by Nashoda Rose
“I never said that.”
“I had something else in mind for tonight,” Kai said.
He put his hands on my hips then shoved me off his lap. I landed hard on the floor and quickly righted myself and knelt beside Kai. I didn’t have any doubt about what he was doing. We were going to get out of this place and Kai was making certain it happened. He’d do whatever it took, and so would I.
A feminine hand reached out to me and my heart leapt and my eyes widened. Stupid girl. She was going to get us both beaten with Raul watching. I sidled up to Kai’s leg like I was taught to do and turned away from her.
“I’d be interested in hearing this,” Raul said. “Kai, Sculpt has been hiding this gem away for over a week now. I was beginning to think that she’d escaped him.” Kai laughed. “She was rather… disobedient when she arrived. I was anticipating Alfonzo having to train her as he did your new slave. But, she has been reined in. After being away from us for so long, I was thinking Sculpt had become soft.”
“Then what do you have in mind for this part of the evening, Sculpt?” Kai asked.
That’s when I blocked their words out. Blocked everything out. I became numb and cold and prayed for the evening to be over and Kai to get me out of here. I silently sang to myself, voices becoming a blur of rough sounds.
Kai reached down and put his hand on the back of my neck, his finger slowly caressing back and forth. It was soothing. Comforting. Then he bent down, his lips close to my ear as he whispered, “Always, baby.”
The words were spoken so low I barely heard them. But I did and the overwhelming emotions crashed down on me. It was only his comforting hand that kept me from collapsing to the floor in a heaping mess of sobs.
Always.
Always.
He’d always come for me.
A tear slipped down my cheek and dripped onto the back of my hand. Then another. Oh God, I couldn’t let Raul see. I couldn’t falter now.
Sculpt said something, but I was so focused on Kai I didn’t pay attention, but I saw Sculpt get up and leave with his girl in tow.
“As I told you,” Raul said, “he is too attached to his slave. I will have to put an end to that.”
Kai chuckled, but it was laced with a grated tone. “She has spirit. Something I admire. But, yes, attachments are dangerous. Better to kill her or sell her.”
“Killing her loses money. Perhaps you’d be interested in acquiring her as well?”
“Perhaps,” Kai replied.
I stayed at his feet while he chatted with others for what seemed like hours. I kept a part of me touching him at all times or rather he did, I wasn’t sure which.
“Look at me…” he hesitated then whispered, “London.”
I slowly raised my chin and the flicker of life singed my skin for the first time in months. My throat tightened as our eyes locked. It was with that one look he’d wrapped me up in a warm blanket and held me. Protected me.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
I jerked my eyes to the terrace that led out into the gardens. Kai bolted out of his chair and it tipped over backwards.
Several more gunshots rang out.
He pulled out his knife, grabbed my arm, and shoved me under the table. “Stay there.”
Raul’s men ran through the dining hall shouting while some guests took cover, and others ran toward the gunshots with weapons drawn. It was complete chaos as men panicked because sure as hell this place was filled with illegal substances, activity and more than likely, wanted men.
Kai took out his cell, tapped a few times then put it to his ear and started shouting at someone about getting the Jeep. He shoved the phone in his pocket then crouched in front of me, his knife in his hand between us. “Keep down and out of sight.”
My heart raced and my stomach tightened with dread. “Don’t leave me.”
He reached out and stroked the side of my face with his knuckles. “Baby, I’ll be right back. I need to see what the fuck is going on.” He stood, nodded once then jogged off in the direction of the gunshots.
As he disappeared around the corner, cold shivers coursed through me and my stomach flipped. I screamed his name because I knew, I knew he wasn’t coming back. It was the feeling of dread like I was trapped in an ice cube, unable to escape the cold that sank into every part of me.
He wasn’t coming back.
No.
No.
No.
I crawled out from under the table and ran.
I made it ten steps before an unforgiving hand latched onto my arm and yanked me to a stop. “Where do you think you’re going?” Jacob said then locked his arm around my chest and started for the basement. “Looks like he doesn’t want you. Guess you’re staying with us.”
I flailed.
I fought.
I screamed for Kai.
But there was nothing I could do to stop Jacob as he dragged me downstairs and threw me into my room. I fell to my knees. The door slammed and then the finality as the lock clicked.
I collapsed.
I sobbed.
And I begged for Kai to come back.
But hour after hour, day after day the lifeline slipped further and further away until any hope for Kai returning finally extinguished.
My end had begun. I became Raven.
SEVENTEEN MONTHS, ONE week and five days. That’s how long it had been since I’d left her under the table at Raul’s in Mexico when the fireworks of gunshots went off. Raul’s business acquaintances had shot at anything that moved thinking the compound was being raided. Most of them were on the wanted list and weren’t going down without a fight.
And that was the reason I hated guns. Bullshit like that. Getting shot for no reason because some asshole was shittin’ his pants and shooting at shadows. I’d seen Sculpt, the fighter, shooting at Raul’s men. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, didn’t care except to make certain I got London out. But I never made it further than the front steps when an agonizing pain hit my chest.
I remembered one thing as I fell—London. Just her. Only her.
The agony of the gunshot was nothing compared to the agony of what I knew was going to happen. I thought I heard her scream my name before I hit the ground and everything went black.
Then nothing for fifteen days. Fifteen fuckin’ days.
I ended up in some Mexican hospital with Ernie sitting at my bedside looking as haggard as I felt. Then minutes later, I found out why he was so haggard when he told me the shit that went down at Raul’s wasn’t the FBI or DEA or anyone else, it was Sculpt causing a distraction.
For a brief few minutes I was relieved because that meant London would still be there. But Ernie wasn’t done. I found out that while I was lying in a fuckin’ hospital bed, Deck and his men raided the compound and took out everyone who needed taking out. Then blew it up.
But Raul escaped, along with Alfonzo and Jacob.
I didn’t have to say her name. Ernie knew what I’d want to know.
London.
Ernie’s hooded eyes and grim expression said it all.
That’s when I freaked. Never freaked before. Never cared enough to give a shit about anything to lose control like I did that day.
I’d ripped the IV from my arm and yanked the heart monitors from my chest before knocking over the machine that screamed a loud warning signal. Took me three tries to get my legs moving and over the side of the bed and I was so frustrated that I threw the IV stand across the room and it smashed into the television.
Nothing mattered except getting the fuck out of there and finding her. My head was so drugged up on painkillers that I didn’t even see or hear Ernie as he tried to keep me in bed. All I saw was London on her knees. London submitting to those fuckin’ disgusting bastards. London. London. London.
I finally made it to my feet and found out why. Ernie was no longer holding me down. He was at the door with a needle in his hand. A nurse stood beside him, eyes wide and terrified
. He came at me. I made it one step from the bed before he tackled me to the ground and shoved the needle in my arm.
For another week I was kept sedated, unable to do more than curse Ernie when I briefly opened my eyes before I passed out again. They were probably smart to keep me that way until I healed, because if I hadn’t been, I’d have never stayed in that bed. I’d have been out doing what I was doing now, searching for London.
At another fuckin’ auction. This time in Germany.
I’d been to at least a dozen of these with no sign of her and I was beginning to wonder if she’d ever show up, but I had nothing else and I refused to believe she was dead. I’d know if she was. My gut told me she was alive and I wasn’t giving up until I found her.
I’d used contacts that weren’t associated with Vault to keep what I was doing quiet, and there were only two people who knew I was searching for her, Ernie and London’s father.
I’d gone to see him, but not by choice. Since I’d been out of commission for weeks, Vault, meaning Mother, had been looking for me. I went off the grid plenty of times when I was on assignments, so it wasn’t unusual to disappear for a month, but she wanted Dr. Westbrook looked into. Threatened was really what she wanted because the drug he’d given her was causing a zombie-like state on her test subject, Connor, and she was pissed.
I’d flown to New York and left Ernie in Mexico searching for any info on where Alfonzo and Jacob could’ve gone because they were my only lead to what happened to London.
When I saw her father, I told him what happened to her. I’d seen men cry, beg for the torture to stop. I’d seen them drool and flounder under my knife, but never had I seen a man fall to his knees in racking sobs of grief. I stood and watched, unemotional. Cold. Allowing nothing for what I was feeling about London in. Because if I did that, I’d go insane with rage.
But I did give her father one thing before I left him in his lab on the floor, a promise to find her and bring her back.
Now, as I stood in a private room in Germany watching a television screen as girl after girl was brought on camera, I faltered. My easygoing casual persona was cracking at the edges because I was cracking. It had been too long.
I’d dealt with the lowliest scum of the earth all my life and yet these men were worse. Even Vault stayed clear of this side of the underworld, because like me, they had no respect for men like this. They weren’t strong. They were weak and used slaves to make themselves feel powerful.
I barely watched the screen. It was sick. Dogs were treated better than these girls. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths as I tried to control the anger throbbing.
Then it happened.
I didn’t have to open my eyes or look at the screen. I just knew it was her.
Goose bumps popped up along my skin and my stomach lurched. Everything inside me stilled. It stilled and then it began its climb toward her. It’s need.
I slowly raised my head and finally looked at the screen. Every muscle tensed, my fingers curled into fists and for the first time in almost two years, I let myself feel.
“Fuck, boss.” It was Ernie who was standing by the door, doing what I was doing—watching.
She was barely recognizable as she stood on stage, her hair hanging limp and dull over her shoulders. Shoulders slouched, thin; the notches of bone prominent. I clenched my jaw, the rage rising as my eyes traveled down her bruised, barely-clothed body.
Her head was lowered, eyes downcast just like every other girl brought before the camera. Submission, and I’d expected it, but expecting and seeing were completely different, and I wasn’t prepared to see her broken.
My brave scientist ruined.
They’d ruined her.
She’d been fuckin’ perfect. She was brave and cute and caring and fuckin’ perfect, and they’d ruined everything she was.
I snapped.
Ernie saw it coming and was on me, but it was too late. My fist went through the television and then he was hauling me back.
“Boss, let’s go. She has to be in one of the rooms.”
London. Fuck, she was here. So close I could feel her. Blood dripped from my hand that now held my knife. “It’s been too long.” I kept thinking of her on the TV, a girl I no longer recognized. “It’s been too fuckin’ long.”
“Boss.” Ernie had the door open, his gun out, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking down the corridor. “Fuck. Deck.”
I ran to the door and just as I careened around the corner, I saw Deck glance over his shoulder at me. What the fuck? Why was he…?
But then I knew.
One of his men, Vic, came out of a room to the right with a body over his shoulder. A girl. My fuckin’ girl.
Deck and his men were here for my fuckin’ girl.
I started toward them, blood dripping off my fingertip leaving a trail of blood.
Ernie was right behind me and I heard his gun cock.
I stopped ten feet away from Deck. He was dressed in combat gear as were his men. I knew of them, Vic, Tyler, Josh, because I knew everyone associated with Deck.
Deck had his hand on his gun at his hip, but he hadn’t withdrawn it—yet.
My eyes went to Vic who stood with London’s limp body over his shoulder, unmoving. Not fighting.
I stiffened. “Jacob and Alfonzo had her?”
“Yes,” he replied. Deck said something to Vic who turned and jogged down the corridor then disappeared around the corner. With London. And yet, I didn’t move.
“Boss?” Ernie questioned.
But I couldn’t do it. Deck wasn’t like me. He had morals. He was good and he was here because he was getting London out probably because Sculpt or his girl had told him about her.
He was getting her out.
My vicious, cruel strings were tied to London and I had to break them. I had to make her valuable to Mother and Vault then stay the hell away from her. It was the only way for her to stay safe and alive.
I had to let her go.
I nodded to Deck, then turned and walked away.
France
“HOW COME DR. Westbrook’s daughter is in Toronto, Mother?”
This was how I had to play it. Like I hadn’t found London in Germany and seen Deck get her out. Any suspicion of me having an attachment to London had to end today. The second Deck took London back to New York, Mother would know about it because I’d have to tell her. It was much more productive to tell her before the fact.
“She is?” She straightened, scissors in one hand and three roses in the other. I’d found her outside in her garden, an area of land that had more bushes than actual flowers.
Mother looked surprised and that gave me an advantage. “Yes. Chaos called me.” And she had. Told me Deck had a girl, Raven, staying with her. “Said her name was Raven, but I checked into it and it’s London Westbrook.” The lies were becoming easier.
Mother’s thin brows rose. “Deck is resourceful, isn’t he?”
“Deck is good at what he does and one day we may be able to use that.” She nodded with a slight shift in weight. She liked that idea, just like I had to make her like my next idea. “And we can use her.”
Her eyes narrowed and any hint of a smile faded. “I don’t see how. She’s a weak, pathetic—”
“Scientist,” I interrupted. “She’s brilliant and knows how her father works.” All of that was true, but Mother’s face was tense and I knew she still wasn’t convinced, so I threw in, “We can send her to the farm until we need her.” No way in hell I’d let that happen, but Mother didn’t know that.
She turned back to the rose bush and snipped off another bud. A drop of blood dripped down the pad of her finger from a thorn, but she hadn’t even flinched at the prick. She sifted through the flowers, ignoring the scratches to her hands as she cut more and more. She wasn’t even collecting them now. Instead, she merely cut the red flowers and let them fall to the ground.
Killing them for no reason.
She continued, ignorin
g me until the rose bush was bare of all buds then she slipped the scissors into her pants pocket. “Dr. Westbrook got the message.” The message being his daughter disappearing for two fuckin’ years. “Maybe he will be more productive if we allow his daughter to return. The drug needs some adjustments.”
I kept completely still, not even a facial twitch. “How is the drug coming along?”
“It’s useful. It’s been rather… difficult to come by one component of the drug.” She waved her hand as if to dismiss the conversation. “You will continue to monitor Dr. Westbrook. I will consider his daughter. For now, she isn’t going anywhere. I suspect she is in a rather… delicate condition anyway.”
Ruined, mother. You fuckin’ ruined her.
I nodded, then moved in and kissed her cheek. “Good to see you again, Mother.”
“Son,” she replied and turned back to her rose bush.
I had one more thing to do before erasing London from my life. Hunt the bastards who destroyed the girl I’d once known. Because the girl I saw on the camera at the auction wasn’t London. She was a ghost of the girl I’d been with.
And Jacob and Alfonzo were responsible. And there was nothing I wouldn’t do to kill them for what they did to her. Nothing.
Toronto
IF I BELIEVED in fate, it was seriously enjoying itself fuckin’ with me. Despite trying to keep my distance from London, I was thrown right back in her path within two weeks. But this time, it wasn’t me stalking her or searching for her, it was because Deck had yet to take her back to New York and she was still in Toronto.
And also in Toronto was the bastard, Alfonzo. And I knew this because I was hunting Jacob and Alfonzo. No lead on Jacob, but I’d tracked Alfonzo here.
In my fuckin’ territory.
I thought he was in Toronto for London. As it turned out, he wasn’t. He was using London to get to Emily, Sculpt’s girl. Sculpt and Emily had been the reason Deck took down Raul and the compound, and now Alfonzo wanted payback.
Well, so did I and I was using anyone in order to get it. Alfonzo was a dead man, but first I needed him to lead me to the elusive bastard, Jacob, and to do that, I had to use Chaos.