God, I want to tell Silas the truth. I want him to drag me into his arms and lock me somewhere safe while he takes care of that venomous fuck hiding in our apartment. Hearing every word we speak.
“I’m scared.”
“I know, but it’s almost over. I’ve been talking to some guys, and we’re coming up with a plan. That’s why I’ve got to go.”
I’m desperate to shut him up, so I grab the limp bandage hanging on his shoulder and I untie it. The material is soaked through with his blood, and when I peel it back, he makes a face.
“Shit.”
There’s just one angry gash. The cut is small, but I can tell from the way Silas’s eyes dent with pain that the knife went in deep.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“I’ve had a lot worse, trust me.”
Sliding out of me, he sits back, and I follow him as he stands up. I watch him button up his shirt as a silent howl runs though me. His hollowed eyes watch me, and then he grasps my chin, his thumb caressing my skin.
“It’ll be fine.”
And I attempt some kind of a smile, and he leans forward and presses his lips to mine. They’re impossibly sweet, and my chest fills with something that might be joy, but it’s brief. Like a firework, it bursts into brilliant rays of colored light, and then it fizzles into ash. I want to cry out and scream with my grief.
Silas dresses quickly, finding his belt in a corner. Then he gives my cheek a kiss, and I’m just about to let him leave without saying it back. My lungs collapse as he gives me a smile—
“I love you, Michael.”
He stops at the sound of his name, as though he almost didn’t recognize it. He looks over his shoulder and blows me a kiss, and then that’s it. The door opens and he’s gone.
I’ll never see him again.
Still naked, I walk to the bedroom and slam the door shut just as I hear a crash in the living room. I back myself into the room, my legs bumping against the mattress. Seconds later the bedroom door flies open with a crash, and Viper stands in the doorway, a figure of darkness.
“Did you enjoy watching Silas fuck me?”
The light flares on, illuminating a mask of potent rage, and as I look down, a stiffening erection. That more than anything sends a jolt of fear to my heart, but I square my jaw and look at him.
“Clearly, you did.”
He makes a sound that’s like an inhuman bellow, and then suddenly his vicious hand is wrapped around my throat. Blood slows to my brain, and I feel it like a sudden misstep.
“What the fuck was that?”
“That was me playing you.”
A heavy hand smashes against my jaw. The blunt force knocks my head to the side, and still he squeezes my neck as my vision blurs. I can’t speak from the pain vibrating.
“Is this an invitation, Fawn? You want me to fuck you on his bed?”
“You disgust me.”
Laughter hits my ears. High, cold, and cruel. “You realize there’s nothing to stop me from pulling my cock out and burying it in your cunt.”
Go ahead and rape me, you coward.
His hand relaxes around my neck, and I take a deep lungful of air. I watch as the other hand reaches for his belt and tugs a dark, wooden handle. A long, deadly knife winks at me under the light, and he slaps my thigh with the flat of the blade.
“Go on. Spread those gorgeous legs apart.”
Oh God.
I bite my lip to keep from screaming as I do what he says. My throat closes as he points the blade at my pussy, his eyes drinking in my reaction.
“I told you I’d fuck you with my knife.”
My mouth parts, and I swallow back a tremor of weakness.
He wants you to beg. Don’t beg.
Silas’s voice hisses in my ear, and I cling on to him like a beacon of strength. He wouldn’t beg, either.
“You’re really fucking brave with Silas gone from the apartment. Are you a coward? Or just lazy?”
The edge of the knife digs into my thigh and a gash opens. He yanks my head closer, so that there’s nowhere else to look. His eyes swirl with madness, deeply wounded pride, and rage. A rage that’s inhuman—terrifying.
“DON’T—CALL ME—COWARD!”
Then his hand is around my throat again, and he squeezes so hard that I drop to my side. The knife slips back into his belt and then he reaches for the obscene bulge in his slacks. He grabs his cock and strokes himself. The fucking bastard is going to masturbate to my death.
I’m going to die like this.
It feels peaceful, at first. Then the burn of lack of oxygen attacks my lungs, and I claw at his fingers, trying to prize them off. Just one digit would give me the air I need. I dig my nails into his flesh, and I tear up as the light slowly fades from the world.
“No,” he says softly.
Air rushes back to my brain as his fingers unstick from my neck. Dazed, I lie on my back as color returns to my vision. The green of his eyes.
“He’s going to watch as I shove my fat cock inside you. He’s going to listen to you scream while he’s tied up. Helpless.”
Be brave, Fawn.
“I’ll choke you as I fill your cunt with my cum, and then he can watch your skin turn blue. Your eyes will pop out of your sockets and you’ll piss yourself, and then I’ll touch myself again.”
He touches my face, and I flinch so violently that he laughs. My heart— I’m going to pass out. Tears bead in my eyes and I turn my head toward the door. Viper grips my jaw like a wrench and forces me to look at his terrible face.
“Are you still brave?”
12
Silas
The smell of soy and Chinese cooking spices saturates the cramped restaurant. There’s a sea of dark, bent-over heads on low tables, porcelain spoons banging against bowls. My stomach growls as the familiar smells tease my senses. Then a memory blasts through my head and I’m running through the streets of Chinatown with ragged sneakers, clutching a hot pork bun in my grubby hands. The smells of restaurants, of the open markets—of dried ginger and cuttlefish—I ran past them all to bring back my prize to Pepper. The cops would be looking for an eight-year-old kid who stole the bun, but so what? It was a hot meal. Shared among eight kids, a single pork bun wasn’t very much at all.
“Sir, do you have a reservation?”
My feet slam back into the present and I smile at the hostess, showing her the Black Dragons mark on my palm.
She nods and leads me deep into the restaurant, where there’s a round table and eight other syndicate men sitting there already. They watch me as I take a seat among them. This, in the end, was all I could scrounge as a resistance against Viper. Eight men.
“Can I get you anything to drink?”
“Hot tea.”
The rest of them wave her off, and the waitress turns her back, failing to hide her disappointment. Then my eyes turn on each of the men. Paul’s sitting among them, his eyes narrowed in distaste for the setting.
“Something wrong?”
He leans forward, his lank black hair falling in front of his face. “This place. There are way too many people.”
“That means it’ll be harder to be overheard.”
“Viper has spies everywhere.”
“This is worth the risk.”
A hard edge in my voice makes Paul lean back into his seat. None of the sullen faces around me dispute that fact.
“We’re all here for the same reason.”
“I know why I’m here.” A heavyset man glares at me through heated eyes. “I don’t know why the hell you are.”
This is going well.
“Meaning?”
“She was my cousin,” he says, fury emanating from every pore. “Sarah. Viper butchered her after he murdered the Council.” He extends his hand, pointing to the man sitting across from him. “His son was killed.” And then he gestures to another. “His is still lying in a coma. What I’m trying to get at, Silas, is that we don�
��t fucking trust you. You’re not one of us. You’re one of his.”
“If you really believed that, why did you come to this meeting?”
“No one else is taking a stand.”
That’s fucking right.
“I’ve wanted Viper dead ever since I was a kid.”
“What did he do to you?”
My insides, already swirling with unease, clench uncomfortably.
Achilles dropped her facedown in the sand as the freezing water crept under her body and washed into her open mouth. I crouched, frozen, as he walked past the rock where I was hiding, his feet making prints in the sand. The swell of the Bay kept blowing over the shore and Pepper’s lifeless body. Tears froze on my cheek, and still I stayed there. When I finally gathered the courage to remove myself from my hiding place, I ran to her side. Pepper’s dirty-blonde hair stuck to her pale face, and my fingers touched her skin. She was cold. And dead.
It was all my fault.
I repeated the story once to Fawn. It was painful enough prying out that secret from my soul and laying myself bare to her. I wouldn’t do it for anyone else.
He falters under my glare as I tighten my fists and seethe.
“We can’t get to him in the syndicate,” another man chimes in, breaking the tension around the table.
“We can. We just have to spread the word within the ranks.”
“How the fuck do we do that?”
Jesus Christ.
“The same way I approached you guys at the party.”
“The real question is, what happens afterwards? Let’s say that we somehow manage to get rid of Viper. Then what?”
“Then I take temporary leadership of the Dragons.”
A silence fills the space between me and the others around the table, broken only by the clatter of chopsticks and the murmur of conversation.
“What?” the man to my left asks, a grin on his face.
“I’ll take Viper’s place—just for a little while until things calm the fuck down.”
“You think you can just waltz into the biggest criminal empire—”
“Okay, stop. You guys aren’t a fucking empire. You’re a joke. You let one man slaughter your Council.”
“No one’s attempted an attack in over fifty years.”
“And you made it really fucking easy for them,” I snap back. “I know that I’m new, but I know Viper better than any of you. I can take him out and smooth things over with the public, but it’ll take time. And I’ll need your support.”
“Why the fuck would we support you? What makes you think you’re qualified to lead this organization?”
“I don’t want it.”
Wasn’t it Fawn who said that leadership was best suited for people who didn’t want it? My stomach turns at the thought of having hundreds of men not only working for him—but under him. I’ve worked for dozens of gangs, quietly assessed their leadership, but I never envisioned myself as a boss.
“But you just said—”
“I know what I said. I’m doing this for my wife.”
Not because I want to be in charge of a bunch of fucking amateurs.
They glance at each other. It doesn’t take a genius to sense their unease, and I don’t blame them. I’m a fucking hitman, for Christ’s sake. I won’t relish the job, but at least I’ll be calling the shots again.
“Look, this doesn’t work unless I have your support. If you don’t like the job I’m doing, get rid of me.”
Paul watches me, rubbing his chin. “Guys, we don’t have time to debate this. In a month, Viper’s managed to destroy our relationship with the public and our allies in Oakland. This shit can’t continue.”
The waitress finally returns with a hot clay pot of tea and sets a tiny mug in front of me, filling it with the light-green liquid before turning around quickly and leaving. A stab of unease hits me as I stare at the steaming drink.
I turn my head around, watching the waitress hurry back to the kitchen. Grateful for its warmth, my hands wrap around the mug of tea. I grit my teeth. Organizing a hit like this feels too bold. I deal in secrecy and shadows. That’s how I work best.
“We shouldn’t have waited so long. It’ll be harder now that everyone’s complacent. They’re used to the brutality.”
I can’t see any way around a bloody gunfire battle in the throne room. It’s a big open space—not a lot of options for stealth. I weigh my options. Poison? Not going to work unless I get close enough, and I have a feeling he’ll never allow that again.
Shock electrifies my limbs as I stare through the glass windows of the restaurant. Several men in identical wool coats crowd the door outside. What the hell are they doing? They’re wearing blood-red shirts, the same as the syndicate.
Boiling hot tea explodes over the table, scalding my hands as the pot shatters. A neat hole burns in the forehead of the man sitting right behind it. I shove myself back and hurl the table onto its side, ducking underneath. The restaurant erupts into chaos as gunfire punches through flesh and muscle, bright red misting the air and spraying over the white tablecloths like macabre confetti.
Paul ducks down beside me, spittle flying from his mouth as he screams, “What the fuck happened?”
“They found us. He knows.”
The fucking waitress probably picked up the phone the moment we sat down. Damn it.
Which means we’ve run out of options.
Time slows to a crawl as I shove the table forward. I look back and see them huddled under the booth.
“Come on!”
They follow me as I run behind the booths. A vase shatters over my head, and I duck down. Adrenaline runs like fire through my veins, and dimly I realize that one of my supporters is already dead. They’ll kill all of us.
It’s now or never.
I slide the gun from my holster and lift myself over the edge, firing at the cloaked figures standing behind shattered glass. Any moment now I’ll feel a sting or maybe a punch to my head. Perhaps all I’ll feel is a flash of fear, and then I’ll be dead.
Fuck that.
“To the back!”
They streak into the kitchen as I hurl myself over the banister, firing toward the yellow flashes of fire. At least one of them goes down, but I’m outnumbered, and chunks of wood fly in the air, blowing holes the size of quarters inches beside me.
“Shit!”
I squeeze off a few more shots, and then I chase after them, gun drawn as I whip my way through the kitchen. The cooks scream and hold up their hands as I make my way through. The red EXIT sign burns into my eyes. I sprint toward it, nearly slipping on the wet floor.
Paul crashes into the exit, flinging it open with his shoulder. I hear the loud cracks before I can stop my feet. My body smashes into the partially open door, and I burst into the stinging cold. I straighten, hearing gunfire, and lift my arm toward the first face I see.
CRACK!
I don’t wait to see him fall. I turn like the arm of a clock, and fire three more shots.
“Silas!”
Warmth sprays over my face, blinding me. I don’t understand it until a body standing beside me collapses. Paul’s cheek hits the cement, his skin pale as though the blood was already drained from his body, but I can see it creeping toward me. It pools around my feet, and I wipe my face to brush the strange wetness off. The back of my hand smears with red and little flecks of black gore. My knees hit the ground and I grab Paul’s neck, but there’s barely any heat left. Already I feel it fading.
“More coming!”
I duck behind a trash can as male voices rebound off the walls and pounding footsteps grow louder. My hand dives in my coat, fumbling for ammunition. I snap open the chamber and load.
“Drop your fucking weapons!”
A booming voice echoes down the alley, and I freeze in my crouched position. Paul’s dead. Another gone. Two missing. That makes just five of us.
Five against Viper’s syndicate.
The sound of a shotgun cocking send
s a thrill up my spine.
“Drop them, or I’ll blow a fucking hole in your chest.”
“Viper wants them alive,” a second, reedy voice says.
I’ll fucking die before they take me alive.
“Silas! We have your wife.”
We have your wife.
The words echo through me, but it’s as though my brain is frozen.
They have Fawn.
My chest caves in, and my fingers claw the dirty cement. I feel like I’m staring into Pepper’s dead eyes all over again. I’m crouching behind that rock, hiding, and that psychopath has her. He’s managed to get the only person who mattered in this whole goddamn place.
Oh God, what’s he done to her?
“That’s right, asshole. Stand up and drop your gun, and maybe you’ll live long enough to say good-bye to her.”
My throat burns with a silent scream, and the gun fumbles from my limp fingers.
* * *
They keep all of us alive as we’re shoved into cars and driven back to the syndicate, and then I’m in that black hall of death. Throughout the place a pungent smell lingers, as though they were never able to remove the blood from the carpet.
He’s always been two steps ahead of me. Somehow he knew that I was planning something under his nose. He knew every fucking step I was going to take before I acted on it.
How?
My brain fires off suggestions that I quickly kill. There must be some way out of this. To save Fawn. Fuck my own life. I don’t give a shit about it, but I need her to live.
I’m walking closer and closer to my death. I know that, but I’m doing it anyway. Because I can’t stand the ache. Because somehow I believe that if we’re together, it’ll be all right. I’ll figure out something and save us both.
The muzzle at my back digs in slightly, and the guards standing outside the throne room open the doors to the brilliant, wide space. Dozens of syndicate men stand at attention in ranks, all facing the stone dais where Viper sits in a throne, surrounded by his most loyal subjects. At his feet, a naked woman kneels, bound in thick rope. She lifts her head, her cheeks streaming with tears as she finds me. Her pain tears at my heart as I screw up my face and scream her name.
His Secret Baby (A Bad Boy Romance) Page 38