blood.
The man holding her twitched with every hit. Grunting in satisfaction every time a blow landed on Gareth. Enjoying it—actually enjoying her husband getting pummeled.
That spiked more fury than Nicolina could control.
She had already lost Gareth once. And watching him die was something she couldn’t bear to witness. Not in front of her. Not if she could help it.
And then she saw.
Gareth’s right eye opened to her...and the slightest smile twitched on his bloodied lips.
He wasn’t done. Not by far.
Her husband was, in fact, just getting started.
But he could use a touch of help. A blade within his immediate vicinity, for starters. And by the crook of his eyebrow at her, he was wondering where his wife was on that front.
They would be getting out of there together. They always had been stronger united.
Inhaling a silent breath to brace herself, she assessed the blades on her body. Traveling into St. Giles without them would have been madness, and she had hoped to keep the three daggers strapped on her body hidden until she had only one captor to escape instead of a roomful of them. But Gareth needed her steel now, and she would deliver.
The brute holding her captive had his attention fully on the fight. It was his downfall, for she managed to slip her right hand under her cloak and wrap her fingers around the handle of the dagger along her ribcage without him noticing.
The blade flashing and impaling the back of his hand over her face was the brute’s first and only warning that she was not to meekly watch her husband get beaten.
The brute screamed, throwing Nicolina away from him. His thrust of her so vicious, her knife tore through the flesh on the back of his hand along the way. His instant wail gave evidence of the pain. Perfect.
And he had thrown her directly toward her husband.
She landed within two steps of Gareth.
Instinct guiding her, she leapt in between Gareth and the man lifting his fist for another blow, the tip of her blade instantly pressing into the soft divot of his neck. Pressing. Drawing blood. She shifted the dagger so the length of the blade was along his neck, the tip still digging into his skin.
He couldn’t move forward, sideways, or backward without the blade severing his throat.
The man stilled, his hands slowly lifting up on either side of him.
“This stops. Now.” She shouted the words in Bournestein’s direction, her eyes not leaving the thug in front of her. Slowly, to not draw attention, her left hand slipped behind her and her fingers shuffled the fabric of her dark skirt upward, giving Gareth direct access to the dagger strapped to her calf the moment he found his way to free a hand. “My husband leaves. He walks away. And I will stay. Norton is yours. I am yours. But my husband leaves this place.”
Bournestein chuckled, grabbing the cigar from his mouth and pointing it at her. “I didn’t expect this out of ye, Kitty.”
Guffaws and snorts erupted from the table.
“Nic.” Her name a gargled sound, Gareth could only wrench out the one word behind her.
Her words alarmed her husband, as they should. But she had no intention of staying in that hellhole—and the lie would buy her time. She hoped.
She ignored Gareth, her eyes trained on the man in front of her. The brute was waiting. Waiting for her attention to divert. For her to lessen the point of the dagger on his neck.
Bournestein’s chair creaked as he leaned back further in it. “Ye seem to be mistaken on the worth of life here, Kitty. Ye think I be worried on losing
one man?”
Silence fell on the room.
No more chuckles. No more screams. No more jeering.
Just silence.
Bournestein was waiting her out.
She had all the patience in the world. She had the man in front of her a twitch away from death. And if the second thug holding Gareth released him to attack her, her husband would have the dagger from her calf in his hand within a second. With her steel Gareth would turn deadly, no longer one to spare life where he could.
“How do ye think this ends, Kitty?” Bournestein’s voice went irate. “Ye gut his throat, and who do ye think is behind him? There be four more men at this table lined up to get to ye after he drops. And then all my men yer weak husband didn’t fully fell. And if one of them gets ye, Kitty, well, I now be inclined to let him have ye to do whatever he wants to ye. And these men don’t know when to stop, Kitty. Don’t have control.”
The tip of her dagger twisted, digging harder into the brute’s neck.
“Ye be out of options, Kitty.” Bournestein stuffed the cigar into the side of his mouth. “Yer best to set down the dagger and be under my generosity again.”
Silence.
Only silence.
“She has one last option.”
The deep voice filled the room from behind her. So brutally fierce, the tone alone sent a shiver through her gut. But she didn’t dare turn around to the voice. Didn’t dare take her eyes off the brute in front of her.
Footsteps. Footsteps filing into the room. One, two, three, four, five—too many to count.
Bournestein sat up, grabbing the cigar from his mouth as he stood, his face beginning to bluster at whatever was happening by the doorway.
The footsteps stopped shuffling along the floor.
What the hell was happening behind her?
“Her last option is us, Bournestein. She leaves with us. Callison leaves with us. Her brother leaves with us.”
A strained, forced chuckle left Bournestein’s lips. “Ye? Ye think I’m goin’ to cede to ye and a bunch of cripples?”
“And also the most deadly soldiers the crown has ever produced.” The man speaking behind her stepped forward, aligning himself next to Nicolina’s left side.
Logan’s Legends: A Revelry's Tempest Regency Romance Box Set Page 8