by Selena Scott
Isla crawled up onto her hands and knees. She was gasping now. But breathing. She was breathing.
“Idris!” she gasped.
He whipped around. And there was something about his eyes. For a moment they were made of glass, inhuman. They were almost like the eyes of something reptilian, something royal, something feral.
“There will be more.” She choked out the words. There was no way to explain it all now. But he needed to know that Ivan wasn’t working alone. He never worked alone. “More men.”
And at that exact second, a man’s shadow darkened the door. And another man behind him. And they held two black, skinny guns in their hands. Pointed directly at her.
She stared into the twin barrels as if they were the two eyes of one beast. But then, her view was blocked, by Idris. He was charging the men. Isla screamed. For him to stop? In fear? She didn’t know.
She was up on her feet, sprinting in her heels, right behind Idris. He’d made quick work of the first man, slamming his head against the opposite wall and kicking the gun all the way down the hall.
The second man he stiff-armed to the side and was rising to finish him when Isla sprang into the air like a cat. She landed on the man, scratching and clawing his face. She’d known him at one point. In her other life. Roy, his name was. She didn’t give a fuck anymore. Because Roy had a gun in his hand.
And then Idris had Roy’s gun, disabled and in pieces. Isla felt herself lifted into the air and flung over Idris’s shoulder as if she weighed nothing. She watched as the floor of the back hallways rushed past in a blur. The cold night air snapped at her almost naked skin as the steel backdoor of the club slammed shut behind him.
He ripped open the door of his truck and slid in, tossing her to the side and starting the truck all in one go.
He was ripping out of the parking lot and speeding into the night not a minute and a half after he’d crashed into the room. Isla’s breath came in huge, sobbing gasps. The thing she’d been terrified of for three years had just happened to her. And now she was speeding away from it in the night. She was alive. And trembling. Her body was sick with the adrenaline. Everything alternating between blurry and painfully clear.
“Are you alright?” he barked, his eyes alternating between deep black and blazingly bright as the street lamps raced past them.
Isla tenderly swallowed, her fingers tracing her neck the same way Ivan’s had just seconds before. She was bruised and sore, but it didn’t feel permanent.
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice a husk. “Where are you taking me?”
He glanced at her across the truck, took her in, naked and shaking and loose. “Buckle up. And here.” He reached into the backseat and pulled out a t-shirt, blue and worn, for her to wear. It was big enough to be a dress on her. He glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Idris, where?” she insisted as her voice grew in anxiety. She poked her head through the t-shirt and buckled up. She was grateful for his help, but she could not just be racing through the night in the truck of a man she barely knew. She needed some answers fast before she freaked the fuck out.
“That depends,” he answered. “Could they be following us?”
She swallowed. “I don’t think so. Although, they’ll definitely know where I live, if they found me at the club.”
“Alright,” he nodded. “In that case, we’re going to my mother’s house.”
“What?” she blinked at him, completely nonplussed. “Why?”
He checked the rear view mirror again before taking a sharp turn into an apartment complex.
“Because if we’re getting the fuck out of dodge then I’m taking my mother with us.”
Idris drove around the back of the building and parked before Isla’s brain started working again.
“Idris. What are you talking about? I - I can’t think.”
He turned off the car and then twisted in his seat to look at her. His eyes pinned her in place. “Isla, who were those men?”
She took a deep breath. Might as well jump in. No need to be shy at this point. She’d already stripped for him, made out with him, and then watched him beat the ever-loving shit out of her assailant. “Well, the one strangling me was my ex-boyfriend. Ivan Ivanovich.”
Idris’s eyes narrowed so much that Isla could barely see them in the dark.
“And the other two?”
“His flunkies. Two strongmen he used to keep around for protection.” Isla waved a hand through the air. “Ivan was sort of a gangster, back in New York. Where I used to live. I didn’t think he was into serious shit though. I just thought he mostly sold weed. I don’t know.” She looked out the window at the dark apartment building. It looked so peaceful in there. She just wanted to lie down and sleep. “Maybe I did know. And I looked the other way. But I was in love. Everything seemed to be so much less important than that.”
“Why the fuck did he just try to kill you?” Idris’s voice was low. So low that she could feel the rumble of it in her chest. She could feel it all the way down to her toes.
Isla turned, made herself look him full in the face. “Because I witnessed him murder somebody. About three years ago.”
“And you ran,” he guessed.
Isla nodded. “I ran. Left everything behind. Didn’t have any family left, so no big loss there. But I left a few friends. My job. My life.”
“Had you heard from him before tonight?”
“No,” Isla shook her head. “I never stayed in any place long enough for him to find me, I don’t think. But the money at City Lights was just so good. And it’s east of Jesus nowhere. I didn’t think…”
She trailed off as her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t want to cry. She’d cried enough over that piece of shit. But her throat hurt, her body felt wrung out, and all she wanted was a cup of tea and a soft bed.
“I’ll bet they started that fight to keep the other guards occupied,” Idris growled. And then he shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Look. We’re gonna go up there, get my mom, convince her to come with us and then we’ll just drive. We’ll find someplace far away from here where we can regroup and think about what to do next.”
He had one hand on the door handle before Isla gripped him by the shoulder. “Why?” Her voice was intense, her emotions strung tight. She needed answers and she needed them now.
He looked at her like she had brain damage. “Because those dickheads are chasing us and we gotta get someplace where we can keep you safe.”
“No, Idris,” she said, her voice just about as calm as she could make it. “They’re chasing me. Not us.”
She was prepared for more roughness. For callousness or maybe urgency. The entire situation was laced with it. She wasn’t prepared for the softness that hit the edges of her face, like the lip of a lake over sand.
Suddenly, they were standing too close again. She wasn’t sure if she’d stepped closer or if he had, but all she knew was that she could feel the heat from his chest as if she were standing in front of a fireplace. A shiver ran through her; she wasn’t sure if it was from standing in the freezing air in just a t-shirt, or if it was his nearness.
A truck on the highway over the mountain blew a horn and had Idris looking around. “Let’s get inside.”
He threw an arm around her shoulder and walked her inside the apartment building. He was hurrying up the apartment stairs when she grabbed his arm again, the way she had in the car. He turned.
“What’s your mother’s name?”
He grinned. “Felice. You’re gonna love her.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Idris bounded up the stairs of his mother’s apartment. Even though he’d just smashed some guy’s face in, found out that Isla had a murderous ex, and was now preparing to flee his hometown, he felt lighter than he had in years.
Something about having a mission was really juicing him. Not to mention the fact that he finally had a good enough reason to get his mother out of this piece of shit town. She’d always lingered here, w
anted to stay for reasons totally beyond him. She was beautiful, hilarious, strong-willed, and so much bigger than Chestershire. He’d always known that.
He suspected that she’d never wanted to leave because this was the last place they’d seen his father. He’d been a reclusive man, and he’d left for the mountains one morning, kissed the two of them goodbye, and never been seen again. It was so long ago that Idris couldn’t even remember him. He certainly didn’t remember the day he left. He’d long ago stopped trying to figure out if he’d left them on purpose or gotten himself lost or killed or what.
Idris didn’t really care. It was a wound long healed. He took care of his mother and she took care of him. That was all that mattered.
And now Isla.
She mattered, too. And he was adding her to the list of things to take care of whether she wanted it or not. He suspected that she wouldn’t like being added to that list considering how she’d reacted after they’d kissed. Like he was about to collar her and make her a permanent addition to his dungeon or some medieval shit.
He guessed that sort of made sense considering that she’d definitely had some unhealthy shit going on with that Ivanovich or whatever the fuck his name was. Idris’s fists curled again just thinking about him.
About the way she’d looked when he’d burst into the room.
The second her earring hit his foot from under the door he’d known something was wrong. The customers were not supposed to touch the girls. Even in the private dances, they were supposed to just sit there and receive, keep their hands to themselves. If her jewelry was flying off then he knew something was really up.
He’d burst into the room and he’d never felt that way before in his life. Rage had pumped through his blood like poison. The guy had her on the floor, on her stomach, squeezing her throat. For one second, Idris had worried that he was too late. But then, he’d sprinted across the floor, his only intention to rip this guy’s heart out through his throat.
She was okay, she was just fine, he reminded himself. He’d feel better when he had a good look at her neck, check out that bruising. But she was walking and talking and breathing right there behind him in the stairwell.
And she was about to meet his mother. Idris grinned to himself for a moment while he thought about that. He was bringing a stripper home to Ma.
Felice was going to have a field day with this one.
Idris ducked off the stairwell onto his mother’s floor, tugging Isla after him. Her high heels rang out on the parquet floor. They drew his attention and he paused outside his mother’s door, surveyed Isla. She stood there in smudged makeup, stripper heels, and one of his t-shirts almost down to his knees. And underneath that was some underwear that barely even counted. She looked good enough to eat and perfectly frazzled. And there it was, the crooked little part in her hair.
He didn’t think twice, he didn’t question the impulse. He merely opened his arms and drew her into his chest. He dropped his cheek to the top of her head for one second as his arms pressed all around her. She was stiff in his arms as if she were holding herself back from him.
Which was okay, he reminded himself. She’d just been attacked by an ex-boyfriend. Trusting random dudes probably wasn’t high on her self-preservation list right now.
“You don’t know me yet, Isla,” he said, releasing her and stepping back. She was tousled and gorgeous and looking more than a little dazed. It probably wasn’t the moment for intensity, but he needed her to hear this. “So you don’t know that you can trust me. And that’s fine. For now. But I just want to go on record here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Isla’s eyes were bottomless in the fluorescent lighting of the hallway. She looked up at him, and he knew that she’d heard him, even if she wasn’t giving much away. That was fine. He was just trying to put all his cards on the table. He needed her to know that he wasn’t messing around.
“Are you ready?” he asked, one hand on the doorknob of his mother’s apartment.
“To meet your mother?” she asked, a bemused expression on her face as she looked down at her ridiculous outfit. “Sure. Why not?”
He grinned at her. And unlocked the door. He led Isla down the front hallway, frowning when he realized that the kitchen lights were still on. That was weird. It was almost 2 in the morning. He’d expected that he would have to rouse his mother from bed at this point in the night. And she never left the lights on.
“Ma?” he called, tugging Isla down the hallway toward the kitchen. He froze in his tracks at what he saw there.
His mother, sitting at her kitchen table with her hands all twisted up in some dude’s. Some old dude’s. Two glasses of tea sat cooling in front of them and their faces were about an inch apart from one another, like they’d just been kissing. The two of them snapped around to stare at Idris and Isla in the doorway to the kitchen.
His mother, always a cool customer, did not jump up or flutter her hands or even blush. She simply leaned back in her chair, surveying her son calmly. “Idris, I wasn’t expecting you.” She looked past him at Isla, a curious expression crossing her face at the girl’s attire. “Or company.”
Idris was utterly flabbergasted. He was not able to form words. Or thoughts. Or a heartbeat. He ignored his mother. He was too busy staring into his own eyes from across the room. The man sitting at the table. Older, blonde and silver, lines around his eyes. That man had Idris’s eyes. Exactly.
The man stared right back at Idris, studying him in exactly the same manner.
Behind him, Isla’s hand tightened on Idris’s and it brought him back to life, or at least, it brought him back to the room.
He gave his head a quick shake. “Ma, this is Isla Angotti. Isla, this is my mother, Felice Prodigo.”
Isla stepped around him and took his mother’s hand. “Hello. I’m sorry for the way I’m dressed. It’s been a little bit of an unusual night.”
“For all of us, then,” Felice said, smiling kindly at Isla and then turning her gaze back to the man at the table. Who still hadn’t looked away from Idris.
Isla looked between Idris and the man at the table, obviously waiting for an introduction. But in doing so, her eyes widened. “You must be Idris’s father?” she asked, extending her hand to him.
The man at the table flicked his eyes to Isla’s hand as if he were in a daze. But he rose from the table and took her hand. “How did you know?” he asked her in a deep voice that was almost identical to Idris’s.
“Your eyes,” Isla replied. “And the frown.”
Felice let out a little laugh, but there was more than humor behind it. There was pain. “I’ve always thought the same thing.” She turned to the man and to Isla. “I wonder if I might have a moment alone with my son.”
“Of course,” Isla said, immediately moving to get out of the way. She’d obviously stumbled into some family business here and she clearly didn’t want to get in the way.
“No,” Idris said, speaking for the first time and reaching out for Isla gently. He pulled her in front of him, like a shield, although he wouldn’t have realized that. “I’m not leaving her alone tonight.”
Felice’s eyes narrowed in confusion but she shrugged her shoulders. She was a patient woman. And if her son wanted to do this in front of people, well, he was a grown man. And he had been for a long time. Too long, in her eyes.
“Fine. Then sit,” Felice said, her eyes steady on her son’s as she kicked a chair out from the table with her foot. “Both of you.”
Isla dropped down into the chair immediately and Idris could tell that the whole situation was making her even more nervous than she already was. It was that, more than his mother’s command, that had him easing himself into the chair next to his mother.
“This is Donovan Prodigo,” Felice said, taking Idris’s hand. “Your father.”
Idris said nothing, merely gazing across the table at the man. His father. And then he realized that his father was gazing right back at him in th
e exact same manner. It made him uncomfortable. He’d always thought that this cool reserve was something he’d taught himself. But maybe not. Maybe he’d come by it naturally.
Suddenly Donovan scrubbed his hands across his face. “God, Felice, there’s so much to explain. Too much. How do we do this?”
“Well,” she turned to him. “Let’s start with the easiest parts. The ones he’ll be able to swallow right away.”
“Okay,” Donovan nodded. He looked tired. And sad. “Let’s start here. I love you. I have since the moment we realized your mother was pregnant. And I’ve never stopped.”
Idris recoiled like he’d been slapped. He legitimately didn’t think he could say the same. He didn’t even know the man. He’d long ago stopped caring that he wasn’t around. He barely even thought about him anymore. Or wondered. He always thought that if he saw him again, he’d feel something. Anything.
Felice squeezed Idris’s hand and it was then that he realized that Isla had his other hand. He squeezed both.
“Idris,” Felice said softly. “The decision for your father to leave was one that we both made. He didn’t abandon us. He left because he had to. For the sake of our family.”
Idris turned to Isla and he saw the same skepticism in her eyes that he felt in his heart. Wasn’t this the kind of shit that people always fed themselves about the people who left them? That it wasn’t selfish. That it was just for the greater good?
Suddenly Donovan was rising and pacing to the other side of the kitchen. He gazed out the kitchen window. “God, is this what it’s like talking to me?” he asked darkly.
Felice let out another little laugh; this one had more mirth than the first. “Like talking to a brick wall? Yeah, I haven’t exactly spent my life surrounded by chatty Cathys.”