Chapter 31

Alexa

Jace threw his arms around me the second I entered the parlour. Stressed to the max, he ridiculed my sodden image and then beseeched me to decorate the shop floor ready for the opening night of Pierced and Inked.

Two hours, I had to listen to Jared and Shane, Jace’s newly hired fresh-faced, tattoo-models and roomies, bickering about unimportant, irrelevant topics such as science fiction television shows, the eponymous rapscallion Austin Powers, the inventor of tissue holders and the consumption guidelines of pop tarts.

What has my life come to?

Oh, I gave those lazy, beer ingesting men a lambasting from hell. Off with their heads, I prattled on until they feared the hormonal pregnant woman enough to assist professional caterers at the buffet table. I didn’t let them eat the festively coloured macaroon biscuits or get a sniff of the pastiche and charcuterie boards. I did, however, authorise the sampling of ribbon sandwiches and bite-size tortilla wraps on the bases they’d stock-up the chiller with champagne.

Jace showered and changed into his all-black attire before locking himself in the office to imbibe vodka, or so I determined.

The men readied the studio for impending guests, so I barricaded myself inside Jace’s all-masculine bedroom to freshen up.

As I adopted the role of an annoying sister, I peeled off the half-dry glamour from my body and added them to the laundry basket.

Revitalised and smelling like an English rose, I tiptoed across the bedroom and emptied the holdall I had packed for this evening onto the double bed.

Towel dried and moisturised, I changed into a silver, one-shoulder sequin dress, knotted the back of my sandals and half-heartedly applied warpaint to my face.

“Alexa?” Jace knocked the bedroom door upon entering. “You look nice.” He slumped onto the bed, which almost caused me a mascara malfunction. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I tossed the mascara aside and uncapped the lipstick. “Did they guys find homes for the balloon archways?”

I ordered silver and black helium displays from a local party supplies store.

“One by the entrance,” he tells me, changing positions to get comfortable. “I think they put one above the food.” He shrugged. “Hey, so, because you are pregnant and boring, I got us this.” Rolling onto his side, he blindly reached under the bed and brandished non-alcoholic champagne and two glass flutes. “I wanted us to make a toast before the commotion commenced.”

I held the delicate glass stems for Jace to pop the cork and pour effervesces. Setting the half-empty bottle onto the bedside table, he sat upright for us to clink glasses. “To making memories with my best friend,” he said hoarsely, his green eyes alight. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“To my ride-or-die.” Teary-eyed, my lips stretched into a smile. “Let tonight be the beginning of new, memorable adventures. For you, Mr Williams,” I gripped his jaw and laid a chaste kiss to his cheek, “deserve all the happiness in the world. And I am so glad you chose me to be part of your journey.”

“I love you,” Jace said, and I nodded. “But it’s your turn to do laundry this week.”

I burst out laughing. “I only left a few items in the basket.”

“Alexa, every time you visit, I find at least a rolled-up sock on my bathroom floor.” He sipped champagne. “Also, what’s with the white box on the kitchen counter.”

“I got you a cake.” I put cosmetics in my bag. “I know how much you love sugar, so I ordered an extra layer of chocolate frosting.”

Jace groaned in approval. “I’m salivating already.”

In the hallway, a room door rattled. Harlyn, modelling a simple black dress and pink shoes to match her vibrant hair, strolled ahead.

The silence lengthened in the room. I looked back to Jace to find a severely unamused expression on his face. “What?”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into that,” he huffed, tousling his brown mane. “And before you try and convince me otherwise, Jared and Shane agree with me.”

“Oh, well, if those pair of short-sighted dimwits agree with you, then, who the hell am I to argue the matter?”

Jace curled up his lip. “Harlyn sings in the shower.”

I sing in the shower. “So?”

“She leaves her shoes in the hallway, like, all over the floor.”

Okay, that’s annoying. “Ask Harlyn to keep the shoes in her bedroom.”

“I did,” he deadpans. “You will still see an unimpressive amount of ugly shoes outside my door.”

Giggling at the preposterousness of this conversation, I stood taller and secured the satin bow around my waist. “You spit toothpaste everywhere—the basin, taps and mirror.”

Jace fixed his nose ring. “What’s your point?”

“You almost never wash your cereal bowls. You put them in the kitchen sink and expect the cleaning fairy to come along and do your chores.”

Swinging his arm over my shoulders, he trudged beside me as we ambled down the hallway. “Where are you going with this?”

“Flinging the duvet over the mattress and leaving the pillows wherever they land? That’s your way of making a bed. You, much like my former-self, drink so much vodka it borderlines alcoholism. You live on takeout food, grouse when harmlessly inconvenienced by others, judge everyone who isn’t part of your inner circle and relish the fact your big, burly, formidable body of ink intimidates others. You, my dear old friend, are not a walk in the park.”

With the darkness as our witness, Jace put a hand on the door adjacent to the studio, preventing our expected arrival. “Why are we fault-finding?”

“I couldn’t care for your flaws, Jace. I love you, regardless. What I am saying, though, is you need to look in the mirror from time to time. So, Harlyn clutters the halls. Big deal, right? If you actually allowed yourself to tolerate her—”

“Please stop talking.” He covered my mouth with his big, meaty hand. “You’re spinning me out.”

Latterly noticing his blood-shot eyes, I peeled his inked fingers from my lips. “You are stoned.”

He gave me a lopsided smirk. “I know.”

“Why did you wait until I was pregnant to be reckless?” I was unfathomably jealous. “God, now I crave marijuana, and I don’t even know how to smoke it.”

“Smoking has nothing to do with skill, Alexa.” Staring at me through heavy-lidded eyes, he put his back to the closed door. “How about I save you some for when the baby’s born?”

“Sure.” I liked the sound of that. “Now, back to Harlyn.”

His eyes visited the ceiling.

“Jace,” I scolded, and he snatched my arm, hauling me to his chest for a hug. “You are cutting off my air supply, you big lump.”

He patted my head. “Just stop talking.”

Wriggling my head through his crossed arms, I glared up at him, puffing hair from my face. “Promise me.”

“What am I promising?” he asked, the tip of his finger, outlining my bent eyebrow. “Quit envisioning my butchered job of penectomy, Alexa. I know how that wicked mind of yours works.”

“Promise me that you and the guys won’t be so hard on Harlyn.”

Reaching behind him, Jace worked the door handle. “Fine.” Bright lights and rock music penetrated our once, dark silence. “Only because I love you.”

We joined the party, staying at each other’s sides. I couldn’t drink, so I decided to play hostess, pouring champagne flutes and offering guests complimentary appetisers.

“Dare You to Move” by Switchfoot sounded from the portable speaker, and I caught Jace mouthing the lyrics as he nursed a bottled beer. He almost pulled a sip, but his gaze located the chrome angel wings above the shop door, the personalised metal, a calligraphy of his daughter’s name.

“How many free sittings do you want us to do?” Jared, who unexpectedly glued himself to Jace, reversed his bright blue ball cap. “If they select small pieces, I could probably fit in around four or five. Six with a push.”

Jace’s Adam’s apple wedged on a tight swallow. Ignoring Jared, he curled an arm around my neck and tucked me into his side. “Thank you,” he said throatily in my ear.

Squeezing his forearm, I kissed his inner wrist.

Jared saw our exchange. “Do you guys, like, fuck or something?”

“Jared!” we berated in unison.

“I was only asking.” The pale-faced idiot held up his hands in surrender. “Shane,” he called, and the blond linked our circle. “Be honest. Did you think Alexa and Jace were into the whole Netflix-and-chill?”

“Yeah,” Shane agreed, biting into a crustless sandwich. “Is that not the case?”

“Dick head,” Jace muttered, biting his bottom lip to try and curb an unstoppable smile. “Alexa’s like an annoying sister who leaves her shit everywhere.”

“Hey,” I cautioned, unable to deny the fact.

“So, you guys have never…?” Jared’s eyebrows danced. “Oh, come on. Don’t make me say it.”

“Jared wants to know if you and your annoying sister ever fucked,” Shane said unashamedly. “Basically.”

Jace grew serious. “That’s none of your business.”

“I fucking knew it!” Jared barked, fist-pumping Shane. “How can you be friends with a former fuck buddy, though? No offence, Alexa. I’d crease the sheets with you…”

I gave him my finger.

“Alexa was never a fuck buddy,” Jace grated out, and I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. “We’re all adults here. If Alexa and I are mature enough to see beyond one-night together, then there’s no shame or blame in that.”

“I guess that’s kinda cool.” Shane sucked mayonnaise from his thumb. “What if one or the other starts dating, though? No jealousy or awkwardness?”

“No,” I said, wishing people wouldn’t see our relationship as unconventional or abnormal. “Look, not that it’s got anything to do with you, but one night, Jace was sad, and I was sad, and, well, for a moment, we lost ourselves in each other’s sadness. Was it wrong to alleviate our pain? Does our past warrant the unsolicited judgments of others?” I hadn’t meant to sound harsh, but this conversation needs instant curtailing. “Besides, I am in a loving relationship.”

Jared seemed taken aback. “Really?”

“Yes,” Jace spoke up, polishing off the rest of his beer. “Alexa’s dating Liam Warren.”

Shane choked on a sausage roll. “No shit?” he wheezed, and Jared tapped his back. “That must be fun and games.”

I am seconds away from taking off a shoe and impaling them with my heel.

Jared, who’s apparently the impish one, grinned wolfishly. “Okay, I know that I am nosey, but seriously, is there any credence to the rumours?”

“Regarding Liam?” I mused, playing along, and Jared’s eyes widened in delight. “No.”

“Really?” His shoulders drooped despondently. “So he’s not as bad as the streets depict?”

I acted unfazed. “Oh, he’s worse.” Jared and Shane exchanged pallid glances. “You know, Liam’s due to arrive any moment, so why don’t you ask him these questions directly?”

Well, that’s if Liam shows face. I’ve lost count on how many text messages I sent him earlier.

Jared laughed a nervous laugh. “Yeah, no thanks.”

“Seriously?” Harlyn, conveying heavy boxes, made a pit-stop. “Why am I running ragged when you losers stand around doing nothing?” Her insult wasn’t aimed at me but the men. “People are waiting for their free sittings—and you.” Her grey-blue eyes pierced Jace with haughtiness. “What example are you setting for your employees? I hope you don’t expect me to tattoo everyone by myself.”

“Put a fucking cork in it, Harl.” Affronted, Jace stood taller. “Who said, I wasn’t going to deliver?”

Harlyn distributed the boxes to Jared. “Well, don’t blame me if people start walking out.” Grabbing essentials from the front desk, she stalked through the men and into the back while simultaneously gesturing for an older male to follow.

“And you expect me to put up with that,” Jace muttered under his breath.

Jared watched Harlyn settle at her station. Tapping the table, she urged her client to lie down and prepared his chest for a tribal piece. “I want to bone her.”

I laughed. “I think she would be fun to ride.”

“She’d be lucky to get a Harlem dick slap from me,” Jace snorted, and the men ruptured into facilitating laughter.

“Oh, that’s disgusting.” My nose crinkled. “Why do I surround myself with incorrigible men?”

“Better off,” said Shane. “Women are too bitchy.”

“Debatable.” I gawked at him in disbelief. “Nowadays, I am learning that males can be devious gossipmongers.”

“Yeah, I do not deny my motormouth.” Jared tossed his empty beer bottle in the bin. “Right, I need to find someone’s skin to prick. I’ll catch you guys later.”

“Hey.” A potential female customer nudged Jace’s elbow, a price list pamphlet in hand. “Can I inquire about the vipers piercing?”

Jace eyed her suspiciously. “How old are you?”

Her cheeks pinkened. “Eighteen.”

In Jace’s defence, the short, meek, auburn-haired beauty resembled a high school student.

“I have a driver’s licence.” Fumbling with her purse, she flashed his identification. “I have never gotten a piercing before, so I’m a little nervous.”

“You should start with the ears, then,” Jace advised, but she seemed hellbent on the viper. “If you’re sure.”

“Yes.” Nodding enthusiastically, she shadowed him to one of the stations and, of course, I followed because I am a busybody. “Does it hurt?”

“Everyone’s pain threshold varies—take a seat.” With his back to us, Jace washed his hands thoroughly at the basin and then prepared supplies onto the workstation. “Alexa, can you grab the mouthwash and a disposable bowl from under the counter.”

Squatting by the steel cupboard, I did as instructed and handed over the goods. “Do you mind if I watch?”

“Not at all.” Uncapping the mouthwash, she swished her mouth for sixty seconds and spat into the container. “I can’t stop shaking.”

And I so needed ice cream for this show. “You’ll be fine.”

His fingers stretching into sterile gloves, Jace pulled up a chair. “Left or right?”

Her eyes sought mine. “Right?”

Why is she asking me?

“Left,” I thought aloud, knowing she’d rock it.

“Relax.” Jace positioned a ballpoint pen in a vertical line against her nose and marked the spot below her lip. “Two piercings for a vipers bite,” he tells her, and she blanches. “Why don’t you start with a side labret?”

Harlyn paid a visit. “No, she’d look good with a viper.”

“Nobody asked you,” Jace bites out, and she rolls her eyes, resting a hand on the rear of his chair. “Did you need something?”

Flinging her pink hair over one shoulder, Harlyn studied the girl. “What about a Monroe?”

Jace pursed his lips. He liked Harlyn’s suggestion, but the stubborn man stayed quiet.

“I’ll trust you guys to do right by me,” the girl said nervously.

“Okay.” Wiping her upper lip with a sterile wipe, Jace marked the spot and extracted a needle. He gently clamped her lip, revealing her upper teeth, and she winced, slamming her eyes shut. “Most say that’s the worst part.”

“I hope so,” she said, her breathing coming in heavier. “Will I pass out?” Before she could change her mind, Jace inserted the needle, piercing through her hollow lip. “Mmhmm,” she grunted. “Hurts.”

Removing the needle, Jace pushed a barbell into position, fastened it in place and set the clamp aside. “All done.”

Fascinated, I looked. “I want my lip pierced.”

Harlyn unclasped a compact mirror. “It suits you.”

Admiring her reflection, the girl, her lip swelling already, slackened in relief. “I love it. Thank you.”

Jace gave her an aftercare facts sheet with instructions on the healing stages. As another person is waiting in line for a piercing, I made myself scarce.

Ted’s been quiet tonight and, although I can barely stomach the man, I felt sorry for him, sitting in the Bentley, alone, whilst we partied indoors, warm and entertained.

I plated up food: sandwiches, pastries, cocktail sausages, colourful peppers and cucumber sticks.

Peace offering in hand, I opened the front door and exited into the night, the strong winds blowing through my hair. My eyes bouncing from left to right, I searched for the familiar Bentley. “Bundy?” I called, walking to the curbside, shivering from the cold air against my skin.

The empty street reminded me of a ghost town at night. Only a stray cat crossing the road and not a moving vehicle in sight.

Great, I thought, turning on my heel to go back inside. Liam would lose his shit if he knew Ted left me unprotected.

Gripping the door handle, I jerked it up and down, but the door didn’t budge. “Jace?” Knocking the frosted glass, I tried to peer through the decorated window. “Shane? Jared? Can someone open the door?”

Muffled music rattled the windowpane. I knocked again, growing impatient. “Shit.” Discarding the plated food into a steel dumpster, I dusted off my hands and rounded the building, hoping Jace left the back door unlocked.

But I knew to stop walking. Felt it deep within my core, the sudden realisation that I wasn’t alone, that someone was watching me. “Ted,” I whispered, lifting my eyes to look around the bleak, sideway of Pierced and Inked. “Are you there?”

I felt a shiver run up my spine.

Swallowing the taste of putrid bile, I snubbed any crazy thoughts and continued ahead, the sound of my heels resounding with each step.

I tried the back door, the handle fixed in place. “Breathe, Alexa.” Blowing out a long, calming breath, I knocked harder, more determined, my mind racing to impossible depths of obscurities.

My phone vibrated, and I thanked my lucky stars. Lifting my dress, I peeled it from under my garter and stilled, the unknown caller rationing my feverish apprehensions.

Ending the call, I dialled Jace’s number, but it forwarded me straight to his voicemail box. “Don’t panic,” I mantra, calling Liam’s number next. “Such a drama queen.” Putting the phone to my ear, I composed myself, inhaling a breath of encouragement. “Come on, Liam.” This man never answers his bloody phone.

I landed in his mailbox. “Ted’s AWOL,” I snitched, putting my back to the bricked wall. “I mean, he’s disappeared. And I can’t get inside Jace’s shop because the front door jammed behind me, so, yeah, I am freaking out right now, freezing my non-existent tits off. Should I order a taxi?”

Liam’s not going to answer. It’s a damn voicemail, Alexa.

“Wait by the front door, perhaps? Tell me to breathe, Liam,” I yelled, lowering the phone to see the battery died.

I wipe sweat from my forehead. “Oh, God.” My chest constricting, I pressed the heel of my hand to my thunderous heart, briefly closing my eyes. “Breathe.”

When my eyelashes fluttered open, I saw a tall, loitering silhouette near the recycling depot. I shut my eyes and reopened them, praying the figure was a figment of my imagination. No, it’s still there, taunting me as it slithered from between two communal dumpsters.

“I have a gun,” I lied, knowing the revolver was in my handbag, which I stupidly left in Jace’s bedroom.

Beneath the dimly lit security light, a familiar face emerged from the shadows. She wore her long blonde hair in two braids. Low-rise studded jeans and a skimpy black camisole top under a worn leather jacket. “No, you don’t have a gun.” Her knowing smile ripped goose pimples across my naked flesh. “Where’s your guard, Alexa? Ted, isn’t it?”

Her condescending tone had me worried for Ted. “Did you hurt him?”

Lifting a shoulder, she moved closer, and I stepped aside, preparing myself to run. “Would you care?” she mused, and I swallowed a painful lump. “You don’t like him very much.”

How do I handle this? I am pregnant. I am not supposed to fight deranged women. “Which twin graces me this evening?” Without turning my back to her, I slammed my palm against the door. “What do you want from me?”

“Greer,” she confirmed, and I wasn’t sure if her not being Molly was a relief. “And I want absolutely nothing from you, Alexa Haines.”

Just behind her eyes, I see the soulless pits of a heartless monster.

Greer’s here to kill me.

A sharp knife magically appeared, and Greer waved it slowly as if demonstrating what she had in store for me. “Shall we play a game?”

Think, Alexa. “Sure,” I said calmly, but my shaking body betrayed me.

Engrossed by my evident trepidations, Greer surveyed me with a round, intrigued eyes. “Why are you breathing so fast?” she asked, genuinely interested. “We haven’t started yet.”

“Jace,” I called, booting the door, too scared to leave or give her an advantage. “Jace, please—”

“Jace, please,” Greer mimicked like a child, snickering in the background of my despair. “Please help, Jace. Please help me.”

Tears pricked my eyes. I blinked them back, refusing to entertain her with my dismay. “Greer,” I whispered, eyeing the knife. “Please don’t hurt me.” I’m pregnant, I thought, wrapping a protective arm around my stomach. “Liam will talk to you if—”

“Fuck Liam!” she roared, her demonic voice and evil, glowing eyes shrilling through me. “Did he tell you there were others?”

I didn’t understand the question.

“Other women,” she taunted, cocking her head from side to side. “You are not special, Alexa. You do know that, right?”

“You’re lying,” I defended him. “He’d never ruin us.”

“Poor baby,” she cooed, her giggling bouncing off the walls. “Naïve. Dumb.” She took another step forward. “Delusional. What is it about him that makes you so retarded, Alexa?”

I ignored her insults.

“Is it daddy issues?” she asked, a twinkle of deviousness in her narrowed eyes. “Daddy fucked you up, so you craved an older man to keep you warm and snuggly at night.” Smiling and sniggering, she tapped the knife on her palm. “Liam’s fucking someone as we speak. But it doesn’t matter, right? You’ll still forgive him. Everyone forgives him.” Her eyes turned upward. “I don’t, though. I’m not so forgiving. I’m not the naive, dumb, delusion, developmentally disabled little girl with daddy issues. Am I?”

“No, you’re just a certifiable bitch.” I bolted from the door, hearing her mocking laughter escalate to a feverish velocity as I ran down the side of the building.

I’ll grab a brick and put it through Jace’s shop window. In a panicked motion, I collided straight into someone, but my body didn’t bounce back on impact. My eyes, even after I fought so hard to keep the tears at bay, they watered on a shallow gasp…I didn’t understand.

A hand clasped to the back of my head almost affectionately. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word,” Serena whispered in my ear. “Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.”

Numbness and pain spread through my abdomen. My hands braced to her shoulders, I slowly looked down to see a knife handle sticking out of my stomach, and devastation shattered my heart into pieces. “No,” I whimpered, my knees buckling, and Serena caught me, keeping me upright.

Through blurry eyes, I see Greer walking away, whistling a sad lullaby. Leave me, I cried, hoping someone might find me in time to save me from losing the baby, but then another sharp pain ruptured my flesh, and I knew Serena wanted me to lose my child.

Each stab wound she delivered, I bled tears, knowing I failed to protect the very person who would always love me. Part of me. Part of Liam. Ripped from the protection of my body before I had the chance to hold him, to see his face for the first time and breathe how much I already love him against his soft cheek.

Mustering enough strength to reach between us, I placed a shaking hand on hers, feeling her still beneath my touch. “Help me.” In an awkward tumble, our knees grazed the floor in tandem, and a raw, pained sob ripped from my chest. “Please.”

Serena’s mouth moved, talking, yet all I could hear was the sound of my erratic heartbeat and the thudding pulse clapping in my ears. She cupped my cheek. Her hand, wet and sticky, covered my blood. “And down will come baby,” she cooed, smearing the taste of copper across my dry, parted lips. “Cradle and all.”

Extracting the knife from my punctured stomach, she wiped the blade across my arm and, in a final, heartless moment, she pushed my chest, without any strength or effort, watching my body flop lifelessly against the cold floor.

I sobbed feebly, my head lolling to the side from dizziness and hearing impairment.

Someone touched my cheek, kissed me there, a voice that made me smile.

“You stopped visiting me, Kathy,” I cried, my palms flat to the steel, basement door. “Why did you stop?”

My head lowered, I watched Woody the woodlouse crawling across the concrete floor. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Alexa,” Kathy said, her voice soothing; I missed her so much. “It’s not you.”

“I don’t understand when you speak like that,” I complained, licking tears from my lips. “I just want to see you.”

I heard an audible sigh, but Kathy didn’t respond.

Splaying my fingers on the cold door, I tapped a tune.

Kathy knocked, and I smiled.

Drumming my fingers, I put my ear to the door, listening.

She copied the unprepared melody.

I rapped louder. “I hate being alone in the dark.”

Her patting ceased.

Resting my head to the door, I tucked my knees up to my chest. “I get scared, Kathy.”

“Alexa,” she whispered, sounding closer, clearer.

I choked back another sob. “It’s too cold.”

“Alexa, don’t panic.” Her disembodied voice had my eyes opening. “Now is not the time to panic.”

A constellation of stars twinkled and shined above.

Now is not the time to panic.

Groaning in excruciating pain, I rolled onto my side, then onto my front, the jagged gravel embedded in my palms and knees. My lips wobbled, teeth chattering, I dragged myself forward, silencing a pained cry.

I heard someone call my name, but I was too weak, and semi-consciousness faded the sphere of my wretchedness. When I heard footsteps advance, I slumped forward and fell into darkness.

Chapter 32

Liam

In a state of acoustic shock and confusion, I drove to the Royal London hospital on two wheels. I deserted the Bentley, left it running outside of the emergency unit, knowing that Brad, who travelled behind me in Vincent’s Bugatti, would park off-road on my behalf. I had an out-of-body experience, seeing myself sprint from the stark white vestibule throughout the chemical-smelling hallways.

I never shake. Even in the most challenging, dangerous and life-threatening situations, I maintain my unfaltering equilibrium. But since ending Jace’s call, placating myself manifested as unachievable. I had turbulent spurts of tremors, an unprecedented strain of consternation and all-consuming fear.

“Alexa Haines,” I said breathlessly, wiping ash and sweat from my forehead.

Behind the glass partition, the receptionist on the front desk extracts herself from the amass of nattering co-workers. Loading the computer, she taps Alexa’s details. Her stone-faced expression, increasing my trepidations. “Friend or family member?”

“I’m her…” Placing my shaky hands onto the Silestone-countertop, I dropped my head and inhaled a big breath, holding it for a moment.

Brad and Vincent, I sensed their disquieted nearness behind me.

Fixing her black-framed glass, she tapped a pen on the desk, waiting for me to answer her question.

“He’s in shock,” Brad informed her, latching a firm hand around the nape of my neck. “Just tell us where we can find Alexa—”

“I can’t do that,” she said stubbornly, and my nostrils flared on an inhalation. Her judgmental eyes catalogued my dishevelled appearance, the dirt and grass stains of my shirt. “I can, however, tell you to take a seat in the waiting room.”

I felt my rage building, disseminating through me. “That’s my fucking woman in there,” I barked, slamming a curled-up fist down on the counter. Levelling her with my cold, glassy eyes, I lowered my voice. “Please.” I ripped open my chest and bore my heart and soul in a rare occurrence of saddened vulnerableness. “I love her.”

Brad squeezed my neck and stepped back, his hands burying in his trouser pockets.

Sighing in defeat, she rose from her chair and collected a folder. “Let me see what I can do.”

Disregarding visitors in the cramped seating area, I put my back to the wall and compelled myself to get a handle on my corrosive emotions. Vincent hasn’t uttered a word. Similar to Brad, he remained tight-mouthed. Detached.

Brad raked a hand through his messy hair. “Did Jace tell you what happened?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t let him finish.”

Folding one arm over his chest, Vincent chewed his thumbnail. Our gazes met, and neither of us looked away or broke the silence. He watched me watching him, a storm greying his blue eyes.

To the right of us, the door to the ICU unit opened and a trained nurse, whose eyes scoured the waiting room, paced leisurely.

Declining my perched foot from the wall, I uncurled my spine and stalked towards her with determined strides.

Anticipating an antagonistic family member, she readied herself for whatever the sanctimoniously mannered receptionist had misrepresented.

“Liam Warren.” Identifying myself, I towered above her short, plump frame, trying my utmost best not to intimidate. “I appreciate you have to follow official procedures apropos of patients; however, this is not me staying on the ward after visiting hours or imperiously demanding special treatment for my loved one. Immaterial to what that jumped-up jobsworth told you, I am not here to cause any trouble.” Yet, I thought, locking my jaw. “Alexa Haines. I need to see her.”

“Come with me.” Inserting a key card into the entry system, she pushed the door open and trudged ahead. “Are you a relative?”

“Partner.” Passing a long-line of benched, hysterical people, I cleared my throat and halted at the nurses’ station, where the girl reached across the desk to retrieve a clipboard.

“Alexa Haines,” she murmured, frowning down at the notes. “Yes, the ambulance service brought her in around,” she glimpsed at her wristwatch, “forty-five minutes ago. Accompanied by Mr Jace Williams. Her brother?”

“Yeah,” I backed up his lie. “Where is he?”

“He’s in a private room.” Gesturing for me to follow, she snaked through swarms of busy nurses and stressed-looking doctors into an adjacent hallway. “Did you require medical attention, too?” Her back to a door, she pointed at my grazed cheek. “Accident?”

I scowled. “I’m good.”

“Mr Williams,” she called, pushing open the door. “Your sister’s partner has arrived?” Her unconvinced tone peeved me. “Is that right?”

Hunched forward with his head in his hands, Jace peered up at us. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely, his eyes glassy and bloodshot. “Warren’s kosher.”

Thinning her lips, she gave me a fake smile.

My mouth opened to ask another question, but when Jace stood, and I clapped eyes on his black T-shirt, sodden and clinging to his chest, something inside me snapped. “What the fuck is that?”

The woman bristled. “Mr Warren—”

“Jace,” I snarled, the vein in my neck throbbing. “You better start talking.”

“It’s her blood,” he confirmed the unthinkable, and I staggered backwards. “Alexa, she lost a lot of blood—”

“Let me get a doctor,” the nurse interjected, hurrying out of the room.

I hadn’t veered my eyes from him. “Where is she?” He vacillated. “Jace, don’t make me put you through that fucking window.”

“I found Alexa on the ground outside of the shop, unconscious and covered in blood,” he said grimly, and my world flipped on its axis. “I don’t know how this happened. She was with me one minute and gone the next. Why did she go outside? I don’t know why she left.” My head started to pound. “They carried out emergency surgery within fifteen minutes of our arrival.”

“Blood,” I repeated numbly, my mind struggling to connect his sporadic detailing. “Surgery?”

“I think someone stabbed her,” he croaked, using the heels of his hands to rub tears from his eyes. “Left her for dead.”

Jace’s grieved expression twisted my insides.

Equally benumbed, I shut my eyelids, reopened them, a familiar pain coiling around my heart. I can’t lose her. Not again. I would never survive it. “The baby,” I whispered, and Jace mumbled his uncertainties. “Her bodyguard? Where’s Ted?”

“I don’t know, Warren.” He slumped onto a chair, his arms dangling over the armrests. “I don’t know anything except that our favourite person lies on a surgical bed right now, fighting for her life.”

A loud knock on the door before a doctor—no, a surgeon—entered in his blue scrubs, a bouffant-style cap over his hair. “Sorry for the wait.” He pulled the face mask down, leaving it under his chin. “Mr Bashir, the junior surgeon on standby,” he introduces himself, his sights from Jace to me. “I believe you requisitioned an update?”

“Is Alexa out of surgery?” I asked, hiding my trembling hands in my trouser pockets.

“Unfortunately, no.” His arms crossed. “The surgeon carried out general anaesthetic and an emergency blood transfusion…” An upsurge of light-headedness weakened my knees. “…Hypovolemic shock and intra-abdominal bleeding required a trauma laparotomy…”

“What?” Slapping a palm to the wall, I forced myself to stand upright. “Abdominal bleeding?”

“…Penetrating injuries entered the abdominal cavity, which almost always causes significant damage.” I stopped breathing. “…External bleeding through the wound…”

My jaw slackening, I blinked owlishly.

“There is a high risk of injury to the retroperitoneal structure,” Dr Bashir said, his voice deeply muffled. “…Gynaecological emergency…”

“Gynaecological,” I repeated, the unceasing ringing in my ears, deafening me. “I don’t…”

“Due to necrotic swelling, the surgeon extracted both the right ovary and fallopian tube.”

The drumming in my ears segued into blindsided vibrations until everything went silent. Through impaired vision, I heard an exhaled breath pass my lips. Hollowing my cheeks to fight back burning tears, I lifted a finger. “The baby?”

There was a pause. “I’m sorry, Mr Warren. There was nothing we could do.”

“Shit,” Jace cursed, dropping his head in his hands.

“Would you like me to have someone bring you a drink?” the surgeon asked with composure, accustomed to these distressing situations. “A sweet tea perhaps?”

Blackness veiled my eyes. Anger like never before surged through my body and into my cold veins. My chest heaving at the severity of my breathing, I tore myself away from the room, and every step of my leather shoes resounded against the tiled floor.

Snatching a key card from a moving nurse, who chastised and chased me down, I swiped open the door in time to see Nate and Josh walking through the waiting room. “Ted,” I said, brushing a palm down my face. “Locate his Bentley.”

***

Ted parked his Bentley in the underground parking lot of a four-star hotel. Calculated enough to hide his vehicle with coverage, but he had no knowledge of the tracking device behind the licence plate.

“What my comfortable, ungrateful men fail to remember is these luxurious vehicles belong to one person and one person only. Me. And that motherfucker had the audacity to try and hide the Bentley from me—I pay for the suits on their backs, the shoes on their feet and the ice around their goddamn necks. It’s me who provided them with the keys to top-of-the-range wheels and offered them a cushty, well-paid job—and for what? For them to make a mockery out of me, to abuse my kindness with deceit and take my generosity for granted.”

I toked on a joint, respiring smoke to the dark, starless sky. “So ungracefully unappreciative.” Squatting beside the gagged, pinioned woman on the ground, I moved strands of sweaty hair from her lined forehead. “What did I do to deserve such treacherousness?”

Bug-eyed and sobbing undetectable words of regret, she writhed in agony, the tape around her wrists and ankles, incising her inflamed skin.

Thunderclaps and intermittent lightning predominated the growling circumambient winds of London. Misty raindrops fell from above, dusting us in dampness.

Enwreathed with my loyal men, I stood, yanking the squirming, thrashing woman up with me. “You see,” I breathed in her ear, my eyes on the fire door where Nate, dragging a protesting Ted, joined us on the rooftop, “I didn’t want to haul a woman out of the safety of her bed.”

“Warren,” Ted begged as Nate shoved him to his knees. “It’s not what you think—” Brad impaled his jaw, the gold, sharp knuckle duster, puncturing his cheek. His body shooting across the floor, he groaned, pleading with us to release his wife.

Trembling against me, she whimpered, lolling her head on my shoulder.

“But you chose to hide in this hotel tonight.” My arm around her waist tightened. “You chose to pack a suitcase ready to fly from Heathrow tomorrow. You,” I stressed, reaching up to snatch her neck, “abetted Ted. Supported his decision.” Her chest heaved on strained inhalations of breath. “An accomplice.”

Ted rolled onto all fours. Raising his head, he looked at me from beneath dark, hooded eyes. Omnipresent rain intermixed his tears and diluted the ribbons of blood trickling down his face. “Let her go.”

Ripping the duct tape from her mouth and extracting the sock Brad stuffed down to keep her trap shut, I fisted her hair by the roots, yanking her head back.

Piteously wailing for help, she became boneless in my arms, so delicate and agilely breakable.

Numb inside, I held Ted’s pleading eyes with my unforgiving glare. “Why?”

Ted pondered lying to me.

“For money?” I mused, licking rainwater from my lips. “Did someone pay you to turn a blind eye tonight? Did they,” I yelled, incensed by the deceitfulness from one of my own, “pay you to leave her alone in the cold, huh?”

When the truth flared in his regretful eyes, I let the knife slip from my suit sleeve into my hand. Fingers curled around the handle, I placed the sharpest point to his wife’s neck, deliberately nicking her elegantly elongated throat.

“Please,” she cried, trembling in the winds of fear. “Please don’t hurt me, Warren.” And then, imperceptible and quiet, she whispered, “I’m pregnant.”

Lightning strikes and thunderstorms rained hell on us. It was miserable weather yet convenient.

My heart ached. I hurt for Alexa; I hurt for me. “I didn’t understand the meaning of love until I met her.” No one caught my admission, except Ted’s hysterical wife. “It’s unbreakable—our bond.” Disconnecting from sentimentalism, I morphed into the inborn, vicious man that I am. “When rivals play, London bleeds.”

Roaring, Ted pushed up to his feet, flailing his arms.

“An eye for an eye.” Without an admission of guilt, I stabbed the side of her neck and, in one, fluent action, sliced across her taut flesh. Tossing her body to the cold, wet ground, I slackened my arm, the blade freeing from blood-dripping fingers.

With lamenting torment, Ted skidded to his knees, gathering his dying wife in his arms. “Please, no,” he sobbed, putting his head to her chest. “No.”

Brad handed me a bottle of Macallan.

Unscrewing the cap, chucking it, I put the glass rim to my lips and drank until my chest burnt. Amber liquid trickling down my chin, I wiped it with my sleeve, feeling absolutely nothing for the traitor harbouring repentance on the floor.

Patting his wife gingerly, blood on his palms, Ted withdrew his arms and collapsed onto his backside. Evading biliousness proved impossible. He wretched, splattering violent bursts of vomit over his shoes.

Obtaining the gold Desert Eagle from the waistband of my trousers, I squatted before him, holding the key to his death between us. “You vowed loyalty and bond,” I punctuated each syllable, daring the spineless, renegade to accept my leniency by walking the suicide path. To end his misery, right here in front of a condemning audience. “You joined the syndicate, promising undeviating dependability to your boss.”

His lips meshing into a dour line, he nodded morosely.

“You lied to me.” Forcing the gun handle into his hand, I mustered a guileful smirk. “You betrayed The Brotherhood,” I spoke with refinement, quite articulately. “You, Ted, deserve to die.”

Accepting his fate, Ted wrapped his fingers around the gun and thrust it under his chin. His trigger finger twitched, but he hesitated, whimpering inconsolably to himself. “I beg for a second-chance—”

“Shut the fuck up.” Nate towered behind a kneeling Ted. “Dirty fucking paigon. Nobody wants you here. Nobody’s willing to forgive and forget, so, do us all a favour, Ted, and wedge that barrel in your cunting mouth or I’ll fucking do it for you.”

Timorous, Ted gazed at the sky and separated his wobbling lips. He pushed the gun into his mouth, and his gag reflex threatened more vomit, but he inhaled through his nose, briefly closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

It clicked twice.

Deep, raspy laughter vibrated in my chest. “Your piss stinks.” It’s not often I laugh this much, a real example of a sinister schadenfreude. “Fucking hell.”

Hearing the men’s chuckling delight, Ted retracted the gun; a slither of saliva hanging from his lips. “I thought…”

“You thought I’d be humane enough to let you decide.” One glance to Brad, a silent order. “More fool you.”

Brad and Nate hauled Ted from off the floor, jerking him towards me. Stumbling, he shot his arms out, thinking he’d fall, but he caught his clumsy feet and stopped inches from me. “Warren—”

Unable to tame my vexation, I punched him, my ring-adorned knuckles busting his lip. To the sound of a loud crack, his ass met the floor once more. “Get up,” I ordered, and with great reluctance, he limped to his feet. “Closer.”

Momentarily shutting his eyes, Ted obeyed, putting himself in the firing line. I jawed him. Told him to stand. Landing an uppercut. Told him to stand. Delivered a left hook. Told him to stand. “On your feet, Ted.”

Drenched by the rain and caked in blood, Ted hobbled, dragging his feet into position. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered, his shoulders quaking. “I’m so sorry.”

They couldn’t see the single tear rolling down my cheek, not through the heavy downpour, but I felt it—a reminder of what I lost tonight. What Alexa had lost tonight. “She’s the love of my fucking life.”

Instantaneous acceleration shot my hand forward. I snatched Ted’s throat, and with every ounce of strength I had, I flung his howling body straight over the roof, plummeting him to bone-crushing death. His body contortions mid-air, the powerful collision of him landing on a parked vehicle fragments the glass on impact and sets off the ear-splitting alarm.

I rubbed mist from my face. “Distribute.”

Ignoring the bad weather, Nate flung his holdall onto the floor. He unzipped and passed a stack of files to Josh, who licked a thumb, peeled the notes apart and individually gave them to my men.

“Molly, Greer and Serena,” I began, accepting a pre-rolled blunt from Brad. “Study their profiles. I want you to memorise their features, their flaws. I want their dirty, stinking, ugly fucking mugs entrenched, rooted so far into your skulls, you can’t block them out at night.” Formed in a circle, the men read printed records and studied the old, faded images. “You eat, shit and sleep with those Machiavellian bitches in mind.”

I light the blunt and inhale. “I want you to find them,” I ordered. “Brick-by-brick. Mortar-to-mortar. Tear down every building in the godforsaken city until those fucking cunts hang from my chambers.”

“Boss,” they answered in unison.

“Rough them up some,” I authorised, hearing emergency sirens in the background. “Whatever it takes. Do what you feel is necessary to bring them to me. Break an arm. Extract a tongue—I don’t give a fuck. But I want them alive.” Picking Ted’s shoe from off the floor, I tossed it over the roof gable. “Let tonight be a valuable lesson to you all.”

My lower-ranked men straightened their postures, uneasiness emitting from their ramrod positions.

“You want to be part of the elite? Earn it.” I searched for scruples in their unwavering eyes. “You want to end up like Judas down there? Turn your back on me.”

Muteness. Nobody, not even my most trusted, uttered a response.

“My woman was attacked and left for dead tonight.” If Alexa pulls through, she’ll endure the mental torment and emotional heartbreak of losing our unborn baby. “I am sick to the back teeth of adversaries targeting the woman I chose to love. It ends tonight!” I growled, hating myself for failing her, for not protecting her. “Now fuck off.”

Dispersing across the rooftop, the men leave through the fire door.

I unclenched my jaw. “Where’s Vincent?”

Brad swigged from the Macallan bottle. “Vincy boy didn’t hang around.”

Vincent should be here, I thought, exhaling a rivulet of smoke. “Did he say anything before he left?”

“No,” he said, watching a conscientious Josh reappear from the swinging door. “What’s up, Joshy?”

“Nate informed Reginald,” Josh assured, swiping brown strands of hair from his brow. “He’ll arrive before Homicide.”

Good. Burton will plant evidence, a recently discharged felon no doubt.

Without another order, I separated myself from the men and returned to the hospital to see Alexa. Jace hadn’t left the ICU unit. He slept, though, curled up on a two-seater sofa in the waiting room.

I hunted the floor for Dr Bashir.

Alexa’s out of Theatre.

“…Heavily sedated…” Bashir informed me. “…Waiting for the anaesthesia to wear off…” He led me to her room. “…Patient-controlled analgesia to release doses of pain relief when Alexa wakes up…Mr Warren? Are you listening?”

I barred him from my mind. “I just want to see her.”

Bashir understood. “Be sure to let her rest, Mr Warren.”

My knuckles whitening with tension, I opened the door to Alexa’s room. I rushed to her side, being careful not to knock any machines or disrupt the intravenous needle taped to her hand.

Beautiful, I thought, cupping her pale, grazed cheek and whispering the pad of my thumb across her chapped lips.

Murderous rage resurfaced upon examining her body, too much blood on her abdominal compression garment. “Baby,” I gutturalised, bracing my hands to the pillow on either side of her head. “I’m sorry.” Hiding my head on her shoulder, I kissed the soft spot beneath her ear, inhaling the lasting scent of her sweet perfume. “I’m in love with you, Alexa.”

Stretching out beside her, I slipped my hand under her motionless fingers, feeling her steady pulse against mine. “Don’t let them break you.”

Chapter 33

Alexa

My sore eyes adapting to the bright, blinding light, I awoke to the pervasive smell of chemicals and banal conversations. I did not recognise the voices beyond disorientation, but I had seen a chrome ward screen enough times to ascertain hospitalisation.

Lowering my eyelids, I revisited darkness almost as if I wanted those bodiless, spectral faces to haunt me, to undertone evocations of unfortunate incidents.

Unfortunate, I thought, grappling the paper sheet beneath me. You didn’t pitch-up a luckless bivouac and attract haplessness, Alexa. Your heart-breaking, unspeakable journey has nothing to do with misfortune or an ill-fated confluence of good versus evil.

Engulfed by unmitigated sadness, I put a brake on my mental conversing and scolded myself for self-pitying. What have I ever gained or achieved by throwing a pitiful martyrdom?

“Stay positive,” Kathy would say. “There are always people worse off than you, Alexa.”

But I’m human, Kathy.

Sometimes it’s okay not to be okay.

And I am not okay.

I chance to open my eyes.

Maybe the lights above mattered.

Expelling a long, reinvigorating breath, I curled a hand around my wrist to feel my steady pulse. To live is the greatest achievement of all. No matter what’s happened, my heart continues to beat, to conquer and harden.

I rolled my head to the side and found a beautiful human sleeping upright on a comfortless visitors chair.

Liam Warren.

The man I was fortunate enough to fall in love with.

“Hey,” I croaked, a strain in my throat and chest. “Liam.”

Liam works unsociable hours, and he’s often sleep-deprived, so I hate disturbing him, but I craved his closeness. I wanted him by my side to hold and assure me.

Lost to the vision of him, I marvelled at his wearied yet handsome features. His arms folded, he’s dressed in a pristine, royal blue two-piece suit, which wasn’t unusual, but his growing black stubble had uplifted my eyebrows.

Liam’s never clean-shaven. He almost always sports a six o’clock shadow. Untidy facial hair, though, that’s departing from what’s ordinary.

As if detecting my careful scrutiny, Liam’s eyelashes raised. His impassioned blue eyes owned mine, and something incomprehensible transpired between us, the ensuing taciturnity on both sides, tormenting me.

Disillusionment and wretchedness shinned in his eyes, and panic smeared across my twisted features. “Liam, what’s wrong?”

Forcing a low, weak smile, Liam pushed to his feet and fixed a hand to my pillow. “Morning stranger.” Taking my lips for a firm kiss, he cupped my cheek and surrounded me with his strong manliness. “Are you feeling okay?”

Immersed in the familiar scent of his trademark cologne, I melted to his touch. “I think so?”

Pensively unconvinced, his gaze roamed over my face. “Are you in any pain?”

“Headache?” I mused, not entirely sure. “I feel a little buzzed, to be honest.”

Perching himself onto the edge of the bed, he brought my hand to his lips and breezed a kiss to my fingertips.

I noticed an intravenous needle. “What’s that for?”

“Pain relief,” he confirmed, keeping my hand in his.

Liam’s observable apprehension cast my alertness into overdrive. He was stern, unsmiling and watchful, a discernible conflict greying his eyes.

I feared the unknown.

“How long did I sleep?” I asked, chary of seeking information. “Long enough for you to grow a short beard, right?”

“Thirteen days,” he enlightened me, evading my questioning eyes. “You roused on a few occasions, though.”

Why don’t I remember that?

“You were out of it, Alexa.” He read my mind. “And, when you did come around, you were in too much pain. Dr Bashir, your junior surgeon, he felt it best to keep you sedated.”

Confounded by my lack of memory, I touched the back of my head. “Is there something wrong with me? Do I have some sort of amnesia?”

“No,” Liam’s keen to assure me. “It’s the drugs, Alexa, just give yourself time to recover consciousness.”

Averting my gaze, I inventoried the dreary hospital room. My concern settled on the urinary catheter paraded embarrassingly at the end of my bed. “Oh, God.” Mortified, I draped an arm across my eyes. “Please don’t look at that.”

“Shut up,” Liam chided, withdrawing my arm so that he could see me. “Don’t insult me, Alexa.” When I didn’t respond, he gripped my jaw, urging me to meet him head-on. “Do you want to know what I think?”

Trapped by the intensity of his blue eyes, I chewed my bottom lip nervously. “What do you think?”

“I think you are quite possibly the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” Liam said throatily, his thumb tracing my cheek. “And you’re all mine.”

My lips widened into a smile. “That sounds possessive.”

Liam caught me in his affectionate gaze. “You love it.”

“I…” Serena’s murmured lullaby barraged my thoughts. “Liam, I was attacked. Greer and Serena…Did I tell you this already? I did, didn’t I? Oh, God. Liam, we have to kill them—” His sad eyes cast downward, he covered my mouth with a hand. “Serena,” I mumbled, peeling his fingers from my lips. “She stabbed me, and I thought I was going to die and that…” The baby, I thought, feeling a sudden emptiness inside. “I think she…Liam?”

“Don’t,” he said tightly, clenching his jaw. “Don’t say it, Alexa.”

Hands to the mattress, I strived to pull myself into a sitting position when excruciating pain lanced through my middle section. “Liam,” I hissed, dropping my head against the pillow. “Oh, shit. How bad is it?”

Liam hesitated. “You’re in good recovery—”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” I cried, my hand concealing my face. “Liam, the baby.” Burying his forehead on my shoulder, he pried my hand down and interlaced our fingers. “Liam.”

Breathing against my neck, he shook his head.

“No, Liam.” I tried to sit up, and he pinned my arms to the bed. “Liam, get off me—get off me!” I screamed with more urgency, tears saturating my eyes. “I do not want you to touch me—stop touching me!”

“Alexa,” Liam growled, dodging my futile slaps to his chest. “Calm down—” The room door burst open, and a hard-pressed nurse barrelled inside. “Take that shit away,” he snapped as I thrashed beneath him. “She doesn’t need any more sedatives, so get the fuck out.”

“I want you to get off me,” I cried in his inescapable confinement. “I don’t want him here—I do. Not. Want. You. here.”

Oscillating by the door, the nurse endeavoured to reason with him. “Mr Warren—”

Ripping a spare pillow from the bed, Liam hurled it across the room, striking the anxious nurse in the head. “I said, get the fuck out,” he spat through gritted teeth, and the useless woman scurried back into the hallway. “Alexa—” I slapped him, hard, the loud, callous sound ricocheted around the room. “What have I told you about fucking hitting me?”

“I hate you.” Sobbing and screaming, I wriggled frantically to free myself from him. “I hate you, Liam. You and your stupid family!”

“Do not associate me with them.” He put his red cheek to mine. “You. You’re my family. You are my home. You can yell at me and hit me as much as you want, but it changes nothing between us. I am not going anywhere,” he voiced the very words I once said to him. “It’s you and me, baby. Us against the world. Always.”

Tears poured down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I whimpered, weakening in the centre of regret and resentment. “It’s not your fault. It’s on me. I left Jace’s studio. I put the baby in danger—”

“No,” he repudiates, grasping my neck. “No, don’t put culpability on your shoulders. Recklessness be-damned. You did not deserve this.”

“Do you hate me?” I whispered, watching rain splatters dance on the window.

“Never,” Liam rasped, alleviating his tight hold to my neck and wrist. “I could never hate you, baby.” Thumbing tears from my cheeks, he kissed the crease between my furrowed brows, the tip of my nose and eyelids. “Never.”

“I want to go home,” I cried, my lips wobbling. “I just want to go home, Liam.”

***

After spending two weeks in the hospital, Dr Bashir discharged me under the stern advisement to attend counselling with a psychotherapist who has a particular intrigue with women who suffered a loss during pregnancy. I never comprehended how much I wanted to be a mother until an evildoer stole the opportunity from me, but confiding in a stranger never did work for someone like me.

My first night back in the Manor thwarted quietude and solitude. Imbibing harsh liquor and scarfing Chinese takeout, the Suits thronged the kitchen, a Motown playlist segueing seamlessly in the background.

I love those staunch Suits. Pretending to not be in discomfort or stuffing my face wasn’t my idea of rest, though. I wanted to lock myself in the bedroom, close the curtains, pull a duvet over my head and sleep until this cessation of this torturous nightmare. Nonetheless, I feigned appreciation and returned their loving hugs and murmured sentiments.

Brad planted a kiss to my cheek. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Damn, Alexa,” Nate drawled, squeezing the nape of my neck. “You sure know how to give a man a heart attack.”

“Warren assigned me to your security detail.” Josh wrapped me in his arms, landing a kiss atop my head. “Or rather, I offered until Nate’s trained the new recruits.” His lips tickled my ear. “Fuck, Ted. Warren made him bite the dust.”

I never doubted Liam. “I hope he suffered.”

If Ted hadn’t betrayed the syndicate and left me unsupervised, Josh and I would be having a different conversation. He’d be his typical joker-self. I’d still be pregnant.

My hunch anent Ted substantiated. Unlike the other Suits, Ted and I hadn’t bonded. Pocketing bribery money and turning his back on someone he prejudged and detested made his disingenuous pretence and intentional neglect much easier. I won’t lie to myself and say his deception doesn’t hurt. It really hurts. I am not a disposable object. I am a human being.

“I’ll take care of you,” Josh assuaged, draping an arm across my shoulders. “It’ll be like the good ol’ days.”

I delivered more fake smiles.

Nate invited Blaire.

Blaire listens to Nate discuss barracks for recruits, but her covetous eyes are on Liam like he’s a prize to claim. I didn’t want those boyfriend-nabbing talons anywhere near him.

In fact, why is Blaire in my home, drinking vodka and socialising? We aren’t friends, and she isn’t Liam’s relative or a member of the organisation, so she doesn’t belong here.

We locked eyes, and considering we equally share a heinous past, nothing but sheer aversion muddied our ambience.

Embittered yet too benumbed to ask questions, I forked Chinese food across my plate. Everyone else was tucking into the second helping of fried meats and noodles, but I couldn’t stomach the smell, let alone consumption.

It was too quiet.

I looked up to see everyone watching me. “What?”

“Nothing,” they lied in unison, proceeding their conversations.

Blaire helped herself to my fridge, to my vodka bottle, to my tall glass. “How are you feeling, Alexa?”

Surely, Liam and his men don’t fall for her meekness. It’s fake. Her act of kindness doesn’t work on me. I know malevolence when it’s so brazenly glaring at me. That arrogant bitch is the devil’s serpent reincarnated.

“Never been better,” I responded sarcastically, shoving a mushroom in my mouth.

Josh snorted. I curbed a smirk.

Still chewing a mushroom, I watched Liam take a phone call before he exited the kitchen. Minutes later, he’s back by the long-stretched marble table alongside his men, pouring himself a whiskey. His brother, Vincent, tailored in an impressive three-piece suit, joins the impromptu gathering.

Vincent and Liam conversed in hushed tones, a strained exchange between two brothers. Part of me felt sorry for Vincent. It’s manifest he’s incapable of conforming to disciplinarians, but, out of respect, he withstands Liam’s harsh upbraiding with self-restraint and stoicism.

“Affirmative,” Vincent clipped, excusing himself from their short, curt conversation.

At the marble island, Vincent ladled rice onto a plate and accepted a glass of whiskey from Blaire, the stuck-up she-devil playing hostess in my kitchen. “Angel,” he whispered, pulling up a stool to sit beside me. “Retrieve the claws.”

I softened my iron grasp on the fork.

Reaching into his inner suit pocket, Vincent extracted a purple velvet pouch and arranged it on my thigh. “For you.”

My eyebrows meeting, I unknotted the delicate ribbon and dropped a white gold charm onto my palm, the scintillating white diamonds authenticating its sumptuousness.

“It’s beautiful, Vincent. Thank you.” I accredit him with a grateful smile. “But why?”

“The Spanish believe Indalo’s ghost carried a rainbow in his hands.” Obtaining my arm behind the island, he clasped the symbolic charm of Indalo to my mother’s bracelet. His thumb grazing my inner wrist, he lifted his muscular shoulders. “You could do with a potent talisman.”

I certainly wasn’t opposed to a guardian angel.

Blaire giggled.

My smile fading, I rolled my eyes to the back of my head.

“You don’t like her,” Vincent said confidently, knocking back a shot of whiskey. “Why?”

“I don’t know her.” Tapering down sour bitterness, I pushed my barely touched food aside. “Besides, what’s there to like?”

“Perhaps you should get to know her.” Turning to face me, he weaved his ringed fingers and gave me a pointed look. “Having female companionship may serve a purpose.”

“I don’t need company.” The Suits compensate for my insufficient friendship circle. “Plus, I have Chloe.”

His eyebrow arched. “You can hardly consider Stone a friend, Angel.”

“Stone?” My forehead lined in perplexity. “Who?”

“Chloe Stone?” He glared at me in puzzlement. “Your supposedly best friend?”

“Stone,” I voiced weakly, my dark frown reappearing. “I don’t understand.”

“You wouldn’t. As I said, you can hardly consider her a friend.” Unscrewing a Jameson bottle, he refilled his glass. “She’s married.”

“Married…” My chest tightened, a mixture of blind happiness and silent dejection unfurling from my tight, beating heart. “Oh, I didn’t know…As in Harold Stone?” The guy who attended Chloe’s father’s banquet; the man she flushed about the morning after I received client money from Brad at Club 11. “Wow, I mean, that’s incredible. I am so happy for her.”

Vincent harrumphed. “You sound it.”

I snubbed his unnecessary sarcasm. “I suppose I had never considered missing my best friend’s wedding is all.” A relevant question intruded my nostalgic thoughts. “Anyway, how do you know all this? Are you friends with Harold or something?”

“Or something,” Vincent repeated in a hoarse undertone, pursing his full, thick lips. “No, I don’t align myself with the likes of Stone.” He ground down on his teeth, and the muscle in his jaw throbbed. “Liam might have mentioned her once or twice.”

Strange. Liam hadn’t told me. In fact, he’s never paid that much interest in Chloe or her lifestyle unless I broached the subject. “Immaterial to my relationship with Chloe, I have no interest in building any relationship with the woman currently dribbling over…” My cheeks reddened. “Liam.”

His finger traced the circumference of the glass, the white gold cross dangling from his earlobe, gaining most of my observation. “Liam only has eyes for you.”

Decluttering my head, I glanced at Liam, who’s already studying me, and provided a reassuring smile.

Only, Liam’s not convinced. With his warm gaze, he implored further assurance from me.

He doesn’t need additional stress or the burdensome obligation of my wellbeing and exuberance.

My throat dried. Placing my palms onto the counter, I stood to grab a drink to slake thirst when a side-splitting pain shot through my abdomen. “Mm,” I moaned softly, squeezing my eyes shut. “Oh, God.”

“Alexa.” Josh snaked an arm around my waist, keeping me upright. “What are you doing, woman? You need to take it easy.”

“I’m thirsty.” Passing over everyone’s attentive vigilance and sudden mutism, I dabbed sweat from my brow. “Could you get me a drink, please?”

“Of course.” Josh gingerly withdrew his arm. He went to the fridge’s water and ice dispenser to fill me a glass. “At your service,” he joked, setting the glass in front of me, “my lady.”

“Thank you.” Blinking haziness from my eyes, I curled my fingers around the glass, seeing double the amount if digits. “I…” My hand shook as I lifted the rim to my lips and sipped—it fell through my fingers, the loud shatter dispersing across the counter. “I’m sorry.” Blood whooshing in my ears, I shot out my trembling hands and collected broken shards, the sharp edges nicking my fingers. “I don’t…”

I felt tears on my cheeks.

Why am I crying?

It’s just broken glass.

Josh touched my elbow. “Alexa—”

“Stop,” I snapped, not wanting everyone fussing over me. “It’s only glass. I can buy another glass, Josh.”

He stepped back, holding up his hands in surrender.

Blood trickled down my fingers.

It doesn’t hurt.

Why would it hurt?

It’s only a scratch.

Another scar.

I have plenty of scars.

Indelible and visible.

“Baby, breathe,” Liam whispered in my ear, his protective arm curled around me. “Breathe.”

Respiring a caged breath, I peered up at him from wet eyelashes, wondering when he’d moved across the kitchen to intervene.

My quivering lips flattened. “Hm?”

Liam turned me to face him, putting my back to the others. “It’s okay,” he said quietly, pinching shards from my bloodied fingers, casting them onto Josh’s waiting palm. “I got you.”

“How can you say that to me?” I sobbed, the unbearable ache in my chest intensifying. “It’s not okay! I am not okay!” My cheeks drenched in tears of melancholy, I shoved his chest, smearing wet crimson on his white shirt. He didn’t budge, the indomitable man. “It will never be okay! I’m fucking heartbroken, Liam!”

Locking his jaw, he reached for me. “Alexa…”

“Don’t touch me. Why does everyone keep touching me?” I pushed him again. And again. My hands aimlessly whacked the air between us. “Why?” Screaming, I tugged my hair by the roots. “Why does bad stuff always happen to me?” He captured my wrists. “Why, Liam? Why?”

My knees buckled. Before my backside greeted the floor, Liam swept me into his arms and conveyed my thrashing, kicking, protesting body out of the room. “That’s right,” he growled, enduring my frenetic outburst. His hold on me tightening. “Get it all out.”

Inside our bedroom, Liam forgoes the light switch and spreads my body onto the bed beneath him. The moon’s soft light drifted through the blinds, illuminating the anger in his eyes and the nail marks scratched across his cheek as he held himself above me.

Immobilised by shame and guilt, I slackened my arms and hiccupped muffled cries. He pressed a thumb to my palm and made lazy circles to my skin. Tenderly, he put my hand to his lips, sucking the rivulets of blood and pain from my fingers into his mouth.

Liam dipped his head to kiss me. I dismissed him, denied him of my love, nuzzling my head into the pillow.

“Baby,” he said in a strained voice, his fingers combing hair from my face. “Talk to me.”

“I have scarring and tubal damage,” I whimpered, snivelling behind a clenched fist. “Bashir said fertility—”

“No.” Liam seized my jaw, forcing me to make eye contact. “I refuse to conclude infertility. Yes, it’ll take time to conceive again, but it’s not impossible.” He put his forehead on mine. “I will give you another baby.”

Sobbing harshly, I heaved for air to reach my lungs. “I want the one I’ve lost, Liam.”

Knowing he couldn’t give me that, Liam expels a long breath as if needing to calm himself.

“I love you.” His knuckles skimmed my cheek, and I flinched, recoiling from his gentle touch. He paused, his fingers clenching into a fist. “Alexa…”

Snivelling, I shake my head.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Liam kissed my cheek and shifted off the bed. Bright light spilt into the room when he opened the door, but blackness and tranquillity soon blanketed me on his departure.

Alone, devastated, aching all over, I rolled onto my side, wincing from the agonising pain in my lower stomach. I pulled the duvet over my head and hid from the rest of the world.

Chapter 34

Alexa

“Healing nicely.” With dutiful fingers, a district nurse examined my abdominal stitches and packed the inflamed, swollen area in tight gauze and adhesive tape. “The doctor has prescribed additional pain relief.” She snapped sterile gloves from off her hands. “What about repose, Miss Haines? Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Yes,” I lied, fixated on the crystal light fixture weeping cuts of glittering glass from the ceiling. “Plenty.”

“Any recollection of who attacked you?” She probed in support of the metropolitan. “Anything you say may lead detectives in the right direction. I assume you want the perpetrator behind bars?”

Feeble snitching is prohibited. Serena’s and Greer’s fate was syndicate business. Once Liam uncovers their hideout, he will deal with them however he deems fit, which, in all honesty, after what they did to me, I pray for unmerciful barbarity and savage gruesomeness. “No memory whatsoever.”

Not buying my lie, she exhaled deeply. “If you insist.”

Wiping a cold sweat from my forehead, I take in a deep breath and exhale slowly, shifting my weight for further muscle relaxation.

“Are you sure that you’re alright?” Her infallible, all-knowing stare roamed my hard-hearted yet wearisome features. “You look a bit pale. Post-operative rest is the most important desideratum for convalescence.”

Honestly, the way her deprecatory stare drills into me, you’d think I was outdoors doing drunken cartwheels. “I know,” I replied sullenly, draping an arm across my tired, prickling eyes. “You can go now.” My cold, pointed dismissal was unwarranted, but a smattering of small talk wasn’t on the agenda. “Josh will see you out.”

“Get sufficient rest, Miss Haines.” Annoyance supplanted her concern. File tucked into the nook of her arm, she collected strewn medical supplies and beelined the bedroom door. “I’ll be sure to inform Mr Warren of your healing process.”

In the hallway, Josh dropped his propped-up foot from the wall and helped the nurse convey two traditional leather bags to her car.

Soon afterwards, Josh re-emerged, shutting the bedroom door to bask us in a cordial, serene ambience. “You good?” he asked, and I nodded, repositioning to my side; however, my circumventing efforts proved to be ineffectual because he rounded the bed and squatted in front of me, bolstering us eye-level. “You didn’t eat the sandwich I prepared for you?”

It felt more like a warrantless accusation than an innocuous question. “I wasn’t hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten a decent meal in almost four days, Alexa.” His castigatory brusqueness made it difficult to disguise my rising ire. “If you don’t eat something by the time Warren gets home? I’ll have to alert him of your stubbornness.”

I bit back tetchiness. “Liam’s hardly interested in my dietary consumption, Josh.”

“See, that’s where you are wrong.” His brown eyes smouldered like hot embers. “Warren instructed three meals a day to ensure a quick recovery, so he’ll demand updates the second he walks through the front door. Please, for both our benefit, eat the fucking sandwich.”

Stalling my escalating indignation, I carefully pulled myself into a sitting position and reached for the plated BLT. To my chagrin, it tasted worse than it looked, the unpalatable combination of grainy mustard and creamy mayonnaise attacked my taste buds as I sank my teeth into the malted, seeded layers of stodgy carbohydrates. “Maille wholegrain and cold bacon, huh?”

“Ah, a Dijon addict.” Standing to his full, imposing height, Josh folded his arms. “I prefer the American stuff personally.”

“I am not addicted to mustard, Josh.” My brows drew in perplexity. “But if I had to choose, then, yeah, I’d go for the American sauce, too.” Wolfing down another three bites, I set the dismantled sandwich aside and dusted breadcrumbs from my fingers. “Can I sleep now?”

My unenthusiastic attempt of feasting displeased Josh. “Sure.” Pouting his lips to foil bickering, he nabbed the plate and exited the bedroom, leaving me alone with only my distressing thoughts to contend with.

***

The time jammed at midnight. I know this because the ticking hand ceased to exist. Reaching under my pillow, obtaining the phone, I switched on the torch and shone light across the stonework mantelpiece, highlighting the antique clock.

Three a.m. marked my phone screen.

Apparently, I have no actual concept of how to tell the time.

Putting my back to the headboard, I stared down at the bright screen and then to the cold, empty spot beside me.

Liam’s not in bed.

With reservations, I climbed out from under the coverlets, pulled on one of Liam’s training hoodies and wandered down the hallway, to the bifurcated staircase. My palm gliding down the custom gold handrail, I descend the marble stairs, listening for any conversations remote from the grand lobby.

At ground level, I located Josh in the palatial billiard room. His suit jacket strewn onto the brown chesterfield chair and his shirt sleeves rolled up casually at his elbows. Potting a red ball on the pool table, he regards me with a subtle chin jerk. To his right, an unidentifiable Suit positioned a hand to the green velvet, stabilising his wooden cue.

Without a word of utterance, I pushed myself away from the doorframe and ambled towards Liam’s office. I rapt my knuckles on the door and shoved the heavy wood forward to pop my head inside. “Liam?” I called, but the Suits weren’t relaxing on the leather sofas, and Liam wasn’t throned behind his desk.

Yanking open the drawer to his desk, I find a screwdriver and various sized batteries, close his office door and revisit the dark solitude of my bedroom.

Flipping over the clock, I unscrewed the lid, switched the batteries to amend the time and crawled back into bed.

The time stopped when the beautiful sunrise bathed our horizon.

Liam still hadn’t come home.

***

I often found myself standing at the bedroom window, overseeing our suited security patrol in the Manor gardens. Josh frequently abuses his higher-ranked position by taunting them from the raised patio, where he lounges on a sunbed, drinking neat whiskey. His eyes framed by designer sunglasses, he points an authoritative finger from one side of the garden the other, and the dejected, pallid Suits rush around like headless chickens, keen to please and obey.

Maddened by Josh’s unauthorised grilling, I pattered downstairs and through the cavernous kitchen, fetched a plastic jug from the cupboard and filled it to the brim with ice-cold water.

His arms tucked behind his head, Josh bakes his bare-chested skin, the buttons of his shirt revealing his chiselled V-line and muscular rigidity.

“My drop tops at the parking lot—and I wanna take you back to my spot,” he sings together with Marvin Scandrick, albeit he’s not as harmonious or mellifluous. “If you’re sexy and you know it clap your hands.” Extending his arms above, he clapped his proclamation on an unsubtle hip thrust. “If you’re sexy—” I splashed him, splurging ice blocks and freezing water across his taut body. “Alexa, what in the bastard fuck?” he screamed, stumbling to his feet. “You made me wet!”

“No shit, Sherlock.” I tossed the jug over my shoulder, and it landed in the swimming pool. “Quit bossing the new recruits around, asshole. Haven’t you got anything better to do than sunbathing and ruining such a great song with your shrieking? You sounded like a dying cat.”

“Okay, the water hadn’t offended me because I needed to cool down.” Peeling the doused shirt from his body, he dropped it on the floor. “But saying my vocals are that of a decrepit feline is a bit uncalled for.”

“Decrepit feline wasn’t…” Why do these men fabricate narratives? “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Go inside and do something productive, Josh. Leave the poor men to do their job without the increasing pressure of you breathing down their necks.”

“Fine.” Whipping a suit jacket over his shoulder, Josh stormed inside. “I’ll waste my afternoon annoying you instead.”

Goodness grief.

***

The clock’s ticking hand stationed.

Fingering the imaginary patterns on the satin duvet, I laid on my back, pondering why the stupid mantelpiece tambour continues to lose battery life.

Phone in hand, I dragged myself out of bed and flashed a light on the useless, lying clock. Midnight it claimed, but the four-thirty digital time on my phone screen suggested otherwise.

I switched the batteries and amended the time.

Why isn’t Liam home and in bed?

Creaking open the bedroom door, I glanced down the quiet, night-time hallway. Vaguely, I hear male conversations, echoing from the foyer. Brad, I thought, resting a shoulder to the wall. He’s receiving a savage lecture from his boss.

Upon detecting heavy footsteps, I hurried back to bed and buried myself under the cover, pretending to be asleep.

Liam arrived soon after. He locked the door and went straight to the walk-in wardrobe. I didn’t need to look to know he’s grabbing a towel for a late-night shower. Entering the en-suite bathroom, he turned on the light, his dark shadow gliding across the wall—darkness.

I flung the covers from my face and gazed at the closed bathroom door. I couldn’t do more than kiss Liam, not without possible strain or further damage to my stomach, but I missed him—craved his husked assurances and defensive hold more than ever.

My feet sinking into the plush carpet, I gravitated to the door and worked the handle. Hot steam emitted from the glass shower cubicle, and I could fuzzily make out his physique behind the frosted glass.

In a moment of devoted love, I contemplate meeting him under the warm spray when I see his folded white shirt on the laundry hamper, the foundation stains on his sleeve and shoulder sending my anxieties into a rampage. Picking up the crisp cotton, I analysed the marks meticulously to be sure it wasn’t my mind playing cruel tricks on me. No, the plum-coloured lipstick on the cuff hadn’t influenced an illusion or false belief.

Is this why Liam’s coming home so late? He’s at the office all night, entertaining club women. No, I shook my head. He’d never cheat on me, especially after the pain I recently suffered.

He promised veneration and faithfulness.

How can I deny the obvious, though?

It’s here for me to see as clear as day.

Placing the shirt back onto the pile, I skulked out of the bathroom and into bed. My head nuzzled to the pillow, I swiped a loan tear from my cheek and placed myself right at the edge of the mattress.

After washing whoever’s stench from his body, Liam killed the shower and knotted a towel around his waist. He spent far too long by the basin, brushing his teeth and scrutinising the man staring back at him in the mirror.

Was it regret in his eyes?

Did guilt weigh down on his shoulders?

Towel-dried and disgustingly handsome, Liam pulled on a pair of black boxer briefs, the material clinging to his lower body. Dithering with jogging pants, he decided against wearing them and carefully peeled the duvet back to climb into bed.

Breathing out an enervated sigh, he rested on his back for some time, and I could almost hear the cogs rotating inside his head. He put his bare chest to my back and inhaled the nape of my neck.

Although I was seconds from bursting into tears, his tender finger strokes to my thigh invigorated me.

“Baby,” he whispered in my ear, trailing his smooth lips along my shoulder. “I need to see you.”

My shoulders sinking, I shirked away from his advances. “I don’t want you to touch me, Liam.”

His hand stilled on my leg. “You don’t have to be so repulsed by my closeness, Alexa.”

I was disgusted by him—period. “Where were you?”

“The club,” he answered evasively, omitting any details of female companionship, of course. “I texted—asked if you wanted me home earlier this evening and you ignored me. Am I supposed to presume otherwise if you don’t communicate with me?”

“What were you doing at the club?” I asked observantly, a manifestation of mistrust in my cracked voice. “Well?”

“What’s the question?” Liam forced me onto my back, and I veered my eyes, not wanting to look at him. “Alexa, talk to me.”

I am not strong enough to handle his recent infidelities, nor do I have the mental capacity to withstand supplemental torture of unhappiness. “Nothing,” I lied, smiling flatly. “I’m just tired.”

My response hadn’t satisfied Liam. His eyebrows tugging into a tight grimace, he brushed a strand of hair from my cheek, curling it behind my ear. “Do you need me to change your dressing?”

“No, it’s fine.” The thought of bearing my raw, jagged, hideous scars to Liam nauseates me. “A district nurse regauged them for me.”

“Okay.” His nose nudged mine before he dipped his head to kiss me. Bending my neck, I gave him my cheek, and he paused, his lips hovering at the corner of my mouth. “Alexa?”

My hand curled into fists. “I’m not in the mood for sex, Liam.”

“Sex?” he rasped, gripping my jaw. “I don’t recall voicing such presumptuous suggestiveness, Alexa. I merely wanted to give my woman a kiss goodnight.”

I didn’t want his hands on my body, his lips on my skin. “Not tonight.”

“Not tonight,” he repeated in sheer dismay. “No problem.” His jaw muscle throbbing, Liam rolled off me and settled onto his side, giving me his broad, muscular back. “Night, baby.”

My silent tears soaked the pillow.

***

“When did you last shower?” Josh’s accusatorial tone shrilled me from dreamless slumber. “And don’t even start me on those legs.” From beneath the duvet, he snatched my ankle and, to my humiliation, examined the unshaved hideousness I hid beneath black knee-high socks. “Wow, I mean, I have no words for such ugliness.”

“The quality of being repulsively unbecoming expounded, asshole.” I felt a sharp pinch. “Ouch, Josh!” I tried to take back my leg, but his hand on my ankle strengthened. “Did your fingers just extract hair from my knee?”

His thumb and forefinger rubbing together, he flicked the nanoscopic hair somewhere to his right. “Are you allowed to have a bath?”

“No.” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “A light shower, but I don’t want to take one, and then, I don’t know, tear my stitches open and spill my intestines onto the bathroom floor or something.”

Nonplussed, Josh blinked. “Ghastly overshare.” His fingers to my elbow, he helped me stand. “I can help.”

“No.” I snatched my arm back. “Liam would kill you, Josh.”

“Alexa, calm your tits.” With a towel and a change of clothes in hand, Josh coaxed me into the bathroom, the hot spray already beating against the floor tiles. “Keep your underwear on. Look.” He points to the temporary plastic chair. “I got you a nice, comfortable seat.”

Luxuriating did sound like heaven. “Okay.” Whilst I peeled off my oversized T-shirt, Josh rested one knee to the floor and helped roll down my knee-high socks. “Am I a hindrance, Josh?”

“No,” he said, but I was unconvinced. “I like spending time with you, Alexa.”

I put a hand on his head for balance. “Wouldn’t you rather be with Liam and the others?”

“No.” He tossed my clothes into the laundry basket. “I’d prefer to be with you, keeping you safe.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to probe about Liam’s late-night home visits, but it’s selfishly unfair to put Josh in an awkward position.

Leaving the glass door open, I entered the cubicle and sat down.

Eliminating his suit jacket, Josh put his shirt sleeves to his elbows and tweaked the multiple shower jets until a soft spray replaced the heavy, cascading water. Immersed in scent-free bubbles, I accepted a shampoo bottle from him and lathered my hair.

Josh moved to stand across from me. His legs crossed at the ankles, he put his back to the wall and waited for me to finish. “Do you want me to turn around?”

“Please,” I said, and he listened. “Thank you, Josh.” Unclasping my bra, I rolled down my underwear and kicked the lace aside. “I soaked my dressing.”

“I’ll replace it for you,” he assured, jangling loose change in his pocket. “Are you almost ready?”

“One moment.” Washing the thick, strength-restoring conditioner out of my hair, I quickly scrubbed my body and then turned the jets off. “I need a towel.” He aimlessly hurled a thick towel in my direction. Being careful not to slip, I stood and buried myself in softness. “All set.”

Inside the bedroom, Josh gave me a few minutes to change into snug leisurewear. “Lie down.”

I did as instructed.

Josh wriggled his fingers into sterile gloves. “Lift your T-shirt for me.” I did, and he carefully peeled the soaked bandages from my middle section. “Have you looked at these yet?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?” He organised essentials into an orderly pile on the bedside table. “Seriously this is like proliferating healing shit.”

Good to know, I thought, deviating my attention to the window.

“I don’t think we should wrap these anymore,” he mused, the pad of his finger tracing one of many remodelling lines. “It’s not swollen or oozing, Alexa. Yeah, I think some air will do the healing process some good.”

“Okay.” Lifting myself upright, I lowered the hem of my T-shirt. “Are they ugly?”

Quirking an eyebrow, Josh stuffed the wet bandages into a knotted carrier bag. “Your wounds?”

Nibbling my lower lip, I delivered a curt nod.

“No,” he lied, itching the crease above his brow. “War wounds, Alexa. Own them.”

Yes, because a daily reminder of what I suffered is the exactness of what my fragility requires—not.

“I hope you like subs.” Josh unzipped his holdall, grabbed two wrapped, toasted sandwiches and joined me on the bed. “Flaming meatballs for me, baby,” he joshed, slapping fodder on my hand with a cheeky wink. “For you, I played it safe. Cold deli meats and melted cheese.”

“Thank you.” I unwrapped the sub and extracted lettuce. Amidst Josh’s overconsumption of large bites, I perked my ears up to listen for the clock’s ticking hand. “The clock pisses me off,” I hummed, biting into turkey and ham. “I change the batteries every night, yet for some fathomless reason, it stops when the hand strikes twelve. Why is that?”

“Who cares?” Chewed sub stuffed inside his cheek, Josh eyed the clock. “Just buy a new one.”

“I don’t want to buy another one.” Casting off the sandwich, I climbed off the bed to pick up that godforsaken clock. “I want this one to work.” Shaking the vintage frame, I slapped the wooden case, and a gold screw fell onto the carpet. “Oh, see? Why am I so fucking clumsy—so fucking stupid.”

Josh warily rose to his feet. “Alexa—”

“I fuck everything up, Josh,” I argued, furiously shaking and twisting the cogs. “Why isn’t it working?”

He tried to gain the clock. “Alexa—”

Snatching in a hitched breath, I lunged it at the wall, destroying the wooden casing. Unshed tears brimmed my eyes. I studied the shattered glass and broken parts with a strong urge to rebuild the pieces.

Josh slipped past me to clear the aftermath of my unexplainable outburst.

“Leave it,” I ordered, and his hand stilled mid-reach. “I can clean up my own mess.” When he complained, I gestured to the door. “I want to be alone.”

Schooling his features, Josh pulled on his suit jacket and left the room, not before breathing a kiss to my forehead.

***

Josh hasn’t pestered lately. I hear his powerful voice boom downstairs and, on occasion, catch his footsteps lingering outside my bedroom door.

Since Josh’s unexpected at work, he often busies himself in the regal billiard room, or he’ll take a swim in our heated indoor swimming pool.

Too much time on his hands results in boredom. Josh drinks like a fish and smokes weed like it’s to be extinct. While he snores on the sofa inside the theatre room, I tiptoed to the kitchen to steal a bottle of vodka.

On the marble counter, I find a yellow sticky note atop a plastic container saying, “Eat me.”

Scrunching Josh’s penmanship into a ball, I chucked it in the bin and unclipped the colourful premade salad and cold, herby potatoes. Dithering with a fork in hand, I stab a cucumber and compel myself to eat. Two cherry tomatoes later, I scrape everything into the bin and layer newspaper over the evidence so that Josh doesn’t upbraid me for practicing abstention.

Placing a ceramic mug on the stonework table, I unscrew bottled vodka and pour myself a dangerous amount. In one swallow, I tilt my head back and relish in the coarse, burning sensation sloping down my throat. Licking its distilling flavour from my lips, I splashed another shot into the mug and repeated the ingesting process.

Unlocking my phone, I checked to see if Liam’s messaged me.

Liam: Are you feeling any better?

Liam: Do you fancy some company tonight?

Liam: I could grab us Italian food and wine.

Brad: How’s the head, Boo?

Liam: At least, let me know if we are okay, Alexa.

Jace: Alexa, I need you to call me. I can’t think straight. We haven’t talked once since the accident. Please, I am worried about you. And we both know Warren’s not overly forthcoming with reassurances.

I switched off my phone.

***

At four o’clock in the morning, I towed the lamp across the room and placed it on the carpet.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I chucked my hair into a messy knot on top of my head and arranged the fragmented clock.

Using a key to unseal the cardboard box, I empty glue, tape and screws by my feet.

Starting with the olive ash burl overlays, I glued the intricate pieces back together and conscientiously reconstructed the base and arched glass top.

Behind me, the bedroom door creaked open, and Liam’s footsteps came to an abrupt stop upon finding me, from his perspective, outlandishly crafting on the floor at odd, unsociable hours. “Alexa?” He switched on the leading light, brightening the entire room. “What are you doing?”

I peered at him over one shoulder. Liam’s dishevelled suit and blood-shot eyes deceived the sobriety of his baritone voice. Arrogantly composed, he held my eyes while unbuttoning his shirt, letting the fabric seamlessly slip from his defined shoulders.

“Where were you?” I asked, glueing and taping the gilded-finished chapter ring. “Are you drunk?”

“Never.” Sitting on the black chaise lounge, Liam leant forward to undo his shoestrings. “Again, what are you doing?”

“Fixing the clock,” I said a bit snappishly. When I raised my judgmental eyes, I caught Liam using a knuckle to deaden an itch from his nostril. “Are you coked-up?”

“Does it matter?” he husked, standing to unbuckle his belt, the gold and white diamond buckle, clanking together. “Get off the floor.”

My blood boiled. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Drawing in a deep breath through his nose, Liam briefly glared at the ceiling. “Get off the floor, Alexa.”

“Why?” I rowed, adding the final stud to the framework—he ripped me off the ground by my elbow. “Liam!” Uncurling his fingers from my skin, I retracted my arm. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“If you want to repair something, take it to my office and sit behind a desk.” He tossed his trousers onto the chair. “You do not belong on a cold floor, especially in the crucial moments of post-operative care.”

With a scathing glare, Liam stalked into the bathroom and crashed the door. I shouldn’t pry or investigate, but while he’s in the shower, I fossick his trouser pockets to search his phone. Double-checking he’s not standing there, watching me, I unlocked the screen and opened his messages and call log. Nothing stood out or unsettled me. Back and forth conversations with his closest men, an array of updates from Josh.

Chiding my nonsensically indicting thought process, I anxiously chewed my thumbnail when his phone vibrated, a message from an unsaved contact.

Unknown: Thank you for tonight 😉

Rage heated my veins. Pretending to be Liam, I typed a response.

Liam: Whatever for?

Unknown: For accepting me, I guess.

It took me three seconds to summarise.

Liam: Blaire?

Unknown: Yeah?

I oscillated with a response.

Unknown: You didn’t know it was me?

Liam: Obviously.

God, I am gritting my teeth in the hope to singe Liam’s web of lies.

Unknown: Obviously…Well if you ever need to offload on me again? Know that I am a good listener, Boss. Amongst other things…

Liam: Meaning?

Unknown: I know you have it tough with the distressed wife and all, but I am happy to alleviate your stress again…;-)

I deleted the message thread and blocked Blaire’s number from his phone.

Alleviate his stress again, she had said.

What does that mean?

Sexually? Romantically? Is Blaire the reason Liam’s been coming home so late? Or is he emotionally offloading to his newly hired female?

Both conjectures made me sick with anger and jealousy.

Even if Liam hadn’t touched Blaire, I am not okay with him discussing our relationship problems with someone like her.

Behind the bathroom door, the raining shower terminated. I put Liam’s phone back inside the trouser pocket and surveyed him dispassionately as he drifted across the room to dry and change.

His upper body glistening in water droplets, Liam, adjusting his white boxer briefs, came to my side and silently looked at me.

For too long, we remained impassively ponderous, but he broke first, rustling his knuckles along my arm to smooth a hand over my shoulder.

My eyes flickering shut, I shuddered into goosebumps, expelling a long, pained breath.

Liams warm, damp lips replaced his hand, and savouring tongue-fluttering found its way to the column of my neck. I felt his thudding heart against my back as his strapping arms wrapped around me, keeping me locked inside the thrall of his possessive protectiveness.

“Baby,” he whispered, my throat bobbing in his hand. “Don’t shut me out.” Nibbling my earlobe, inhaling my scent, he flattened a palm to my stomach, and I bristled, shirking from his investigatory advances. “Don’t hide from me.”

“I don’t want you to touch me, Liam.” Panic clogged my throat, tightening and restricting my air supply. “Just stop touching me—I don’t want your disgusting hands on me.” The second those harsh words left my mouth, he retreated, lengthening the space and uncomfortableness between us. “Where were you?”

“Work.” His eyes sliced. “You know what I do for a living, Alexa. What’s with the interrogational treatment recently? What, I got to explain myself now?” He almost came forward but hesitated. “What am I missing here, baby?”

I quirk a tight smile. “Nothing.”

“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered harshly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I did not elect myself for this.”

“What, and I did?” I argued, absentmindedly magnetising to him. “I asked to be knifed within an inch of my fucking life.”

“Watch your mouth,” he barked, attempting to capture my wrist. “Alexa—”

“Did I ask for your senile sisters to rip the baby out of my womb?” My outrage mounted to perilous heights. “Fuck you, Liam. Fuck you and your unempathetic bullshit. I didn’t sign myself up for constant destruction, either. Yet here I am,” I waved madly to myself, “reaping the unfavourable rewards of nefariousness because I foolishly fell in love with a fucking criminal!”

Rendered emotionless, Liam angled his shoulders and stared me down.

Unimaginable guilt progressed. “Liam…” Something crushed under my foot. I looked down to see the cracked, dismantled clock trampled to the carpet. “Hm.” Ridiculous tears glossed my eyes. “How can time be a healer if I feel trapped between the past and present?” I began to sob heart-wrenching tears, and he suddenly cupped my cheek. “No,” I whimpered, rejecting his love. “I don’t know where those hands have been.”

Liam’s hand gritted into a fist. “I touch no one but you.”

I wanted to believe him. “I want you to leave our bedroom.”

“What?” Liam’s scowl vanished. “I am not going anywhere, Alexa. I sleep with you—in our bed.”

“What’s the point?” I retorted, drawing the curtain back for us to see the rising sun. “Most people emerge at daybreak. You coming home and settling beside me at this time of morning isn’t normal, Liam.”

“You think I don’t see the way you look at me.” Chuckling once, he inhaled a ragged breath. “You think I haven’t noticed the resentment in your eyes, Alexa? I know,” he added angrily, placing us shoulder-to-shoulder. “I know you blame me for losing the baby and, to some extent, I blame myself, too. Help me fix this. I give you too much space? It means I don’t care anymore. I try to hold you, to kiss, to touch and to love you, and you shy away and accuse me of unromantic entanglements.” His hand fell to my lower back, and I caught my breath. “For fuck’s sake!” he growled, ripping himself away from me. “I can’t fucking do this.”

In a mind-numbing blur, I watched Liam snatch clothe hangers from our walk-in wardrobe and fix himself for a day at the office. Sartorially tailored, he styled his hair, sprayed cologne to his neck and wrists and then exited the bedroom without so much as a glance.

The force of the front door closing sent an echoing bang throughout the Manor. Settling on the floor, I wept in silence, collecting the broken pieces of the clock from the carpet fibres when Josh’s ringed fingers curled over my shoulder.

I buried my head to my thighs and cried until my heart stopped hurting.

Chapter 35

Liam

Sartorially refined guards traversed the Manor. On my arrival, they amassed in the grand foyer to heed Brad’s time-consuming lecture regarding enforced security measures for any impromptu outings Alexa might ensue. She’ll not suffer a reoccurrence of ruinous attacks by blood-thirsty adversaries.

Leaving my second-in-command to handle business, I carried takeout into the unlit kitchen, my unhurried movements activating the aloft motion sensor lighting. Macallan bottle placed on the granite Z-shaped island, I set out three china plates and polished silverware: beef, duck and chicken dishes abreast the udon noodles and coconut rice. I scraped a generous helping onto a plate simultaneously pouring myself a neat whiskey. “How is she?” I asked, sensing Josh behind me.

“It’s tough.” Josh moved into my optical axis and piled rice onto a plate. “I don’t know whether I am coming or going with her, boss.”

Before I could ask Josh for elaboration, Brad sauntered into the kitchen, rubbing his palms together in famished zest. “Howdy motherfucker,” he chimed, gratuitously clouting Josh at the back of the head. “You better save me some of that. I am Hank fucking Marvin,”

“There’s enough to feed the five thousand.” Josh kneaded his head, looking askance at the scabbed fingernail scratches on Brad’s cheek. “What the fuck happened to your fugly mug?”

“A sexy ass bitch fight,” Brad accented each syllable, his fingertips skimming the dry, encrusted abrades. “Cherry got into it with a newbie the other night, so we had to pry them apart.” Uncapped satay dish in hand, he delved inside to sate his appetite. “Obviously, I caught the worst end of the deal. Good old Bossman over there came out of the pissing bagarre unscathed.”

Confrontational, bellicose women would be an understatement. Brad’s the catalyst of most female competitiveness at Club 11. He’s a smooth-talking player engaging in multitudinously undignified sexual relationships, knowing it causes one specific woman—who has venerated him since the very night he joined The Brotherhood—utter dejection and melancholic devastation.

Cherry, the head dancer, allows Brad to play Russian roulette with her heart, hoping he will someday abort his piquantly womanising tactics and partying tendencies to be in a loving, faithful relationship with her—and only her.

Brad settling down is risibly implausible. Cherry’s holding out hope on a man who’ll never commit to more than meaningless sex. Fucking the new bird hours after scoring brain from the redhead shouldn’t result in a fistfight between women. According to a blinkered Cherry, though, Brad’s not blameworthy of the hostilities amongst rivalled broads. His deprived romanticism and unadulterated love and commitment issues lie at the feet of her comparable competitors.

Thanks to Brad, the unashamed Lothario, I had to disjoint two raging women and order momentary absenteeism from work. “Unharmed face yet a ruined Armani.” Cherry’s fake, gold-shimmer tan stained one of my favourite white shirts. “You need to quell whatever agreement you have with Cherry. I don’t care who you fuck or when, but this idiosyncratic understanding between you both isn’t working anymore. Either commit to Cherry and ditch the others or give her the unequivocal settlement of unalterable impossibilities.”

“Credit where credit is due, boss. Brad’s never lied to Cher about their situationship.” Josh grasped Brad’s shoulder. “I feel for you, Jones. I mean, fighting off all these women must be so draining, so taxingly inconvenient.” His eyelashes fluttered theatrically, and I couldn’t shake my smirk if I tried. “Oh, to have the face of Adonis himself.”

“Button your lip, you fucking twat.” Flicking his tongue across the seam of translucent rizla paper, Brad slung Josh an intolerant deadpan. “Everybody knows Adonis hasn’t got shit on me.”

“Such a bastard swell-head,” Josh mumbled, lighting the end of his joint.

Brad flashed us a toothy grin. “I know.”

“Josh,” I said, knocking back a drink, “I am still waiting for that update.”

“Oh, yeah.” Pulling out a stool, Josh sat and helped himself to a shot of whiskey. “So, Alexa hardly leaves the bedroom. If or when she does, it’s usually to find food, or to chew my ear off, then she’s back in bed. Lights out. Goodnight.”

“Finito,” Brad husked, building a deck on the plastic takeout lid. “Hiding from the world, it seems. Do you want me to speak to her?”

“No,” I clipped, accepting a pre-rolled blunt from him. “Alexa needs time. She’ll come around.”

Josh simpered. He disagreed but knew better than to override or challenge me.

Truthfully, I didn’t know how to handle Alexa’s recent nature of reclusiveness. There’s no denying how much I love that woman, but we’ll keep it frank, I am not boyfriend material. I get it wrong more often than not. I say, do and act in a way that most find downright insensitive or customarily flippant.

“Give her time.” In a position of atypical incredulousness, I lit a joint to numb directionless thoughts, trusting she’d eventually come back to me.

Respiring a slew of smoke, I take my plate to the bin and begin to scrape leftovers when I see an extensive amount of leafy greens beneath the crinkled newspaper. With calm, unobtrusiveness, I use the fork to lift the sodden tabloid sheets. “Josh?” I comb under the next layer, seeing a great deal of cold pasta, shredded chicken and stale fruits. “Has Alexa been eating enough?”

“Yeah,” he said assuredly, refilling his whiskey glass. “Why? Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” I lied, closing the bin lid and placing the plate into the dishwasher. “Maybe stay while she eats, though.” Alexa cannot afford to lose any more weight. “Just to be sure.” I glimpse at my wristwatch: four fifteen a.m. “Fuck, we need to fix our bad eating habits.” Living on too much alcohol and convenience food will precipitate unsightly corpulence. “Get some rest.”

Parting from the kitchen, striding throughout the all-encompassing marble halls, I reach the bifurcated staircase, take the steps two at a time and head straight to the master bedroom. I had planned unnoticeable silence, not wanting to disturb Alexa, but when I opened the door and the hallway’s light veiled across the room, I caught sight of her and paused mid-step. “Alexa?” Switching on the main light, I illuminated her sitting form on the carpet, her busy hands ineffectively fixing broken wood together. “What are you doing?”

Glaring at me over one shoulder, Alexa watched me watching her.

I am getting used to Alexa’s coldness but the detachment between us, the silent treatment and lack of communication—it’s killing me. Give me something, I thought, unbuttoning my shirt and unclipping the white gold cufflinks. At this point in our lengthening dispassionateness, I’d settle for anything other than the pure disgust and hate flaring in her beautiful hazel eyes.

Alexa’s gaze followed my fingers as they disconnected each button until the shirt slipped from my shoulders. And then I saw it, her irrevocable love, just for one second, and then it’s gone again. “Where were you?” she asked, red-cheeked and breathless.

I sat on the chaise lounge and lent forward to unlace my leather shoes.

She fumbled with adhesive tape. “Are you drunk?”

“Never.” I remove my shoes. “Again, what are you doing?”

“Fixing the clock.” Her tetchiness was second-nature lately. “Are you coked-up?”

“Does it matter?” I asked defensively. Although Alexa’s partial to neat vodka, she has no vice or substance hankering, so it’s unnecessary, justifying tonight’s cocaine antics to someone who doesn’t understand the craving urgency to feel empty inside. “Get off the floor.”

Jutting a stubborn pout, Alexa shifted but remained cross-legged on the carpet. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

The sadness in her eyes tore me up inside. I wanted to shake her, scream some sense into her. You’re stronger than this, I thought, rubbing a hand down my frustrated features. You didn’t get thus far in life to fall apart.

My blood simmered. “Get off the floor, Alexa.”

You don’t belong down there. You need to stand, be the vengeful, dangerous woman that I know you are. While you skip meals, hide inside our bedroom and cry yourself to sleep at night, the evil that blackened your heart roams within our vicinage, waiting for another opportunity to end us.

Our eyes locked.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, I breathed but struggled to voice. More than ever, we need to be as one.

“Why?” she dared to argue, churlishly stabbing the wood with glue. “You—” I gripped her elbow. “Liam!” Forcing her to stand, I slapped the nail from her hand. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“If you want to repair something, take it to my office and sit behind my desk.” I tossed my trousers onto the chair. “You do not belong on a cold floor, especially in the crucial moments of post-operative care.”

Tapering down exasperation, I flung open the en-suite door and locked myself into momentary quietness. My eyes closing, I dropped my head back to regroup then lost my boxer briefs and socks to the laundry hamper.

Inside the shower cubicle, I adjusted the water temperature until scalding water beat against my overwrought body. Luxuriating in pleasant-scented suds and relaxing warmth, I washed away my unspoken pain and tiresome frustration, stepped out and knotted a towel around my waist.

I eyed the locked bathroom door.

Leaving would be the easiest option, the less complicated.

I love her, though.

I didn’t want to stay away; I wanted Alexa to want me, to need and accept me.

Blowing out an encouraging breath, I tousled my wet hair, unlocked the door and drifted across the room to change. While rubbing my raw skin with the towel, I felt Alexa’s eyes on me. In nothing but boxer briefs, I moved to her side and aligned our eyes. I’ll never stop loving you, I thought, smoothing my knuckles along her slender arm. My fingers curled around her shoulder and visible goosebumps sprouted across her exposed skin.

Alexa’s lips quivered on an expelled breath.

I studied every detail of her pale yet beautiful face: her high, prominent cheek-bones and the slight pinch to her upper lip. Lustrously dark, unruly hair tied atop her head, loose strands falling over her ears and the nape of her neck. When pained, she had the glassiest of eyes, the wild greens overshadowing her inconstant gold specks.

It’s what drew me to you, your eyes. I loved them as much then as I do now.

My lips whispered across Alexa’s flushed skin. I kissed and gently sucked the route to her delectable neckline, savouring the taste of her on my tongue. Instinctively, I curled an arm around her slender waist, being mindful not to add pressure. “Baby,” I rasped, the tip of my tongue flicking, teasing her earlobe. “Don’t shut me out.” My fingers traced the waistband of her cotton shorts, and she jumped in my arms. “Don’t hide from me.”

“I don’t want you to touch me, Liam,” she said throatily, wriggling against me, and my arms tightened, determined to keep us together. “Just stop touching me—I don’t want your disgusting hands on me.”

Her manifest repulsiveness was the slap to the face I needed.

Withdrawing my arms, I stepped back, feeling like she’d clawed her way into my chest and ripped out my heart.

Wiping a single tear from her cheek, Alexa hugged herself. “Where were you?”

“Work.” What the fuck is happening between us? “You know what I do for a living, Alexa. What’s with the interrogational treatment recently? What, I got to explain myself now?” I took one foot towards her and stopped, unable to face another one of her harsh dismissals. “What am I missing here, baby?”

Her jaw steeled. “Nothing.”

Why is she lying to me?

“Fuck’s sake.” Pinching the bridge between my eyes, I wrestled for composure. “I did not elect myself for this.”

“What, and I did?” she argued, storming into my breathing space. “I asked to be knifed within an inch of my fucking life?”

Alexa’s hatred towards me intensifies day by day. “Watch your mouth,” I snapped, reaching for her hand. “Alexa—”

“Did I ask your senile sisters to rip the baby out of my womb?” Her question hitched into a sob. “Fuck you, Liam. Fuck you and your unempathetic bullshit. I didn’t sign myself up for constant destruction, either. Yet here I am,” she waved between us, “reaping the unfavourable rewards of nefariousness because I foolishly fell in love with a fucking criminal!”

My cold eyes nonchalantly held hers, but inside, those words—Alexa’s cruel, meaningful words—struck me hard in the chest.

Immense grief and shared sorrow laboured our breathing.

We are drowning and parting ways, too much damage forcing us apart.

Perhaps love wasn’t enough.

Not anymore.

Regret dampened Alexa’s eyes. “Liam…” Her foot crushed the reconstructed clock, and total devastation wobbled her lips. “Hm.” Another tear slipped down her cheek, and my eyes shut so that I didn’t have to witness her fall apart. “How can time be a healer if I feel trapped between the past and present?” When a stifled sob tore from her throat, I tried to console her, cupping her cheek. “No, I don’t know where those hands have been.”

How could she say that to me after the promises made?

My nostrils flared on a deep inhale. “I touch no one but you.”

Rubbing her temples, Alexa shook her head in disagreement. “I want you to leave our bedroom.”

“What?” My features sharpened. “I am not going anywhere, Alexa. I sleep with you—in our bed.”

“What’s the point?” Tearing the curtain sideways, she gestured to the picturesque dawn of pale pinks and burnt oranges. “Most people emerge at daybreak. You coming home to settle beside me at this time of morning isn’t normal, Liam.”

My ability to tolerate Alexa’s self-sabotaging and predictable pugnacity shattered. “You think I don’t see the way you look at me? You think I haven’t noticed the resentment in your eyes, Alexa. I know,” I yelled, toe-to-toe. “I know you blame me for losing the baby and, to some extent, I blame myself, too. Help me fix this,” I whispered desperately. “I give you too much space, and it means I don’t care anymore. I try to hold you, to touch and to love you, and you shy away and accuse me of unromantic entanglements.” Warily, I set my hand to the curve of her spine, and she flinched at my closeness. “For fuck’s sake!” I growled, tearing myself away from her. “I can’t fucking do this.”

In less than five minutes, I was suited and out of the Manor.

***

I drove the streets of London until the morning rush-hour of commutes made it physically impossible to journey further. Instead of going to work or responding to the unanswered text messages my troubled men had sent, I checked into a luxurious five-star hotel and spent the afternoon imbibing whiskey from the connoisseur’s collection at the resplendent restaurant and bar. By three p.m., though, I had grown restless. It was the jarring music, irritating conversationalist and punchable couples enjoying a spot of late-night lunch.

I retreated to the sanctuary of extravagant seclusion.

Nursing a glass of untasted Jameson, I stood at the panoramic windows to admire London’s sublime vistas. Misty black skies and sporadic white lights from the mirrored skyscrapers reminded me of the penthouse views. It was my favourite quintessence of uninterrupted downtime, the balcony at night.

Fishing out a set of keys, thumbing the Bottega Veneta intrecciato keychain, I contemplated sojourning at the penthouse as I still had sole proprietorship. Is it considered cowardice to reside elsewhere and separate from Alexa impermanently?

It’s a non-smoking suite, but the plastic warning signs ended up in the trash before I rolled. Putting the glass on the high-gloss coffee table, I collapsed on the corner sofa and inclined against the cold leather.

Unlocking my phone, I searched Alexa’s number and typed a short text message.

Me: I am so fucking angry right now.

Me: But I can’t stop loving you.

Of course, Alexa doesn’t reply. Lately, I stare at a blank screen all too often.

Breathing out a tired sigh, I loaded Nate’s contact details and shot him a message, too.

Nate: Give me ten minutes.

Tossing the phone aside, kicking my feet onto the coffee table, I observe the woman wandering around in the opposite apartment building through the opened balcony doors. Her hand waving aimlessly, she throws her head back, laughing at whoever humours her from the kitchen.

Tall and built like a brick shit house, her male companion joined her near the dining table, two wine glasses on offer. He sets their choice of alcohol onto the table and dips in for a kiss. Wine an afterthought. He hauled his date into his arms and plopped her ass onto the sofa rear before the pair clumsily fall atop the plush cushions.

Rolling my eyes, I leaned forward, gripped the glass and downed my drink in one.

My phone vibrated.

Nate: The Arcana Lounge.

My eyebrows met.

Me: Camden?

Nate: Yeah.

Me: I know the place.

Tucking my phone away, I moved to the mantle to fix my appearance in the mirror and then left the suite knowing it’s likely I’ll be staying there for a while.

***

I drove the Bentley down the all-bricked alleyway and killed the engine opposite Arcana. Rising from the driver’s side, I doffed the suit jacket, hung it on the seat’s garment hook and stalked towards the two burly doormen, guarding the “secret” entranceway.

“Warren,” the shortest of two hummed, blowing warm breath into his cupped hands. “I didn’t know you rolled on this side of town.”

My hands hid in my trouser pockets. “I’ve been known to slum it on occasion.”

“Why would you waste your free time here? I’ve been to your place.” He furtively checked behind him. “Arcana ain’t got shit on Club 11.”

“I am not here for a pissing contest,” I said calmly, jerking my chin to the door. “You letting me in then or what?”

They shared an uncertain look. “Pay upstairs,” one said, unlocking the door. Thumping music immediately fell into the dark alley. “Enjoy.”

I slipped between them, up the narrow staircase to the main entrance.

Seated behind the glass partition, a middle-aged woman lifted her head. “I need to see your membership card—” I entered the venue regardless of her protests. “You can’t go in there!”

Immersed in soft, LED purple lighting, I strode past the open-boxed VIP lounges, private cabanas, tiered leather couches and scattered dancefloors to locate the main bar, which stationed dominantly inside the glass pavilion. “McCallan,” I confirmed, handing the short blonde a debit card. “Keep them coming.”

Norlan glass in hand, I shouldered past throngs of suited gentlemen permeating the humid air with thick cigar smoke.

Meandering through the cramped seating accommodation, I gravitated to the central entertainment and held back near a floor-to-ceiling column, where, on the stage, a topless female effortlessly slides into a graceful split. Crawling before a group of young, raucous men, the top-heavy temptress twisted onto her haunches. Flinging back her head, whipping long, purple locks, she rotated her hips and bounced into a sequence of teasing thrusts, earning herself spatters of cash. Gathering her fallen notes, she stuffed them under the lace of her thong. “Desperado” by Rihanna segued, purple lights transitioning into a deep, trance-like silver.

Replacing the first act, a bodacious female wearing six-inch glass high-heels, stepped onto the grand stage. It’s easy to assume, judging by the lewd remarks and dog whistles, she’s a customer favourite.

“Must you be disrespectfully impertinent?” Vincent appeared beside me. “There are other ways to gain my attention, without unnecessarily distressing the bookkeeper.” We turned our heads at the same time. His blue eyes to mine. “You only had to call, brother.”

Holding my tongue, I stared him down.

“Some privacy perhaps?” he suggested, and, wordless, I fell into his shadow, where he led us past the centre stage and its captivated audience to the guarded private door. “You opened a tab?”

“Yes,” I respond, bypassing red dressing room doors and squealing women, glitteringly oiled and togged in eyelet lace-ups, rhinestone tassels and gladiator thigh-highs or extreme crystal and transparent platforms.

“Let’s close the tab and settle for gratis liquor.” Vincent opened the door to recherché territory. “Proprietor perquisites,” he added, lowering his head to whisper something to a half-dressed Asian beauty. “Dalmore.”

Red crushed velvet fabrics draped from the ceiling and fell behind upholstered crimson coloured sofas. Dim lighting and sensuous music emboldened the three women exotic dancing on the configured black stages.

Rolling my bottom lip between my teeth, I eased onto a couch, watching a brunette’s extemporaneous sequence of sensual provocativeness as her eyes fixated on me.

Popping open the button of his suit jacket, Vincent relaxed on the chair opposite me and lit a cigarette. “You look lost.”

I am lost. “I’m fine.”

“Let’s drink first.” Accepting an unopened bottle of Dalmore from his employee, arranging two crystal glasses, he poured us a drink. “Then we can talk.”

Chapter 36

Liam

“House of the Rising Sun” by Lauren O’Connell sounded from the built-in wall speakers. In my peripheral, I see the attractive brunette drop down to her knees and caress the aureoles of her large pendulous breasts, the incredible wanton in her alluring brown eyes inducing flashbacks of Alexa, to a time where she, too, looked at me with such insatiable desire and sexual urgency.

I am neither tempted or hard. My cock hadn’t even twitched. The dancer’s carnal lustfulness hadn’t gone amiss, either, but it’s not a cheap thrill I crave. I am not interested in sex or a lousy escape from reality. Time travelling to the past, that’s what I wanted. Forget hunting London for mentally deranged women. I’d put myself in Jace’s studio to ensure Alexa never left my side or suffered a loss—our loss.

Vincent had distributed plentiful Valium, which, in all honesty, I quite enjoyed the thrumming affect those small blue tablets had on me. It’s a welcomed, precious mind-numbing intensity that burnt my veins and set me soul alight. However, the bespectacled woman, who seemingly thought the spectacle image might appeal to me, now kneels between my parted legs to give me an unpaid, unwelcomed lap dance. Delicate fingers splayed across my tight thighs. My heart sparking back to life, I blinked to clear the red cloudiness from my eyes. Her fingers moved dangerously close to my groin. Tilting my head to look at Vincent, who’s already engrossed by our sudden exchange, I caught her wrist, digging my fingernails into her glistening skin. “What are you trying to achieve?” I asked him, her pulse thudding in my inexorable grasp. “Well?”

With an ingratiating smile, a debonair and sophisticated Vincent eased back in his chair. “I am working towards a trusted alliance.” His voice dripped in sarcasm. “Of course, I profess the intent of a genuine relationship with my brother.”

“By testing the tenaciousness of my commitment to Alexa?” I rasped, shoving the woman away from my feet. “Fuck off.” I didn’t watch her leave or take umbrage to her projected profanities. “You forget, I work in a whore house, Vincent. I see naked woman daily, so put your dog’s away and give me a fucking break.”

“Why do you assume I had an ulterior motive, Liam?” Marijuana smoke curled from his mouth. “I didn’t ask Jasmine to come over. You did that,” he husked, hunching his shoulders forward to level me with his suspecting glare, “with your lusting eyes.”

“It’s not like that,” I whispered throatily, feeling something warm trickle down my right cheek.

Vincent watched the tear fall from my eye. “That’s certainly something.”

My features twisting, I wiped it away with the back of my hand. “I blame the drugs.”

“Blaming your emotions on drugs won’t rationalise the period of your grief, brother.” Putting a glass onto the black side table, he switched sofas to sit beside me. “Why did you come here?”

“I don’t know,” I lied, and he huffed out a piqued curse. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

“Sincerity or earnestness may suffice.” He gave me a short, derisive laugh. “You really are insufferably enigmatic.”

I wore an unshakable scowl. “Articulated by the unwanted sibling—” He unexpectedly fisted the collar of my shirt and murderous rage consumed my every thought. “You motherfucker.”

“I am strong.” His hand capturing my spearing fist, he curled his fingers over my whitening knuckles. ”You are much stronger.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “You could hit me. You could outmanoeuvre me right now. We both know it. But you won’t.”

“I am not a nice man, Vincent.” Wolfishly hungry for an onslaught, I leaned in to murmur in his ear. “I’ll rip you limb from limb and still sleep peacefully tonight. Don’t hold out on me, or you’ll be sorely disappointed in the outcome.”

“You lie to yourself,” he dared to respond. “Admit that you don’t want to hurt me.” His hand crushed mine. “Admit that you care, brother.”

“I am a self-concerned man.” I offered a weak smile. “I care for no one but myself.”

“And Alexa?” he asked caustically, and my smug condescension switched to overwhelming, contemplative melancholia and evoked feelings of rejection. “I see I found your vulnerable point.” When I tried to leave, he grasped my suit jacket, keeping me on the sofa. “Why must an admission of love hurt you? Two words. That is all I ask of you. From brother to brother, Liam, just give me something real.”

An unexplainable energy passed between our unwavering glares. I felt an exceptionally odd connection to Vincent, one I had encountered the first time our mirroring eyes collided. On more than one occasion, he had ripped open his chest to unburden himself, to bare his heart and entrust that maybe someday I would return the favour.

Was there truly a valid reason to hate or distrust him?

My reply was practically inaudible. “I care.”

At the rawness of my honesty, Vincent cloaked stupefaction. His hand on mine softening, he swept his thumb across my ringed fingers and stared back at me, effectively disarming and divesting armours of innate defensiveness.

“For one night,” he said, draping an arm across the sofa rear behind me, “let’s leave stubbornness at the door and forget, for a short while, who you are and what you represent.” He lights a cigarette. “You don’t need to pretend with me, Liam.”

I remained tight-lipped.

“So, tell me, brother.” Respiring smoke to the ceiling, he reclined against the leather and awaited our long-overdue conversation. “Why did you really come here tonight?”

I needed someone to talk to. “Alexa hates me,” I admitted, licking ever-present salt from my lips. “She can’t even look at me. And I get it. I always vowed to protect her, and instead, I failed her.” I struggled to see past blurriness. “My negligence and carelessness cost us a child. I feel trapped, caged. My hands, tied behind my back.” Burning up inside, I snatched the Dalmore bottle to pour myself another drink. “I have never felt so powerless and, until I drain the souls of Ray Warren’s entities, I cannot see beyond incandescent rage and my thirst for revenge. I must kill them,” I whispered angrily, my hand crushing the glass. “It has to mean something—losing my child has to mean something.”

“Alexa doesn’t hate you,” he said, failing to convince me. “Let us forget Serena’s dishonourable betrayal for an instant and consider Alexa’s meaning of life so far. At what point does one person say, ‘no more will be tolerated’? Thus far, she has faced a significant length of tribulation, and yet, she smiles and laughs for others as though it is humanly normal to live in constant fear or to pretend the next nefarious purpose mightn’t be as detrimental,” he added, the muscle in his jaw clenching. “You know more than anyone that psychological trauma is more damaging than any physical or emotional mistreatment.”

“She barely leaves the bedroom to shower, let alone eat.” My heart fractured. “I fear I might lose her for good.”

“Some might call her behaviour self-pitying. In all seriousness, though, isn’t she somewhat entitled to feel sorry for herself?” he asked, and I looked away in shame. “You cannot compare situations alike because you’d handle anguish differently. Would you rather she wandered alone tonight and found herself in a bar, sniffing cocaine and ingesting harsh liquor much like yourself?”

I respected his candidness. “No.”

“Remember, wounds fade, but memories do not.”

Running a hand over my face, I dropped my head back and stared at the twinkling ceiling. I thought of my woman once more and the ache in my chest intensified.

“Is Alexa one’s promised?” he randomly asked.

“I am dangerously in love with her.” When he didn’t comment, I loll my head to the side, watching him. “I’ll wait, no matter how long, for her to come back to me.” My eyelids closed momentarily to see Alexa’s beautiful face. “She’s what my heart desires.”

Understanding, Vincent gave me a curt nod.

To clear mental fogginess, I leaned forward, forearms to my knees, and blew out a long breath. “How close are we to finding the twins?”

“I reached out to Molly,” he informed me, and my shoulders tensed. “Relax, brother. It was a ploy to lure her into the light. Unfortunately, she didn’t accept the bait. Whatever control I had over that woman, I lost the moment you and I affiliated.”

“You sound disappointed,” I muttered dryly.

“About us?” he asked, and I made a noncommittal noise. “I couldn’t be more thrilled. Granted, you could do better,” he half-joked. “Developing a relationship with you has proven difficult, but I’d never trade you for them.”

I believe you, I thought. “Did you track the Ip address from one of Molly’s old emails?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding a touch offended by my question. “Akin to the syndicate, brother, I have worked with consistent diligence and industriousness to uncover their locations. Much to our dismay, I cannot, for the life of me, find their hideout.”

“I bet they sit under our noses,” I said decisively, and he nodded in agreement. “The vexatious psychopaths laugh at our bemusement. I, too, ordered the men to unearth…” The sudden pragmatic conception of their hideaway rejuvenated me. “Subterranean.”

Vincent blinked, and then his lips widened into a knowing smile. “We need our nightwalkers to come out and play.”

“They want us to believe they lurk from the shadows, waiting and watching, when, in reality, they lay in dormant fear, or until we relinquish defeatism. Then, and only then, will they emerge and strike a second time.” Knowing they could be hiding underground seemed like a major breakthrough. “Rather than exhausting our men, we order a vanquished withdrawal.”

“It will most certainly waiver their scent,” he thought aloud, scratching his six o’clock shadow. “What do you propose?”

I slowly licked my upper teeth. “For everyone to, on the face of it, operate as normal.”

“Until they threaten to strike afresh, wherein lies our fully prepared counterattack.” He held out his glass for me to clink. “Checkmate.”

“How does it feel?” I downed my drink in one swallow. “Knowing you used to willingly fuck the enemy?”

His lips grimaced. “Don’t remind me of such gruesomeness, Liam.”

Relaxing, I chuckled light-heartedly. “What do you do?”

Grabbing the ceramic ashtray, he put out the cigarette. “What’s the question?”

“You own a gentleman’s club.” I gestured around the opulent room. “A reggae bar, which I haven’t had the luxury of scoping yet. You give the impression of a young, suave businessman, but what conventional property magnate possesses rare weapons from Cuba?”

His eyebrows jumped to his dark hairline. “Aren’t you insightfully perspicacious?”

I have a keen eye for individuality. “I don’t like repeating myself.”

“So, I am learning.” He glimpsed into his glass. “What is it you wish to know?”

“Why don’t you start with the cross in your ear?” It did, after all, spike interest. “Are you religious?”

“It was a gift from my mother,” he evaded, fixing the white gold jewellery in question. “Anything else?”

Yes, I want to understand you. “Why do you own such an impressive collection of firearms?”

“I am a hired hitman,” he said boldly, and I masked the fact he had taken me off guard. “Weapons and death come hand in hand.”

I concurred. “A natural-born killer,” I hummed, licking a night of whiskey from my lips. “I assume it pays well.”

“Exceptionally.” His lips curved into a devious smile. “You don’t seem surprised, brother?”

“It takes a lot to stun a man like myself.” I guess Vincent cannot read me as well as he so smugly presumes. “Your first kill. How did that materialise?”

Vincent drew in a deep breath as though needing additional oxygen to prepare himself. “I used to be an escort.”

The glass rim to my lips, I choked mid-drink. “A fucking what?”

“Don’t judge me,” he clipped, hardening his jaw. “On my eighteenth birthday, I went to a local bar and bought my first legal drink. Hendrick’s if I remember correctly, though, I never quite had the palate for gin. Anyway, whilst nursing the world’s most disgusting choice of alcohol, a fine woman approached me. If my memory serves me well, I believe her name was Tricia. Yes, we’ll go with Tricia. It’s the first time I’d clapped eyes on voluptuous breast augmentations. She had quite literally shoved them in my face.” His sternness cracked into a smirk. “Well, that’s what I told myself.

“Tricia, looking sinfully gorgeous in her figure-hugging black dress, refused my wallet and paid the tab for our drinks that night. I had noted the wedding ring on her finger, but to be honest, I didn’t care for her relationship status.

“We fucked three hours later, right outside the pub, in the alleyway, where she proceeded to her knees and gave me the most mind-blowing orgasm, courtesy of her wicked mouth.

“Tricia was, indeed, married; she had clarified as much three nights later, after another round together in the backseat of her eye-catching beemer. It was then she proposed the idea of a paid service.”

I listened intently.

“I agreed,” he continued, shrugging uncaringly. “The woman bought me an expensive suit and the most ridiculously priced leather shoes. I escorted her to a charity dinner. A companion, she told inquisitive others, for when her husband was out of town.

“My appearance intrigued her female friends. Throughout the night, they individually approached to slip business cards into my trouser pocket. Before I could even digest my new assignment, I had a large number of paying clientele requesting distinctively contrasting services.”

I uncaged my bottom lip from my gritted teeth. “Was it only a date they necessitated or a means of sexual escapism?”

“Both,” he confirmed, and I nodded sharply, not entirely sure how I felt regarding his admittance. “Mature women, bored in their mundane marriages. They paid extortionately to feel venerated and loved regardless of misconception.”

I released my breath in intervals. “Whose husband died first?”

“Tricia’s.” His arms folded. “He’d been away on an official business trip when she uncovered bank statements. He’d spent an inexplicable amount of money on a younger woman, one, who, by all accounts, accompanied him on these so-called tours of duty. Tricia hadn’t loved him for a long time; however, his wealth and affluence kept her financially sweet, and she refused to lose her luxurious lifestyle to some dullard bimbo, I think she’d called her.

“Instead of questioning her husband regarding his infidelities overseas, Tricia met me for coffee one afternoon and left a leather suitcase beneath the table.” His smile widened. “Fifty thousand to eliminate the threat. I mean, call me a self-righteous sociopath, but who, in their right mind, turns down that type of sterling?”

He unbuttoned his shirt collar. “I accepted the deal. Bought my first handgun from the streets and popped the fucker the same night. His mistress, too.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Without the fear of getting caught?”

“Who cares?” Vincent lifted a dismissive shoulder. “I had serious earnings to spend.”

I would never admit this aloud, but I quite liked him. “When did you put an end to escorting?”

“What makes you think I stopped?” he asked, and I simply stared. “Although fucking wealthy women had been financially rewarding, I have a distinctive taste and, well, those spiritless blowjobs weren’t cutting it.”

His unscrupulous evasiveness fuelled my curiosity. “Meaning?”

He looked at me for a moment. Polishing off the final drop of alcohol, he flipped open his leather wallet and slipped a black and red business card onto my palm.

“Well, aren’t you the mystifying creature?” My frown held as I read the small italic font. “Eyes wide shut?” I joked, not disconnecting our gaze. “And what does one experience at your club?”

Vincent stared knowingly at me. “Euphoria.”

***

After a long night conversing with Vincent, I entered the Manor under a dark cloud. I felt the proximity of my open-eyed security, but they hadn’t reared their heads on my arrival. Brad had texted to confirm he’d returned to Club 11 with Josh, which I had appreciated because I desired a moment alone with Alexa.

I placed the hotel key onto the lobby sideboard, hoping I no longer needed it as I ventured upstairs. As expected, I located Alexa in the master bedroom, sleeping on the chaise lounge, an askew blanket tangled between her legs.

Eliminating my suit jacket and unbuttoning my shirt, I omitted the leading light and crouched beside her peaceful form, giving myself a few minutes to admire her. Brushing my knuckles along her gaunt face, I watched her with bated breath, wishing she’d come out of this situation fighting.

On the floor, I found an empty bottle of vodka and a box of sleeping tablets and stifled frustration. Lifting Alexa’s featherweight body into my arms, conveying her to the bed, I settled her onto the mattress and stretched out beside her. It was the closest I felt to her in weeks, and it’s because she’s intentionally unconscious, or else her head wouldn’t rest on my outstretched arm. Her hand wouldn’t be on my bare chest, feeling the power of my thudding heartbeat.

“You’re losing too much weight,” I whispered into the night, my fingertips outlining her protruding ribs. “You can’t afford to, baby. You know as much.”

Turning my head, I inhaled her scentless hair and curled a protective arm around her slender waist. “I am selfish,” I said, knowing she couldn’t hear me. “I know that you struggle, but I want you back, Alexa. I can’t handle the distance between us.” I miss you, I thought, kissing her furrowed forehead. “I fucking miss you so much.”

My eyelids were heavy. I shook the urge to sleep and unravelled myself from Alexa. Falling asleep beside her meant everything to me, but I didn’t want her to rouse in fright or scold me for touching her. Instead, I kissed her soft lips, lingered there, craving nothing more than her reciprocation of love, to hear her assurances in my ear.

Draping a faux fur blanket over her body, I swept hair strands from her face and exited the bedroom.

Throughout the dark halls, I unlocked my phone and dialled his number when in the privacy of my office.

“Hello,” he croaked, disturbed from sleep. “Who’s calling?”

“Tony,” I breathed, collapsing on the leather chair behind my desk. “Liam Warren.”

“Liam?” he repeated, his once tired voice shooting into an immediate panic. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay? Where’s Alexa?”

“Alexa suffered a cruel attack and lost the baby,” I explained vaguely, detecting his sharp intake of breath. “She—”

“When did this happen?” he asked, and I heard the bed groan as he clambered to his feet. “Where is Alexa? Is she at the hospital? How—”

“Tony,” I interjected, swivelling in my seat to watch the warm sunrise through the office window. “Alexa’s home.” He paused to listen. “It’s been nearly six weeks. Mentally, she’s not coping. I can’t get her to talk to me, let alone leave the bedroom.” Help me, I thought. “I don’t know what to do.”

I am a failure.

“Do I have your permission to visit?” he asked, and I agreed. “Send me your address; I’ll be there before midday.”

Relieved, I ended the call and texted him the details.

Tossing my phone onto the desk, I put a closed fist to my lips and prayed for a favourable resolution.

Tugging open the desk drawer, I combed through accurately placed items and found something I had often examined in wonder. Someday, I thought, hiding it under paperwork. Without an ounce of sleep, I opted for a cold shower and readied myself for Tony’s support.

Chapter 37

Alexa

Large cumulonimbus clouds rise in the early morning sky, emptying wind-driven rain splatters across the bedroom window. I had survived another night of immense purposelessness and heavy-hearted disconsolateness. With selective mutism, I laid snug under the duvet, drained of lively dynamism, watching the depressing weather.

Slightly fatigued, I slipped out from under the warm comforter and made slow, languorous steps to the en-suite bathroom.

Impounded by marble tiles, I gripped the basin and lowered my head, incapable of mustering dauntlessness to face myself in the wall-mounted mirror. The person I had become, I had no desire to see, judge or accept.

Holding my breath, I flung open the glass cabinet doors and waited in apprehension before my gaze settled on the perfectly organised shelves.

My hand shaking, I reached for a toothbrush and paste, brushing my teeth thoroughly and spitting foam into the whirlpool of cold water.

Towel-drying my half-heartedly washed face, I teetered back into the bedroom and stationed at the window to watch emotionless security roam the Manor gardens, hot mugs of steaming beverages to take the edge off the dawn of chilliness.

While furtively scrutinising, I felt worthless, pointless and weak. Wearing Liam’s oversized training hoodie, I snuck a hand under its burying material to trace the length of healed yet ragged scar tissue, thick and thin, horizontal and vertical. Each unmerciful cicatrix told the same story of an unforgettable night that’ll haunt me forever.

I silently outline the protuberant ribs of my emaciated body. Repulsed by my disgusting, undesirable figure, I recoiled from the window and paced the carpeted room. Josh said I should eat but food consumption clogged acidic bile in my windpipe. Free from hunger and pressurised acceptance, I crept to bed and let the world leave me behind.

***

I awoke from the sound of jarring music below. My cheek to the pillow, I blinked myself back to the land of the living, listening to the monotonous droning of male vocalists and the expanse of instrumental ensembles.

Josh, I thought, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. His deliberate raucousness worked because it’s impossible to sleep through such harsh-sounding chords.

Flinging the coverlet aside, I put my bare feet to the carpet, crashed the bedroom door open and marched down the cavernous halls. “Let’s Go Round Again” grew increasingly louder as I neared the kitchen. “Josh!” I yelled, ambling a sharp corner. “Is this really necessary? If you wanted my attention…”

His broad back to me, Nate occupies the kitchen stove, frying bacon and scrambling eggs. “How’s it going, Alexa?” he asked, not looking at me.

I crossed my arms. “What are you doing in my kitchen?”

“Cooking breakfast.” He glimpsed over one shoulder, piercing me with mesmerising forest-greens. “You want some?”

“No.” Hands sloping to my hips, I slithered my gaze to the granite island where Nate organised jugs of chilled orange juice, packaged pastries and varicoloured fruit punnets. “Where’s Liam?”

Whipping a tea towel over his shoulder, Nate carried a frying pan to the island and scraped cooked bacon rashers onto a plate. “Shouldn’t you know the boss’ whereabouts?”

“I…” Hearing another male voice inside the larder, I glared at the ajar door, expecting Josh to come forth when an acquainted face entered the kitchen. Having not foreseen Tony’s arrival, I jerked back in astonishment and, suddenly too aware of my undoubtedly monstrous appearance, I faffed and shilly-shallied at the threshold. “What are you doing here?”

Transferring condiments to the counter, Tony, who failed to hide his disquietude, arranged the seasoned sauces abreast Nate’s plated spread.

For too long, Tony catalogued every detail of what I knew was a haggard-looking face. His eyes wandered down to my exposed legs and chipped polished toenails.

Was it disappointment in his eyes?

Did the image of me nauseate him?

“I should take this,” Nate said, wielding a black-screened phone. “I’ll give you a moment.” Excusing himself from the kitchen, Nate pretends to accept an incoming call, leaving me alone with a man whose undisguised disenchantment made seeing hopeless.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” Swallowing a tight lump from my throat, I wrang my fingers nervously. “I would have prepared a guestroom or…” I’d have dressed adequately, I thought, spurning the ridiculous hoodie. “I…”

Tony flattened his palms to the countertop. Beneath cinched eyebrows, he regarded me. “Why don’t you sit down.”

Tears flooded my eyes, and I meshed my wobbling lips. “I’d prefer to stand.”

His sight visited the ceiling. He rounded the counter, gravitating towards me. “Alexa,” he whispered, and I stepped back, shaking my head vigorously. “Let me help you.”

“I don’t need any help,” I protested, ineffectively evading his caging arms. “Do not mollify me, Tony. I am not a child!” His strong arms encircled me, and I wriggled with all my might. “Please, Tony.” A devastated sob shed from my lips. “I don’t need anyone!”

“It’s okay.” His arms tightened, keeping me locked, trapped within his uncompromising sincerity. “I got you.”

His hand clasping to the back of my head, Tony reiterated forlorn declarations of promises, and eventually, something unexplainable tore at the seams of my pained heart and ever-increasing anguish drenched his polo shirt. In his arms, I relinquished. He never let me fall. He held me upright and told me to grieve, to bemoan the unforgivable, unforgettable part of my life that left empty inside.

“I don’t know what’s come over me,” I whimpered on his chest, my hands grappling his shirt. “I just want to forget everything.” To expunge the memories of my past would be the greatest of gifts. “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

A warm tear droplet fell on my forehead—his tears of empathy. “Let the heart hurt,” he said tightly. “Then let it harden.”

My throat tightened painfully. I felt a sharp twinge in my chest and immersed myself in his warm-hearted compassion. Our closeness seemed peculiarly normal. Is this how it’s supposed to be? I wondered, resting my head on his shoulder. Locking the cherished significance inside my heart, I savoured his fatherly tenderness.

I dried my tears, feigning equilibrium. “Please sit with me.” Untangling myself from Tony, I wiped my stinging cheeks and perched myself on the sofa edge, furthest away from Nate’s banquet. “Do you need anything? A coffee perhaps?”

Tony declined my offer and sat directly opposite. His fingers threading together, he leaned forward until I had no choice but to withstand his capturing gaze. “Life can be unfair,” he said, and I nodded. “Not even the cruellest, wickedest of people have suffered to the extent you have, but Alexa, skipping meals and hiding in the bedroom won’t change the past. Drinking too much alcohol to alleviate the pain only works temporarily. What can self-sabotaging achieve? Momentary numbness? Isolation and possible depression?”

My breath deserted me. “I see Liam has you well informed.”

“Liam’s the reason I came,” he stressed, reaching for my hand to hold it. “Don’t look so angry, Alexa. He’s worried about you.”

“Really?” I asked, a touch sarcastic. “I can’t see him anywhere, Tony.” Liam’s too busy tending to his selfish needs. “Can you?”

His thumb grazed my knuckles. “He left to give us some space.”

I scoffed. “And I was born yesterday.”

Heavy footsteps advance. Palming a phone, Nate re-emerged. “You guys holding up okay?” he asked, and I gave him an imperceptible nod. “Shall I proceed with testing then?”

“Testing?” I asked, looking between them dubiously. “For what?”

“I, uh, insisted we do the paternity test whilst I visited,” Tony explained. “That’s if you still wish to do one.”

I hadn’t considered the state of him being my father much since leaving Cornwall and returning to London. “Of course,” I answered warily, curling a strand of hair behind my ear. “Tony, do you want to go first?”

“I did Tony’s earlier.” Nate flung a holdall onto the couch beside me. “You ready?”

Am I? I wasn’t entirely sure. As I watched Nate stretch his fingers into black latex gloves, nervous shakiness claimed my limbs. Rolling my shoulders back, I sat taller and licked the dryness from my parched mouth. Tony, judging by his emitting uneasiness, seemed equally anxious. He stood to move to the kitchen, nabbing a bottled water from the fridge.

Nate whistled aloofly, unpackaging sterile equipment in preparation. “You might want to breathe,” he said composedly, and the air whooshed out of my chest. “It’s only a swab.” Declining to one knee, he grasped my jaw, pinching my hollow cheeks. “I have never known Alexa to be so quiet.”

Tony laughed lightly at Nate’s humourless joke.

On instinct, I parted my lips for Nate to swab my inner cheek. Wishing I could read minds, I held his eyes for a nanosecond. He’s often an emotionless man, so calm and collected. I wanted to know what filtered through his mind as his soft stare remained on my worried face.

“All set,” Nate drawled, recapping the test. “She needs vodka.”

A skull-inked hand appeared, holding a glass before me. “For you, my lady.”

I stared at Josh’s ringed fingers as I accepted my preferred alcohol choice. “I thought you had left.”

“And miss breakfast?” Josh snorted. “Next joke.”

Tony squeezed my shoulder. “Shall we eat?”

Three pairs of different coloured eyes studied me closely.

I have lost many people in life. Even though I’ll never truly overcome the grief of my loved ones, I had gained such wonderful, protective men who I wouldn’t trade for the world.

I love you, I thought, rising between them. I love each and every one of you.

***

Today was better than yesterday.

I ate most of my breakfast and showered. After freshening up, I changed into another comfy hoodie and joined Tony outside to drink coffee amidst the stunning views of the Manor gardens. He’d journeyed at the crack of dawn to visit, so tiredness soon commenced. We talked about trivial subjects until his eyelids threatened to close and I ordered him to rest.

Later on, I hunted the halls for Nate and Josh. I located them at the indoor swimming pool. Nate relaxed on a recliner, a glass of gin in hand whereas Josh swam lengths in the water, detoxifying himself through determined breaststrokes.

I sat on the pool edge and dipped my feet into the water. Unclipping my hair, letting the loose curls cascade down my back, I eased into the pool, neck-deep, the cold temperature, hitting me straight to the bone. Without much consideration, I closed my eyes and pinched my nose, lowering my head under the still surface. In the muffled distant, I caught sound waves as Josh plunged from one end of the pool to the other.

Silence, I thought, smiling foolishly to myself.

My eyelashes fluttered open. Blurry-eyed yet enlivened, I waded to the depths and, in a moment of pure calmness, I welcomed the peaceful desolateness. My senses heightened. I felt alive again—free.

Needing to breathe, I pushed off my feet and kicked to the surface. I fling my head back and gasped oxygen, the bright lights above, causing blinding speckles to flash over my eyes.

“That was a remarkable display,” Brad chimed, and my head whipped to the side. “Did you find any gold down there?”

I paid zero attention to Brad and his light-hearted joshing. I could no longer see Josh or Nate. In fact, the three males who awaited my witty comeback faded because Liam stood amongst his men, trapping me in his intense gaze.

I hate you, I thought, and, as if reading my mind, his angry eyes narrowed. I didn’t hate him, though, not really. I love that man more than life itself. But right now, I didn’t like him—I couldn’t even stand the sight of him.

Reaching the pool edge, I set two palms onto the tiles and pulled myself out of the water.

Josh rushed to give me a towel.

Thanking him, I rubbed my dripping wet hair. I gave Liam a prolonged, immerse glare and then stormed out like a madwoman. He’d follow me. I knew as much, yet upon entering my bedroom, his hand capturing my elbow still stole my breath. “Don’t,” I scold, ripping myself out of his leeches. “I can barely stomach the sight of you.”

Liam’s too imposing, too profound and dominant to be overlooked. He slammed the bedroom door shut, and his hunting eyes scorched me into an apprehensive state of immobilisation. Infuriatingly impervious to my coldness, he stepped forward into my breathing space, soaring above me to the point I had to crane my neck to goad his inner demons.

If it’s a fight he wants, then a fight he shall get.

“I hate you,” I lied, fighting back morose tears. “I hate all that you are.”

“And I loathe all that you have become,” Liam retorted, his condemning scowl raking over my drenched body in disdain. “But I am still here, fighting for you—for us.” Accentuating his passion for our parting relationship, he snatched my jaw, agonisingly bringing me closer. “You disrespect me in front of my men.”

“You are lucky that I didn’t ridicule you,” I spat through gritted teeth. “A warning glare hardly justifies a lambasting, Mr Warren.”

“Affirmative,” he responded arrogantly. “However, your rudeness requires reasoning.”

“I owe you nothing.” Knowing untidiness peeves him, I dropped the wet towel on the floor. “You can leave now.”

His hand on my jaw compressed. “Are you going to pick that up?”

“Are you going to continue to entertain other women?” I asked in a calm voice.

His sharp, angular jaw set.

I laughed bitterly. “Didn’t think so.”

“Is that what this is about?” he dared to ask. “You think I am fucking someone else?”

“Blaire,” I state the obvious, jerking out of his shackles. “I know, Liam. You don’t have to lie or delude me.”

“Blaire?” he barked, wearing a frozen, angry expression. “What the fuck does Blaire have to do with us? That bitch means nothing to me.”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap,” I argued, peeling the sodden hoodie from my body. “Sleeping with someone doesn’t have to mean anything, Liam. You taught me that. It’s just meaningless sex, right?”

“Enough,” he cut me off once more, trailing behind me as I entered the walk-in wardrobe. “Alexa, I am not sleeping with her.”

“Whose makeup marked your shirt?” Before he could answer, I hit him with another question. “Why did Blaire text you, Liam? She thanked you for accepting her and even had the audacity to lend you a shoulder.” I snatched a drawer open. “You know, to help you deal with your annoying girlfriend. I mean, how dare I neglect you and your needs. I am so selfish. Hell, I don’t blame you for confiding in her. It’s not like it’ll break my fucking heart!”

His blue eyes blackened. “What text message?”

“I am not playing this game.” Unclasping my bra, I flung it onto the vanity table, hitting over bottles of perfume and cologne. “You might love me, Liam, but it’s not enough for you. I cannot change a serial cheat.”

“I have never cheated on you,” he snapped, ripping the T-shirt from my hands. “What happened before us, it isn’t relevant. You cannot hold my past against me.”

“It’s very relevant, actually.” I tried to reclaim the T-shirt, but he refused. “You are a disgusting debauchee.” His arms wound around my waist. “Get off me!”

“Alexa—” I slapped him, hard, the sound almost as painful as my stinging hand. “What the fuck have I told you about hitting me?” He jolted me away from him with unnecessary strength. “You need to calm the fuck down before I do something I might regret.”

“Oh, now he threatens me.” My arms swaddling my breasts, I rest my backside to the vanity table. “Don’t mince your words, Liam. That’s not your style, right? Hell, I pissed you off, so I deserve a backhander, too, huh?”

“I’d never hit you.” He looked offended. “But I am starting to lose patience, baby. You are killing me with this shit—fucking killing me!” he yelled throatily, slamming his palms onto the vanity table, caging me in. “Killing me.” His soft whisper breathed against my cheek. “I need you.”

“You didn’t need me when you stayed out all night, spending time with her,” I accused, and his glare deepened. “You have never needed me, Liam.”

“Wrong.” Fisting the hair at the nape of my neck, Liam pulled my head back and forced me to withstand his penetrating scowl. “I. Need. You.”

I almost felt Liam’s lips on mine, and a small part of me wanted his enamourment. He’d never crack first, though. He wants me to make the first move, to claim him in a way no other woman has.

My stubbornness forbade it. “You gave up on me.”

“No,” he rasped, licking his dry lips. “You gave up on us. I tried so hard, Alexa. So fucking hard to do right by you, but you turned me away every time. Am I supposed to stoically suffer at your hands while you decide whether or not I am worthy of you?”

I had never deemed myself better than this man. “Our issues have nothing to do with worthiness, Liam. It has everything to do with your need for womanising. I don’t trust you,” I added, and his fingers tangled in my hair. “And a relationship cannot work without trust.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Liam reduced his grip on me and walked away.

Infuriated by his uncaring expeditiousness, I stared at the spot he once stood. “You are a fucking coward!” I shouted, chasing him into the bedroom, where, at the door, he came to a sudden stop. “I thought the infamous Warren governed his organisation—demanded results.” His spine straightened, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. “He doesn’t shy away from anything, right? Excluding me.”

Liam turned to face me. His soulless eyes bore into me and then to my sunken, hideous stomach.

Realising my mistake, I masked horror and seized the wet towel from the ground, frantically knotting it around myself. “Fuck you.” When he didn’t respond, I looked up. “What, do I not live up to your expectations any more, Liam? Am I too broken, too repulsive on the eye?”

Dragging a hand down his face, Liam briefly closed his eyes.

“You conceited son of a bitch,” I whispered, my eyes brimmed in tears. “I didn’t deserve this, Liam. Your sisters targeted me! Because of you, I lost my baby!”

“And I lost mine!” His stentorian roar rattled me to the bone. I jerked back, the towel falling from my chest. “As your man, I haven’t had the time to grieve.” Teary-eyed, he closed in on me, effectively ripping open my heart. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t get to feel pain or guilt or the loss of my flesh and blood.” His hands landing onto the wall astride my head, he set us eye-level. “That was my baby, too. And you, the woman I love so fucking much, denied empathy and love. I feel, too, Alexa. Not that you have cared to consider me at all.”

I was speechless. “Liam…”

Steeling his jaw, he pulled a disgusted face, and then his palm pressed against my stomach.

“No, Liam.” I flinched, withering on the spot. “I can’t let you—”

Growling, Liam brought his arm back and punched the wall beside my head. “Why do you fucking deny me?”

“Because I am revolting,” I sobbed, capturing the painful sound in my hand. His fury soared, filling the room. I wasn’t privy of what my admittance might cause; however, I hadn’t considered him seizing my wrist and dragging me into the walk-in. “Liam, what are you doing?” Panicking, I tried to pivot in his arms. “Liam!”

He slapped on the light, illuminating the tiled room.

When I saw the mirror, I broke into a hot mess. “No, Liam. Please don’t do this to me.” Thrashing against him, I landed closed fists to his chest. “Liam, I beg you!”

Rejecting my freedom, Liam stationed us in front of the tall mirror, urging me to face myself. Panic arises. I slammed my eyes shut and fought for an escape, but he glued my back to his chest. Breathing heavily in my ear, he snatched my throat. “Look at yourself.” I’d never. “I said, look at yourself!”

My eyes cracked open. At the sight of my faded scars, I allowed tears to fall from my eyes. I couldn’t move or look away. Liam quite literally compelled me to face my fears head-on. It’s his eyes that hurt most, though. I hated the way he saw me; I wanted to erase every blemish and jutted bone from his memory. “I wouldn’t blame you for straying,” I whispered, looking far too small, too weak to be with a man like him. “You can do so much better than me.”

“Impossible.” His eyes held mine in the mirror. “Our souls paired, baby. I am with you until the end.” Kissing my temple, inhaling the scent of rose shampoo from my hair, he applied pressure to my throat, his other hand smoothing across my middle section. “Your scars remind me of how strong you are.”

Then, why did I feel so powerless?

Liam kissed the grey mark beneath my eye, the one Jace had put there. “You might perceive yourself abysmally, but it doesn’t determine how encaptivated I am by you.” His voice, so deep and hoarse, sent chills all over my body. “I’m in love with you, Alexa. You could have thousands of scars, inside and out, and I would still love you.”

I didn’t believe him.

Releasing me, Liam righted his appearance and snagged jogging bottoms from the drawer. On one knee, he fell before me, dipping his fingers under my lace underwear. He pulled the fine fabric down my legs, his eyes, not once, straying from mine. He recognised my ambiguousness and his expression hardened. Helping me change into his warm tracksuit, he stood, looming above me. And then, as if needing us to share something—anything—he cupped my cheeks and bruised me with a passionate kiss. I gasped, and he took my separated lips as an invitation, lazily spearing his tongue into my mouth. His one arm curling around my waist, he confined me between him and the wardrobe and deepened our kiss. “Alexa.” It sounded like a plea. “Baby, I’m desperate.”

I tasted tears. I wasn’t sure if they were his or mine.

Breathless, Liam tore his mouth from mine, licking the taste of me from his lips. “I cannot bear the way you look at me.” The vein his neck pulsed. “I can’t fucking bear it!” Pushing himself away from me, he strode out the walk-in wardrobe and seconds later I heard the bedroom door crash against the wall.

Thrusting a hand through my hair, I vacillated, catching my reflection in the mirror. I don’t recognise you, I thought, hearing raised voices booming downstairs. I knew Liam, and the sound of his unescapable rage surged me with mobilising dread. He’s losing it. Not even the Suits can calm whatever transpired beneath these floors.

Rolling on a pair of socks, I stuffed my feet into ankle slippers and ran towards the grand staircase. “Liam,” I called, my hand gliding down the stair guard, chasing him down.

The front door rattled on its hinges as Liam absconded the Manor. In the rich lobby, the amassed Suits heard me advancing and began to straighten and compose their dejected stances. Brad, though, he wasn’t like the others. He was the last to see me and notable relief faded his ruddy cheeks. “You need to fix this,” he tells me as I rushed to the door. “You don’t want Warren roaming recklessly around London, Alexa. He’s in a bad way—”

“I can handle him, Brad.” Rudely shoving past him, I swung open the door and descended the concrete steps, seeing Liam unlock one of the Bentleys. “Liam!” His head jerked up, but his patience for me had terminated. “Please don’t leave like this.”

Ducking through the driver’s side door, Liam prepared for a fast escape when I yanked open the passenger door and collapsed beside him. His hand on the gearstick whitened. “Get out.”

My chest heaving, I wrestled for breath, closing the door and resting my head against the headrest. “Where are you going?”

He wouldn’t look at me. “Do I hear another accusation?”

“I don’t want you to do something stupid,” I whispered, abhorring the strain I had caused between us. “Liam—”

“Just get out of the fucking car, Alexa,” he barked, revving the engine impatiently. “Am I not entitled to space?”

“Yes.” I buckled up. “But I refuse.”

His eyes shot to mine. “Fine,” he clipped, slamming down on the accelerator. “I must warn you, though, baby. I am in no mood for bullshit right now.”

I had caused his carless upset, so leaving him isn’t an option. I’ll grin and bear whatever callousness he lunges at me, just as long as he simmers down and doesn’t do anything stupid.

Liam drove for thirty minutes, and the silence was almost as unbearable as his increasing detachment. The Bentley wades between vehicles and skyscrapers bespeckle in the background. Our dark ambience emphasised the severity of tonight’s unspeakable argument. I was sure, though, that he’d drive until his exasperation ebbed as he’d never put me in harm’s way, no matter how much blood he craved to spill.

I stole a glance and paid great attention to his handsomeness. Even when enraged at this man, I cannot deny his unfaltering masculinity. “What?” he asked, and I looked away. “You keep staring at me. Why?”

Chewing my lower lip, I fixated on the tree-lined car park as he slowed the vehicle outside of a convenient store. I hadn’t asked what the unusual trip meant, but I certainly remained puzzled when he left the engine running and headed indoors.

Puffing out my cheeks, I fumbled with the music system, belatedly realising it’s paired to a device. It’s then I see Liam’s iPhone on his seat. Had it fallen out of his pocket? I wasn’t sure. Based on his reaction, I guess I will find out when he comes back. Tempted to check his messages and inwardly chastising myself, I clicked onto his playlist and selected the song he’d previously listened to. “Hurt You” by The Weekend played. I began to over analyse Abel’s lyrics, speculating if Liam had chosen this song at random or if it meant something to him.

Liam opened the driver’s door and collapsed behind the wheel. A plastic bag on his lap, he glanced from the phone to the stereo.

Envisaging his maddened beratement, I sank against the heated leather.

Firing the engine and amplifying the volume, Liam sped out of the car park while lighting a cigarette. Relaxing in his seat, he lowered the window and the night’s soft breeze filtered through. He expelled smoke, slow and lingered. “You’re doing it again,” he pointed out smugly, the corner of his upper lip twitching. “Do you like what you see, Alexa?”

Was he flirting with me?

“It’s bearable,” I answered nonchalantly, concealing my amusement.

Not hiding his all-knowing smirk, Liam drove off-road until vast greenery replaced high-rise buildings and bustling streets. In the middle of nowhere, he pulled over, killed the engine and pulled out two ice cream tubs from the bag: almond chocolate and butterscotch ripple. “Which flavour?”

My mouth salivated. “Chocolate.”

Tearing through a clear bag with his teeth, he extracted a white plastic spoon, returned the unwanted flavour to the carrier bag and passed me the goods. “Enjoy.”

His kind, thoughtfulness shouldn’t put me in a situation of emotionalism, but I had felt rather sorrowful, and foolishly so. Peeling back the lid, I held the tub in my clasped hands, waiting for it to melt somewhat.

Liam flicked the cigarette out of the window, parted his thighs and reclined in his seat, for comfort. His arms folded at his chest, he stared into nothingness.

I stabbed the ice cream with the spoon, convinced the brittle plastic stem might snap. Spooning flavoursome brownie pieces into my mouth, I managed a few mouthfuls, but the weight of Liam’s muteness flushed my cheeks in shame.

Recapping the tub, setting it on the dash, I unclipped my seat belt, fostered gallantry and climbed onto Liam’s lap, straddling his thighs. His hands smoothing over my backside, he dropped his head back and sought my eyes. “I think Blaire has a thing for you,” I mumbled sheepishly, “and it makes me jealously uncomfortable.”

“I am not interested in Blaire,” he said in a calm, resolute voice. “My heart belongs to another.” His hand clasped to my jaw, he demanded access to my mouth, and I obeyed, parting my lips to suck the tip of his thumb. A low, savage growl came from him. “You consume me.” He gripped the front of my hoodie and tugged me in. “Kiss me,” he ordered. “Kiss me and mean it.”

My heavy-lidded eyes greet Liam. Inching in, I breathed a kiss to his soft, delectable lips and pressed into him, seeking entrance to his mouth. Ever so teasingly, he smiled against my lips. “Liam,” I moaned, feeling his hard length between my thighs. “I did this to you?” I ground down, increasing friction.

“Only you,” he assured, his fingers tangling through my hair. “I love you, baby.”

I planted a second kiss on his mouth, and he lost the will to deny me. He nipped my bottom lip, the stinging sensation a thrill I almost needed to breathe. His hand to my hip bone, he held me down on his trouser-clad cock and then his tongue desired mine, hot and demanding.

Liam’s hand snuck under the waistband of my slouch pants, his fingers slipping in my wet folds. I was dripping for him, which only pleased and urged him farther. His thumb makes lazy circles to my clit before he carefully eased two fingers into my throbbing sex. Our eyes aligned as he stroked me into a withering, boneless woman of sexual urgency.

“Liam.” My arms wrapped around his neck and my hips shamelessly rode his fingers, demanding more. “Please don’t stop.”

Unable to speak, Liam shook his head, his fingers shoving into me, the sound of my wetness filling my ears and spreading a lusting heat to my neck and cheeks. His eyes hadn’t averted from my face. Whilst I was at his utter mercy, he was completely lost in me.

A moan caught in my throat. Feeling my walls tightening, a spine-tingling orgasm surfacing, I braced my hands on Liam’s shoulders and shattered in his arms. I hadn’t realised how much I missed this—us—until his lips kissed and suckled my neck. “Liam,” I cried, convulsing above him. I fisted his hair, the short strands hard to grasp. “Shit.” Blowing out a stream of air, I fell over the edge, the aftermath of pure intoxication ringing in my ears. “I…”

Liam withdrew his hand and sucked my glistening arousal from his fingers. Groaning in approval, he stole a firm kiss from me, his hands fixing to my waistline. “Tell me,” he said throatily. “I need to hear it.”

I knew what he required, and I had almost expressed as much, but the parked car and bright headlights behind the Bentley hindered the process of our progression. I stared, unblinking, concluding whether another couple had drove into the sticks for some sensual time alone.

Liam slapped my ass. “Where did you go?”

“I hope this isn’t a dogging spot.” The black car flashes its lights. “Oh, God. I think they want to engage, Liam.”

Frowning in confusion, Liam looked past my shoulder to the rear-view mirror, and something about his sudden anger sent my calmness into emotional turbulence of anxieties. “Alexa,” he said too calmly, depositing me onto the passenger seat, not veering his readied stare from the mirror. “Get your belt on.”

“Why?” I tugged the seat belt and clipped it in place. “What’s wrong, Liam?” Peering over my shoulder, I watched the other car reverse. “It’s okay. I think they might be leaving.”

His hands on the steering wheel, Liam, too, watched the reversing car; however, in a flash that ripped an alarmed scream from me, the driver lunged forward and slammed straight into the back of the Bentley. “Liam—” Jostled forward, I slapped my hands on the dash. “Shit.”

“Get down!” Liam roared, shoving my head down coinciding with a shrilling crack. “Fuck.” Slamming on the accelerator, he ripped into the night, increasing speed by the second—the back window shattered, sprinkling small and large fragments of glass across us. “Keep down!”

My head buried on my lap, I blindly searched under the seat for a taped firearm. “Liam, where’s the gun? What’s happening?”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted angrily, punching the shit out of the steering wheel. “I left the Eagle, Alexa. For fuck’s sake. Check the dash—” the vehicle crashed into us again, jerking me forward, the belt locking in place. “Goddamnit, Alexa.”

Liam’s not angry with me. He’s mad at the situation. “It’s okay—” Tyres shrieked before I could decipher the clamorous bang and impactful collision. I couldn’t look up, not even if I wanted to. “Liam!”

The force of the collision spun the Bentley and Liam lost control of the steering wheel. In sheer horror, I peered up and watched his hands frantically striving to regain control. Bright lights blinded me when I heard his loud, panicked commands. “Alexa—”

Abruptly forced upright, I held my breath, incapable of suppressing fear.

Thrust into unmanageable trepidation, Liam steadied the Bentley, speeding dangerously down a long, empty road.

I saw it first. “Liam,” I screamed, wildly gesturing to another oncoming vehicle. “Watch out—” It crashed into the side of our car and, in terrifying slow-motion, I felt the capsizing effect of toppling over. My head bashed against the window, the dashboard, and then I am upside down, the airbags releasing on impact. Hearing a jarring scrape as the roof slid across the uneven road, I blinked back tears and engulfed light-headedness. “Liam,” I croaked, smelling burnt rubber and projecting petrol. “Liam, I can’t see.”

Hitting deflating airbags, tasting blood on my lips, I desperately sought Liam’s voice, but devastating quietness broke my frenetic screams and inconsolable terror. “Liam,” I cried, inhaling a sharp breath. “No.” His body hangs precariously lifeless from the seat belt, and a pain like no other stabbed my heart. “Liam, wake up.” Jerking his shoulder, I shook him with pitiful strength, begging him to open his eyes. “Don’t you dare leave me like this—don’t you dare, Liam!”

An assemble of car doors slammed.

Commanding myself to calm down, I sightlessly unbuckled and gravity wretched me downward. My hands pierced my broken glass, I twisted in and turned, wedging myself closer to Liam. “Oh,” I whimpered, repositioning to my knees, crouched in the smallest of spaces. “Liam, I can smell petrol. You need to wake up, so we can get out of here.” I disconnected his seatbelt. His heavy, unconscious body fell atop of mine. “Oh, God.” Blood gushed from the side of his head, trickling through my begrimed fingers. “No, Liam.” I kissed his soft lips. “They’re coming…”

A pair of black heavy-duty boots came into my peripheral, and I wrapped my protective arms around Liam, determined to keep us together. Squatted down to look into the vehicle, a man, who I did not recognise, gnarled viciously at me. “I got him!” he called, and terror clawed at my chest. “Bring the van around.”

“Don’t touch him!” I screamed, locking my legs around Liam, but the man, who was far too strong, seized the back of Liam’s suit jacket, effortlessly tearing him from my arms. “No, please don’t take him—I can’t let you take him.” My fingers curling around the sharp glass, I crawled across splattered ice cream, metal wreckage and splurging petrol, emerging unsteadily from the ground to the asphalt, to see countless vehicles encircling us.

Too many guns aimed in my direction, I stumbled forward, jerking from left to right. “Please,” I cried, seeing two men drag Liam’s body towards a parked transit. “He can pay you—” Something—or someone—punched me, knocking me back to the ground. It hurt to the point I had momentary vision impairment, the twinkling stars above melting into one. “Oh, God,” I groaned, cupping my cheek and rolling onto my side. “Liam…”

Compelling myself to get up, to fight for Liam just like he’d fight for me, I licked copper-tasting blood from my lips and came face-to-face with exposed evil. Her long, slicked back blonde hair stopped at her lower back. Under different circumstances, I might have envied those grey knee-high boots. Her lips painted a deep, scarlet red, she squared up to me and her men, all armed and riddled in glee, watched fascinatingly at the side-line. “Molly,” I said, convinced the worst twin had appeared from hiding.

“Alexa Haines,” Molly purred, pouting her devilish lips. “I am not impressed.” Her disdainful eyes toured the length of my body, but the feeling of not being good enough ceased; I only worried for Liam. “I expected so much more from Warren’s prize possession.”

I spit in her face.

Blood and salvia slapped her cheek. “Wow.” Grimacing, she used her sleeve to wipe away my gallant disrespect. “That wasn’t very nice.”

Her slap to my face hadn’t knocked me down. It had pooled more blood under my tongue, though.

“Lose the glass or Liam dies,” she said in a bored tone, and the shard stabbing my palm slipped through my fingers. “Well done.” Pointing the barrel of a gun at my face, she signalled for a burly man to intervene. “Chuck her in the boot.”

No, I can’t outlive captivity.

Not again.

“What’s wrong, Alexa?” Molly asked, cocking her head. “You aren’t scared of a little darkness, are you?”

“Unë mund të argëtohem me gruan,” one of her men said, and his accented twang raised the hair on my neck. “Shpresoj se të pëlqen të luash.”

Grinning triumphantly, Molly anticipated my reaction to the Albanian.

Instead, I mirrored her sadistic smile. “You won’t get away with this,” I warned, and the guy shoved me in the back. “The Warren syndicate will hunt you down and violently dismember every single one of you.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it.” Molly blinked. “Put her out.”

Someone tasered my neck.

Everything blackened.

Chapter 38

Alexa

It’s a nightmare, a misapprehension of crippling eeriness abetting false illusion. Robbed of my vision, I laid motionless on what must be concrete, the cold, potholed floor and strewn debris, unkind to my body. Fettered in the juxtaposition of humiliating powerlessness and quiet trepidation, I tugged on the rope welting my wrists and stifled a pained complaint. Restrained and blindfolded, I blinked rapidly behind the obscure material covering my eyes, the ragged fibres irritating my eyelashes.

I smelt faint cigarette smoke and wondered if someone occupied the room. Such distressing, uncomfortable concepts caused significant perturbation. Contrariwise, even though the odds were stacked against me, as a child, I survived mental inquietude, vicious beatings and sexual molestation, so surely, as an adult, I can outlive the thraldom of vengeful captors.

With extreme foreboding, I stowed dispersed thoughts of unfavourable probabilities and strived for a more optimistic expectancy; however, when Liam, unarmed, helpless and vulnerable, came to mind, evoking sad, torturesome flashbacks of the collision, I started to hyperventilate.

In a trice of unshakable breathlessness, I coughed, the caustic, burning sensation, burdening my chest. Hallowing my cheeks, I inhaled through my nose and told myself to de-stress, to get perturbation under control.

Hours seemed to pass. I had no recollection of time or Liam’s whereabouts. I hadn’t called his name or heard his comforting voice, and I knew we didn’t share the same proximity because I couldn’t feel him.

A single tear rolled down my cheek.

I curved onto my side and closed my eyes.

Maybe I’ll wake up soon, and isolation will be just another distant memory.

***

Something touched my ankle.

Wrenched into consciousness, I awoke with a start and thrashed against the floor, endeavouring to sit upright or draw in my outstretched legs, but the restraints effectively kept me in place.

“Shh,” a female whispered, her hand cupping my flushed cheek. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

My heart in my throat, I immediately stopped fighting.

“Now, I am going to take off the blindfold,” she said, her fingernail teasing the fabric that bounded my sight. “Will you promise to behave?”

Bide your time, Alexa.

I nodded.

“Well done,” she cooed, and I granted myself an eye-roll before I lost the shade. “I trust you slept well.” Unknotting the blindfold, she gingerly restored my vision, the bright, fluorescent lights overhead singeing my sore eyes. “Hello.”

Adjusting to the brightness, I winced, the ropes tied to my wrists angering abrasions. Acute sight and hearing in check, I stared at the person looming above me. Previous consternation and worriment exchanged for embitterment and unprecedented furiousness. I had an overpowering compulsion to kill unmercifully. “Serena.”

Tugging one of two plaits, Serena, wearing an unfashionable pale blue muumuu dress, excessively blinked as she studied me. “Good morning.” To the navy and white coach pram that exudes archaic creepiness, she rearranged the frilly white blanket and settled her doll. “You must be hungry.”

It’s liable she’d force-feed me if I declined a meal, so I broached the topic strategically. “I am famished.”

Serena clapped her hands. “One moment.” Skirting the circumference of the small, concrete, windowless room, she counted steps and then unlocked the vision-panelled metal security door. “May I have a table, please?”

With a thunderous scrape, a smartly dressed middle-aged man appears, dragging a mosaic bistro table inside, positioning it in the middle of the room alongside two camping chairs.

“Stay put,” Serena ordered, wiggling a finger in his face. “Escort Alexa to dinner.”

You have got to be kidding me.

The man fished out a set of keys from his jean’s pocket whilst Serena sheathed the table in a white and blue chequered table cloth. He knelt on the floor beside me to insert a key in the rusted ankle manacle.

I openly scrutinised him and, to my dismay, irrespective of the jagged, faded scar along his right cheek—which only complemented his uniqueness—and former bad experiences with Albanian men, I couldn’t deny his attractiveness. Shoulder-length dark blond hair framed his striking face. His sharp, prominent cheekbones accentuated his moistened lips. “Je e bukur,” he murmured, his hand squeezed to my knee increased my heart rate.

I fought the urge to boot him in the face, knowing one sweet moment of victory will not free me from these walls. “I don’t understand Albanian.”

“Qen thinks you are really pretty,” Serena said, and Qen, she had called him, lost his once fond smile. “What do you like about her?”

Extracting a switchblade from his tan boot, Qen flipped open the blade and severed through the rope keeping my arms constrained to a leaking radiator pipe. “Ajo ka një buzëqeshje të këndshme.”

I still hadn’t breathed.

Serena looked offended by Qen’s response. “Do you want to fuck her?”

Qen freed one of my hands. “Nuk ka rëndësi.”

“It does matter,” she argued, and he snapped the final thread from my wrist. “I asked you a question, Qen.”

His thumb rubbed the bloodied blemish on my inner wrist. “No, I do not.”

Qen can speak English.

I stored that useful knowledge in mind for later.

Pointing to a chair, Qen forced me to stand. “Ndenjie.”

Assuming he ordered me to sit down, I rubbed the ache from my wrists and warily sat at the well-presented table. Serena had arranged plastic dinnerware and wooden cutlery together with vibrant coloured tumblers. In the centre of our outlandish dinner date, she placed a transparent vase, an artificial hollyhock followed.

“Guard the door,” Serena demanded officiously, sending Qen to the closed door to stand guard. “He’s ever so compliant.” Obtaining a cardboard box from pram’s chrome shopping basket, she organised small Tupperware containers onto the table. “Would you like a drink?” Before I declined, she unscrewed an empty bottle and pretended to pour water into the beakers. “Well, what are you waiting for? Tuck in.”

My eyes slicing, I sought Qen’s reaction to Serena’s manic behaviour. He must be inured to her bizarre peculiarities because he’s expressionlessly acclimatised to our odd surroundings and her sickening grotesqueness. I, however, wished the wooden knife had the potential to do more damage than a scratch to her pale skin. In fact, I wanted the switchblade from his hand so that I could ram the blade into her jugular.

Serena popped open a travel highchair. Fastening the beautifully dressed baby doll in place, she aligned six wooden cupcakes with Velcro icing tops and magic milk and juice bottles onto her loved one’s white tray. “Eat, Alexa.”

Reaching for a small container, I discarded the lid and assessed the outrageous arrangement of crafted, hand painted bread rolls, colourful vegetables and one rubber trout fish. Disconnecting the Velcroed avocado, I cupped a handful of false grapes and role-played. “I want to kill your baby.”

Serena paused with a spoon near her daughter’s mouth and with the most spine-chilling intensity, she slowly cocked her head to look at me. “You know Josie isn’t real, don’t you?”

Rendered gobsmacked, I laughed in awkward discomfort.

I have encountered many a parallel universe, but this one transcends on all accounts.

Of course, I know, Josie Warren’s a reborn doll. I did not, however, consider Serena’s cognisance. I guess she’s not as innocent or guiltless as she portrays. Her wicked smirk and the wild storm in her crystalline blue eyes suggested she’s more intelligent than I initially thought; a chain of underhanded stratagems sustained by false appearance and multiple personalities.

Liam read the situation regarding his father’s background incorrectly. Yes, Molly and Greer are manifestly dangerous women, but Serena’s mental illness is a façade to circumvent inborn malevolence and viciousness, which, in my opinion, trumps the twins’ thirst for revenge. Hell, had Serena not been a traitorous bitch it’s probable the Warren brothers might have developed a semblance of brotherly fondness for their half-sister. I mean, the three of them sure do love to spill blood.

I forked a plastic mushroom across the plate. “Aren’t you a little old to exist in a world of make-believe?”

Serena used a wipe to clean the baby’s spotless face. “Aren’t you a little angry at me for killing the spawn of Satan?”

Resentment clouded my eyes. Gripped by rage, I bolted from my seat, ready to seize her throat from across the table when a large hand landed on my shoulder. “Molly do ta vrasë,” Qen whispered in my ear as I shook violently in front of him. “It’s a game.”

“Qen,” Serena chimed, crossing her legs to sit elegantly taller. “What are two whispering about?”

“Kam kërcënuar të vras gruan,” Qen said in his native language. “Së pari, kam marrëdhënie seksuale me gruan, natyrisht.” His lascivious smirk implied a sexual innuendo, but daring risqué is merely speculation; I wish I were bilingual. “Ndenjie.”

Grudgingly obeying Qen’s order, I revisited my seat.

Serena looked blankly inscrutable. “Qen promises punishing sex if you continue to misbehave.” Lifting the doll from the highchair, she settled it back in the pram. “Honestly, Alexa. Let’s be civil.” Folding her arms, she gave me a dramatic sigh. “Liam’s life might just depend on it.”

Thoughts of Qen pinning me down froze my racing heart, but I feared Liam’s demise more than non-consensual sex.

Besieged by terrifying images of Liam’s systematic torture, I espied Qen standing wordless by the door. “Do it,” I provoked, and his vacant eyes slid to me. “Shove me in the dirt and take what doesn’t belong to you.” When his jaw clenched, and his Adam’s apple bobbed, I knew the idea of forcing himself on a woman disgusted him. “It’s not like this hasn’t happened before.” I returned my gaze to Serena. “Right?”

She licked her upper teeth. “I am not privy to your past transgressions, Alexa.”

“You expect me to believe the hired help of Albanian men isn’t a cruel game.” I leaned back in my chair. “Surely, nothing in life is ever that unpremeditatedly coincidental.”

Her incredulous stare sharpened. “I do not confirm nor deny any suspicions.”

Serena’s relation to Liam meant absolutely nothing to me. I am not afraid of imbruing my hands. If the moment arises, It’ll be her bloodied heart beating in my clenched fist.

I will hurt her.

We stared pensively at each other.

Her fearless eyes beckoned unmerciful revenge from me.

It was the chain around her neck that assaulted my broken heart. Elegantly falling between her breasts, the white gold diamonds teasingly scintillated. I knew, beneath the delicate fabric of her dress, laid a rare red diamond and an ownership engravement. “You stole something that belongs to me,” I said in a deathly voice unrecognisable to my ears.

“Oh, this old thing?” Her fingers stroked the delicate chain until the kaleidoscopic effect of bespeckled stones came into view. “It’s quite magnificent. Plus it looks better on me, and, well, Liam is my brother, after all, so I certainly warrant something this spectacular.”

“Warren,” I snapped, and her dark eyes bounced to mine. “You address him as Warren.” Standing abruptly, I gripped the plastic tablecloth and ripped it straight from the table, scattering her ridiculous display of role-playing food and dinnerware across the floor. ”Liam,” I added bitterly, scoffing at the absurdness of her sanctimonious bullshit, “walked this world alone and put blood, sweat and tears into his empire. He lent a hand from no one. Not from you or any other spineless family member. God himself hadn’t cared enough to shelter that man from rapacious money-grabbers like you, so don’t you dare sit there and preach what does and doesn’t belong to you. You haven’t earned the right to call the man I love your brother let alone benefit from his accomplishments!”

“You might want to rein your neck in,” she cautioned, soaring from the chair for a face-off. “Jealousy is a hideously unbecoming look on you.”

“I might not be a sight to behold, but I deserve Liam’s love.” I slammed my hands down on the table. “That necklace belongs to me. It does not belong on the deranged head of his unwanted fucking sister!” Qen seized my elbow and uncontrollable fury lanced my veins. “Get off me!” My raw screams burnt my throat. “Don’t touch me, asshole!”

His hands tight to my forearms, Qen lifted my feet off the ground as though I weighed nothing and flung my body over his shoulder.

My face impaling his denim-clad backside, I slapped, kicked and punched the back of his thighs. His fingers penetrated the hollow skin of my ankles, and I yelled out in unbearable pain, feeling the scorching intensity of his callousness.

“Silence her,” Serena ordered.

Qen tossed my thrashing body to the ground.

I smashed against the concrete, and everything went black.

***

Liam

Sporadic gunfire.

Fragmented glass.

Shrieking tyres.

Smouldering rubber.

Petrol gushing.

Pungent fumes.

Alexa screamed.

My baby panicked.

I lost control.

I never lose control.

Why did I take my eyes off the road?

To look at her.

It’s always about her.

My eyes snapped wide.

I could feel my headache worsening.

Dry and wet blood adhered to my cheek.

Alexa, I thought, fearing the worst. I need to get out of here and find her.

Chained by the wrists to the ceiling of a pitch-black dank cell, I twisted my neck to look up and tugged the restraints, testing the toughness of steel. It’s too cold. I am naked and misted in excessive perspiration. Darkness humidified the propinquity of four secluded walls, and someone other than me occupied the room.

“I don’t need the light to see the eyes of a snake,” I said in a strained, hoarse voice. “I can smell your fear from here.” The zap of lighter intruded my ears, and I inhaled second-hand cigarette smoke. “Face me.” Aggravatingly quiet, the person puffed, and I saw a small, cherry-red stub. “I said, face me!”

Compact fluorescent lights vibrated to life, and beguiling green eyes greeted me. Tawdry and tasteless, she stood there, exhaling smoke in my face.

I cared not for the bricked chambers of foreseeable torture. If my feet weren’t fettered to the ground, I’d wrap my legs around her neck and snap it. “You audacious bitch,” I spat, my jaw like granite. “Molly, I presume.”

“Ding, ding, ding.” Flicking ash on the floor, Molly eyed my flaccid cock and grinned. “Aren’t you the intelligent one?”

My lip twitched. “I am quite presumptuous.”

“So I have heard.” Her voice sounded far too velvety for such a haggard profile. “After all these years, I finally have the honour of meeting my pig-headed step-brother.” Curling her fingers around my white gold tags, she righted the crooked chain. “You are bigger in person.”

Looking somewhat spellbound, Molly stepped back to study her captured possession. I watched her circle until she slipped behind me to smooth her palms down my sides. Her soft touches felt contemptibly affectionate, which raised several red flags. Investigatory fingertips outlined the defined muscles of my back and shoulders. “Daddy wasn’t this big.”

I detested Ray Warren. “Do not speak of that man in my presence.”

“Oh, I must,” Molly chimed, returning to my line of vision to ogle my middle-section. “You have impressive abdominal muscles.” Something close to nostalgia dampened her eyes. “It’s weird. You remind me so much of Vincent, but your eyes,” she whispered, staring raptly. “They have seen more.”

I swallowed blood. “Perks of being the eldest.”

Itching her pointy nose, Molly crouched and put herself eye-level with my cock. “How can I get this to work?”

“For you?” My glare fixated to the light cord hanging from the ceiling. “Impossible.” Masquerading escalating discomfiture and uneasiness, I inhaled a sedative breath to regulate breathing. “Tell me, Molly. Is it only revenge you seek?” Her undeviating ogling knotted my stomach. “I am inclined to question your lecherousness.” Her hand unexpectedly cupped my balls, and a guttural growl rose in my throat. “Fuck.”

“I think I could get him hard,” she mused, closely examining my manhood. “I’d love to compare your sizes.” Her fingernails applied pressure, sinking excruciatingly into soft tissue. “Who’s bigger, brother? You or Vincent?”

My eyes watered involuntarily. “You fucking bitch,” I winced, jerking the chains keeping me upright.

“That’s not very nice.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “If it weren’t for me, glueing the gash behind your ear, you’d be dead.”

“If you’re expecting gratitude—” Her hand crushed my sac and I saw fucking stars. “Fucking hell.” Releasing her vice-like grip slammed oxygen into my lungs. Drawing in a sharp breath, I lowered my head and chased disbanding insouciance. “I am going to kill you.”

“We’re not in your kingdom, Liam,” she reminded me, brushing her fingers across my chest. “We’re in mine.”

“Those daddy issues really did a number on you.” I waited for a veil of composure to dilute my eyes and then fronted her. “You can bestow the ultimate death, and it’ll never be enough. Torture me if you must—I hear disembowelment can be quite agonising—but it changes nothing. He died. I killed him then; I’d kill him again. My father,” I sneered, our noses touching. “Fuck you. Fuck all of you. I justify myself to no one—” She impaled me in the side, the sharp blade ripping through taut skin. “Bitch.”

Gleefulness rounded her eyes. “I don’t care,” she whispered, twisting the blade deeper, tearing my heated flesh. “Raymond wasn’t my problem. He was yours.”

“Then what the fuck do you want from me?” I asked angrily, gnawing my teeth together.

“I want the Warren bloodline.” She withdrew the blade and blood gushed over her fingers. “And its riches.”

I blinked slowly to regain sight. “Am I supposed to understand your indirectness?”

“I want a baby, brother.” Wiping the blooded blade on her jeans, she peered up at me. “I want you to give me that baby.”

Although pain soldered my gashed flesh, I couldn’t stifle laughter. “You made all this fuss for a bastard kid.”

Her hand crashed against my cheek and my humour amplified. “You will not make fun of me.”

“I wouldn’t pay you a dime,” I groaned, balancing the heaviness of my weight on the balls of my feet. “As for a baby? Get fucked.”

“Oh, I will be gloriously fucked by you, brother.” Removing a plastic bottle from her cleavage, she shook its mystifying contents. “How many blue pills do you recommend?”

“You’d have to untie me, Molly.” My boiling blood hadn’t decreased. “In fact, I’d highly recommend you doing so.” I have never wanted to skin someone so much in my life. “Although I must warn you. I tend to get a little heavy-handed.”

“You will be too high on Rohypnol, so save your threats—”

“Are you that fucking demented?” I barked, jerking the solid chains around my wrists.

Recoiling, Molly choked on an inhalation. “You have a life that belongs to us—”

Wrangling my fists back, I thrust my chest forward and stared deep into her eyes. “I would rather burn my empire to the ground, then let you scavenger bitches claim what’s rightfully mine.”

“And what of your precious Alexa?” she asked, and at the mention of my woman’s name, the anger radiating off my body ebbed. “You surprised me, Liam. I thought her name would be the first word out of your mouth.”

No one plays mind games better than me. “Alexa’s replaceable.”

Molly shook the bottle of pills. “I don’t believe you.”

Somewhere beyond the steel door, Alexa’s raw, pained scream reverberated. I daren’t imagine what the others were possibly putting her though.

I shut my eyes.

No, her screams, it’s too unbearable.

Don’t punish her because of me, I thought, not wanting to show weakness.

Alexa’s sobbing felt like barbed wire to the heart. Each harrowing echo shredded my thumping organ piece by piece. “End it,” I rasped, my body trembling in rage. “I said, end it!”

Molly gave me a lopsided smirk. “End what?”

“Alexa’s suffering.” My fingernailed pierced my sweaty palms. “Do whatever the fuck you want to me, but let her go.” She’s been through enough. “Now.”

“No,” she said uncaringly, pushing onto her tip-toes to breathe a kiss to my chin. “I am enjoying your misery far too much.” Her fingers to my lips, she teased my mouth with a bullet tablet. “Open up for me.”

Pinching my lips together, I swiftly dropped my neck back and head-butted her straight in the face.

“Liam!” Jumping and screaming, she hovered a hand over her broken nose as spurting blood tickled.

Molly’s agony felt like a small dose of success, but Alexa’s chain of tormented beseeching broke my fucking heart.

In the midst of ear-splitting cries, the steel door opened, and countless men burst into the room. My eyes heavenward, I wrapped my fingers around the rusty iron chains and readied myself for bare skin belting.

Chapter 39

Alexa

Since childhood, I had feared the disembodiment of many faced demons and their eldritch bellows of torment, but perpetual darkness and its unearthly sphere of visitants soon became a convenient place to hide. I knew them. I had existed in their chilling world long enough to understand them. If truth be told, while lying on the cold floor, I realised the continual presence of mysterious supernatural beings came from rented grief.

I had unconsciously denied myself the painful truth of brutal reality.

The faceless woman, who often visited while I slept, sat on the concrete beside me. For a long time, her razor-sharp begrimed fingernails taunted the sprouted goosebumps of my flesh. Her intent watchfulness and slithered strokes to my leg turned the room a monochromatic grey, but the air between us, blue and morose.

Why, when compromised or sleeping, do I harbour culpability, shame and bereavement?

Why has it taken me this long to perceive that the trapped souls of my loved ones lie dormant in the mirage of hideous spectres?

I have to let you go.

Her hand movements stilled as she peered at me through waist-length scraggly hair.

Please don’t hurt my babies.

I have to let you all go.

“It has to scare me for it to hurt,” I whispered.

Blackness emanated from her skeleton-like body.

I opened my eyes and faced a cold, empty room.

Breathing roughly, I rolled onto my back and grappled inhalation.

Now isn’t the time to panic, Alexa.

I no longer felt my mother’s touch or reassuring voice.

Whoever observed me from the wooden chair hadn’t stayed around long enough to admonish me, either.

It wasn’t the monsters of my past turning pleasant dreams into nightmares. It was the people I once loved and cherished entombed inside the precipitous vale of my subconscious mind.

“I never got to say goodbye.” I recall the time where I kneeled beside my mother’s dead body to show her the picked garden apples: Kathy, the older sister who had loved and protected me, victimised by Stockholm syndrome. Murdered before my very eyes, she bled tears on my chest and deservingly so, yet I self-accuse and live with shame-faced culpability for the girl who died in order for me to breathe. “I’m sorry.”

But clipped wings will not set me free.

I trudged down memory lane to acquire knowledge of my mother’s past and the history of my bloodline. While doing so, I found Tony, a man who may or may not be my biological father and, thanks to Mr Corbyn, I learned that you could, for the sake of love, forgive and forget.

Patrick Haines, I never loved you enough to forgive previous differences. I do, however, hate you enough to forget you ever existed. Adaline and Kathy, vindication doesn’t exist in our world, and I love you far too much not to remember, but hoarding sentimental memories of what-could-have-been will not bring us back together.

I thumbed a tear from my cheek.

Liam is my future.

And he needed me more than I needed closure.

At a breathless pace, I lift a filthy hand to pinch the bridge of my nose, but the heavy-duty restraint on my wrist hales my arm backwards. Craning my neck, I examined the rusted radiator leaking stagnant warm water and moved the chain up and down to test the pipes robustness.

My arm extended above my head, I switched positions and rested on my stomach. I put my free hand to the opposite wrist and held on tightly as I yanked, heaved and tugged the groaning metal. Unlocking the manacle might be impossible without the keys Qen kept inside his jean pocket, but there could be enough strength in my arms to disconnect the chain from its make-do post.

Upward.

Downward.

“Christ’s sake.” Detaching myself from the hindering radiator was insurmountable. “Shit.”

Putting my forehead to the damp floor, I mentally reviewed my options. I had to get out of this mess, or heaven knows what those psychotic females had in store for me. “Liam,” I whispered defeatedly, wishing I knew his whereabouts. “I don’t know what to do. I need you to tell me what to do.”

Liam always had the answers.

Molly had ordered her men to haul Liam’s lifeless body into the back of a transit van. Had they driven him here? To this place…what is this place? Beneath furrowed eyebrows, I slid an inventorying glance around the room to compartmentalise the endless possibilities of death.

No, I didn’t get thus far in life to die now.

I heard Serena’s chipper voice before one of her hired guards unlocked the room door. “Good evening, Alexa.” Entering the echoing space, she carried a large cardboard box and placed it on the table. “Are you hungry?”

Great. Another make-believe dinner date.

I can’t possibly wait.

“No,” I answered honestly, the corpulent man organising actual water bottles on the table. “May I have a drink?”

“Of course.” Clapping happily, Serena shoos the short, brawny man aside, and then uncapped bottled water. “Sit up, Alexa.”

Pulling myself into a sitting position, I rested my back to the wall and accepted a drink to slake dry thirst. Each guzzled consumption unadhered thick layers of parchedness from my tight throat. Licking my dry, chapped lips, I savoured the revitalising, flavourless fluid on my tongue and tossed the empty bottle across the concrete floor, which caused Serena’s frenetic meandering to an abrupt stop. “No bin.”

Scratching the nape of her neck, Serena glared from the bottle to me. “You could have asked Qen to take your rubbish, Alexa.”

Qen, I silently questioned.

No, I don’t see the speciously attractive Qen anywhere. Not in the room or guarding the hallway.

“Qen,” Serena called with a click of the fingers, and the overweight man uprooted a pocket knife. “Arrange dinner.”

Serena addresses both Albanian men by the name of Qen.

Too languid and de-energised to question the senile woman’s rationalisation, I used my free hand to wipe the sleep from my tired eyes, examining the real sustenance presented at the dinner table.

My stomach grumbled in anticipation.

“Do you like shepherd’s pie?” Serena asked, and I hesitated to conclude food poisoning. “Don’t worry, Alexa. I didn’t enlist aconite as a weapon of choice.”

I just lost my appetite.

“I am a vegetarian,” I lied, and her eyebrows lifted. “Sorry.”

“Oh, well, that’s unfortunate.” Packing up the warm, cooked meals in the box, she ferreted through store-purchased sandwiches. “What about hummus and vegetables?” Puckering her lips, she read the label. “Can you stomach pesto?”

“Yes,” I lied once more, recoiling when Qen the 2nd snatched my ankle. “Must you be so boisterous?”

His uncombed, greasy salt and pepper hair curled out from under his seemingly deaf ears. Unlocking the manacle from my ankles, he dropped the heavy chains and moved over me to unclasp the painful shackle from my wrist. His cheap cologne failed to conceal the overpoweringly eye-watering stench of sweat; however, I lost interest in his unhygienic closeness when his large, hair-knuckled hand landed on my shoulder.

Our eyes locked, his bloodshot brown hues against my questioning hazels.

“Do you think Alexa’s pretty, Qen?” Serena appeared behind him, peering at me from over his head.

“Me pelqen ajo,” he said lasciviously, his lip curling at the corner. “Më lër ta prek.”

“It?” Serena giggled, patting his head. “Alexa’s not an object, Qen. She’s a human being.”

Qen the 2nd had a vicious, venereal look in his heavy-lidded eyes. His hand on my shoulder brushed along my arm, stopping at the elbow. Helping me stand, he tugged me to his chest, and I found myself hoping Serena might intercede, but when his other hand gripped my hip, squeezing a whimper from me, I worried this undesirable dinner date might end badly for me.

“Do you like wine?” Serena brandished a bottle of Mouton cadet.

I wasn’t a wine aficionado that thought boughten effervesces were beneath my dignity, but I spurned the idea of sharing distasteful red with a woman who almost achieved knifing me to death.

Who successfully killed my unborn baby.

“I don’t drink alcohol—”

“Nonsense.” She waved a flippant hand. “We all know how much Alexa Haines loves vodka.”

Breathing heavily in my ear, Qen the 2nd curled an arm around my waist. His hot tongue fluttered against my ear. His vile, flicking strokes taunted the hollow shell. “I can make it good for it.”

“After dinner, Qen,” Serena scolded lightly, pouring dark red wine into plastic glasses. “Oh, the anticipation enthrals me. I cannot wait to watch it.”

His nibbling to my ear ceased. “Does it like slow fucking?” he asked, and acidic bile pooled in my throat. “Or rough?”

I definitely preferred Qen the 1st. He might abet Serena in her wicked games of mental torture, but he’s never looked at me like a stalking, ravenous animal who hasn’t eaten in six months.

Qen the 2nd had the type of ribald hands that could rip my body in half, to tear me at the seams while licking away my tears.

With prolonged growling, he grasped my backside. “Why must we wait?” he asked Serena, his hand creeping under Liam’s hoodie to touch the bare skin of my back. “I have good stamina. I will make a good show.”

“Qen,” Serena sighed, pulling out a chair to become seated. “Go upstairs and busy yourself for an hour. I will call you when she’s ready.”

Reluctantly alleviating his tight grip to my behind, Qen yanked me to the dinner table and plonked my ass on a chair. “I do not like the black under its eyes, Ma’am,” he tells her, pinching my gaunt cheek. “If you want to watch me fuck it, then make it prettier.” His lips crooked in detestation. “And less willing.”

Oh, the son of a bitch wanted me to fight him, to scream and protest as he took me.

“I am not much of a screamer.” Snatching half a sandwich from the plate, I stuffed the malted bread in my mouth and chewed like a cow. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Qen, but if I can survive rape as a child, I can sure as hell ignore your fat body on top of mine as an adult.”

Serena choked on her wine.

Eyeing his overhanging gut, I chuckled mockingly. “Serena, I love that you and your sisters thought the hired help of Albanian men would induce distressing memories—just to make this experience even more traumatic for me—However, there isn’t a predator on this earth worth fearing more than Liam Warren, so spare me of your idle threats and tactless mind games. If witnessing Qen rape me rivets some sense into you, I’ll remove the clothes and lay on the floor right now.” I shot the man in question a derisive glare. “Actually, it might be better if I mount him instead. Unless a morbidly obese mess smothering me arouses you, of course.”

Qen’s palm struck my face, hard and punishing.

Toppling off the rickety chair, I broke the unexpected fall, hands and knees to the floor. Shoulders shaking as amused laughter ruptured from within me, I pushed off my palms and stood with demure confidence. “I hope you weren’t anticipating a blowjob, Qen.” I touched my vibrating jaw with unsmooth fingertips. “A broken jaw is hardly accommodating.”

He raised his hand to impale me again, but Serena slammed two fists onto the table and yelled, “No, Qen. Alexa’s right. She needs her mouth to be pure and unscathed for your pleasure.”

Sickness pivoted in the abysmal of my stomach.

If that disgusting, contemptible man even attempts to put himself near my mouth, I will gnaw through his limp member like a rabid dog.

“I demand you go upstairs,” she continued, her finger outlining the border of her plastic wine glass. “Thank you.”

With one final glower in my direction, Qen the 2nd stomped out of the room. The crashing door rattled the hinges, delivering a loud, cutting bang through my sensitive ears. In a mature, elegant manner, I returned to my seat and readied myself for whatever Serena had planned. I managed to finish the plant-based sandwich while she voiced wild tales of her past.

“My mother really loved me,” she said, and I plopped a sundried tomato in my mouth. “She just understood me, Alexa.” Often, her fingers traced the silver, bumpy scars on her inner wrists. “To set me free. You understand, don’t you?”

“Free from what?” I asked in a bored voice, buttering a broken cracker.

“My thoughts,” she whispered, her wide eyes wandering off into space. “They can be quite frightening.”

I guess vivid nightmares were something we had in common. “You choose to listen to the voices inside your head, Serena.”

“It’s hard not to,” she explained calmly, her low nasal bridge creasing.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked rudely and uncaringly. “You have lustrous blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. But your face,” I examined her thin upper lip, epicanthal folds and small palpebral fissures, “it’s almost as though someone flattened it with a frying pan.”

Red-cheeked, Serena simpered. “It’s called fetal alcohol syndrome, you bitch.”

I am not a horrible person.

I’d never ridicule anyone.

This woman didn’t deserve empathy from me, though.

I snorted.

Her lips grimaced. “My mother was the centre of my existence.”

“She also drank alcohol whilst pregnant for you,” I pointed out, pulling an appalled face. “To me, it’s unfathomable that you’d commend a woman who caused your condition and enabled your self-harming.”

Serena, for a moment, seemed to consider the truth behind my words, but with great stubbornness and flat denial, she shook her head. “It’s time to get ready for Qen.”

I tossed the plastic butter knife down on the table.

Collecting essentials from a black handbag, Serena stood behind me, parted my hair into two sections and braided with freshly picked daisies attached. Pleased by my appearance, she turned me on the chair, putting my feet together. Unzipping a polka dot cosmetic bag, she began to powder my nose. “What’s your favourite colour?”

“Don’t pretend, Serena.” I gave her a flat smile as she unscrewed the colour of devilish red. “What else do you know about me?”

“You talk to yourself.” Pinching my chin between her thumb and forefinger, she angled my head to paint red onto my churlishly pouty lips. “Much like me, actually.” Wiping a small smudge from my cheek, she drew in her eyebrows. “You don’t eat much, or have any friends. You don’t drive or have a job or even a purpose, for that matter. Your life, from my point of view, is quite pathetic.”

Defending myself was rather otiose. “I concur.”

“You really love him, though,” she said quietly, studying my stained lips. “Why?”

My forehead creased. “Why do I love Liam?”

Serena nodded.

Butterflies uncaged in my chest. Slow and somniferous, their delicate, fluttering wings reminded of why love is worth fighting for, because, at the mention of his name, Liam’s name, I feel safe, complete and at home. Bright or dark, he’s always there to catch me, to assure me and make me smile, happy and wanted, to tell me, I am worthy of his undying love, yet he asks very little of me in return.

Don’t deny me, he’d said.

Don’t abandon me, he’d meant.

My watery eyes met the white gold chain hanging from Serena’s neck. Admiring herself in a compact mirror, she hummed to whatever tune sounded inside her head.

Inert with apprehensiveness, I reached for the wine’s bottleneck, curled my fingers around the slender glass and, in a blink of doughtiness, I jumped to my feet and shattered it across her head.

Caught off guard, Serena tumbled to the ground and shrieked, her trembling hands, dabbing and smearing fresh blood across her cheeks. “Qen!” she bellowed, picking sharp embedded shards from her cheek.

Embraced by alacrity, I clutched the rear of a wooden chair and impaled her kicking, wailing body until wood cracked, splintered, unassembled between us.

“Stop,” she cried, striving to block delivered blows to her face. “Please, Alexa!”

Hiking one leg over her middle section, I inhaled a short, stuttered breath, dodged her aimless slaps to my face and struck the chair leg across her head. With each brutal blow, projected blood splattered up my chest, soaking me.

I lost any sense of awareness or cared not for whoever may or may not stand behind me. Every cracked bone, every pained, gargled whimper, every nauseating blow, fuelled the emotional girl within me to fight back, to never stop, to prevail.

Drenched in blood, I released the leg of the chair, staggered to my feet and snatched Serena’s handbag from off the floor. Emptying its continents, random items bouncing across the table, I searched for something shiny. My hand hovering above a serrated kitchen knife, I bent my fingers around the stainless-steel handle and, in silent, slow-motion, a blinking Serena contortions awkwardly as she struggled to stand. But it was too much, the pain and damage I had caused.

Her back crashed to the floor.

I loomed above.

Her eyes narrowing, she coughed a mouthful of blood and beseeched forgiveness.

Even when her opponent hadn’t earned clemency, the old Alexa, compassionate and understanding, would try to decipher why the evil within them wished to hurt her. “I am not that girl anymore.” Straddling her bucking hips, I seized her throat, forced the blade into her side and whispered, “Hush little baby, don’t you cry.”

Gasping for breath, Serena choked back a gurgled sob, the gore inside her chest, soaring to life-threatening heights. Mustering lethargic vigour, she gripped my forearm, her fingers, twisting and pinching my skin, a silent plea for air.

“Mamma’s not around to say goodnight,” I murmured, withdrawing the knife and closing two hands around the handle. “You killed my baby.” I raised the blade between us. “It’s only fair that I kill yours.” Shoving the jagged point straight through her chest, gashing tough flesh, I drove deep, listening to her shallow breathing. I ripped it out only to go deeper, for longer, for worse, for the confirmation of her death.

Stop, I told myself as I drew the knife back and speared into her lean stomach.

Impossible, I thought, stabbing viciously, repeatedly, in and out, over and over again until the reasoning voice inside my head confirmed her last breath and ordered me to stand-down.

Burying my head on Serena’s bloodied, lacerated chest, I screamed, raw, throaty screams, pinning the knife between her ribs. My body shook violently. I stifled the hoarse noises spewing from my mouth, smothered the pain, the anguish, the engulfing devastation and the impossible upset.

Flinging my head back on a refuelling inhalation, I wiped masses of wet bloodshed from my face, tasted it on my lips and tongue, the weapon in my hand, cutting and hacking through her ruptured chest. I chucked the knife to the side, sensed her wide, lifeless eyes on me as I delved my fingers into her rend flesh until the thick organ, ripped from snapping vessels, fell into my right hand. If the heart thumped, I didn’t feel or perceive it. I dropped it on the floor, slapped my hands onto the wall and urged myself to ignore the most sanguinary scene I had ever committed.

My forehead to the wall, I awarded myself a few minutes to calm my erratic heartbeat. Tears mixed with Serena’s blood trickled down my cheeks, but it’s not her death saddening me. It’s the flooded relief that Alexa Haines vaunted beautiful in triumph crimson, knowing, if only for a short-lived moment, she had the strength and courage to fight back.

Smiling to myself, I briefly glanced at the ceiling, whispered a kiss to my fingertips and then leaned over Serena’s mutilated body to unclasp what’s proudly mine. Pulling the white gold chain over my head, fixing the rare red diamond, I kissed Liam’s engraving, wiped the blade across my hoodie and stared at the closed door.

I must be an awful sight.

I most certainly felt dreadful.

Puffing out my cheeks, I gingerly twisted the handle and popped the door ajar. Peering into the dimly lit long hallway of bricked walls and unpleasant smelling sewage, I stepped out of the room and quietly sulked towards the only exit. I had no concept of what or who laid beyond the black, magnetising door, but I knew, if nothing else, whoever occupied this building, outweighed and outnumbered my chances of survival.

Conveying a medium-sized container, Qen the 1st strolled around the corner, cementing my feet to the ground. His free hand almost reached the black door, but he caught me in his sights, and all-consuming devastation took ownership of me.

The silence between us stretched.

With my glassy, despondent eyes, I begged him not to raise the alarm.

Why would Qen care for your pleas, Alexa? He’s one of them.

Slack-jawed and wide-eyed, Qen stationed the box to the floor, just before his tattered tan boots. Regarding me from head-to-toe, he cupped his askew mouth. “What have you done?”

I tightened my hold on the knife. “I did what I had to, to survive.”

Heavy footsteps and raucous laughter cracked above. Succumbed to defeat, I glanced at the ceiling, and ubiquitous dust particles misted my eyelashes. “Will they take it easy on me?” I didn’t watch him advance or even try to run. “Will you?” Suddenly entrapped in his proximity, I chance to look at him. “I’d rather it be you.” Not that I wanted to be any man’s victim, but I believed he’d be less aggressive. “If you kill me first.”

Fostering reckless bravery, I lifted my arm and drove the knife towards his face. Taken aback, Qen nabbed my wrist, flung the blade from my clumsy fingers and hauled me to his chest. “Unë nuk do të të lëndoj,” he whispered in my ear, but I didn’t understand. “Unë nuk jam ai tip burri.” His grip to my arm softened. “Dashuria ime.”

Afrodita, dashuria ime, I read the faded italic tattoo on the side of his neck.

I breathed against his scarred cheek. “I don’t understand Albanian.” I have never wanted to understand Albanian men nor learn their language. “Everything you say to me goes in one ear and out of the other.”

Qen the 1st scanned our surroundings. “Unë rrezikoj gjithçka nëse ju ndihmoj.” Appearing distressed, he gripped my hoodie sleeve and dragged me to the exit. “Say another word, and I’ll beat you.”

Tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth, I trudged alongside Qen. Keeping me in his tight grip, he opened the black door and threw me over the threshold. Darkness soon blanketed our moving forms as we gait through meandering hallways. Levelling a phone between his gritted teeth, he flashed the torch app, outlining discarded cranes. He climbed atop one of them, utilising its sturdiness to shine a light on the ceiling.

Perplexed, I hugged myself, debating the achievability of running.

“Eja ketu,” he said, and it sounded like an order.

I blinked. “What?”

“Come here,” he enunciated, clicking his fingers.

Moping sweat dews from my brow, I flattened two palms to the crane and pulled myself up, standing beside Qen. Soon, the sound of groaning metal reverberated, and the hatchet overhead precariously swung as it held on by flimsy brackets.

“Be quiet,” he spat, but when his hands fell to my hips, and he elevated my body above his head, realisation dawned on me. “Climb through.”

At a loss for words, I held the vent ledge and squeezed through the narrow opening. “Qen,” I said weakly, scuttling into the passageway. “What’s happening?”

Why are you helping me?

Chucking his phone onto my lap, Qen clung to the ledge, heaved upward and toppled next to me. Panting wordlessly, he repositioned onto his stomach, his arms straining to pull the intumescent grill back in place. It slammed upon locking and a relieved breath slewed from his dry lips.

His phone in my hand, I flared the light onto his face. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t save Warren.” On his hands and knees, he began to crawl through the restricting passageway. “But I can save you.”

“No.” Seizing the back of his ankle, I brought him to a halt. “I am not leaving the man I love behind.”

“I risk my life for you,” he argued in a fiercely whispered tone. “They will kill me if they find out I helped you.”

Amid encasing blackness, the light reflecting from the torch accentuated the fear in his round, piercing eyes. “What do they have on you, Qen?”

“Nothing,” he lied, muttering something under his breath. “We leave now.”

“No.” Sliding the phone across the floor, I twisted onto my knees and crawled in the opposite direction. “Liam comes with me—”

He fisted the sweat-slicked hair at the nape of my neck. “Is love worth your demise?”

“Yes,” I argued, turning beneath his conquering body. “Yes, I will die for love, Qen. In fact, I would die a happy woman if it meant I did everything humanly possible to save that man.”

Something unreadable flashed in his searching eyes. “Gjobë.” His voice rasped in his throat, an air of understanding in our breathing space. “I will help you find Warren, but I do not promise a happy ending, dashuria ime.”

Trapped in the middle of his arms, I bite my bottom lip to overcome tears of dread. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Qen said, moving over me to slink down the tunnel, “Warren’s life hangs on by a thread.”

Murderous rage burnt hot in my veins.

Impulsively trusting, I positioned onto all-fours and shadowed Qen the 1st into the unknown.

Chapter 40

Liam

Pain exploded behind my closed eyelids. Trapped in time, bruised, battered, beaten, I grappled the corroded chains stretching my arms above my head. Freezing water and sharp, cutting ice blocks overtaxing the diminishing persistence to outlive Molly’s unrelentingly sedulous torture methods.

Her nose gauged in white, blood speckled dressing, Molly watched one of five men unbuckle his belt. “Only the back.”

Mentally equipping myself for a merciless onslaught, my fingers tautened around the heavy iron holding me upright. Every muscle in my flared body, rigid and bunched up. The air whistled. His metal buckle whipped and leathered my anchoring spine, tearing new and unhealed slashes.

Blood and sweat bathed the back of my thighs.

Dark contusions swelled my eyes.

I struggled to see beyond extreme blurriness.

“Are you ready to cooperate?” Molly asked, her palm soft to my rough, aching jaw. “Why can’t you learn from stubborn refusal, brother?” I spit saliva from my mouth. It slapped her on the cheek. “You are behaving like a recalcitrant imbecile.”

If the overhead shackles weren’t keeping me on my feet, I’d have collapsed by now. “I’ll be dead before you can have your wicked way with me,” I half-joked, my busted lips, leaking and sore as I forced a disdainful smirk. “Let your goon beat me, Molly.” My shoulders hunching forward, I put our noses together. “But what’s the idiom? Don’t cut off your nose to spite your fucked-up face.”

“Reverse psychology doesn’t work on me.” Her left eye twitched. “So, conserve manipulation for your other sisters.”

I jerked an insouciant shoulder. “Suit yourself.” Balanced on the balls of my feet, I straightened my spine and braced myself for unpreventable flogging. “Unless you want me to piss on you, I suggest improvisation.”

Molly huffed out in exasperation. “You had a toilet break four hours ago.”

“The joys of urination biology,” I droned, hearing the steel bucket scrape in my direction. “Some privacy wouldn’t go amiss.”

I knew Molly would hang around to watch. It’s almost as though she’s hypnotised by my bladder rotation. Tilting my head back, I briefly shut my eyes and relieved myself. The transient respite had offered a mere trickle. Dehydration, I bet. I certainly craved water like never before. Tongue heavy, cumbersome, I licked the top of my mouth, blood and spittle scarcely quenching thirst. “Proceed.”

“You are not in charge.” Molly’s palm struck my cheek, a vibrating sting in its wake. “It’s my job to manage your persecution.”

“Fuck off.” My low-lidded eyes prevented an eye-roll. I sagged forward and stared at my indistinct feet. “Just…fuck off.”

I wasn’t sure which scenario I preferred.

Alexa’s echoing screams of pain or her unchangeable silence.

It was on the tip of my tongue, to ask if my woman still breathed. I refused to believe she hadn’t predominated. No, I am not a pessimistic man, and surely, God could never be that cruel, not after everything she’s been through.

But, if not death, what of other distressing, unthinkable consequences? Had the twins’ beaten Alexa, too? Had they authorised their men to force themselves on her? Was she imprisoned inside a windowless, icy-cold, concrete cell, starved and ridiculed?

My stomach convulsed into excruciating knots.

“Barter,” I croaked, struggling to stand still. “Let me barter for her.”

If Molly bore a gleeful expression, I wasn’t privy as I could no longer see. “For whom?”

“Alexa,” I said tightly, my jaw sharpening. “I’ll give you whatever you want just let her go home.”

Her fingernails claimed my cock, and I winced, dropping my head back. “Anything?”

“Anything,” I cursed through gritted teeth, the delivered pain to my cock capable of bringing every man in this room to his knees. “You have my word.”

“You’ll give me a baby.” Molly softened her grip and made lazy strokes to my shaft. “If impregnating me is ineffective, you’ll try again with Greer and then—”

“I am not fucking my half-sister,” I interjected before her eccentric considerations dispersed.

“You will then,” she continued angrily, applying pressure to my balls, “endeavour to fertilise Serena. If all else fails, we’ll consider insemination.” When my shaft laid flat in her palm, she became intently frustrated. “Why doesn’t it work properly?”

I laughed, low and throaty.

For starters, I don’t have a predilection for sexual masochism and, although my father’s step-daughter has a beguiling profile, I do not find her remotely attractive. Most importantly, with or without chains or appreciatively convenient erectile dysfunction, I had no interest in other women. Of course, under different circumstances, I can admire and appreciate feminine beauty, but I am a complacent, satisfied man. I love one woman and one woman only. Alexa’s delectable lips, kissable mouth, soft, skilful hands and her transfixing, intoxicating body was all I craved, all I needed.

“You’ll agree to Viagra,” Molly cautioned, letting go of my cock to step back. “Minus Rohypnol assistance.” Pointing a finger, she ordered another male to pack the lashes on my back with petroleum jelly. “How much money do you have in the bank?”

Despite the fact I don’t boast or broadcast prosperousness, I am a gratified millionaire. “I live a comfortable life.”

“A Rolex watch exceeds comfortableness, brother.” She eyed my wristwatch. “It reeks of pompous squandering.”

My jaw ticked. “You sound jealous.”

“Yes, well, you were rather greedy.” Her lips flattened. “You emptied our father’s safe without any consideration for your sisters’ welfare.”

Ray owed me. He’d left me in the neglectful hands of a selfish, junkie mother and hadn’t bothered to uncover my whereabouts when she overdosed. If nothing else, I was within my rights to claim for outstanding unpaid child support. “He’s not your biological father.” Perhaps if aware of Vincent and Serena, the younger, more tolerant, empathetic version of myself may have split the money three ways, but the twins unmerited wealth by bequest. “Or did your real father abandon you, too?”

Quietness lengthened. “Kevin Brown found a new family.”

Relatable, I thought in a somnolent daze. “Too bad.”

Grubby fingers rubbed Vaseline on my pack. Hissing, I bowed my spine to dodge his punishing jabs to raw gashes. “Fucking hell.”

“Do you want me to take over?” another female asked. “Jesus, Molls. He’s on his last legs.”

“Quit complaining, Greer,” Molly responded, followed by the sound of a lighter clicking. “You should be thanking me.” Cigarette smoke drifted over my nose. “I got him to buckle.”

“Really?” Greer hummed, and I blindingly levelled her with my tired eyes. “How are you feeling?”

When her fingernails grazed my chest, unwanted and affectionate, I could only stare.

“Shall I feed him?” Greer contemplated, tapping her chin. “Let me wash him, Molly. I can prepare him for you.”

Prepare me, I mentally reiterated.

“Why?” They want to prime me for their incomprehensible ritual of sexual bonding. “You claim to loathe me—all three of you,” I said, referring to Serena, too. “Yet one of you, in the foreseeable future, wishes for me to father their child. Can you not see how this madness contradicts your detestation towards me?”

Molly and Greer exchanged unreadable glances.

“My blood,” I husked out, “in the veins of our creation.” I put emphasis on our unimaginable shared bloodline. “Tied to me for the rest of your lives.”

“You’ll be dead and forgotten,” Molly said condescendingly. “Besides, Raymond claimed, in the event, one of his children birthed him a grandbaby, all overseas funds were to be transferred on the exact date of his said grandchild’s birth.”

I hadn’t known of any offshore accounts. “Why not ask Serena to fuck someone and get pregnant conventionally?”

“Oh, she’s tried,” Greer explained, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt. “We haven’t found a compatible suiter.”

“According to ancient aristocrats,” Molly picked up where Greer left off, “prestigious families preserved their power and bloodline to achieve pure-blood descendants.”

“Yes, if you want your kid to come out looking like a web-fingered knuckle-dragging Quasi-fucking-modo,” I spat, lost in an uncharted world of repellent heinousness. “I have committed many crimes, but interbreeding isn’t one of them.”

“Well, technically,” Greer twisted her thumb ring, “we aren’t related.”

“He’s talking about Serena,” Molly elucidated for the brainless twin. “She’s the last resort, brother, so fret not.”

“You are all deranged,” I muttered, and a sharp, piercing buckle whipped across my upper thigh. “Fuck!” Rocking against the chains, I held on tightly, withered by each brutal lash.

Someone splashed ice-cold water in my face.

“You motherfucking cunts—fuck!” My head throwing back, heart thumping in my chest, I weathered the belt to my back until guttural grunts dampened on my tongue. Burning from the inside out, I stood on unsteady legs, the protruding muscles of my low and high calves, sopping misted sweat.

In a semi-unconscious state, I released my grip on the chains. Limped onto the front of my feet, my arms agonisingly overextended to the ceiling, I closed my eyes and drifted into the shadows.

***

Alexa

Qen the 1st located a grilled passageway.

In a numbing haze, I watched him pinch the nailed fixture and unscrew studiously until all four corners disconnected from the vent. Sliding the metal coverage aside, he sat on the ledge. His legs dangling, he lowered his body. “I’ll catch you,” he whispered as I started to trail. “Easy, dashuria ime.” Positioning my hands to the floor, I worked my upper body strength, easing my legs down into the winnowing cavitation. “It’s more vertiginous than the eye perceives.”

I felt his hands on my hips, and a sigh of relief escaped my quivering lips. “Can I let go?”

“Yes,” he assured me, and I fell into his outspread arms. “Te lumte.”

My palms hugging his shoulders, I slipped down his chest. Feet to the ground, I stepped back, dusting off my hands. “Now what?”

Gesturing for me to follow, Qen trudged ahead. Fallen debris cracked underneath his tan boots, the crescendo of thumps bouncing off the moss-covered bricked walls. It’s only then, listening to his paced strides, I distinguished the dim-light and newly differentiating surroundings. “Where are we?” I asked, picking the daisies from my hair and chucking them over my shoulder. “I can see clearer, and you haven’t even turned on the torch.”

“Underground,” he said vaguely, rounding a sharp corner. “Don’t ask so many questions, dashuria ime. Just stay quiet and keep up.”

Picking up the pace, I unplaited my hair. “Qen?”

He harrumphed.

“What’s your real name?” I thought aloud, combing my fingers through tangled strands.

“You think I have a different name?”

“Serena seems to call everyone Qen,” I dramatized the numbers, freeing my unruly locks.

Qen stayed contemplative while considering a response. “Laurent.”

“Laurent,” I breathed, pursing my lips. “I like it. It suits you.”

“I am glad you approve, dashuria ime.”

“Qen—I mean, Laurent.” We stopped to look at each other. “What does dashuria ime mean?”

Laurent raked a hand through his hair. “Pse pyet?”

My frown held in place.

“It means…” His pale cheeks pinkened. “My love.”

“Oh.” My eyebrows shot up. “Oh, well, that makes perfect sense.” No, it didn’t make any sense at all. “I lied. You calling me that is unfathomable.”

“Habit,” he said quietly, rubbing the scruff of his jaw. I eyed the tattoo on his neck: Afrodita, dashuria ime. “What?”

“Who’s Afrodita?” I caught his round eyes with my curious ones. “She’s your true love, correct?”

He shifted forward, and I held my breath. “Yes,” he said, the vein in his neck pounding. “Yes, Afrodita’s my wife.” Nostalgia pooled in his glazed eyes. “And I love her very much.” When his hand cupped my cheek, oddly, I didn’t feel nervous or threatened. “You look like her.”

“Where is she?” I asked, a sucker for tales of true love.

Laurent kept me in his peripheral sight. “It doesn’t matter.” Retreating, he hurried to the end of the passageway. Looking up at the ceiling, he pointed. “It’s a storage unit. Entering the building from here gives us an advantage.”

Putting thoughts of Afrodita to the back of my mind, I fix my palms to his shoulders and a foot to his upward-facing linked hands. “Please don’t drop me.” He elevated me to the low ceiling and quickly disengaged the lock. “Where should I put the grill?”

He braced my weight. “Leave it up there.”

Nodding, I ebbed the cover and with one final boost, Laurent thrust me into the opening. Not looking around, I moved to look down at him, lowering my arms. “I am not very strong, so please be quick.”

Dipping his head, Laurent clutched my forearms, put one foot to the wall and pushed upward. His weight almost dragged me back, but his free hand crashed onto the wooden floor by my cheek in time for me to grip the back of his T-shirt. “Shit,” he growled, clinging onto the ledge.

“You got this,” I encouraged, obtaining somewhat heroic energy to drag him across my body and onto the floor. “Holy fuck.”

Rolling onto his side next to me, he heaved a breath, mopping grime and sweat from the crease in between his cinched eyebrows. “We need to keep moving.”

Gripping my hand, Laurent helped me stand and swerved around me to look through the glass-panelled door. “Dashuria ime,” he whispered, calling me closer. “Down the hall, there’s a storage room where the men keep weapons. You need to stay here…” His wild eyes toured the dank air of spaciousness. “Hide behind the boxes and do not leave until I come back.”

In the blink of an eye, Laurent had disappeared, leaving me alone in the cold, foul-smelling room. Fixing my dishevelled hair, I slid behind the floor-to-ceiling metal storage unit, the labelled boxes blocking my view.

I hadn’t meant to be curious, but one of the time-worn boxes invited my awareness. Smoothing dust from the penned Warren sobriquet, I extracted the lid and set it on the floor. Bringing it to my chest, I peered inside, then back to the other categorised boxes to see the twins had accumulated numerous keepsakes of other family members. Paying no heed to the other collections, I fossicked through documents, newspaper articles and random, purposeless junk when a vintage-looking mahogany jewellery box decluttered on my hand. I did not have the eye of a gemologist, though, I knew, just by the weight and encrusted white diamonds that the ring had to be valuable. I studied the gold Warren engraving on the black onyx stone.

The ring had belonged to Liam’s father.

I pondered with it in my hand.

Liam would want me to leave it, right?

He loathes Raymond, detested him.

It’s not my call to make, though.

“Shit.” Stuffing the ring inside my pocket, I closed the box, seeing Laurent peeking into the room. “Over here.”

His hunting eyes captured mine. “Come.”

Emerging from obscurity, I scuttled to his side.

He stared at me for a long minute. “Are you any good with guns?”

A boastful smile ached my cheeks. “Am I any good with guns?” Repossessing one of three firearms from his arms, I weighed it in my hands and yanked the hammer back. “I have been trained by the best of them.”

Laurent’s upper lip quirked. “A deft marksman.”

“Markswoman,” I corrected, shadowing him into the interconnecting hallway. “So, what’s the plan?”

He looked conflicted.

“What?” I asked, folding my arms. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“No, I am neck-deep now.” He rubbed his eyes. “Fuck it. I was neck-deep, anyway,” he whispered the last part so quietly, I almost hadn’t caught it. “We should split up, but I worry—”

“I’ll be fine,” I reassured, though I botched convincing him. “They won’t even see me coming, right? I assume nobody knows about Serena yet?”

“When you hear sirens,” he drawled, rolling his eyes, “that’s when we need to worry.”

Okay, neither the twins nor the hired Albanian help knew of Serena’s death; however, their unawareness won’t last forever, so we had to act fast. “How many men are we talking?”

“Give or take, eight or nine?” He was unsure. “Listen, it’s late. Usually, the men wind down in the movie room, drinking beer and eating pizza or whatnot. Let me handle them. You go to Warren, but I must warn you, Molly hasn’t left his side, so it’s a likely altercation between you two. As for Greer, I haven’t seen her since we arrived at the compound.” He glimpsed over his shoulder. “She could be anywhere.”

I gave him a curt nod. “Where can I find, Liam?”

“Ignore the red and green lines.” He pointed to the floor. “Only follow the yellow. It’ll lead you straight to Warren’s chamber of tort….” Biting his tongue, he followed his cheeks. “Good luck, dashuria ime.”

“Wait.” I gripped the front of his T-shirt. “Laurent, what if something bad happens to you?”

Unsmiling, he gazed lugubriously at me. “It’s only what I deserve.”

I don’t believe he deserves death. “What do they have on you?”

Laurent’s face pinched tight. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” I assured, keeping my hold on him. “You matter, Laurent.”

His sad, wet eyes pinned me in place. “I am an immigrant,” he explained, shame-faced and embarrassed. “When denied citizenship by naturalisation, I snuck into London with Bukuroshe and his men. He promised, if I worked for him for six months, he knew someone that could help get my wife and I permanent residence status.” His chin jutted forward. “Within weeks, I committed gruesome, unforgivable crimes. The type of crimes that keep me up at night. But I kept telling myself that it’ll be worth it once I left all this behind and paid for Afrodita to come here and be with me.”

My chest hurt for them.

“Broken promises,” he murmured. “Bukuroshe has the power to expose me to authorities. If I disband, I face life imprisonment for my sins, and Afrodita will never see me again.”

“Why not fly back to Albania?”

“With what passport?” he asked, his eyes back to mine. “Bukuroshe smuggled us over by boat. I am out of options, dashuria ime.”

I run a palm down my face, eroding Serena’s dry, cracked blood.

“Go.” Shoving me in the shoulder, he compelled me forward. “Follow the yellow line. And dashuria ime?” He slapped a switchblade onto my palm. “Don’t hold back.”

Leaving a man behind didn’t sit well with me. Out of the goodness of his heart, Laurent showed compassion and helped me evade possible death.

I stopped to turn around.

Laurent’s gone.

My lips parting on a harsh exhale, I listened to instructions, chasing the yellow line down the stark hallway. Upon locating an unlocked door, I peered over the wooden frame, heard the radio, almost scuttled past…I recognise that man.

Throned on a leather recliner, Qen the 2nd, scarfing down popcorn kernels and swigging beer, bops his head to the harmonious chords of classical music.

Tucking the gun into the waistband of Liam’s jogging bottoms, I flipped open the switchblade, slipped it under my sleeve and brazenly entered his domain.

A palm to his mouth, he nearly scoffed a second helping of late-night treats when our eyes merged. Stunned into silence, he scrutinised the length of my unbecoming presence, pausing to decipher whose blood marred my face.

“I did something really bad,” I whisper-sobbed, a theatrical display of waterworks. “I killed someone, and now I don’t know what to do. If I run, the police will arrest me…”

Qen the 2nd set the popcorn container onto the coffee table. On his feet, he wiped residue off his shirt. “I help it.”

Of course, you will help me. “I am scared.”

“Don’t be frightened.” His mouth widened into a disgusting, animalistic smirk. “I can help make it better.”

Nodding, I dabbed my cheeks with my sleeves. “Can you drive me far, far away from here…?”

“Bukuroshe,” he verified, creeping closer, closer, not quite here. “Why doesn’t it sit down?”

“I’d rather stand,” I whimpered, smearing filth across my cheeks.

Pleased by possession, Bukuroshe glared past my head to check no one’s around, and then, as suspected, he snatched my throat and hauled me to the recliner.

My back crashed to the restricting leather as his overweight body ravenously mounted mine. “Please don’t,” I cried, letting him lower his guard to tug the drawstrings of my bottoms.

His knuckles skimmed my hip bone, frantic and desperate to eliminate restrictions.

“I hate men like you,” I said in a low, bored voice. “What gives you the right to pin down a helpless woman, to violate and leave her in a state of lifelong trauma.” I slapped his cheek, and his pendulous jowls jiggled on a sputtered gasp of shock. “Monster.”

His chubby fingers reclaimed my throat. “I will fuck it ten times harder for such insolence.”

“Yeah?” Arching a challenging eyebrow, I freed the knife from my sleeve and into my waiting fingers. “Is that before or after I kill you?” Spearing the blade between our tangled bodies, I sank the sharp point in his throat and, without remorse, hesitation or regret, sliced through his flushed skin.

“Fuck—whore,” he gargled, decreasing his punishing grip on me to save himself, to staunch the bleeding to his gushing throat, to conquer and kill. “I…” Thick vermilion rivulets waded between his fingers as he staggered over the coffee table, scattering bountiful bouncing popcorn across the floor.

Picking up the chequered display pillow from the U-shaped sofa, I stalked over to his worming body as he strived to slither away from me. Stomping my foot on his spine, I smothered the back of his head with the pillow, thrust the gun onto the colourful patchwork and pulled the trigger, the diffusing duck feathers, reducing the strident bang.

With the front of my ruined slipper boot, I rolled Bukuroshe onto his back, reclaimed the knife from his neck and bolted for the door.

It’s when I heard Liam’s agonised shouting, tears flooded my eyes. “I’m coming, Liam.”