30DaystoSyn (28 page)

Night Twenty-Two

“He’s got a concussion and a broken nose,”
Craigie had told them the night before. “His left shoulder is dislocated. Same
one as when he was a kid.”

“His mother,” she said. “If there was any
doubt…”

“Yeah,” Craigie said. “My thought, too.”

“What else?” she asked. “I know there’s
more.”

“He has severely bruised kidneys and three
broken ribs—one of which punctured a lung.”

“Oh my God!” Spike whispered.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, Chrissy,”
Craigie said. “They inserted a tube to evacuate the air around his lung so he’s
breathing better. As long as we can keep the little bugger in bed and resting
the puncture should heal on its own in a week or so.”

“Kit told me they messed up his face pretty
bad,” Jonny said. “How bad?”

“Mostly cuts and bruises,” Craigie said.
“Nothing that will require a plastic surgeon. Because of all the blood and
swelling, it looked much worse than it really is. Thankfully there was no
damage to his eye sockets or jaw. There are a few loose teeth but none that got
knocked out.”

“How the hell did the bastards know about
the Room?” Jake asked.

“I want to know how the hell they got
in
the Room!” Spike said. “There are only seven people with keys and six of us are
right here!”

“Crims can pick locks, Spike,” Jonny said.
“That’s the easy part. As to how they found out…” He shrugged.

“He was followed,” she told them. “Most
likely before all the crap with his mother started. I’ve never met her but…”

“Consider yourself lucky,” Craigie said.

“I imagine she’s a pretty smart woman,” she
finished. “She would want to have all the information on him she could get just
in case it was needed.”

“Lina’s right,” Spike said. “We know how
conniving the bitch is.” She clenched her fists. “Me more than most.”

She looked at Spike and the tall blonde
shook her head.

“I didn’t work for her but my mum was one
of her girls. Synnie got me out of there when he took over running the company.
I was eleven. He sent me to boarding school. I would have wound up like Mum if
he hadn’t.”

“We all owe him,” Jake said. “He takes care
of his own.”

“And we’re going to take care of him,”
Jonny said. “We’re going to find that bitch and put an end to her once and for
all! She’s hurt him for the last fucking time!”

Five sets of eyes flicked to her.

“Are you with us, little beaut?” Craigie asked.

She nodded. “You bet your ass I am. You
guys do whatever you have to do to make sure she gets out of his life and stays
out of it. She’s toxic to him and sooner or later she’s going to destroy him.”

Kit had been standing quietly in the corner
of the waiting room. He wasn’t one of the Kiwis whose loyalty was to Synjyn
McGregor but he was just as much a part of the group. They looked to him.

“We’ll find her,” he swore. “Andrews—the
man I sent to the Room—says there is evidence there was a woman in the Room
last night. That evidence is now in the hands of the police.”

“What kind of evidence?” Spike asked Kit.

“The soap dish from the john was on a table
beside the chair and there was lipstick on the cigarette stubs put out in it.”

“He’d never take a woman who smokes to that
room,” Jonny said. “We all know how he feels about people who smoke.”

“His mother smokes,” Spike reminded.

“You think she would sit there watching
them beat her son to a bloody pulp and drag away on a ciggie?” Jake asked.

“Hell, yeah, she would!” Craigie said.
“Wouldn’t be the first time she’s had him beaten and sat there watching.
Remember when Thames broke Synnie’s fingers?”

“Who’s Thames?” she asked.

“The bouncer at the whorehouse,” Spike told
her. “Mean sod. He was there to keep the johns in line. He used to knock Synnie
around whenever the mood hit him.”

“To teach him who was the alpha male in the
house,” Jonny said. “There was that time he beat Synnie so bad he had to have
stitches.”

“I
do
remember that,” Jake said,
nodding. “Synnie couldn’t go to school for a week. I can’t recall what it was
he did to get the shit kicked out of him though.”

“He didn’t need to do anything,” Jonny said
with disgust.

“Poor bastard was damned to hell the moment
he was conceived,” Craigie said.

“There will be DNA on those ciggies,” Jake
said. “If it’s her, they’ll know.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t prove she was
involved or that she ordered the beating,” Spike said.

“I think I have a way for us to confirm
it,” she told her.

* * * * *

His hand was cool as she ran her fingers
over the back of it. He was unconscious and had been since they’d loaded him
into the ambulance. As soon as they arrived at St. Gregory’s Hospital, Craigie
had taken over as his personal physician. After a brief consult with a
cardiothoracic surgeon he had allowed her into the ICU to see him. Later that
afternoon, they had moved him to a private room and she had followed the
gurney—her hand clutched in Craigie’s.

Though it would take time to recover from
the injuries his mother had her minions give him, he would have no permanent
injuries. Despite the terribly battered condition of his swollen face, there
would be no ugly lasting scars.

Now she sat in the dimly lit room listening
to him breathing softly, thankful he was alive.

His eyelids fluttered and she tensed. For
the last half hour he had been struggling to wake but each time he’d sighed and
slipped back into unconsciousness, his body going limp once again.

“I’m here, Kiwi,” she said softly, rubbing
his hand. “I’ll be right here when you wake up. I’m not going anywhere, baby.”

He could hear her voice and fought to drag
himself out of the quagmire that had sucked him under its oily black blanket.
There was no pain where he lay but there was a deep, abiding agony of his
spirit. He could hear the worry in Melina’s voice as she spoke to him. She was
striving to sound upbeat but her words quavered. The nervous stroking of her
fingers across his hands told him she needed the contact more than she needed
to provide it. He wanted so desperately to reassure her he was all right, that
everything was going to be just fine, but he could not pull out of the darkness
no matter how hard he tried.

“Any change?”

He recognized Jono’s voice and was glad his
friend was there for her.

“He tried to open his eyes,” she said.

“That’s a good sign, eh?” Jono asked.

“I hope so.”

Their voices faded into the background and
the buzz took over again. His ears were ringing and he figured that had to be
from the multiple hits to his head the son of a bitch with the cowboy boots had
administered. At least he didn’t feel the pain he’d felt as he lay helpless on
the floor unable to move. Idly, he wondered how much damage the men had done to
him and what he’d look like the next time he stared in a mirror.

Not that it mattered. He’d never been vain
about his looks. They weren’t anything in which he’d had a hand. His mother had
been beautiful in her day and pictures he’d seen of his father in his young
manhood had been those of a very handsome man. His mother’s relatives he’d seen
at his grandfather’s funeral had all been good-looking. He’d inherited good
genes if nothing else, he thought.

She let go of his hand—drawing him back on
his tether to the bed—and he wished he could protest. Trouble was, he couldn’t
open his eyes no matter how hard he tried and he could not move. It almost felt
as though he were encased in concrete, though he could feel, and he felt them
picking up his arm, inwardly cringed as the needle was plunged into the crook
of his elbow.

He strained to hear what was being said but
the buzz was too loud. It drowned out everything except the low mumble of their
voices.

“I’m in here, Lina!”
he shouted.
“I’m in here, baby. I haven’t left you!”

More importantly, she hadn’t left him. She
was right there beside him. She’d been talking to him, touching him. He’d felt
her kiss his forehead several times.

“
I’m here, Kiwi. I’ll be right here when
you wake up
,” she’d said.

Every time she called him Kiwi his heart
soared.

He sensed her moving away from him—actually
felt her physically leaving his room—and wondered what they were going to do to
him now. He’d been rolled away and lifted, put through machines that rumbled
and machines that had made loud clicking sounds. He’d been turned and prodded
and poked and had needles jammed into him. He felt and sensed and heard all of
it though he could not react to any of it. He felt like a piece of meat being
slapped onto a conveyer belt and it was humiliating and irritating and
discouraging.

What if he stayed like this for the rest of
his life? What if he couldn’t move because the pricks who had brutalized him,
beaten him so savagely had damaged him beyond repair? What if he was locked in
this darkness forever?

He thought of Drew imprisoned in his body.

A single tear rolled down his cheek and he
felt someone put a hand to his face. The buzz was so deafening he couldn’t hear
what was said beneath the low rumbling of the speaker but he sensed compassion
in the touch and in the tone.

“Lina,” his mind whispered and then he felt
her hand on his again. He knew her touch. Among all others in the universe, he
would know her touch and the scent of her drifted into his nostrils.

He mentally relaxed. She was with him again
and he felt safe.

And he felt wanted for the first time in
his life.

Night Twenty-Three

The full page ad read:

$100,000
REWARD!!

DID
YOU TAKE PART IN THE CRIME THAT HAPPENED
in
the Saur Rd OFFICE PARK

on the evening of November 21, 2013
??

Complete immunity from prosecution is
guaranteed IN WRITING to the party willing to come forward and give testimony
against the person responsible for the planning of the crime which occurred on
that evening. Detailed information is required. No charges will be filed
against those who actually carried out the offense. WE ONLY WANT THE PERSON
RESPONSIBLE FOR PLANNING THE CRIME, NOT YOU!

Contact
the Fulton County CrimeStop Hotline at (555) 752-3584

“Is that what you wanted?” Spike asked.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s perfect. Let’s hope
it works and one of the men gets greedy.”

Radio and television spots were running
every hour. It was only a matter of time before the right person contacted
them.

“There is no honor among thieves,” Jonny
reminded her. It was Saturday morning and he’d come over early to bring her the
ad. “He’ll call sooner or later. He has a hundred thousand reasons to pick up
his phone and make that call.”

“Lina, have you had any sleep?” Spike
questioned. “You look so tired.”

She nodded toward the couch in front of the
windows. “I’ve taken some catnaps but I want to be there when he wakes up. I
don’t want him seeing strangers or being concerned that he doesn’t know where
he is.”

“Tell you what,” Jonny said. “I’ll spell
you. How’s that? You lie down and Spike and I will watch over our boy.” He put
a hand on her shoulder. “You look buggered.”

“I could stand some sleep,” she said.
“You’ll wake me if…”

“I will,” Jonny said. He shooed her toward
the couch then took a seat beside the Kiwi’s bed.

She stretched out on her side—facing the
bed—and tucked her hands under the pillow. Just before she closed her eyes she
watched Spike walk behind Jonny’s chair. He reached up to take Spike’s hand,
brought it to his lips, kissed her knuckles, then placed her palm against his
chest. Spike leaned over and put a kiss to the top of Jonny’s head, caressing
his shoulder with her other hand.

She smiled. So that was the way of it. The
thought pleased her and she wondered if the Kiwi knew there were tender
feelings between his two friends. Sighing, she closed her eyes on the loving
scene and almost immediately drifted into sleep.

And into dreamland.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Come here, woman,” he ordered.

He was leaning against his desk with his
arms crossed. He was barefoot—one ankle crossed over the other—and his white
shirt was unbuttoned all the way to his waist, the opening revealing the thick
swirl of his chest hair. Black trousers fit tightly to his taut thigh.

She walked slowly toward him. The skirt of
her long teal-green gown caressed her legs as she moved. The gown was gossamer
soft and the hem slid seductively across her bare toes. The neckline of the
peasant-style bodice dipped low to expose the tops of her breasts and the
little cupped sleeves clung precariously to her bare shoulders.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. McGregor?” she
asked, her head down.

“Look at me when you speak,” he said, his
voice sharp.

When she raised her head and locked her
eyes with his, a tremor ran through her. There was blatant desire stamped on
his chiseled features and his gaze was blazingly hot.

“When I call you, Melina, you drop whatever
the hell it is you’re doing and come to me right then,” he said, his jaw tight.

“Yes, Mr. McGregor,” she said. She ran her
tongue over her dry lips and saw his gaze dip to her mouth before those stormy
blue eyes snapped back to hers.

“Are you deliberately trying to provoke me,
Melina?” he demanded.

“No Sir,” she said, shaking her head. “I
would never do that, Mr. McGregor.”

His eyes narrowed. “And I say you are,” he
stated.

“Sir, I was not—”

“Stop talking!”

She shivered and took a step back.

“Don’t lie to me! I punish those who dare
lie to me, Melina.”

“P-punish, Sir?” she questioned. She took
another step back from the hard stare with which he pierced her.

He cocked his chin toward the far wall. “Pull
down the bed,” he commanded.

She felt her eyes widen. “The b-bed, Sir?”

“Unlike you, I didn’t stutter, Melina,” he
snapped. “You heard me.”

She turned her head toward the wall where
two elegant handles were spaced about three feet apart. His hiss of annoyance
set her feet into motion and she hurried to the bed, pulled it down on its
hidden hinges, stepping out of the way so it would not fall on her. She lowered
it to the floor, opening the legs to position it. She turned to face him, her
hands clenched tightly in front of her.

He had not moved but his eyes were fixed on
her. He arched a thick dark brow.

She knew what he wanted and took a hitching
breath before lifting her right hand to the sleeve of her left arm. She pushed
the material downward, baring her left breast to his view then pulled her arm
free of the garment. Without giving herself time to waver, she took a deep
breath and pushed the sleeve from her right arm, baring her other breast. The
cool air in the room washed over her and she shivered.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

She put her hands to the folded bodice at
her waist and pushed the gown downward past her hips and thighs then let it drop
at her feet, leaving her completely naked. She stepped out of the gown.

He stood where he was but his eyes crawled
over her like hot embers. His gaze lingered on her breasts, at the juncture of
her thighs then moved lazily, insolently back to her face.

“Cup your breasts for me,” he said, his
voice thick with undisguised hunger.

She slid her hands to the undersides of her
breasts and lifted them.

“Run your thumbs over your nipples until
they are hard.”

She whimpered but did as she was
instructed. All the while he stood there staring at her with that scalding look
blazing from his piercing blue eyes.

“Slide one hand to your mound.”

Another whimper wound its serpentine way
through her soul but she lowered her right hand, spiking her fingers through
the nether curls at the apex of her thighs.

“Rub your palm between your legs.”

She could feel the moisture that was
seeping from the center of her. It was slick along her fingers as she glided
them across her outer folds.

“Again.”

She obeyed him.

“Again.”

Her breaths were coming faster, shallower
and she could feel the blood rushing through her ears.

And her cunt.

“Spread the hair over your clit with your thumb
and middle fingers and retract the hood.”

Her knees went weak at those words and she
looked at him beseechingly. She could feel the heated shame flooding her
cheeks.

“Do it!” he ordered quietly.

Mouth quivering, she did what he demanded
and a low moan escaped her lips.

“Mr. McGregor, please,” she pleaded, her
eyes filling with tears. “Don’t make me…”

“Touch your clit with your index finger,
Melina,” he said. “Touch it and leave it there.”

Another moan came from the very depths of
her but she obeyed him. The moment the pad of her index finger touched her clit
she released a shuddering breath.

“Hold it there,” he ordered. “Hold it.”

He pushed his hips from the desk and like a
wild, dangerous jungle animal came slowly toward her. He wasn’t walking, she thought.
He was stalking her and there was a feral look in his penetrating stare that
sent a tingle up her spine.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t step back as he
came forward, for the backs of her knees were pressed against the foot of the
Murphy bed. There was nowhere for her to go to escape the relentless advance
that was turning her blood to molten iron.

When he was close enough for her to see the
wild thump of the vein in the column of his throat, he stopped.

“Rub it,” he said, his voice gruff.

This time her moan became an aching groan
as she began to spiral her fingertip over the sensitive nub. She started to
tremble from the force of her need and when she thought she could stand no more
of the torture, he snaked his hand down to her arm and savagely pulled her hand
away from her body.

“Stand still,” he whispered. The fingers of
his left hand were clamped tightly around her wrist—almost painfully so—while
he put his right hand to the fly of his trousers and unzipped it.

“Mr. McGregor,” she said.

“Melina,” he replied with a sarcastic twist
of his lips.

“Please, Sir. Don’t do this.”

“You work for me, baby. I can do whatever
the hell I want to,” he said.

He jerked her arm behind her so her right
arm was pinned at the small of her back. He kicked her legs apart with his bare
foot and in one move he had her lying on the edge of the bed. He leaned over
her as he pulled his engorged cock from his trousers. She felt the wet tip at
her entrance…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Lina!”

She came awake with a start to find Spike
bending over her. “What?” she asked, still numb from dreaming, her body on fire
with an ache that made her squeeze her thighs together.

“He’s waking up, luv,” the tall blonde
said, straightening.

She swung her legs from the couch and sat
up. Jonny was standing beside the bed. He craned his head around to look at
her. He smiled.

“He’s doing his damnedest to open his
eyes,” he told her.

On wobbly legs she hurried over to the bed.
Jonny stepped aside to let her take the Kiwi’s hand. The moment she did, those
beautiful blue eyes fluttered open.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” she said softly.

He tried to speak and couldn’t. He sent her
a pleading look.

“You want some water?” she asked.

He closed his eyes, unable to move his head
for there was suddenly a fierce pain radiating through his face, under his eyes
and digging into his temples.

“I think that means yes,” Spike told her.
“Jono, pour him some water. He looks like he could scull the cap off a can of
beer.”

Jono moved down to the rolling table at the
foot of the bed and poured water into a pale-pink plastic cup with a straw. He
handed it to Spike.

“Lift his head, Lina,” Spike said.

She held his head and Spike put the straw
to his lips.

Grateful for the iced water that filled his
dry mouth, he all but inhaled the liquid, feeling the chill all the way down
his throat and into his upper chest.

“Not too much now,” she told Spike.

“Poor little bugger,” Spike said. “His
mouth is bleeding.”

He could taste the saltiness of his blood
as she eased the straw from his lips. He swallowed hard, tried to speak,
couldn’t, and then cleared his throat. He tried again.

“What is it, Kiwi?” she asked.

“How bad do I look?” he whispered.

“Will you listen to him? Bugger it, Synnie.
You think you’re a flowerpot because you have a hole in your bum,” Jonny told him.
When she looked at him for an explanation of that, Jonny shrugged. “It means
he’s being vain.”

“Oh,” she said. She smoothed her hand over
his forehead and he braced himself to keep from wincing for just that soothing
touch hurt like hell. “You’re gonna be just as handsome as ever. No scars.”

“How you feel, bro?” Jono asked.

“Like ground meat,” he managed to croak.

“You look like it too,” Jono said then
grunted when Spike dug her elbow into his ribs.

“We’ll leave you two alone,” Spike said,
threading her arm through Jono’s. “Be gentle with him, girl.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said.

“How long?” he asked when Jono closed the
door behind him and Spike. He lifted his hand from the bed and she took it. Her
flesh was cool against his.

“Today is Saturday. They brought you in
Thursday night.”

“Damage?”

“Your nose is broken and you’ve got a few
broken ribs. Is your head hurting?”

“Like a motherfucker,” he mumbled.

“That’s the concussion and that’s why you
were unconscious for so long.” She smiled. “Do you want me to call the nurse to
bring you something for your head? I should let them know you’re awake anyway.”

“Yeah.”

She picked up the call button and depressed
it. When the nurse answered, she told her he was awake and needed something for
his head.

“I’ll let Dr. Tonika know. I’ll send
someone in.”

“They are looking for Olivia,” she told
him.

He didn’t know what to say. A flash of
memory of his mother sitting in the chair, watching as he was beaten, shot
through his throbbing head. Any love he might have left for her was long gone
now. She had sat there, smiling, smoking and sneering at him as the men she had
hired tried their best to cripple him. The last sight he had of her was as she
stood over him as he lay there broken and bleeding.

“You’re not such a clever little fucker
now, are you, you little snot ball?” she’d asked. “You fucking spawn of Satan!”

One last kick from the bastard with the
cowboy boots and he’d passed out to the sound of her laughter.

“They’ll find her and they will arrest
her,” she said.

“Her word against mine,” he said. It hurt
to talk. His jaws were killing him and that only added to the agony in his
head. There was a tight restriction around his chest that told him his ribs
were taped and the tape across his nose was itching. He doubted there was a
single inch of his body that wasn’t saturated in misery.

“We’ll see about that,” she said and
glanced around as a nurse came bustling in.