Redeemed (The Dark Redemption Series Book 2) (4 page)

“Ah, no, I don’t,” Aden replies before yanking on the car door of a Buick, clearly a senior citizen’s vehicle. Thankfully it doesn’t open. “You can, though, right?” he asks.

I grumble a non-answer as I peer inside of a white, two-door Honda. Sure, it’s too small to have sex in the back, but it should be fast and inconspicuous. Still holding Blair, I maneuver her to try the handle, and thank fuck it opens.

“Bingo,” I whisper when I set Blair’s feet down on the pavement. She won’t have to stand on the cement barefoot for long if we can get this bad boy started.

“This should work,” Aden says when he walks up. “You hotwire it while I stand watch.”

“I would, if I knew how,” I tell him. Sliding into the front seat, I reach over to check the glove box and center console for a spare key. “Nothing. And I’m gonna have to turn on the overhead light to even try to figure out how to wire it up.”

“You’re kidding, right?” he asks. “What kind of criminal doesn’t know how to steal cars?”

“I’m an assassin,” I explain. “Stealing cars has never entered into the equation of putting a bullet through someone’s head. And I’ve only ever had the bike, so I don’t know shit about cars.”

“Wow,” he says with a shake of his head. “What the hell are we gonna do? The longer we stand around here twiddling our thumbs, the more time they have to find us.”

“Surely someone left the keys inside. I mean, we lucked up with the SUV, we’ll find another ride,” I assure him as I ease out of the car to pick up Blair so we can keep moving, only…she’s gone. “What the fuck? Where’s Blair?” I ask, spinning around in a circle to try and spot her in the dim glow of the street lights.

“Shit!” Aden exclaims as he starts wandering further down the road whisper-yelling her name.

My heart is racing in my chest trying to figure out why she ran this time as I move in the direction we just came from. I thought we were good, better than good. Everything seemed perfect other than running for our lives. She hadn’t even looked upset. Well, not until the police chase.

Is that why she’s gone? Because she’s scared and doesn’t think Aden and I can take care of her? Or did she hear me talking about putting bullets through people’s heads and realize that I wasn’t, and couldn’t ever be, the white knight that she’s imagined?

Blair

Walking through the grass that’s damp from the dew already starting to set in, I clutch the photo album to my chest like a shield and head for the front door of the two-story townhouse. The one with a little lawn flag with butterflies on it, flapping in the soft night breeze.

If I had to guess based on the small, red Mazda at the curb and the butterflies on the flag, a single woman lives here. Taking the three small steps up to the porch, I lift the potted plant next to the welcome mat and find the spare key. No, I’m not psychic. It’s just the exact same place my mother used to keep ours. Not the safest place, but always handy if you lock yourself out.

Sure, I feel a twinge of guilt for what I’m about to do, but the rush of excitement humming through my veins is thrilling, just like when I escaped the hospital, the first time I stole a car, rode on the back of Brede’s bike, and every time he or Aden touch me.

So maybe I’m an adrenaline junky, but I think I’ve earned a little excitement in my life.

For whatever reason, jamming the spare key into the lock reminds me of sex, which is when I realize that I’ve now had unprotected sex with two men. With Aden, it was exhilarating not knowing what he was going to do to me once he had me restrained, and that didn’t end so well. And then when I was with Brede, it was like a frenzy taking over my body. I needed him right that second, like my life depended on it, and Brede definitely didn’t disappoint. We were both desperate for each other, and it was an incredible feeling, despite the hint of pain. 

Of course, I’m not an idiot and know enough from books and TV that I’ve put myself at risk of STDs and pregnancy. But after almost dying, and them saving me, I’m starting to think that while these two men may have their own agendas when it comes to me, maybe it’s more than that. It could just be wishful thinking, but something is definitely different between Brede and me. He’s kinder and gentler, like he actually cares about me. And I know that there’s more to Aden too, but something’s holding him back, something that makes him need to tie me up so I can’t touch him.

I’m confident that Brede killed Roger to save me. And I guess that’s the reason why the police are after us. When I saw the sirens approaching, I nearly had a panic attack, worried that Brede would get a life prison sentence just like his father, and I would be sent back to the mental hospital. There’s no way I can ever go back there, and I don’t want to lose Brede either, especially not for something he did because of me. I’m a freaking curse on their entire family.

Sighing to myself, I hold the photo album closer to my chest and ease into the silent house, thankful that the door doesn’t creak. I don’t want to wake anyone up, so my plan is to slip in and get out quickly.

There, right in the foyer across from the front door hangs a woman’s brown leather purse on the coat hanger, just as I predicted. Releasing one of the hanging straps, I reach in and dig around for the cold metal of keys. When I find the set, I clasp them tightly in my fist so that they won’t jingle as I remove them.

Easy.

After slipping the spare key inside the purse, I lock the front door from the inside and then tiptoe back outside, gently and soundlessly sealing the door shut.

It sucks to think about some unknown woman waking up in the morning and noticing her car has been stolen, but we’ll ditch the vehicle in a few days, if not hours, undamaged for the police to find and return to her. I try to think of it as borrowing and not stealing. Although, I guess that little old lady up in Maryland will be getting an insurance check instead of her car back since it was likely totaled when I wrecked it.

My body is still sore, but at least now I’m safe with Aden and Brede. I never intended to destroy her car, so I’ll blame the police in my father’s town for chasing me and ruining her vehicle.

“Blair!”

Shit, was that Aden or Brede calling out for me? I probably should’ve told them my plan, but they were too busy arguing. Besides, I’m certain Brede would have never allowed me to sneak into someone’s house and steal the keys, and I
wanted
to do it. Having my heart race inside my chest and my hands shake with excitement makes me feel alive. It’s such a drastic contradiction to the lifelessness of all those boring years being confined.

“Blair!”

Treading barefoot through the wet grass again as quickly as my aching body can take me, I come up on Aden whispering my name from the middle of the street.

“Aden,” I call out softly. “I’ve got keys.”

“Jesus, are you trying to give us heart attacks?” he asks as I unlock the driver side of the Mazda and slip inside. It only takes a second to crank the engine.

“Thanks. Now get your ass out so we can hit the road,” he says. “Found her!” Aden calls loudly down the empty road.

…

Brede

Thank God.

When I hear Aden’s voice saying he found Blair, I don’t even care if he wakes up the entire neighborhood at this point. I start jogging back toward him when the headlights of a car on the curb come on, blinding me to the point I have to put an arm up in front of my face.

“What the hell?” I ask when I approach Aden at the open driver’s side door and see Blair climbing out of it, smiling until she sees my face.

“I found keys,” she says.

“You scared the shit out of me!” I tell her, wanting to grab her shoulders and shake her. At the same time, I’m worried I’ll be too rough with her because of my anxiety, so I keep my hands off of her already sore body. “For like the tenth time in twelve hours I thought I had lost you. Don’t do that again!” I shout.

“Sorry,” she whispers as she saddles up to me and wraps her arms around my waist, resting her head on my chest. I let out all the pent-up worry in a heavy exhale before pulling away to open the passenger door for Blair, indicating for her to get her ass in the backseat.

“We need to get the hell out of here. Were the keys inside the car?” I ask Aden before joining Blair in the back.

“No. Blair went inside the house and got them,” he tells me, followed by a chuckle before he sits down in the driver seat and buckles up.

I wait until we’re out of the neighborhood before I even ask.

“How?”

“House key under the potted plant on the stoop,” Blair says with a shrug that ramps up my anger even more. “That’s where my mom always kept the spare.”

“So you just waltzed right on inside, not thinking about someone waking up and, I dunno, fucking
shooting you
?” I snap, tearing my eyes away from her because I’m too pissed off by her recklessness to even look at her beautiful face right now.

“It’s a woman’s car,” she says. “So I looked for a purse, and there the keys were, just like I did in Maryland. No biggie.”

“No biggie,” I mutter, wiping the sweat from my forehead. “No biggie like you driving away earlier tonight in a stolen car, and then wrecking it.” I leave out the part about how stupid it was for her to try and play along with Roger, because honestly I don’t know if she had any good choices to make before I got there. If she had tried to get away, he would’ve choked her out. If she had laid there unmoving, he would’ve fucked her. That was a no-win situation that I can’t fault her for, except for how she ended up there in the first place, by taking off in the stolen car and wrecking it!

“Are you mad at me?” Blair murmurs.

“You think?” I scoff.

“He was just worried about you,” Aden speaks up and says from the front, followed by a yawn. “We’re all exhausted and cranky.”

“Cranky?” I repeat. “What I am goes way past cranky!”

I swear to God, I think she still has a death wish. Is this how my life is gonna be from now on? Worrying every second of every day that the one girl I’ve ever cared about may end her life? This must be hell on earth because I can’t think of any worse torture than wondering if she’s gonna hurt herself and knowing that one of these days I may not be there to rescue her.

Asking myself if she’s worth that sort of nerve-wracking life is still a resounding
yes
. She’s worth the full-blown panic attacks she keeps giving me, because if something were to happen to her, I can’t even imagine...

I wonder if our dad went through something similar with our suicidal mother. Did he know she wanted to end her life and try to stop her, all but the one time she succeeded? That’s definitely something I’ll have to talk to him about soon, hopefully when he’s released from prison.

Maybe that’s another reason why I desperately want Blair pregnant, to give her another reason for living. Although, that obviously wasn’t enough for my mother to stay alive.

Leaning my head back against the seat, I close my eyes to try and take deep calming breaths. In through the nose; out through the mouth. Is this what it means to care about someone? That you go fucking insane from the constant fear, knowing something bad could happen to them at any moment? Knowing that you could lose them forever in an instant and the pain would never go away?

“I’m sorry,” Blair says from beside me. And when I feel her palm brush over my stomach before sneaking up underneath the bottom of my shirt for skin-to-skin contact, every thought in my head short-circuits. Her soft-spoken apology and my quickly swelling cock make it difficult to remember what I was just so upset about. Especially when Blair’s soft, damp lips press against the skin just below my collarbone.

While I want nothing more than to fuck her again, I refuse to do so for at least a day or two, until there’s no longer pain, only pleasure when I’m pounding my cock inside of her.
No condoms,
my appendage adamantly roars. Now that he’s had a taste, he’s craving it raw, Blair on her back, or me on mine with her riding me so good that I have no choice but to fill her pussy with my cum...

“No condoms,” I mutter in agreement.

After Blair’s lips and hand abruptly leave me, I realize I spoke the words aloud. My eyes blink open so I can find her hand in the darkness, reaching over to grab it and shove it back up my shirt. Her slightest little touch may always cause an instant sexual reaction, but it’s also soothing like no one else’s touch before.

Turning my head to glance at her face, there’s a cute crease between her eyebrows like she’s confused.

“You can touch me. I just meant no more sex until we get some condoms,” I try to explain away my comment since I can’t come out and say that I like the idea of her barefoot and pregnant. She would obviously think I’ve lost my mind for thinking such a thing. Maybe I have, because she’s so damn young, and her life hasn’t exactly been easy. But I’ve known since the first time I saw her that I was a goner. I’m just now realizing exactly how bad I’ve fallen for her. Unless I’m reading her completely wrong, I think she cares about me too, despite how horrible I’ve been to her. So if I can overcome my asshole tendencies and give her something worth living for, she might even agree to a future for us. Which makes me want to hurry up and kill her father so we can move past all this bullshit as soon as possible.