It was a strange realization. Reese and I hadn’t even been together a full week. I didn’t truly know what kind of man he was, ultimately. But I knew he had people who loved him. He’d been crazy about his wife, he’d raised two children by himself, and he’d protected me with his own life.
I had no justification to shoot Reese Hayes, no matter what was at stake. Period.
Let it be.
During the short ride to the Armory I drifted, thinking about everything and nothing … They’d bundled me roughly into the back of my own van, which I supposed would have to disappear along with my body. I wondered how they’d explain things to my employees, then figured it didn’t really matter. None of them knew anything that could get them in trouble. They’d just have to find new jobs.
On the bright side, job hunting is rarely fatal.
Horse and Bam Bam drove me, with Gage in the backseat by my side. They’d cuffed my hands in front of my body, which was fairly considerate under the circumstances. I sort of expected a burlap bag over the head before being stuffed in a trunk. This seemed luxurious, all things considered.
After what felt like hours and still no time at all, we pulled up to the Armory and they opened the gate into the back courtyard. The pale sunlight showed a very different picture from the way it’d been the last time I was here. The tables had been put away, and instead of laughing people, a grim circle of men wearing Reapers colors stood waiting for us.
Reese wasn’t among them.
I opted not to meet their eyes when Gage opened the sliding door and caught my arm, dragging me out of my seat. He pushed me roughly across the pavement toward a sunken stairwell at the back of the building—a basement entrance, leading down into darkness.
You know, I’d been nervous the first time I walked into the Armory. It’s an intimidating place and the men are rough and scary looking. Now I kept waiting for the numbness to lift and the fear to set in.
Nothing.
They hustled me along a barren, dimly lit concrete hallway lined with doors that looked like prison cells. One of them stood open, and I saw a small cot with a nasty little mattress. Definitely a prison cell. I wondered what’d happened to the last person in there, then decided I really didn’t want to know.
I’d tried to make death quick for Reese, and as painless as possible. I could only pray he’d do the same for me.
Gage shoved me through a door farther down the hallway. Two bare-bulbed work lights hung suspended from rusty hooks in the ceiling. A rope hung down, too—it’d been strung through a metal loop bolted into a massive support beam. Gage nudged me forward, looping the rope around the chain between the handcuffs.
Bam Bam caught the other end and pulled it, stretching my arms up and over my head. Shit—were they going to hang me from the ceiling? I’d just reached the point of discomfort when he stopped. Bam tied off the rope to another loop bolted to the wall. Horse watched me the entire time, as if he expected me to say something. Were they waiting for me to beg for mercy?
They’d be waiting for a while. The thought made me smile, and Gage finally broke the silence.
“Are you on something?”
I looked at him, startled. “What do you mean?”
“You’re way the fuck too calm,” he said slowly. “Did you take something? If you’re about to OD, tell me. Drowning in your own puke isn’t the way you want to go.”
I shook my head.
“It’s just that this is a huge relief,” I said. His face showed the first emotion I’d seen. Surprise. That struck me as funny, and I started laughing—not gentle, dignified noise. These were real, genuine belly laughs. The kind where you snort your drink out your nose because it catches you by total surprise, and then your friends make fun of you and everyone catches it and you’re all laughing like crazy people. You know what I’m talking about.
But these men weren’t my friends and they weren’t making fun of me. They were staring at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.
“Christ, she’s falling apart,” someone muttered. That was even funnier. I snorted again, then choked a little bit on my own giggles. I laughed so hard my throat hurt and tears streamed down my face.
A wall of cold water hit me, shocking me into silence.
I shook my head, blinking rapidly. Reese stood in front of me, an empty bucket in his hands. His eyes were cold and there was so much coiled tension in his body I could feel it, like electricity crackling through the air during a storm.
The bucket fell to the floor with a jolting clatter, and he kicked it out of his way.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Eyes wide, I shut the fuck up because this was Reese, but not a Reese I’d ever seen. This couldn’t possibly be the same man who’d laughed with me, made love to me …
I couldn’t find my Reese in this man’s face.
That first night at the Armory, he’d scared me. Then I’d fallen for him, and while my brain remembered he had darkness inside, my body convinced me it wasn’t true. Now I realized I’d never seen the real Reese at all—I’d only seen hints of his true capacity.
Holy God.
This was the reality of Reese Hayes, and it was darker than I ever imagined.
He terrified me.
Expressionless, Reese stepped toward me, reaching down and slowly wrapping his fingers around the hilt of the big hunting knife he wore strapped to his leg. The thing was huge, and it’d freaked me out the first time I saw it. Then I’d gotten used to seeing it and it became just another part of him.
Apparently the part he used to murder people.
The wicked blade glinted as he brought it up, testing the edge with his thumb.
“You’re going to kill me,” I whispered, feeling my own mortality wrap around me like a suffocating blanket.
He didn’t answer. Nope. Just started walking around behind me, circling out of my line of sight. I glanced toward the other men, wondering if they’d stop him or say anything, but their eyes were dead, and I saw my own end clearly reflected back at me. One of these Reapers would bury my body later tonight. Nobody would ever know what happened to me, and I would never learn what happened to Jess, either.
“Will you wait until we find out whether she’s alive?” I asked hesitantly.
“Not the time to be askin’ favors, sweetheart,” he said with quiet emphasis. Suddenly he caught my hair, jerking my head backward hard and fast. The knife flashed, and then I felt the blade digging into my throat. A line of fire crossed my neck. This was it. Reese Hayes was about to slit my throat.
I waited to die, the sound of his breath harsh in my ear. Then he laughed.
“You don’t get off that easy, bitch.”
That’s when I realized he hadn’t severed my windpipe … The blade still pressed at my throat, and I felt a faint trickle of blood slide down my neck. He’d cut me, but not badly. Just enough to part the skin.
“Now tell me everything,” he whispered. “Don’t leave out anything, whether you think it’s important or not. Got it?”
I started to nod and he jerked my hair back violently.
“Bad idea to nod when you’ve got a knife at your throat,” Horse said casually from across the room. “Might wanna be a little more thoughtful in your movements right now, London. Just a suggestion.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice so hoarse that it came out with a croak. I cleared my throat, then tried to talk again. “Um … you know Jess got mad at me and went down to her mom, Amber? Well, the guy Amber was living with is holding Jess prisoner. You already know she was scared of the men at Amber’s house, told me she wanted to come home. That was Wednesday morning. Then my house blew up Wednesday night, and you brought me out to your place.”
Reese’s fingers tightened in my hair hard enough that I wondered if I’d have any left in a minute. The knife shifted painfully.
OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!
“So you know about that,” I continued, almost thankful for the cuffs holding up my wrists. I wasn’t sure I could’ve stayed on my feet without their support. “The next morning I called Jess and she said she’d changed her mind. That was in your bedroom, remember? Looking back, I think they’d taken her already. She didn’t sound like herself, something was off. That night I came out here for the party—” Reese growled, low and deep in his throat. He jerked me into his body, still holding the knife to my throat, and I felt his cock hardening against my ass. Must’ve been remembering our time together out in the courtyard.
A hint of desire built between my legs, and I wondered just how much more twisted my lust for him could get. He’d made me feel free, adventurous … guess that sense of adventure ran deeper than I realized, if I could get turned on by him holding a knife to my throat.
In the unlikely event that I actually made it out of here alive, I really needed to look into some serious counseling. The thought struck me as funny, and a snort of laughter escaped. Nobody else laughed—guess they couldn’t quite appreciate the humor?
“Your daydreamin’ bullshit is only cute on days you haven’t tried to kill me,” Reese murmured in my ear. “Fuckin’ talk or I’ll cut you.”
I swallowed, forcing myself to focus.
“So the next morning the girls invited me to go out with them and get pedicures. That was Saturday. We had a good time and got some lunch after. Then I left because I needed to get to work. I went back to my van and the front window was open. There was an envelope on the seat and I opened it. There was a phone, the same one you probably found in my purse. It’s black.”
“Didn’t occur to you that maybe opening a strange envelope was a bad idea?” Bam Bam asked, his voice casual. “Your house had already blown up, and then you find someone’s been in your car? Not real bright, London.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you that one,” I said, biting back the urge to laugh again. God. What was wrong with me? Oh yeah … imminent death … “Not smart at all, but I did it anyway. They sent me a video chat request, and I answered it. Jess was there and I talked to her, and then they held her down and cut off one of her fingers while I watched.”
Reese’s breath hissed in my ear, and for the first time I saw the carefully blank expression on Horse’s face crack a little. He looked … disgusted?
“So they cut off her finger and told me that I had to take pictures of papers I found in Reese’s house,” I said slowly. “They told me they’d kill her if I didn’t, and I believed them. I think they might have done it already … They didn’t care about hurting her, and they have no clue what they’re dealing with. She’s not a normal kid, at least not medically. Not with that shunt in her head. Other stuff isn’t quite right with her, either—her brain doesn’t process cause and effect correctly. Fetal drug effects. Amber did a lot of drugs while she was pregnant, so Jess came early and spent months in the NICU over at Sacred Heart. We’ll never know if the hydrocephalus is connected to that …”
“Shoulda told me,” Reese gritted out. “Shoulda told me about Jessica’s medical shit, shoulda told me somethin’ was wrong. Gave you lots of chances.”
“Fuck, London,” Gage said, shaking his head. “Why the hell didn’t you come to us?”
“I hardly know you,” I said, and for the first time I felt something that wasn’t numbness or fear. Anger. “Why the hell would I come talk to you? Crazy men have my cousin and she’s in danger, and all I really know about you is you throw great parties and everyone says you’re criminals.”
“Nice to know our time together meant so much to you,” Reese whispered, and I’ve never heard so much menace in a man’s voice before. But his cock was still hard against me and my nipples tightened in response.
Serious fucking counseling.
First thing on my to-do list, right after not dying in this basement.
“Think about it from my perspective,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “I don’t know you very well. Her life is at stake. Would you risk Em’s life based on a relationship that’s only a week old?”
Silence fell, so terrible I actually heard my own heartbeat.
“Babe, I wouldn’t risk lettin’ you flush a fuckin’ toilet at this point.”
“This is getting off track,” Horse muttered. “Pic, hold it in. We gotta figure out the situation, then you can deal with her, bro. Hear me?”
“I hear you,” Reese said. He let go of my hair abruptly, which scared the hell out of me because the sudden release pushed my throat deeper into the knife. Then the knife pulled away, and his hand wrapped around my throat instead, big fingers catching me under the jaw and pushing my head back into his shoulder.
Now I felt the full length of his body behind me, cradled in his embrace. How could this be the same man who’d held me before? I’d felt so safe in his arms. Now all I felt was terror.
Terror and unholy lust.
“So what does this mean in terms of them holdin’ Jessica?” Bam Bam asked, his voice tight. “She need special drugs or somethin’?”
“No,” I whispered. “But she’s really vulnerable to infection and head trauma. That shunt gets damaged, it’ll take her out fast. She can’t be handled rough, it’s too dangerous. I did what they said. I searched as much of the house as I could, although I didn’t find anything.”
“We know,” Reese told me, tightening his hold until I could hardly breathe. “We watched you.”
I closed my eyes tightly. God. I’d been so stupid.