Dark Hearts (Part 4) (The Bleeding Love Series)

by Storm, Franca

  My survival instincts kick in and I push the pain down, focusing on scanning my surroundings instead. It takes several moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It’s almost pitch black. I can feel that I’m sitting on something. A chair. I try to move my arms, only to find that they’re bound with rope to the back of the chair. Great. But my legs are free. That affords me a lot of opportunity. Why would Dean risk that? He knows my reputation.

  What the hell is going on? What’s he playing at? Why the fuck did he knock me out?

  As my eyes finally adjust and I’m able to see where I am, I get my answer.

  A chill permeates my entire body as I realize exactly where I am.

  The Cellar.

  The Chamber inside, to be more specific. The room that has existed in my nightmares for too many years. The room that Ivan tortured me in. The room where he almost broke me.

  Jesus Christ.

  My pulse picks up. A panic attack’s coming on quickly. I start sweating and fighting for breath.

  “Damon,” a familiar voice calls through the darkness.

  The forceful commanding tone of it actually helps to center me, to focus my mind and draw my thoughts from the terror that just being in this room again has sparked within me.

  I hear the scrape of footsteps on the rough concrete coming towards me and I look up to see that asshole, Dean, striding over to me.

  “You fucking psycho!” I roar at him, fighting against my restraints.

  It’s then that I realize I’m still weak from the tranq he shot me up with. I’m nowhere near my full strength at the moment.

  He comes to a stop just a foot in front of me and folds his arms across his chest.

  “What is this? You looked into my past and found out about my history with this hellhole and decided you’d bring me back here and…what? Try to torture and break me for your sadistic pleasure? And then…kill me to get me out of the way so you and Alana can pick up where you left off?”

  He smirks. “The thought had crossed my mind. Briefly, though.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not gonna torture you,” he says, his eyes boring into mine and looking determined to make me believe him. He studies me and then adds, “This place is one hell of a trigger for you. I can see you sweating and fighting to deal with it.”

  “Fuck you, you twisted shit!” Who the hell does this to someone? It’s sick and twisted.

  “Tell me what your plan was tonight with that handover,” he demands calmly, completely ignoring my irate words.

  “You mean the handover you fucked all over? What do you think? What it looked like.”

  “You were gonna take all three of them out, faking the handover of Forest and Halton to Cartwright?”

  I nod.

  And so does he.

  That surprises me. He’s a distrustful son of a bitch, just like the rest of us. “It isn’t like you to accept anything right off the bat.”

  He smiles and gestures around. “This place is your weakness. A point of vulnerability in that normally impenetrable hard shell of yours. I knew that bringing you here would make you…accommodating. I knew it’d make you cooperate. Anything to help you get the hell out of here, right?”

  Son of a bitch. He’s done his research. But how? Who the hell told him about this? About my history with this place? It’s not public knowledge by any stretch of the imagination.

  “What else?”

  “Else?”

  “You brought me here to question me. So, what the hell else, Dean?”

  “I had to be sure.”

  What the fuck does that mean?

  I don’t get the chance to ask as he goes on, “The other reason I brought you here was to teach you a lesson you’ve clearly forgotten since you’ve been out of the game and in retirement mode for the last few years.”

  Condescending bastard. “And what the fuck is that?”

  He steps closer and growls, “That the only way to confirm someone’s loyalty in this business is to make damn sure their endgame is the same as yours. If it doesn’t align with yours, they’ll fucking betray you.” His eyes flash. “Even the father of the woman you love.”

  What?

  He steps back and reaches for a curtain that’s drawn down the middle of the room. He pulls it back with a rough tug and my breath hitches in my throat when I see what’s behind it. Well…who.

  “Fucking hell.”

  Ivan is hanging there, his arms pulled taut above his head and shackled to the ceiling. His ankles are bound by cuffs that are connected to hooks screwed into the floor. It’s a stomach-churning familiar sight. It’s a reversal of what I’d endured years ago—me in those shackles and him looking on in the position of power. He’s unconscious. His jeans are dirtied and bloodied and the gray golf shirt he’s wearing is shredded—by a blade, it looks like. There’s dried blood staining that, too. His face is a canvas of deep bruising and lacerations.

  He’s been worked over, big time.

  I shake my head, not believing my own eyes. How the fuck is this possible? “I…he’s dead. I killed him.”

  “Right, a shot through the heart.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He survived. Went to ground.”

  “No. There’s no way. Not on his own. He would’ve needed help. He was down and bleeding out when I walked away.”

  “You’re right. He did have help. Them.”

  “Them?”

  “That day I left Alana at that motel to find out what the fuck you were up to behind our backs, I put word out on you. A suit approached me. Ivan. He offered to help me take you out, claiming he had unfinished business with you. I had no clue what he was going on about at the time, until I looked into it later on and discovered all this Cellar shit that went down a few years back. My research on Ivan also turned up something that shocked even me. I found out he was playing both sides. He was playing all three of them. Forest, Halton and Cartwright.”

  “You’re saying Ivan was working for Andrew and Sam? And Cartwright?”

  “Yeah. Those two fuckers were planning on double crossing you. They were gonna hand you over to Cartwright. At the same time, Ivan had also promised him those two crazy bastards. Like I said: playing both sides.” He eyes me intensely. “They were gonna kill you tonight, Damon.” He blows out a breath and says, “You’re rusty. You didn’t look deep enough into their endgame. It was their survival, above all else. Even above you and Alana.”

  “What’s you interest in pulling me out of there? Last I checked, you wanted me in the ground as well. What’s your play here? Why intervene? Why do me any fucking favors?”

  He reaches into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulls something out. It looks like some sort of recording device. He holds it in front of me and says, “Because of this.”

  He presses a button and it plays:

  “I want out. Out of this life. This business.”

  “Good. I’m glad.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, baby. You never belonged in this world, but you got caught up in it. But now it’s time to get out. And also time for me to stay out this time.”

  “Yeah.”

  It’s a recording of a private conversation between me and Alana that we had a couple of days ago.

  “You bugged my place?”

  “Yep.”

  “How?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Please. You know as well as I do, that no matter how good someone’s security system is, there’s always a way to breach it. For people like us, anyway.”

  “Dean!” I growl.

  “Look, Damon…ah…fuck….” He runs his fingers through his hair. I’m shocked, because he looks distressed. He’s normally unflappable. Solid. Whatever it is he’s trying to say, it’s something monumental and difficult for him. Wow.

  He draws in a breath and tells me, “When Alana came to me all those years ago, she was broken, vulnerable and scared. But I saw something in her. Amazing potential. And I made her into one
of us. A contract killer. I gave her strength, purpose and power. But it came at a massive price. It pulled her into the darkness. I pulled her into the darkness.”

  He paces up and down in front of me for a few seconds, before saying, “Now it’s time for her to step back into the light and to leave all that shit behind.” He eyes me. “I also know she’s pregnant. It’s a chance for her to have a normal life now. No more of all this down and dirty bullshit. No more of all this death. And…I heard it all from that bug at your place…shit said between you two. Your talk with Mark. And it’s clear that…it’s me. I’m the one standing in the way of her having a better life.”

  He pauses and walks back to me, standing right in front of me. “I told you that Alana will always come back to me. You working with Forest and her father has her feeling betrayed, so she’ll likely look me up now. But I won’t let her. Not this time. It’s not—I’m not—what’s best for her.” He shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “That’s you. Not me. So, I’m gonna step aside now.”

  Fuck me. I did not see this coming at all.

  “So, that’s why I saved your ass tonight. For her.”

  “And I’m tied to this chair, why?”

  He flashes that cocky smirk of his. “I knew I’d have to make you listen to me. You and I don’t exactly have the best history.”

  He steps back and glances at Ivan. “And him? He’s still alive, cuz I believe he knows Cartwright’s location. I know you knew where he was at one point. That’s what you told Alana that day you burst on into my room at the MC bar. But you never acted on it. You were hell-bent on trying to keep her safe instead. And now he’s moved. But this fucker…yeah…he’s gotta know where the fuck Cartwright is now. He’s been working closely with him, trying to get Forest and Halton delivered, along with you.”

  I nod, understanding where he’s going with this. “We get the location and we can take them all out in one shot now he’s got Andrew and Sam with him.”

  “Yeah. But first—”

  “Let me guess. You want me to torture him, given our history, to get the intel?”

  He scoffs. “Damon, you don’t have the stomach for that shit these days. The second you choked on that assassination attempt on Andrew Forest, you lost your edge. You were the best, but that day…fuck…all that ended. No, I’ll torture it out of him. But, I’ll give you the kill, if you want it. Rid yourself of those demons and get all that shit out of your system.”

  I take his words in, as I stare at Ivan. The asshole looks so helpless, so weak. Nothing. He’s nothing. The shock and fear that’d been consuming me from being in this hellhole again has morphed to rage now. Rage that he fucked me over so badly that I’ve never been able to let go of it.

  Maybe Dean’s right. Maybe I do need to deliver the kill shot here. Hell, even before when I’d thought I’d killed him, I never got the chance to watch it. I’d made the shot from a massive distance and I’d had to take it and get gone right away.

  No. No. No. Stop it!

  I shake my head. “Just get the intel. I’m out.”

  “What?” he asks, shocked.

  “I don’t want the kill.”

  This shit—all of this—I don’t want a part of it anymore. It’s…me killing him in cold blood…I can’t, because…hell, I’ll like it far too much for it to be okay…for me to come back from it. There’s so much hatred there. I can’t risk killing on intense emotion like that. It’ll twist me. It’s already a goddamn miracle that it hasn’t actually happened to me yet, given everything I’ve done and everything I’ve been involved in. I’ve still got that spark of humanity. And I need to make sure that remains.

  Not just for me.

  For Alana and our unborn child. They are my focus. This…Ivan…it’s the past. I need to fucking keep it there. Besides, killing him or torturing him isn’t what’ll bring me peace with what he did to me. Only I can do that. It doesn’t matter what I do to him, because I’m the one that needs to find it. It’s on me.

  “Get me out of this chair.” I can’t stand another second of being in this place.

  He stares at me for a moment, probably trying to figure out why I’m not taking the revenge he’s offering up to me on a platter. I don’t expect him to understand. He can’t. He’s already well and truly twisted.

  After a few moments, he nods and approaches me. “All right.”

  As he starts untying me, I tell him, “Don’t drag it out with him. We don’t have the time for a lengthy torture session. There’s a lot we need to prepare.”

  “Believe me, I want this shit ended ASAP as much as you. I’ll get Cartwright’s location and then I’ll come to you.”

  “Good.”

  Chapter 5

  ~Alana~

  “Where the fuck is it?” I mutter to myself as I lift yet another painting off the wall and find fuck all behind it. “He’s a classicist. It should be behind a painting, behind a bookshelf—if he had any in this place. But there’s nothing. What the hell?”

  Mark’s sitting on one of Damon’s leather couches in the seating area of his office at his club, Pillow Talk. He’s sipping at a glass of vodka and eyeing me over the rim with amusement.

  We’ve been here for a couple of hours now, ever since Damon’s security team brought us here following the condo invasion by Cartwright’s guys earlier.

  Damon had an entire backup plan in place. Bringing us to his club was a good idea on his part. It’s a public place, making it a no-go for Cartwright. It would be way too much exposure for him to risk trying anything here.

  I place the painting back on the wall and spin around. I eye Mark. “Are you gonna help me at all?”

  “Nope,” he says with a grin.

  “Mark!”

  He sighs and leans forward. “I already told you that I’m not backing you on this. I’m not helping you to locate Damon’s stash of weapons and equipment that you think he has somewhere here. You don’t even know he has anything like that here for sure. And going after Cartwright tonight is not something I’m on board with.”

  “Why not?” I demand, folding my arms across my chest.

  “For one, we have no idea where the hell he even is.”

  I scoff. “Finding anyone hasn’t been a problem for either of us before. We can track the asshole just fine.”

  “Fine. Then how about this? You’re pregnant!”

  “For fuck’s sake, Mark! So, what? What has that got to do with any of this? I’m not even showing. I’m in the best shape of my life.”

  “If something happens, it doesn’t just happen to you, Alana. It happens to the baby.”

  “Nothing is gonna happen. I’m looking for long-range weapons. I’ve already told you that.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Bullshit. Distance, or up close, there’s still the potential of something happening. You don’t even believe your own denial. I know you, remember? You’re just antsy. You’re used to being the one making all the decisions, being the alpha commander. And, right now, it’s a team effort and you don’t like it. You don’t like relying on other people.”

  “Because all they do is betray me!” I thunder, actually losing my temper. “You. Dean. Damon.”

  Hurt plays on his face and he shakes his head sadly. “I’m sorry. You know I did it for you, Alana.”

  “The excuse all three of you have in common. But it’s still a betrayal.”

  He hesitates, not sure how to respond to that vicious truth.

  I growl to myself and turn away, heading over to Damon’s desk to try the drawers. Maybe there’s a handgun inside one of them. Something at least.

  I bend down to start work on picking the lock of the bottom one.

  “Bedroom closet,” a familiar voice booms suddenly.

  I shoot to my feet to see Damon standing in the doorway of his office.

  “Uh…what?” I ask, feigning innocence. But I fail miserably and it comes off nervous and guilty instead.

  “There’s a false back to my clo
set in the bedroom. My field equipment is in there.”

  I knew it! Well, I obviously didn’t know where exactly it was, but I knew he had a stash here somewhere. I know how he works. Always prepared. Always ready.

  I don’t get the chance to get another word out as he rushes over to me and wraps me up tightly in his arms.

  “Fuck, baby. As soon as I got word from Jack about what’d happened at my condo…shit…I nearly had a fucking heart attack. He said you weren’t hurt. Is that absolutely true? Tell me you’re not, Alana. Say the words,” he says frantically into my hair as he cups the back of my head and holds me around the waist with his left arm.

  “I’m fine,” I grunt back at him.

  He picks up on my hostile tone and pulls back, releasing me.

  “Alana, I—”

  I hold up my hand. “Save it.”

  His brow furrows. “Save it?”

  “What can you possibly say to make it better? You betrayed me! You betrayed me to the man I hate most in the world!”

  He scrubs his hand over his face and draws in a deep breath. He eyes Mark and says, “Give us a moment.”

  Mark nods and puts his drink down and gets to his feet. I see sympathy in his eyes. Sympathy for Damon. Argh. Asshole.

  He makes his way out of the office quickly and shuts the door behind him.

  The second it closes, I feel the tension in the room reach fever pitch.

  I step away from Damon and tell him, “You should’ve let him stay. I’m not ready to talk about this yet. We have more important things to focus on right now than our personal crap.” I turn away.

  I hear a growl from him.

  The next thing I know, his hands are on me and he’s pinning me up against the wall beside his desk.

  “Our personal crap?” he fumes at me.

  “That’s right,” I seethe, meeting his incensed, narrowed glare.

  “Answer a question for me, Alana. If I had told you my plan to engineer a fake handover of your father and Andrew Forest to Cartwright, what would you have done?”

  “Killed them. You know that.”

  “I do.”

  “Then why are you asking? And what difference would it have made, Damon? Cartwright wants them dead.”