His to Protect: Midnight Riders MC

by April Lust

  Before I could stop myself, I shrugged on the shirt of Nicholas’s I held in my hand. I buttoned it up. It was long enough to serve as a dress. Besides, I had no other clothing. This would have to do.

  Three quick steps and I was at the window. I put my hands on the windowsill and paused just long enough to take a deep breath. Then I was out, leaping through the opening and going down the fire escape.

  I hoped I’d made the right decision.

  Chapter 25

  Nicholas

  My heart pounded like a drum in my chest. Somehow, I found the presence of mind to nod and say, “Got it, boss.”

  He wanted me on the raid. Fucking hell. This wouldn’t be good.

  Cosimo’s phone rang where it sat on the table. He frowned as he looked at the caller ID. “I’ll be right back,” he announced, and he stepped outside, phone in hand. Other men lit fresh cigarettes or checked their own cell phones.

  “I gotta go take a piss,” I mumbled to nobody in particular. Then I stood and followed Cosimo out of the room before anyone could say anything to stop me.

  I stepped into a long hallway. Cosimo was nowhere to be seen. Looking both ways, I decided to head left. I walked a few dozen yards. It hooked to the right and I kept walking, looking for somewhere I could duck down to call Fists. I came to a dead end and cursed. This would have to do.

  Wedging myself into the corner as well as I could, I pulled out my phone and began tapping out Fists’s number on the keypad as quickly as my fingers would allow. I hit the dial button and held it to my ear. “C’mon, c’mon, you bastard,” I muttered into the mouthpiece as it rang.

  “Hello?” came his quiet voice.

  “Fists,” I began, talking rapidly, “listen closely. I don’t have much time.”

  “Go,” he ordered.

  “They know everything. They know about the weapons, the Yakuza, the trade. They fucking know, Fists!”

  “Shit!” he swore. I heard the sound of something breaking on his end of the line. If I were a betting man, my money would be that he’d thrown the ashtray off his desk. “How the fuck did they find out?”

  “There’s a rat in the clubhouse,” I hissed urgently. “We need to abort that shit ASAP, smoke him out, and plug the hole. You gotta call off the deal.”

  There was a long pause. “We can’t do that,” he said finally.

  “Are you not hearing me? They know everything! This is a suicide mission!”

  “It’s already in motion. We can’t turn back now. The weapons are here and they’re hot. The longer we hold onto them, the more we expose ourselves to some bad shit. Rivals of the Yakuza, the feds…the list goes on and on. No, we have to do the swap.”

  “I don’t think you’re listening,” I argued. “If you bring that shit, it will blow up in our faces, literally and figuratively.”

  “Like I said, Nico, we don’t have a choice.”

  I screamed silent curses. Why was he being so fucking stubborn? Didn’t he see this was jeopardizing everything? We needed to pull back and regroup, not charge blindly into a massacre.

  “Fists, just listen for one second—”

  “No,” he interrupted, “it doesn’t matter. We’re moving forward with the plan. We’re just going to have to have an ace in the hole.”

  “What fucking ace do we have?” I screeched.

  I could hear Fists humming to himself as he thought. His fingers snapped. “Luca. I’ll have him lead a counterraid. Wait until the Espositos step out, then he’ll swoop in and settle the issue before it gets out of hand.”

  “Fists, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I said. I didn’t like that shit one bit. There were too many variables. I couldn’t predict what the outcome of the fight would be. Even though I was going to be on the Esposito side of the raid, I didn’t know the details yet and I didn’t know if I’d have a chance to communicate them to Fists and Luca before it was too late. We had all our eggs in one basket, and Cosimo was gunning headlong for it.

  “You’re gonna have to deal with it. Be safe, Nico.” The line went dead.

  Chapter 26

  Natalia

  I was going down the street as fast as I could without drawing unnecessary attention. I kept my head down and my footsteps quick, one after the other, focusing only on the next step.

  My plan was to make it to the bus station. I could beg the cashier at the ticket counter for some help with the fare, or, if worse came to worse, I’d just try to sneak my way on. For right now, it didn’t make a difference where I went, as long as it was somewhere away from the city.

  The sky was gray and foreboding. I snuck a glance overhead. It always struck me as funny how the weather seemed to reflect what I was feeling. Gray day, gray sky. A perfect fucking match.

  I kept moving. That was the only way to keep the thoughts at bay. If I paused for even a second, I didn’t think I’d ever get started again. Nicholas’s voice was ringing in the back of my head. Stay put, Natalia. You’re mine. I felt a visceral twinge every time I closed my eyes and pictured him, his hand resting on my throat, as he looked at me and slid his fingers down between my legs. I could sense myself growing wet at the mere thought.

  What was I leaving behind? An unbelievable amount of pain and misery, that was for certain. If I never saw my father’s restaurant ever again, if I never heard the name Esposito, that would be just fine with me. Preferable, even. There was nothing but darkness and sadness associated with the places where I’d spent the vast majority of my unfortunate life.

  But for the first time since I could remember, there was something in that life that might just be worthwhile. What a twisted way for me to stumble into it. A man bought me from an auction block, and I fell for him? That couldn’t be real. The world didn’t work that way. And, yet, it had worked that way. I’d been purchased like a stock animal, like a horse being sent off to the glue factory, and instead of being fed through the machinery of whatever torture might have been waiting for me in another scenario, I tumbled straight into the arms of a walking, talking, sexy as hell enigma. One with a name that could, all by itself, send heat racing through my thighs and a chill down my spine.

  I reached a crosswalk. The blinking red hand told me to stay in place as cars whizzed past in front of me. All these people had such normal lives. They were accountants and dentists, housewives, children headed off to school, and none of them had ever even heard of something like a sex slave auction, much less been aware that it took place right under their noses. What a thing it was to be so blissfully ignorant. I’d never had that kind of luck.

  Too impatient to stand still and wait for the signal to change, I decided to cross to the other side of the street. Keep moving, keep moving—that was the mantra. Let my legs work and my brain stay silent. I hurried across the street, barely glancing to make sure no one had chosen to barrel through the red light and mow me down. Although, to be fair, that might not have been the worst thing in the world.

  There was a white van idling on the corner. I walked in front of it and turned my attention to the sidewalk unfolding ahead of me. I was three or four blocks away from the bus station. Mexico, here I come, I thought to myself.

  That was when the hands grabbed me.

  The door to the van slid open as four men leaped out of the vehicle towards me, picking me up and covering my mouth to stop me from screaming. I thrashed wildly like a trapped animal, but I never had a chance.

  “No, no!” I screamed when they had thrown me on the floor of the van and shut the door. I felt a lurch as the driver pressed hard on the gas, sending it careening down the street, straight through the red light. Horns blared and angry drivers protested, but the van didn’t stop. We kept on moving.

  In the back, I was throwing elbows and knees around like flails. I connected with the temple of one of the men. He cursed and threw all his weight against my leg, trapping it against the floor. The other three did the same.

  Behind me, someone stuffed a rag in my mouth to silence me. The
man holding my right arm shoved up the sleeve of the shirt of Nicholas’s that I’d stolen and yanked my wrist towards him so the underside of my arm was exposed.

  “Shh,” said a voice that was sickeningly familiar. Alessandra emerged from the back row with a glistening needle in her hand. “Don’t worry, hon.” She smiled coldly. “Everything is going to be just fine.” She jabbed the needle into one of the green veins wending along the crook of my elbow. Sleep slugged through me immediately. I fought it hard. But my body could only hold out for a few seconds.

  The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Alessandra’s face. “It will all be over soon,” she told me. “Very soon.”

  Chapter 27

  Nicholas

  I had one more call to make. I punched in the number of the phone I’d given to Natalia. “You better fucking answer,” I growled. But the rings echoed into the stale silence. A dozen, thirteen, fourteen rings went by without anyone picking up at the other end.

  Motherfucker. I’d told her to keep the phone close, hadn’t I? What was so hard about that? All she had to do was hold onto the goddamn phone.

  “Hello?” Someone had answered my call. I heard the sound of heavy breathing, but no words being spoken. “Natalia?”

  A dry cackle speared through the earpiece. “Don’t bother chasing us,” drawled the voice of a husky man, “we’ve already fucked her raw. You can pick up her body at the transaction tonight. Though, I warn you,” he continued, “it will be dripping with a dozen strangers’ cum.” He hung up before I could say a word.

  I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at it in horror. What the fuck was happening? Who had taken her? And how did they know about the transaction?

  “What are you doing?” came a sharp voice.

  I looked down the hall to see Giovanni standing there, framed by the low ceiling of the corridor. His arms were crossed over his gut and his eyes were narrowed suspiciously as he stared at me where I was crouched in the corner. I tucked the cell phone away hurriedly, hiding it from his sight.

  “Couldn’t find the bathroom,” I lied, saying the first thing that popped into my mind.

  Giovanni pointed a finger at the door right across from me. It was marked with a metallic plaque that read, Bathroom—Men Only. “It’s right there,” he said. His voice was dark and low. I couldn’t get a read on him. All I knew was that this didn’t look good for me.

  “Oh, right,” I stammered. “Can’t believe I missed it. I’ll, uh, just go ahead and piss real quick, then.”

  “Hurry back,” Giovanni told me. “We’re about to get started again.” He gave me one last glare before turning and disappearing around the bend.

  I let loose a long exhale. Giovanni suspected something. He had to. I would’ve done the same, if I’d caught someone crouched in the corner lying as blatantly and badly as I had done. But what would he do about it? Would he tell Cosimo? I gulped. Everything was crumbling all at once. I hoped I’d find a way to make it out of this shit storm with my skin intact.

  I waited for a full minute after Giovanni had gone before hustling down the hallway after him. I burst back into the meeting room, running a hand over my head as I fell back into my seat.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Cosimo intoned. “We were just planning for this evening’s festivities. Everything is shaping up to be lots and lots of fun.”

  The way he was smiling, I knew it would be anything but fun.

  Chapter 28

  Natalia

  I swam back into consciousness, a horrible taste in my mouth, but for some reason, the world was still black. My wrists were encased in metal cuffs, held high behind my back. My shoulder was crying out in pain at the uncomfortable position in which I was pinned. I twisted my head left and right and realized I couldn’t see because there was a hood over my head.

  “She’s moving,” growled a voice in the distance. It echoed in the room.

  I heard the wet plink of liquid dripping to the ground. Where the hell was I?

  “The drugs must have worn off. Take off her hood,” said a female voice. I knew that one. Alessandra.

  Heavy footsteps trotted over to me. The hood was ripped suddenly off my head. I squinted hard against the bright fluorescent lights overhead. It took several long blinks before my vision had everything squared away.

  Alessandra stood in front of me. She was dressed as well as always, in a tight dress made up of black and gray cotton panels stitched together. She tapped one toe on the concrete floor impatiently.

  Next to her stood a man I didn’t recognize. He was fat, with floppy jowls that were desperate for a razor to get rid of the ugly whiskers scabbing across them. He wore sweats and a tank top, stained. His eyes were set far apart from each other, but they protruded like a fish’s.

  “How much longer?” Alessandra fired at the fat man.

  He shrugged. “Not sure. Can’t be much, though. It’s almost midnight.”

  She sucked her teeth in annoyance. Her gaze swung to me. Her eyes, iron gray, showed not the slightest shred of mercy. “Why do I have to keep dealing with you?” she snapped.

  I was too bleary to offer any kind of an answer. The remaining tendrils of the drug in my system clouded my thoughts, making it hard to focus on any one thing. I looked back and forth from Alessandra to the man, my eyes refusing to settle.

  She stalked towards me and came to a halt. Her head blocked out the light above. It cast a halo around her face, illuminating her blonde hair like it was on fire. “Over and over again, you keep finding your way back into my life,” she said. “Like a cockroach. A parasite. A fucking leech.” She spat in my face. “You have always been a cockroach. Ever since you were born.”

  Alessandra’s words didn’t make any sense. Ever since I was born? She’d only known me in the time since I was taken from my daddy and brought to the Esposito mansion. “What are you talking about?” I stammered, confused.

  She smiled grimly. “You don’t know, do you? Stupid bitch, never even bothered to find out.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs and find some sense in all this chaos. The room around me was filled with pipes leaking fluid. They looked old and rusty, as if ready to burst at any moment.

  Alessandra sensed my confusion. “Where’s your mother, Natalia?” she chanted in a childish sing-song voice. “Eh? Where is she? Don’t you know?”

  “She’s in, um…California. She ran away. She didn’t like the cold.”

  Alessandra’s face twisted into a mocking scowl with each word I said as I repeated the story that Daddy had always told me. When I finished, her laugh echoed off the metal piping. “Idiot girl. You killed her, Natalia. You killed her. You killed our mother.”

  I blinked hard. The lights were so bright and the pressure in the room was giving me a headache. I couldn’t have heard her right. Did she say our mother? That made no sense. My mouth flopped open uselessly like a fish as I tried to form the question I wanted to know the answer to.

  Alessandra beat me to it. “You heard me. Our mother. The one you killed. You kicked in her stomach. She was driving, and you kicked so hard that she crashed. She died, but for some godforsaken reason, you didn’t. You survived.”

  I was reeling. This was information overload. There was no way it could be true. But one look at Alessandra told me it was. I couldn’t deny the certainty of the hate written across her face.

  “Why do you think I’ve always hated you, Natalia?” she taunted. “You killed my mother. Our father was a piece of shit and he deserved to die the way he did. But she didn’t deserve that. Why did you do it?”

  She tilted her head to the side. She seemed to genuinely expect an answer from me. I didn’t know what to say. “I, uh, I, how…” I stuttered. My tongue felt fat and numb in my mouth. It wouldn’t work properly. My throat seemed to be closing.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “You are going to die tonight. Both you and your lovely new man.” Her smile broadened by one perfect tooth. “Sh
ame. You two seemed so perfect together.” She whirled around to face the man in the sweats. “Fuck her up,” she commanded. She clomped out of the room, leaving me alone with him.

  The man grinned like a pig, then began to walk towards me, tugging down the front of his sweatpants as he drew closer.

  I screamed and screamed, but there was no one around to hear me. Try as I might, I just couldn’t stand up.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me,” he drawled as he stopped a yard in front of me. He had one hand shoved down the front of his pants. He reached forward with the other and cupped my chin. I yanked at my chains. They were locked too securely to offer much in the way of wiggle room. I wasn’t going anywhere.