The Gallows at Midnight

by Courtney Lynn Rose

  “I won’t join you, Jax.”

  My eye damn near explodes with pain as the back of his hand connects with it.

  “I will kill him. He’s the entire fucking reason you’ve changed. If it wasn’t for him, you’d be working for us by now. God damn it, Lily. You’re the only daughter I ever wanted. You belong with me and the Taurus, not with him.”

  I shake my head. His hand connects with my face again, the coppery taste of blood filling the corner of my mouth. “I belong with him.”

  Jax growls, grabbing the front of my shirt. My body doesn’t even tense as he jerks me to my feet and slams my back into the wall behind me. This is where it’s going to end. Somewhere in me, this is completely okay. My family didn’t want me. They sold me. Jax pretended to love me just to use me and in the process, he let repeated men abuse me.

  A sob erupts from my lips and he backhands me again, my head snapping to the side. He pulls me against him and slams me into the wall, the back of my head cracking into the plaster. The tears flow down my face, something inside me breaking again.

  “Enough of that shit. Let’s get this over with.”

  The door creaks open, and the sobs inside me rip from my throat as Jax throws me across the room. I’m seventeen all over again.

  I’m ready to go. I just want it to end.

  †††

  ~Blake~

  Lily’s stupidity is starting to push me to my breaking point. I love her with every fiber of my being, but she’ll be lucky if I don’t lose my shit when she walks through that front door. Dresden’s been muttering curses in German for the last four hours. I thought we’d all been pissed at her before . . . but this is a whole new level of angry.

  Sammi’s holed up in her tech office with Caleb trying to track her. Even he let a stream of obscenities loose once we all came to. Drugging us. That’s ballsy even for Lily. It’ll be a cold day in hell before anyone serves me another drink without supervision, that’s for damned sure.

  What the fuck is she thinking?

  And tonight of all nights. Vlad and I’ve been working to arrange this surprise for Lily for months. We’d started searching for her family after her supposed death. I know she says she doesn’t want to meet them, but she needs closure, and this is the only way she’ll get it. She’s going to be so pissed when she gets home. Mix that with my being pissed at her and this could end up a fucking warzone.

  “Mr. Mason is there anything Marcela and I can do to help?”

  Delia Georgescu is an older version of Lily. Just as beautiful, but with hazel eyes. She and Marcela, Lily’s biological sister, arrived at the safe house about an hour after those damned sleeping meds wore off. Marcela and Lily look exactly alike, right down to those sapphire eyes.

  “Please, call me Blake. Unfortunately, we can’t do much but wait for Lily to come home.” Trying to hide the anger and worry in my voice is like trying to hide a sumo wrestler behind a stripper pole. It isn’t going to happen.

  “Does she know we’re here?” Delia’s face has been etched in fear and worry since she stepped through the front door.

  I can’t blame her. The last time she saw her daughter was when she sold her to a sex-slaver and Lily’s nightmares about that man still plague her to this day, and it’s been 20 years.

  “No.” My jaw tenses as Dresden and Vlad enter the room.

  “He’ll be lucky if she doesn’t put a bullet in his head for bringing you here in the first place.” Dresden glares at the two women on the sofa and they both shrink back.

  “Enough, Dres.”

  “Blake, you and her better sort your shit out when she gets home. She constantly does shit that pisses everyone off, and you constantly do shit she specifically asks you not to do. She didn’t want to meet them. She hardly has any memory of them.”

  “I know that. But she needs closure. You’ve said it yourself and Vlad agrees.”

  Delia takes Marcela’s hand, lacing their fingers together. It’s obvious they’re close. Lily’s only going to be more pissed about that. Her mother sold her but kept her sister safe and protected. Dresden’s probably right about this being a bad idea but can’t go back on it now.

  “She’ll get over it.” Vlad clasps his hand on my shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I agree with Blake. She needs this, whether she wants to admit it or not.”

  “Blake! Get the fuck in here now!” Sammi’s shrill voice echoes down the hall and we all take off running.

  Bursting into the room, Sammi sits in front of a 42-inch television, doubling as a monitor, her entire body shaking. My stomach drops and chest heaves, my eyes zoning in on the picture as everyone joins us. Lily’s in a white room, hands bound, blood running from her nose and mouth, bruises on her cheeks. She’s in a bra and black cargo pants and she’s hanging from a meat hook, her feet hardly touching the ground.

  “Sammi . . . what the fuck?” The words are soft and strained, barely leaving my mouth.

  “Jax hacked my computer and is transmitting this to us live.” A green light on top of the monitor blinks as Jax blocks my view of Lily.

  “Hello everyone,” he says. My hair stands on end as the need to kill him courses through my body. “I’ve activated your camera. Lily can see you all. Sammi, be a doll and let Blake sit down, eh?”

  We switch places and Jax steps to the side, revealing my fiancée, who isn’t moving or making any noise. Her head is bowed forward, black hair framing her face on either side. Tears spring to my eyes, and I will them not to fall. Knowing Jax can see me, I don’t want to give that bastard the satisfaction.

  “Lily, look. Blake and your team are with us. Say hi to them.”

  Slowly, grimacing, she lifts her head. Her eyes widen, tears swimming against her bottom lids. “Hi, baby.” Her voice is so weak and full of pain. My heart breaks, my body aching to hold her.

  Soft clicking draws my attention. Sammi is on another monitor, furiously working on something with Caleb standing over her shoulder, whispering in her ear.

  “Lily. Come on, sweetheart. Fight.”

  A tear spills down her face, dangling on the edge of her chin before dropping to the concrete floor. “I love you so much it hurts.”

  Dresden and Vlad each put a hand on my shoulder. Their tension and anger flows through, matching and intensifying my own.

  “Don’t you do that, baby. Don’t you say goodbye to me.”

  A hand flashes into the frame, wielding something black. It moves too fast for me to make out what it is, but the resounding slap on Lily’s back, followed by her blood-curdling screams shakes my core.

  Jax is a fucking dead man.

  “She’s not saying goodbye . . . yet. You see, Lily has a choice to make, but I thought you all might like to be here for it.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Jax?” Contempt and hatred ooze through Dresden’s words, his hand tightening on my shoulder.

  “Oh, hello, Python. How’s that little cutie of yours? I hear you’re having a baby. Congrats.”

  “Fuck you. Let Lily go or so help me, God, I’ll rip your throat out when I find you, and we will find you.”

  “Well, how this plays out all depends on Lily. Fact is we could’ve blown that fucking safe house up the day you all arrived. We didn’t because, well, we don’t really want to kill you all. What we want is too . . . valuable to simply kill.”

  “What do you want?” My voice shakes, Lily’s eyes boring into mine through the screen.

  Her eyes shine, even through the video feed. They reach a place inside me no one else ever has, and I already know what Jax and the Taurus want. My breaths come quicker, my pulse picking up as a newfound fire and determination to rip Jax’s head off his shoulders hits me. I’ve never been a violent man, but come hell or high water, it’ll be me who makes this piece of shit draw his last breath.

  “What I’ve always wanted. Her.”

  “No. Lily isn’t yours anymore. She’s better than that, better than you.”

&nb
sp; “Well, sadly Mason, this isn’t a choice you get to make for her. You see, it’s simple. She can come back to me and do what she does best or she can refuse, and we’re going to kill you, her daughter, Shannon, and that little thing in her belly. Dresden, Vlad, Sammi, Rhett . . . everyone.”

  More tears fall down Lily’s cheeks, and I can almost see the images swimming in her head just by the look in her eyes. Jax is feeding the darkness in her. Her worst fears being used against her. It’s her weakness. I’m her weakness. She was hard as stone until the day she met me. Part of me wishes she’d held on to that hard-ass mentality, but there was no chance of that with us. Once she let me in, it was over for her . . . and me.

  She’s my weakness in the worst way and I’m hers. If we don’t find a way to end this shit with the Taurus, we’re both going to end up dead.

  “Lily don’t listen to him, baby. Nothing is going to happen to us. Fuck him. Don’t give in to this.”

  She’s shaking her head before the words are finished flowing, in panic, from my mouth.

  “Blake . . . I told you before; I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”

  Tears slip down my cheeks, anxiety, panic, pain, and emotions I’ve never felt before pump with my blood, taking over my senses. “No, baby. No. Don’t you do this to us. Fight. Come home.”

  She turns her head, staring at Jax. The tech office is like a shrinking room. All our energies focused on the screen; the air sucked from the room as if a giant vacuum is attached to the ceiling. My chest burns. It hurts to breathe, to think.

  “One condition, Jax.”

  “Lily, damn it, don’t do this!” Dresden leans toward the screen.

  She ignores him, not even glancing at the camera.

  “Jax. Give me a month. Let me say goodbye. Let me have a little more time with them. Then I’ll come back. You’ll have me, I’ll make sure they stop hunting you, and you’ll stop hunting them. Win-win.”

  Jax smiles a sinister, I-own-you grin, nodding. He pulls a knife from his belt and cuts the binds on Lily’s wrist. She drops to the ground, grunting as she catches herself on her hands and knees.

  “A month, Lily. I’ll contact you. Don’t try and get stupid, I’ll know if you do.”

  “You know I stick to my word, Jax.”

  “Yes. Oh, and one more thing. Sammi, you still there?”

  She steps in front of Dresden, her face hard and angered. “Yes.”

  “Would you like to see your daughter?”

  She sucks in a ragged breath, nodding slowly. A young woman, resembling her, steps into the frame, a black belt in one hand. She tilts her head, a wild gleam in her eyes. Jax turns his head toward her and plants a kiss on her cheek. Sammi gasps and sways next to me, Dresden lets go of my shoulder to steady her.

  “Hello, mother.”

  “Jennifer?”

  “Yes. You know, it’s heartwarming you betrayed your team for me, but Jax takes care of me better than you ever did.”

  “No.”

  “Bye, mother. Your little friend here should be back there in a few hours. I can’t wait to see the infamous Viper back on the block. I might even buy her myself and have a little fun.”

  “Jennifer!”

  Jax’s booming laugh echoes in my ears long after the feed is cut, and I can’t move. Everything around me blurs and I barely feel Sorina sobbing against my shoulder. This can’t happen. I won’t lose Lily again. Not to the Taurus, not to Jax, not to anyone. Come hell or fucking high water, she’s staying with me, and I don’t give a damn if I have to kill a thousand people to make it happen.

  They’ve fucked with the wrong man this time.

  31

  ~Blake~

  I can’t stop pacing the living room. 17 hours. Jax’s transmission cut off 17 hours ago. Lily still isn’t here. I’ve spent 17 hours trying to figure out what to say to her. When I’d first woke up from the meds, I’d planned to rip her head off. After seeing her on that screen though . . . it’s like someone punched a hole in my chest the size of Russia.

  I’m angry and scared at the same time. How in the hell could she agree to go back? A month? What is that shit? And what game is Jax playing? There’s a reason he agreed to give her the time, and it isn’t to say goodbye. I just can’t figure out what it is.

  “Blake,” Delia says softly touching my arm to stop my pacing.

  I take a deep breath and look down at her. She’s helped Teresa nonstop for the duration of this fiasco. When the transmission came through last night, she and Marcela just stood in the back, not saying a word. There wasn’t much they could say. They haven’t seen Lily since she was eight. There’s no connection between her and them.

  The click of the front door startles me, and it’s as if life moves in slow motion. Edmond Bates, the head of their Interpol division, sidesteps through the door, his arm around the waist of my beautiful, albeit very bruised, fiancée.

  Everyone rushes toward them but stops short as Bates holds his hand up. That’s when I take in Lily. She’s in loose-fitting shorts and a tank top. Her arms and chest are covered in knuckle and strap-shaped bruises. Her legs have the same markings and her left knee is swollen twice its normal size.

  “Baby,” I say quietly. Something tells me yelling isn’t a good idea.

  At a snail’s pace, she lifts her head. When her hair falls out of the way, I almost break. Her nose is broken; cuts litter her lips and cheeks. Both her eyes are blackened, and her right eye is swollen. Not enough to be closed, but enough that she looks like she’s been stung by something.

  “Hi handsome,” she says taking her arm from around Bates’ shoulder.

  To my surprise, she turns and limps right to Dresden. He doesn’t hesitate as he wraps his arms around her fiercely. It’s a strange moment, but one that shows the unshakeable bond between them. Lily buries her face in his shoulder, and the only sound echoing off the walls is her constant mantra of, “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, no, mein freund. Don’t do that.” Dresden leans in and rests his face in the crook between Lily’s face and her shoulder, speaking to her in German. His voice is audible, but the words aren’t discernible.

  After a few moments, she lets go of him and turns back toward me. Her eyes wander over my shoulder and within a moment her face turns to stone. I glance behind me where Sorina is standing with Delia and Marcela. As she makes to move past me, I gently take hold of her bicep. I can’t tell if she’s going to hug Sori or beat the hell out of her mother.

  “Mom.” Sorina makes the choice for her and jogs forward, wrapping her arms around Lily’s waist. “I’m so pissed at you.”

  Lily’s eyes soften a fraction. “I know. When aren’t you mad at me though?”

  “I’m not mad when you’re here,” Sorina says with a chuckle, squeezing Lily tighter.

  “Sori,” I say, putting my hands on her shoulder as Lily winces in what can only be excruciating pain.

  “No. Let her squeeze. I don’t have much time left for these moments.” Lily squeezes Sorina back, hard, and just clenches her teeth to handle the pain.

  I lean over and kiss her lips, gently tangling my hand in her hair. “Don’t do that. We’re going to figure this out, baby.”

  She kisses me back harder than I expect, and I use my other hand to cup her face and steady both of us. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  I nod and kiss her forehead, refusing to take my hand off her skin.

  “Mihnea.”

  Lily’s entire body tenses. She disengages from Sorina and shakes my hand off before taking a few steps forward. Vlad and Dresden both move to stand to the side. Lily is hurt, but that doesn’t mean she won’t beat someone’s ass.

  “For the duration of time you’re in this house, you will refer to me as Lily or Agent. Is that understood?”

  Both her mother and sister nod, barely looking up from the floor.

  “I know why he brought you here. But I can assure you, I don’t want to know you. I don’t need or want closure. Everyth
ing I’ve been through, every disgusting, painful memory I have is thanks to you.”

  Before anyone can utter a word, Lily turns and limps toward our bedroom. A low whistle, like Morse code, eerily dances across the space, and Vlad and Dresden both turn and follow her.

  I look around at the stunned faces of our broken family. That’s what this is. It’s not a team. It’s a family. A much screwed up one, but it's family nonetheless. Shaking my head, I head for the bedroom as my daughter heads over to console Lily’s biological family.

  Whatever is going to happen in the next few days is going to happen, but something tells me it won’t be good.

  †††

  ~Lily~

  “I told him not to find them. Just for the record,” Dresden says as he flops down on the end of my bed while I hobble to the bathroom.

  Everything hurts. It’s been a while since my ass has been kicked this bad, and all because I couldn’t fight back.

  Wouldn’t.

  “He’s only trying to help. And I think what Blake did is the last thing this team needs to be discussing,” Vlad says, venom lacing every word.

  “Yeah, she fucked up. Obviously. But now we have several problems on our hands instead of just dealing with one,” Dresden says.

  “Who gives a shit if her family is here? They’re not even a problem. We have bigger fish to worry about, Dresden. Or did you not notice that Lily looks like she’s been trampled by a herd of hippos?”

  I lean against the bathroom sink and glance up at my reflection while they argue in the background. Ugh. They’re not kidding about how bad I look. Bruised and cut just about everywhere. It almost looks like my skin is actually tinged blue. Alien-like. I definitely need someone to set my nose or it is going to heal crooked.

  I slowly hobble back to the bathroom door and lean against the frame just as Blake walks into the room and quietly shuts the door behind him. He stares at me and there’s no anger in his eyes, which worries me more. I can’t tell what he’s thinking at all.