Losing Me, Finding You (34 page)

That scares the crap out of me.

“Did you miss me, baby?” I hear Walker say, the sound of his voice making me go cold inside. I have no love for Mireya, but I have nothing but hatred for a man like that, someone who uses others and doesn't care what happens to them. When I hear her whimper, I know that I have to go out there, no matter what happens. If Walker rapes or kills Mireya while I just stand here, I'll never forgive myself.

I slide the chair away from the door, careful not to make much noise and give away my position. As I reach for the lock, I get dizzy with fear and anticipation and have to call on a good, old fashioned Glance Serone quote to get me through this.

The toughest fucking moments in life are the ones where the whole world is a big, fat unknown, where chance has more power to change your fate than you do. It's then that you're gonna want me, Sali, because me, I'm a sure thing.

I pick up the metal lamp in one hand and open the door with the other.

I don't shout or call out a battle cry (why on earth anyone would think giving up their position like that was a good idea, I'm not sure), just step out behind a man – Kent, actually – and raise the metal to his skull. He stumbles and shouts but doesn't go down.

“You little cunt,” he growls, spinning to face me as my eyes take in the scene and find Melissa on the floor with her eyes closed, blood trickling down the side of her face. I can still see her breathing, so she's not dead, but there are three men around her, looking down on her quiet face with looks that could've only been plastered on their bodies by the devil himself. One of them has a coil of rope in his hand.

Mireya isn't faring much better.

The man, Walker, a blonde with tanned skin and a good ol' boy smile has got her by the hair and is holding her down on her knees. I'm happy to say that his lip is split and he looks like he's nursing a shiner on his left eye, but that's about it. Mireya is tough, but she didn't stand much of a chance – there are two more men behind her, pinning her arms back.

Nobody moves to help Kent.

“If you can't handle one bitch on your own, how on earth you gonna wrangle a whole stable full of them?” Walker asks, laughing as he watches me pick up another vase and swing it at Kent Diamond. He moves suddenly, flickering like a ghost to the side, so fast I can hardly see and suddenly, there's a knife pressed tight to my throat, too tight.

I try to breathe, but when I inhale, my skin gets slit along the blade and starts a trickle of warmth down the front of my neck.

“Try not to beat her around too much,” Walker says, reaching down to unzip his pants. “They're not worth as much that way.” Kent growls like he doesn't like being told what to do and jerks me back by my hair, cutting just a little deeper and making me cry out. Still, I can't stop watching Mireya, looking down at her and seeing her eyes pressed shut, thinking about the way they looked when they sent me into the bathroom. There was love there. It wasn't for me, no, but it was for Austin. She wanted to save me for his sake.

Walker's pants come undone, and I explode, turning my body sideways and sliding along Kent's blade as I move, slicing my own throat.

The way I've done it isn't going to kill, but God, it
hurts.
I think about Austin as blood spatters the floor and my body goes flying forward, hitting Tray Walker so hard that he drops his hold on Mireya. The man uses his powerful arm to knock me back and send me sprawling where I smash into a dresser and fall to the ground, gasping and touching the wound in my neck. It's more of a psychological thing at that point, just the feeling of blood there makes me certain that I'm going to die.

Immediately my mind goes to Austin Sparks.

He's the first man I've ever slept with, ever even 'dated' if that's what you want to call our arrangement, but it doesn't matter. I know. I think I've known all along what's going to happen.
I'm going to fall in love with him. I'm going to be head over heels and my stomach is going to hurt every time he walks into a room. I'm going to worry about him whenever he isn't there, and there are going to be times where I'll hate him. Because that's what love is. It's a kaleidoscope of emotions, all sorts of different colors blending together into one.

I watch Mireya explode like a caged panther set free, raking her nails across Walker's face, snatching the knife that she'd had earlier from where it had fallen on the bed and slashing it out, catching him across the chest. The two men that were holding her move forward and manage to grab her shoulders, drawing her back before she can do any real damage.

A shadow falls over me, and I look up to see Kent looming there, pale and ghastly and
mean.

I'd been right about him: he is fucked up from the inside out (pardon the language, but it's true).

“Kill me,” I tell him because I'm not going to let them rape me. I'm not going to let anyone rape me. I'd rather slit my own throat first. My body belongs to Austin and to me and that's it. I won't let anyone take it from me.

“No,” he says and he actually licks the knife. Licks it like he really is as much a vampire as he looks. “I don't think I'm going to be giving you the satisfaction, Miss Cross. Remember what I said: collateral.”

He reaches down; my eyes close; and in the door walks Austin Sparks.

Ever hear that phrase,
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?

Well, it's bullshit. Hell ain't got nothin' on a man who walks in and sees his woman on the floor with her throat cut, blood trailing down her neck and soaking into the fabric of her pretty pink pj's.

Gaine and Beck rush right by, and Kimmi disappears to find Margot, but me, I walk. I walk right up behind Kent Diamond, and I reach out and I grab his neck, sliding my arm around my President's throat and squeezing with every ounce of power that I've got left in my tired muscles.

He struggles and slashes his knife around, but let's face it, Kent has always been a little bit of a pussy, letting everyone else do the work for him all these years has made him soft. He doesn't put up much of a fight, and after a few moments, he's completely still. I drop his body to the floor and kick it aside, aware that there's movement going on around me but unable to give a shit about it.

“Amy,” I whisper as I sit down and pull her into my lap. “Fuck, sugar, I can't lose you yet. I only just got you.” I realize that there are six fucking men in this room, six
capable, experienced
men, but they don't have Beck. I don't bother getting up to help and stay right where I am.

“Austin,” she says, reaching up to touch my face. “I'm fine.” She pokes at the hole in her own throat. “It's just a surface wound. They bleed a lot.” She pauses and swallows hard. I follow her eyes to the doorway where Kimmi stands with her pistol in one hand and her girlfriend's wrist tucked in the other. She doesn't shoot, but her eyes say she won't hesitate neither.

“Austin,” she tells me, puckering her lips angrily. “I say, fuck that whole
armed robbery
bullshit. We're never going to get caught anyway. I'm taking a fucking gun next time.” She keeps her hand aimed at Walker and his men as Beck systematically knocks them out, one by one.

Until he gets to Tray Walker, himself, of course and pauses to hand over his knife to Mireya, blunt end first. She looks at it and then over at me, and I glance away. This is her decision to make, and I'm not going to interfere or judge. That just ain't right. I keep my gaze focused on Amy.

“You sure as shit about that sugar?” She nods and then reaches her hands up to my face, grabbing me under the jaw and kissing me with her blood flecked lips, tasting me, pulling in and drowning me so deep into her that I'll never be able to escape, not even if I want to.

There are only three kinds of kisses in this world: secret ones that nobody sees, the fake ones that everybody sees, and the real ones that only two people see. This one was one of those and I'll be damned, but it rocked my friggin' world.

After Austin is sure that everyone's alright, that we're all going to live, he rallies us up and puts us on the road, taking our small group back to the main body of Triple M. Without stopping, they fall into line behind him, motorcycles purring and rumbling together in a wicked hot chorus that makes my blood sing almost as much as the man sitting in front of me, whose heart is beating in tune with mine.

Austin puts a song on the intercom and doesn't talk about what happened. Not until we've ridden through the night turned day turned night again. Only then, once he's put some space between us and what happened, does he pull us all into a parking garage, letting our group fade away into the background of a city that's bigger than any I've ever seen in person, with skyscrapers galore and roads that never sleep.

Once all the bikes are parked, everything is silent, like the cement walls around us are the edges of a bubble, keeping our small community contained, protected from the outside world and all the sounds that go with it.

“So you're a bank robber, huh?” I whisper as Austin takes off his helmet for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours. Even when we stopped for gas, he didn't remove it, not once. Not even when I finally remembered my poor friend, waiting in her gilded cage for me to come get her and told him about it. He didn't respond, but I did notice that our path changed a bit, wound back on highways heading Southeast, towards Christy, towards a place that last week, I called home, and today, is just another city.

I wait in tense anticipation for him to respond to me, to say anything at all.

“Yeah,” he responds, voice a little rough around the edges, a little hoarse from not speaking for so long. A lot sexy.

“I think it's hot,” I whisper and Austin grins, meeting my eyes, searing me with heat, blinding me with feelings I haven't yet fully sorted out but that I intend to work on – even if it takes decades. I smile and he smiles back.

“Good, because, sugar, when I said you were mine, I meant it.”

“So did I.”

We grin at each other and then I watch with my pulse thumping like a wild thing while Austin climbs off the bike and tucks his helmet under his arm, turning to face the Triple M'ers who are waiting patiently to hear whatever it is he's going to say. I think somehow, someway, we all just sort of assumed Austin was the new president.

He doesn't argue the point.

“I'm sorry to say that Kent is no longer with Triple M.” Austin pauses and rubs at the stubble that's decorating his jaw. He doesn't say whether the man is dead or alive. I'm not sure if he even knows himself. I suppose I don't either. I shiver, but I don't think about it anymore than that. Whatever happened, happened. The universe is in control now, and I hate to say it, but the world minus one of those horrible men (especially Walker or Kent) might actually be a better place. “Shit went down and bad things happened.” He shrugs. “But we keep on keepin' on because that's what we do, that's what our group has always done. We've always been here to pull each other's fat out of the fire, and I intend to keep it that way.” He pauses just long enough for Beck to jump in with a wicked smile and a wink.

“So, Pres, where to?”

Austin thinks about that for a moment.

“Well, I figure it's been awhile since we hit the coast, and I think we could all use a vacation.” He watches my face for a moment and his smile turns into a grin. “But first we've gotta go pick up a friend of Amy's.”

“And then what?” Gaine asks quietly, and I swear the entire garage goes silent just to hear what Austin is going to say. He keeps his eyes on mine the whole time, locking me into him, turning my body molten, so that I feel like I'm melding with him, sinking into the leather of his jacket and finding his heart.

“Then,” he says. “We go wherever the wind takes us.”

If you enjoyed this, try the
Never say Never
Series
.