“Oh hello, Rowan,” Hannah greeted me at the door. “I’m afraid Stetson isn’t here right now.”
“I know. I wasn’t able to make his game this evening, and he mentioned staying here tonight, so I thought I’d drop a little surprise off for him. Hopefully make up for missing his game.” I gave her a bashful smile.
Hannah had to be closing in on sixty. She wore her hair in a tidy bob cut and kept the house running seamlessly in her white button-down and navy slacks starched to the point of standing on their own. She saw it as her personal mission to mother hen the Wellington men, so I was counting on her being sympathetic to the plight of an errant girlfriend who had fallen behind on her duty to support her boyfriend.
“Of course, sweetie. Though, I can’t say what condition his rooms are in.”
“No worries. I heard you weren’t cleaning that part of the house. I say it’s good for Stetson. Some things are life skills everyone should have,” I said conspiratorially.
Hannah winked. “You said it, not me.” She closed the door behind me once I was inside.
“I’ll just drop this in his room and let myself out.”
“All right, dear. Holler if you need me.”
“Thanks, Hannah.”
She smiled warmly and headed back toward the kitchen. I bolted up the stairs. Instead of turning right toward Stetson’s room, I hooked to my left and hurried up the small second floor stairwell to the third floor.
Hands trembling, I used the key to unlock the deadbolt and opened the door. My lungs seized at the sight of the girl huddled in her corner with a small blanket around her. From what I could tell, the floral dress was gone.
Outrage burned the back of my throat. The injustice of it all threatened to take my legs out from under me—that she was being forced to endure such inhumanities, and that I was forced to let it happen. I’d never felt such crippling anger in my entire life.
The helplessness, however, was familiar, and I hated it.
The girl jumped to her feet at the sight of me. Her face lifted with desperate hope that this was the escape she’d been praying for. That this time, I was here to save her.
I suddenly questioned whether my return would do more harm than good because now I had to crush her hope all over again. “I’m so sorry,” I pleaded, extending the small piece of paper I’d prepared for her.
I’d translated a message into Russian explaining that the man holding her is very powerful and that we were working on freeing her soon. As her eyes scanned the words, her trembling intensified until I didn’t know how she could possibly see the words.
“I’m … I’m so sorry.” My voice failed me. All I had was a wisp of breath that managed to squeeze past my heart lodged in my throat.
The paper drifted to the floor, two heavy tears from her cheeks following after it.
“So, so sorry,” I continued to murmur as I picked up the paper and stuffed it in my pocket.
Regret engulfed me with enough fiery shame that I felt as though my skin was burning from the inside. How dare I let this girl’s suffering go on when I could free her? Had I been brave enough, I could have brought bolt cutters and gotten her out of the damn house. I could have gone into hiding—better that than know I was the reason she was still trapped in hell.
Ro, please don’t do this. It’s not your fault.
Maybe not initially, but the fact she’s still here is on my shoulders.
Was there still time? Maybe I could find something that would cut the chain in the garage. I had to save her. I had to at least try.
I clasped her hands in mine and explained I’d be right back. She seemed to understand my sudden urgency, her face lifting warily to study mine. I gave her hands one last squeeze and rushed out the door, not wasting time to lock it behind me.
I hurried down to the second floor and had one foot on the main stairs before I realized I wasn’t alone. My entire body froze—heart and lungs and internal organs all suspended in time—as I registered that Lawrence Wellington was walking up the stairs with another man. A man with a gnarled scar stretching from his left temple to the corner of his mouth and frigid eyes so light blue, they looked bionic.
A hailstorm of questions rained down in my mind. Why was he here? Who was the scarred man? Were they going for the girl? Had they seen that I’d come from the wrong direction? Even if they hadn’t, if they went to her room, they’d surely notice that the door had been left unlocked.
Shit! Shit, shit, shit, Ro. You need to get your ass out of here now.
I smiled broadly. “Hey, Mr. Wellington!”
“Rowan, I didn’t realize you were here.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I just stopped in to leave a note for Stetson since I couldn’t make it to his game.” I took a couple of casual steps downward, desperately trying to control my breathing so I didn’t sound winded.
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” he said without any real feeling.
“I was in the area helping Mom anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal. Hope you don’t mind.” I flashed him another grin, this one dripping with beguiling innocence, though the mask almost cracked when my eyes cut briefly to the scarred man. His eviscerating stare cut straight through me.
“Not at all,” Wellington said.
“I’ll just get out of your way and head back to my parents’.” I seized the courage to rush past them. “Sorry again to interrupt.”
“Tell your father hello from me,” he said in an even, chilling tone.
“Sure thing,” I called out without turning around. I couldn’t because fear had drained the blood from my face. Had that been a threat? Would Lawrence Wellington hurt my father to keep me silent? Was I just being paranoid?
I pictured the poor girl shackled upstairs and knew that every fear where he was concerned was reasonable. The man was an evil monster, and I’d just put myself square in his sights.
I never made a conscious decision to go in search of Keir, but that was where my feet took me. I texted him and called but got no answer. Giving up wasn’t an option. I had to find him.
The afternoon sun had descended enough to streak the sky with hints of tangerine by the time I walked up to the entrance at Moxy. This time, I didn’t pause before pulling open the door and marching inside. I came face-to-face with a behemoth of a man working the entrance.
“I’m looking for Keir.” Please, please don’t be difficult.
“Boss ain’t here,” he said without hesitation. He was telling the truth.
I swallowed back the bitter taste of disappointment. “Can you tell me where he is? I tried to call him, but he isn’t answering.”
The man smirked. “Maybe that means you should take a hint?”
“I’ll just wait, then,” I bit out, folding my arms over my chest to indicate I wasn’t going anywhere.
He glanced back into the club. “That’s not a bad idea, now that you mention it. You were pretty fuckin’ hot up there. Maybe while you wait, you can show us what else you can do.” He rolled a piece of gum from one side of his mouth to the other with a lascivious grin.
I refused to react to his goading.
“Look, princess. You can’t stand there all fuckin’ night.”
“I’m happy to leave. Just tell me where I can find your boss, and I’ll be out of here.”
He took two intimidating steps forward. “Or, I can just pick that skinny ass up and toss you out onto the street.” He’d donned his professional bouncer demeanor, which was admittedly unsettling.
“Listen, I really, really need to talk to Keir. This is urgent. And I told you—’
“There a problem here?” The scowling man who’d been working at the front the last time I was at the club joined us by the door. I tried to recall his name—Thor or Tor—that was it, Torin.
“Chick wants to see the boss, but he ain’t here,” the bouncer eloquently explained.
“Keir and I are working on something, and there’s been an urgent development. I need to talk to him. My name’s Rowan.”
“I know who you are, Rowan.”
Relief collided with worry because I couldn’t tell if knowing me was a good thing or not. “Can you help me? It’s incredibly important.”
He studied me like a wolf might warily assess food suspiciously left in the open. “Yeah,” he eventually muttered. “Asshole left his phone in his office. Need to take it to him anyway. Come on.”
He pushed through the entrance without looking back, expecting me to follow, and walked up to a green and red motorcycle parked on the sidewalk. He threw a leg over. The machine roared to life. It was sleek with smooth jet-black tires and a low profile that denoted this beast of a machine was made for racing. It looked like it had rolled right out of a video game.
“You gonna get on or stare at it all night?”
“Uh, yeah.” I’d never been on a motorcycle, and certainly not something like this. I had no idea what I was doing.
“Step on this peg, grab my shoulders, and throw your other leg over,” he instructed. “Careful not to touch the shit below. It’s gonna be a tight fit. She’s not made for passengers.” Nor helmets, apparently.
I sucked in a deep breath and took the leap. It felt awkward to cling to a stranger’s back, but I planned to hold on for dear life.
“You part monkey?” he called back to me, peering down at my death grip around his middle.
“Shut up and drive,” I hollered back, my cheek on his shoulder. I was pretty sure he chuckled, which I only felt because I’d molded myself onto him like a second skin.
Five minutes and ten Hail Marys later, he parked the bike at a building in Midtown East. He helped me off the bike and led us to the front entrance without ever saying a word. That worked for me. I wasn’t feeling overly talkative. We went to the twenty-second floor, where he pounded on one of three doors on the landing.
It took almost a solid minute before the lock clicked open. Keir opened the door, shirtless with his hair dripping wet. He stilled, eyeing his unexpected arrivals.
“You left this shit at the club.” Torin handed Keir his phone.
“Thanks, man. I was just about to come looking for that.”
“No problem.” He began to turn for the elevator.
“Wait,” Keir called. “You bring her here on the bike?” His voice took on a menacing tone.
“It’s what I had with me.”
“You don’t have any goddamn helmets. Next time, take a fucking Uber if you have to. Jesus.” Keir grabbed my wrist and hauled me inside, slamming the door behind us.
Between my shock at his outburst and the intoxicating cloud of body-wash-scented air teasing my senses, my mind grew hazy and vacuous.
“You were showering.” I spoke the first words that popped into my head.
Keir turned to face me, giving me an unobstructed view of his smooth inked skin taut over toned muscle. I’d known he was tattooed. The designs bled up his neck and covered his arms, some even dipping down onto his fingers. Odds were good that the rest of him was covered too, but the reality of his inked perfection was so much more overwhelming than I’d anticipated. I wanted to trace every crease and crevice—memorize each brightly colored design as he told me their meanings.
By some miracle of God, I realized how unabashedly I was staring and shook free of my trance. “Um, I called. You didn’t answer.”
Keir stared at me with an intensity that stole my breath. It was no wonder he wasn’t overly talkative. His eyes spoke a thousand words in a single look, and right now, they were telling me if I didn’t stop staring at him, I would end up bent over his couch and fucked within an inch of my life.
I swallowed, hard, and kept my eyes on his.
“What was so important?” he finally asked.
Now came the hard part. He wasn’t going to be happy about what I’d done, but that was tough. Having a clear conscience was imperative to me. The girl was important to me, and I’d needed to see her one last time.
I squared my shoulders and relayed all that had happened as factually and unemotionally as possible.
Keir could have passed for carved granite, he stood so inhumanly still. When I was done, an abyss of silence stood between us until he shattered the air with a roar.
“Fuck!”
He turned his back to me and lowered his head. Meanwhile, contrition and conviction started a raging battle in my head. I felt bad for complicating things, yet unapologetic for following my heart.
“This doesn’t have to involve you,” I murmured. “I can go.”
“Don’t. Fucking. Move.” He growled each word but still didn’t face me.
From behind, I watched his rib cage expand and contract with practiced intent.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Eventually, he turned, his stare sharp as a lashing. “The man with the scar is spoken about as though he were the devil incarnate. His name is Damyon, but most call him the Shadow because no one knows anything about him except that he’s Russian. And in case you couldn’t guess, this situation is fucking lightyears beyond bad.”
