“Are you using the royal ‘we’ or…”
My cousin snickered from the background. “As if I’d miss an opportunity like this.” I was obviously on speakerphone, but still. It was rude to eavesdrop, or so I’d been told.
“I guess you’re invited, too, cousin. But you'd better play nice with the Crows. Nothing but sportsman-like conduct between the Crows and the Bratva Bros, or you’ll risk your place in the softball league. Understood?” I cared too much about Priest to risk his safety on this rescue mission by allowing posturing between the bikers and mobsters in question. I will bench a bitch faster than you can say Baddies Intermural Softball League referee.
Chapter 34
Priest
The screech of tires ripping through gravel and the revving of engines were all that I could hear in the chaotic moments before my bike was suddenly no longer beneath me, and I was thrown like a rag doll. I hit the ground hard, my jacket and jeans providing at least some barrier between my skin and Savage Delight’s parking lot. Didn’t stop it from hurting like a motherfucker, though. My helmet bounced from the force of my initial impact on the ground, and the world tumbled ass over elbow in my vision until I finally came to a halt.
My eyesight blurred as I tried to sit up, hissing at the intense burn I felt from the spots where the gravel had shredded my jeans, bits of stone embedded in the road rash on my knees and thighs. I pulled my helmet off and called out for my brother. “Bear?” Attempting to rise but falling onto my side as the ground tilted beneath me, I muffled a groan andcalled out for Bear again. I must have hit my head harder than I thought. If I hadn’t been wearing my helmet, there was no way I would have survived a crash this bad.
Bear and I had been driving to Savage Delights to check up on the fight club, which had been temporarily closed due to the threat of Callahan. We noticed an SUV just before it came speeding out of an alleyway and almost hit us. It followed us, and we’d just entered the Savage Delights lot when Bear swerved, his front tire wedging between my front fender and the engine guard. That was when I’d been thrown from my ride and Bear…God, where was he? “Bear!”
Dark brown leather shoes entered my field of vision, but I knew before I even looked up who they belonged to. “Looks like I just found some bait for my hook.” My eyes drifted up to a pair of charcoal-gray slacks and a deep alpine-green button-down shirt neatly tucked in. As my eyes met his, Roark Callahan smiled wolfishly. His skin suit looked far too normal, too benign, to house the inhuman beast that prowled below the surface. He was the ultimate predator, curating a mask of banal Caucasian middle management to render him almost invisible in a crowd. He could be any uppity HOA president leaving notes on your door when your grass was overgrown, or a member of a Midwestern HR department. No one would know that behind the mask lurked the infamous Beast of Boston.
Demons danced around the fire burning in the depths of Roark’s eyes, casting wicked shadows. In them, I would find neither sanity nor soul. Just pain and inevitably, death. “I’m glad you’re the one to be the worm to bait my hook,” Roark said, his smile growing even more sinister. “Time to make you wriggle.” Before I could blink, the heel of his shoe came stomping down, hitting me in the face. Everything went black.
Cold, wet, pain. I came back to consciousness with a gasp, drenched in water and tied to a chair in the middle of the ring in Savage Delights. The spotlight above the ring was beating down on me as I shook my head and heaved deep breaths. Roark Callahan leaned against the ropes across from me, scrolling through my phone, an empty bucket resting near his feet. He held my phone in a white-knuckled grip, but the look on his face was as placid as a lake. I could tell he’d found the pictures I had taken the morning prior of Indi and me in bed, her curled up on my bare chest and looking deliciously rumpled. He caught me watching him, and I couldn’t help the smirk that spread over my face at the knowledge that I had a piece of Indi he’d never,everbe able to touch: her heart. The momentary flash of unhinged possession in his eyes made my smug satisfaction that much sweeter, and no matter what happened to me tonight, he’d never forget that fact. Even if reminding him of it was the last thing I’d ever do, it would be fucking worth it.
Roark quickly recovered from his momentary lapse as he pushed off the ropes and slid my phone into his back pocket. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled them up his forearms as he walked around my chair. Eventually, Roark stopped and crouched down on his haunches, his eyes bright and crazed. He drew a blade from a hidden sheath at the small of his back. Cold steel traced a line down my face, from the corner of my eye to the tip of my jaw, the tip of the blade a hairsbreadth from drawing blood.
“You know, worm, I planned to spend the next thirty-nine minutes torturing you to pass the time. An amuse-bouche to my main course. But then, you had to go and make it personal.” He tsked under his breath. “But now, I’ve decided that I’d like to take your valuable few remainingmoments among the living to paint you a picture. I want you to understandexactlywhat you’ve brought upon yourself.”
I clenched my jaw and gave Roark flat eyes, refusing to flinch as he traced the blade down over my jugular to my collarbone. “Due to recent developments,” he said, voice lowering in pitch slightly, a raspy bass creeping in, though his volume remained conversational and steady. “I’m not going to simply torture you. I’m going toannihilateyou.” Roark licked his lips, his pupils dilating and retracting at odd intervals. The bastard was well and truly off his fucking rocker.
“First, I’m going to slaughter your sweet, sad mother. Something about the expression in her eyes…It makes me want tokeep them.” He took a deep breath in through his nose. “Then I’m going to put your father into the arena and let The Consortium consume him. How long do you think it will take for him to break? Will it be in the pit…or the funafterwardthat gets him?” Roark’s words were tumbling faster and faster from his mouth, spittle flying from his lips and landing on my face as he leaned in. “Your brothers, your friends, anything you’ve ever loved will be destroyed. Your entire fuckinglegacywill be nothing but ashes by the time I finally allow you the luxury of death. And my girl?” Roark’s blade dug slowly into my chest, a perverse form of punctuation. Blood welled up and stained my torn and dirty shirt over my right pectoral. Watching me, Roark twisted the blade before he withdrew and stood upright.
A sneer pulled his lips into a snarl. Roark slashed out at my bicep, drawing a line of stinging crimson and a hiss from me. “My girlwill be back where she’s supposed to be. Iownthat fucking bitch, and you tried to touch what’smine.” Roark’s fist slammed into my cheek, rocking my head back. I spit at the bastard’s feet, teeth bloody and lips spread into a grisly grin. “Oh, I didmuchmore than touch her, asshole.” I worshipped every single inch of my girl, learning the topography of her body with my lips, my hands, my body. Together we were discovering her boundaries, and I was honored to be the man she’d chosen to trust enough to be vulnerable with. I fell in love with her, and if this insane prick was going to murder me, at least I could say that she’d helped me taste true happiness before I died.
I expected another hit due to my taunt, but Roark pulled back with a calculating gleam in his eyes. “That’s not quite the flex you think it is.”Roark made an exaggerated pouty face. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that girl has been ridden more than a cheap carnival ride. The slut didn’t fall far from the whore tree.” Anger sparked in my veins, and Roark chuckled, sensing he was finally getting a rise out of me. “Oh, you didn’t think you werespecialto her, did you? That’s adorable. Simplyprecious.” His chuckles of amusement devolved into mad cackling. He sounded eerily like a hyena when he laughed, and the sound caused goose bumps to erupt across my skin.
“I’ve fucked my girl in every way possible and allowed her to be used by anyone I saw fit. She’s been offered up to pay debts, as a reward to allies in The Consortium, or simply to entertain my men. She doesn’t know how to keep her legs closed. I’m not mad you stuck your dick in her.” A sneer crossed Roark’s face as his fist blurred my vision once again, striking me hard across the jaw. “You tried tokeepher, when she will only ever bemy pet.Mine. Mine to use, work, and eventuallyput down, just like I put down her bitch of a mother.” Roark landed a solid punch to my stomach, causing me to grunt as all the air whooshed out of me. I coughed and struggled to regulate my breathing. I wheezed out a few words, but my voice sounded strangled and forced.
Roark cupped his ear. “What was that? Begging for death, already?” He tsked. “We’ve only just begun. I’m going to have so much fun taking you apart piece by piece until nothing is left. I can’t wait to see her face while she watches you bleed. It will be exquisite.”
“Got…goddamn.” I coughed again, finally able to sit back from my hunched position after his blow to my gut. “Sorry, man, I forgot how old you’re getting.” I shook my head and raised my voice. “I DIDN’T ASK YOU TO KILL ME.” I widened my eyes and nodded my head slowly, like I was talking to a deaf octogenarian. “I SAID, SHE WAS NEVER YOURS, YOU DELUDED PSYCOPATH.” Antagonizing the Beast of Boston wasn’t something I’d usually recommend doing, especially not when he had you tied to a chair with time to kill. However, it was one way to keep him occupied. And I was suddenly very interested in keeping him occupied.
The flash of movement and streak of purple hair I saw behind Roark right before he punched me in the stomach gave me all the reason in the world to keep this crazy asshole distracted. Panic sent a shocking chillstraight to my midsection. I prayed that Indigo wouldn’t be crazy enough to come here alone, and that whatever she was doing would work before Roark even noticed she was here. I couldn’t lose another woman I loved this way. Losing Ellis was hard enough, but losing Indigo now…would break me. I’d only begun to feel alive, but I didn’t want to learn how to live again in a world without her in it.
My words echoed through the cavernous warehouse for a few short seconds before Roark’s mad, shrill laughter chased them. White-hot agony erupted in my stomach as Roark’s blade skewered me. I looked down to see his fist gripping the handle, the entirety of the blade having disappeared into my gut. I clenched my jaw, tendons popping in my neck as I fought not to scream. Roark was leaning in, studying my expression rapturously and enjoying my struggle to control the pain. His body stiffened suddenly, Roark freezing in place. I watched in horror as he straightened his posture and closed his eyes as he inhaled deeply through his nose. When he opened his eyes, one pupil had blown wide while the other contracted, almost to a pinpoint.
“Finally,” Roark purred, pivoting on his heel and turning his back on me and taking a few steps forward. I leaned as much to one side as I could, eyes desperately searching for the woman I loved. “You know I don’t like to be kept waiting. Come, girl. Now!” Roark’s bark rang through the space, and out of the shadows near the bottom of the amphitheater that led to the hallway housing the locker rooms stepped Indigo. Burning pain lanced my insides as I strained against the bonds shackling me to the chair.
Indigo’s eyes were large in her face, opened wide in fear and unblinking as she stared at the man who’d haunted her for her entire life. She seemed to fold in on herself in his presence, making her look young and small. More vulnerable than I’d ever seen her. I fucking hated it.
“Angel,” I panted, “Don’t give this sick fucker what he wants.” I wanted to believe that Indigo would be too smart to obey any instructions from Roark to come here alone, but the terror coming off her in waves was so palpable, so genuine that I started to worry her trauma response to Roark had overridden her survival instinct.
Indigo stopped just shy of the ring, her eyes peeking through the ropes and looking up at Roark Callahan with dread. “Here,” he bit out,pointing down with his blade to his feet, like he was talking to a dog. Blood dripped from the knife, spattering his shoe in scarlet droplets. Indigo’s chin trembled as she climbed up into the ring. She moved to rise from her knees when Roark made a sharptsksound that froze Indi where she knelt on the mat.
I cursed the bastard before me and struggled against the ropes as my strong, vibrant angel crawled on her knees toward him. Her eyes remained downcast as she crawled, and Roark tapped his blade against his thigh in impatience. Stopping when she’d almost reached his feet, Indigo sat back on her heels. I was only a few feet away from her, but it felt like we were oceans apart for how little I could do. My heart pounded in my chest as true terror welled up inside me. The woman I loved was going to be killed by a monster, again, and I wouldn’t be able to do a goddamn thing to stop it. I didn’t think anything could be worse than losing Ellis, but I was wrong. This time, when I lost Indigo, I’d have towatch.
Chapter 35
Indigo
Sheila, my trusty steed and very best bitch hurtled down the highway, “Bad Habit” by The Offspring raging through the speakers, helping us dig into the deep well of rage inside us both. Sheila’s engine hummed, and I petted her steering wheel. A monster had our growly, grumpy Priest, and we were going to ride to his motherfucking rescue. We were bad bitches on a mission. Tally-fuckin’-ho. “Thank you for always being such a great listener,” I said to Sheila as I steered her to an alleyway a few blocks from Savage Delights. As we drove, I went over the plan Duke, Mikhail, and I had thrown together so Sheila would be in the loop. As long as everyone stuck to the plan, we had a relatively decent chance at neutralizing Roark. Hopefully, Bear and Priest were still alive. Otherwise, tonight’s victory would ring hollow.
