Darkest Sin (Las Vegas Sin Book 3), page 26
Emma
* * *
Everything hurts in a way I wasn’t sure was even possible. But all I can see is Sam’s body. All I can focus on is the blood seeping through the fabric of his shirt, coloring it red. Something cold and sharp hits my hip, slicing through the top of my jeans and cutting my skin as it goes. They could just unbutton and unzip my pants.
They could.
But they’re not.
They’re making a point. They’re cutting them off me. They’re slicing up my skin and removing my dignity and my voice and my ability to fight. The jeans are cut to the top of my panty line when they stop, and I breathe out a small relieved sigh.
My head rolls back, and my eyes close once more. I listen to the men speak excitedly in that language. One of them jerks me up, trying to remove my bra and I reach out, digging my nails into his arm as hard as I can manage, feeling his blood pool beneath them. He yells out, curses, and drops me before he can get the hook in the back undone.
I hit the ground with a dull thud only to be kicked in the ribs with the toe of his boot. The pain is indescribable. The fear something else entirely.
There comes a point in a victim’s life where she says anything but that. As in, I’d rather die than face that. If I cannot fight them off, I will take their gun and end my life. That’s my pledge to myself.
But in my heart, I am a fighter.
A woman who will not give these men any satisfaction–including my death or my body.
I force my mind to drift. To go somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Someone smacks my face, forcing me back, and as my vision sways and then clears, I’m met with the first man. He rips the bloody tape from my lips, and I do my best to ignore the sting of it. “I like to hear them scream,” he snarls in my face, giving me a crooked, evil smile.
His hair is thinning, and his face resembles a pug, and I laugh. “You’re so ugly, no wonder you have to rape women to get any.”
A punch lands across my face, and I think…it’s better than living through it. “Stupid bitch.”
“I bet your penis is so small that any time you do manage to drug a woman into sex, she continues to ask, is it in yet?”
Another smack. My face. My head. All pain. So much pain and blood, and I can’t see anything. So close to oblivion.
“Does it get old when they beg you to kill them before you fuck them?” The man continues to swear just as I hear an unexpected sound.
A loud crash followed by equally as loud shouting. A high-pitched pop keens through the air. Instinct takes over, and I roll my body, coiling up into a fetal position as I wrap my ripped shirt over my chest.
It takes me entirely too long in my muddled state to recognize that sound–gunfire.
I have no idea where or who it’s coming from and I don’t care. All I know is that I’m left here alone on the floor. Opening my eyes, I will my vision to clear. I need to move. I need to get the hell out of here.
I twist my head around, pushing myself up onto my hands and knees, and searching for the door. Something heavy slams into my flank, knocking me over. What the hell was that? Sitting up, I find the first man dead on the ground beside me, blood seeping from a bullet hole in his neck.
The other shifts to stand over me, yelling something I don’t understand at someone I cannot see. He lifts the gun, aiming it directly at me. My eyes cinch shut as the sound of the gun pops loudly. I screech, falling back to the floor, and tucking my body in on itself.
Only, I’m not the one hit.
The man bellows out in pain, grabbing his shoulder that is pouring blood. His gun clatters to the ground, and I grapple for it, clutching it in my hands.
A gust of air swooshes past my lungs. Christ. How on earth?
A half-beaten-down rush of adrenaline swims through me, and I climb unsteadily to my feet. My movements are sluggish, uncoordinated, and wrecked. I somehow push past it, fight through it, until I’m standing beside…Kellin?
His slate-blue eyes meet mine, a grimace crossing his face as he takes me in standing here in nothing but a ripped shirt, bloody bra, cut-up jeans, and a broken face. He shakes his head, fury replacing the grimace, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see someone in my entire life.
Gavin sent him to get me.
Gavin tracks me, and they found me.
I hiccup out a grateful sob, swallowing it all down, and doing my best to tuck my useless emotions back. It’s not the time.
“Just let me go,” the man pleads, eyeing our guns, and then the door.
Kellin tilts his head this way and that as if he’s thinking all this through. Possibly debating what his next move should be. The man is CIA after all, and I have no idea if killing men in this fashion–especially now unarmed and wounded ones–is breaking the rules and legal constraints of his job.
I’d have to imagine it is.
“What do you think, Emma? Should we let him go?”
“Not a chance.”
Kellin raises his gun, his eyes stone-cold, indifferent in a way I wouldn’t have expected possible from him. In the next second, Kellin fires his gun. The bullet flies between the man’s eyes, and then there is nothing left of him.
That’s when I hear it. A sort of pained sound that hums in the now eerie silence.
I search all around and land on Sam’s body. I limp over to it, bending down, and touching his shoulder with my hand only to hear him whimper.
Jesus. He’s still alive.
I drop the gun, kneeling and taking his face in my hands, turning him until his weak gaze meets mine. An agonizing shudder consumes me.
“There are so many things I should feel,” I rasp, my voice gravely with the demand of speaking. Tears fall once again from my eyes, running various courses down my battered face. Sam’s barely alive. But his eyes are on mine. His expression bleak and broken, and I don’t give a shit. “But most among them is hate. Betrayal. A total, complete, lack of remorse. You killed me, Sam, even if I sit here.”
“He’s in Vegas,” he marbles, blood dripping from his lips down onto the cement floor. “He’s here.”
I shake my head, not caring about that when I look at him. “Why?” I sob. “Why, Sam?”
“I lost you, and I couldn’t stand it.” I collapse in on myself. “End it for me. Please. It hurts. Just end it.” I nod my head, but he clutches my hand as I try to move, forcing me back to him one last time. “Know that I always loved you, Em. Always.”
His eyes close and mine cry as Sam releases me. I grab the gun, raise it up, and squeeze the trigger. It fires, hot and hard and powerful in my hand. I shoot it again and then drop it, not wanting anything that kills the way these men do to touch me. I scream out, beyond incensed, and devastated.
I killed Sam.
The way I should have that night back at the underground casino. I fall back onto my heels. Sam. Jesus, this was Sam. I’m so dumb. So gullible for believing such a manipulative, selfish man.
My gaze casts back over to his remains, and all I feel right now is raw, unadulterated hatred. It’s unbearably toxic. A poison I wish wasn’t part of my blood the way it is.
But also, amidst that…I’m a little broken. I didn’t want him to end this way. “I don’t know how to come to grips with what he did.”
“I don’t think there is a way. Just time, I suppose. We have to go,” Kellin whispers in my ear. He takes the ripped ends of my shirt, doing his best to tie them in a knot to cover my chest. It hardly does the trick. I let out a humorless laugh. God, I’m such a mess. I meet his eyes, and he grabs my hand. “Head down. Stay with me, Emma.”
I nod and do as I’m instructed. He leads us out of this back room in the middle of a hotel and down the rest of the hall. I don’t even know what casino we’re in. What hallway Sam dragged me into. I can only wonder at the cameras. At the footage that was collected.
“Gavin’s on it,” he says as if reading my mind.
We hit the sidewalk, my face down toward it as we find our way onto the street. He veers me left, taking me up an escalator and over the walkway that hangs above the boulevard. It’s already dark out, which is a relief. We enter the Cosmopolitan hotel and he drags me along until he locates a bathroom. Searching it and finding it empty, he slams me into the first stall.
“Don’t you dare move from here until I return.”
For once in my life, I don’t dare argue. “Okay.”
His expression tells me not to fuck with him and I won’t. Five minutes later, he returns, stepping in and locking the main door shut behind us. He rips an expensive black blouse out of a designer bag. I slip the shirt on, over my bloody bra.
“Fix your hair.”
We walk out to the row of faucets, lined with mirrors. Running my hands under the water, I wash off the blood from my hands and face, streaming the excess through my hair and styling it enough.
My face is unrecognizable.
My left eye already swollen, a two-inch laceration oozing beneath it. My lips are split. My nose dripping out a clear-reddish liquid. Did I mention how every piece of me that could possibly hurt, does? I didn’t even get a look at my stomach or ribs, but I can imagine the gnarly bruises I would have found.
A set of dark glasses are placed in my hands, and I pop them on my face. “Keep your head high and your body against mine. This is Vegas, lucky girl.”
Only I don’t feel lucky. I feel so lost. So very shattered. Broken has nothing on me.
We exit the bathroom, and I focus, minding each step and holding on tight to the man keeping me going. I can feel blood seeping from my nose. I can feel the swelling of my eye worsening. I can feel my vision fading. My stomach roiling. My ribs screaming.
The urge to vomit and pass out is consuming.
“Did you know?” I ask, trying anything to divert my mind away from my failing body.
“No. Not until I got there and saw him on the ground and heard what you said to him.”
I suck in a sob, shaking despite my best efforts to remain impervious to all that just happened. “He told me he made a deal with Antoine. That they were to be partners. Sam got to keep me, and in return, Antoine got the key and the two were to join forces. But Antoine was ready, and Sam wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Kellin murmurs, holding me taut against him as my body continues to rebel. “Did you love him?”
“Once, yeah.” I let out a bitter guffaw. “I never…,” I trail off, unsure how to follow that up. I should have. I absolutely should have expected it all.
I give in too simply. Fall too quickly. Love too easily.
“It’ll be okay.”
I shake my head against him, trying to fight the battle of tears and losing miserably. “It won’t be. I was lucky this time. Next time I doubt I will be.”
We continue to move and run and walk when I can no longer run, and climb until I can’t feel my feet and my legs are too far gone to continue. We arrive in a back alleyway by a set of doors. I have no idea where the hell we even are. Kellin punches in a code, and the doors open only to lead us into a vestibule where we’re essentially trapped, except for a small metal elevator.
“You can relax now. You’re safe here.”
Only, I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe again. At least not until Antoine Badeaux is dead.
Twenty-Nine
Gavin
* * *
I stand in the darkness of Kellin’s rented apartment, located on the top of some off-Strip Las Vegas resort. Kellin’s eyes meet mine as he leads Emma to the over-stuffed gray couch, setting her down gently. She crumples over onto her side, a tiny whimper escaping her throat. Her pain is so tangible, so much more than audible. It makes a rage I’ve never been acquainted with before rise up from within.
Kellin walks into the kitchen, stares me down hard, and then heads over to grab the first aid kit he has along with some other stuff.
“Dead,” is all he whispers as he passes past me again.
“Not enough,” I reply, only to have Kellin shake his head like I’m the asshole. Maybe I am. Because I can’t find it in me to go and take her into my arms. My thirst for blood is just too strong. I can’t sit. I can’t settle. I want Antoine’s bones broken–each one beneath my hands.
Kellin removes some black blouse she’s wearing, and I suck in a rush of air as I catch sight of the bruises along her ribs. The sunglasses go next, and I spin around and punch the wall.
“It looks worse than it feels,” she murmurs, and I can’t tell if she’s feeding me or Kellin this bullshit. “Antoine’s here in Vegas.”
My eyes blaze. My blood roars.
“I know. Take a breath,” he says. “This’ll sting.” He pours some antiseptic onto a wad of gauze and presses it to the skin of her hip. She hisses out a harsh breath, and it’s only then that I catch the long gash along it.
This time I kick the wall, sheetrock splintering out around me.
“I’m going to be sick,” she groans, and Kellin leaps up, running for the kitchen, but I’m faster. I grab the garbage can from beneath the sink and hand it to him. Our eyes meet, and he’s telling me to cool my shit.
But, how can I?
I let Maddox’s girl unload a full magazine into a hateful, evil man instead of being there to protect Emma.
I don’t blame Maddox. It was my plan. My fault for not knowing about Sam beforehand when I should have.
But I nearly lost the one person I care about most.
Kellin places the bin by her face, and she proceeds to heave into it, crying and sobbing and vomiting. When she’s finally done, she lets the bin drop to the floor as she leans into the cushion of the couch. Kellin finishes cleaning up her various wounds and hands her an ice pack for her face that I didn’t even see him grab. He gives her a shirt to put on and then hands her two round white pills that she quickly swallows down with water, her hands a shaky mess.
“Rest now.” He lays her gently down on her side, covers her with a throw blanket, and kisses her forehead.
“Thank you for finding me,” she rasp out hoarsely, followed by, “Tell Gavin to stop lurking. He’s making my already frazzled nerves worse.” Her words slur as she tucks herself further under the blanket, moving gingerly. “I need a shower…” But she’s fallen out before she can even finish her words.
Kellin rises, draws the blanket up higher on her shoulder, and meets my eyes. “I take it you’re sleeping here with her.”
“I think it’s safe to say any progress I made with Antoine in terms of the contract is null. Sam made me to Antoine, I know it. So now it’s time to break it down.”
“Gav–”
“Explain any other way to me, Kellin.”
Kellin stares deep into my eyes in the dark of his flat, the cloth in his hand still holding Emma’s blood. “There isn’t one.”
“What’s your angle on it?”
“I’m with you to the end. You know that.”
“I’m going to contact my guys in Seattle. They’ll pinpoint him for me. After that, I’m taking him down.”
Kellin nods. “Sleep beside your girl first. Nothing is happening tonight. And she’s wrecked. She needs you with her, not busting up walls when she’s already past her breaking point.”
Kellin slaps me on the shoulder and walks up the stairs that’ll take him to his room. I stand here in the shadows for longer than I should, trying to get control of an anger that’s mostly directed at myself.
I shouldn’t have let him near her.
I should have suspected Sam from the start.
Toeing off my shoes, I unbuckle my belt, slipping it through the loops of my pants and letting it fall beside my shoes. My socks go next, and then I pad quietly toward the side of the couch. I stare down at my girl. My girl. She’s a goddamn mess, and my fists clench so tight I feel the skin around my knuckles splitting.
There is no shortage of evil in this world. And as I take her in, I have to wonder if I’m just as guilty as Anthony Conti, Samuel Blackbourne, and Antoine Badeaux. I’ve certainly killed my share. I let a one-sided revisionist history tell me who the bad ones were.
I’ve never felt turmoil.
Never a moment’s hesitation or reflection.
Until now.
I remove my shirt and drop my pants and slide in behind Emma. My hand cautiously wraps around her body, my face landing in her hair. I breathe in, and everything within me calms. She’s alive when she so easily could be dead.
“I love you,” I tell her, not even caring if she’s conscious or not.
My eyes close, and I quickly allow myself to fall asleep. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.
* * *
A warm, soft body shifts in my arms only to whimper in pain. I draw back, brushing her hair away and trying to turn her to face me. She resists, and despite how awful everything inside of me feels, I chuckle. “Coward.”
“The light is hurting my eyes.”
“And that’s the only thing that hurts?”
“Don’t start.”
“Oh, baby,” I kiss the top of her head as I get up to lower the shades. “I’m just getting started with you.”
“Hmmmm,” she hums, but there’s a slight edge to it. Almost as if she either doesn’t trust me or is pissed at me.
I return to her, sinking in and gently turning her to me. Her face is a mess. Her eye is swollen and purple. She’s cut and bruised, and I will make Antoine hurt so bad for hurting her. I lean in and press my lips to hers as softly as I can.
“How bad off are you?”
“I’m afraid to tell you.”
I grin, tickling my fingers along her face, across her nose and her split lips. I trail down toward her shirt. “I want to know anyway.”
“You’re going to yell at me.”
“No, baby. I’m not yelling at you. I’m worried about you.”
Her eyes mist up before casting down. “I’m not sure. I don’t think I have any internal injuries.”
“You’re a liar.”
She puffs out a small, shallow breath. “It doesn’t matter, okay?”
I shake my head, my ire charging back up. I lift her shirt, staring down at the bruises along her stomach and ribs that are so dark, they’re practically black. “Motherfucker…,” I pant out a rough breath, suddenly unable to get control over the amount of fear and anger that’s consuming me. “Goddammit. You couldn’t have just listened to me for once?”
