No.
She couldn’t possibly be so stupid.
She knew what was at risk.
She knew how all this would end.
He hadn’t lied to her.
He hadn’t made any fucking promises of forever.
Once Bishop was dead, her father would be next. Would she still love him then?
Would she still harbor romantic notions of them buying a house and having babies?
Could she stand the sight of him when he dismantled her family right in front of her?
What the fuck was she thinking?
Sylvester’s low babble of useless words broke into James’s train of thought. It reminded him the other man was still there, a fucking bee in his ear. It was enough to make James want to crush him where he stood.
“Go away.”
Sylvester, mouth open mid-sentence, paused. He blinked at James like he couldn’t fathom if he’d heard him correctly or not.
“I’m trying to be friendly, Crow. The way I see it, this sinking boat you’re on, you could use all the friends you can get.”
“We’re not friends,” James cut in. “We will never be friends. Now, fuck off.”
A flash of red stole his attention. The flutter danced out of the corner of his eye and snuck out of sight, urging him to follow it.
Cora was in the arms of a burly man, being spun under his arm, making the train of her dress billow out around her ankles.
She laughed, a beautiful trill that masked all other sounds in the room. It washed over him in a wave of warm ripples, reminding him of a lagoon he’d found one in the Mediterranean where the water had been an endless blue and the sands white. But the water when it had rolled in over his ankles, had been this warm, welcoming seduction.
That was Cora’s laugh.
It lured.
It seduced a man’s senses.
In another life, if they were two different people, he would have fought to keep her. He would have spent every night worshipping her and every day longing for longer nights. He would have taken her around the world. He would have taught her how to swim in the clearest waters. He would have happily been her slave.
But that would never happen. They were never meant to be together. Too much had happened, so much more still would. She would always be his greatest loss and he would be her greatest curse. That was how their paths would end.
“Captain?” Elise appeared at his side. “Is everything all right?”
He blinked away from the woman consuming his very soul and turned to the older version of her.
There was genuine concern in her smile, despite what he’d done, despite the way he’d treated her. She was still worried about him. He wondered what that made the Harris women.
“Did I hurt you?”
Elise shook her head. “No, Captain. But I’m worried about you.”
James frowned. “Me? Why?”
She slipped alongside him so their arms touched. “Because you’re staring at my daughter as if watching a Greek tragedy.”
“Just trying to understand what’s supposed to happen next.”
She hummed softly. “That’s one of the great mysteries in life.”
The man holding Cora released her and bowed deep at the waist before rounding his attention to another woman.
“That’s Uncle Arty,” Elise said. “Hasn’t been with a woman in his life, but they love him. He can also forge just about any legal document you put in front of him. The woman he’s dancing with is Connie. I’m never sure who she is exactly to the family, but she’s an expert on poisons.”
“So, stay away from Connie,” James mumbled.
Elise laughed. “Come.” Her arm snaked through his. “I’ll give you the inside scoop on everyone.”
James squinted down at her. “Even the dirty stuff?”
She laughed harder. “Especially the dirty stuff.”
He let her take him around the room, pointing people out or motioning them over for him to meet. There were so many that, by the time she introduced a new one, he’d already forgotten the last. But Elise relaxed his mind, pulling it away from all tomorrow held for a few hours as she had him in stitches with stories too horrible to be real, yet the way she told them, he was practically in tears.
“What are you two up to?”
Cora found them at a corner table sometime later, bent over their drinks laughing like a pair of loons.
“Just sharing stories.” Elise cleared her throat. “How are you?”
Cora shrugged. “Exhausted, but I think Dad was looking for you.”
Elise clicked her tongue. “Probably wants me to charm Ronald again. I seem to be the only one that man likes.”
They watched her leave.
Then it was just them and a wall of vibrating tension.
“Cora—”
“Don’t.” She drew in a breath, still not meeting his gaze. “I know.”
He caught her waist before she could even consider walking away. He pulled her to him until she stood between his knees, her back to his chest. He turned his head into the side of her face.
He sighed. “How can you love me, Cora? After everything I’ve done. Why would you?”
“I just do.”
The confession punched him in the sternum. It knocked the wind out of him, the sense ... the fucking misery. For a split second, a weight shifted on his chest and he could almost breathe.
But the boulder returned with crushing force, pinning him to a wall of terror. It grounded into his chest until the pain nearly doubled him over.
“James.”
He caught the hand she reached towards him. The fingers were so small in his crushing grasp.
“No, not here.” He pushed to his feet. “We’ll talk later.”
“What’s there to talk about? I love you. You can’t make that go away. I love you, James.”
Each time she said it was like a jagged knife piercing a little deeper into his heart.
“Stop it.”
His hands found either side of her face and he forced her to look at him, hoping that once she had a clear view of the monster he was, she’d come to her senses.
All it served to do was send him catapulting head first into her eyes and the peace she was offering him.
“You can’t love me, you stupid girl.” She’d even stolen his snarl so he was pleading with her like some idiot. “I can’t be loved. I am not worthy of it, especially not yours. I’m a monster, Cora.”
“I’ve lived with monsters my whole life. I’m not scared.”
He kissed her.
Fuck if he knew why.
But he needed her to stop speaking.
“Don’t do this,” he begged against her swollen mouth. “Don’t steal the only thing I have left.”
“You don’t need it. Let it go. I promise I will never leave you.”
God, it was right there, the light, an escape from the darkness. All it would cost him was his hate, his vengeance. The things that kept him going.
“No.” He stepped away from her. “You can’t take this from me. Not this. Annie won’t be so easily forgotten.”
“Do you think Annie would want you to suffer like this?” she shot at him. “Do you think she would want you to throw away a chance at happiness for something that won’t give you any peace?”
“I will have peace once everyone who hurt her is dead.”
“Then what? Will you be happy then? Will you sleep better? Will you find another woman who will love you the way I do?”
He was saved from answering by De Marco’s arrival with two other men.
“Things looked so serious over here,” he remarked coolly. “We thought we’d check to make sure everything was fine.”
“Fine,” James muttered.
“I wasn’t asking you.” He looked to his daughter. “Those don’t look like happy tears.”
“It’s fine, Daddy. Just a disagreement.”
She leaned over and brushed a kiss to kiss cheek.
“Husband,” James corrected tightly.
De Marco narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see. Go,” he urged Cora when she hesitated.
With a fleeting glance at James, Cora left him.
“I don’t have the patience for whatever bullshit you’re about to—”
The fist burned a hole in James’s gut, ripping through fat and muscle until he was sure it collided with his spine. The pain nearly sent him to his knees. The world swam temporarily into darkness before shrieking back into focus with a vengeance.
De Marco was holding him up in an embrace when James rolled back to consciousness, cradling him with one hand patting his back .
“You think you can make my little girl cry and I wouldn’t know about it, Crow?” De Marco laughed like they’d said something funny. The two behind him, blocking them from view of the room, cackled as well. “Now, smile like we’re having a friendly conversation.”
James didn’t.
He didn’t think he could without throwing up.
De Marco’s smile slipped into a cast iron sneer. “You have very little power here, Captain. And even less purpose. Your only job is to keep my girl happy. Making her cry on her night ... I have half I mind to take you out back and beat some sense into you.”
Christ, the man had broken his spleen. James was sure of it.
“That pain you’re feeling right now, imagine that throughout your entire body the next time I see a single tear in Cora’s eyes.”
He patted James on the shoulder and stalked off with his two watch dogs in tow.
“That looked painful.” Deidra slinked out of the shadows and took his side.
James groaned. “If you want to hit me, you’re going to have to stand in line.”
Deidra laughed. “Oh, sweetie, I don’t hit people.” She wiggled five long, agile fingers between them. “Fragile bones.”
“Threatening won’t work either.”
“I don’t threaten.” She hissed through her teeth and propped a hip against the table. “I don’t see the purpose. Kill the bastard, or don’t bother, right? Why give them a chance?”
Eyeing her warily, James lowered himself into a chair, dignity be damned. “What do you want then?”
“Nothing.” Yet she plopped down in the chair Elise had vacated. “Just taking a break from having my ass squeezed, and you looked like you needed a friend.”
James snorted. “Why does everyone suddenly want to be my friend?”
“I didn’t say I wanted to be, I said you looked like you could use one.”
“Well, I don’t.” He reached for his glass and muttered a curse when he found it already empty.
“You do, actually, you see, you’re a helpless little guppy just swimming around like the idiot you are in a tank full of sharks. It’s never wise to alert the predators to you.”
“I just had my insides rearranged, cut the bullshit.”
“There’s a shipment coming in the day after tomorrow worth several mill in pure Columbian cocaine that, to a proper buyer, could easily be tripled.”
James stared at her. “Why are you telling me this?”
Deidra met his gaze squarely. “It doesn’t hit port until Friday, and I know for a fact at least four of their men are down right now with a bad case of food poisoning.”
Intrigued, but mostly wary, James sat back. “Again, why are you telling me?”
“Take it.” Intense green eyes bore into his. “A free payout. For a crew your size, you could overrun theirs in a matter of minutes. I have everything you need to get on and off without breaking a sweat.”
“In exchange for what?”
She broke him from her spell and flicked a glance across the room. He didn’t need to follow to know exactly what she was looking at — Cora.
“You leave and never come back.”
James chuckled. “So, this is a bribe.”
Deidra shrugged. “Why put a label on a good thing? I think your crew would agree, a cool million each outweighs whatever reason you might have for staying here. Besides, I have it from a good source that you still owe Corbett your last shipment. You’re losing money on that, aren’t you? This could easily make up for it.”
“Not interested.” James pushed to his feet. “But thanks for the tip.”
He left the woman glowering after him and went in search of Nicholas. The man was at the meat table, eyeing a bin of barbequed chicken legs.
“Enjoy yourself?”
Nicholas looked up, expression utterly clueless. “Have you tried these? I swear they sprinkled everything with crack.”
James didn’t know whether to laugh, or punch the guy in the arm for being the worst bodyguard on the planet. He opted for neither.
“I need you to get some intel on a cargo ship set to port on Friday carrying a sick crew.”
Nicholas stopped his chewing and frowned. “That’s a bit specific.”
“It’s hauling product that may prove financially beneficial to us.”
Wiping his fingers on a napkin, Nicholas reached for his phone.
“Not here.” James cast a glance in the direction of the woman and table he’d left behind, but Deidra was talking to two men who seemed more interested in looking down her dress. “Quietly somewhere else, and keep it to yourself until we know more.”
Plate left abandoned, Nicholas hurried from the room.
“Captain.”
Elise found him with Cora in tow. She stood small and distant just behind her mother’s shoulder. The sight of her looking away from him as though the sight of him was abhorrent twisted his already brutalized gut.
“It’s almost time to eat,” Elise was saying. “I just need you and Cora to return to the table and—”
An explosion erupted before she could finish. It cascaded through the room with the tinkling of glass as all the windows overlooking the terrace shattered in single wave of destruction. The commotion had people scrambling to their feet. Voices rose. Feet pounded. Chaos ensued as people tried to get out of the line of fire.
James grabbed Elise and Cora.
“Get under the table. Now!”
He shoved both to the ground and stepped around them, blocking them from view as he marched forward.
Dark shapes formed beyond the ruined panes, bulky silhouettes that took shape upon contact from the ballroom lights. Candles glinted off armor and thick helmets with their visors pulled down. It gleamed off the barrels of no less than six semi-automatic machine guns aimed at the room.
They opened fire.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Her mother’s palm was slick pressing over Cora’s mouth. The salty tang of sweat coated her lips, smearing her lipstick and agitating the bile in her chest. She wasn’t sure if she’d been screaming at some point, but the bruising grip had Elise’s rings leaving marks on her skin.
Outside the walls of their sanctuary, the world was in chaos. The sickening thud of falling bodies as bullets riddled the air had faded to the sickening crunch of army issued boots descending deeper into the room, scattering shards of glass in their wake.
The realization that no one in their party was armed made the world spin a little. It made her spin flicker between hot and cold as she thought of the massacre she was unable to stop.
“Shh,” Elise whispered into her ear when Cora made a choking sound.
Silence ascended, the eerie calm before a terrible storm. It bubbled over the room, a thick tar suffocating the air. But it only lasted a moment before it was disturbed by a single set of feet crossing through the mess, a commanding pace that left no doubt that this man was the one responsible.
“Sorry to interrupt,” came a voice, male, deeply accented. “My invitation must have been missed in the mail.”
Cora didn’t recognize it. She peeked up at her mother, but Elise only shook her head.
“Bishop.”
The sound of James’s voi
ce had never sounded so sweet. Hearing it, knowing he was okay had her slumping in her mother’s arms with relief.
“Captain!” The man almost sounded delighted to see him. “I was hoping we could talk.”
“Let these people go and we can talk about anything you want,” James replied without a hint of hesitation.
The man chuckled. “Excellent, but I’d hate to take you away from your beautiful bride. Where is she? I’d like to pay my respects for her fallen family members.”
“Cora isn’t here,” James said smoothly. “You just missed her.”
The man clicked his tongue. “That’s unfortunate. Perhaps we should play a game while we wait for her to return? I can kill one person for every minute she’s not here.”
Cora stiffened.
Elise’s arms tightened around her, suffocating.
“See, that isn’t a problem for me,” James countered smoothly. “They mean absolutely nothing to me. I’m not giving you my wife.”
A bang sounded.
Cora flinched.
Another bang.
Another gasp from those still remaining.
Another kick between her shoulder blades where her mother’s heart matched hers in terror and pain.
“I told you, she isn’t here,” James rationalized. “I had her taken from the room the moment your goons came charging in here.”
“How unfortunate.” Bishop tisked. Then, to Cora’s horror, “Giovanni, what a pleasure to see you again.”
Her mother was no longer containing her, but crushing her. Her breathing echoed in jagged pants in Cora’s ear, matching the erratic pumping in her chest. It was her turn to dig her nails into her mother’s arms, to restrain her from lunging out.
“Lionel Creedy, I should have known it was you.”
Elise sucked in a shaky breath.
“Please, join your son in law.”
Cora and Elise both held their breath as Giovanni’s slow footsteps crossed the room.
“Fantastic. Now that we have nearly everyone present. Gio, do I need to ask where your wife is, or did you send her out of the room as well?”
“You know Elise. She’s her own woman. I never know what she does half the time.”
“Perhaps a tighter leash.”
Blood Script Page 38