by CR Robertson
“War is coming, Princess. Your father is going to attempt to take down one of the most dangerous gangs in the world. They will fight to survive and there will be collateral damage. If I tell you to hide, you need to run far and fast until I find you. There’s an escape bag in my office. All you need is the passport Lucas organised for you. Kris has put a secure phone and tablet in there for emergencies.”
My heart fluttered in my chest. This was my safe place; I didn’t want to go anywhere else. “You’re frightening me.”
“I’m trying to keep you safe. Promise me, Sofia. The first sign of trouble, you run.”
My eyes met his in the mirror. “Do you promise to survive and come and collect me?”
“Always.” His lips pressed to the top of my head.
“Okay, then.”
He nodded and returned to getting ready. If Nicklas was worried, then the rest of us should be terrified.
The feeling of unrest didn’t dissipate when we joined everyone else for the meal Maria had prepared. Nicklas’ face remained stern, and his body was tight with tension instead of the normal languid, smiling man who arrived at mealtimes. He chatted close to the pool with Kris, both their faces grim. My stomach felt like it was tied in knots by the time Nicklas arrived at my side.
I didn’t ask about Mario, as he’d probably been carried away like the other bodies I witnessed. The world had seen the last of him, and I doubted there would be any trace of what happened to him.
Since everyone else was eating and drinking, I picked my way through the barbeque that Maria had roasted on the huge open fire. The potatoes were amazing, but trepidation made everything sit in my stomach in a heavy lump.
I sat quietly at one of the wooden tables, trying to sort out my turbulent emotions. Maria, with two of her daughters Benita and Dahlia, came to join me, chatting in the background about some new club that had opened in town.
The first gunshot sounded in the distance and I mistook it for a car backfiring. The second made me jump as it impacted the house behind us. The third had everyone scrambling into action.
Jordan had trained me so often as a teenager, it all became instinct after a while. I grabbed the edge of the heavy wooden table. “Help me get it on its side,” I shouted. We were too far from the doorway to make a run for it. We cowered behind our makeshift hideout, all of us gripping each other in a group hug.
Maria began reciting her Hail Mary, followed by Our Father. Gun shots surrounded us in a deafening symphony that was accompanied by grunts and the sounds of pain from people being hit. My hands would have clamped down on my ears, only they were being squeezed so tightly by Maria and Benita.
“Get those fucking animals off my property,” I heard Nicklas snarl somewhere to my right.
Right now, I needed him here with me and I didn’t care if that was selfish.
Footsteps sounded to the side of the property before two men loomed over us. “What do we have here? Darius would appreciate some fresh meat for us to enjoy.”
The taller one grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to my feet. My knee came up, and I bit down hard on his free hand.
“You fucking bitch!” He backhanded me, before straddling me to try to strangle me.
My arms flailed, and I heard the other women screaming behind me. I held my breath and started to count the way Jordan had taught me.
Count to sixty to know how much air you have… Find a weapon… Escape…
His words calmed me into action. I scrabbed his face before searching for a weapon. His gun was shoved down the back of his jeans.
“Maybe I should take you now and leave you for your boyfriend to find.” He took a hand from my throat to fumble with his trousers.
The other man stood holding a gun toward my friends.
My fingers grasped his gun, and my thumb cocked the chamber.
Shoot to kill… Never regret you living and the enemy dying…
The first bullet went into his side. He grunted and lurched back, his hand going to his injury. His eyes widened at the blood he discovered. The second bullet went through his head, his blood splattering all over my face.
“You’ll fucking pay for that!” His friend screamed.
He should have used his time on actions instead of words. The third and fourth bullets sent him tumbling over the table.
“Go!” I yelled, grabbing Benita’s hand and leading them all to Nicklas’ office. I knew he kept guns in there, and that lock on the inside of the door was the sturdiest I’d seen in this entire compound.
When the rest of the world was locked outside, I slumped down the wall, the gun dangling from my right hand. Jordan would have been proud. He was the brother nature never gave me, but fate threw at me.
The other women cowered together on the sofa, crying and wailing. My head throbbed, my heart pounded in my ears, and my mouth was so dry that my tongue stuck to the roof of it. I was numb inside, my mind in shock at what I’d done. Those men were dead because of me. I told Jordan over and over again that I would never be able to pull the trigger that killed a person, but he knew me better than I knew myself.
Minutes felt like hours as we sat in here in the darkness. The only light came from outside through the window. None of us moved, and eventually the crying of the other women silenced.
My ass was dead, and pins and needles settled into my legs, yet still I sat there in the shadow world. The shouting and gunshots finally subsided outside, but there was no way I was opening that door. It was the only thing keeping us safe from murderers and rapists.
I was a murderer now.
My head rested back against the wall and I stared at a point in the distance, replaying the events of earlier. He was going to rape me while the other man pointed a gun at my friends. They would have taken Maria and her girls for their own amusement later. Or killed us. I wanted to feel remorse, but all I felt was relief that they couldn’t harm anyone now.
“Who the fuck gave you the information about how to get through our gates?” The voice belonged to Sam. Where was Nicklas? They sounded like they were outside the window. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was open. We weren’t as safe as I thought.
A male laughed. “You should be more careful next time you throw one of your whores away. Scorned women tend to sing like birds.”
Maria muttered and crossed herself.
Maia.
Nicklas had thrown her out after she attacked me, and she turned into a traitor.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sam replied. A single gunshot followed.
My eyes cut to the window as fear curled low in my stomach.
“Get this place cleaned up,” Nicklas shouted. “Not a trace by morning. Take their cars and make them disappear.”
I slumped back at the sound of his voice. Nicklas was alive.
The background hum of voices started outside, but we continued to hide in here.
“Sofia?” I didn’t react, just sat against the wall. “Sofia!”
If I didn’t get up, then I wouldn’t have to face my actions.
“Put that body down. Everyone get out there and look for the women,” Nicklas commanded.
Maria slowly crept to the door, turning the key and opening it without it creaking the way it normally did. I heard hushed voices but didn’t bother to get up. Maria came in and ushered her daughters out.
Black biker boots appeared in front of me before Nicklas crouched down. “I should have known by the way you cleared that gun beside the cliff that you could handle a firearm.” He removed the weapon from my fingers before sitting beside me. “I still remember the first man I ever killed. He was an evil fucker that deserved it, but it doesn’t stop his face from being engrained in my memory.”
“Jordan said instinct would take over and eclipse my sense of morality.”
Nicklas picked up my hand. “He was right.”
“I swore I would never be able to do it.”
He kissed my wrist. “We are all capable of more than we beli
eve.”
I turned to stare at him. “Two men are dead because of me.”
“Good men are dead tonight because I let Maia walk out of here instead of putting a bullet in her head. We have to learn to live with the consequences of our actions.”
“Are you not supposed to comfort me and tell me everything is going to be okay?”
“That would be a lie, Princess. We don’t lie to each other.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded, and we sat together for what felt like forever. Nicklas never left me, even when I heard his name being called. Eventually he lifted me to the sofa, his body curved around mine. He held me all night long, his silence more comforting than words. He knew what it was like to look into the darkness and for it to infect you like a disease.
Blood stained my soul, and that was something I would have to live with for the rest of my life.
***
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nicklas
Sofia was supposed to be safe here. One moment she was quietly eating dinner with the other women, and the next we had carloads of assholes invade. I saw them making a barrier with the table and thought they were safe.
I didn’t fucking deserve her.
It never occurred to me that Maia would leave here and go straight to Darius. It made sense since she needed to work, but all the girls knew what his men were like and swore they’d rather work the streets than go there.
A haunted look lived in Sofia’s eyes. She jumped at loud noises. She refused to leave our room, and it’d been a week.
Twice she saved Benita, but her soul carried the burden.
The man I heard so much about sat opposite me at my desk. The infamous Jordan who taught her to drive like a maniac and shoot a gun.
“Nice place you have here,” he said, flashing that billionaire smile.
I glared at him for several seconds. “What do you want, Jordan?”
“Lucas sent me to retrieve Sofia. There are few people she’d trust without her father being present, but I’m as close as family.”
“She’s perfectly safe here.”
“Indeed, but it’s been two months, and that means it’s time for her to go home. Her sisters are waiting for her at Zee’s house in England.”
This was the moment I’d been fearing since that awful day I realised I’d fallen head over heels for that tiny, fierce woman. She was mine and yet she wasn’t. How the fuck could I ever compete with her family, and that included the men she viewed as brothers. Jordan was practically a god in her eyes.
“Jay?” Sofia appeared at the door to my office. “I thought it was you in that car.”
“Hey, Sofs.” He stood up and opened his arms and I had to sit there and watch my woman throw herself at him. I wanted to take him outside and beat that smug look off his face.
She spoke in rapid Italian that I couldn’t keep up with. I knew the basics, but little more than that. The look he threw me told me he wasn’t amused. His jaw tightened, and he slowly set her to one side.
“Pack your bags, Sofia. We’re leaving,” Jordan said with a softness in his tone that belied his murderous expression.
“I don’t think so. Sofia is staying with me.”
Her eyes were huge as she stared between the two of us. “Nicklas?”
I held my hand out, and she automatically took it.
Jordan groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lucas is going to have a fucking fit. Ash’s been sniffing around Lucrezia and now this.” He waved his hand toward us in annoyance.
“Fuck off, Jordan,” I snapped.
His eyes darkened until a hardened killer stared at me. “Sofia will be returning with me. The fact that she killed two men while under your care is testament to that.”
“Jay!” Sofia exclaimed. “That’s enough. Nicklas didn’t make me into a killer. Your training was what allowed me to pull that trigger.”
“Sofia.” His voice contained the cold of the Norwegian ice fields. “Go and get your stuff or you’re leaving without it. Lucas and Xavier have enough to be dealing with right now.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist and tugged her impossibly closer. His eyes narrowed at the gesture.
“This is un-fucking-believable. She’s not even your type.”
Sofia stiffened.
“We’ve met a handful of times, Jordan. You have no idea what my type is or anything else about me.”
“That girl is the closest thing I have to a sister. I know you’re a loose cannon that stays offside on this island. Was the money Lucas gave you to take her in not enough? Are you trying to get your hands on her inheritance as well?”
I was going to break the arrogant fucker’s neck.
“Nicklas? What money is he talking about?” Sofia stared up at me.
There had been the details of a bank account on the letter Lucas sent me. I burned the letter and didn’t bother about the account details. Lucas didn’t need to pay me to make sure his daughter was safe. The look in her eyes bore a hole into my soul. If I had to explain myself, then what we had wasn’t worth it. Sofia had spent two months with me, she should know me better than that.
“Nic?” Sam stood at the door. “There’s a problem. We need to go.”
“What sort of problem?”
“Category five.” We tended to use hurricane classifications. Shit was about to go down.
“I’ll be right there.”
“Nicklas?” Sofia stepped back. “What’s Jay talking about? Is that why you wouldn’t let me pay for anything?”
What? I felt her words slap me across the face. “I don’t have time for this right now.” I strode to the door.
“You walk away now, and I won’t be here when you get back,” Sofia said.
My back stiffened at her threat. I stormed out of the room, leaving the two of them standing there.
Kris threw me two handguns and some magazines. Whatever the fuck was happening, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing at attention.
“What’s going on?” I asked Sam as we sped out, the wheels of the Jeep screaming in protest.
“Dahlia’s been taken. As soon as they phoned through with a ransom, I activated her tracker.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, we’re on borrowed time right now.”
My temper soared with every mile we drove further from Sofia. How did it get so bad in so few seconds? Did she honestly think that I took her in for money?
We parked about a mile away from the location of Dahlia’s tracker, following an old dirt path down to a derelict farmhouse. They were smart, I never would have even begun to think of looking here for her. It was the reason we put trackers into all our valuable commodities. Sofia had one put in her ankle not long after she arrived. She bitched about the mosquito bite for a week.
They never saw us coming. My men were like the hurricane classification that described the situation, sweeping in and destroying everything in their path. I snapped the neck of the first guard who wandered across my path. The next had his throat cut. The gunfire was saved for when we breeched the building.
Anger throbbed through me in waves. My gun wasn’t enough of a release. My body was the weapon as I let my inner beast free. I only wished that that sanctimonious fucker Jordan had been here to have his ass kicked as well.
It was over before it began since we arrived in force and left no one alive. Darius would learn to keep his filthy hands off what belonged to me, or I’d cut those hands off.
No one needed to tell me she was gone when I got back. There was a letter sitting on my desk that I didn’t bother to open. I lifted the bottle of scotch from the shelf and walked to my room because it was one of the few places that I frequented in my house that smelt of her.
I refused to let my emotions out. The last time I cried for someone was Matt and Doris. They’d clung to me until the end. Sofia walked away.
Hell would freeze over before I let her see that she’d ripped my heart out and took it with he
r.
***
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sofia
“Maybe we should wait.” It had been stupid to give Nicklas that ultimatum earlier. I’d been hurt and angry. He never gave me any reason to think that he had any interest in money.
That nasty angel that lived on my right shoulder whispered my greatest fears when I felt vulnerable. Men were interested when they knew my Papa was Lucas Black. When I was Sofia Robertson no one even gave me a second look. I believed Nicklas loved me, but then I heard about Papa sending him a small fortune to look after me, and all my doubts and fears reared up to suffocate me.
“We’re booked on the next flight out of this hellhole, Sofs. Grab your essentials and let’s get out of here.”
Everything that I had here was essential. I didn’t want to leave anything behind. Jordan watched as I put my laptop, phone, and passports in the bag I arrived with. When I started to try to pack clothes, he rolled his eyes and grabbed my bag.
“Essentials do not include flip-flops and bras.” He gave me the big brother look that he’d cultivated just for me over the years. Jordan had always been on my side, even against my sisters. He was the only person I could trust when I was younger.
On a whim, I went into Nicklas’ office and left him a note and lifted the bag he’d hidden in the cupboard for me. “Please,” I whispered, desperately needing him to walk in through that door and tell me everything was okay.
Every time a tall man with black hair walked past me in the airport, I looked up hopefully.
Jordan sat down beside me, his hand on my knee. “I’m sorry, Sofs. We all want to believe that someone feels the same way we do about them. Nic is a great guy if you need someone to watch your back, why else would Lucas send you to him? But he’s not the type of guy you should have hearts in your eyes over.”
My heart started to fracture. “Nicklas took care of me.”
“First love cuts the deepest, Sofs. He looked after you because your father paid him a small fortune to keep you safe. The fact that you had to protect yourself is a fucking disgrace. Lucas will have something to say about that.”