Chapter Six
“Vandal? Dru?”
Tara’s worried voice and gentle hands brought him around. Vandal groaned, rubbing his jaw as he stirred. His entire head pounded, aching where Tara’s fingers stroked his cheeks. She knelt in front of him, her face contorted with fright. Full dark had fallen, and a too-bright street light made his eyes water, blurring her into nothing.
“I’m okay,” he said, leaning his head back. That stinging fresh paint smell hit him again, and he realized he was propped up against Tara’s front door. He grabbed her hand instinctively. “You saw the door?”
“I could hardly miss it.” There was a dry note to her voice that made him think this wasn’t the first time this had happened. “I don’t care about the door. I care about you. Do we need to go to the hospital?”
He shook his head, then regretted it when the spinning started. “No. I’m good, really.” Using the door for balance, he pushed himself up and decided he really was okay—or would be. His jaw was tender, but nothing was broken and he didn’t think he had a concussion.
He pulled Tara into a crushing embrace, inhaling the unique scent of popcorn and spice that seemed to always linger on her. “I’m not going to let him hurt you. You know that, right?”
She wrapped her arms round his waist, sighing. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”
He lifted her chin, seeing the fear etched on her face and loathing Niall for putting it there. “Does he do this every time you start dating someone?”
A faint flush colored her cheeks. “There hasn’t been anyone until now. Nobody before you, Dru. Nobody.”
“And nobody again.” The declaration was out of his mouth without checking his brain. Telling a survivor of domestic abuse she wasn’t going to date anyone else ever again probably wasn’t the most tactful way of declaring his love, but Vandal couldn’t find it in himself to give a shit. She was his and Niall would learn that one way or another.
Heat lit up Tara’s eyes, a silent response that made his heart sing. “Come inside,” she said, reaching in her pocket for her keys. “Let me take care of you.”
Despite his pain, triumph surged through him as he followed her indoors.
****
He slept badly, haunted by dreams he’d thought long buried. Hot desert sun and smell of gun oil. Screams and blasts of searing heat. He jerked awake, heart racing, and pressed his hand to his chest, tracing the lines of the scars there. In the perfect darkness of Tara’s bedroom, with her curled up beside him, Afghanistan was a long way away.
So why did death feel so close?
She stirred when he sat up, sleepily reaching for him. Wrapping her arms around him, she nuzzled his chest. “Bad dreams?” she asked.
“Bad memories,” he said.
She pulled him back down, trailing kisses along his collar bone and up his throat. “Let me make you some good ones.”
Vandal sank into her embrace. He wasn’t afraid of death. Not so long as the right bastard died.
****
Vandal’s face was a bruised, swollen ruin when he walked into True’s office the next morning. True set down his morning paper and regarded him gravely, a quiet anger on his face.
“Niall Madden?” he asked.
“Who else?” Vandal took a seat. “Niall’s not going to let Johnny make a deal with us, True. He’ll sabotage it one way or another.”
“Not if you stop seeing the Murphy girl,” True said, tone betraying nothing.
Vandal couldn’t mask his anger at that. “No fucking way.”
“Okay, then. What’s your solution? I assume you have one, since you marched in here full of piss and vinegar.” True leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Impress me and I’ll support you one hundred percent.”
True liked ingenuity. Vandal thought he had an ingenious plan. “We can take out Niall in a way that points to the Black Dogs. They’re motivated—they’re losing a sweet deal with Madden and they know it. They kill Niall to punish Johnny. It’s an impulse kill. And Niall’s a loose cannon. It wouldn’t be hard to believe he could piss them off enough to trigger one of them into doing it.”
“That’s the kind of dumb-shit logic the Black Dogs use,” True agreed. “But how do we pin it on them?”
“Weapon and style. The Black Dogs’ Sergeant at Arms is an ex-Mob hitman, right? He kills execution-style, two shots to the back of the head. He’s already done a stretch for one hit.”
True nodded. Capo’s reputation in Harleston’s underworld was legendary. “And the weapon?”
“Get Sienna into their clubhouse. If she can’t sneak out something with Capo’s prints on, no one can.”
True chuckled. “Cannibal will kill you himself if you put that girl at risk.”
Vandal shrugged. It was a risk, yes. But Sienna was damn good at her game, and she had a low enough profile that Capo was unlikely to make her. “I think it’s worth a shot. It causes more chaos in the Dogs’ camp and gets rid of Niall.” He touched his bruised face and gave True a dark smile. “It’s going to happen one way or another, True. I guarantee you that. Because he’s not afraid to go after a woman, and if he goes after Tara, I’ll kill him no matter what it costs me.”
True huffed and picked up his paper. “Let me think on it. You’ll have your answer by tonight.”
****
It took a week for Sienna to insert herself into the Black Dogs’ clubhouse and win Capo’s favor. Her daily reports back to Psycho City had Cannibal climbing the walls, convinced she’d either be made and killed, or fall for one of the assholes there in her role as a new club bunny.
But Capo was all ego, and Sienna proved very good at stroking it. She stole into the Psycho City clubhouse at 3 AM the next Sunday, brimming with glee. Vandal and Cannibal met her at the bar. Cannibal had been drinking steadily all night, leaving Vandal concerned he was going to do or say something dumb.
“Go get True and Spider,” he ordered his friend as Sienna approached. Keeping a little distance between him and Sienna seemed wise. He didn’t miss Sienna’s pout as Cannibal obeyed him.
“Undercover work is fun,” she said, taking a bar stool next to him. “I think I would have made a great FBI agent.”
He pushed a shot of tequila her way. “You’re amazing,” he said, impatient. “We all know it. So?”
She pulled a package from her bag, something wrapped in a t-shirt. “He has a lot of guns. He’s not going to miss this one.”
Vandal unwrapped it carefully and found a Beretta Pico, a small semi-automatic pistol. It was designed for concealed carry—he had one himself. “Great job,” he said. “Have another tequila.”
She beamed at him, tossing her shot back as True and Spider joined them. She looked past them, pouting again. “Where’s Cannibal?”
“Busy,” Spider said.
She sighed, rolling her eyes. “You guys need to loosen your rules. Nobody’s going to get hurt if Cannibal and I hook up.”
“He’s busy,” True said, more firmly. “You’ve done great, Sienna. Now get out of here and stay far away, okay?”
She rolled her eyes again, but slipped off the stool without another word. She was gone before Cannibal came back. She might bitch about the rules, but Sienna excelled at following them. Vandal wrapped the Beretta back up, a fierce anticipation filling him. If everything went to plan from here on out, Tara would soon be free of Niall Madden forever.
****
“He came by the shop again today.” Tara poured herself a glass of wine and gave Vandal a troubled look. “He didn’t come in, but he hung around outside for an hour, just watching. Ling wanted to call the cops.”
Vandal crossed the small space between them to kiss her, lacing his hands in her silken hair. She tasted of the wine, like oak and vanilla, and he could have kissed her forever, let the whole world rot away around them. He broke it off only to reassure her. “I’m not going to let him near you, Tara.”
She toyed nervously with the chain around his neck. “I wish you’d tell me what’s going on.”
“You know why I can’t.”
“I know. Can’t lie about it if I don’t know about it.” She sighed. “Niall always told me everything. Every awful thing he and his family did. He revels in it. I think he thought it would impress me. Or scare me off leaving him.”
It was easy to forget Tara had been at the heart of the Madden family for a few years. Vandal was fervently relieved Niall hadn’t managed to dim her flame in that time. She’d stayed vibrant and strong, unbowed by her experiences. She deserved to be truly free of the bastard.
If she suspected what Vandal had in mind, she hadn’t said anything. And he’d never tell her. If anything should go wrong, he wanted her to be above suspicion.
He took her glass from her and lifted her onto the kitchen table. Unlike the counters in Canvas, her table was exactly the right height for what he had in mind. She smiled at him, wrapping her arms round his neck.
“You’re going to forget about him, at least for a few hours,” he said, cupping her cheek. “I’m going to make you forget every fucking thing, Tara.”
“Do it,” she said, that wicked gleam he loved so much in her eyes. “Make me forget everything except you.”
He set about doing just that. And as always, it was fucking perfection to do so.