He sighs. “Last chance.” He reaches a hand out towards the gag but pauses. “Can you behave?”
I scowl at him, the fury rising in my face and the fear making it almost impossible to breathe.
But I will not let fear cow me.
I will not let fear keep me from fighting tooth and nail until I can’t anymore.
I nod.
“Good.”
He slips the gag over my bottom lip and pulls it down to my chin.
“FUCK YOU!”
He sighs again as I scream in his face. “You done?”
“FUCK YO-”
“No one can hear you, if that’s the goal here.”
He stands and shrugs that leather jacket off. His black t-shirt is tight across his broad, defined chest - shoulder muscles and biceps rippling as he folds the jacket and drapes it over a chair.
And I suddenly can’t believe I’m noticing things like “rippling biceps” on a man like this.
My eyes drop to the gun holstered under one arm, and I shiver. That gun killed two people not thirty minutes ago, and I watched it.
“I’m not going to say anything.”
The words blurt out, and he turns, as if remembering I’m still here.
“I know you’re not.”
“I’m really not! I swear!”
The fear starts to rise up, threatening to choke out my breath - to squeeze me until I can’t breathe.
His eyes burn into mine. “You’re right, you’re not, because you’re not going anywhere until I figure out what to do with you.”
What to do with me.
I swallow thickly. “Please.”
“That’s not a magic word here.”
“I won’t say a word.”
“I know,” he says quietly.
He moves towards me, and I’m screaming hoarsely, turning to try and crawl away across the floor as he grabs me up and slings me over his shoulder again. He marches for the bed, and my heart jumps in my throat.
“Please!!”
I’m screaming, crying, tears running hot down my cheeks as the terror grips me.
“Please don’t!”
“Relax,” he growls, tossing me down onto the bed.
He grabs a length of rope and lashes it around the metal frame at the foot of the bed. He reaches for one of my ankles, looping the rope around it, tying me to the bed, like I’m on a freaking leash or something.
“Just sit here, okay?”
The fight is draining from me as he tugs at the rope and then checks to make sure the plastic tie is still around my wrists behind my back.
I’m panting, eyeing him, and feeling like I might actually pass out - the fucked up mix of adrenaline spiking through my system and me still being drunk sending my head spinning.
“Relax, sit there, and calm the fuck down,” he growls. He pulls a phone out of his pocket as he stands and starts to march away. “I’ll be right back.”
Chapter Five
Connor
Fucking shit.
This night has gone from bad to a fucking worst-case-scenario. First, a meeting I never wanted to go to, on a day of the year I fucking hate. And now Mikhail’s fuckin’ dead and I’ve got a witness tied to my bed.
In my home.
I’ve also got two dead bodies sitting in a fucking dumpster back at the bar.
Not exactly my best work, but I had to act fast. After I dragged her screaming from that room, shoved a bandana in her mouth and got those hands through the zip tie behind her back, I kicked open the back door and made a beeline for my car. Luckily I’d parked close. I caught a few knees and head butts on the way down the alleyway, dumping her in the trunk before booking it back to the room.
The blood splatters couldn’t be helped, not with the timeframe I had.
The bodies I stashed under some garbage bags in a dumpster behind the bar, and that was that.
Yeah, I’m the fixer for fuck’s sake, and I’ve managed to not fix this at all.
I scowl as I kick open the door to my fire escape, stepping out and sucking in cooler air. I wasn’t lying to her about no one hearing her. No one will and I really am the only person who lives here. All ten-thousand square feet of it.
Technically, this building has been owned through a series of shell corporation for the last thirty-odd years. Unofficially? Well, it’s owned by the Dark Saints, of course.
Back in the day, this place was used for all sorts of shit - everything from a garage for boosted cars to a safe house for when shit got hot. For a long stretch in the 90’s, the Saints used it as a jump-off spot for smuggling good old fashioned U.S.-made guns over to Ireland into the hands of the IRA.
Before my time. Before I was a Saint.
I grit my teeth as I stare out over the broken down streets of the old shipping and warehouse district south of downtown. Boston glitters from across the Fort Point channel - a stark contrast to the shattered, broken gloom of this place.