“Chase,” Fox snapped, beckoning me over. “Look at the town, where would she go?” he demanded, jabbing his finger down on the map.
I frowned, taking a breath as I tried to align my thoughts and I looked down at the town we called home and wondered where she’d be. Maybe she didn’t want to be found. She’d hate us for leaving her. She’d blame us all. So maybe she’d jacked a car and left us all behind, but as my gaze moved to the dog in JJ’s arms, I knew she wouldn’t have abandoned him like I had her.
“She’ll be laying low somewhere,” I said darkly as JJ placed Mutt down and started brewing some coffee for us all.
“Why?” Fox snapped.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I snarled. “She’ll blame us for her getting caught.”
JJ groaned, sounding in agony then his fist snapped out and cracked against one of the cupboards. “She’ll think we fucking abandoned her. Again.”
Fox looked like his head was about to explode, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the counter. “So we need to find her and fucking explain. Where the hell would she go? And what’s she thinking now? What’s her goddamn plan?” He glared down at the map in fury like it was keeping the information from him.
I stepped closer with a sigh. “My guess? She’ll go to ground for a few days then try to come back for the dog and skip town once she has him.”
Fox processed that for a long moment before nodding. He scrubbed at the stubble on his jaw, not looking directly at me. He was pissed at me. I’d fucked up royally in his eyes. And I’d pay for it soon enough in more than just the bruises lining my flesh from his rage last night. But his focus was on the hunt now, and he wasn’t going to let anything cloud his vision on that.
Fox’s jaw worked as his eyes moved from one road to the next on the map, calculating the odds of her being at each location. I reached out and pressed my hand to his shoulder and he shrugged it off, his eyes snapping up to meet mine.
“If we lose her again, I’ll never forgive you,” he bit out and my heart hammered frantically as those words settled over me. “Either we find her or you’re out of the Harlequins,” he said icily and dread washed down my spine like ice.
“Fox-” I rasped, but he just slammed his finger down on the map again, pointing to New Palm Lane. “Start there. Knock on doors. Ask anyone you see. I don’t care what it takes, you don’t have a bed in this house until I get some news on where she is from your tongue.”
He pointed me in the direction of the garage, his eyes dark and full of a murderous fury that I’d only ever seen aimed at our enemies.
I met JJ’s gaze for a moment then he hung his head, his brow creased. My chest compressed and I backed up, my fate closing in on me and my truest fears being realised right before my eyes.
Losing Rogue had broken me, but losing them too would be the end of me. And now finding her was the only way I could keep my home, my brothers.
Fate had twisted up everything I’d done and thrown it back in my face. I’d fucked up so badly that all I could do was keep digging myself into this hole and pray the bottom of it held an answer. But I had the feeling that I was going to keep digging my way into the endless, lonely dark and never find a way back to the light. And that might just be the punishment I deserved.
M averick's angry shouts were more than enough to draw me out of my hiding place within the sauna where I’d chosen to heat myself up for most of the night. I’d just turned the temperature down after initially banishing the cold from the storm and had made myself a bed out of towels on one of the benches when it had become clear he wasn’t planning on coming back for me any time soon. I probably should have thought to hang my wet clothes up in here to dry last night too, but I’d been more interested in warming myself up, so they still sat in a heap out by the hot tub and I was butt naked inside my nest.
I snatched a fluffy white towel from the pile I’d slept in to wind around my warm body and stepped out of the sauna to stand beside the hot tub half a second before Maverick burst through the door.
He'd gotten changed into a pair of black sweats and a khaki t-shirt, though his midnight hair still shone with moisture from a shower and the penetrating hunger in his gaze made me fight a squirm.
I hadn't caught the words that went with his tirade as I'd been hurrying to tie my towel in place, but as a woman's yells followed him through the door, my jaw tightened with irritation.
"I don't see why I have to stay away," Mia snarled, the door flying open at his back as she stalked in, wearing a set of black underwear with a transparent dressing gown hanging open over it. Her short, dark hair made her modelesque features seem sharp like a bird of prey and she narrowed heavily shadowed eyes on me the moment she spotted me. "We can just play with her together," she pouted.
Maverick didn’t reply, his gaze fixed on me though I could have sworn annoyance was tightening his jaw as Mia moved to run a hand down his arm.
“Wouldn’t you like that, baby? I could help you get whatever information out of her you need. Or if you want to have some more exciting fun, maybe we could take her upstairs to our room?”
“It’s not your room,” Maverick grunted, folding his arms impatiently like he was just waiting for her to be done here. But I couldn’t figure out why he was indulging her at all. Wasn’t he the big bad boss man? Shouldn’t she have been backing the fuck off instead of stepping over the line he’d clearly drawn here?
“Your room then,” Mia conceded. “I’m sure we could persuade her to join in with us. Girls like her always have a price. Wouldn’t you like to watch her eat me out? Maybe you could fuck her while she’s doing it?”
“Girls like me?” I asked dryly. “Believe me, sweetheart, there isn’t enough money in the world to make me want to lick your crusty cunt. And don’t go thinking that’s because I have anything against pussy – I just have standards which you fall far beneath. Unlike Maverick here who will apparently stick his cock in anything on offer.”
Mia laughed like I was joking, but my gaze wasn’t on her. I was watching the man in the room, waiting for him to make his move and put his bitch in line. He didn’t have long though, because if he didn’t do it himself soon, I’d be taking on the job for him.
Maverick's gaze never shifted from me and I arched an eyebrow at him, daring him to do his worst.
Mia took the stand-off between us as some kind of invitation and she prowled towards me, drawing my attention from the main man as she cocked her head and considered me.
"She looks like such an innocent little thing," she commented like I was a show pony and she was considering purchasing me. "All of that cotton candy hair and those big blue eyes begging the world to go easy on her even though it won’t. I think she might just be a little too broken, even for you, baby."
Mia reached out to grip the top of my towel and tried to tug it free, but I batted her hand away from me and gave her my best resting bitch face. It wasn't a glare or a snarl or anything like that, just a look of utter disdain which promised her skanky ass that I could beat her dumb face in if she kept pushing me.
"See?" Mia purred. "I bet she wouldn't even-"
"I want clothes," I interrupted, ignoring the twat in favour of pinning Maverick in my gaze. "You wanted me here, so here I am. But I don't need to be naked for whatever the hell you have planned next, because believe me when I tell you I have no interest in catching genital warts from your skanky girlfriend."
Mia lunged at me with a snarl and a flash of psycho in her eyes but I'd been expecting it and I ducked aside, making her stumble as she failed to grab me.
My fist cracked her in the mouth as she tried to recover and busted her lip open as she whirled on me again. Her body collided with mine a second later as she threw me back against the wall and I cursed as I fought to keep her fucking fingernails away from my face.
Mia went the girl fight bullshit route and grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking hard and making me snarl at her as I kneed her in the vag then threw my forehead into her
face.
She fell back with a scream, grabbing my towel and ripping it off of me as she went flying down onto her ass on the tiles with blood streaming down her face.
I lurched forward with the full intention of giving her a good kicking, but suddenly Maverick was right in my space, a hand locking around my throat and my back colliding with the wall once more.
The cold tiles bit against my bare flesh as my spine was pressed to them and Maverick leaned right in so that our breath was mixing and I couldn't even keep my focus on the ink that decorated his neck because I was caught in the intensity of his deep, dark eyes.
"That’s enough. You and I are overdue a conversation, beautiful," he growled, his deep voice all I could hear despite Mia's continued agonised wails. I didn't know why she was bitching so freaking much though - I was almost certain I hadn't actually broken her nose, so it was just a little blood.
"I vowed to kill the last man who laid his hands on me like this, Rick," I hissed as his fingers flexed around my throat and something dark and twisted writhed within the confines of his eyes. "So unlike that fucker, if you plan on killing me, you'd better do a better job of it. Because if I come back to haunt your ass, I'll make you regret it more fiercely than anything you've ever known."
"Well you don't need to worry about that," Maverick replied, squeezing hard enough to cut off my oxygen and reminding me forcibly of the fear I'd felt when fucking Shawn had done that very thing to me. When I'd seen my death reflected back to me in those cold, brutal eyes of his and had realised I couldn't fight him off. “If I decide to kill someone, there’s no chance of them recovering from it.”
My heart was racing as Maverick leaned in impossibly closer and the desire to lock my hands around his wrist and start clawing and fighting to try and get him off of me rose like bile in my throat.
My ears were ringing with the sounds of my screams and the way I'd begged Shawn not to hurt me before his hand had latched so tight around my throat that I couldn’t breathe. My pulse was thundering like mad and I was back there, back in that moment when I'd looked my death in the eye and had to face the reality of just how fucking empty my life had been. I was a lost and broken girl, wandering from one place to the next and never really belonging. Because the only place I'd ever belonged was right here in Sunset Cove where the sea was as blue as the sky and the sun shone down on my skin, warming me all the way to my soul. Where my boys had surrounded me and protected me from the countless bad things my life had wanted to offer me, and I could just be me and that was enough. Or at least it had been. Once. The only time I'd ever really felt alive. Perhaps I'd been a dead girl long before Shawn had ever tried to kill me.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes at how fucking pointless my existence had been and as I tried to force the memories aside and focus on the dark eyes of the man who now held me at his mercy, I found myself calming. I still couldn't breathe, my heart still raced and my death may very well have still been looking back at me. But I found that I preferred it to be wearing this face. At least if it was him then it meant something. To me. To him. To all of us and to this place we'd once ruled with nothing at all but the freedom of youth and the impossible belief that everything would always be okay just so long as we had each other.
Maverick's free hand curled around my hip and my skin seemed to burn at his touch, goosebumps tearing across my flesh and making my back arch. I wasn’t supposed to like this, but for some reason, some deep, dark part of me did. Some fucked up, broken piece of me was relishing this moment where he held my death in his grasp and I clenched my thighs together as I was overwhelmed by the insanity of that.
He relaxed his grip on my throat and I sucked in a breath, my chest rising heavily between us and drawing his gaze down to my naked body. He'd looked at me like this once before. And yet not like this at all. Back then his eyes had raked over my body with the excited desire of youth, but now I felt his gaze like a dark promise of my own destruction. And instead of wanting to fight him off and run as far and fast as I could, I found myself wanting to invite that destruction upon my flesh. To let him ruin me as best he could and see what was left of the broken pieces which I taped together so frequently when he was done.
"It seems like you think you enjoy playing with the devil in me, beautiful," Maverick growled so low that I was sure Mia couldn't hear him over her continued sobs. "Let's see how long that lasts."
If I'd had anything to say in response to that, he didn't give me a moment to voice it because before I knew what was happening, he'd hoisted me off of my feet and thrown my naked ass over his shoulder.
"Put me down," I snarled, thumping his back. But the dude was like a slab of solid muscle, and I wasn't even convinced he felt my attacks as I thrashed and kicked. He just held me in place with an arm banded around the backs of my thighs and strode right on out into the corridor where plenty of his men were ready for the primetime show of my motherfucking ass being pointed up in the air at them.
"I told you. We have things to discuss. And I'm getting the impression you aren't taking your situation seriously enough." Maverick kept walking, leaving the sobbing Mia exactly where I'd put her bitch ass - bleeding and crying on the floor - as he continued to stride through the enormous hotel he'd claimed for his stronghold.
Blood rushed to my head and I gave up on trying to fight as I looked down at the inked backs of his legs while he walked, my rainbow hair trailing towards the ground as we passed countless people and they all got a good look at my naked butt. I tried to figure out what the Green Power Ranger would do in my position, but I was coming up blank as I tried to remember an episode where he'd been stripped naked and hauled about by a hulking Rita Repulsa as she kept him captive in her lair. Dammit.
We took a set of stairs down into the basement of the building and I craned my neck to see as we passed through a commercial kitchen and finally arrived in a dark space where the temperature dropped noticeably around us.
I was flipped right way up again and my ass hit a cold wooden chair a second before a handcuff snapped shut around my wrist, locking it in place on the armrest to my right.
"Rick," I gasped, trying to yank my arm free and making the metal bite into my skin as he caught my other wrist and promptly snapped a handcuff around that one too, locking it to the other arm of the chair and immobilising me.
He didn't even look at me as he reached for my ankle and my fight or flight instincts finally caught up to what was going on. I'd learned that running tended to be my forte over the last ten years, but I was more than capable of fighting if that wasn't an option and I screamed at him as I wrenched my ankle out of his grip and kicked with both legs in a desperate bid for freedom.
Maverick cursed as my bare foot caught him in the jaw, but the impact threw me back in my chair and suddenly the whole thing fell backwards.
I hit the ground hard, pain ricocheting through the back of my skull and making my ears ring for a moment as I blinked spots of darkness from my vision.
Maverick moved fast, taking advantage of my moment of pained hesitation and by the time I started fighting again, he'd already tied my left ankle to the leg of the chair using rough rope.
He grunted in irritation as I managed to kick him with my free leg a few more times before he finally caught it and tied it to the other leg of the chair, forcing my thighs apart and making my heart race with fear.
Maverick stood back as soon as I was restrained, and my chest heaved with panicked breaths as I stared up at the lone strobe light overhead and took in my surroundings properly for the first time. I was inside what looked like a commercial sized freezer, my breaths rising in puffs of vapour before me as the cold pricked at my skin and made me shiver. Empty stainless-steel racks lined the wall to my right, but on my left were meat hooks and specks of red which I got the impression hadn't been left there by traditional meat.
Maverick walked around me until he could grasp the back of my chair and lifted me upright again, setting it down on its feet w
ith a bang that echoed in the confined space.
When he circled around to face me again, I swallowed down the lump of fear in my throat and forced myself to meet his gaze. He licked his bottom lip slowly, tasting the blood that was coating it from the kick I’d managed to land to his face and fear trickled through me at the murderous look in his eyes.
"Get on with it then, Rick. I have an appointment at the beauty salon to get my roots touched up and I promised a seagull I'd meet him for a chat down on the beach at noon. I'm a busy woman these days,” I spat, falling back on my standard big mouth and letting it run away with me.
Maverick remained silent for several achingly long seconds, his gaze roaming over my exposed body like a wolf starving for a meal, his eyes fixing on my tattoos just as much as my rock-hard nipples and the space between my parted thighs. I clenched my fists, forcing myself to take a deep breath and just let him look. What did I care anyway? It was just flesh, just the shell I'd been born in and made use of for the last twenty-six years. And I got the feeling I had a lot more to fear from the man my boy had become than the feeling of his gaze roaming over my body.
"If anyone else had betrayed me the way you did with that bullshit over the cocaine destroyed in my warehouse, I'd spend a week cutting pieces off of their body and making them watch as I fed them to the sharks," Maverick said in a tone which promised me he'd done that before and made it hard to hold his gaze. But I did. I kept my eyes steady on his and held my tongue, knowing he would keep talking if I let him and wanting to hear him say his piece. "You came to my house. Made a fool of my men. Stole my key and then set me up to lose thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, and for what? Fox Harlequin and his loyal guard dogs?" Maverick spat that name like it burned his tongue and I wet my dry lips as I tried not to shiver before him from the cold.
"It sounds bad when you put it that way," I replied evenly.
Maverick narrowed his eyes and took a knife from his pocket before stepping towards me. The light caught on the blade and I couldn't help the way my heart raced at the sight of it. As much as I wanted to believe I knew the man standing before me, the last ten years had clearly done a number on the two of us and I knew I couldn’t trust anything based off of the things I used to know about him.
Dead Man's Isle (Harlequin Crew #2) Page 3