The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) (36 page)

              Michael caught him in the belly with the Taser. The man let out a strangled sound, stiffened, and went down like a felled tree.

              No casualties, Ghost had said. Just restrain them, get the girl, and get the hell out, no reason to rile Ellison beyond repair. A war was the last thing any of them needed.

              The guy was still twitching and Michael was moving quickly, pulling the duct tape from his back pocket, tearing off a strip.

              Behind him, the squeal of tires pulling up at the curb snatched his attention. Reinforcements, and not his.

              “Shit.”

~*~

“This is a lot less fun than it could be,” Mercy complained as he secured the two backdoor guards with duct tape. Their legs still twitched with spasms from the Taser.

              “Yeah, well, we don’t need another war in Knoxville.” Though honestly, that was the last of Walsh’s worries at the moment. If one of these guys gave him a reason to, he’d put a bullet in him. He was feeling a lot like his Cajun companion at the moment – it would have been fun to spill a little blood.

              He reached into one thug’s pockets and found the house key. “Here we go.”

              “I don’t hear anything up front, so Michael must have handled things,” Mercy said.

              Walsh slid the key into the deadbolt.

              And gunshots sounded from the other side of the house.

~*~

It didn’t matter how big and strong a man was, you kicked him right in the cock, and he was going to fall to pieces, simple as that. The man on top of Emmie howled and collapsed onto her; his weight forced the air from her lungs.

              She gasped for breath, turned her head, and bit his ear. Sank her teeth as deep and hard as she could.

              He bellowed and rolled off her, landing on the floor with a tremendous
thump
that shook the bed.

              Emmie sat up, scrambled toward the foot of the bed on her knees. There was another one waiting for her out in the living room, but it gave her some small measure of hope to get past this one. To –

              He backhanded her across the face. One moment he was moaning on the floor, and the next he’d staggered to his feet. His knuckles bit into the soft flesh of her cheek and the blow sent her sprawling back across the mattress. Her vision clouded with white lace, and pain shot through skin, flesh, bone, hitting her in the brain.

              “Fucking bitch,” he snarled. “I’m gonna make you hurt for that.”

              Emmie closed her eyes and rolled to the side, landing hard on her knees on the carpet, the jolt snapping her teeth together.

              He grabbed the back of her shirt and hauled her back, ripping the thin cotton of her tank top at the seams with rending pops.

              Never stop fighting. She’d heard that once on some self-defense PSA. Never stop fighting back against your attacker. She believed that wholeheartedly…but no amount of belief was going to ensure that this huge man didn’t beat her senseless and rape her. Because in truth, she was small, and she only had so much strength, and her hands were bound together. And eventually, he was going to succeed, and pin her down, and violate her body.

              But she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

              She curled in on herself, knees drawn up tight to her chest, total dead weight as he dragged her back onto the bed by her shirt, shredding it completely down both sides so it was only a scrap of cloth hanging over her breasts.

              “Bitch,” he kept saying to her. “Stupid fucking bitch.”

              He hit her again, on the side of the head, and her skull filled with the pealing of bells.

              “What the hell are you doing?” the other man asked from the door, and Emmie squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, and the fear that they would both try to take a turn with her.

             
Oh God, please…no…

              Gunshots.

              She held her breath. The man above her froze, fingers loosening their death grip on the back of her shirt.

              “What?” the other one asked.

              No, she wasn’t imagining it – those were gunshots!

              An image of Walsh filled her mind, and she was afraid to let herself hope.

              The man let go of her and he and his companion hurried from the room. Only a second later, she heard a sharp crack, like wood splitting. Angry shouts.

              “Drop your weapons!” someone roared.

              A gunshot.

              Another.

              Emmie clambered off the bed and staggered toward the door, floor seeming to tilt beneath her feet.

              She heard thundering footsteps, the clomp of heavy boots.

              “Merc!” someone yelled.

              “On it!” someone yelled back, and that Cajun accent was unmistakable.

              Then another accent reached her ears, this one heaven-sent. It glazed her eyes with tears and kicked her heart into a gallop.

              “Em? Emmie!” There was only one British man who would call her name with such panic and emotion, and she tried her best to get to him, fighting the dizziness, moving down the hall.

              “I’m here!” she shouted back.

              There were sounds, so many fleshy, grunting, fighting sounds. Noises that would normally have filled her with terror. Horses kicking at one another sounded a whole lot like men beating each other to a pulp, she reflected, and both were terrifying prospects. But right now, that racket was her salvation.

              “Walsh!”

              And there he was, in front of her, gun in one hand, grey sweatshirt dotted with blood. Eyes pale and frantic.

              The most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

              “Jesus,” he breathed, snatching her into his arms, crushing her against his chest. “You okay? You hurt?”

              “No, I’m fine.” She took her first deep, rattling breath since the whole ordeal had started. “I’m fine.”

Thirty-Eight

Ghost stood slouched back against the door of his favorite club truck, the ’99 Ford, smoking and counting the pigeons that swooped down to peck up the bread crumbs a group of children were spreading. Rats with wings, but the kids giggled and shrieked with happy laughter at the sight of them bobbing and cooing.

              He’d brought Aidan to this same park, when he was just a little scrawny thing, in the dark time after Olivia had left and before Maggie had come along. He’d had no idea how to be a father to a small child. A teenager he could have bought bike parts and taken to the races. A small, sensitive boy he’d had no tools to handle, and so they’d come to the park a lot. Aidan had always wanted to feed the birds, tossing handfuls of Ritz crumbs at them and laughing, the sun glinting off his glossy dark curls.

              Ghost had sat on a bench, smoked, and felt useless. It was Maggie who’d thought to teach Aidan how to fly a kite, to make paper boats they pushed out onto the pond. Maggie who’d sat cross-legged on the sidewalks and drawn chalk pictures with him. Who’d thought to pack sandwiches, sodas and a blanket and have lunch in the shade of a tree, counting ants and talking about the airplanes that glided overhead.

              When he started bringing Maggie around the club, his brothers had laughed and peppered him with lewd comments; they’d thought she was a juicy little piece of jailbait to him. They hadn’t seen her with Aidan, hadn’t realized, as he had, that there was a wealth of thunder lying quiet inside that girl. She’d stood on the cusp of a womanhood fit to bring men to their knees. They hadn’t seen the queen buried just beneath her skin.

              They saw it now. Everyone saw it.

              He thought he heard faint echoes of that thunder in Walsh’s Emmie, not as strong as Ava’s, but there all the same. And so he stood against his truck, and smoked, and waited, as a long black Mercedes rolled down the park driveway and cruised to a stop alongside him.

              The man who climbed from the passenger seat looked like a day laborer stuffed in a suit that badly needed tailoring. If Shaman was clever, deft, charming, and wicked, this man was blunt, obvious, and dull. Didn’t mean he wasn’t an effective enemy, only that his motives would be easier to decipher, and the negotiations much simpler.

              “Afternoon,” Ghost said, flicking his cig away as Don Ellison and his driver/bodyguard joined him.

              Don gave him an up/down inspection, tugging at his suit lapels. “You’re not who I was expecting see.”

              “Yeah, no. That’d be my VP. He’s a little busy getting his old lady back.”

              Ellison frowned and gestured to his guard, who pulled out a cellphone and stepped away to make a call. “You found my safe house, then.”

              “With a little help from a mutual friend.” Ghost quirked a smile.

              “Shaman.”             

              Ghost shrugged.

              It never failed to amaze him: the civilized meetings between outlaws, the way talking about death, theft, kidnappings and shootings took on the language of business mergers.

              “Whose idea was it to take the girl?” he asked.

              Ellison’s turn to shrug. “That was Grey and the Richards kid. I tried to do things through G&G. When that didn’t work, they decided to get a little leverage. I decided to ensure they weren’t fucked over, because they’re both totally fucking incompetent.”

              “So are your safe house boys, apparently.”

              “I need to be more careful in my hiring,” the man agreed.

              “And you’ve got some hiring to do. I think next you check, you’ll find yourself a few guys short. Given my VP’s old lady was stripped half naked and covered in bruises, you’ll want to consider us even. One wife is worth about three and a half of your thugs.”

              Ellison ground his jaw, but said nothing, gaze resolute.

              Ghost gave him a level look. “Knoxville belongs to me and mine. You’re not getting in.”

              “Is that a fact?”

              Ghost reached over his shoulder and tapped the truck window. On the other side, Fielding popped the door and climbed out, gun belt jangling as he walked around to join them.

              Ellison’s eyes widened.

              Fielding wore an expression Ghost had never seen before, one of resolute sadness, and total aggression. His head was wrecked over what had happened in the hunting cabin, and he was channeling that self-hatred into something useful.

              “I want you to meet my friend Vince,” Ghost said. “He’s a Knoxville PD sergeant.”

              Ellison frowned.

              “You see, the Lean Dogs don’t just own the city, we own the police force too. So like I said, you’re not getting in.”

              Ellison considered a moment, finally gave Ghost a tight smile. “Not for now, anyway. You play the game well, Teague, I’ll give you that.” He stepped back and touched an imaginary hat brim in salute. “I’ll be seeing you.”

              When the Mercedes had slipped out of sight, Ghost turned to the cop beside him. Fielding had one hand braced on the truck, staring at nothing, complexion waxy like he might be sick.

              “Ah, cheer up, Vinnie.” Ghost clapped him on the shoulder. “It won’t be so bad. You might even like being my puppet.”

~*~

“Thank you.” Emmie wrapped both hands around the coffee mug Dublin offered her and he smiled in return.

              “You’re welcome, darlin’.”

              On the coffee table in front of her, Tango had left aspirin, Aidan had left a bottle of wine he’d dug from beneath the bar, and Carter had found a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, saying, “Sometimes sugar helps when you’re in shock.”

              It was hard to recall that she’d found these men frightening only a few weeks ago. The night in the field, in the flare of headlights, running for her life and seeing them close around her like hunting dogs – only to end up here, waited on by them, consoled and comforted.

              And rescued. She still couldn’t believe it. It was too big to digest at the moment, and her head hurt too badly, and so she sat with her coffee, beneath all their gazes, letting Walsh shine a light in each eye to check her pupil response.

              “Did you heave?” he asked, retracting the flashlight, eyes bouncing across her face with clinical scrutiny.

              “No.”

              “Still ought to get you to the ER and have you checked. We’ll tell them you fell off a horse.”

              She nodded, the lie not bothering her in the least.

              What
was
bothering her was the man seated across from her. Strikingly pretty, tall and elegant, with long hair and a thousand-dollar suit, he would have looked less out of place in the clubhouse if he’d been in full clown face paint.

              He noticed her staring and gave her a little wave with the tips of his fingers, smile straight, white, cutting. “So you’re the one all the fuss has been about. I see you’re in one piece.”

              Crap – he was English too.

              She glanced over at Walsh, and he made a negative gesture: not going there.

              Then she looked down at herself. She was wearing Walsh’s sweatshirt, the bloody one, breeches ripped from carpet burns. She didn’t want to know what her face and hair looked like.

              “I’m Emmie,” she introduced herself, without much in the way of politeness. “And you are?”

              He chuckled. “Take it they didn’t kick the claws off you. Cheers, darling.” He stood, straightened his suit jacket. “I’ll be taking my leave, then. Kev, walk out with me.”

              Tango sighed deeply, massaged his forehead.

              “Just go,” Aidan told him. “And get him the fuck outta here.”

              Walsh gathered her attention again. “Soon as Ghost gets back, we’ll head to the ER and get you looked at, love.”

              She smiled faintly. “It’s just a little headache. I’m alright.” She wanted to say more, so much more, but she was afraid she’d cry, so she pressed her lips together and tried to smile again.

~*~

Nerves chased across Tango’s skin as he followed his lover out of the clubhouse and across the parking lot toward the black Jaguar.

              “I hate when you walk behind me like that,” Ian said over his shoulder. He halted as they reached the car and turned to face Tango, frowning in a way that made his face somehow more beautiful. “I want you beside me, always.”

              “That’s not happening here,” Tango said, firmly. His voice was dark, nasty even; it didn’t sound like his own. He was angry, he realized, furious that Ian would show him any sort of partiality or affection here at the clubhouse, in front of his club brothers. “Not now, not ever.”

              Ian’s brows lowered over his eyes, their blue depths soft with emotion. “I don’t want you to pretend to be someone that you’re not, just for their benefit.”

              “I’m not. I like girls.”

              “So do I. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you in my bed every night.”

              Ian took a step forward, and Tango took one back. “I’m not gay,” he said through his teeth.

              “Of course not, darling,” Ian said softly. “Do you think there’s a label for what we are? We are ruined, love. Inside and out, forever and always. We’ve been destroyed, and I see nothing wrong with taking comfort where we can. You shouldn’t either.”

              “I have comfort. I have a family now.”

              “Yes. You do.” The caressing voice and the tender smile were mocking.

              Tango turned to walk away.

              “Tell your president I won’t forget that favor he owes me,” Ian called to his back.

              “No, that would be too much to hope for,” Tango muttered under his breath.