A meeting that might help facilitate the capture of more sick fuckers who needed their cocks sliced and diced…
A meeting that would help me give training wheels to Harlow…
That was what I told myself.
What I believed.
But why I hadn’t told anyone about the phone calls and texts I’d been getting, the outside help in regard to Kevin’s missing corpse, I really didn’t know.
Lights flickered on behind me, catching my attention in my side mirrors, and I saw one of the beat-up trucks Link kept going out of sheer muleheadedness. Most of our cages were three to four years old max, but that one was at least twenty. Link said he maintained it out of spite, but I knew he was being a smug asshole about his skills in the garage every time he got the clunker running again.
For once, I was grateful because it stuck out like a sore thumb to me on the road to Manhattan.
As I veered in and out of traffic, switching lanes and dropping back so I could determine who was behind the wheel, I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed to find Harlow staring blankly at the gridlocked traffic ahead.
He was too eager for the kill, and it’d fuck things up for him if he didn’t contain it. But it wasn’t like I could judge. Wasn’t like I could give him another coping mechanism. If I had one, then I wouldn’t be here, potentially walking into a fucking trap just so I could take another pedophile out.
It was too soon.
He was still only a Prospect.
But I didn’t try to lose him. Neither did I let him know I’d figured out that he was tailing me.
I had no idea what was waiting for me in Manhattan. Could be allies or Sparrows for all I fucking knew, but if it was a legit operation to clean up muddied waters, then Harlow could listen in.
I wouldn’t be breaking my promise to Indy.
Neither would I be breaking the vows I’d made to Giulia and our kid.
That didn’t mean I wouldn’t test the limits.
I allotted more than enough time to get onto the island and be punctual for my meeting, but because of an accident somewhere on the way—no change there—I was running late.
I sped through the Lincoln Tunnel and rushed down the center of Manhattan to reach Harlem. I didn’t even look to see if Harlow was still tailing me; I needed to get to W 125th St. and fast.
With the GPS guiding me to the meeting point, I pulled up just as a great big fucking boom sounded. At first, I thought there was a bomb, but I realized the charge had run out on my headphones and the church bells had started tolling.
Once I’d parked, I stared around at the dark streets. In my side mirrors, I saw Harlow settling into a space about thirty feet away, and I made no move to draw him over to me.
I just peered around, trying to figure out who I was meeting with. Wondering if this was a trap or if it was a solid connection.
Slotting the earphones back in the charging case then tucking it into my pocket, I straightened off my bike and stretched. It was a move designed to make anyone watching me think I was relaxed, but I was on red alert.
Only trouble was, there was no reason for the red alert.
Not that I could see.
I was standing on a street that could be any street in the city. There were streetlights that didn’t illuminate the area well enough. Puddles of amber light that gleamed on the slick sidewalks and glittered in puddles when cars drove past and unsettled them.
Vehicles lined both sides, and twenty yards away, a crosswalk blinked and beeped even though no one was standing anywhere near it.
After five minutes passed of nothingness, I started to wonder if Lodestar could figure out who’d contacted me. I’d tried to broach the topic with Maverick, but his CTE was fucking with him and he had a heavy workload because of Rex’s absence.
Just as I went to reach for my phone, on the brink of conceding defeat and calling Lodestar for some input, I heard it.
A soft cry.
Cut off.
Sharp and loaded with fear.
Every instinct in my body leaped to attention at that sound.
I knew what fear looked like, sounded like, and fucking felt like.
Head whipping to the side as I started to hunt down who’d made that sound, I got a visual on a potential alleyway a short way up the street.
Leaving my bike, I headed for it, unsure if it was a passageway or just a cluster of shadows, but the nearer I got, the more sounds I heard.
Bile choked me. Suffocated me.
It sounded like Carly.
I nearly froze at the realization.
Dazed and terrified, soft whimpers and panicked mumbles of pleas were cut off by a hand held against someone’s mouth.
The wrenching of fabric—stitches torn and material shredded.
A gasp of pain.
A grunt. Different this time. Not pain-soaked but loaded with pleasure.
That was when I moved.
I didn’t need to know what was happening to know what was fucking happening.
I stormed down that alleyway, ignoring the pitch dark that made it easier for the bastard to hide, making my footsteps as silent as I possibly could while cursing my night-blind state from the streetlights.
A further cry, this time of pain, had me shoving stealth aside and I ran down the narrow alley. A gleam of silver caught my attention, a flash of red hair, a flash of blond—the guy’s watch had lit up as he moved his arm.
I saw cavernous shadows on a craggy face, eyes filled with rage and lust, a mouth curved in a sneer but a hunger tore at him that was undeniable. Recognizable.
I felt that hunger—but mine wasn’t for the innocent.
Mine was appeased by the spilling of blood of bastards like this one.
He watched me watch him for a split second, and that was when we both reacted.
I had over two dozen kills to my name—I was the faster draw.
My knife slipped out of its holster on my forearm like it was made of butter on a hot day, and as if it were magnetized and his throat was full of iron filings, I found my way there.
He was inside her.
I was too fucking late.
I was always too fucking late.
My fist glanced off his temple.
It was a righteous blow because he staggered, his knees starting to fold out from under him.
I took full advantage; grabbing a hold of his hair, I pulled his head back and dragged him off her. As she screamed, I sliced the blade across his throat, and she shrieked when his lifeblood arced and caught her in the spray.
A slash to the jugular wasn’t enough, not when the girl’s whimpers and desperate sobbing filled my ears.
I thrust it in his stomach the second he was choking on his own blood, and I made sure to twist that fucking knife.
Clockwise.
Counterclockwise.
As he cried out, I realized the sound of my heart pumping in my ears and the tunnel vision that came from a situation where it was either kill or be killed had shielded me from what was actually happening.
The sirens.
“Nyx! Quick! We have to get out of here!”
Harlow?
Red and blue lights suddenly flashed, bouncing off the narrow walls in the alley, while the heavy thudding of boots made themselves known to me at the same time as someone yelled, “Drop the weapon and put your hands in the air!”
FORTY-EIGHT
REX
TAKE ME HOME - JESS GLYNNE
“I’m pregnant.”