Indulgence (21 page)

A thud brought me back to consciousness and my head snapped
upright. The panel clicked and was wrenched to one side, light flooding into
the darkness. Blinking hard, I held a hand up to shield my eyes, my heart
hammering in my chest.

“
Fuck
.”

It was a low hiss, but I’d recognize his voice anywhere now.
It was encoded deep into my skin and seared into all the dark corners.

“X?” I choked through my terror.

Strong arms reached down for me and I was pulled from the
crawlspace. I fell against his chest, clinging to him as he brought me out of
the closet and into the bedroom, the sudden light forcing me to squint. I
breathed in his scent, trying to commit the feel of his body against mine to
memory.

“Do I need to ask what happened?” he murmured, a slight twinge
of annoyance in his voice. Somehow I knew it wasn’t directed at me and I
tightened my grip.

“Weiss,” I whispered. “He came looking.”

“You hid from Weiss?”

I nodded. “I know what he does. I’m not stupid. If he found
me, he would know. He’d take me away from you.”

X ran a hand through my hair and I stiffened slightly at his
odd display of softness.

“There’s food in the kitchen,” he murmured after a moment.
“Nobody will be coming back here anytime soon.”

“How can you be sure?” I asked, pulling away. “There’s
evidence all over the place. He knows I’ve been here. They’ll come back for
me...”

“Come,” he said, ignoring my plea. Curling a hand around my
arm, he led me down the hall and into the kitchen where a pizza box sat on the
bench.

Fucking hell. My stomach growled as the smell of cheese hit
my nostrils.
He brought me food
.

“Eat,” he said as I stared at the cardboard box. “I’ll be
back soon.”

“Where are you going?” I cried, trying to grab his arm.

X turned, his expression cold. “I’m going to end this.”

My heart lept to my throat. “End it, how?” I called out
after him, but all the response I got was a door slamming in my face.

The word ‘end' in X’s vocabulary only meant one thing as far
as I was concerned.

X was going to kill Weiss.

X

Mercy Reid hiding in the crawlspace behind my depravity.

I’d come back to the apartment with thoughts of the future
and a pizza in one hand to find the deadbolt unlocked on my front door. The
first thing I’d thought about was her.

I’d opened the door to the apartment and something was
different. There was a change in the air and I’d realized it was because she
wasn’t there. For a sickening moment I thought she’d run from me…or had been
taken. This little thing tickled at the base of my skull, this little thing
that I was now understanding was faith, clawed at my mind and I’d dropped the
pizza on the bench and went for the one place I knew she was smart enough to
find. She’d gone through my things and was still spouting crap about fighting
together and believing in me, so she had to know the one place in the apartment
she could hide if forced to.

Mercy Reid was smart. It was one of the things that
commanded my fixation.

Her intelligence and her pussy. It was all interconnected.

Knowing that she was safe, that she was still with me, did
things to my insides that I didn’t understand. Maybe in time they would make
sense, but not today.

It was around two am by the time I pulled my motorbike up
out the front of The Gambler’s Inn. Closing was at two sharp and the lights
were still on, which meant somebody was still home. Weiss’ bike was still in
the no standing zone where he usually left it, so it was safe to say that he
was still chain-smoking like a nasty fuck in his office.

I didn’t care who the fuck he was, nobody broke into my
apartment and fucked with my shit and lived to regret it. Nobody fucked with
Mercy and… I shook my head. This was about more than a bit of pussy.

Opening the outside door to the pub, I stepped inside to
silence. Brock glanced up from behind the bar and narrowed his eyes. Striding
across the nasty carpet, I rounded the bar and fisted my hands into his shirt,
yanking him close.

“Hey man,” he exclaimed, holding his hands up. “Fuckin’
psycho.”

“If you know what’s good for you,” I snarled, “you’ll get
the fuck out of here and keep walking.”

“Or what?”

“Or, I’ll put a bullet in your head and believe me, that’s
me being
kind
.”

His eyes widened slightly and he nodded. I let him go and he
backed away, his gaze never leaving me. Once he was around the bar, he bolted
for the door. Slimy bastard knew what was good for him.

Fixing my gaze onto Weiss’ office, I crossed the pub, one
question on my mind.
How much did he know
?

I shoved open the office door with a violent jab and it
swung inwards and collided with the wall. Weiss’ head jerked up and he
stiffened when he saw who was standing in front of him.

“Don’t look so surprised,” I snarled.

Glancing over my shoulder out into the empty pub, he
snorted, leaning back in his chair. “I see you cleaned the place out. No
witnesses, right?”

I cocked my head to the side.

“Oh, c’mon X. Do you really think I’m that fuckin’ dumb?”

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation. “I have known you a
long time.”

Weiss leaned forward again, his hand disappearing underneath
the desk. I knew he kept a handgun strapped there and it was no surprise he’d
think about drawing it on me now. I was out for blood after all.

“Find what you were looking for?” I asked. “Or were you
disappointed she was long gone before you could fuck her?”

“Club over all, X,” Weiss snarled, his usual calm exterior
starting to crack. “Or have you forgotten that?”

“On the contrary,” I said. “I’ve forgotten
nothing
.”

Weiss shook his head like he couldn't fathom that his pet
had deigned to develop a will of his own. “What has she done to you?”

“She's opened my eyes Weiss. I always understood what
happened to me, but I didn't have the capability to give a fuck about it.
Greggor took that away from me and Mercy helped me find it again.”

“Where is she, X?” He raised the gun from underneath the
desk and pointed it straight at me.

There was a slight tremor in his hand, which gave away a lot
of things, but I wasn’t interested in any of them…except one. Fear. Yeah, he
should be fucking scared of the monster he'd had a hand in creating. The
monster that was turning against his masters.

I stared right into his eyes and replied, “Somewhere you'll
never find her.”

He rose to his feet, rounding the desk to come and face me.
“Where she is is no concern,” he spat. “You, however…”

I strode forward, letting my expression change into pure
anger. I let the thing I so carefully locked away inside me flare to the
surface and for a split second I felt my control slipping. The barrel of the
gun pressed into my chest as I faced down Weiss, silently daring him to pull
the trigger.

“You’re going to kill me now?” I asked. “Your dog isn’t
going to heel at your command anymore, so what are you going to do about it?”

Weiss’ lip curled into a sneer and he flicked the safety
off.

Did I want him to shoot me point blank? Did I want this
suffering to end? I thought of Mercy and knew that there was something else
inside me living with the monster that Royal Blood had created. My hand flew up
and grasped Weiss’ wrist and pushed upwards. The gun went off with a boom that
echoed in the close confines of the office, the sound making my ears buzz.

Twisting, I rammed my back into Weiss’ chest and heaved,
throwing him over my shoulder. He landed hard on the flat of his back, his grip
still wound around the handle of the gun. With a roar, I straddled him and
pounded a fist into his face, blind rage taking over everything. Blood erupted
from his nose as I hit him again and again, delighting in the pain I was
causing the man who would take her away from me. The man who’d been a part of
keeping me in line.

“I know all about you, X,” he choked out through a mouthful
of blood.

I hesitated, my fist halting mid-punch, and Weiss sneered in
satisfaction.

“I know a lot of things I bet you’re dying to know.”

Did it matter? Did I give a rat’s ass about who I was
before? All that mattered right now was the fact that Weiss already knew I was
deviating from my scheduled programming and Mercy would come into that equation
easily enough. It was only a matter of time before he realized who Mercy Reid
really was.

I was so engrossed in my rage that I didn’t see the gun
coming until it collided with the side of my skull. I fell to the side with a
grunt, stars shooting through my vision.

Weiss was on his feet in one swift movement, and I did the same,
my training kicking in and keeping me in the moment. The gun was pointed
straight at my head and I knew that whatever happened next, that this was going
to end badly for both of us.

“You know it’s inevitable,” Weiss said, wiping his bloody
nose with his free hand. “Either way, you’re dead. It’s nothing but protocol.
Don’t take it personally.”

“Protocol?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. It was
never mentioned or implied, everything Greggor, Weiss and Royal Blood did was
to welcome me into the fold. They’d treated me like a brother from day one, but
underneath all of that was the unspoken fact that if I went against them for
any reason…they would kill me on the spot. I was expendable.

Like fuck I was going to let that happen.

“Have you got a protocol for this?” I snarled and lunged,
grasping Weiss around the wrist. I smashed his hand against the wall with all
the force I could manage and his fingers loosened on the gun. It clattered to
the floor as his left hand came at me from behind. Ducking at the last second,
his fist clipped the back of my head making me stumble and lose my hold on him.

We dove for the gun at the same time, but Weiss was closer.
His fat, grubby fingers curled around the muzzle and swung. The butt collided
with my temple with surprising force and my head snapped backwards, my vision
blurring.

I was out like a light before I even hit the floor.

*****

Vanilla.

And something else. Darkness? No, not darkness. Betrayal.

Consciousness came back to me in pieces. Images, faces of
the now, interlaced with the past. Blood, gunpowder and Weiss. Weiss had been
there, but where was that?

Awareness started to flood back and whatever my subconscious
was trying to reveal to me was flung back into the darkness.

My arms were bound behind my back and my hands were
underneath my shoulders as I was dragged across broken earth. Plastic dug
painfully into my wrists, biting into my flesh. Cable ties. Smart. If I got out
of this, then my hands would be scraped raw. A little pain didn’t faze me, it
was an anchor to keep me focused in the now.

At first I thought I was going blind, but I realized that it
was dark out. Had to be at least three or four am, since the sun began to rise
around six this time of year. Wind brushed against my skin, the sound of rustling
leaves high overhead.

He’d taken me out into the forest to kill me. I hope the
asshole had a shovel.

I was dumped unceremoniously onto the ground, boots
crunching on the undergrowth as he stepped away.

“On your knees, X.”

There was no playing dead on Weiss’ watch. He knew most of
my tricks, but I still had plenty of cards left to play in my hand. Plenty that
he didn’t know about.

Groaning, I rolled over onto my side, pushing up onto my
knees. My head throbbed from the blow he’d given me back at The Gambler’s Inn
and from the beating he’d probably given me getting me to the forest. No
sympathy for a dead man. Still, I assessed the situation like any skilled
killer would do.

My hands were bound behind my back, a plastic cable tie
biting into my skin. There was no knot to loosen and no way to get out of this
unless I cut my way free. The darkness was almost total, which meant we were
miles from the city. He’d had to have thrown me into the boot of his car,
driven here and dragged me a ways from the road. He’d shoot me and then bury my
body out underneath the stars where nobody would ever find it.

Then he’d go and find Mercy.

An image of her bound, beaten and bloody came to mind and
anger began to flare once more. I wouldn’t let her suffer the same fate.

I had to make this quick. I knelt in the dirt on the balls
of my feet and stubbed my toe against the hard earth and glared up at Weiss as
he pulled a gun out of a holster under his jacket. The blade that was hidden in
the heel of my boot worked its way free and I began sawing as he screwed a
silencer onto the end of his gun.

So that’s how he was going to do it.

My chest heaved as I stared up at my once best friend and
handler as he held his gun to my head. The barrel pressed into that spot right
between the eyes, the same place Sykes had put bullets into Mercy’s family. I
had to get back to her. They knew where she was.

“It’s done X,” Weiss said. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but
it’s time to put you out of your misery. Greggor said if you ever started to
revert, then I was to put you down.”

“So you’re just going to shoot me like a dog?” I asked, my
fingers twitching as the cable tie snapped. “After all the shit we’ve been
through?”

Weiss laughed, shaking his head. “Seriously, X? I’m not that
stupid. I know how you operate. No mercy.”

He clicked the safety off.

“It’s been a long eight years, X, but deep down you knew
this day was coming.”

They’d promised me my freedom. I’d taken it to mean an out
to live my life however I wanted, but now I realized their idea of freedom was
a bullet in the head. I was never going to get what I wanted. I was never going
to be free and knowing that now? Option three was the sweetest deal in the
history of the world.