Indulgence

by Liz Crowe

  “It’s not a game,” she said sullenly. “It goes both ways you know.”

  “I’m a monster,” I said, sliding my legs into a fresh pair of jeans. “I’ve done too much to go back.”

  “Maybe,” she said, not sugar coating it in the slightest. “But who says that you’re right? How do you know?”

  I snorted, glancing away. I didn’t know shit anymore, so maybe she was right. Striding from the bedroom, I went out into the lounge and dragged on my boots before opening the refrigerator and pulling out a beer.

  She had so much faith in me…so much misplaced faith. Sinking down onto the sofa, I necked the bottle, the cold beer sliding down the back of my throat.

  The sordid story of Mercy’s dead family was still plastered to my lounge room wall and I wondered why she hadn’t taken it down. Did she need a reminder of what she was fighting for? I sure as fuck needed one.

  “We can still get our revenge.” Her voice came out of nowhere as she sat beside me. She already had the ghost thing down. She’d fucking need it if we were going to win this game.

  I paused, holding my breath as I stared at the photographs of her dead family stuck to the wall. Revenge…how could I seek revenge when I could hardly grasp what I was seeking revenge for?

  I felt Mercy’s hand as she slid it across my thigh and jerked away, standing to my full height. How could I seek revenge when there were still reminders of who she was plastered on my living room wall?

  Coming alive, I strode across the room and began tearing at the photos, ripping newspaper clippings from the wall and tearing drawing pins from the plaster. I teared at them like I was stripping pieces of flesh from my bones, my breath coming in ragged gasps. And she said she was willing to try when I was going full on crazy.

  I stilled as I felt hands on my back, hands that trailed across my waist and circled around to my stomach. Then her body was against mine as she held onto me.

  “X?” she murmured, resting her cheek against my back.

  I grunted, my forehead pressing against the plaster.

  “I’m not her anymore. I haven’t been for a while now, but I still want to right the wrong that was done to her.”

  “She’s always going to be a part of you,” I murmured, my fingers curling around the last photograph that was stuck to the wall. The same photo of Alison Crawford whose hair I’d colored in with a black marker.

  “I know, but that’s the past. It’s done. Over. The future we can change.”

  We…her and I. She was so hell bent on it that it made me wonder if it was fear for her safety that made me want to leave her behind. Caring for someone else. Fuck.

  If I went dark on my own, I knew I wouldn’t get through it without giving up the last of my soul. I would be a real monster when all was said and done. Inhuman.

  Turning, I held her to me, searching her blue eyes. I needed her with me. We had to go. Because without her? I’d still be sitting in the darkness, letting the monster devour what was left of my soul.

  Mercy Reid was my missing piece. She filled the void where my heart should be.

  Cupping her face in my hands, she stared up at me with glassy eyes.

  Lowering my lips to hers, I murmured, “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Mercy

  I stood in the parking garage underneath X’s apartment and watched as he screwed in new number plates on his car. I glanced at the empty spot where his motorcycle used to be, frowning at the knowledge that he was going to leave it behind.

  He said it was still parked out the front of The Gambler’s Inn and there was no point in going back for it. I wasn’t sure how attached he was to it, but it was a damn shame.

  X threw the screwdriver into the boot of the car, where a choice selection from his closet of horrors was stashed. A pile of weapons including that fancy sniper rifle I’d wondered about. Maybe he’d teach me how to use it after all.

  Staring at the car, I bit my lip. It really was a nice piece of machinery. It was this black, vintage muscle car, sexy as all hell and it suited him down to the ground. X had a flair about him that was so anti-biker gang it made me wonder who he was before.

  “Are you ready?” X asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  I nodded and opened the passenger side door. There was nothing to look back on, nothing but forward from here on out.

  I slid into the car as X climbed into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. He backed out of the space, shifted the stick into first and we shot out onto the road and into the early morning light. The sky was starting to lighten, a smudge of orange dusting the handful of clouds that hung amongst the stars. It was going to be a perfect day. Sunny, warm and heavy with the promise of something new.

  The car weaved through the centuries old buildings as we crossed the city, flashing past monuments and museums, crossing the river and heading out of the smog and into the countryside. I watched the sunrise with a new sense of hope, a new purpose and a new mission. The sky was flaming orange and red and to my heart, it felt like an omen for what was to come.

  Rivers of blood.

  I glanced over at X, trying to read his expression in the dawn light, wondering what he was thinking. Wondering if he had the same hope, or if he was just thinking of something that was on a stiff, regimental list of things that he had to do. Maybe, but most of all...I wondered if his heart was still open.

  “Can I ask you something?” I asked after a while.

  His gaze met mine briefly, before turning back to watch the road. “Yes.”

  “That sniper rifle… Will you teach me how to use it?”

  His jaw stiffened, but he nodded. “I’ll teach you.”

  “Okay.”

  He glanced at me again, his eyes flashing with something I couldn’t quite catch. “I’ll teach you whatever you want.”

  Whatever I want. The thought sent a shiver through my entire body.

  It felt like an age since that first night at The Gambler’s Inn when he’d walked in and called me a bitch. Now, I was a different person again. And before that, the night I stood in Sykes’ house, gun in hand…and even before that when I stood in my family home staring down at the bodies of my parents and brother… Mercy Reid had evolved so much in such a short amount of time. Who would she be tomorrow? Master assassin?

  Maybe.

  But maybe it would be as simple as being happy. Happy with X. That was a future to look forward to, but first there were some scores to settle.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, eager to get the groundwork of our master plan into place.

  X glanced at me, before fixing his gaze on the road ahead. “Someplace where they won't find us.”

  “Then what?”

  His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “We figure this thing out.”

  I reached over and slid a hand across his thigh, his warmth soothing my cool skin. “And we figure out what they did to you.”

  He let his hand drop to cover mine, the small gesture making my entire body shiver. He was already learning and my heart swelled with pride.

  “Then,” he said, lacing his fingers through mine, “we come back and kill them all.”

  About the Author

  Amity Cross isn't her real name. That's no secret.

  She is the author of wicked stories about rock stars looking for redemption, gritty romances featuring MMA fighters and dark tales of forbidden romance. She loves to write about screwed up relationships and kick ass female leads that don't take s**t lying down.

  Amity lives in a leafy country town in southern Australia and can be found chained to her desk, held at ransom by her characters.

  Don't send help. She likes it.

  Follow Amity:

  www.AmityCrossWrites.com

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  Angel Falling

  By

  Audrey Carlan

  Chapter One />
  New York City sucked. If the work hadn’t been good and the pay decent, I’d have hightailed it outta here and headed back home to my ranch.

  People here were just drones, lifeless husks that scampered through the concrete jungle. Always afraid to be late or miss something. They ran around with hopeful looks plastered across their plastic faces as if the next big break were right around the corner. It wasn’t.

  God, I hated the fucking city.

  The only thing that made it bearable was the women. New York was full of beautiful women who ached to be taken by a guy like me. They saw me as a simpleton. A hunk of meat. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t looking for happily ever after. We were all in it for one thing … to get off.

  As beautiful women went, the woman that arrived here every morning at seven sharp had my attention. She was a classy one. She usually wore button-up suits, her tight skirts slit up to mid-thigh with legs that went on for days. Her heels were so tall they were like stilts. It must have taken practice to walk on spikes every damn day. She’d be smokin’ hot in a pair of cowboy boots and nothin’ else.

  I could tell she was smart, or liked to put off that she was. She had money, too, lots of it. Every day a town car or shiny black limo dropped her off. Never with a man though. Sometimes, I caught her peeking over her sunglasses, taking in the view of my crew. Hell, maybe she even sized me up a time or two. I would like that. I’d even consider making a move if I didn’t think she was out of my league. Women as fancy as she was didn’t date men like me. They dated billionaires with flashy cars men who drove Ferraris, not Ford pickups.

  My company, Jensen Construction, was hired to expand a section of the skyscraper where she worked, add a new lobby with another ten stories above it. When all was said and done, the completed project would add a couple hundred new offices to the building. Even though leaving Texas was rough, the money here was too good to pass up.

  My crew and I were making five times as much as we would back home. That was the new direction I’d decided to take my company. I bid on jobs outside the state if they were worth it. Somehow, I kept underbidding the locals here in New York and secured the work.

  For me it was a win-win. I had family back home, but no wife or kids. I also had my ranch, a couple of horses, and Butch, my yellow lab. I brought Butch with me because a man doesn’t leave his best friend sitting at home for three months. The horses were being taken care of by my brother in exchange for being able to ride ‘em whenever he wanted. It was a fair deal. His boys loved it and I got “Best Uncle” status in the process.

  After checking that my men were hard at work and that everything was moving along as planned, I headed for my portable office. The sleek black limo appeared at the curb, sun glinting off the chrome bumper, blinding me with its sharp light. I leaned against the metal railing on the steps, ready to watch the show.

  She was a damn vision today. Her usual black suit left behind, replaced with a tailored white number that hugged every curve. She looked like a naughty angel. She turned around and pulled her briefcase out of the car. Her ass was tight; the white fabric accentuated the perfect heart shape.

  What I wouldn’t give to smack that ass, make her scream out, and beg me to fuck her.

  Those long legs of hers took her past me quickly. She wasn’t wearing the big ol’ round glasses that hid her gorgeous eyes today. The sun broke across the building, and her blue eyes sparkled in the light. Long golden hair flapped in the wind behind her. A red scarf tied around her neck cut across her form, a slash of crimson splitting a perfect blank canvas.

  She dug through the oversized brown bag hanging over her delicate shoulder, her cell phone glued to her ear. A noise screeched from up above. I jerked my head up. A stack of large metal pipes held together by chains swung precariously from the crane. My lady in white stopped right under it, and the scene played out in sickening slow-motion in my mind’s eye. Her phone fell to the concrete; she cursed and bent to retrieve it, unaware of the danger that lurked above her.

  “Watch out!” I yelled as I barreled toward her, pointing upward. Her gaze drifted up as I heard metal scraping across metal, then a loud clink, signaling that the pipes had separated from their chassis.

  One side of the chains held, sending one-inch metal pipes flying downward like daggers falling from the sky. My inner Superman reacted and I shot forward, knocking her to the ground, my much larger body covering hers. Without warning, a gut-wrenching, piercing pain ripped through my left shoulder. She was screaming under me, trying to push me off her. Moving wasn’t an option. Searing pain blazed through my shoulder as if I were being stabbed with a large butcher knife. Every movement stole my breath.

  I only saw red. This time it wasn’t her scarf. It was blood, lots and lots of blood, pouring over her white suit, painting it with color.

  “Help him!” she screamed. “It’s going to be okay.” Cool hands and fingers slid along my temples and cupped my face. “Please, please, look at me.”

  Pain gripped my upper body as if two plates of metal were pressing me flat as a pancake. I lay on my side, unable to move. Briefly casting a glance over the heart of the excruciating ache over my left shoulder, I could see the glint of metal protruding a good couple of feet out of my back.

  The swells of nausea churned in my gut and my mouth watered with that sour taste that comes just when you’re about to blow chunks. Closing my eyes I tried to take a deep breath, but the pain that followed tore through bone, muscle, and skin. The only things that kept me firmly planted to this earth were those gray-blue eyes. They were like crystal pools, refreshing and inviting.

  “So pretty,” I mumbled through dry lips.

  She smiled, and I closed my eyes knowing that I couldn’t look at God’s angel any longer or I’d get lost in her beauty and willingly leave this earthly plane. Sirens blared in the background, but my angel held me, speaking softly. “It’s going to be okay. You saved me. You’re going to make it, just hold very still.”

  I risked opening one eye for a split second and what I saw almost broke me. Those beautiful blue eyes weren’t serene. They were choppy, ragged waters that swirled with fear.

  It started to rain. Big fat wet droplets landed on my face. Only the droplets weren’t rain, they were her tears.

  “You saved me,” she whispered against my forehead, her lips moist and soft. I wanted to say something to her. Introduce myself in some small way before she was taken away from me. Tell her my name was Hank and that I thought she was beautiful, but the words didn’t come. Wouldn’t come. Breathing alone took all my effort.

  I felt arms all around me, lifting me up and placing me onto something soft. A cloud perhaps. My angel was pulled away. Time seemed to slow and ebb. So much was happening around me, but I couldn’t focus on any of it. Pain controlled my attention and I succumbed to its sickening grip with a guttural howl.

  “I’m coming with you!” tore from her throat as bodies moved around and harsh words were exchanged. “This is my building and he, he … he saved my life! I owe him everything!” My angel hollered at the people who tugged and pulled at my face, my chest, pressing me deeper into the cloud. For a brief moment I felt happy someone cared. No, not someone her.

  I couldn’t feel anymore. My eyes were heavy and I blindly reached out my hand. An icy, feather-soft hand closed around mine, taking away my anxiety.

  “I’m here. I’m here. Just let them take care of you.” Her voice was smooth and sweet like a melody. Then blackness enveloped me.

  I couldn’t imagine what was taking so long! It had been hours — hours — since the man who risked everything went into surgery. Please God, please let him be okay. He saved my life. A stranger saved my life. I pulled out my phone and called my assistant Oliver.

  “Aspen, where are you?” he rattled off quickly without a greeting. “Something happened today at the building. A man was hurt. A crane dropped some pipes.” His voice was higher than normal, and rushed as if he couldn’t get out what he needed to
say fast enough.

  I had worked with Oliver a number of years and was long accustomed to his eccentric nature. I already knew all he was telling me, but he wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise, so I let him continue. “I’ve already called Legal; someone should show up at the hospital any minute to find out his prognosis.”

  “Oliver … Oliver, stop.”

  “What?” The words screeched out tight and restrained. He took a ragged breath.

  “I’m here, at the hospital. The man that was hurt, he uh … he jumped in front of me. Prevented me from being impaled.” My voice cracked and hiccupped to a halt. It took everything I could to hold back the tears.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God, Aspen, are you okay? Shit! I’m going to cry. I can’t lose you. I love you.” And there was my drama queen. His effeminate voice strained; he started to cry.

  “Oliver. Ollie, honey, I know. I’m fine.” I took a deep breath. “The man that saved me, I don’t even know his name. They’re not telling me anything here at the hospital. I need you to get me some information. Find out who he is and his emergency contacts.”

  “Okay, yes. I got it. Anything else?”

  “I need to know who runs the show at the hospital. I need to have access to this man. Whatever the cost.” Through the receiver, Oliver’s heavy breathing and the rustling of papers drifted through the phone.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll get it. Give me fifteen minutes max.”

  “Thank you.” I sighed and looked down at my suit in horror. “Oliver, one more thing: I need a change of clothes. Don’t send a courier. Bring me a suit from the closet in the office.”

  “Why?”

  I shuddered. “Because this suit is covered in blood.” A sob tried to escape my throat but my hand effectively suppressed the sound. The last thing I needed to lose was my control. After a couple of deep, calming breaths, my nerves were back intact. Mostly.