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She whips her head to the guy asking the questions, the one who smacked her, who has retreated back to the bench by the door. “You won’t kill me because I’m your only hope, cocksucker.”
“How the fuck do you figure that?” he snipes. “Fucking dirty whore. You got a golden pussy or something?”
“Like a fucking leprechaun,” another guy to my left bellows. “A cunt with a pot of gold inside.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” She shrugs like she doesn’t have a care in the world, relaxing in her silky pantsuit with the tags still on. “Every last cell of my body is like a damn brick of gold. Those bricks can buy your freedom or drown you in the depths of the sea. Your choice.” Her head tips to the side in quiet consideration. “Well, not exactly. That’s if I choose to extend the exoneration.”
And the butchered pipe dream is revived.
That causes an uproar. Apparently, Ivy is the funniest girl they’ve ever spoken to, and yet they think she’s full of shit. She’s not. Her being here makes this war on KORT.
She’s brilliant. Rash and reckless. But fucking brilliant.
Part of me wants to kill her myself for putting herself in danger, for risking her life here, but aside from that, I’m in awe. She’s just as formidable as Tom must have known she’d be—an unflappable woman, willing to wage war in the pits of Hell.
One of Liam’s fellow fallen angels.
While the masked thugs are still howling at their own ignorance, Ivy rubs her index finger over her left wrist. It’s a sign we’ve used for years when she needs me to keep time or alert her to zoning out. I can estimate minutes like a stopwatch because of her, but there’s also a clock on the dash I can make out from here. I raise my brows so she knows I’ve got her covered.
“You’re right, Red,” Beef Jerky yields in response to Ivy comparing herself to bricks of gold. “You’re our bargaining chip.” He finally drops his hand from my mouth, trailing his pudgy fingers over my neck. The touch is like a serrated knife, sawing me open to the horrors they have in store. “The reason your friend here is going to cooperate before we fuck her too.”
Ivy puffs an exaggerated sigh with a roll of her icy blues before I can speak. It’s every bit a groan of both disgust and pity. “If that’s the way you want to see it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She shakes her head with feigned disappointment. “Fuck, you seemed smarter as the Gimp. At least you were mute.”
Leave it to Ivy to reference a movie amid being abducted—a leather-clad sex slave from Pulp Fiction, no less—the same movie that kicked off our visit at the start of the new year. Even a few of the guys snicker in response. She’s always been able to compartmentalize emotions, detach herself from a situation. Who knew it would be a super strength?
It suddenly occurs to me that, in spite of her confident demeanor, she has me estimating the minutes, not because she’ll zone out. But because she thinks there’s a limit to how long they’ll keep us both alive. Time ticks louder than it ever has.
Like a bomb strapped to my chest.
LIAM
“Fucking Christ!” I spit.
The black vans hightail it out of here, weaving between one another to create a mess of confusion. A ploy to get us to follow the wrong vehicle. It’s already questionable which is theirs, although I swear, I haven’t lost track of the one that holds my whole goddamn world.
This is where emotion can derail the wisest tactics because, right now, all I want is to chase after my girls and kill every motherfucker in my way.
Outnumbered doesn’t faze us, but hurtling into a mass of assassins who know our position won’t end well. Especially since it’s clear they’ve got one hell of a scheme. We need them to think they’ve gotten away.
Wells is fighting the same instinct, even knowing we can track them. It’s written all over his face. Watching them wheel away from us feels like failing.
But every last one of those fuckers will pay with their lives today.
Between Rex, Dante, Wells, and myself, we’ve got about a dozen dead Skulls’ bodies scattered in the alleyway behind the shops. Dante hustles toward their SUV with Keith slung over his shoulder. Rex meets him there, moving Arnold to the trunk. Looks like he’s dead too.
Fucking hell.
Wells alerts me that he’s getting the Rolls-Royce and pulling up Ivy’s tracker. That’s why she jumped in there. She knew being with Celeste meant they couldn’t disappear. Fucking crazy, but this would be a much different scenario had she not.
Sprinting back to Rena, I find she’s got all the girls’ purses strapped onto her and her gun drawn, pointed fiercely at the personal shopper.
Upon seeing me, Rena explains in an eerily serene tone, “She’s involved. She did this.”
That doesn’t surprise me. They had to have someone on the inside. Rena, dirty and scraggly, staring this woman down with cold, murderous eyes over the barrel of a pistol, is a bit shocking though. I fucking love this girl.
“They have my mother,” the lady squeaks, voice quavering. “They sent pictures of her tied up.”
Not willing to squander another second with this shit, I take the gun from Rena, scoop her into my arms, and instruct the shopgirl to walk to the cars ahead of me. Rex and Dante can interrogate her.
