AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nothing stood out. No one I could see was interested in me more than a quick glance here or there. And by the time Roman summoned me to meet him outside—more than an hour later—the feeling passed and had long been replaced by irritation that turned to aggravation until there was nothing left but to be pissed off. And I was.
One of his bartenders led me to a car. A Town Car, which was nice, but Roman wasn’t inside. And I had no idea where we were going until we passed the campus gate. Anticipation bubbled through me.
He pulled the car in front of the Scorpio building and I waited for him to open the door, partly because I didn’t like the weakness inside of me that was dying to go in there and find out what havoc we were about to cause, and partly because I liked being treated like a lady, like I deserved the same courtesies as a Hawthorne, as Margaret.
The inside of the building was dark and what it lost in elegance, it picked up in danger. An excited shiver whispered through me, and I concentrated on a slow gait, a simple one foot in front of the other command so I wouldn’t run to where a triangle of light shone on the floor leading to the basement.
I took the stairs, holding the rail again so I didn’t rush and look like the amateur I was. I wanted to be viewed as regal, and there was nothing more regal than delaying gratification. Or so I’d always been told.
The room was lit by harsh white light and smelled like sweat and fear. One of those was my new favorite scent. I let the thought pass without the giggle bubbling inside of me and studied the men in the chairs.
Neither were smiling. Probably not “invited” guests in the way I had been invited, and certainly not happy to be cuffed to their chairs with white zip ties at the wrists and ankles. The younger guy had a cut over his left eye, his jaw was swollen and misshapen, and his nose dripped blood.
The other guy was older and much more recognizable—the Chief of Police, a member of the Society and a friend of the Hawthorne family.
The door at the far end of the basement opened and Roman walked out, drying his hands on a white towel. His tuxedo shirt was spattered with blood, and he’d busted open a knuckle on his hand, but that man was a walking advertisement for sex, rough, naughty, “bent over a desk” sex. I gave the room a small surveying glance. Damn. No desk.
I shifted my attention back to the men and didn’t have to ask who was responsible for the blood and bruises.
He walked toward me.Stalkedlike I was the prey. “Did you bring your gun?”
Of course I did. I pushed my leg through the slit in the fabric that went from the floor to the top of my thigh, and he smiled at the gun secured to my thigh by a Velcro holster. He slid his hand from the top of my thigh, down and around the inside to the Velcro closure. He yanked and the sound rippled through me as he glided the gun up so the cold metal brushed my bare clit before he pulled it out and held it up.
I left my leg pushed out the slit in the dress while he walked around behind the chief, letting the barrel of the gun drag over the guy’s shoulders. The other guy’s head was hanging, but he wasn’t out. I doubted he was even hurt as badly as he looked.
There was something going on here, some factual issue I didn’t understand yet. I stood by and watched Roman holding the gun. He stood beside the chief and aimed the gun at the other guy. “I’m disappointed, Chief. The Society is disappointed.”
The older man—his gray hair, usually neat and combed to one side, was in an Einstein kind of disarray—shook his head. “Roman, this is out of my hands.”
“Out of your hands?” Roman chuckled. “Was it out of your hands when Ash saved that piece of shit from a beating by the bookie in Vegas?” I glanced at the other man. Obviously, he was close to the chief. Though, they looked nothing alike—especially since Roman had started rearranging the younger guy’s face—it wasn’t difficult to glean that the kid was the tool they were using as leverage against the chief, a member of the Society. “I don’t have to tell you that Hall is sniffing around, and how dangerous that is for everyone. For you. For my family.”
“She was sent by the FBI.”
Roman shrugged and pulled the slide back on the gun, chambering a round.
“She’s raised public interest.” His voice was more desperate, higher pitched, shakier, with each word. “There’ve been newspaper articles.” Roman nodded as the chief continued. “Someone did a fucking radio interview about Lars and the girl—not related to Hall—and now, they’re demanding justice. A girl was killed, Roman.”
I rolled my eyes at Roman, and he let his tongue slide along his lower lip. He was either as worked up as I was, or he knew what this kind of thing did to me and he was toying, which was fine with me. So long as his toying ended up with his cock inside me and me screaming his name, he could do whatever he wanted to get me there.
Roman shrugged at me and handed me the gun. He’d already told me we weren’t killing anyone tonight because of the “heat on the club,” yada, yada, yada. But he’d brought me along as backup he knew he didn’t need. This was his present to me.
I leaned down and let my breath warm the chief’s ear. “It won’t be the last death you’ll have to explain if you don’t figure out a way to get her off Roman’s back and out of his club.” I walked around to the front of him, dragged the gun from his throat down to his cock. “And when you’re finished explaining that death”—I jerked the gun at the other guy, but the chief kept his eyes on me—“maybe you’ll join him.”
“I’m a member of the Society.” His voice was a weak whine, and I couldn’t imagine how he’d been accepted as a Scorpio.
“And perhaps you should remember that.” His fear intoxicated me, and my trigger finger itched with need.
“I can’t.” The whine was stronger, louder. He thought he was dealing with an amateur. A girl.
I pushed away from him and pressed the gun against the kid’s forehead. He was younger than I’d originally thought—twenty-five to thirty—and I knew him. He looked up at me, whimpered through the gag as tears leaked out of his eyes. He was thinking this was a Bonnie and Clyde situation.
“Jesus, be a man and shut the fuck up.” I couldn’t help the annoyance. I had no patience for a man who cried.
“Please, he’s my son.” Now the chief was begging.
I used the barrel of the gun to push his son’s head back, then glanced over my shoulder at the chief. “Do you love your family, Chief?”
“Yes, very much.”
