Chapter
21

“Leave the bullet in. You’ll do more damage trying to take it out than if you leave it there. And get me more water.”

Sean’s voice exploded through the glitzy interior of the penthouse. But this time, we weren’t alone. Caesar bled all over his bed with Sean yelling orders. So much blood, and Caesar drank through it all.

“You shouldn’t be fucking drinking,” Sean argued.

“Fuck you! This shit hurts, and I’ll drink until I fucking pass out. Where the fuck is the doctor?” Caesar roared.

Pale. He was so pale. As angry as he sounded, much like the typical badass Caesar who ruled the world, I saw the difference in the way he gritted his teeth together and the pinched hold of his lips. His breath came out in rough pants, each sound punctuated with a slight closing of his eyes. Flashes of what happened replayed in my head. The sting in my scalp from the guard’s grasp. The way Caesar looked when he saw me: pained, angered, vengeful. And in one step, he stood in the center of a gun fight and took out the man who’d tried to hurt me. And had taken a bullet in the process.

Who did that?

“Is the wound through and through?” Caesar asked.

“Of course it’s not. Because you’re fucking Caesar and you don’t do anything easy,” Sean told him.

“Oh, are you worried? Come here so I can give you a kiss.”

Caesar’s words slurred, and I expected Sean to shrug him off and keep working on cleaning out the wound. Instead, Sean put the bloody water bottle down and rested his forehead on the bed. “I should dig that bullet out and push it through your skull.”

Sean’s words were muffled against the bed, but I heard the worry and fear in them. Caesar must have, too, because he reached over with his good arm and tapped Sean awkwardly on the shoulder. “I’m alive, man. You made sure of that.”

I felt like an interloper as I watched them. The extra party standing on the edge of their moment. If I’d thought Sean was merely a servant, I knew better now. He cleaned Caesar and dressed the wound with sterile bandages before he stuffed a white pill in Caesar’s mouth. Caesar washed it down with more alcohol. I stayed off to the side, curled on the floor a few feet from the bed.

“Stop with that. Drink water,” Sean growled.

“Where is that fucking doctor?” Caesar asked instead of answering. He took another swig of his bourbon.

“He can’t get in through the lockdown. Our cops are clearing the bodies and making things clean. We can’t leave this penthouse or it will alert law enforcement not on our payroll that we are still here.”

“We were supposed to go to a safehouse,” Caesar grumbled.

“Yeah? And you decided to take a fucking bullet, so we stayed here.”

“Fuck.”

Another gulp of the liquor.

“Is she at least okay?” Caesar asked.

I started at the sound of his voice, not recognizing the soft quality of his voice. Sean looked up at me, but I shook my head. I didn’t want to come close. I didn’t want to see Caesar as anything more than a monster. But at the hard set of Sean’s features, I knew he wouldn’t let me fade into obscurity.

“Ask her yourself,” he said, looking straight at me.

Caesar turned his head and blinked bleary, bloodshot eyes at me. “Ashy Lashy?” His brow furrowed as he pointed at me with the neck of the bottle. “Come here, baby.”

Baby.

I was on my feet before I could stop myself, drawn by the look in his eyes, the fear of the day, and seeing so much blood. He bled for me. On shaky legs, I approached the bed but stopped when the bed hit my thighs.

“Not close enough,” he sang with a lopsided grin.

“You don’t need to be jostled,” Sean argued.

“Shut up. You’re starting to sound like my mother and—”

His words cut off as he gritted his teeth with a moan. Tears. The monster could cry. Tears filled his eyes and he tried to blink them away, but they wouldn’t go anywhere. They fell from his eyes, leaving trails in the dirt and grime on his face. Sean grabbed a washcloth and wiped Caesar’s face, but they didn’t stop.

“Fuck, this hurts. I’m going to kill that doctor when he gets here. Are you okay?” Caesar asked.

I nodded.

“Come here and lie down next to me,” he ordered.

“You’re hurt,” I told him.

“Yeah? Looks worse than it is.”

He gestured with the bottle, but I shook my head. He narrowed his eyes at me and struggled to sit up. Blood leaked from his wound as he forced his weight against Sean’s restraining hand.

“Stop it, man. You’re going to do more damage!” Sean yelled.

“Come. Here. Ash.”

Caesar didn’t give a shit about his wound, the pain, or Sean as he threw the bottle and it crashed against the opposite wall. I leapt back as he reached for my hand.

“You get your ass in this bed, where you fucking belong!” Caesar roared.

I looked to Sean for help. Jostling him would hurt him. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to see more than I had. I wanted to cling to what I knew. What I understood. But Caesar, beautiful, cruel Caesar reached for me anyway. Bellowed his pain but never stopped coming. I backed all the way up to the wall, and my legs gave out under me. I hit the floor in an ungraceful tangle.

“Ash.”

There. The way he said my name. A warning and a prayer. Soft and hard. A demand and an entreaty. I closed my eyes and covered my ears to block him out. But in the darkness behind my lids, he stood in the pale light, his gun in hand, and I watched him crumple. His jacket had a singed rupture in it, right over the soft spot in his shoulder, and he went to his knees. Sean yelled, but the noise was too loud. Too loud. In the rage of noise, Caesar reached me, pulled me into his arms and pried the guard’s fingers from my hair. He pressed my face into his chest and took back his gun. He fired and moved, grunted and roared, but he never stopped protecting me. Never stopped shielding me from the sights around us. His scent wrapped around me, his hard chest against my face, and I wrapped my arms tighter around my legs.

“I’m not going anywhere, Ash.”

Real. His voice was real in my ear, and I forced my eyes open. He’d come to me, kneeling on the ground at my feet, blood sliding to the side of his stomach and Sean at his back, pressing the dressing against his chest. Worry and anger warred on his face, but he couldn’t stop Caesar when he wanted to do something.

“You should be in bed,” I told him.

“You’re not there,” he whispered, and passed out in my arms.

“Will both of you get in the fucking bed?” Sean asked.

“You killed her. You fucking bastard. And she meant nothing to you!”

I snapped awake at Caesar’s cry but couldn’t get a word out. He rose above me in the bed, his eyes wild and feverish as he stared at some figment of his imagination. Blood once more slid from his wound, and I was worried he’d injure himself again. Slowly, so not to not jar him, I reached for his phone on the nightstand. Once I got it in hand, I dialed Sean.

“Caesar?”

“He’s feverish and hallucinating. Is there anything he can take?” I rushed.

Caesar’s eyes whipped to me.

“I saved you, didn’t I? I saved you.”

For a few seconds, his eyes were clear. “Yes, Caesar. You saved me.”

“I couldn’t save her,” he said.

His arms were hard around me as he held me tightly and buried his face into my neck. The door opened, and I blinked in the darkness to find Sean with a bottle of water and pills in his hands. But Caesar didn’t see anything but what was stuck in his head. He leapt from the bed with a roar, his hand searching his side, but he found nothing but air.

“Fuck, Caesar, it’s me. Sean. You have a fever and you need medicine.”

“You can’t have her. Not again,” Caesar argued.

He lunged for Sean, swinging wildly, but Sean ducked and twirled around him. “Look at me, Caesar!”

“I’m going to peel your skin off. Fucking layer by layer,” Caesar threatened, and I heard the monster inside of him in that voice, the danger and darkness spewing forth.

“You can’t fight your way out of a paper bag,” Sean returned.

Caesar fell to the floor on his knees, but he looked up at Sean with a crazy smile on his face, chest heaving. “Even on my knees, I can kill you, fucker. All you hurt are little fucking girls. Don’t know what it’s like to fight a real man.”

“Yeah, Caesar. You got me.”

“Eh, crying already? Beg me, bitch. Beg me. I’m still going to kill you.”

Caesar slumped forward, his strength gone, and Sean caught him before he fell to the floor. I scrambled out of the bed to help him.

“It may not be safe for you to stay with him tonight,” Sean told me as we lifted Caesar in the bed. Caesar curled into me, holding me tightly against his body. My heart stuttered. He was a monster who abused and killed, his hands filled with the blood of others, but he protected me, and killed … for me. A surge of gratitude mixed with awe grew in my chest.

I shook my head. “He wanted me to be near him. It’s the least I can do.”

Sean sighed and shook his head. “Both stubborn. Your funeral.”

He tucked a pill into Caesar’s mouth and then forced water in until Caesar swallowed. “Good man. Go the fuck to sleep and let me get some rest. Taking care of your ass can be exhausting.”

Once more resting with his arm around me, Caesar slipped into deeper, calmer sleep while Sean checked his pulse.

“He’ll be in and out for a few days,” he told me.

“Are you used to this?” I asked.

Sean chuckled. “It’s happened a few times. You are a wildcard, though.”

“And Yolanda,” I whispered.

“He told you about her?” The surprise on Sean’s face warmed me in a weird way.

“Not much, just that he’d buried her in pieces near his mother.”

“Hm.” Sean rubbed his chin and glanced at me in speculation. “His sister was important to him. Very.”

“What happened to her?”

Much like Caesar, Sean shut down. His body went absolutely still, and a dark, cold look filtered into his eyes. This was the killer who understood and worked with Caesar. I could recognize it as easily as I saw it in Caesar. But I didn’t look away.

“It isn’t my story to tell,” Sean said finally.

“But you will tell me anyway.”

“Oh yeah? And why is that? Because you’re fucking the boss and think you’re important? There have been so many before you, and even more after you. What makes you think you’re special?”

His words cut me, sliced through the fog of what Caesar did for me, reminding me why I was here. No matter what I thought, I was still just Caesar’s captive. But he’d taken a bullet for me. Saved me from Gleeson and held me in the darkness. Yeah, he was still a monster, and yes, I was still his captive. But for tonight, with my emotions ripped to shreds, and how I felt up in the air, I’d ask now, while the taste of his safety was still fresh.

“Because Caesar took a bullet for me. That’s what makes me special.”

He laughed harshly and dropped his head back. “Yeah? And next week, when he’s itching from healing but the fever is gone? Will you be so special then?”

“What is your problem?!” I yelled at him as I sat up, pushing my hair out of my face.

“You are my problem,” he told me. He pushed away from the wall and stalked toward the bed. “You, with your fucking death wish. He’s done this countless times. Snatched some pussy up and took her to the cabin. Fucked her until he was bored and tossed her to Dahlia. And now, because of you, I’ve got a fucking shit storm to clean up, a potential war on my hands, and he doesn’t fucking care.”

I cringed. “It wasn’t my fault. Caesar doesn’t let anyone take what’s his. You know this,” I argued, but I feared what Sean had said.

Whoever Gleeson was, he had to be important. His death had led to a direct attack on Caesar’s home, and I didn’t think anyone would be that foolish. I recognized the power Caesar held. But I hadn’t meant for him to kill Gleeson. I’d tried to be what he wanted, tried to fall back into my training, but it had angered Caesar instead.

“I thought I did what he wanted me to,” I told him.

“Because of you, he is going to get killed. And I’m not going to fucking let it happen. No, you should have succeeded when you went down those fucking stairs. But I know just what I need to do. Terry,” he called toward the door, “come get this bitch out of here. A perfect delivery will smooth shit over.”

“No!”

I screamed and fought, but Sean watched while four men dragged me from Caesar’s bed. He moaned but didn’t wake up. He didn’t hear my screams or pull me back to his side. No, he lay silent in bed, muttering under his breath, as they dragged me away. My ass hit the stairs, the wood digging into the bruises on my back. I sucked in a deep breath, fighting the pain. Sean grabbed my flailing feet and lifted me off the floor.

“Get her downstairs, and find a gag,” he ordered.

We hit the main floor, and he stuffed a sock into my mouth before he wrapped duct tape around my head to hold it in place. Next, he taped my wrists and ankles together. I slumped to the floor, angry tears falling from my eyes. Maybe Caesar had been right all along. He was a demon from hell, and he didn’t do romance. He couldn’t give me sweet shit and soft touches. Belonging to Caesar was about pain and rough edges. About pleasure that made you pass out, need that made you weep.

But it also meant safety. It meant protection. He didn’t hesitate to slay my enemies. To exact retribution for any slight against me. My heart thudded in my chest as golden light glinted to the right of my vision. I twisted my head and spied Yolanda’s picture mounted on the wall, framed in gold. She’d come back to him in pieces, but I’d find a way to get back whole. No matter where I went. Caesar saved me and cried for her. He was a wounded soul, and he broke me. But he also showed me I could fly. I lifted my head as Sean knelt in front of me.

“Dahlia will go into hiding, and she will take you. But she’s going to have an ‘accident’ on the way. She betrayed Caesar, and she will die for it. What happens to you during that accident is not my concern, but you will be left where you never speak a word about what you’ve seen.”

Dahlia betrayed Caesar? But Sean wasn’t?

He’s going to rip you to pieces, I told him with my eyes. When he wakes up and finds me gone, you are going to bear the fucking punishment, and I hope you scream like a stuck pig.

“Don’t worry, Ashlyn. When he wakes up, he’s going to understand his precious little pet took another tumble down the stairs, and she didn’t wake up this time. I’ll clean up the mess, like I always do.” He lifted his hand, a sharp knife glinting in the fading light. “Now, how about you provide some blood. We need it to look convincing.”

Fuck you, Sean. Your death warrant is assured.