Damaged Kingdom (Gilded Empire Book 2), page 18
“Don’t worry, boy toy. I’ve got this.” Dominic swept past me, laughing at the pained exhale his own hit made.
Blow after blow after blow, Dominic punched until Paul finally, blessedly, passed out.
“What was that for?”
Dominic shrugged. “I’m all in, even if it means defending one of those assholes.”
My heart clenched, and something in me started to shift. Dominic hadn’t walked; he hadn’t balked. He’d stayed with me. He’d helped Cameron.
Could we really do this?
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” Nate stared at Paul with relief, though it was a painful sort of relief after I gave my orders.
“Drop him by the docks when you’re done.”
“Wait, you’re going to kill him?” Nate said.
My hackles rose, and I tried to tell myself he wasn’t asking to make a problem; he was genuinely curious. Still, I had the worst urge to defend myself. It was part of the damage Dominic caused, and it would take time to accept and move past.
“If we let him live, Cash will kill him, and he’ll do it worse than we ever could. We’ll make it quick.”
“I don’t doubt it. I was just surprised, is all,” he said, still looking incredibly uneasy.
Despite Nate’s being a merc, he still maintained something so innocent in his character. Maybe it was just how he saw the world as it was and accepted it. I didn’t want to ruin that, but if he didn’t get a handle on it, it would get him killed. I wanted to help Nate, but I didn’t know how. I couldn’t stop what had to be done, and sending a message to Cash was necessary.
Cameron bundled Ash up, tucking her under his arm, and she glared at me. “With that settled, I expect you at my bachelorette party this weekend. Shara knew you were busy, so she planned it, which means dicks and chicks everywhere. Don’t be late.”
And the worst maid of honor award goes to me.
“I’ll be there. With bells and whistles on,” I promised.
“Good. I want a night of no drama. Just the three of us. Dancing, drinks—”
“And no strippers,” my cousin snarled.
Neither of us agreed. There wasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell that Shara hadn’t hired strippers. Double—no, triple—the number, if he’d commanded her not to.
Poor Cameron had no clue how to handle women like us, despite growing up with me.
He’ll learn, though, I thought with a grin. Ash wouldn’t have it any other way.
With them gone, Dominic and Grey helped Tennessee remove Paul from the room. Normally, we wouldn’t move him, but we could all see something was up with Nate. He just kept staring at Paul like he was a puzzle Nate wanted to solve.
When they were gone, I pulled him into Ash’s chair and slid into his lap. Things were still so new with us that it felt a little awkward at first, especially when he made no attempt to move closer or hold me there. I was about to get up when he grabbed me around the waist and settled me firmly against his hips.
We hadn’t done much more than the shower and I was dying to get him inside me, but things kept popping up. I couldn’t walk away from my responsibilities to get laid. Especially when I wasn’t sure that Nate was ready for this. For me.
“Are you okay? I know this was a lot.” I ran a hand through his hair, trying to mimic what I liked when I was upset.
Nate snorted. “I did worse than that for the mercs.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m annoyed at Dominic.”
“Because he knocked the guy out?”
“Yes? I’m not sure.” He took a breath and ran his hands up my thighs as he thought about it. “I guess I hate that he took away my opportunity to show you what I’m made of.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I know.” He cut me off with a kind smile and pulled me so close, nothing but our breaths were keeping us apart. “I just want you to know that I’m here and I’m in this and I can be a useful part of this team, too. I’m not just your little fuckboy. I want to help protect you.”
My first instinct was to say no. When people protected me, they died, and if I lost Nate—if I lost any of my men—I didn’t think I could handle it. But his eyes told me he needed it. He needed purpose. Moving in with me, Nate had lost his identity. He wasn’t a bartender, he wasn’t a mercenary, he was just my live-in man. And even though he’d been introduced to the systems that kept my empire running, we hadn’t done anything to make it official yet.
He was in stasis, and if I wanted him to be fulfilled and happy in his role in my life, that needed to change.
“It’s a good thing we have another little birdie just for you, then,” I said, patting him on the chest. Shoving aside the part of myself that didn’t want to sully Nate, I continued. “How about you help me with the dockworker?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
As nervous as I was, the smile he gave me made it all worth it. “You’re not going to regret this.”
I knew I wouldn’t. It was Nate. I hadn’t regretted anything that had happened since we’d met, and I hoped that never changed.
Chapter Eighteen
Nate
According to Mari, one of her men, a dockworker, had been taking payouts to mess with shipments. She gave me a list of questions to go on, and that was it. I didn’t mind, though. I’d worked with less. Settling into the routine of interrogation was like putting on an old coat I hadn’t worn in a while. It felt a little stiff, but it was still the right size, the right shape. I’d once hoped I’d never put it on again, but I knew better now.
I was never going to escape being death’s hand. It was my lot in life.
Brushing off the melancholy, I set down the recording device on a tool bench near the man’s head and clicked it on. Mari hadn’t been comfortable with the idea of it at first—why would I want evidence recorded for the Feds to find, Nate? —but she’d accepted it after I explained my routine. I had to be able to go back through the information later and see if I’d missed anything. If everything checked out, the man would die quickly. I wasn’t one to drag things out unnecessarily, so as long as the information was confirmed, he’d be killed promptly. If there was something else I needed, we’d do it all over again, as many times as it took, like a fucked-up merry-go-round.
I didn’t look at the tools as I stood behind the man’s head, intentionally shuffling my feet to seem nervous. Uncomfortable. As always, he fell for it.
They always did.
“You’ve got to help me. I didn’t do anything. They’ve got the wrong guy.” He craned his neck, desperate to catch my eyes, to convince me of his innocence. “I swear, I didn’t help anybody, and I didn’t steal anything.”
Gotcha. “How did you know what we wanted to talk to you about, then?”
I saw the moment he realized his mistake. He gulped, eyes darting around the room before he came back to me. “The guys who took me mentioned it.”
Except they didn’t. “Of course.”
“I’m serious. You’ve got to help me. She’s going to kill me.”
“No, she isn’t. I am.”
The man looked at me like I’d just shot his beloved. All betrayal, confusion, and anger. He was pale and exhausted, likely from his stint in Mari’s cold room. One of his eyes sported a fading bruise that Tennessee explained he’d gotten for fighting back when they’d originally picked him up from the docks. Jacob wasn’t the target they expected information from, but I was told to try my best to get it anyway.
Who approached you? How did you contact them? Who else is Cash working with? How long has this been going on? What else do you know?
“Jacob Collins, where do you work?”
“Seattle docks, under Micah Fitzgerald. Been there since I was twelve, working alongside my father, brothers, and uncles until they all retired. I’m the last Collins left.”
“What a shitty way to end a family legacy,” Mari snapped from her seat on the other side of the room, with Greyson and Dominic at her back. Jacob said nothing. He didn’t even look at her. It was as if she didn’t exist.
I didn’t like that at all.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Jacob. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them. No lies, no half-truths, no omissions. If you do what I ask, I’ll go easy on you. If not, I will do whatever it takes to get the information I need, even if it means pulling out every single tooth and fingernail and knuckle in your body.”
To his credit, Jacob tried to stay tough, but I saw the whiteness of his knuckles against the chair and the hard swallow that bobbed his Adam’s apple. He was petrified, but too proud to admit it.
The darkest parts of me cheered with glee. The tough ones were always fun. That was the part of myself I didn’t like, the one born from a boy who’d had to steal and hurt just to make sure he ate. The one who’d done terrible things to make sure he survived.
But he was part of me, just like the man who cared for Mari was. They were all Nate, even when I wished they weren’t.
“Let’s get started.” I grabbed the first instrument I could reach and cracked it down on his hand as a warning. Then the interrogation began in earnest, and I let muscle memory and the familiar sounds and smells of torture take me away. Before I could understand what was happening, I was back in a time when there was no Mari, no Greyson, no Dominic. No empire in need of my help.
Just me and my team trying to survive.
“What are you gonna do when you get out of here, Nate?” Jorey asked, flipping a knife between his hands. It was an annoying habit. One of his many.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just want a chance to do nothing.”
I’d never had that before. I didn’t want warm sand and cool water, just a few days in a place of my own to decompress.
Franklin grunted as he bandaged a bite mark on Stowe’s upper arm, smacking him when he wouldn’t quit wiggling. “Knock it off.”
“Can’t believe that fucker bit me,” Stowe grumbled. I peered at the wound again, but it looked far better than the stab wound on his left leg. He’d been first in the door, and apparently, our mark had impressive aim.
“How about you keep your fucking distance next time?” Franklin muttered.
“What can I say? I’m a team player.” Stowe’s annoying grin turned to a pained hiss when Franklin poured antiseptic on him. “Damn, dude. That hurts.”
“Do you want whatever that asshole had in his mouth? I didn’t think so. Shut up.”
That asshole was now a body we’d buried in a shallow grave five miles away in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I didn’t even remember what country we were in, to be honest. I rarely ever did. While we were working, there was nothing but the chase. The hunt. The kill.
Gather information, take down our enemies, survive. I didn’t have room for anything else.
Franklin and Stowe continued to bicker as usual, so I tuned them out. We were brothers. Just the four of us against the world, fighting bad guys most people didn’t even know existed.
We were the ones who snuck into homes and slit throats while our targets slept, ending regimes under the light of the moon. There were no songs singing our praise, no medals waiting for us at the end of the road as we crept through the shadows. Just another mission to complete.
This one was no different. A trafficker was setting up to take his business through the US, carting people across the pond and using the airports as hubs to send them all over the world. If we didn’t stop them, millions of women and children would be at risk.
We’d been trying to crack into the network for almost a month, with no luck. The biter had given us the intel we needed to finally end it all, and tomorrow, we made our move.
Franklin and Stowe glared at each other until their lips tipped into smiles while I oiled my knives with Tsubaki oil, trying to brush off the horrors I’d committed for honor and country. Meanwhile, Jorey tossed that goddamned knife in time with my heartbeat.
Catch, throw, catch, throw.
The first bullet hit him while the knife was in the air.
He was dead before it hit the floor.
“Ambush!” I dove to the floor, fighting the urge to pull Jorey to safety. He was gone, though.
When faced with death, there was a moment when the inevitability of it hit you. You realized that everything you thought you cared about didn’t matter. It was the immaterial things, the intangible, that you wanted to keep with you in the afterlife.
My mother, who had given up everything for us, my brother—or who he was before we lost him—those were the things I wanted to remember. I hoped she knew how much we’d loved her. I promised myself right then and there that if I got out of this, I’d figure out a way to give her the care she needed and change the fate awaiting me back home.
I just had to survive this shit first.
The first wave of men came out of nowhere and, without hesitation, took out Franklin.
Fuck.
The way they killed my team said a lot. Jorey was a loose cannon, more likely to set us all on fire than to make up a plan. Franklin was next because he was our medic. If we got hurt, we were as good as dead, and Stowe was already injured.
This wasn’t an ambush. It was an assassination.
Grabbing Stowe, I pulled him out of the room we’d been holed up in, knowing there was almost nowhere we could go. The old school building was practically rotting around us. We hadn’t cared before because it was meant to be a rest stop before we took out our target and got the hell out of dodge.
“Not going to make it, man,” Stowe huffed. The wound in his leg obviously hurt, and when I looked down, I cursed at the blood trail it left.
“You don’t have a fucking choice. I’m not going back alone.” I was practically pleading, even as I could see the writing on the wall. Stowe was already dead, even though he was still breathing. We both were.
“If you don’t leave me here, none of us are coming home. Jorey and Franklin, they deserve better than this. Bring us home, brother. Give us the burial we deserve.”
Life was unfair, I already knew that, but nothing would ever beat this. The moment I watched another brother disappear forever.
“Whatever it takes.” It was the promise we’d made to each other years ago, when our team was first formed. I’d just never imagined I’d be the last one to say it.
Footsteps pounded through the room beyond, and I knew my time was up. Quickly, I helped Stowe to the floor, kneeling to hand him his weapon. “You gotta tell my girl I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break my promise.”
“I’ll tell her.” I’d fly to Wisconsin, where I knew his girlfriend of four years was waiting for him to be done with this tour so she could finally get the engagement ring he’d been hiding for years. Stowe had promised her this was his last tour. He’d been right in the worst way.
“I know you will, man.” He clapped me on the shoulder, and I did the same before yanking him into a hug. It wasn’t something I had consciously thought of before, but everyone deserved a hug before they died. Stowe should know that someone in the world cared that he’d existed. He held me tight, pounding my back once, twice, three times before he shoved me away.
“Don’t die because of this. I’m telling you to go so you can live for all of us.” Survivor’s guilt already weighed heavily on my heart, so I didn’t say anything, but Stowe knew. “Whatever it takes to survive, Nate. Now, go.”
I went.
I was barely out the door before the gunshots started, each one ringing in my ears. Stowe never yelled, never cried out. He just kept saying it over and over again.
Whatever it takes.
They found me just as I was exiting the last hallway, ten steps from the door. Guilt-ridden or not, I fought. I cut. I sliced, I hit, I kicked, I bit. I did everything I could to make sure I survived so someone could be sure Stowe and Franklin and Jorey made it home. I didn’t fight for me. I did it for them.
They deserved better than to die in this shithole.
My arms were tired, my legs heavy, my soul weary and dark. I thought it would go on forever. That I’d never be free.
Then I heard her voice.
“Come back to me, Nate.”
My angel. It confused me. There were no angels where I’d been. Only the blood on my hands and the echo of long-lost gunshots.
“Open your eyes, Nate.”
It was a command, and I followed it. The first thing I saw were imploring brown eyes. The second, my bloody hands.
“Fuck,” I gasped, shoving myself away from the body.
Jacob. His name was Jacob. I couldn’t think of him as a body. He was someone’s son. If I forgot that, I worried I’d lose my humanity for good.
“Are you back?” Mari asked cautiously.
“Stay back, mariposa,” someone commanded.
“Fuck off, Dominic,” she snapped.
Behind her, Grey held him in a choke hold, while he was nearly foaming at the mouth with Mari so close to me. I didn’t blame him.
“I’m good,” I rasped. “I’m good.”
“I know you are.” Mari’s smile settled me a little more, and I pulled her close with shaking hands, bowing my body over hers. All I could do was breathe in the smell of her hair, feel the soft puffs of her breath against my neck.
I just needed a minute to wipe away the memories. Just a minute.
When I felt more stable, I cleared my throat and pulled away, my heart warming when Mari stayed close. It was obvious in the way she watched me—head on with no ulterior motives—that she wasn’t waiting for me to break down again. She just wanted to be near. I liked that. Maybe too much.
I turned toward Jacob, grimacing at the sight of his unrecognizable face. Christ, I’d fucked up. There was nothing like abject failure to humble a man.
I was supposed to do a job for Mari, and instead, I let myself get caught up in a past that no longer mattered. I knew better than that. “Did we get anything from him?”
“Yes. You were surprisingly coherent throughout,” Greyson said, shoving Dominic behind him and stepping forward. It said a lot that he didn’t put himself between Mari and me. He trusted that I wouldn’t hurt her. I didn’t know if it was blind faith, but I appreciated it, nonetheless. Grey paced his way around Jacob’s body. “Do the flashbacks happen often?”
