Nothing bad would happen this time. I kept picturing Alex, her face bunched in fury at the way I’d manhandled her, though desolation had lurked underneath her ire.
I had to make it back to her. I had to.
“Having second thoughts, man?” Jax asked as he hammered on the padlock that blocked our way into the crawl space. To avoid tripping the alarm, we’d chosen to break into the estate by way of the passage Jax said led to the basement.
“Third and fourths too.” I shook my head and sighed. “Let’s just do this.”
Any way we looked at it, getting those women out of there wouldn’t be easy. Breaking into the tunnel would put them at risk, since Perrone’s men outnumbered us, and calling the cops carried a whole other set of problems—mainly that we didn’t know who Perrone had in his pocket.
“How much time do we have again?” I asked, shuffling my feet. Jax wanted to find info on his sister, and I wanted him to find what he needed.
“Maybe thirty minutes.”
“That’s shit for time.”
“Tell me about it. Old man’s runs are getting shorter.” He hacked at the lock some more. “I was clocking his jogs before I busted you guys out, but getting past Cleft was a different matter.” Jax finally broke the lock and lifted the door to the crawl space. A black square of nothingness faced us. Shit, I hated the thought of squeezing through that tight space.
Jax fell to all fours and disappeared inside. I followed suit, batting away cobwebs, and tried not to let the dark get to me.
“This seemed much bigger when I was eight.” Jax slowed and aimed his flashlight above. A square hatch called from overhead, whispering for us to shove it open and escape this claustrophobic grave. “Here, shine this up there, would ya?” He handed the light to me.
I aimed the beam upward while he pushed against the hatch, his face straining.
“Shit,” he said, slumping. “I’m positive this end wasn’t locked.”
Didn’t mean Perrone hadn’t secured it since we’d escaped.
Jax tried again, and the door finally creaked. Dust rained down and covered his face. He shook his head until his shaggy hair fell into his eyes. Brushing it aside, he threw his shoulder into the hatch and lifted, and it slammed to the floor of the basement with a vibrating thud. More dirt fell on us.
Jax disappeared into the opening, then he popped his head back through. “Bring in the cans, would ya?”
“Yeah, sure.” I scooted backward through the passage and touched down on the hard earth behind the estate. We’d hauled in four cans of gasoline, and they sat untouched, lined up against the side of the mansion. I slid them forward through the space, scraping over rock and dirt.
Jax lifted them one by one into the basement, and I hefted my body through the opening and dropped to the cold cement. I didn’t like that we were so fucking close to that tunnel. I eyed the door hiding the staircase, and for an insane moment I imagined someone bursting through and dragging me back.
Imagined Alex still down there, chained in their torture room, her flesh taking the brunt force of Brock’s whip.
No. I had to keep my head in the game. Alex was safe, chained to my fucking bed like the temptress she was. The sooner we finished this, the sooner I could get back to her.
Jax headed toward the door leading upstairs, and I tailed him, following his lead as we made our way to the main floor. Early morning sunlight gleamed off the counters in the kitchen. I checked to make sure the gun was still jammed into the waistband of my jeans.
He shot me a worried look. “You sure you can handle this?”
Murdering Lucas Perrone in cold blood? Not really, but I wasn’t about to back down. He’d destroyed too many lives, and I didn’t hold out much hope that law enforcement would dole out justice. He probably had judges in his pocket, in addition to cops.
“You don’t have to watch,” Jax said. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. The fucker deserves to burn.”
A shiver went though me at his tone. He talked about killing his father as if it were a chore we were debating. And I got it, I did. I’d wanted to kill Perrone and his men too, but when faced with the actuality of taking someone’s life…
“Maybe we should try the Feds, someone higher up.”
“He’ll never stop until we’re dead. Even if we get lucky and they put him away, he’s got too many connections. I would’ve run long ago, if I thought I could.”
Standing in Perrone’s kitchen, discussing his impending demise, made me twitchy. I didn’t want his psycho father coming after Alex. In fact, I wouldn’t be satisfied until he couldn’t speak her name.
But killing the bastard…
That only reminded me that I had killed a man—I just didn’t remember it. My mind had blocked it out, buried the memory long before I’d wiped out the whole fucking eight years.
We stepped down a few steps, crossed the humongous living room, and Jax halted at a door. He tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. Stepping back, he kicked below the knob, just like I’d done with the shed, and repeated the blows until the door broke under the onslaught of his boot. He shoved it open and glanced at his watch.
“We have maybe fifteen minutes.” Perrone worked from home, so his morning jog was the only time Jax knew he’d be gone with certainty. Jax strode over to the built-in bookshelves and began flinging open cupboards, rifling through files.
I checked out the rest of the room. The space was free of Perrone’s nefarious nature—no signs of his thirst for sexual slavery. Deep mahogany paneling decorated the walls. The desk sat front and center, oversized and as masculine as the rest of the study, which reeked of prestige and money. I hated it on sight because it was so perfectly Perrone. Blatantly pretentious with an even larger collection of artwork and antiques than the wretched square box in the underground.
“Rafe, you’re gonna wanna see this.”
Keeping an ear out for his father’s arrival, I moved to stand next to Jax. He extended a file to me. “He’s got one on Alex.”
Letting out a curse, I took the folder and turned away. The photos I found inside were all of Alex. Sleeping, picking at her food, staring off into space with that faraway look in her eyes—the look she wore when she was sad, worried, or scared. I shuffled through the pictures, and when I came to a few displaying the naked expanse of her skin, drops of water trailing between her breasts from showering, I wanted to punch something.
No. I wanted to fucking rearrange Perrone’s face. He’d obviously been stalking her, putting her under surveillance, all while dating her.
The sick fuck.
I removed the photos and pocketed them before snapping the folder shut. “Anything on your sister?”
Jax slammed a drawer shut and opened another. “Nothing.”
“I’m sorry, man.” I handed him the empty file, but the chirping sound of an alarm froze us both. A series of beeps sounded, a door shut, and footsteps thumped over polished floors, drawing closer. I pulled the gun out and moved across the room with the stealth of a tiger in mid-hunt. The door shielded me from view, but Jax stood directly in front of the desk, arms crossed, preparing to confront his father.
Perrone stepped inside, still decked out in his drenched running shorts and T-shirt. I almost didn’t recognize him without his trousers, shiny shoes, and air of superiority.
“How did you get in here? I know I changed the codes, boy.” He wiped his face with a towel, and I used the distraction to come out of my hiding place.
“Go take a seat,” I said, jabbing the back of his sweaty head with the barrel.
“You’ve got some balls to break into my home. Into my office.”
“You’ve got some balls to take photos of naked women.” I propelled him forward, and the asshole laughed.
“Found the file, did you?” He meandered to the executive chair, his expression smug, casual, as if he didn’t have anything to fear.
“Shut the fuck up.” I shoved him to his ass and trained the gun on his temple. My gaze flickered to Jax.
“Where’s Tawny?” Jax placed both hands flat on the desk and glared at his father. He grabbed the pen and notepad sitting to his right and thrust them toward Perrone. “Details, old man. Address, the men who bought her, how much she went for. I want all of it.”
Perrone eased back in his seat, as if the barrel of my gun didn’t bother him, and picked up the pen. He tapped it against the desk in a rhythmic beat that set me on edge.
“She went for a hundred grand. You should be proud of that. The buyer went by the last name of Perez. He took her to Mexico where the whiny bitch died.” Perrone smiled. “I heard she died just like Nikki Malone did. Perez didn’t have the patience to train someone as strong-willed as Tawny.”
Jax stumbled back, his face blanching in denial. “You’re lying.”
“‘Fraid not, boy. Your sister’s dead.”
Tap, tap, tap with that fucking pen.
Perrone leaned forward, unfazed with how his words impacted his own blood.
“I don’t believe you,” Jax said, hands bunched at his sides.
I knocked him in the temple with the gun. Wincing, Perrone dropped the pen, and it slowly rolled toward him. He regarded me from the corner of his eye. “Did Alex tell you how she enjoyed sucking me off? I’ve got a big dick, and I rammed it so far down her throat, she cried.”
The thought of Alex crying for anyone besides me filled my veins with too much energy—the dangerous kind that sparked and singed until I nearly blew.
“Bitch gagged on my cum.”
Images of urine trickling down her legs, her screams as Brock’s whip tore through her flesh, sent me into a tailspin.
I’d failed her.
This scum bucket had worn her down, made her give him something she’d resisted giving me—her fucking tears. He’d taken everything; the island, my family’s vineyard, Alex’s last shred of self-respect. The bastard had ruined his own children’s lives.
As that pen drew closer, as Jax’s shoulders drooped in defeat, I saw Nikki in my mind’s eye. The mischievous spark in her gaze, the way her laughter used to fill me with contentment. She’d been the mother of my child.
And Perrone had taken her from our son in a bloody display of horror. One quick swipe of a knife, and she was gone, her life gurgling from her throat, hands wrapping around her neck as if she could contain her own life-force. Jax’s grief as it slid down his cheeks…the way he’d held her, bawling like a broken man.
Everything hurtled through my head in a turbulent mural of rage.
I lurched forward, grabbed the pen, and stabbed Perrone in the neck, right where his veins pumped corrupted, evil blood to his brain. He jerked over the desk, fingers clawing at the pen, and pulled it out amidst a gush of blood.
Red…that’s all I saw as I wrapped an arm around his neck and squeezed with every bit of strength I possessed. Letting the fucker bleed out wasn’t enough. Jax shouted something, but I couldn’t hear shit beyond the roar in my head.
Perrone struggled for a few intense seconds, a blip in the grand scheme of things, before he slumped over the smooth surface of the desk, gone to the world.
Dead.
Unable to hurt anyone else.
“You killed him.” Jax grasped his blond hair and stared at me, mouth gaping.
I stepped back and lifted my blood-drenched hands. The sticky red bathed my arms and shirt. Outwardly, I was the picture of calm, as if I’d taken a life without a second thought, but on the inside, I cowered in a corner and silently screamed.
Heartbeat racing way too fucking fast, I pulled out the throwaway phone we’d bought on the way to Portland. A tremor seized my fingers, and I had to punch in the sheriff’s number twice before it went through.
He answered on the third ring with a barked, “Lewis.”
“You’ll find Nikki Malone’s remains somewhere in Forrest Park. You’ll need—”
“Who is this?” he shouted through the earpiece.
“Shut up and listen.” The plan relied heavily on chance and Lyle Lewis actually acting on an anonymous tip. “You’ll need several men, probably a few ATVs. There’s an underground tunnel being used for sex trafficking.” I relayed the general whereabouts of the entrance, though Jax and I had a hard time pinpointing the area on a map, which made explaining it over the phone next to impossible. If they didn’t show, or if they did but couldn’t find the right spot…
He began interrogating me, so I ended the call, and that’s when the shaking started, the rush of heat flushing my skin. My stomach revolted, and my knees buckled.
Jax blinked, hands still clutching his hair as he stared in horror at his father. He blinked again, shook his head, and closed the distance between us. “C’mon. We gotta move.”
He had to drag me down to that slab of a room, because I’d checked out. Whispers of the past taunted the edges of my sanity, and the mustiness of the basement incited flashes of my cellar on the island.
Alex. God, I could see her so clearly, her body shivering next to me, skin damp as I fisted her stringy hair in a tight grip. The clank of a lock. Her desperate pleas for me not to leave her in that cage.
Jax picked up a gas can and held it out to me.
We started in the basement, spilling gas into the crawl space since the other end was closest to the generator. Next, we hit the kitchen, the living room, dousing the furniture and curtains. The throw rugs.
But it was too much.
The putrid scent of gas reminded me of the night they’d taken us, and I relived that island going up in smoke. I dropped the last can, still half full. “Sorry, I need to get outta here.”
“It’s okay, man. Wait outside. I need to do this anyway.”
“Don’t blow yourself up.”
Jax shot me a sad, crooked smile. “I’ll try not to.”
As soon as I opened the front door, the countdown for the alarm sounded, and Jax hurried to finish spreading the gasoline.
I stumbled down the steps and fell to my hands and knees in the driveway. The red on my hands struck me in the face. Groaning, I rolled to my back and stared up at the azure sky.
I’d killed a man.
My heart pounded a slow, laborious rhythm. An airplane crawled across the sky, and I wondered what it would be like to be on that plane, to be someone else who had a future.
Jax hurtled down the stairs, boots thumping. “Get up!” he yelled.
I struggled to my feet as he struck a match and tossed it toward the mansion. The gasoline ignited and fire spread rapidly, licking the beams propping up the balcony over the front stoop, flaring inside the entrance, eating the curtains in a violent blaze.
Something crackled, then a thunderous crash sounded. We backed away from the heat, but an explosion went off, the force powerful enough to knock us to the ground, and I realized the generator must have blown. Pain jolted my head, my limbs, straight to my bones. Garbled noise seized my ears, muffling Jax’s shouts for me to get up.
Cops were on their way, he said.
I pushed to my knees and swayed.
And I remembered.
Everything.
As if the memories had always been with me.
I’d choked Jax’s uncle in prison, my rage over Alex’s betrayal a nasty entity that drove me in that moment. I’d squeezed his beefy neck, despite Jax trying to pull me off him, and hadn’t stopped even when the vessels in his eyes burst.
I’d lost control and killed a man.
Devastation consumed me, making me dry-heave. It didn’t matter if the guy had been on the verge of killing Jax. I’d taken the life of another human being, using nothing more than the strength in my own hands. Then I’d blocked it out, and Jax had let me exist in oblivion. But his uncle hadn’t gone to the infirmary that day. He’d gone to the fucking morgue.
Then there were the rapes. God, the fucking rapes. I doubled over, holding my stomach, and the dry-heaves turned into full-fledged vomiting.
Alex.
This was hell.
I pulled at my hair, rose to my feet, and turned in circles as the urge to break something overcame me. The memories shredded what was left of my mind. I’d fucking tortured her. I’d forced her under water, had brutally fucked her. I’d left her cold, shivering, and freezing inside that cage, even after she’d nearly drowned. Holy fuck. I’d almost made her suck Jax’s cock.
I’d treated her worse than a dog.
The truth was so much worse than what I’d feared. What kind of man does that?
The kind of man I’d become.
The kind of man who’d stabbed a guy in the neck, choked him out like it was nothing, then burned down his fucking house.
Jax staggered to me, holding a hand to his bloodied head. “You okay?”
“Rafe Mason is dead.”
“Dude, how bad did you hit your head? You’re fine, but you won’t be if we don’t get the fuck outta here.”
“I remember.”
His eyes widened. “What? Seriously?” He wiped the bloody hair from his eyes. “What do you remember?”
“Everything.”
Since I wasn’t moving, he grabbed my arm and hauled me to the street. We walked the four blocks to his van, and thankfully any passerby was too worried about the billow of smoke pummeling the sky to pay us much attention.
Jax pointed to the passenger side of the van. “Get in.”
Sirens blared as I slid into the seat. Jax started the engine and jerked away from the curb, tires spinning. He shot down the street, made a turn, then another, and the wail of sirens grew faint.
“I can’t go back, Jax. I can’t face her.”
“You just got your memory back.”
“I’ve taken enough from her. She’s better off without me.” I waved behind us, at the dark cloud of doom attacking the sky. “The threat is gone. She can move on, free from this, from her father, from me.”
“She fucking loves you. Do you really think she’ll just get over it?” He braked hard on a yellow light, and I shot my hand out to keep from careening into the dash.
“It’ll be hard at first, but I have to believe she’ll find happiness, live a normal life. Fucking find some closure and heal. As long as I’m around, she’ll never give me up.”
“And her brother will never give her up,” Jax pointed out.
I balled my fists. “I’ll take care of him. He’ll never hurt her again.”
“I’ll help you take care of him, but you need to get your ass back to her. You left her chained to your bed, man.”
I railed against the idea of her restrained to my bed. I didn’t think of freeing her. No, I thought of taking advantage, of choking her while simultaneously ramming my cock into her.
And she’d let me because she trusted me.
I didn’t trust me.
“I can’t do it, Jax.” I shook my head, mouth forming a stubborn line. “Part of me wants to go back eight years and shake some fucking truth into her. None of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have been so fucking broken. I wouldn’t have gone through hell in prison.” I paused, dragging my hands through my hair, and tamped down the strangling overflow of emotion. “I wouldn’t have killed your uncle. None of this would—”
“And I’d be dead.”
Jax’s gaze held mine, and the utter quiet that settled over that moment was spine-tingling. The light turned green, and we rolled forward again. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.” He scrunched his brows. “Or her. Fuck, Rafe. I’ve hated her for all kinds of reasons, but I never stopped to think about it like that. If she’d told the truth, you wouldn’t have been there to save my ass.”
There was no easy way to look at the fucked up mess we’d created. Any way I contemplated it, someone ended up dead. But I couldn’t help but wonder how things would have turned out if Alex had told the truth. Zach would’ve gone to jail, and I was positive my pull toward Alex would have brought us together. Could we have ended up happy? Normal? Me, living the dream in the UFC with a hot, kinky wife and a couple of kids at my side?
It sounded good, but it didn’t sound like us.
We couldn’t bury our history. It was a fucking zombie that would just keep coming, no matter how many times we thought we’d laid it to rest. Unlocking my memory had screwed us. The anger, the agony, the fucking pain of betrayal that squeezed my chest until I couldn’t fucking breathe…
I wanted to choke her for it all.
I’d kidnapped her for a reason. I’d craved an outlet, and that gravitational pull that ensured Alex and I orbited each other wouldn’t be denied. I’d needed her, only she’d needed a sane man who could put her back together again.
How could I fix her if I couldn’t fix myself? How could I be the man she needed when all I wanted to do was bend her until she snapped?
“It’s too late for us. What’s done is done. Someday, she’ll see it’s for the best.”
Jax sighed. “You think she’s strong enough to stand on her own?”
“I know she is. She’s stronger than me. I’m the one who needs her.”
“Then fucking take what she wants to give. I don’t see the problem here.”
“The problem is me! I’m fucked. I’ve done too much.”
“We’ve all done too much,” he shouted, banging on the steering wheel. “Every one of us has done shit we’d take back if we could. You’re just running away because you’re scared.” He jabbed his finger in my direction. “You’re scared because you know she can handle what you want to dish out. Even more, she wants it. But you’re scared of the responsibility.”
“Fuck yeah, I’m scared! I’m terrified I’ll hurt her. Every bone in my body wants to make her cry. I want her on her knees, chained to my damn bed not because I’m trying to keep her safe, but because that’s where she fucking belongs. That isn’t normal!”
“You,” he said, “have never been normal.”
I drew in a deep breath. “I can’t do it.” I gave Jax a pointed look. “I lost control with your uncle. I remember it all like it was yesterday. It was an accident, but what I did back there…” I gazed at the blood on my hands. The literal fucking blood. “I won’t risk her life.”
“You’d never hurt her.”
“Not willingly.”
“Okay then,” he said.
“Okay?” I raised an incredulous brow.
“I ain’t changing your mind about this, so why try?”
“Finally, something we agree on.”
“I still think you’re making a mistake. She’s gonna come undone when you leave, man.”
“You say you owe your life to me?”
Jax rubbed a hand down his face. “Yeah, I owe you.”
“Then make sure she stays in one fucking piece. Until she’s on her feet, watch her for me. Be there for her. You’re not the one who wants to fuck and strangle her.”
He glanced at me, slack-jawed.
“Jax, you’re the only one I trust.”
“What am I supposed to tell her?”
“The truth. The man she loves is dead.”