Chapter 23
Mira
The warehouse was cold enough to make me shiver in my T-shirt and shorts, but it was still a relief from the past three days. I’d been zip-tied and locked in the back of a van while my family made the drive up through Europe, so the open space above my head felt like a blessing.
I tried to ignore how the zip-ties around my wrists and ankles dug into my flesh while I drank in big gulps of the cool, fresh air. If this was going to be my last night on this Earth, then I wanted to at least have one moment’s pleasure, however faint and fleeting.
“Who would have thought little Aignéis would be able to bring the infamous Steel family to its knees? If I were Blaine, I’d let us cut that little bastard out of your belly before I’d give up London.”
I shuddered as my moment’s peace was shattered by Michael’s cold, disparaging voice, and looked up to see him carelessly flick his knife back and forth between his fingers as he leaned against the pallets nearest to where I sat tied to a chair. My dad had ordered him to watch over me while he and Devlen set up their men around the perimeters, to make sure they were prepared in case the Steels were planning an ambush. My father’s orders were clear—if anything was amiss, Michael was to plunge the knife first into my belly, and then into my heart. He had given him the orders right in front of me, undoubtedly because he wanted to relish the sick wave of fear his words inspired.
“Guess they really are as soft as the rumor claims, when it comes to women and family.”
I closed my eyes to not have to look at Michael. If there truly were such rumors about the Steels, then I knew they were as false as false could be. And that’s why I knew I was going to die tonight.
Even if Blaine somehow got the noble inclination to give up his family’s empire for me and our baby, I knew there was no chance on this Earth that his father would comply. The man who had sent his own son to jail for disobeying his orders would not give up an ounce of power for Blaine’s unwanted wife and child.
And without William Steel, there was no deal.
If Blaine hoped to overpower them with a large group of his men, I would be dead before he ever got to me.
I bit my lip hard to stop the tears from flowing again. I’d cried and pleaded enough the past three days—I didn’t want to waste my last hours with more. It was too late for regrets now—too late to think about what would have happened if I’d stayed with Blaine.
I only wished my hands were free so I could feel my baby move underneath my palms one last time.
“There’s a car coming.”
I opened my eyes at the scratching noise from the walkie in Michael’s belt and my heart sped up. This was it.
“Any red flags?” my brother asked into the walkie.
“Not so far. Looks like there’s just Blaine on his own. We’ll be in in about half a minute, stay sharp.”
Michael sent me a wide smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Did you hear that, sis? Looks like Daddy’s coming to save you all on his own. How romantic.”
I stared at him. When we were little, we’d played together almost every day. Devlen was older and had never been interested, but Michael and I had been close. It all ended the day my dad caught him playing with dolls with me and gave him the worst beating of his life for playing with “girl toys.” He hardly spoke to me in the years that followed, not until that night he and Devlen held me down so my father could carve his fury into my stomach.
Maybe after a few more decades I could have come to pity him for what my father did to twist his spirit so horrifically, but not now. Not after he had held his knife to my stomach and threatened my unborn child.
Now, all I felt for him was hatred.
The walkie buzzed again, drawing both of our attention. “We’re coming in.”
“Showtime,” Michael said with a wink in my direction. He moved behind me, and I felt the cold steel of his blade press up against my throat. Then the doors to the warehouse slid open with a metallic clang, revealing three figures against the backdrop of the darkness outside. The figure in the middle carrying a briefcase towered over the two men flanking him.
Blaine.
They walked through the door, and finally, I could see his face. He was as handsome as ever, but behind the calm mask he’d schooled his features into, I could see something else in his eyes: dark, dangerous and all-consuming rage.
I swallowed thickly as he stared at me, suddenly more anxious about the man standing in front of me than the one who had a knife to my throat. Blaine was pissed, and I had a feeling it wasn’t just with the men who had tried to blackmail him.
“That’s far enough,” Michael hissed from behind me when Blaine didn’t stop where Devlin indicated. He pressed the knife tighter against my skin, and I grimaced when I felt the blade bite in.
Blaine stopped, his eyes sweeping over my disheveled figure.
“You’ve mistreated my wife.” His voice was as calm as his face, but there was an unmistakable threat lurking beneath the surface.
“The little bitch struggled,” my father said calmly as he sauntered up next to Blaine. “And this ain’t the Ritz. What have you got in the briefcase, kid? Something that will make this go down the easy way, I hope.”
Finally, Blaine took his gaze off me and leveled it at my father. “This is every deed to every business, estate and asset my family owns, along with the key to every one of our bank deposit boxes. There’s also a small upfront payment of £200,000, as you requested. Upon the safe return of Mira and myself, my father will call a meeting with the other heads of London’s underworld and let them know you now own our empire.”
“And what guarantee do I have the old man will keep his word?” Despite his attempt at sounding tough, my father couldn’t keep his eyes off the briefcase. His excitement was nearly palpable, even across the room.
Blaine arched an eyebrow at him. “I do believe handing over the deeds to everything we own is a reasonable insurance. But if you insist, please do go through the paperwork. I can wait.”
My father practically snatched the briefcase out of Blaine’s hands and ripped it open. I couldn’t see the contents, but from the look on my father’s face, it was everything Blaine had said it was.
I frowned with confusion. How the hell had Blaine convinced his father to do this?
And why?
He looked at me again then, and my heart gave an achy spasm in my chest at the change in his stormy eyes.
There was still anger in them, yes, but behind there was so much more. Devotion. Need.
Love.
I stared at him, faintly aware my mouth was hanging open as my brain finally processed what my heart had hoped for in the most shameful, most secret parts of my soul.
It was love that had made my husband come to this dark warehouse to get me—love that had made him give in to blackmail, and love that had made him somehow do the impossible and get his father to give up his empire. I still had no idea how he had done it, but the why was so painfully clear on his beautiful face as he watched me from across the concrete floor.
He loved me.
The tears came then, and there was nothing I could do to stop them.
All my life I had ached to know that somewhere out there, there was one person who would give me what I’d never had while growing up.
My mother had loved me, to some extent, but not so much that she lifted a finger to spare me from my father’s brutality.
Never in a million years would I have thought I would experience that from the man who had resented me since the day we met. The man I had run away from and taken his baby with me.
“Please cut my wife free. You don’t need her as a bargaining chip anymore.” Blaine’s voice was as calm as ever, only hinting at slight disdain. When I managed to blink the tears away and look into his eyes again, the swirl of emotions was gone, hidden behind the mask once more.
“Do as he says,” my father grunted without looking up from the briefcase. “He’s unarmed anyway—they’re not going anywhere before we’re done.”
The knife finally moved from my throat, and cut through the zip-ties holding my hands together behind my back.
I bit down on a cry when blood came rushing to my fingers, aggravating the place on both my wrists where the tie had dug in deep.
Michael repeated the process with first one, and then the other of my ankles and then proceeded to get me out of the chair with a hard shove against my spine.
I stumbled forward, unable to keep my balance while my feet were still numb from the lack of circulation, but before I smacked face-first into the concrete, strong arms closed around me, breaking my fall.
Blaine lifted me up on my reluctant feet, supporting my body against his own. The heat from him enveloped me like a cocoon, but it was the unwavering strength of his arms as he held me that made a wave of overpowering relief wash over me, premature as it may be.
We might still be unarmed and at the mercy of my family, but I wasn’t alone anymore—Blaine was here. Somehow, someway, he would see us safely out of this.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice gruff, but the tone was completely contradicted by how gently he placed a hand on my rounded belly. “Both of you?”
“I think so,” I croaked. “Blaine, I—”
Blaine lifted the hand from my stomach to brush his finger against my lips, silencing me. “Shh, love. We’ll talk when we’re home.”
Right, okay. Talking through all our intimate baggage would have to wait until we were not surrounded by enemies. I guess I could wait—not in the least because the longer we waited, the longer it would be until I would have to drag myself out of the fairytale where the man who loved me had come to save me and everything would turn out alright. The harsh reality where I had run away from him because I had seen him torture another man could wait.
I pressed my hand tightly against my stomach and leaned in against Blaine. He had come for me, and he would see me safely out of the danger. For now, that was all that mattered.
Blaine held me tightly against his side while we both watched my father and Devlen go through all the papers in the briefcase in silence. It wasn’t until Michael looked away from us to play with his knife, clearly bored by waiting around without getting to threaten anyone, that I realized Blaine was doing much more than waiting.
The hand he hadn’t wrapped around my shoulders dug into the pocket of his leather jacket for a moment. I could see the rectangular outline of a phone against the leather and bit down on a small gasp.
He hadn’t simply surrendered to my family, and whatever plan was about to unfold, he’d just set it in motion.
My heart thumped unevenly in my chest. What if he didn’t know my family had a good dozen or so of their men circling the perimeter? If his men tried to storm the warehouse, they would get taken down before they could ever get to us. And we would both be executed.
My fear must have shown on my face, because Blaine lifted his hand back up to my face and cupped my cheek.
“It’ll be alright, I promise,” he mumbled.
I stared into his eyes, searching for the confirmation that he knew exactly what he was doing. I found it when his mouth hitched up in a smirk.
Even in as fucked up a situation as this, Blaine Steel was still the self-assured man I’d met so many months ago.
“Boss, there’s trouble coming. A fuck-ton of police is driving up. Do we shoot?”
The unexpected sound from my father’s walkie made everyone inside the warehouse freeze mid-movement.
I stared at Blaine, mouth open. The police? The one rule everyone in the underworld never, ever broke was to never involve the police. You did that and your reputation was done for. For good.
There would not be a criminal in the country who didn’t view him as a traitor. Him, and his entire family.
“You didn’t!” my father hissed. He spun around from the briefcase to face Blaine. “You fucking snitch!”
“Yeah. I did.” Blaine released his hold on me to fold both arms across his chest as he took a step forward. “Or rather, one of my brothers did. I believe he might have mentioned a big drug deal gone wrong and a pregnant hostage being caught in the middle—something like that. You know how nostalgic those coppers get as soon as you aim a gun at a pregnant woman. So go ahead, tell your men to start shooting at the police. I’m sure that’ll end well for you.”
“Boss?” The frantic-sounding man on the other end of the walkie said. “I need orders. They’re almost on us.”
“For fuck’s sake, stand down, you idiot!” my father hissed into the walkie before he tossed it aside. “Fuck!”
“You should never have crossed my Family,” Blaine said, his tone as cold as the ice in his eyes.
My father grabbed Devlen’s gun out of his hand. Wild with rage, he pointed it right at Blaine’s chest. “You should have kept your mouth shut, boy. I will not be disrespected. You think your name protects you? When it gets out what you’ve done here today, you’re through. Your entire family will be dead before summer, including her. And you won’t be there to stop it.”
“You’re not going to kill me,” Blaine said, not so much as flinching as he stared the barrel of the gun down. “If you shoot me now, you’ll go down for murder as well as everything else, and you don’t have enough time to make anyone take the fall for you before the police get here. Yeah, I know how you operate, Clery. You’re a coward, deep down. That’s why you need to abuse those who are too weak to defend themselves. You don’t have the fucking balls.”
My heart dropped and adrenaline and fear roared through my veins when I saw the rage in my father’s eyes snap.
Blaine was right—my father was a coward, who would only strike when he was sure to win. But he had made one fatal miscalculation—because the only thing my father truly cared about was receiving the respect he thought belonged to him.
I knew he was going to pull the trigger before Blaine had finished his insult.
“No!” I didn’t have time to think—only to react. I threw myself in front of Blaine just as my father’s finger pulled back, shoving him out of the way.
Pain lanced through me, emphasizing the sound of the gun being fired. I screamed and crumpled to the floor, clutching my side. It felt like my flesh had melted into pure, liquid pain. My visioned blackened and blurred. Then my head hit the concrete with a muffled thud.
“Mira! No!”
The last thing I heard was Blaine’s roar of anguish. Then everything went dark.
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