by B. B. Reid
“Are you sure your father did this? Angel could be lying to you.”
Shrugging, I realized how much I believed he did. I had been holding tight onto the trust I had in my father, but at some point, I let go. One day, I’d confront him, but I knew once I did, and I had the truth, I could never forgive him.
We stayed hidden and talked about everything except Angel, legacies, and my father until Caylen awoke and began crying for food. We didn’t run into the guys on the way to the kitchen, but we did run into a long, muscular figure dressed in black and leaning down to peer into the fridge.
His hair was midnight black from what I could see, his skin tan, and the hand grasping the top of the door large and capable-looking.
“Oh, my God,” Anna gasped excitedly in my ear. “Who is that?”
Leave it to her to have an instant crush on a perfect stranger. The stranger’s head lifted and turned from inside the fridge, allowing us to see his emerald-colored eyes. His eyebrow quirked when he found us staring from inside the doorway, and then his gaze passed over us slowly. First, Anna, then Caylen, and finally settling on me. He then pushed the door closed and leaned a powerful shoulder against the stainless steel with a grin. “Hello, kids,” he greeted condescendingly. “You must be Mian, Anna, and Caylen.”
“How do you know our names?” Anna’s voice was full of awe as she devoured the full sight of him.
“I make it a point to know everything.” God, this man must have a serious god complex.
“But you can’t know everything.” She giggled. I was stupefied. They’ve barely met, yet she was completely taken with him.
“Only what matters,” he replied, turning up the charm.
“Who are you?” I had questioned before my friend had a chance to fall in love.
“For once, reality isn’t reduced to hype,” he observed but left the meaning mysterious. “I’m Augustine, Angel’s cousin.”
“I’m Anna. This is Mian, and that’s her son, Caylen,” she offered unnecessarily.
His smile was indulgent as he said, “I know.”
“Oh.” She giggled again. “Right.” I rolled my eyes, which he didn’t miss if the smirk was anything to go by.
“Excuse us,” I quickly said when he moved closer. I grabbed Anna’s arm and moved around the island. There was no way I was letting him get close.
I wondered if he was another one of Alexander’s heirs as I handed Caylen to Anna and moved to the pantry. When I turned with a box of cereal and formula in hand, he was gone. Anna shrugged when I sent a puzzled glance her way, so I busied myself feeding my baby.
It was late in the night when I crossed paths with Angel. I had put Caylen down for the night minutes before he had entered the bedroom. There was wariness in his gaze when our eyes met. I was sitting crossed legged in the middle of his bed, the movie I’d been watching forgotten.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Hey.” I pretended to refocus on the movie.
I could see him in my peripheral shoving his hands in the front pocket of the black jeans he’d changed into. “What are the chances of me convincing you to take a walk with me without coercion or force?” If I didn’t still feel so goddamn raw from this afternoon, I would have laughed. Instead, I unfolded my legs and slipped into my shoes.
“Let’s go,” I said, my voice deceivingly chipper.
I followed him outside, and I ignored how romantic it seemed when he led me through the gardens. The silence was comfortable even though I could tell something was keeping him on edge. The longer we walked, the deeper the tension became. We eventually came to the edge of the garden, and I followed him down a cobbled path. There was a forest of trees ahead where the path disappeared. We headed forward, and my nervousness grew. Still, I kept following him despite the warning bells. The forest bed was blanketed in red leaves. The wind blew, rustling the leaves and making my body shiver. I was overwhelmed by how far the estate’s land stretched when we eventually reached the edge of the forest. He came to a stop. I could feel him watching me, but I was too busy staring at the stone wall that’s seen better days but still looked intimidating.
“What is it?”
“That,” he gestured lazily, “is just a wall. On the other side is our private cemetery.”
“Why are we here?” I could hear the shakiness in my voice and swallowed as if that would steady it.
He looked away, and I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “In exchange for the book, the senator wants you and Caylen.”
I stumbled backward, but it didn’t matter because he followed.
“You son of a bitch.”
“Just listen to me. Please.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?”
“Because I’m trying to save your life.”
“You’re trying to save your precious book.”
“I can do both but not without your help.” He kept advancing.
“Stay away from me.” I wondered if I could lose him in the trees if I ran.
“There’s nowhere for you to go. If you run, I’ll catch you, and we’ll just lose time.”
“You already made the deal, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” It sounded painful for him to admit. I even found pleasure in his pain. This was what he did to me. He made every feeling in my bones and in my blood irrational. He was still coming, however, and I knew I could never outrun him. Because I wasn’t paying attention, I hadn’t noticed the stone before it sent me reeling. He moved quicker, and one minute, I was falling and the next, I was safe in his arms. Except I wasn’t safe. Being this close to Angel was more painful than a broken ankle, so I pushed to free myself.
“Let go of me,” I growled when he tightened his arms.
“You won’t listen unless I force you, so this is me making you listen. I don’t want to hurt you. Not even close.”
“Then what is this? Why are we here? You’re going to give us to that—”
“Stop,” he roared before I could finish. My chin was in his grip, and I didn’t think it was possible, but he tugged me closer. “He won’t touch you. He won’t touch Caylen. I’ll die before I let that happen.” His gaze, his voice, his entire being was overrun with emotion. “Will you listen to me?” he pleaded when I said nothing.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Neither of us do.”
“If something happens to my baby, I’ll kill you.” I didn’t recognize myself as I spoke my vow.
He lifted my hand and kissed it. “I believe you, baby.” He kept a hold on my hand as he led me back to the wall. It seemed out of place even in the backyard of a home as grand as the estate. Some of the wall even looked in dire need of repair. Angel let go of my hand to remove a key from his pocket and to unlock the iron gates. They looked incredibly heavy and creaked when he pushed them open.
He walked through them but turned back when I didn’t follow. The air seemed chillier now as I faced my fate. “Come on.” He held out his hand while his eyes pleaded with me to trust him. I took his hand and let him pull me through. The cemetery was mostly dark, but around the perimeter were lamps with a dull golden glow. The light fog added to the eerie ambiance as my gaze swept over the graves that belonged to the dead members of Angel’s twisted family.
Angel pulled me through the cemetery, and I ignored the chill crawling up my spine. As we neared a small group of trees, Lucas, Z, and Augustine slid from the shadows. Lucas was holding Caylen, who I thought remained safe in his crib, in his arms. I rushed to take him and wanted to scream at Angel for involving my son in this without speaking with me first.
Augustine eyed us curiously and then lifted his chin toward me. “She ready?”
I shook my head. “I’m not doing this with my son here.”
“This will end a lot worse without him. If you want to make sure we don’t all end up dead, and the senator doesn’t burn down the estate with Caylen inside, you’ll do this.”
Angel always did know how to make me succumb
to fear with little effort.
“I’m ready,” I reluctantly agreed. Augustine nodded. His game face slipped into place as he slid on a pair of thick leather gloves. He was dressed in a black hoodie and jeans complete with heavy black boots. It was then I realized that Angel, Lucas, and Z were dressed similarly in gloves covering their hands and grim expressions. They looked ready for war.
“Mian,” Angel called. My attention shifted, drinking him in. I realized this was the heartless killer that, until now, I’d never met. The monster he unleashed on me was merely an envoy. A show of mercy. This was the Bandit. His family’s Knight in dark and dirty armor. “The senator will be here any moment. I need him to believe your safety isn’t my concern. Can you do that?”
“You’ve given me every reason to doubt you, Angel. I’m sure I can manage.”
His leather-clad hands pulled me close. “You’re earning much needed time over my knee, Sprite.”
“I’d like to see you try.” My tone was equally playful as if the senator didn’t exist. As if the threat on my life and my son didn’t exist. As if what took place three years ago never happened.
“I hate to break up the lovebird special, but I hear something,” Lucas announced. “Sounds like they’re here.”
Angel’s game face slipped back into place. A black town car appeared down a trail I hadn’t noticed before. It must have been a service entrance for the cemetery’s groundskeeper. The car in the lead was trailed by three SUVs. It was most definitely the senator. His arrival was almost cliché enough to laugh. Angel’s hand slid around my arm, and then he tugged me toward his cousin.
He bent low to whisper in my ear as the cars rolled to a stop some distance away. “Whatever happens, stay close to Augustine. He’ll get you and Caylen out of here when it’s time.”
“What’s going to happen?”
His eyes flashed with impatience. “The senator isn’t leaving here alive, Mian. It’s going to get loud, and it’s going to go fast. Stay low and stay out of sight, and you’ll live.”
I watched as the senator and the men he brought to kill me poured out of the vehicles. “There are at least ten men, and there are only three of you.”
His smile was rueful. “The senator has exposed his entire hand, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. You can’t see them, but I assure there are more guns pointing at him than there are at me.”
Without another word, he placed distance between us as the senator and his entourage approached, and I remembered I was supposed to be an unwilling party.
Caylen was asleep against my chest unaware of the danger surrounding us. When the bullets started flying, how would I keep him protected? Just then, Augustine moved to stand in front of me, blocking my view, but also providing a wall between them and me.
“Mr. Knight, I appreciate you accommodating me this evening.” The senator spoke in his refined voice as if we were hosting a dinner party instead of a deadly trade.
“Do you have it?” Angel’s voice was clipped. I couldn’t see him, but I felt his anger.
“Where are they?” the senator slyly countered.
A second later, Augustine was no longer blocking me. He was pushing me forward with a heavy hand on my back until I was in view of the senator.
I couldn’t see the men Angel hinted were there, and I wondered how many of them were watching from the shadows. Angel’s plan was dangerous, but he’d left me no choice other than to trust him. Augustine continued to push me forward until Angel was standing beside me silent and calm with Lucas and Z flanking us. The promise of death in their eyes should have frightened me, but it only made me feel protected.
I wasn’t their enemy.
Not tonight.
I almost felt sorry for the senator. Angel said he planned to kill the senator, and the morbid beast who ravaged my soul wondered if he’d make it fast yet hoped he’d kill him slowly.
“Hello, Miss Ross.” Hearing my name from him was like a snake wrapping around my body and squeezing.
“Senator.”
“I don’t know if Angel explained it to you, but you and your son will be coming with my son.” It wasn’t until he said ‘son’ that I noticed Aaron standing next to him. He was watching me with unconcealed malice and confidence that I’d be at his mercy soon enough.
“And why is that, Senator?” Before he could answer, the back door of the closest SUV opened, and someone stepped out. It was too dark to see who it might be, but I could tell from the small stature and shape that it was a woman. She strutted on heels too high for the occasion. It was her blonde hair, high cheekbones, and smile meant to charm that seemed so familiar. Another three steps and recognition came like a blow to the stomach. I could do nothing but stare in shock. She was a girl I hadn’t seen in three years. A girl a year ago I had called my friend.
“Erin?”
Her bubblegum painted lips stretched to reveal perfect teeth to match the rest of her. She wore tight black jeans, a white silk blouse, and tall black pumps with a black motorcycle jacket. “It’s good to see you, Mian, though I do wish the circumstances could have been better.” She didn’t seem at all bothered by the night time visit to a strange cemetery and scary men ready to kill each other.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, we haven’t spoken in like a year, so I never got to tell you,” she hugged Aaron’s arm and grinned, “we’re an item now.”
“His name is Aaron, and her name is Erin?” Lucas muttered. “Jesus fuck, they were made for each other.”
“And the fact that he raped me doesn’t bother you?”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling without losing her fake grin. “Come on, Mian. You know it didn’t happen that way. Aaron told me all about it. I told you losing your v-card was no big deal, but of course, you made it one.”
“You were my friend, Erin.”
Her smile faltered then. “It’s your fault we’re not friends anymore. You had to go and get pregnant. Well, I wasn’t interested in being someone’s godmother or whatever it is you expected from me.” I wanted to kill her when she wrinkled her nose at my son.
“I expected you to be my friend.”
“Poor Mian as always,” she mocked.
“How can you date him after what he did to me? He raped me.”
“He told me what really happened that night. You got plastered and threw yourself on him, and come on… you’re sort of hot—so why would he say no?”
I didn’t respond. I simply stared wondering what broke in Erin’s mind to believe such a lie.
“If Mian gives the word, I’m putting a bullet between her eyes,” Z whispered behind me. I heard Lucas’s grunt of agreement.
“Enough,” Aaron barked. “I didn’t come here for a cat fight.” He stepped forward and kept coming until he was roughly able to close his fingers around the arm I was holding our son in. “You’re coming with us.” A second later, Angel had his hand fisted in Aaron’s shirt. He lifted him and tossed him a few feet away where he landed at his father’s feet. Erin’s scream and the sound of weapons materializing and aiming at us filled the quiet night. Caylen stirred in my arms and let out a cry when he became fully awake.
“Mr. Knight?” The senator spoke over Caylen’s cries. “I’m disappointed that you’d harm my son. I thought you were agreeable with the trade.”
“That hasn’t changed, Senator, but your son overstepped. I’ve yet to see you hold up your end.”
“Ah, yes. The book.” He snapped his fingers at one of the men with a gun pointed at my head. The man lowered his arm and stepped forward with a briefcase I hadn’t noticed before. He handed Angel the briefcase, and then quickly raised his gun toward Angel as he stepped to the side. I didn’t realize what was happening until his hand closed around my arm.
Oh, fuck.
I dug in my heels when he began to pull me away. Caylen’s screams rose when he felt my panic. “Not so fast, boy scout.” Augustine appeared with his gun pointed at the senator’s g
uard.
Angel opened the briefcase stealing everyone’s focus. Lying on top of the red felt was a small leather-bound book. The cover looked good to be two hundred years old, and then I remembered Lucas telling me the book had never been touched by anyone other than the Knight.
Angel closed the briefcase and handed it to Z. The senator’s guard tightened his grip on my arm.
“I hope you don’t mind,” the senator spoke, “but I took the liberty of eliminating a few entries.”
Angel stilled, and everyone seemed to be holding their breath except Aaron and the senator. “Is that right?” The malevolence in Angel’s voice was scarier than the guns pointed at us.
“Did you think I’d let you continue to keep this kind of evidence on me? Fortunately, there are those who can do what you do while maintaining discretion. You understand.”
“You mean Victor? I’m not sure how well he can maintain anything while chopped up into tiny pieces.”
The senator’s chuckle made me uneasy while Angel visibly bristled. “Victor was a pawn, and long outlived his usefulness, so I thank you for proactively taking care of the problem. I really don’t like getting my hands dirty.”
If Victor wasn’t the mastermind behind stealing the book, then who was?
“Who?” Angel’s growl made everyone tense.
“You should know. Blood is thickest when filled with deceit.”
Augustine cursed, ripped me from the guard’s grip, and pushed me behind him. The senator’s bodyguard moved to grab me, but Augustine used his gun against his temple to shove him back.
The scuffle didn’t escape the senator’s notice. “If you’re not going to honor your end of the trade and deliver Miss Ross, I’m afraid this will end ugly.”
“The deal wasn’t that you’d tamper with the book, Staten. You know the rules, and you know what happens when you break them.”
“If anyone’s death is deserved, it’s yours, Knight.” The senator seemed to be waiting for something to happen as he looked to the shadows. After a long and tense moment, nothing happened, and when he spoke again, he sounded less in control. “Give me the girl and the child or you and your men die.”