“From the moment you came into my life, you’ve been there for me,” I said to my ride-or-die as I switched off her ignition. “I’m gonna do my best tonight, but…” I pat her dashboard comfortingly once more and muster up the courage to get this off my chest. “If I don’t make it, the Crows will take care of you. Give 'em hell for me, and remember that you are a sassy, thick, beautiful goddess among vehicles. I love you.” Leaving the comforting embrace of Sheila’s driver’s seat was hard, but I had a man to save and a demon to slay.
In order for Operation: Avunculicide to be a success, I had to play my part, so I locked Sheila up tight and jogged as sneakily as my boots would allow, tapping into the headspace I’d used to survive The Consortium and their arena. According to Ivan’s intelligence, Roark had six men guarding the perimeter of Savage Delights. His drone not only had night vision but it could also do thermal scans, which was super cool. Ivan reported that there were only two heat signatures inside the club. The rest of Roark’s men guarded the entrance points. I only needed to worry about the goon stationed near the back door, so I could climb the hidden staircase to the upper level of Savvie D’s, where Bear’s office was located. I’d let the Crows and the bratva have fun with the other goons in the meantime.
Like a leopard (one of nature’s stealthiest furballs, thank you, Animal Planet) I stalked my prey who just so happened to be taking a piss against Savage Delight’s wall. And didn’t that just grind my gears? This twatwaffle hit Bear with an SUV, and now he was peeing on his life’s work? I think the fuck not. Standing up from my sneaky crouch in the shadows of the neighboring abandoned building, I shot like an arrow toward the goon and smashed his face into the wall. He turned, shriveled dick in hand, just to get a judy chop straight to the Adam’s apple. I couldn’t have him make any noise and let Roark know I was here early.
His coughs were cut off abruptly as I broke his neck, allowing his body to fall to the ground. If I were dealing with anything slightly less horrifying than the Beast of Boston, I’d giggle at the thought that the dead goon still had his shriveled dick gripped in his fist. As it was, I barely cracked a smile as I took the pointer finger of his free hand and jammed it up a nostril. It was hard out here for a girl, but I’d be damned if I let anything or anyone quash my joie de vivre, even if I wasn’t feeling particularlyjoie-y at the moment. I’d always have the memories to look back on, after all.
Heeding Bone’s directions, I crept up a metal staircase that led to a catwalk along the perimeter of the building. Instead of turning left, toward Bear’s office, I went right. Roark’s voice carried through the building, echoing off the walls in discordant waves. Suppressing a shudder, I located the window Bones described to me and went to work. As silent as the grave, I scrubbed furiously, working to clear the pane of the black paint that coated it. I only had a few minutes to get into place. Nothing about our plan could go wrong, or Roark would gut the man I loved, and I’d be powerless to stop it.
A shiver overtook me as I knelt at Roark’s feet. Priest’s blood was spattered on his shoes, and I prayed to Bob that his wounds weren’t life-threatening. I didn’t think Roark would let Priest die so quickly. In fact, I depended on him wanting to torture Priest for as long as his sadistic, black heart desired so we could have enough time to rescue him. The only other alternative was that Roark would kill Priest immediately, and my poor, fractured soul couldn’t handle that thought.
Allowing my body to experience and process being in the physical presence of my own personal devil, allowing the fear and pain to flow through me unrestricted, oddly helped me in a way. I wasn’t fighting my fear of my tormentor, and I wasn’t struggling to hide my reactions from Roark. That took an enormous amount of energy, and it never really did me any good. He always saw it all, anyway. By allowing myself the outlet for my adrenaline, I found a place of deep, inner focus. A crystalline edge, sharp and honest, honed my vision, and instead of being paralyzed by my past, I was fueled by it.
My ghosts, my cannibalistic phantoms, my inner demons…they calmed the moment I saw Priest tied to that chair. Fear of the man who’d formed us—me and all my trauma goblins—melted away, and in its place a fierce and overwhelming tide of protectiveness surged within me. Not just for Priest but also forme.The me I was now, Indigo Evans, who’d clawed out a life for herself and patched together a family. She deserved to be protected, too. I would never let Roark Callahan make me forget who I was, ever again. He didn’t have that kind of power over me anymore. I get to keep me.
It killed me to hear the desperation and agony in Priest’s voice as he pleaded with me to run. Every inch I had crawled to Roark had been painful, knowing that it hurt Priest to witness it. But for once, despite the fact that the doors to the crawlspace in my mind were flung wide open and all the darkness locked within was running rampant and free, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by it all. I actually felt…like they were helping me. It was liketheycould make me miserable, but if anyone else tried, they’d fuck them up. A toxic, abusive relationship, to be sure. But I’d use it if it meant Priest and I walked out of Savage Delights alive. My demons and I could always do couples therapy later, if we survived.
I knelt at Roark’s feet and watched as a small droplet of Priest’s blood plopped onto his shoe, the leather already heavily speckled. Blunt fingers plunged into my hair, winding into a fist and yanking my head back at a harsh angle. My chin was pointed in Priest’s direction, and I could see that while he’d gone silent, he never once stopped struggling against the ropes that bound him to a chair.
Roark’s hand, blade clenched in his fist, filled my vision as he brought it to my face. Unmoving in his harsh grasp, I focused on the wall behind Priest to avoid going cross-eyed as Roark brought the flat of the blade in close to my eyes. “Look,” he demanded, giving my head a little shake. “This is what happens when you forget who you belong to. This is all your fault, and you are going to clean up the mess you made.” I made no move to escape Roark’s hold, no sign of resistance or hope. Dead eyes stared straight ahead, like Indigo wasn’t home anymore. Roark brought the flat of his blade down a few inches until it was pressed against my lips. “Clean it.”
Priest spat curses at Roark as he struggled to come to me, giving Roark the exact display of misery he craved. I regretted that I couldn’t reassure him, but in order to adequately distract Roark, I needed Priest to react honestly. I just hoped my Growly Gus could forgive me if we made it out of this alive.
Without hesitation, I obeyed Roark’s command, giving his blade a long swipe with my tongue. Roark shuddered in satisfaction at my obedience and the pained sound that escaped Priest at the sight. Roark shoved me down and away from him, sneering in disgust and sadistic satisfaction. “See, Priest, no matter what fantasy you propped up against this stupid slut, she willneverbe anything other than my bitch. It’s been bred into her. It’s who she is.”
I cowered on the mat, curling in on myself, my knees tucked up to my chin. I wrapped my hands around the ankle of my boots and shuddered, eyes shut tight against the bloody and macabre scene before me. Priest, bound and hurt by the man I drew here. Roark walked over to Priest, coming up behind him and leaning over his shoulder until their faces were parallel. Two sets of eyes, one blue and frantic, the other hazel and mad, locked onto the blankest stare I could manage.
“I’m going to make you suffer, Priest, like no man has ever suffered before. I’m going to make her watch, so her suffering adds spice to yours. Together, you will both keep me entertained for a very, very long time.” Roark turned his head a bit, his lips close to Priest’s ear, but his eyes fixed on me, as he murmured something so low I couldn’t make it out from my position across the mat. Whatever it was, was enough to cause the blood to drain out of Priest’s face. Roark chuckled darkly and slapped Priest on the back. “Some sins are more gratifying than others, eh, Priest?”
I blocked out the desperate pleading and agonized cursing from Priest as Roark folded his knife and tucked it into his back pocket. He stalked over to where I was now huddled on my knees, clutching myself around the middle and quivering. Perverse pleasure filled Roark’s face as he stopped right in front of me. The harsh sound of the zipper on his slacks being pulled down threatened to send what little remained in my stomach back up my throat, but I held myself together. My ghosts supported me, encouraged me, reminded me of what I was fighting for, and whisperedwhat would happen again should I fail into my ear. As if I needed the reminder. This was make-or-break time for all of us.
Roark grabbed my arm and yanked me toward him. He squeezed my jaw roughly and wrenched my face up, and I let him. “That’s what I fucking thought,” he said smugly. “Open. You’re going to take every inch I have.” I finally allowed my “Girl” mask to slip, showing Roark who Ireallywas. Who I’d grown into.
“You first,” I said, lips twisting in a vicious smirk as I drove my handy-dandy butterfly knife into Roark’s shoe and down into the mat, pinning his foot in place. I’d hidden my favorite blade in my boot and had been concealing it against my abdomen ever since Roark had thrown me away in favor of tormenting Priest just a little bit more.
It never occurred to him, not for one single moment, that I’d ever raise my hand to him. Roark believed I could never be more than what he made me to be. Like most narcissistic, sadistic assholes, he couldn’t comprehend the idea of me being a complete and whole human being independent of him. Roark might have molded me, but Ibrokethat fucking mold. I couldn’t erase my past, but I could build something on its foundation that was uniquelyme.
Roark’s shock, while gratifying, was short-lived. His fist slammed into my cheek, and I saw stars before I could focus enough to see Roark draw his knife from his pocket. His wrist flicked, and the blade gleamed in the harsh fluorescent lights. His arm drew back, preparing to cut me for my defiance, and I instinctively braced for impact. Instead of the bite of steel, I heard the sharpcrackof gunfire. A single shot, expertly aimed through the window I’d cleared upstairs, ripped through the shoulder of Roark’s dominant arm. The knife tumbled from his grasp. A secondcrackhad Roark down on one knee, his right thigh sporting a brand-new hole.
Springing into action, I launched myself forward and knocked the knife away. Roark swiped at me with his left arm, but I anticipated and blocked his blow. Still pinned in place by my blade in his foot, Roark was unable to escape my fist. It slammed into Roark’s cheek, over and over, splitting the skin on my knuckles. With an inhuman snarl, I straddled his waist, taking him to the mats and raining down blow after blow on the monster who had terrorized me my entire life. I was sayingthings, things my ears couldn’t process at the moment, when I felt the crunch of cartilage beneath my knuckles. Blood spurted from Roark’s ruined nose and crimson-filled mouth, but I was helpless to stop. Twenty years of powerlessness, rage, and pain seeped through my cracks and fractured pieces. I rained the damage down on the man who’d been at the root of it all.
Eventually, sounds began to make sense again, the haze of survival instinct drawing back and allowing rational thought to return to the room with me. Roark was unconscious and losing blood but still breathing below me. Thepopof gunfire rang from outside Savage Delights, and the doors burst open behind Priest. Crows and Petrovs streamed through the entrance of Savage Delights, while even more filled the lot. Riordan, kitted out in a bulletproof vest and carrying a handgun in a two-handed grip as his eyes swept the space, hustled up to my position in the ring. Duke and Mikhail weren’t far behind.
Duke rushed straight to his son with a bratva doctor, who immediately began to triage Priest’s wounds. “Secure him,” I demanded, shoving off Roark and wiping my bloody hands on my pants. I didn’t want to get any of Roark’s blood on Priest, who’d already been exposed to too much of my nightmares for tonight. I didn’t want any other part of my past to touch him, but I couldn’t stop myself from rushing to his side as Duke cut the ropes holding Priest to the chair. The doctor checked Priest’s pupils as Duke began to apply pressure to his stab wound. My hand clutched at his as Bones rushed up with another of Mikhail’s men, a stretcher braced between them.
The question of whether I would stay with my family to transport Roark to a holding cell below The Goldfinch or ride with Priest to a makeshift hospital wasn’t even up for debate. I’d given Roark Callahan all the time he was going to get from me tonight. He didn’t deserve any more than that, and I had more important things to worry about now, like the thready breathing and wan face of the man I’d fallen for. And I mean fallenhard. I had tumbled ass over elbow into love with Lochlan Abbott, and he was stuck with me now.
As I jogged out, hand clutching Priest’s as his stretcher was carried to a waiting truck, my eyes met Mikhail’s where he stood over the prone form of his brother-in-law. His chin dipped once, understanding in hiseyes. Any softness, however, vanished the moment he looked at the man at his feet. Riordan stood shoulder to shoulder with hispakhan, giving me a smirk as he barked orders in Russian to their men, who began to prepare Roark for transport. As shitty as my day had been, I had a feeling Roark’s was about to get much,muchworse.
Chapter 36
Indigo
Two Weeks Later
“No,” I moaned, making my negative response sound much more like a yes than it should. “Lochlan,we can’t.” I gasped as his teeth scraped across my earlobe, his boxer-clad erection grinding against my ass and his hand tracing seductive circles on my hip. Bob, I loved being this man’s little spoon. I wanted to be his snuggle cutlery for life.
“You’re still healing!” It had been two weeks since I thought I’d lost him, since Roark Callahan had almost killed my Growly Gus. Priest escaped with his life that night, though he’d always carry scars left by the Beast of Boston. Thankfully, Mikhail spared no expense to make sure Priest was taken care of in his privately owned bratva clinic. The stab wound to his gut had been painful, but thankfully, the blade hadmissed most of the important stuff. Once he was sewn up, Dr. Bratva told him to rest and take care of his sutures.No strenuous activity.
