Black Collar Queen (Black Collar Syndicate Book 2)

by An Latro

  Beth's eyes widen, but just as quickly her expression sinks back into a bitter smirk. She walks toward him, gun at chest level, and he lifts his hands back into the not-so-humble surrender. He can read her movements, experiences the pain before she strikes him across the cheek with the butt of the gun. Of course he can predict her, the little sister who never got the street experience. The force knocks him back a couple steps, and sends explosions of white light across his vision. He tries to stay quiet, but a grunt of pain escapes him.

  His head is reeling, but he can still hear Beth loud and clear when she says, “Your mother was a whore.”

  Seth's adrenaline takes control and his vision tints red. He takes an angry step forward, but Beth hits him again, in the very same spot and harder. This time his cry is audible, and his head is a fireworks display of burning nerves. Gabe's and Mikie's baby sister may not have a lot of experience, but she has damn good aim.

  Beth says sweetly, “Careful. I wouldn't want one of my boys to have to shoot my daughter prematurely.”

  Seth squints through the blurs and lights in his eyes. He can make out the form of one of the thugs, with his gun trained at the diving board. This time he can feel the sting of parted flesh, of blood seeping down from his cheekbone. So slowly, he pushes his hands back into the air.

  Beth's mouth twists again, a smile so ugly the devil could wear it. She flicks her chin at the thug closest to the diving board, and Seth's vision doubles as he watches the man take a place at the ladder. He puts one heavy boot onto the board, and waits. Beth just holds that big gun on her nephew, content to watch the anguish bloom on Seth's face. She waits long enough for the silence to breed madness, then she says, “I've lost everything because of you. Now, it's time for you to lose something.”

  She flicks her chin again, this time at the thug still behind Seth. Seth hears the rustle of clothing, the scuffle of feet. He can anticipate another blow with whatever that fucking object is—a baseball bat, he thinks. He doesn't quite expect it, though, when the thing whacks him on the backs of the knees, again taking him off his feet. The hit is followed quickly by the impact of his knees on the concrete patio. He can't stop it; he groans. He falls forward, right arm taking most of his weight.

  He hasn't managed to draw a breath through the agony before a boot connects with his left ribs, and he's thrown onto his side. For just a moment, he considers staying there, curled around the pain. He hears Emma scream, fury and fear shaping his name.

  Beth stalks to him, her stilettos inches from his face. She stares down at him, pure malice in her expression, and she hooks the toe of her shoe under his chin. Glee dances in her eyes as she says, “You may want to watch this.”

  Emma watches as Seth struggles to lift his head away from her mother's foot, his eyes barely open, movements shaky. She wheezes as pain spiders from her ribs to the rest of her body. She follows her mother's eyes as they flick to the goon at the end of the diving board. The fucker snarls, lifts that big foot, and brings it down once, hard. The diving board wobbles with the aftershock of the strike. A wave of light-headedness hits her as her knees threaten to give under the vibrations.

  She hears Seth make an unintelligible protest, but she has to shuffle and twist her weight so that she doesn't fall. As she does, her vision sweeps the patio behind the goon, past dirty chaise lounges and a huge flower pot, the plants long dead. And her eyes widen. Can it be real?

  Those feline eyes in the darkness.

  Rama shifts as their gazes meet, and he lifts a finger to his lips. She looks away, to where Seth is still lying on the pool deck. The board steadies slowly, as do her breaths. The pain doesn't stop, doesn’t let up at all, but it's negligible next to the sight of her cousin, getting himself killed for her sake. She throws her gaze to her mother, who has again raised the gun. This time the barrel rests against Seth's forehead. Fear unlike anything she’s ever felt squeezes her. “Don’t. Mom, please!”

  Bethania's hateful voice carries against the otherwise silence of the landscape that surrounds them. She says, “Funny that you will end up dying just like your mother did. Just like your worthless bastard brother did. And it's damn funny that you and my traitor of a daughter will die together, just like your slut mom and her piece of shit father.”

  The thug raises his foot above the board again, and the tension is palpable. A moment in which Emma is sure that her mother is pulling the trigger on that goddamned .45. She screams, “Nooooo!”

  And she throws herself into the pool.

  Seth screams the same exact thing, and the splash captures Bethania's attention, for she has yet to give the command to her thug to finish Emma. Seth grabs the opportunity and jerks his face out of her line of fire. His body is a searing collective of hot pain, but the rage that has been boiling beneath his surface carries him through the movements. By the time Bethania realizes she has taken her eyes off of Seth, she fires into the concrete.

  Rama curses. He was seconds from burying a bullet in Bethania's head, but he throws his guns on the ground and launches himself from his cover and into the water without a second thought, too fast for the thug by the diving board to realize what's happened.

  The air explodes into gunfire. Aleja buries eight bullets from her twin Eagles into the chest of the thug at the end of the diving board. The other goon returns fire in her direction, and she's forced to duck behind the corner of the pool house.

  A burst of rounds sounds inside the house, and a volley. Someone screams.

  Instinct trumps senses as Seth grabs Beth's wrist with his left hand, and adrenaline defeats pain as he aims away from himself when she fires again. He lunges into her ankles, feeling them bend unnaturally in those damn stilettos. She screams, and he hears joints crack. Moments later, she hits the patio, and the back of her skull bounces. She makes a sickening, strangled cry of pain.

  The icy water is like a blow to Rama's lungs. The deep breath he grabbed on the way into the water seems to leak from him much too quickly. Though he wills his limbs to move, they are so heavy. Momentum carries him, though, deeper into the freezing water, all the way to Emma's sinking form. Damn that momentum; it carries them both to the bottom, but still he manages to wrap his arms around her, as his eyes feel like they will turn to ice. His lungs are already burning, and she is so limp, so heavy in his arms. He beseeches the Buddha, as he puts every last ounce of energy he has into springing them toward the surface with his legs.

  The wood of the pool house explodes beside Aleja's face as she squeezes off two quick rounds at the remaining thug. The blast burns her, knocks splinters into her face, and she ducks back again. The thug grunts, a bullet lodging in his midsection.

  Seth scrambles upright, still holding Beth's wrist. She fires again, but the bullet buries itself in the side of the house. The remaining Mikie loyal swivels his attention from the pool house and trains his gun on Seth. He fires once, and the bullet ricochets off the concrete to graze Seth's unmolested cheek. He jerks back, stumbles, and falls beside Bethania.

  Tinney steps out of the darkness of the house, levels his gun on the remaining thug, and buries two bullets in his head, and Seth twists, searching for Emma.

  Rama surfaces, Emma in tow. He sucks in a shallow breath, mouth ducking into the water so that he sputters. He does his damnedest to make his body move them toward the side of the pool, but he can barely keep them afloat.

  Aleja rushes from the pool house, eyes wildly searching the patio. It takes her several long moments to find a flotation device. She tosses the ring into the water so that it lands directly beside Rama. He hooks an arm around it, just as he stops moving. She pulls him toward the edge until she can reach him, grabbing his other arm, and hooking his freezing fingers on the edge of the pool. She yells, “Hold on, Rama!”

  Emma's eyes are closed. She may not be breathing. Aleja anchors herself and heaves Emma up out of the water. It takes her several heaves to pull the dead weight out of the pool, but finally she collapses backward with Emma's unco
nscious form. She rolls so that Emma falls to one side, and shoves forward, just in time to see Rama's arm disappear over the edge of the pool. She lunges forward, plunging her arm into the water. Her fingers grasp a fistful of his shirt, just in time, and she pulls him upward. Fast Spanish pours from her as she wrestles him to the poolside – a litany to all the angels and the Virgin Mother to aid her. He's drawing faint breaths, so she leaves him just for the moment.

  She draws her buck knife from its lower back holster, and turns to Emma. The young Morgan is so pale, beyond her normal pallor. So . . . lifeless. A mass of bruises and restraint and fury claims her, calms the frantic movements of the assassin. Aleja carefully slips the end of her knife under the rope that restrains the Morgan queen. The fibers separate without protest, and the Reaper frees Emma's limp body. The movements are second nature, ever collected, as she leans down and presses a breath across Emma's lips, forcing air into her lungs.

  Seth wrenches the gun from Bethania's hand and rolls away from her. Old injuries and new ravage his nervous system, but his vision has finally cleared. He sees Aleja with her lips to Emma's, not at all like that first time. He sees Rama lying so still, and he sees Tinney step up beside him. The old man reaches a hand down to him, and Beth groans.

  Tinney pulls him to his feet without effort, and the light-headedness returns to him. His breath comes quick and shallow. His vision spins as he tries to focus on Emma. Tears well in his eyes. He simply cannot have endured all of this only to lose her. He can hear Aleja muttering encouragement in Spanish between the breaths she gives to Emma. Seth sways on his feet. Tinney steadies him with a hand on the back, and the moment contact is made is the one that Emma gasps, then spits up water. Her body shudders, and she moans.

  The tears stream down Seth's cheeks, relief running down his face like rain. The beach. Santa Lucia. That calm was the result of endurance, of facing down the demons that haunted him, and learning from the experiences his life had lain on him. Tonight, he has endured much the same, and his faith in his true family—the one he has built—has proven itself.

  He looks down at Bethania's still form. A dark red puddle is forming beneath her pampered hair, seeping slowly outward, a rude contrast to the pale concrete. Her eyes are fluttering.

  Seth stares down, for a long time, a mass of screaming nerves. And his left shoulder is a bundle of torment as he lifts his arm to cradle the gun in his right hand. The rage, though, is steady. The gun is an unfamiliar weight.

  His voice is quiet, lifeless, when he says, “I guess it's funny, that you will die the same way your darling fucking son did. Bleeding out, all alone.”

  He tosses the gun into the water, and turns his back on his suffering aunt. Tinney stands his post as Seth skirts the pool with a limp, to see to his cousin and his partner. Bethania makes no indications of moving, and the blood just spreads toward inevitability. Meanwhile, Seth flings Rama's arm over his shoulder and hefts his weight. Aleja does the same with Emma.

  Tinney watches the slow procession for several moments, then he looks down in time to see Beth's eyes close. His expression doesn't change as he turns away to go start the car.

  Chapter 45. Upstate New York. December 19th

  Tinney Blasts The Heat in the car as he speeds down the driveway. His phone is in hand, ringing to the medically equipped van they stationed several miles away. All he says when the other end of the line picks up is, “We're on our way. Prepare for hypothermic conditions.”

  He glances in the rear view mirror at the crowded back seat. Aleja and Emma are behind him, the Latina working Emma out of her frozen clothing, both of them in the seat as Aleja murmurs softly. Beside them, behind the passenger seat, is Rama, and Seth is kneeling on the floorboard in front of him, gritting his teeth through the pain.

  Aleja wraps Emma's shivering form in Seth's coat. Her red-gold hair clings to her shoulders, and her head dips and bobs as she tries to hold it up. Her face is so bruised, and her skin still so lifeless. She draws shallow breaths, and whimpers occasionally.

  Rama is more cognitive, but his hands are shaking too much for him to work the buttons of his shirt. His skin is a maze of chill bumps, and his hair hangs wet in his dark eyes. Still, he watches the Morgan king knock his hands away, and rip the shirt open with complete disregard for the buttons. A boyish, weak smile tugs at Rama's lips over chattering teeth.

  “What's so funny?” Seth asks, a dark gleam in his eye, a serious set to his lips as he pulls Rama forward by the arm. They lock eyes as Seth peels the frigid fabric off of Rama.

  Rama's voice is so quiet, heavy with remembrance when he says, “Your brother used to do the same thing.”

  Seth's eyes fly wide, which hurts, and he freezes. Rama laughs, an impossibly young sound. Perhaps he's delirious. Seth glances at Emma, but she seems to have slipped back into sleep. Good; she doesn't need to hear Rama's nonsense mumbling.

  Seth means to look back to Rama, but he realizes Aleja is watching him too. Emma is curled into her arms, her head resting against Riza’s chest, and she's rubbing Emma's arms to warm her, her touch gentle. The Latina wears respect in that gaze, and perhaps some dark shade of lust. It hurts his insides, that he's not the one offering that comfort to his cousin. But the pain subsides at the thought that there are people who truly care for her, who will protect her in his absence. His gaze slips back to Rama, whose eyes have closed.

  “Don't get fresh with me,” Seth says as he pulls Rama's arm out of his shirt. It could be a joke, but it's flat, toneless. It's not quite a warning either. Rama's body tips forward, and Seth catches him by the shoulders before their faces collide.

  “Shit!” Seth spits. “Rama, wake the fuck up. Stay with me, goddammit.”

  Rama jerks, and his eyes crack open. Seth can barely hear him when he murmurs, “Don't have much of a choice, do I?”

  “Yeah, ok,” Seth says just to keep the Asian's attention. Seth grabs Tinney's coat from the front seat, and says, “You can be a dick since you saved Emma's life. Again. Help me put this on you, will you?”

  He guides Rama's arm into the coat sleeve, slowly, to account for the shivering. That ridiculous grin returns to Rama's lips, and he says, “I'll be a dick whenever I want, Morgan.” His voice comes stronger, with a little heat. “You better fucking believe it.”

  The words surprise a small laugh out of Seth. Fine, if shit-talking is what it takes to keep Rama conscious, then fuck it. He smirks. “Not in my house.”

  He buttons the coat, squinting through a flash of pain in his temple. He leans Rama back against the seat. When he does, Rama’s head falls back against the seat, and his hair shifts out of his eyes. He levels his dark gaze on Seth's again. He says, “I'll remember that when you're in my house.”

  Seth pauses again, holds the contact. He's serious when he says, “So will I.”

  Then Rama glances downward. He's still wearing his wet pants. Seth's eyes widen. A dick indeed. And Rama laughs again when Seth makes a heavy sigh, then starts working Rama's belt loose. He laughs, but he doesn't say anything else as Seth pulls the slacks off of him. Seth doesn't speak either; he just keeps a steady hand on the Thai so he doesn't pitch forward again.

  Within minutes, they reach the cove of trees and the waiting van. Seth climbs out of the car, stumbles as his knees lock, and catches himself against the trunk of the car. Two medics run to him immediately, trying to usher him toward the van. He pushes them away and orders, “Get them first. Hurry!”

  The medics scramble to obey as two more rush to the other side for Emma. Seth leans back against the car, watching as they transport Emma and Rama, the tension easing from him the slightest bit. They'll be fine now, with a little help from modern medicine.

  She will be fine.

  Seth's fingers wander up to his aching cheekbone, ghosting over the separated flesh and the dried blood. He was so close, millimeters from catching a bullet to the face. Seconds from Bethania pulling the trigger. Death is becoming like an old lover to him, haunting him, b
rushing so close, stealing moments of his life and everyone he loves. This time, it was too close. Not to him, but to his queen. He shivers, the cold wind nothing compared to his dark thoughts.

  Tinney walks up to his left side, watching the young king carefully. He says, “You ok?”

  Seth is silent for a stretch, during which he can hear the voices inside the van. Finally, he says, “I'll be fine.”

  Tinney hands him his phone. Seth dials the other crew they have waiting within miles. The cleanup crew. The line picks up, and he says, his voice empty, “Burn it down.”

  Chapter 46. Morgan Wyndsong. New York City. December 19th

  Rama Is Sitting In An Empty Office. The sun is setting, casting long shadows across the city that has adopted him. A cup of hot tea sits next to him and he's wearing black sweat pants and a t-shirt with the Morgan Estates logo emblazoned on them. The casual clothing and his wet hair and bare feet all combine to make him appear very young and very lost.

  He still doesn't feel warm.

  There's a circle of space around him—a cautious sort of distance that reminds him that no matter who he has loved or how well he might serve, he is not a Morgan. He will never be a Morgan.

  That matters more some days than others.

  The door swings open behind him. He doesn't move as Aleja slips through the quiet office to flank him. Even when she stands silent at his side, he doesn't stir.

  He's calmed since Emma was pulled into the med suites. The family doctor was waiting when they arrived, with nurses who hurried him away and warmed him.

  “She has two broken ribs. A concussion. The exposure is the most worrisome thing, but Emma will be fine,” Aleja says. Her accent is thick, and he wonders if it is because she is tired or worried.

  He slides a glance at her and nods once, refocusing on the cityscape.