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“Aw, fuck! Sorry.” The man he called Riot grabs the surviving guard and pulls him out the door. A moment later, a gunshot echoes in the hall.
The guy in the door winces. “Fucking smooth, man.”
He tucks his gun into his belt and holds up his hands like he’s trying to convince us we aren’t in danger. Yeah right. Everything about him screams deadly. His leather jacket hangs open, with a gray T-shirt underneath, stretched tight across his muscular chest. Dusty jeans cling to his muscular thighs, hanging over scuffed up black leather boots. Colorful tattoos crawl down both arms so elaborately that it looks like he's wearing a long sleeve underneath. He looks exactly like what he is, a killer.
I shield Anne as he takes a step closer and the light hits him. He has dark blond hair, shaved on the sides and tied back on top, with a tight, reddish-brown beard. When he locks his eyes with mine, they're pale gray, like clouds just starting to think about a storm, but hard like granite. I wet my lips, rooted to the spot and unable to look away.
A moment later, a third guy swaggers in like this is his home and we're the intruders. His eyebrows go up when he spots us. “What the fuck? I thought Kane’s family was supposed to go back to town after that party.” Deep hazel orbs, like a sun dappled forest floor widen as he takes us in. I try not to show anything, but it feels like I’m beingseenfor the first time in a long while, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Like the first two, he’s dressed in jeans and leather boots, with a heavy leather jacket that has a yellow patch on it. It reads Tex, with a stitched outline of the state behind it. His hair is thick, brown and a little wild, and he has a five o'clock shadow that does nothing to hide the sharp jut of his chin. His noseis crooked like it's been broken. He smiles at me, tiny lines appearing at the corner of his eyes. There’s something about him that makes me want to trust him, which is ridiculous because clearly these men are the farthest thing from safe.
"Pretty sure there’s only one kid here, Ghost. Hey, darlin’, what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?" His low drawl is seductively smooth on top but with a deadly rasp under the surface that drags across my skin leaving goosebumps in its wake.
“Hiding from you,” I blurt out. My glasses slip and I shove them back into place.
He stares at me for a second and then laughs. “Fair enough, you got me there.”
The man he called Ghost gives me a second look, and it's just as piercing as the first. "We don’t have time for this shit. That has to be Kane’s kid, so who the fuck are you?" When I hesitate, he puts his hand on his gun in silent warning. "Now! I don't like repeating myself."
Anne flinches, sobbing softly. The instinct to protect her makes me braver than I feel. “Stop! You’re scaring her. She’s only twelve.”
“So answer the question. Are you Kane’s woman?” He cocks his head, eyeing me. “Don’t look the type.”
“His—No! I’m Jessica. I'm just Jessica," falls out of me. “I’m the nanny. Please don’t hurt us. I’ll do whatever you ask.”
"Jesus Christ, you’re making me feel like a fucking monster," Ghost snaps, just as Riot comes back in. I try not to imaginewhat he did to the red headed guard, but it’s hard not to imagine his lifeless body just outside the door.
“Shhhh.” I hush, stroking Anne’s hair to comfort myself just as much as her. Luckily she’s staying quiet. These aren’t the kind of people we should push. They would murder the both of us and then go out for lunch without a second thought.
Riot's square face is framed by a thick, black beard, and his expressive brows knit together as he looks at us. Inside his jacket, I can see a black T-shirt with a skull logo on it that's doing its best to contain his massive chest, before narrowing into his dark jeans and heavy boots. Under the logo, the T-shirt reads Outlaw Sons MC. A motorcycle club?
His full lips quirk with amusement. "Well, shit. Who had their money on Mary Poppins here being a complication?"
4
JESSICA
"Have to say,I’m not a fucking fan of terrorizing kids," growls Riot, pacing back and forth. "I hate bad intel."
They've moved us out of the safe room and onto the second floor terrace. Anne and I are huddled together. Her eyes are closed and her head is resting on my shoulder, but I know she’s not sleeping from the death grip she has on my fingers. The glass railing blocks some of the wind, but not nearly enough to make the cold January breeze off the ocean any easier to deal with. After everything that’s happened, though, it’s hard to tell where being cold stops, and shock from everything that’s happened begins.
I did my best to block Anne’s view of the dead as we were marched out here, but I’m sure she saw at least some of it. Some of the men were nameless faces, but others had been around for a while. None of Victor’s guards were particularly nice to either of us, but just seeing people we talked to a few hours ago lying still on the ground is more than enough trauma for a lifetime.
"Here." Ghost walks over with a couple of blankets taken from the TV room, draping them over our shoulders.
"Tha—thanks."
His expression is dark and concentrated, keen eyes constantly scanning the estate. "Don’t look so fucking surprised. You look cold and we aren’t here to torture women and kids."
Of the three of them, he scares me the most. He’s obviously in charge of the other two, and he’s so steady you’d think this is just any other day for him, but he’s not cruel. I know the difference. These men might kill with ease, but not because they enjoy it. Victor would let me freeze out here unless it caused him a problem or made him look weak. I lick my lips, considering if it would be best to try and cooperate, or just stay quiet and not piss them off, hoping they eventually let us go.
“It’s true. I don’t know who told you, but Anne and I were supposed to leave a couple days ago. Victor changed plans at the last minute,” I offer.
The enemy of my enemy might not be my friend, but giving them a little harmless information feels like a peace offering.
Ghost nods. I can almost see his brain filing it away. One more piece of the puzzle solved. He slips a hand into his pocket and pulls out his phone, glancing at the screen. “Cooper’s incoming. We have Kane isolated.”
Tex is leaning against the wall, pressing one foot against it with the other on the floor. He grins crookedly. "All in all, this wasn’t as big a fuck up as it coulda been. Hellfire said they caught the fucker trying to sneak out. Revenge is a hell of a thing if you ask me. We could be gone already if Cooper didn’t want to do this personally."
