Another pop in the air and my feet skipped as a pain tore through my shoulder, the tell-tale sign the bullet had grazed me.
My phone constantly vibrated in my back pocket but I couldn’t allow myself to focus on it as I concentrated on getting as far away as possible from the hunter quickly gaining on me.
I screamed as I careered around the corner and arms came around me, lifting my feet off the floor as a hand covered my mouth. “Shh.”
I gasped, staring in shock at Frank when he pressed me back against a fence, covering me completely with his large body, his palm still stifling any sound that attempted to burst from my mouth.
Another gunshot ricocheted around the quiet air. Except, this time, it wasn’t aimed at me.
I stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed at Rik when he took down my assailant in one precise shot, his eyes narrow and furious as the man hit the ground, a perfect circle in the middle of his forehead.
Frank relaxed, allowing me to finally move when he stepped back. But I couldn’t. All I could do was stare mutely at Rik.
Spinning around, ignoring me and looking at Frank, Rik gestured to the car with a slight tip of his head. “Get her out of here.”
Frank nodded and took my hand. “Come on, Esther.”
My eyes narrowed on Rik when he crouched down beside the man he had just killed and started checking through his pockets, taking his gun and slipping it into his own jacket pocket.
“Esther,” Frank coaxed.
I was too shocked to respond but Frank pulled me away, directing my staggered self into the back of a car I hadn’t noticed parked up.
Shutting the door, he moved around and climbed into the front. I felt his eyes on me through the mirror, but I couldn’t take mine away from Rik as he spoke into his phone. I had a feeling he was purposely keeping his gaze away from me.
However, just as the car pulled away he lifted his eyes and caught mine. The darkness reflected back at me seized my breath, the blaze in his stare evaporating the oxygen and causing me to suck in a gasp.
But then Frank pulled around a corner, and he was gone.
Nine
Frank sat awkwardly across from me, his long fingers that were wrapped around the mug he held tapping with either boredom or irritation.
He’d brought me to a house. A large house surrounded by miles and miles of high voltage fences and enough security to provide the queen with a safe place to stay. The inside was as open and as vast as the exterior, the kitchen Frank and me sat in larger than the whole area of my house. Sheer black cupboards and appliances gave it a sense of claustrophobia and every mirrored shiny surface did little to reflect the overhead bright lights.
“What the hell is going on, Frank?” I looked around when he didn’t answer me. “And where are we?”
“That I can answer. We’re at Bane’s.”
My eyes widened. “This is Rik’s home?”
It was huge, a monstrosity of modern and cold detachment. As a child, Rik had lived in the rough end of town. Its reputation had me wary of going anywhere near, and the one time I had, Rik had been so angry with me, his worry over my safety telling me I was right to be wary. And in fourteen years that had passed, he’d moved to somewhere on the complete other end of the spectrum. The house screamed of wealth and arrogance, a complete contrast to the boy I had once known.
“I want to go home,” I whispered. “I need to check on John.”
Frank’s eyes softened, his pity making me angry. He knew as well as I did that there was nothing I could do for John now. “Sorry, sugar. Bane will kick my ass if I let you leave.”
“And I’ll kick your ass if you don’t.”
He chuckled, and I smirked.
Slowly rising out of my chair, I rested my fists on the table and leaned towards him, fixing my gaze on him. “I don’t want to hurt you, Frank. I rather like you. But don’t be a fool.”
His eyes narrowed on me, debating the silent threat in my words. “It appears you take after your father more than Bane anticipated.”
I froze, glaring at him. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
His teeth clenched and he moved his eyes away, realising his slip of the tongue. “Nothing.”
Anger poured into my veins. I’d never struggled with my emotions as much since Rik had walked back into my life. He’d always had this uncanny ability of soothing me, yet now, all he brought was fury.
Shaking my head angrily, I clicked my tongue and turned.
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Frank warned from behind me when I grabbed the handle of the front door to leave.
“Then it’s a good job I don’t pay you to advise me, isn’t it?”
As I yanked open the door, Frank placed his hand on my forearm. He was on the floor, his face pressed into the cold harsh tiles and his arm around his back within seconds. My other arm scoped around the front of his neck, my fingers gripping the length of his hair.
He spluttered in surprise, his eyes wide and full of shock. “What the fuck just happened?”
“Jesus Christ,” Rik’s furious voice echoed behind me, making me drop my hold on Frank and jump up. His glare was hostile on me, but it was the disappointment in his eyes that caused me to stall. “When you two have finished wrestling on my hallway floor, I’d be grateful for some help here.”
My eyes widened when Brandon walked through the door with John in his arms.
“Oh my God,” I flustered. “Quickly.”
I gestured him over to the thick rug in front of the fire that blazed in Rik’s living room. John moaned in pain and winced when I ripped off his shirt. But after studying him, I smiled. “Luckily, it’s just a flesh wound. But the bullet’s still in there.”
He sighed but nodded. “You still got that magic touch, Esther?”
Unable to resist his wink, his deep chocolate eyes twinkling with mischief despite the excruciating pain he would be in, I laughed. “You sure? Last time I patched you up you couldn’t walk for two weeks.”
“As I said,” he laughed with me. “Your special magic touch.”
“Jesus – fuck!” Rik growled. “Just patch the man up!”
Turning to look at him in surprise at his hissed demand, I narrowed my eyes at the hostile glare both John and I were receiving. “What’s got up your arse?”
He turned to glare at Brandon when he spluttered out a laugh. “Kitchen, Knox!”
John shrugged at me when I rolled my eyes after Rik and Brandon both walked out of the room and into the kitchen. “You seem to have that effect on many blokes, Es.”
“Fuck you,” I hissed, but had to hide my grin at his humour, mainly because he was right.
He winked again and then placed his hand over mine. “I missed you. We all miss you.”
I shook my head, glaring at him. “Not now.”
“Why not now?” he asked, the faintest hint of anger in his tone. “It’s been eight damn years, surely that’s long enough!”
“Long enough?” I laughed bitterly. “Eternity will never be enough time away from that cunt!”
He flinched when I poked around his wound, secretly wanting him to feel the pain I still felt even after all these years. But as if oblivious to the agony he was in, and I was in, he lifted his hand and softly touched my cheek. “Esther, please…”
A cough behind me made me jump and John dropped his hand from my face. I was surprised to see a med-kit in Brandon’s hands, and holding it out to me, he asked, “You know what you’re doing?”
I nodded, smiling. “Yeah.”
His gaze moved from me to John, and then back. “Okay.” He then held out a bottle of whisky to John. “Figured you’d need this.”
John gave him a nod, and a smile. “Thank you. If Esther’s stitching me up I may also need an ambulance.”
“You cheeky fuck.”
He laughed, then sobered, the brightness in his eyes dimming. “I’m so sorry, Es. I should have protected you.”
Huffing, I started to work on him, cle
aning his wound and sterilising the needle in preparation. “Don’t you start. I’m sick and tired of people presuming I can’t look after myself. You know I can, John.”
He nodded, hissing and clenching his teeth together when I injected a dose of anaesthesia into the wound. “Doesn’t mean to say we won’t stop trying to do what’s best for you.”
I snorted, shaking my head as I tried to concentrate. “Pity someone didn’t tell my father that.”
John winced at the bitterness in my voice, but he nodded.
Turning to grab some tweezers from the box, I tensed when I found Rik watching me closely from where he sat on a chair. To say he had such a domineering presence, I hadn’t felt or heard him come back into the room.
His gaze was intense, fixed on me like he was trying to figure something out. He didn’t look happy, but then he didn’t seem angry either, more curious than anything.
Swallowing back the emotion that started to rise in my chest, I turned back to John. “Ready?”
He grimaced but nodded. “I’m all yours.” And when he added, “As I always was” I ignored the spiteful snort behind me, and got to work.
***
Rolling my head around my aching neck, I groaned and walked into the kitchen to wash my hands. Rik was sat at the table nursing a bottle of vodka. The only light came from some bulbs concealed under a few of the wall cupboards, giving the room a faint but relaxing aura. But Rik himself didn’t radiate calm at all, far from it.
“How’s the patient?” he asked quietly, his eyes still on the glass in his hand as I made my way over to the sink.
“Fast asleep.”
He paused, then finally looked up at me with a sceptical expression. “How the fuck does someone fall asleep while having a bullet dug from their gut?”
I chuckled, understanding his incredulity. “John’s always had a, uhh, thing for pain. It relaxes him. Don’t ask,” I added as I held up my hands, water dripping from them as I washed off the soap.
He nodded, then shrugged. “I take it you know him well.” There was a tone to his question that made stiffen. It was accusing and questioning both at the same time.
“He’s family,” I replied, giving him nothing to go on. Taking a glass from the drainer, I poured myself a vodka from the bottle on the table and sat in the chair opposite him. “Where’s Brandon and Frank?”
He narrowed his eyes, knowing I was diverting from his question. “Brandon’s took a room upstairs and Frank’s gone home.”
I nodded, gulping down the alcohol and sighing in appreciation to the burn in my chest.
“So, how is your family?” he asked, spitting out the word and doing his best to lead us back to where he wanted.
I sighed heavily. “Seriously?” Glancing at the clock, I looked back to him. “You want to do this now? At four thirty in the morning? You’ve practically pushed me away all day, and now you want to talk?” I couldn’t contain my anger. “And if you’re so eager to talk, then are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
If I couldn’t read his eyes then I would have presumed he was ignorant to my tone, but the fire that lit his striking blues burnt straight through me. He sat silent, glaring at me before he slammed his glass down on the table, making me jump. “You think I give a fuck about the time, Esther? I’ve waited fourteen fucking years. Four thirty in the fucking morning doesn’t fucking concern me!”
His chair scraped on the tiles when he flew upright. The rage in him was potent, and I jumped up defensively.
He advanced on me. I couldn’t do this now. I was exhausted and John had brought with him too many memories for my emotions to cope with. Rik forcing them on me as well would be too much.
I spun around to leave the grumpy bastard to stew in his rage. But before I had even moved, the front of my body was pressed into the counter, sandwiching me between the worktop and Rik’s hard body.
I was too stunned to think. The press of Rik, so close, the smell of him again, the feel of him again, the fierceness of him again, sent my mind into a whirl of panic and forced an awareness through my body that I didn’t want to face.
“Where did you go, little legs?” he whispered in my ear.
I gasped at the sound of his nickname for me falling from his mouth once again. It had been so many years, and in a way I had missed it. Yet this time it was spat with venom, not coated in affection.
“I looked for you. I searched the fucking earth for you. You were my best friend, and you just upped and fucking left.”
“Rik…”
His breath tickled my ear, and his fingers brushed the hair from my shoulder, his light touch harsh across my skin.
“Tell me,” he breathed as his fingers gripped the nape of my neck, sending bolts of electricity into my veins. “Where – did – you – go?”
I squeezed my eyes closed like it would stop the pounding of my heart and the heat travelling over my body. “I went to the depths of hell.”
His touch abruptly vanished. I clutched the edge of the worktop for a long time after he left the room. My legs wouldn’t carry me, and my lungs wouldn’t work for me. My body wouldn’t stop trembling. And the tears wouldn’t stop fucking flowing.
Ten
Bane
My forehead pressed against the tiles as I took my cock in hand, wrapping my fingers around the pain that hadn’t ceased since I’d walked into the office yesterday and Esther had stared up at me with those wide fucking eyes.
The heat of the shower water rolled down my back, pounding onto my sensitive skin as images of the beautiful blue-eyed woman downstairs filled my mind.
She hadn’t changed a bit. She was still the most stunning creature in the middle of all the ugly in the world. Her smile still made my chest tight, and her laugh still trickled pleasure into every one of my senses. The way her eyes hunted for mine brought back memories that had been too painful for so long.
My breath caught when the image of her bent over my kitchen table with my cock pounding in and out of her, her cries of ecstasy filling my ears, sprayed the tiles with my cum. I gasped through the high, biting into my bottom lip to counteract the pain that careered up my spine.
“Ugh,” I groaned, closing my eyes in frustration at the way my thoughts always headed. To her.
I’d heard about the little vixen that had dedicated herself to Geoffrey Sparrow. Rumour had it that she was a feisty blonde-haired, tiny thing with a mouth and grit bigger than her small frame. The description had always made me think of Esther. And when word on the street had it Esther Dean was living the life of Milly Evans, I’d refused to believe it. Esther had disappeared, and why the fuck would she reappear as a secretary for the great Geoffrey Sparrow?
Yet, there she had been, her beautiful face as white with shock as mine when I’d opened that damn office door.
I had thought she was dead. What other reason would she have for not finding me, for leaving like she did and never returning? Evidently, I hadn’t meant as much to her as she had me.
Pulling on some sweatpants and a t-shirt, I ventured back down for coffee – or I told myself it was for coffee, and not to fill every one of my senses with Esther.
“You know I can’t, John.” Her soft voice filtered into the hallway and I stopped in my tracks, using the wall to conceal me as she spoke to the large twat currently laid out on my sofa.
“Es.”
There was a pause and then a soft gasp. “No, John. I can’t go there again. I won’t.”
“You know how I felt about you, Esther. How I’ve always felt about you.”
My teeth bit into my tongue and I hid the growl that was crawling up my throat.
“It was a long time ago. Both of us have changed,” Esther said quietly.
“I haven’t,” he bit out.
I heard a shuffle, and knowing it was Esther moving away from him, satisfaction hit my gut.
“I loved you, John.” Her voice was angry, much the same as the fury that was curdling everything in m
y gut with her declaration. “But you lied to me. You knew and you didn’t tell me. Will could have….”
Will?
“It wasn’t that simple, Esther,” John argued. “I worked for your dad. If he knew we were sleeping together…”
“So you allowed Will to suffer because you were a coward!”
“It wasn’t like that, damn it. You know it wasn’t. What happened to Will was a given. I don’t know what you expected to happen once he found out.”
“But if you’d warned me I could have got him out of there. He was my best friend, John. He protected me. He saved my life. He was the only one who carried me through the nightmare. Not you. Not my father. Will.”
My gut clenched with the misery in Esther’s voice, her emotion as loud as her voice.
“What the fuck!”
I snapped out of my daydream and lifted my gaze from the floor I’d been staring at. Esther stood before me with her eyes narrow. “I’m sorry. Did you manage to catch all that, Rik? Or would you have liked us to be a little louder?”
Her tone made my fists clench.
Shaking her head, she turned on her heel and headed for the door. My hand was on hers in seconds and she tensed under my touch. “Who’s Will?”
Her shoulders sagged and she blew out a resigned breath. “He was my best friend. Another one I lost because of that bastard.”
I hadn’t expected her to be so open, and her words made something inside me soften with the knowledge it hadn’t been Esther that had ran from me. Her father had taken her from me, and by the sounds of it, me from her.
“What happened?”
She lowered her gaze and sighed. “I just want to go home, Rik.”
I scoffed. “Not a chance, little legs. Some fucker out there is after you and…”
Bane (Memphis #1) Page 6