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Bracing my hands on a support beam, I tried swinging my legs at the hole I had started. The roof seemed impervious to my efforts, but I refused to give up. I would fight my way out of here.
Strong arms wrapped my whole body in a bear hug before I could take another swing. Screaming, spitting, kicking as hard as I could without the use of my hands, I cursed Nick as he effortlessly carried me toward the manhole and dropped me onto the bed below. In a heartbeat, I had my feet under me, darting for the doorway in a vain hope that I could find a way clear before... I grunted in pain as my nose collided with a hard chest. Rough hands encircled my upper arms in a vice-like grip as I looked up into eyes as frosty as the snow outside. They were such a light gray I had once joked that the ice in his heart had frozen over his irises. It didn’t seem like a joke anymore, though.
“Joy.” The deep rumble of his voice cut through my body in a lightning-hot streak of pleasure and pain.
“Sam,” I whispered, forgetting myself for a moment. His fingers tightened, hard enough to bruise, and I coughed away my faux pas, quickly rebuilding my defenses.
“Satan. Fancy meeting you here. Nice night for it. I was just heading out.” I tugged at his grip experimentally with a wide don’t hurt me grin plastered across my face.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
The creak of bedsprings behind me announced Nick had joined this happy meet-and-greet. “Kitty cat was playing hide and seek, weren’t you, Joyful?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, happy to have a safe topic to vent my anxiety on.
“Touchy, Kitty cat.”
Satan, clearly done with the banter, bent and hoisted me onto his shoulder, striding out to the living room as I tried to breathe past the shoulder in my gut. The world spun as I was unceremoniously dumped into a wooden chair, and a moment later, ropes slid over my wrists and ankles binding me in place.
I was going to die.
These men were ruthless killers and infiltrating their home was not something they would let slide. I wondered if they knew I’d broken into their safes.
Focus, Joy. Satan stood in front of me, close enough to touch if I’d had use of my hands. The flash of red in my peripheral vision told me that Noel had tied me up, though, which meant I had exactly zero chance of escaping. For a computer geek, the guy was kinky. He’d told me once he spent a year mastering the art of shibari because whether you were tying someone up to fuck them or kill them, it was an intense experience either way and worth doing properly.
“Chris! Family meeting,” Nick called, appearing in the doorway wearing a Cheshire grin. Flipping a knife idly with one hand, his eyes wandered over me in a way that made me feel naked.
“Don’t you look pretty all trussed up like a Christmas present, Kitty.”
Noel snorted as he circled me, flopping onto the sofa behind Satan as Chris appeared in the kitchen doorway. Where Satan’s eyes were light as ice, Chris’s were dark as the depths of the ocean. In some lights, they looked black, and the look he leveled at me when he noticed me occupying space in his house made me wonder if his mood affected the color too. Without missing a beat, he reached into the waistband of his jeans, pulled out a handgun, and cocked it. Taking careful aim at my head.
“No.”
The word was so soft I might have questioned hearing it if Chris hadn’t turned an incredulous look on the man in front of me.
“Stand down,” Satan growled before dismissing his second-in-command and dropping to his haunches.
“Why are you here?”
Chris turned the safety on his weapon before restowing it and moving to sit beside Noel. In the doorway, Nick continued to flip his knife. Anyone else might have been intimidated by the sight, but I had known the guy long enough to tell when he was keeping his hands busy and when he wanted to threaten someone. Not that he wouldn’t put the blade in me in a heartbeat if Satan gave the word.
There was a time when I would have done just about anything for these men. Honestly, in a lot of instances, I knew I still would. I cared for them, and even though Satan was the one I’d had a physical relationship with, I’d bonded with all of them.
The one thing I refused to do was endanger my father. He was the only family I had left after Mom walked out on us, and even if he’d been shitty and self-absorbed for the last few years, the little girl in me still remembered the man who had taught me all the skills I used to help us to survive. We’d bonded over my first lock pick kit when I was seven years old. By nine, I cracked my first safe, and when I returned home after my first successful robbery, he had taken me for milkshakes. The pride in his eyes when I mastered a new skill was something I would never forget, and I knew without a doubt I wouldn’t have survived as long as I had without his training.
“Joy, answer the question.” Satan’s words whipped around me, sharp enough to cut.
With a breath for courage, I locked eyes with my ex and forced a bored expression. “I was in the neighborhood. Saw the lights on and thought I’d come for tea.”
Nick laughed, smothering the sound as Satan shot him a quelling look.
“Last chance. Why are you here?”
“Why don’t you just let Chris put that bullet in me? It can be his Christmas gift.” I shifted my gaze to the blond in question. “Happy holidays, fucker.”
Satan scraped a hand through his hair, the jet black strands absorbing the light. “You were never this suicidal before. What the fuck happened to you?”
“I’m not suicidal, I’m a realist. You’re going to kill me whether I speak or not. I can die with my pride intact, or I can squeal like a bitch. Guess which I choose.”
