Janie made some kind of growling noise and then all I heard was her fingers viciously stabbing the buttons on the keypad.
“Reign?” Wolf asked a few minutes later.
Here's the thing about knowing someone as weird as Wolf for as long as I had known him- you get to understand their oddities. Like the way Wolf never seemed to manage a full sentence, yet I totally understood his meaning. Had I filled in my brother on all the shit that was going on?
“No. But... Repo knows some of it and I'm sure that shit will trickle back sooner rather than later.”
“Loyal.”
“Yeah.” That would be the word to describe Repo alright. Meanwhile me and Wolf, the two highest up in rank aside from Reign were running around getting into all kinds of shit without even filling him in and hauling up with women and not checking in like we were supposed to when fucking bombs were going off for no damn good reason.
“As much as I love to sit here listening to you two hens clucking like a couple chicks,” Janie said, the furious tapping not so much as hesitating as she spoke. “I am going to need some coffee and silence.”
Wolf grunted and turned to make the coffee while very loud, very piercing metal music came screaming from the laptop speakers. Apparently, Janie's kind of silence was different than a normal person's.
I moved toward a chair propped up against the wall in the back of the room and sat down, trying to not let my mind race over the worse-case scenarios and failing until, despite me thinking it was in no way possible, I fell asleep.I woke up to Janie yelling out, “What about the basement?”
I jolted up in the chair, blinking at the light that was suddenly streaming in through the windows, wondering absentmindedly how much time had passed, and how the fuck I had managed to fall asleep when I was so worried.
“What?” I asked, rubbing at my eyes as I sat forward, spotting Wolf sitting across from Janie at the table, holding a steaming coffee cup between his hands.
“The basement,” she said again, sounding exasperated.
“What basement?”
“The one at the carpet store.”
What?
“Kid, there wasn't a basement. No doors to a staircase. Nothing.”
“Then what is this?” she asked, swinging the laptop around and stabbing her finger at the screen.
I bolted off my chair and knelt down beside her, looking at what was the city plans for the building. And, holy fuck, there was a basement. “No...”
“Yeah. There's a basement. He must have hidden the...”
I didn't hear the rest of that conversation as I flew out of the house, cursing Wolf seven ways to Sunday for living out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
“Yo,” Wolf called, but I didn't slow down. He would catch up and I couldn't afford to lose a second. “Here,” he said, slamming my cell into my hand. I took it, looking over at him with drawn-together brows. “Charged it,” he shrugged.
“Tell Janie to call Malcolm and get them all to...”
“Already is,” he said, and he suddenly wasn't by my side anymore.
I glanced back to see him turning back to his house... and his woman.
I turned forward again and flew down the rest of the hill and got on my bike... to go get my woman.
And kill the mother fucker who took her from me.Twenty-oneLoI woke up slowly, lulled by a warm swirling feeling inside that I couldn't quite name, but it made me feel safe and comfortable and... happy. I kept my eyes closed, trying to hold on to the last dregs of my dreams, wanting to forever feel that sweetness.
I felt my lips curl upward just a second before I heard a voice that reminded me that nothing in my life was sweet dreams, that it was always bitter nightmares.
“Calling out another man's name in my house?” Damian growled and I felt a heaviness settle in my belly. Dread, it was dread. Because I knew that tone. “Such a disappointing wife. Always fucking complaining, always nagging...” I never complained. I certainly never nagged. “Always lying there like a dead fucking fish when I was inside you.”
“Maybe because you had no fucking idea how to please a woman, Damian,” I said, shrugging a shoulder.
“Not my fault you can't come.”
At that, I couldn't choke back the laughter. I should have; I should have found a way to keep it to myself, to not ask for any beatings, but I just... couldn't. “Oh, I can come, Damian. Just not with that pathetic machine-gun fucking you were always so fond o...”
I didn't get the rest out, mainly because his hands were at my throat and pressing, hard. Not hard enough for the air supply to get completely cut off. No, he was good, It was just hard enough to hurt like a mother fucker and be scary as hell.
“Maybe you just need a refresher,” he threatened, his hand moving from my throat to press hard between my legs. Every bit of me was screaming out no at the contact and before his fingers could crook and rake over me again, I cocked back my legs and slammed them forward with everything in me. Caught off guard, he flew off the end of the bed, giving me enough time to get my feet.
“Not a fucking chance,” I shrieked, falling full-force downward, my knee stabbing into his stomach and making all his air whoosh out of him. My hands moved to his throat and closed around it. Just like him, I was good. But unlike him, I wanted him to pass out so I pressed and I pressed hard, pushing into the carotid artery. Eight to ten seconds, that was all it took for unconscious to take over. Once he was out, I had maybe two minutes to find a way to kill him.
The easiest way would be to continue to cut off his air supply. For that, I needed three minutes of no air getting into his body. Three minutes and he would be gone. But that being said, there was always the chance of him gaining consciousness and fighting back.