But fuck, I’m too selfish to care. She’s mine. I’m going to stick a goddamn ring on her finger so the whole world knows. I might even carve my name into her skin. I bet she would like that…especially if I fucked her at the same time—
“D,” Ryder murmurs, and looks over me. “You’re thinking out loud.”
I blink and look from him to Roxy to see her grinning. “Carving, huh? Save it for later.”
She’s walking while she’s talking, and that’s when we hear a distinctive click. Fuck. She turns just as I see it fly towards us through the air. “Grenade!” Ryder screams, reaching for it to protect her, but I watch in awe as she tightens her hold on the bat and, like a total fucking badass, swings, hitting the grenade.
We all watch open-mouthed as it flies back to where it came from, exploding as it hits the stairs, throwing us backwards.
I make sure to grab her when I land above her, shielding her. Her laughter reaches me through the ringing in my ears, and when I glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is firing or coming at us, I gape down into her grinning face. “That was awesome,” she declares.
Grinning, I lean down and kiss her. “And hot as hell. Keep that bat, we’re playing with it later.”
“Kinky.” She nods as I push to my feet and grab one of her hands, with Ryder grasping the other, and we pull her to her feet. He quickly checks her over before nodding and handing her the bat.
“Come on, let’s keep moving,” he mutters, his shoulders covered in dust and soot.
We pick our way up the stairs, avoiding the destroyed railing and corpses there. When we reach the landing, it opens into a large sitting room, and Ryder seems to freeze for a moment. “Ry?” Little Bird asks, laying a hand on his back.
He shivers under her touch and swings his haunted eyes to her. “One day, I will tell you why this room is the place where this all started, but not right now,” he vows, and then seems to push it back, straightening. “I’m betting someone in charge is in there. It’s a big room with an overlooking balcony office.”
Roxy grips her bat tighter. “Let’s do this.”
I nod, and he grips his gun. “Let’s.”
We burst into the room, having mere seconds to read the space. There are at least ten men in here, all packing and waiting for us. I spot an Asian man in a suit on the balcony, and when he sees us, he ducks. “Fire!” he screams.
Oh shit. Throwing myself at Little Bird, I tackle her behind a side table as Ryder throws himself behind a bar. They fire at us in a hail of never-ending bullets, and Roxy flinches, curling down lower as I grin at her.
“Isn’t this fun? I gotta admit, I’m hard, this is totally our foreplay for the day.”
Laughing, she slaps me. “Focus, think with your other head.”
“Oh, I am, he’s thinking about fucking your ass,” I mutter, as I lean around the table and throw my knife, not watching where it lands, but I hear the plunk as it embeds in its target and a gun stops firing. “Or your pussy…or mouth, honestly, I’m not fussy as long as I get to do it with blood still covering me.”
“You’re crazy.” She laughs, but when she says it, she makes it sound like a good thing.
Grabbing another knife, I toss that as well, but I miss, and Ryder glares over at me. “Open the fucking fanny pack!” he screams.
Roxy laughs. “What’s in it?”
Leaning back on my knees, I unzip it and show her the grenades inside. “Do you always keep your grenades there?” she inquires, the firing still going on around us.
“Not always, sometimes I keep knives or tacos in it,” I murmur as I palm one.
“Tacos?” she echoes.
“I get hungry when I fight.” I shrug and pull the pin, tossing one, and then cover her.
It explodes moments later, the blast followed by a scream, so I throw two more, the bangs loud. I don’t wait, I leap to my feet and sprint around the table to see all of the men down, some dead, some just knocked unconscious from the blast. Zipping up my pack, I grab my lighter and quickly ignite one of their coats as I step over them, whistling as I do.
“He’s wearing a fucking fanny pack,” one of them wheezes.
“I think it’s hot.” Roxy shrugs as she spins the bat in her hand and hits him on the twirl, knocking him out.
“Crazy bitch.” Another man reaches for a gun, so with one grenade still left, I shove it in his mouth and pull the pin before diving at both Roxy and Ryder. We make it behind a table as it explodes, raining gore all over.
“That was fun!” I yell, as I leap to my feet, and they slowly get up and check on the rest.
Ryder takes care of the others while Roxy looks around for the stairs to go up. “Over there,” Ryder calls, and leads her over.
Fuck that. “Stairs are for pussies!” I shout, as I leap onto the sofa and then grab the chandelier above. Swinging my legs back and forth, I manage to rock towards the balcony, gripping the edge at the last second and swinging myself over to meet the panicked eyes of the Asian man.
“Hey, man, stairs suck, am I right?” I remark, as I punch him in the face and disarm him, throwing the gun over the balcony as I wait for the others. He goes down hard, but quickly gets to his feet. By then, Roxy and Ryder are up here.
The man with the three tattooed on his neck looks at Roxy and spits. “You stupid whore, aren’t you dead yet?”
“Nah, sorry, I live to disappoint,” she offers, as Ryder lashes out, stabbing him in the stomach. It’s not a killing blow, though, but he does fall backwards, blood flowing from the wound.
Just then, we hear a yell, and we look around to see a man with a mohawk running at us with a chainsaw from the other side of the balcony. Roxy thrusts out her leg, tripping him, and I give him a helping hand over the edge of it. We all look over as he falls with a scream and lands on the table below, impaling himself on a decorative statue there.
Looking back at number three, I grin. “I would give him an eight out of ten for his landing.”
“You think you’re so smart? Better check your people again, I’m betting you’re missing one.” He laughs, and Ryder steps closer.
“Who?”
“That enforcer of yours?” Number three chuckles, gripping his bleeding stomach harder as he falls to his ass. “We made a promise, and he will help us keep it…”
“Where is he?” Roxy yells, pressing her bat to his chin.
“He’ll already be dead anyway.” He chuckles weakly. “You’re all fucking dead,” he sneers. I go to raise my knife, but Roxy beats me to it.
With a savage yell, she brings the bat down on him, again and again, caving in his head as his laughter cuts off into a choking noise. But she doesn’t stop there, she keeps swinging, over and over like a woman possessed until she can no more. The bat drops to the floor with a clank, and she stands there panting with blood on her hands and arms, spatters of it across her face.
Pushing back her hair, she licks her lips and straightens, looking over at me and Ryder, who are just staring at her in shock. “What?” she snarks.
“Nothing, Little Bird…just, fuck, that was hot.” I nod, then look at Ryder. “If she wasn’t ours, I would totally stalk her, hack her cameras, watch her through the windows, the whole nine yards.”
“Well, aren’t I a lucky bastard?” She huffs. “I get to live under the same roof as you, so now you just get to stalk me to the bathroom.”
Flicking open my lighter, I grab a cigarette and talk around it. “Exactly, you really are beautiful when you shower.”
She blinks and looks at Ryder. “I would ask if he was serious, but I don’t need to.”
“Children,” he snaps. “Let’s find Garrett. He’s probably lying to spook us, but I would rather be safe than sorry.”
The mood sobers instantly. “Garrett. No one takes that big fucker, it would be like trying to carry an elephant.”
As Roxy slips past me, she pats my chest. “I’ll tell him that.”
ROXY
We quickly make our way back through the hotel looking for Kenzo and Garrett, and a bad feeling starts in my gut as we go down the corridor they traversed and to an open metal door at the end. Heading up, we step out onto a roof where there are bodies littered everywhere, but no Kenzo or Garrett.
But then I hear it.
A grunt.
Following it, I drop to my knees behind an old section of piping to see Kenzo there with blood dripping from his chest. His face is pale, and his eyes are barely open. Gripping his hand tight, I gesture the others over. “Babe, what happened?”
He groans and looks at Ryder. “They got Garrett, they wanted him all along. I couldn’t stop them, I’m sorry.”
Ryder smashes his fist into the pipe, but I wipe Kenzo’s sweaty forehead and kiss him softly, seeing the distress and pain carved there. “Shush, it’s okay, we can get him back.” Lifting his hand from the wound, I spot the blood there. “We need to get him to a doctor.”
D leans down and inspects it before slapping him. “Stay awake. Okay, this is going to hurt.” He grabs him, hoists him over his shoulder, and casually stands, not like he’s got a Kenzo backpack on. “Let’s go, Little Bird.”
Ryder is on the phone as we head down through the hotel, and when we get into the car, I slip into the back, and D places Kenzo along the back seat between my thighs. I hold him there, stroking his hair and kissing his head.
“Missed you, darling.” He sighs, his eyes on me as he reaches up with bloody hands and grips my own, tangling our fingers together.
“I missed you too,” I admit. “Those suckers knew nothing about how to kidnap a woman, honestly.”
He laughs at that, the sound tapering off in a groan as we speed through the city. “They have no finesse, that’s why,” he wheezes out. “You gotta trick them into loving you, duh.”
“I was going to ask something stupid like, does it hurt?” I snort as I lean down and kiss his head. “Don’t you fucking die on me, you hear me, asshole?”
“Got it, beautiful, no dying, but you can play nurse and kiss all this better later.” He winks.
“Even dying, you’re a total flirt,” I scoff, though panic winds through me at the blood he’s losing. I look up and meet Ryder’s eyes, who’s staring back at his brother in alarm. Kenzo reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezing it.
“I’ll be fine, brother, don’t worry about me. Deal with Garrett, okay?”
Ryder sucks in a breath but hesitates. “I’m sorry you had to go back there,” he offers lightly.
“Me too. When this is over, we’re burning that place down.” Kenzo grins, turning his head to meet Ryder’s gaze. “No more ghosts, no more bad memories, just us, okay?”
Ryder nods and glances at me. “Take care of him.”
“Always,” I reply, as I look back at Kenzo. “You’re going to be alright, you’re too fucking stubborn to die on us.”
“Yeah?” he whispers.
“Yeah.” I nod. “Wanna bet on it?”
He groans. “God, I fucking love you.”
“The winner gets to trash Ry’s new car,” I murmur, making D laugh.
“If I win, you have to marry us, that way you can never leave.” He grins.
“Fuck, you always play the high stakes,” I mutter. “Just ’cause you’re dying doesn’t mean you get to ask for weird shit.”
“Course it does,” he whispers, but his face is paler now. Fear blasts through me as I lean down and press my lips to his. “Don’t fucking die, and I’ll marry you all, I’ll even wear a fucking dress and everything.”
“Deal,” he mumbles.
“We’re here, doctor is waiting,” Ryder announces, as we skid into the parking garage. My door is ripped open, and I tumble out into D’s arms as two burly security men grab Kenzo and carry him away. I watch him go with fear in my heart and my hands covered in his fresh blood. My fear turns into anger as I look at Ryder.
“We need to find Garrett, then we kill these fucking assholes. No one takes what is mine,” I snap, as the elevator closes after Kenzo. There is nothing else I can do for him, and I refuse to let Garrett suffer. That man has been tortured enough, I don’t want any more nightmares for him.
“I don’t know where to find another one of the Triad. Go clean up. We’ll search the city and get the information however we have to. D, where are you going?”
I look over my shoulder to see D getting into a car. “I’ll find out where the Triad is, you be ready.”
I don’t ask how, I don’t care. We need that information. Ryder twines his fingers with mine, and his free hand comes up as he swipes his thumb across my lips. “Kenzo will be okay, my brother is a fighter, but right now, Garrett needs us…stay with me, love.”
Licking his thumb, I nod. “We need more weapons.”
“Let’s go get some then,” he murmurs, as he leans down and kisses me softly.
* * *
I don’t clean up,but I do change my knickers and dress, ’cause fighting in wet panties is no fun. The blood dries on my hands and face, and I leave it. Let them see it, let them die by my hands covered in my lover’s blood.
I slip into the red dress Ryder bought me so long ago, then I add my earrings and necklace. Let them all see that I’m a Viper. That they fucked with the wrong family.
When I meet Ryder in the living room, he’s watching Kenzo, who’s now sleeping. The doctor managed to stop the bleeding and has stitched him up, but he’s having a blood transfusion now and needs to rest.
Leaning down over his prone form, I kiss his still lips. “Be home soon, be good.”
I turn away and head out of the front door. Kenzo is safe, but Garrett isn’t, and every minute that passes is a minute he could be being tortured or killed. I refuse to let that happen. These are my men.
My family.
No one hurts them but me.
No one gets to make their lives a living hell but me. It’s time the Triad realised that they fucked with more than just the boys—they fucked with a goddamn ruthless bitch.
When we get to the parking garage, D is waiting there. “I know where one of them is, get in.” I slip into the back and Ryder gets into the front, and D skids from the garage, making Ryder grunt.
“We need to get there in one piece, brother,” he snaps.
“Yeah, yeah, I won’t kill you.” D laughs as he turns the corner so fast that the wheel actually comes off the road, so I click on my seat belt. As we straighten out, something bangs behind me, making me jump.
Staring at the boot at my back, I frown as it comes again, then I hear the definitive sound of muffled screaming. “Erm, is there someone tied up in the boot?”
“Duh, where else do you keep them?” He laughs.
“Okay, D, why is there a man in the trunk…and how long has he been in there?” I ask as I grab on to the ‘oh shit’ handle when we almost crash.
“I grabbed him while you changed into that sexy as hell dress.” He winks over at me. “I’ll rip that off you later by the way.”
“Eyes on the road,” Ryder barks.
D laughs and looks back, avoiding running over someone walking across the street. “He was the one who told me where he is, he’s his driver, I got lucky.”
“So where are they?” I query.