by J Bree
He takes it off and then helps me into it.
"I need you in the Kevlar, baby girl. We've taken care of everyone but I'd never fucking forgive myself if something else fucking happened. Again.”
I nod and move at his direction until I'm covered completely and the straps are secure, then he tucks me under his arm gently. He still has one arm free and access to his weapons but Lips takes the lead.
"There's a lot of blood, baby girl. A lot of death and gore. You can shut your eyes if you need to, I've got you." Illi murmurs to me as we leave the room.
I don't really care about the blood, I'm thankful every last one of these men are dead, but my head is still beyond painful and the lights and ornate lamps of the mansion are piercing and harsh. So I shut my eyes and I lean into the warmth and security of my Illi's arms.
There was never a doubt in my mind that he would find me.
We walk through the house, Illi murmuring as we get to the grand staircase but his grip on me is so sure that I can walk down it without having to look. I know by the cool floor beneath my feet that we're still in the foyer when we come to a halt.
"Fuck. Does she need a doc? I know one that's close by."
My eyes open and I tuck myself into Illi's side a little closer. I don't recognize the man who's talking at all but Illi and Lips don't seem worried. I take a slow and shaky breath.
"It's not her blood. Is that everyone? We need to deal with the building too."
Another man walks up, but I remember this one. He’s guarded me back at the apartment in the Bay for Illi while he worked. I try to smile at him but it comes out as more of a grimace. It doesn’t matter, he grins at me anyway and tips his head in a little bow. Lips snorts at him and shakes her head.
He quirks an eyebrow at her. "We took care of the other rooms. I definitely fucking wasted you in the bet kid. I only drink the finest fucking whiskey, top shelf shit."
That doesn't make any sense but Illi chuckles under his breath. "She had nine under her belt before we got through the front fucking door, man. She drinks Jack and so do I. Odie will have a whole fucking bottle of pinot, you owe her too."
He frowns and stares down at Lips. "What was your total? There's no fucking way you beat me."
She shrugs. “I don't give a fuck if you believe me, bikers are usually cheats and liars so I wasn't expecting you to pay up. Odie is safe, that's all I care about."
Illi squeezes my shoulders gently to push me more securely into his side, then he starts to move us again. It’s only now that I notice the piles and piles of dead bodies. The four of them… they’ve taken out dozens of armed men in their own territory.
They are incredible.
The floors are slick with blood beneath my feet and I refuse to think about what I’m stepping in. They were bad men. They worked with a rapist, nothing else could make up for that.
The front of the house still looks as beautiful as when I arrived, none of the carnage visible from here. The two men wait behind in the house but Lips stays close to us, her eyes assessing as they take me in. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, it makes something in my chest squeeze at the care she’s showing me.
Illi loads me into the car, his hands cradling my head to keep it steady and to attempt to subdue the pain a little. It doesn’t work but I smile at him anyway, hoping he sees all of my love and gratitude there. I don’t have the strength to tell him it all yet, to tell him everything I had been planning to do while I laid there on the bed praying for him to find me.
I should have known he was leaving a trail of bodies in his wake as I planned my own escape and I did, but to see it… I am the luckiest woman alive, to have the love and loyalty of mon Monstre.
After he has my seatbelt buckled around me, Illi crouches next to me and strokes my face. “I’ll get you home, baby. Are you okay to make it there?”
I smile at him and murmur, “I have you. Everything is perfect.”
Le Loup gets into the car behind me and shuts the door gently, murmuring apologies to me as the movement pains me. Less than a minute later we’re back on the road, leaving behind the other men. I feel like I should ask about them but everything is hazy and swollen and painful. Everything except my hand in mon Monstre’s as he drives us away, back to the most dangerous city in the country. Our home.
My heart squeezes in my chest at the thought.
Our home.
I lose sense of time but it can’t be too long before I find out why the men stayed behind. I feel the explosion before I hear it, the ground rumbling and the car swerving on the road just a little as mon Monstre corrects it on instinct.
I startle forward in my seat, panicked and disoriented. Illi squeezes my hand and then drops it to rub my leg.
“Fuck, we should have warned you but I didn’t think they’d blow it up like that. It’s okay, baby girl. It's all part of the plan."
I glance back over my shoulder and find Lips staring out of the back window as well, the mushroom cloud of smoke and flames billowing into the sky.
The entire mansion has been blown up.
"Better to just destroy the evidence than attempt a clean up in another state. Luckily the buyer lived on land and there weren't any witnesses to have to deal with." Lips says, a little frown on her face as she looks at me.
"You need to either call Doc or take Odie in, that's definitely a concussion, Illi."
He grunts and threads his fingers through mine. "Don't go to sleep yet, baby. I know you're tired but just stay awake for me."
I let my eyes drift shut again but I nod. "It's okay, I don't want to sleep yet. I don't want to sleep until I'm back home and clean."
His fingers tighten in mine and then he brings my hand up to his mouth to kiss my palm. "Good girl. Do you want the radio on? Or silence? Tell me what you need."
I smile up at him and murmur, “I have everything I need right here, mon Monstre.”
Chapter Seven
Illi
The drive back to the Bay is the worst sort of torture.
I want to get my girl home as fast as fucking possible but the thought of getting into a wreck right now with how fucking precious my cargo is, no fucking way.
So I slow down a little and grit my teeth through the whole fucking drive instead. It’s basically fucking torture.
My girl has taken too many hits to that pretty little head of hers and I’m fucking worried about the concussion.
Her eyes are shut as we drive but every time I squeeze her hand, she squeezes mine back so I know she’s awake. She’s fucking covered in blood, every inch of her stained red with spatters streaked across her face and her hair is matted with it.
She’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“I’m calling Doc to meet you back at the warehouse,” the kid murmurs from the backseat, and when I glance back at her she’s on her phone already.
She’s too fucking smart.
Odie smiles slowly. “Merci, le Loup.”
I frown. She doesn’t usually speak French around me but she knows the kid speaks it. Fuck. Is it a sign of something else being wrong or is she fine and just switching over for Lips?
I want to break something.
I sweep the tacky tendrils of hair away from her face and check her pulse, not that I’d fucking know if something was wrong but I feel like I have to do something.
Fuck that traitorous fuck D’Ardo for selling her across state lines so we still have another two hours left before we get back to the Bay.
Odie’s big blue eyes crack open a little and she murmurs soothingly under her breath at me. "Trying to fix me again, mon Monstre? I'm okay. I'm alive and everyone who matters to me is here."
The kid shifts like she’s uncomfortable with all the love seeping through my girl’s words. Odie just smiles and says, a little louder this time, ”I mean you as well, le Loup. You mean a lot to me too."
The shifting gets worse and I chuckle. "The kid struggles with affection. It's a classi
c Mounty kid thing, she'll get used to it eventually."
I glance in the rearview mirror in time to catch the kid rolling her eyes. "You mean a lot to me too, Odie. That asshole is alright as well, I guess, but he'd be better if he didn't run his mouth."
Odie’s smile widens, her teeth a stark white against all of the blood covering her hair and face. "You should come live with us too, le Loup. You should come and be safe with us."
My mouth quirks up on one side and I give her hand a little squeeze. Their friendship means so fucking much to me, to know that both of the girls I’d kill and die for care for each other this way is fucking perfect.
The kid fidgets a little and then says, "Actually... I'm heading to court next week for my emancipation. I got a scholarship to Hannaford Prep and I'm going there in a few months. I’m going to make it out of the slums of the Bay.”
My eyebrows damn near hit my hairline. "Hannaford? Fuck me, kid, you really are a fucking genius."
Odie looks over at me with a little frown and the grin I give her is a little crooked. "The place is a few hours away from the Bay, fucking ritzy as all hell. Full of senators’ kids and future presidents. I didn't even know they did a scholarship program."
The grin the kid has is so wide I see its reflection in the mirror. "They accept one kid a year. I'm it."
I want to stop the car and fucking hug her. The opportunity of going to a place like that, for an orphaned Mounty kid from the slums, she must have worked her ass off. It's fucking great news. Amazing that she's going to escape everything that has been done to her like this.
"Fuck me sideways, kid, that school has no fucking clue what it's in for."
She giggles, a sweet sound and something I don't think happens often. "Can you imagine though, my Mounty self walking through those halls. God, I could die laughing just thinking about it."
Her hands are still covered in blood, her clothes stained and spatters of it on her cheeks. I know for-fucking-sure no preparatory academy has ever had someone like her attend its prestigious halls.
"You're going to do amazing, le Loup. You're going to change your whole life by going there."
The smile falters just a little as she stares out of the windows. "That's the plan. Get out of here, hope the Jackal forgets about me, and then run off to the Caribbean to get rich where no one can find me."
Fuck.
I want that for her.
“Just make sure your place on the island is big enough for us to visit. No way you’re getting away without leaving us your address, kid.”
She smiles and shrugs. “You’ve got a lot on your plate for the next few years. You might just forget about the little slum lord who helped you out when shit went south.”
Odie winces as we hit a bump and I have to focus on her so I don’t yell at the kid for even fucking suggesting that bullshit. I can’t blame her, not really, because everyone she’s ever known has used her, let her down, abandoned her.
I’m not that guy.
I’m not my gutless excuse of a father.
I wait until Odie’s eyes are shut again and she’s settled back in her seat, not sleeping but resting for a minute, and then I peg the kid with a savage look in the mirror.
She tenses but her head tips back in defiance, strong and rock solid no matter what she’s facing.
“Listen here. This friendship of ours? It’s a ride or die situation. I had the same thing with D’Ardo but he fucking betrayed that. I know you won’t. You’re a good kid, a good friend, and I’m all fucking in. You need something? You call me. I’ll answer, no matter what and I’ll throw down for you even if you’re facing all of the fucking Bay. That’s how this is going to go.”
She blinks at me.
Then again.
Then she gives me the smallest of nods, like admitting she wants me as a friend kills her but it’s not about who I am. It’s about admitting she needs a fucking friend.
She desperately needs some fucking friends.
I can’t imagine that school giving her the type of people she needs on her side but, fuck, I hope she finds her people. People who understand what it means to be broken into pieces by the cards your life dealt you. People who know what it means to be ride or die, the real life-threatening sort, not just the words.
I shift my gaze away from her and she exhales, like she’s held her breath while I’d spoken, expecting the worst.
If that isn’t the most Mounty kid thing to do, I don’t fucking know what is.
I drop Lips back at the group home before we head back to the apartment. When I mention all of the blood covering her she smirks at me with a shrug.
“They all know better than to nark on me for this shit. It happens a lot.”
Of course it does.
She is the Bay’s most famous assassin. The quiet and deadly type that slits your throat while you sleep.
We get back to the warehouse and it’s then I remember that I’ve done fucking nothing about the dead guys upstairs. The whole place is going to stink of rotting corpses because I didn’t even think to pay some other asshole to deal with them in my blood-soaked rage at losing Odie.
I take a deep breath before I open the car door but there’s no smell down here thank fuck. I get Odie out carefully, adjusting her in my arms until I’m sure she’s not only secure but that her head isn’t going to rattle around too much as I walk.
The apartment is spotless.
I stare around at it all like it's suddenly going to have the bodies appear but, nope, they're fucking gone.
What the fuck?
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I grab it, keeping one arm still firmly around my girl.
I couldn't have Odie coming home to that mess so I called in a favor. You're welcome.
A savage grin breaks over my face. That fucking kid, one in a fucking million.
"You can open your eyes, baby girl. It's all clean."
She murmurs under her breath, quiet and in that sexy fucking French of hers, and then she tucks herself in closer to my body. "I need a shower, mon Monstre."
I nod and get us moving towards the bathroom, leaving the lights all off as we move through so it doesn't hurt her head any more. The bathroom lights are way too harsh so I get her in and leave her to use the toilet while I turn the bedroom lights on and get us both some clothes.
I pick out her favorite sweater of mine, one that I used to wear during workouts on cold mornings but now I get to watch it hang from her sexy body, enveloping her in my scent and marking her clear as fucking day; the Butcher's woman.
I wait until I hear the flush and then I knock gently.
I don't know yet if D'Ardo fucking raped her. I don't know if he left her to his men for the night, I don't know who the fuck touched her, I don't fucking know anything yet about what happened to my girl so I'm back to square fucking one but now with a list that just fucking doubled overnight.
"Come in, mon Monstre. I need you."
Right.
I tell my dick she definitely means she needs help with the Kevlar and not with bending her over the bathroom countertop. Fuck, she has a concussion, I shouldn't be having to tell my dick any of this shit but she's my baby girl and fuck if I don't crave her every second of the day.
"I got you, baby. Lemme get this off of you." I murmur, careful not to touch her too much or anywhere that might have her flinching.
Once the Kevlar is off she winces at trying to get the shirt off so I cut the fucking thing from her. Everything is going in the incinerator anyway so there's no point hurting her to get it off. The panties are a quick job to get off and I thank every fucking deity I can think of that there's no blood on her thighs or any obvious signs of assault.
Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but my rage out might have been fucking biblical if I actually saw it.
"I wasn't raped, mon Monstre. I killed the only man that tried. Stop touching me like I'll break, I need you."
I nearly fucking crumple with relief but she fucking needs m
e, so I nod and get the water cranked up, making sure the temperature is right, and then I help her in. I keep my arms out where she can grab them if she gets unsteady again.
"Illi... is there something wrong? Did I... do something?"
Her tone fucking kills me. "No, baby girl. Never. Get yourself clean so I can get you tucked up in bed."
She frowns at me through her wet hair, the water still running red from all of the blood and gore. "Won't you join me, then? I want us both clean and... I need your arms wrapped around me. I need your skin against mine to chase away all of the bad that happened. Please."
I practically disintegrate my clothes getting them off in record fucking time. I move her gently around until she's held against my chest, my dick rock fucking solid and rubbing against her ass, but she's soft and pliant in my arms, no hesitation in her at all. Her eyes stay shut but the little purr that lets out of the back of her throat as she rubs her ass back on me… fuck, this is torture.
I get to work getting her clean, letting her just relax back on my chest and gentle sighs escaping from those perfect lips of hers. When I turn her around to wash her off she grabs her toothbrush and winces her way through cleaning her teeth. I cradle her head in my hands, stopping the motion from jerking her around too much and the tension eases out of her again.
"How do you always know what I need, mon Monstre?" she whispers when I get her back against my chest.
"Baby girl, I know every inch of your soul. I know every fucking inch of this body of yours as well but I could be tied to a fucking chair, blindfolded and deaf, and still know what my baby girl needs. It's my job to keep you safe... I failed that, I trusted someone I never fucking should have... that's not going to happen again. I'm getting you the fuck outta the Bay."
She frowns at me, tipping her head back gently until she can stare up at me with those baby blues of hers. "I don't want to leave. This is your home... it's our home."
I do one last pass over with the soap and then I get her out, wrapped in a big fluffy towel and perched on the closed toilet seat while I duck back into the shower and scrub down myself. I'm not going to bed with her with even a speck of blood on me.