Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3) (16 page)

“What do you mean Romeo’s gone?” Killian swiveled in his chair behind his study desk. Already irritated by the night before for some reason, this morning’s news about the kidnapper was not welcome. If there was a cliff, he’d just gone over it. His stomach was in free fall and, for a moment, all Killian could concentrate on was the impending pain when he smashed into the hard reality of that statement.

“He didn’t show for the plane.” Eli sounded irritated.

Irritation didn’t help. Killian couldn’t do anything with irritation. For months they’d been tracking Romeo’s movements between cartel strongholds. Always under protection, always out of reach.

His stomach stopped reeling, but his muscles stayed locked, tense, suspended in anticipation for the splintering devastation that was still to come.

“That’s not the bad news though. The bad news is he’s managed to shake our tail.”

“Fuck.” The word was so soft, so calm despite the turmoil inside him. “We should’ve tried to grab him the last time he moved. We—”

“Don’t go there. You’ve got nothing to gain by going there. You would’ve started a war. Waiting was the sane thing, the only thing—”

“Christ, Eli, stop giving me platitudes like we’re on a first date.”

Silence.

“I’m sweet on you, Killian, but you’re not that pretty.”

He snorted, and the pressure eased, a slow leak from a valve.

“We’ll get the bastard.” Eli sounded so sure. “There was a shift in the power players; everyone with the wrong allegiances has scattered. Our mark is running scared.”

Killian sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, the steady pressure a pleasant ache but not enough. Nowhere near enough pain to help him now. Pain gave your world edges. Pain gave you crystal fucking clarity about your next move. Pain spurred you on. He’d learned that from the uncompromising fists of his father.

He thought about the boxing match; he used to chase that same edge in the ring. It had been too long since he’d chased that clear edge and sparred with somebody. He pinched his nose harder. “Tell me some good news, Eli.”

“Romeo no longer has guardian protection.”

This was the moment they had been waiting for, and now it was no good to them.

“But we don’t know where he is.” Finally, here came the crash-landing. Here came the agony …

“No. I didn’t say that.”

“What?”

“We have an unconfirmed lead. Word is Romeo is on a boat. Dumbfuck jumped one of the cartel’s own boats to get back to Australia. Apparently, he’s hoping to join up with the man who helped him on the night of the kidnapping.”

“Do we know for certain?”

“The source is new. Untested. But we’ve got nothing to lose by following it up.”

Their relationship went back far enough to know Eli didn’t make empty promises.

“How long?” Hope born in a gutter was hard to kill.

“Only a couple of days till he makes shore.”

“He could land anywhere. Jesus Christ, the government could pick them up. If he gets into detention, he’ll be out of reach.”

“Detention doesn’t put him out of reach, just out of your hands.”

“No. My hands. I want him in
my
hands and I want him alive.” Which was ironic because Romeo Reyes was a dead man walking.

“As soon as I get him, he’s yours.”

“I’m tired of dancing with this fuck, Eli.”

“I have something else. Maybe a lead about the day of the kidnapping.”

Killian kept quiet. He’d always suspected the cartel had help; they knew when and where to strike, got close enough to put her finger with his lunch order. Except the obvious suspect, Scarlet’s driver, had been killed in the abduction.

“Tell me.”

“No name yet.”

“Close?” Must be, why else raise it?

Eli made a non-committal noise and then waited before answering. “It points to your house.”

Tension was a bitch today. She grabbed hold of his gut and twisted. Cold ran up his spine. The news was confirmation more than a surprise.

“As soon as you know.” You had to cut out the rot quickly.

“As soon as I know.”

He put the phone down, his movement slow, measured. In control.

The silence was empty.

He needed to bleed. He needed the release.

He needed to clear his head.

Something. Anything.

He jerked open his top drawer. A pocketknife he used to open mail sat beside some pens. A razor would be better. Invisible. Another lesson from his father. If you were going to survive pain, you had to make friends with it. It had been a long time since he’d taken his vice anywhere outside a boxing ring. Right now, he didn’t have the patience for the drive.

His father’s lighter caught his eye just as he was about to close the drawer. He chuffed a laugh. He’d kept it as a reminder that nobody else would ever own his pain again.

A hand reached for the zippo before he realized it was his, old school with a Harley Davidson emblem, he flicked open the hood. The nail of his thumb caught the spark wheel, striking the flint. He half expected it not to light, but the spark caught and a flame spluttered to life. Jesus, he could smell the gas—a memory from childhood.

He twirled the burning lighter, playing it between his fingers, mesmerized by the ribbon of flame mirroring the twirling line of the cobra twisting round his forearm. The zippo burned hot. His hand holding true and steady as he brought it toward skin.

He looked down at his other arm as he rested his arm flat on the desk, naked, unmarked. The flame never fluttered as he drew an imaginary tattoo line on the tender side of the underarm. Heat licked from elbow to wrist, and back again, a searing burn as it singed the sensitive skin. His muscles twitched in the struggle to hold tight, to resist the urge to flinch and jerk away, to ignore instinct and master his will.

He ground his teeth, his hand slick with sweat as he paused the flame midarm, pushing the head of the lighter as close as he could without snuffing out the flame. Christ, it hurt. He grunted as the dermis swelled and blistered, his whole body on fire. His shirt stuck to the sweat on his back as he gritted through the agony. Sweet fucking pain seared through him bright and clear.

Aching clarity.

Someone cleared his throat.

Killian’s gaze shot up.

Black stood in the doorway. He filled the space, too big to ignore.

For a moment, Killian saw a flogger, but then it was gone.

Out. He wanted the man the fuck out.

“I’ve come for the money.”

Killian blinked mid-snarl.

“The money.” Jerricho repeated, as if his request and the scene in front of him was the most normal thing in the world.

Slowly, Killian shut the lighter lid. The suffering snuffed out of existence.

A drop of sweat ran down his brow as he clenched and unclenched his fist. His chest was already settling into its natural rhythm, the recovery rate of the very fit.

“Fine.” He finally spoke. “I’ll arrange the trans—”

Jerricho shook his head. “No transfer. I need it in cash.”

Killian almost raised an eyebrow, but then he realized they both had secrets. He hated that one of his had been discovered. He should’ve just gone to the ring and let someone lay into him.

“It’ll take more time to arrange it in cash.”

“Tomorrow?” Black sounded edgy, like he needed to be somewhere.

“No.” Killian looked at his watch. His arm throbbed like fuck, but he kept his voice neutral. “I’ll make the call. My banker will be here in an hour. I’ve a got a flight to catch later.”

Jerricho nodded. “I’ll go pack.”

***

Jerricho carried the ice in a bucket with some tea towels, a few Ziploc bags, and some aloe vera ointment the housekeeper had found. Somebody should look at that arm, but this was not his business. He was here to get his money and go.

Life was already complicated.

He should be packing. Jerricho, the man, wanted to go, but the sadist in him was engaged. What made a man like Killian slowly cook his own skin?

Killian was just hanging up the phone as he walked back in. The man’s eyes were moody, a beautiful tortured gray.

Jerricho had no doubt that Killian’s arm would still be hurting. Hurting a lot.

Killian showed no sign of acknowledging the burn despite the pain, pain that must have felt like it was eating its way down to his bones. It would continue to gnaw until the heat had been taken out of it.

He put the items on his desk and reached for Killian’s wrist.

Killian stared at his touch, he didn’t move, didn’t speak.

Jerricho twisted the arm to reveal the raw, angry mark, the fat oozing under the blister. The position was insidious; resting his arm while working at his desk, Killian would feel the constant pressure hurting the wound. Smaller blisters were dotted haphazardly along the lower arm. The man had meant to hurt himself, and he’d done it well.

In silence, Jerricho placed some ice in a plastic Ziploc bag then folded it into a tea towel. Their bodies were close to touching as he leaned over Killian, aware of everything—the hitch in Killian’s breath, the acceleration of his own pulse, the intimacy that went deeper than doctor and patient. And all of it in his own mind because Killian wanted him gone … in an hour.

Still, with great care, he laid the ice pack over the burn. Killian twitched as the shock of the cold touched his hot skin.

Jerricho gently squeezed the man’s upper arm where it didn’t hurt. “Keep icing it until you bring the temperature down to stop the burning.”

He moved away. Killian’s gaze never left him, a look that was both familiar and searching. On paper, they should be strangers, the intersection of their lives brief and in the grand scheme of things, irrelevant, but somehow they were bonded. Bonded in their love for Scarlet. Bonded in secrets they never told.

He gestured at Killian’s arm with his chin. “Unfortunately, you’ve already blistered. I couldn’t see any weeping, but the yellow color of the blister is from fat. Third degree burn. You want to keep it clean, dry, and use some of the magic salve.” He pushed the aloe vera forward.

There was no ‘thank you’—not that he needed it. There was no ‘get out,’ even though he expected it. Killian just looked at him with a clear, calm gaze.

“Do you know why men like you and me fall for someone like my wife?”

Jerricho shook his head.

“She makes us feel clean.”

***

Scarlet sat in the waiting lounge and ran her hands along the plush, comfortable arms of the chair—a chair big enough for her to curl her feet under her and get comfortable. Everything in the therapist’s office was designed to help a person relax and open up. Neutral creams and chocolates made the space familiar and warm, light blue accents instilling calm.

Was she calm?

No. She was a mess.

A hopeful mess.

The night before, watching Killian and Jerricho, she had seen the possibilities. Under all that aggression, there had been sex, both men affected.

God, she’d tried so hard not to fall, but Jerricho had given her back a piece of herself that she’d let slip away. It felt right, this reclaiming, as if losing her finger had created space for something new.

And now, after last night, her head was abuzz.

She and Killian had enjoyed men shared between them before.

She laughed to herself as she shook her head. She and Killian weren’t even sleeping together.

But over time … who knew what could happen over time.

“Scarlet?” Eloise looked at her questioningly as she opened the door of her office to let her in.

Of course she could read her. She’d spent months getting inside her head. Jerricho had taken weeks … no, not even that long; it seemed as if he’d understood her from the day they met.

A connection.

She bypassed the empty chair, just as seductive as the one outside, and went to go stand by the window. Just like the furniture, the silence was comfortable. Eloise would give her space before she would begin to niggle and slowly tease the words out of her.

Except she didn’t need that today. Today she resisted the urge to bounce on the balls of her feet.

Today the words were there, on her chest, in her throat.

Waiting for birth.

“I love him.” She turned to face Eloise “I love Jerricho, and I don’t want him to go.”

Jerricho kicked the stand of the Triumph Thunderbird, parking it in the small lot of the office park. The place was deserted. Progress was coming, a pathway of regeneration that was slowly revitalizing a corridor from the city CBD to the south. Light industrial was making way for high-rise apartments and green public spaces.

A single white van was parked closer to one of the warehouses. The side door was open rather than the large drive-in roller door. Jerricho removed his helmet and gloves and placed them on the motorbike seat. The spot was safe, hidden from the main road, besides the only threat that really mattered was the one waiting for him in the shadows of that open door.

He slipped the backpack with the money off his shoulders. Neat bundles of ten thousand in one hundred dollar bills, one hundred thousand in total. He’d imagined it would have felt heavier, but maybe the promise of freedom made it feel light. Freedom, he wasn’t walking away today without it.

Inside was grim. The fluorescent lights from the office on the mezzanine level glowed dimly while the lower ground had been left in darkness. The light was poor for the cavernous, locked-up space where inky shadows hid the corners and the walls. Jerricho could almost laugh at the dramatic stage, if not for the naked girl lying on the ground. Her body curled around Dado’s feet in a fetal position.

“You’re late.” Dado barked as he flicked the cigarette from his mouth. The butt fell onto the thin arm of the girl, the hot ash making her wince.

She was alive, but Jerricho didn’t like the way she was breathing. Shallow, labored breaths rocked her slim frame. That, more than any of the bruising, had him on high alert.

The girl was not his fight.

As much as that thought twisted his gut, he couldn’t keep paying somebody else’s debt.

Stopping halfway between the door and the trap, because he was sure it was a trap, he tossed the backpack and money toward Dado. “Money’s in the bag. Tell your boss we’re done.”

“Only the boss says when we’re done.”

“What’s going on, Dado?” He took slow, cautious steps forward to the scene spotlighted by the limited falling light. He couldn’t see deeper into the dark surrounding him and it made him uneasy.

The girl moaned, a forlorn sound as she tried to move. Dado knocked her onto her back with his foot.

“You have a patient, doctor.”

She already had the pallor of death and his brain told him again to walk away, but the rest of him was on autopilot as he moved quickly to her aid.

“What the fuck, Dado?” His growl turned feral as he noticed the abdominal swelling. The bruising indicating severe blunt trauma. They hadn’t just hit her. They’d physically stomped on her lower stomach and pelvic region.

Dado circled around them, holding his arms out as if shrugging off any and all guilt. “Girls get pregnant. Girls who don’t get sterilized definitely get pregnant.”

He lightly palpitated her abdomen, her reactions and sounds all instinct, her mind no longer focused. Her breathing bothered him, he suspected they’d kicked in her ribs, probably punctured a lung.

She coughed up some blood, but there was no moving her into a position that was going to make her more comfortable.

“We need to get her to a hospital.” The argument was futile, but while there was still breath …

Dado stopped his circling and shrugged before putting his hands in his pockets. “I took you for a smarter man.”

She was going to bleed to death or suffocate.

They’d tried to make her abort, but more than the death of the fetus had been premeditated. A rolling sense of frustration at his helplessness washed over him. Even if he had medical supplies, she didn’t stand a chance.

There was nothing he could do.

“I can’t save her.” She was already gone; she just hadn’t realized it yet.

“She was trouble anyway.” He spat at her. “Never did what she was told.”

She was an example, the sacrificial lamb.

Jerricho wrapped his hand around her tiny cold one, the tremor in his fingers anger instead of fear.

Fury. Cold and hard, balled inside him.

They couldn’t control him through money anymore, so they were raising the stakes. Her blood was on his hands. His skills as a doctor had always been too valuable for them to let him go.

He’d known that, hadn’t he?

He’d known the fucking inevitable.

The knife and sheath tucked in his waistband against his lower back wasn’t about protecting the money. No, deep down, he’d known if he wanted freedom, he was going to have to fight for it.

He looked up into the sadistic grin cracking across Dado’s face. The sick bastard had enjoyed beating up the girl. He was enjoying watching Jerricho helplessness. And then Dado’s face got nasty.

“The boss is tired of asking nicely. So now I’m telling you. You agree nicely and we let you live a normal life. We won’t care what you do when we don’t need you. Or…” Dado reached under his jacket and pulled a gun. “You come with us.”

Of course, the van.

He would disappear from here and no one would know. No one would even come looking. It made deportation sound good.

Be free or die. It had come down to this.

Jerricho rose calmly to his feet. There was peace in acceptance. His hand slipped round his lower back to withdraw his knife from its sheath.

Dado started but then smiled. “What are you going to do?”

Jerricho smiled back, but it was cold and calculated. “That depends on you.”

The honed blade was as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel.

“Put away your toy.” Dado threw back his head and laughed, an ugly sound.

“Why don’t you let me in on the joke?”

“Doctors save lives. They don’t kill.” He sneered, as if that made Jerricho weak.

“Kill you? You think the worst thing a surgeon with a blade could do is simply take your life?”

This time, Jerricho laughed. If Dado had only been paying more attention to how he had earned the money. It wasn’t as simple as black and white, doctor or sadist.

There must have been something in his eyes or his laugh because Dado sobered. He took one hard look and pointed his gun at Jerricho’s knees.

“Now
you
get to be your first patient.” His finger squeezed the trigger.

It was all in slow motion.

The thought of Scarlet. His only good thing.

Dado’s cry warped with anger as the gun jammed.

Jerricho realized he was still on his feet. It was all the instinct in him needed.

Before Dado managed to gather his wits, Jerricho closed in. Curling his right hand around the knife butt for extra weight, he smashed his fist into the man’s jaw.

The whiplash of the blow gave him just enough time to lightly flex his grip and test his hand. The surgeon in him had to know. Nothing felt broken.

He should have felt relief. Instead, he burned with righteous indignation at even having to put his hand at risk.

Grabbing Dado’s collar to face him, he head-butted him dead on, saving his hand and breaking the man’s nose.

Blood gushed at the moment of rupture.

The sadist in him hadn’t missed that, hadn’t missed the satisfying crack as his head impacted cartilage or the animal sound caused by pain.

His movement was fluid now as he let go of Dado’s collar with one hand and grabbed the man’s left sleeve just below his bicep. The grip opened up his view, and with a quick glance down, he buried his right foot downward into the area where knee met shin.

Dado struggled, but the pain of the bone giving must have been excruciating. Jerricho let go the moment he felt the leg start to give, letting gravity do his work for him.

Being underestimated had played to his advantage. The one trick he had up his sleeve was he knew all about the human body…and he knew pain.

The altercation had taken no more than seconds, but his chest was heaving as he stepped away, clinically watching Dado writhing on the floor.

The gun had fallen free, a black spot on the smooth concrete. He walked over to it and kicked it away.

Despite the pain, Dado was scrambling to sit up. The broken leg kept him on the ground for the present, but he was fighting to get back into the game. His eyes were wild as his hands slipped a little under him.

Jerricho stepped in front of Dado and sank to his haunches, making the man flinch.

“You’re right, Dado. I think you and I need to work on our cooperation.” He said the words tenderly, as if the violence had wrapped them up in intimacy.

Dado appeared stunned…and confused. He looked like a man trying to comprehend how his morning had gone bad.

“I’m going to ask you some questions, and I’d like some answers.”

“Fuck you.”

He spat. The blood spittle landed just below Jerricho’s eyes, cold and sticky as it sat on his cheek.

“
That
was the wrong answer.”

The blade sliced the man’s cheek exactly where his saliva had landed. Mirror images, except one was in blood.

“Who knows how to find me? How many?”

He had to know if he was just buying time, if he was always going to be a man on the run with a target on his back. He had to know if he could really break free.

And Dado was going to give that information, even if Jerricho had to carve it out of him one piece at a time.

Dado grinned through his pain, teeth stained with blood. “You don’t get it,” he hissed. “Whores don’t get to walk free.”

By the time Jerricho realized what the look over his shoulder had meant, it was too late.

The cracking sound resounded in his head as the pain exploded.

Then black.

***

“Where the fuck were you?”

“I went to go take a piss, man.”

The voices grated on the ache in his head as Jerricho blinked awake.

He must have been out only moments.

Black again.

***

The light hurt and he squinted. The blow to the back of his skull made it hurt to turn his head as Jerricho watched a second man help Dado to his feet with some makeshift crutch. Dado wobbled unsteadily, trying to keep the weight off his broken leg.

The world wobbled.

Dado barked something in Tagalog and the man turned to look at him. They knew he was awake.

In short, quick strides, the newcomer was on him, his foot kicking out at his face. Jerricho groaned as he tried to turn his head, but he wasn’t fast enough. Fresh pain burst open as the foot clipped and broke his nose. The taste of copper flooded his mouth.

Karma was a bitch.

He laughed, but he thought the sound only rang in his head.

A flash of black caught out of the corner of his eye as a boot stomped on his hand. Jarring pain made him let go of the knife. He didn’t even know he’d been holding on. Clutching desperately.

The second kick made him curl into a ball to protect his organs. The boot slammed into his back, the pain in his kidneys made him dry retch.

There was that ugly laugh again, Dado enjoying his revenge.

He was going to die here.

And knowing he’d chosen it this way didn’t make it feel any better.

The sounds and clarity of the world faded in and out as the concussion tried to pull him underwater.

“Well, what do we have here?”

The voice cracked like a whip and the kicking to his ribs immediately stopped.

Jerricho’s body screamed as he rolled on the floor and squinted at the door, the figures made hazy by the sunlight streaming in behind them.

“Who the fuck are you?” Dado barked.

“The neighborhood watch.”

He knew that voice, but his brain was fuzzy. The dark shapes drifted closer, faces emerging out of the shadows.

“This is none of your business, man. Walk away.”

Killian shrugged. “My neighborhood.” He glanced around the empty warehouse, his gaze traveling over the dead girl. “My business.”

Leaning more on the crutch, Dado raised the hand holding his gun and pointed it at Killian. His friend followed his lead the same time the muscle behind Killian pulled theirs.

Killian and his men walked closer toward them. How the…? The airport. Killian must have been on his way to the airport. There was a vague memory of Killian saying he had to go to Melbourne for the day. The airport was only a few kilometers away. Still, how had they found him?

Now that the kicking had stopped, his vision began to swim clear. He moved but his head pounded and he jarred to a halt on a groan.

As if knowing his thoughts, Killian turned from Dado to address him. “You think I’m going to let you fuck my wife and not keep you in my sights?”

His tail.
Now that the arrangement was over, he thought he’d left the house without it. The world was crystal clear now as the man with Dado moved from pointing his gun at Killian to directing the barrel directly at Jerricho’s face as if the threat had bargaining worth.

He half laughed, half coughed. His value to Killian was dramatically over-calculated.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Killian was so calm, ignoring the fact a gun was still pointed at him. Dado’s hand might have been shaky, but this close he had a big target.

The idiot cocked the hammer. Jesus. Seemed like everyone had a death wish today.

“I really wouldn’t fucking do that.” Killian’s tone hadn’t changed.

Dado said something in Tagalog and the man shouted back.

But the tension was bubbling. Jerricho could feel it reaching boiling point. Everyone was at the end of a barrel. One of Killian’s men had his aim trained on Dado and the other two had their sights on the man threatening Killian. Outgunned, Dado and friend had opted to aim at the targets they thought mattered the most.

“I’ll give you to the count of three.” But Killian wasn’t even looking at them anymore. His whole focus was on Jerricho, and that wasn’t comforting. “One …”

There was a pitched hollow pop, as if somewhere air had been sucked out of the room. Then another.

Jerricho felt the splat of hot blood fall on his arm as his attacker crumpled to the ground.

Silencers.

The thud of the falling men, heads cracking on concrete, louder than the killing bullets.

Killian hadn’t blinked; he was still staring at Jerricho. Then he stepped in front of him and offered him his hand.