He braces my back against the wall and it doesn’t escape my knowledge that the hole from the other night is still there, just to the right of me. That’s where he fucks me, hard and ruthlessly.
He doesn’t try to silence my strangled cries of pleasure. He tears them from me with each forceful thrust. His eyes never leave mine, even when he kisses my jaw.
“Seth,” is the only word I can say as he takes me, pounding into me relentlessly. He hits the back of my wall every time and I swear it’s too much, but the moment he’s gone, I want it again. Always.
Seth
“She’s good?” Declan asks as he pulls away, leaning back in his seat and taking control of the polished steering wheel with one hand. Resting my head against the passenger side, I check the side-view mirror as the lights in my front room windows fade into nothing. The car jostles as Declan turns and hits the edge of a pothole.
“She’s all right,” I say, giving him a vague answer. I have to move, setting my elbow on the rest and letting my thumb tap against my bottom lip. She’s not all right, but she’s better. I know her and this isn’t her. She’s not addressing what I did, she’s backing down from the fight. My babygirl doesn’t pretend, and she doesn’t hold things in. She’s not all right. Something is wrong with her. Something’s wrong with us and I don’t know what.
“Are you good?”
“Tired and pissed.” I answer him before looking at him. He knows I’m pissed. I haven’t told him that I don’t like that they left her in the cell with the hitman, but he doesn’t need me to say it. I can read it on him and I’m sure he can tell I’m pissed just the same. Laura should have never been left in there. It was a calculated risk. And I hate them for it.
Declan is the spitting image of Carter, but with lighter hair, lighter eyes, and a more approachable personality. Every hard edge Carter has worked at having, Declan’s cultivated the opposite. He wants people to come to him. He wants them to feel that they can trust him. It works.
“She’s not bait.” Apparently, I can’t let it go. It’s what irks me as I sit in this expensive sedan while Declan drives me away. They know I’m pissed. They know it was fucked. And yet, here I am, at war with an unknown man and pissed at the only allies I had.
“I know.” Declan’s tone is easy. He’s always easy, but I’ve seen the way he handles situations. There’s a grace about it, a calming air and then a brutal ending his opponent didn’t see coming. It’s all about the way he handles it, with both control and ease. “I told them that girl should have been taken out of Laura’s cell the second she was placed in there.”
The sun’s only just peeking over the horizon, the pale pinks and oranges kissing at the edge of the skyline. Laura slept soundly for a little while, then woke up screaming again. He wants to know if she’s all right? She’s not. Part of the reason is because they let that situation occur. They could have stopped it. They didn’t. And now she’s not all right.
“She’s not all right,” Declan surmises. I only look at him in response, mute. “You can’t hide it.”
“How do you know that what I’m thinking is about her?”
“How could it not be about her?” he questions back. A deep ache settles in my chest and I have to look away.
“I can’t stand this. She just had a hard time sleeping and now I’m leaving her. She woke up screaming, grabbing me. She has nightmares about it, Declan. She’s not all right.” He should know. They let that shit happen.
“She’ll be all right,” he answers. After a moment he adds, “She’s strong… maybe it’s better to be alone if she’s doing that.”
“Better to be alone?” I don’t hide how I truly feel about his comment. How could he think that’s better? Anger swims inside of me. He’s the only friend I have out here. Him and his brothers. Yet here I am, wanting to beat their faces in.
He glances at me quickly, with confusion at first before explaining himself. “Well if she’s grabbing you when you’re sleeping… I was just thinking… you know, you react to that. Being grabbed in your sleep.”
My head falls back and I stare at the visor and then up to the sunroof that still displays the fading night sky. “She’s screaming, Declan. My first instinct is to find her.” I explain it as calmly as I can remember something Declan told me that makes me feel like shit.
His first instinct isn’t the same. I forgot about what he told me a year or more ago. That must be why he said what he did. Why he assumed her grabbing me wouldn’t end well. And now I feel like shit. This edge I have needs to go. I need to get out this aggression before it gets me killed. Declan is not my enemy, even if I am pissed.
“Sorry,” he says and adjusts his grip on the wheel, then looks out of his window, away from me. “I didn’t mean for it to be taken like it was. It wasn’t meant to be… cold.”
“It’s not,” I say. “I get it.” The streets are vacant as we drive. I’m quick to change subjects and put this to bed for now. “Everyone’s going to be there?”
“The four of us. Daniel’s staying back.”
“Carter, Jase, you and me?” I question to clarify and Declan looks away to nod. I don’t like it. I don’t fucking like this one bit. Not when I’m pissed at them and they know it. “I’m not all right with the way things went down.”
“We know,” he answers and that’s what causes the cold prick to travel down my back. I’m not comfortable against the leather. It’s hot and this seat feels too small.
“If you knew I’d be pissed, then why?” I can’t help but bite it out. “Why use her as bait?” They left her in there, hoping to get more information about who put the hit on her. I don’t know how I could ever forgive them. Worse, I don’t know how they’ll react to knowing that.
“Carter got the note. It was never going to get to Jean.” This is the first I’m hearing about it. I’ve been out for half a day now, and Declan’s just now telling me?
“When?” I question and quickly spit out more. “What’d Marcus say in it? Where is it?”
“It’s not Marcus. It’s not his writing. Check the glove box,” he says, reaching over. As the click of the lock fills the small cabin, he tells me, “We got it just after Walters gave Laura the package. If it had been delivered a moment before, things would’ve been different. I swear to you, if we’d already had the note, she’d have been in her own cell. She’d have been alone.”
The small note is familiar; the type of paper, the handwriting. Marcus has a tell and these notes are it. It’s his primary mode of communication. Thick handmade paper with deckle edges, his writing style, even how it’s ripped. There’s always a way to know it came from him and this looks like it did. My head spins reading it. Shock and fear come back with full force.
The note reads: Make it quick. It’s not her sin to pay.
My veins freeze with the ice that courses through me. The need to rip it up, to crumble it, to smash my fisted hand against the window rides me hard. “He gave the order,” I say and the tragic truth is ripped from me as my throat tightens and I read every word again. “She was going to die in there.”