Always Angel (The List #4)

by N. K. Love

  I stay inside her, catching my breath, absorbing the vibrations of her trembling thighs.

  I pull out slowly and we collapse on the bed, beside each other. It takes a few minutes for us to speak. Our legs are tangled but other than that, we don’t reach out to touch each other, we’re too caught up floating back down to the here and now.

  “Sorry, for… manipulating you.” She looks at me out the corner of her eye, offering me a shy smile. “I just needed to make sure that, I don’t know, that nothing had changed between us, maybe.”

  I kiss the top of her hand and lay it down on my chest.

  “Firstly, you didn’t manipulate me, you seduced the fuck out of me. No apology necessary for that—ever!” She shrugs, widening that curious smile of hers. “I enjoyed every torturous second of it, thank you very much. Secondly, why would anything have changed, B?”

  “I was, I don’t know, skeptical perhaps. I thought there was a chance you’d look at me differently”

  “What, because of these marks?” I stroke my finger along the long cut that’s already healing well on her arm and then reach across and stroke the back of my fingers over the fingermarks on her neck. “Angel, I won’t say that they’ve made me love you more—because that’s simply not possible. But, for the time being at least, when I look at you, they’re a harsh reminder of how incredible you are and how lucky I am to have you… You thought you’d look at me differently, if I killed somebody… Do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Good, because I’m going to make you so happy, Beth. I don’t want you to ever have any regrets about me—” Pulling her hand away from my chest she covers her face with both hands, trying to stop herself from crying. “Beth, don’t.” She lets me take her hands away. “Please don’t hide from me. If you want to cry, then cry. You’ve got to let it all out so that you can move on, Angel.”

  Once she allows herself to, she cries and she cries. Without either or us realising, she must’ve been bottling up so much torment inside of her and this was her release. The sound of her heart wrenching sobs damn near had me breaking down with her. I rocked her and comforted her for as long as it took. At some point, she drifted off to sleep, absolutely exhausted.

  When she woke up, it was good to see more colour in her cheeks. She put it down to her mini meltdown, relieving her anxiety about the last few days—I managed to persuade her to give my cock some of the credit too.

  Then, my Little Miss Contradiction makes an appearance by telling me that if her bruises remind me of how incredible she is, she’d appreciate it if my beard could remind her how incredible it feels rubbing against the inside of her thighs.

  Yes, indeed. Nothing’s changed. My woman is truly one of a kind. And of course, I obliged.

  Twice.

  After grabbing a hearty meal from room service. We sit in a comfortable silence at the table. Beth is the first to speak, I knew she’d got something to ask me but I just hadn’t quite figured out what.

  “I want you to tell me about Will, please.”

  “B, there’s nothing else you need to know.”

  “Jax, I know you’ve not told me because you want to be sure I’ve come to terms with everything before throwing new information on the table. I’m not stupid.” I smile at hearing the return of her feistiness for the first time in a long time. “I also know that you’ve been through a lot too and you’re brushing that to the side to take care of me.” I wrongly shrug away her comment. It still feels too raw. “Jax, Carmel and her sick, twisted truths are gone now. They can’t hurt us anymore.” We lace our fingers together in the middle of the table. “It won’t happen overnight but we’ll move on from this because we’re in it together!”

  “One hundred percent, B.”

  “So now it’s time for you to fill in some blanks for me, please.”

  “Alright, Angel.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tuesday 16th June 2015

  2:58am

  “I told you not to shoot him up with too much of that Propofol. We only needed a few minutes to get him restrained and into the van safely… Oh hang on… Here we go… Jaxson? Are you with us, buddy?”

  I few taps across either cheek is enough to bring me the whole way back into consciousness. I begin to peel open my heavy eyelids and at the same time, I can feel my hands are handcuffed behind me. I’m hunched over, so I can immediately tell that my gun’s been taken.

  Is this it? Samara and his men have caught up with me quicker than I could get to them?

  “Where’s Beth?”

  My voice is deep and groggy but I think we both spoke in unison, which is confusing. Why would they be asking me where Beth is?

  My eyes squint, adjusting to the dim lighting, trying to focus on my surroundings. We’re in the back of a van, there’s a driver and passenger to the right of me and then I look ahead, at the man who’s been speaking.

  He isn’t what I’d imagined. Then again, what have I got to go by? This guy’s older, around late forties but he’s got the physique of some of the lads in the gym who are half his age.

  He’s frowning at me.

  “Where is she?” He shouts.

  My head still feels foggy from whatever the hell they sedated me with. The point of entry on my neck is burning and my throat feels like it’s on fire. But my anger and concern rages above all else.

  “You tell me! I know where she should be, but she’s not there now! I swear to God, I will kill any motherfucker who so much as lays a finger on her.”

  “Okay. Okay. Alright, listen to me, Jaxson. You need to trust me on this.”

  “Trust you? Who the hell are you?”

  “My name’s William. You know my daughter, Willow.” He reaches behind me to unfasten the handcuffs, letting that piece of unbelievable information attempt to sink in. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet under much different circumstances… Call me Will.”

  I shake his hand.

  “Jax… Call Willow. I need you to prove it… No proof. No trust.”

  “Okay, fair enough because I do need you to trust me.” He presses a speed dial on his phone and flicks it onto loudspeaker. Half a ring later and the call connects. “Willow.”

  “Thank God, Dad. What’s going on? You really freaked me and Mom out. Has something happened to Beth?”

  Will raises his eyebrows at me and I nod my head at him, satisfied that he is who he says he is.

  “I’m sorry for worrying you both, sweetheart. I can’t talk right now. I just wanted to tell you not to worry. I’ll call you back soon and tell you what I can.” On that note he ends the call. “You might be familiar with my crew, Faceless.”

  “Faceless?” What the hell! “You’re a member of Faceless?”

  “Yeah. Well, I head it up.”

  “Let me get this straight, you’re Wills father and a notorious assassin?”

  “Hardly, I keep it pretty small time nowadays. Anyway, enough with the pleasantries. We can break bread later, once Beth’s safe.”

  “What do you know about Beth?”

  “Nothing, yet. I was told that you’ve just come back into the country, wasn’t she with you?”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  “In that case, should she be with a female friend of yours, named Carmel?”

  “Yes. How—”

  “Fuck!” He punches the side of the van behind me, denting it. “Not good!”

  “Tell me what the fuck is going on, Will!”

  “Your friend, Carmel, put a contract out on you and your friend, Jack.”

  “The fuck she did!”

  “Sorry, but it’s true. She reached out specifically to me and some white supremacist freak—”

  “What? No way. You’re wrong.”

  “We both wanted the job but I managed to secure it because he was in London so I could get to you quicker. Plus, I threw Jack in as a freebie.”

  “It can’t be her. She’s got no reason to… Where did you hear her name?”

&nb
sp; “Out of her mouth, Jax. Well, she referred to herself as ‘C’… But Willow told me Beth had met a friend of yours named Carmel. Is she part of your organisation?”

  “What organisation?”

  “C’mon, Jax.”

  “She was… We’re no longer operating.”

  “Well, whatever’s happened between you and this mad woman has come back to haunt you, because it sounds as though she has Bethany too.”

  “Did she mention someone called Samara? Fahim Samara?”

  “No. Nobody.”

  “This can’t be happening!” I take a few deep breaths. Wrapping my hand around my clenched fist, I try to contain my rage, knowing I need to get my fucking game face on quickly. “I need to get my head around all this… What were her specifications?”

  “She wants me to pick up you and Jack, then bring you both to her at an undisclosed location. There was no mention of Beth or anyone else. She said to bring you to her so she can say her piece, before I kill you in front of her.”

  “Back up a minute… If she didn’t mention Beth, how did you know who I was?”

  Will checks his watch before responding.

  “Jax, I promise there will be time for more explanations in a while. First of all we need to get our shit together and call this bitch to confirm we have you both in transit.”

  We spend some time concocting a solid plan, along with a backup. Then we go over it a few times until we’re sure there’s no room for fuck ups. During this time, Will gets the call that Jack has been picked up. Passing the phone straight over to me, I reassure him they can be trusted and briefly talk him through the plans.

  We’re going to have Carmel believe that Will is bringing me in and Jack will follow shortly after in a different van. I’ll be handcuffed but Will has taped the small key to the inside of the back of my waistband, so I can free myself at any point, if necessary. Will originally wanted to get inside the location, assess risks—in case she has more hired help on board—and then as soon as we know Beth is safe, kill Carmel. After a heated debate, I’ve convinced Will that provided Beth is with Carmel and she isn’t hurt or in danger, we’ll let the situation play out for a while.

  It goes without saying that if anything’s happened to Beth or if she’s in danger, we’ll put an end to it there and then. But if not, I want to take the opportunity to hear what Carmel has to say. I need to try and understand where all of this has come from and I want to look her in the eye and see if she’s for real. It’s unlikely, but if there’s a chance that all of this is drama and she won’t actually follow through, I need to know. If she’s somehow working with Samara, it’s imperative that I get as much information from her as possible.

  The second she makes the call to kill any of us though, there’s no going back for her. Will also points out that we’ll be able to figure out if there’s any other plans in progress. For all we know, there could be other contracts out on our family.

  At the moment, the only explanation that makes sense to me is that she’s working for Samara. After all, she’s the one that originally arranged for me to be on the way to the airport when Beth was targeted. If that’s true, it means I handed her over to Carmel, thinking it was the safest place for her but it was the most lethal.

  “Okay, I told her I’d check in with an update before 4:30am. I can buy us more time if we need it?”

  “No, every minute counts.”

  “I agree. Everyone quiet.” Will sits beside me on the bench in the back of the van. I watch as he opens his call history and presses the entry for ‘C’. Holding the phone to his right ear, nearest to me, I hear it ring and then she answers. Whatever they injected me with already had me nauseous but hearing her voice sends me over the edge. I throw up down the side of the van. If there was ever any doubt there isn’t now. Will moves over to the bench opposite as he tells her that he has me securely detained. I quickly regain my composure, holding my hands up as an apology. “No, they weren’t together but my partners have him secure also.” Will nudges the driver to give him his phone. “You made the right choice. I never disappoint. So, if you’re ready, we can bring them straight in.” Opening an app on the phone, he types in the address and a map pops up. “I’d say ninety minutes should cover it.”

  As I peer around to look down at the map, I hear the unmistakable sound of Beth screaming out my name. Will drops the driver’s phone and grips a fistful of my tee, which distracts my heart from completely bursting out of my chest. I push his hand away and sit back against the side of the van, digging my fingers into my scalp.

  Cradling my head, I rock back and forth, a bundle of mixed emotions. I’ve no idea what Carmel has done to her but I’ve no doubt that she’s planning to kill her. But she is alive and that’s what I need to focus on.

  Will wraps up the conversation sharpish, no doubt fearful I’m going to explode.

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “She said ‘Leave him alone’.”

  She’s trying to protect me…

  “Jax. Hey, Jax. Look at me… I know that was hard, but that’s what we needed to hear. Beth’s alive. So let’s concentrate on keeping it that way, yeah?!” Will picks up the phone and hands it back to the driver who puts it in the docking station and starts up the engine. “Let’s go.”

  Beth’s an hour and half away from me. Although this fucked up situation has my stomach in knots, I keep reminding myself that we have the upper hand. Carmel is oblivious. Even if she has man power there, by the time Jack arrives, there will be us two, Will and five of his most trusted men. With my feelings of doubt and guilt buried away for the time being, I grow more and more eager to get there.

  “Fancy telling me how you knew who I was now?”

  “Sure. We’ve got another hour to go… Funnily enough I was just wrapping up a house party tonight that you and Beth were invited to. But she’d already sent her apologies via Willow, saying she was going away with her boyfriend. It was late when the contract came up and everybody was leaving… Because of the time, I assumed it’d be something foreign. I recognised the name first of all and the tag was the highest I’ve seen this year! I showed an interest and then she sent through a couple of photographs. That’s when it became definite.”

  “How, though, when we’ve never even met?”

  “We haven’t but you were on my radar… I’d recently recruited some new men and I assigned them their first job. They were eager to prove themselves and I always tail recruits when they’re popping their cherry. I was parked down the side of a building. I watched them ambush a 4x4 and attack the target we were hired to protect this man from. It was you. I admired the way you handled yourself. You put my men to shame.”

  “Your men stabbed me?”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I got rid of them after that. They weren’t up to scratch… Sometime later, I was at my daughter’s house and Smiler—Beth—was beaming over some new boyfriend. She was sketchy on the details but then you called her phone and a picture of the two of you popped up on the screen. I recognised you straight away. That balaclava may have only been off for a minute but you made me curious and your face was imprinted on my mind… I kept an eye on Beth but from what her and Willow told me, my gut instinct stood true. I caught wind that the old coot from that job was some sort of pedophile, that’s why his dodgy solicitor put him in touch with Faceless. I knew you were a decent man, so I let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “This is the most mind-fucking day…”

  “It’s far from over yet. Plus, I’m gonna need to slap you around a bit before we get there… Purely for authenticity purposes, of course.”

  Just before a smile graces my face, his fist does.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Friday 19th June 2015

  7:46pm

  As I begin to rouse, my yawn is ambushed by his beautiful lips. That’s when I realise, with an echoed whimper into his mouth, that my filthy dream is partially real. To the unsuspecting eye, I’m simply resting, whilst J
ax watches yet another in-flight movie. It looks as though his arm is innocently wrapped around my waist. But little do the air-hostesses know, his hand has taken a detour between my legs, from behind.

  Our adjoining, luxurious pods are in the centre of the aisle, with privacy screens that shield us, but not completely.