Seven hours later, after a short layover in Dallas, we landed at Reagan National. We walked outside together, a unified force of destruction. My feet touched DC dirt and I sucked in the East Coast air with reluctant anticipation.
Home.
I was home again. After all this time.
This city had raised me, molded me to be an expert criminal and hard as hell fighter. This city had been my salvation once upon a time. And my demise.
And now I would destroy it.
Or, in a more likely scenario, it would destroy me.
Chapter Seven
We took a couple taxis to Sayer’s apartment. I was shocked to learn he still had the same home. He hadn’t even warned me. He’d just given the address to the cab driver and left me alone to flounder and gasp for oxygen.
This was the kind of thing I wanted to avoid coming back to this city. I didn’t want to take a stroll down memory lane. I didn’t want to visit Sayer’s apartment and relive the memories that haunted me anyway. I didn’t want to see all the places that had once been shelters, safe havens… the source of immense happiness.
Keeping my mask of indifference firmly in place, I looked at Sayer who was sitting to my left. “You kept your old place?”
He shrugged, staring out the window, but he didn’t give me a reason. “Gus has a place here too.”
Gus was in the other cab with Frankie, so I filed that small piece of information away and decided to ask him about it later. I sat squished between Cage and Sayer in our cab, wondering if this was how it was going to be our entire time in the city. Not that I minded the extra protection. I just didn’t think it was going to matter. In the end, Cage and Sayer weren’t going to be enough to save me from the pakhan.
That was the reality I had faced before I stepped foot on the plane.
Sayer’s phone rang, sending a shrill sound that could be heard over the driver’s radio and the noisy morning rush hour traffic outside. He pulled it out and answered immediately.
Exhaustion crept up my spine with crippling effectiveness. It pulled on my muscles and bones, making my body feel too heavy to keep upright. I wanted to lie back on the seat and close my eyes just to find my equilibrium again.
But Sayer’s entire body went rigid with the call, his muscles tightened and his aura expanded, pushing through the car and out into the city, casting a wide net of protection and alertness. I was swallowed up in his energy, crushed beneath the force of his acute awareness.
“Where is she?”
I realized it was Atticus. I struggled to breathe through the fury that tasted like cinders in my dry mouth.
“That’s not going to happen,” Sayer told the phone. “You can fucking kill me first.” He listened for a minute and I strained to hear too.
Cage had invaded my space, leaning toward me, squeezing me out of my place on the seat altogether. If my daughter’s kidnapping didn’t kill me, it was going to be these two macho men that did it. I resisted the urge to elbow Cage and tell him to back off.
“Fuck you, mu’dak,” Sayer growled, calling Atticus an asshole in Russian. He listened some more. His free hand had curled into a fist on his knee, tightening until his knuckles stretched white. I stared at it transfixed, feeling a blooming desire to soothe him take root in my chest.
I laid my hand on top of his, gently squeezing until he remembered I was with him, until he understood that he wasn’t alone.
“She’ll never agree to that,” he said in a low voice.
At the mention of me, I turned my head to meet his gaze. He blinked and I saw the fear and frustration inside him, bold, exposed, raw. It made me trust him just a little more.
“Let Caro talk to her then. I’ll give you my answer after.” There was a short pause where Atticus clearly tried to argue. “Now, goddamnit, or I’ll hunt you down myself.” I heard the echo of laughter from the other side of the phone.
Atticus hadn’t changed after all these years. Not even a little bit.
“The Irish, seven years ago to the day,” Sayer said into the phone. “On the pier. That’s how you know I’ll find you. That’s how you know you can’t run far enough or hide deep enough. Put my daughter on the fucking phone before I end you.”
Sayer waited, his jaw ticking with impatience until something changed on the other side. “Juliet?” he breathed, a rush of relief whooshing out of him.
My heart jumped to my throat and I reached for the phone. Cage grabbed my arm before I could snatch it from Sayer’s ear. “Let the man talk to his daughter,” Cage rumbled in my ear.
I set my shaking hands back in my lap and bit my tongue. Cage was right. I hated not being the first one to speak to her, but I had to give Sayer this moment. I owed him that much.
“Hi, Juliet. I’m a friend of your mom’s,” he said all trembling voice and dark protectiveness. I searched my memory for a time when I had seen Sayer talk to or interact with a child. I came up empty. I had never even seen him near a child before. This was probably as far out of his comfort zone as possible, and yet he handled it with a gentleness and consideration that made my chest ache. “I’m going to let you talk to your mom, sweetheart, but first can you tell me if you’re hurt?” Sayer said softly into the phone.
Hot tears pricked at my eyes at the tone of his voice. It was a pitch and a gentleness I had never heard before. I had known Sayer most of my life. Before I ran away I had been the thing he loved most in this world. And he had never spoken to me with that voice.
This tone was for his daughter. This was the father in him awakening, coming alive. He might not know how to speak to her in the best way to make her respond, but he was doing a damn good job. And watching it happen while my daughter was being held against her will was nearly enough to break me.
“Your mom is coming to get you, Juliet,” Sayer soothed into the cellphone that very suddenly looked comically small in his large hands. “She will save you from the bad men that have you. I promise you that.”
He handed me the phone without listening to her response. I grabbed it from him, pressing it against my ear in a rush, desperate to hear her voice. “Jules?”
“Mama!” she cried.
“Oh, baby girl.” My heart squeezed until I was convinced it would be crushed beneath the weight of my chest. I couldn’t stand this. This was too much. Too painful. “Are you okay?” I cried, hiccupping a sob. “Have they hurt you?”
“Mama, I need you!” she wailed. “Mama, please come get me!”
“I’m coming, Juliet. I’m coming to get you right now. Okay? Hold on just a little bit longer. I’m coming so soon.”
“Mama—”
Her cry was abruptly cut off and I heard her screech at the top of her lungs while it sounded like someone restrained her. I screamed into the phone as if I could call her back to me, as if I could make them give her to me this second. Sayer put his hand on my thigh, squeezing, reminding me where we were, while Cage leaned forward and told the driver to keep going. Cage passed money forward and quickly explained the situation without giving anything away.
“She’s a beautiful child, Caro,” Atticus’s smooth voice cut into my tantrum. “She looks just like you.”
I blinked away fat tears and realized both Cage and Sayer had restrained me. My terror and heavy emotion turned to cold cruelty in less than a second.
“If you hurt my daughter, Atticus, I swear to you that the police will not be able to identify your body. I will destroy you. I’ll cut you into tiny pieces and feed you to the birds. You fucking psychopath. I’ll—”
“You’re starting to irritate me, Valero. I don’t have time to listen to your empty threats. The pakhan want to see you. Visit them at Central Detention. Sign in under your real name.”
Everything stopped at his order. My heart. My breathing. The whole wide world. Hope was a dangerous, distracting thing. “Then you’ll give me my daughter back?”
I could hear his smug smile through the phone when he spoke, and it took everything insi
de me not to throw it out the window and watch the traffic crush it. “Then we’ll see what the pakhan have to say.”
“I’m going to watch you die, Atticus. And I will enjoy it.”
“I thought you were going to kill me?” he laughed. “Now you’re only going to watch. That’s disappointing.” His low chuckle made my toes curls with disgust. “I was so looking forward to trying you out. You know, I never understood what all the fuss was about with you. You were always white trash desperation to me. I have a feeling my opinion wouldn’t have changed anyway.”
His words shouldn’t have been hurtful. He was out of his goddamn mind. And his opinion had never mattered to me before. But they cut deep today. They twisted inside of me and forced me to wonder if he was right, wonder if Sayer had gotten over the novelty of me too. And if he hadn’t yet, if and when he would.
I had never thought of myself as white trash before or desperate. But I came from those places. My home life had not been glamorous and more often than not I’d worked bratva jobs just to have enough money to keep the electricity on or food in the refrigerator. Was that how Sayer saw me? Had I been someone to save? Someone to rescue?
It didn’t matter now. What Sayer and I had when we were younger was real, deep, honest. But Atticus’s accusations burned through me all the same.
My voice was quiet, sharp with a blade, hot with fire. “And I’ve never thought of you as more than the weak bastard son of a whore.”
His patience snapped. “Visiting hours end at five. You have until then.”
“They don’t accept in person visits at Central.” I knew that from before Sayer went to prison. It had been a miserable stretch of time.
There was a pause, almost like I had surprised him. “They’ll make an exception for you.”
The phone clicked off and I collapsed against the scratchy cab seat. I dropped the phone into Sayer’s lap and covered my face with my hands.
Sayer didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around me and pull me into his tight embrace. He let me cry against him, soaking his jacket with tears and snot. He didn’t say a word though. We were silent the rest of the drive.
Although I was suspicious he kept quiet because we’d already said too much in front of the driver. This city was crawling with spies. Between the politicians, the government agencies and all of the different crime families, nothing went unseen here.
Frankie and I being back in this city after so much time was bound to cause a stir. When I left five years ago, I hadn’t only walked away from Sayer, I’d left enemies behind and fragile allies that were bound to see my escape as betrayal. Not to mention the FBI.
Atticus’s demands sizzled in my chest. Sign in with your real name.
I might as well broadcast my arrival on loudspeakers across the city. It was the same thing.
Cage spent a significant amount of time with the cab driver after we’d reached Sayer’s old building. I saw the exchange of a large wad of cash and knew he was trying to pay the guy for his silence. It could work. It could also backfire in our faces.
Welcome to DC.
Frankie noticed my tears as soon as I stepped out of the cab and rushed to my side. “What happened?”
“A-Atticus called,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with emotion. “He for sure has her.”
“Did you get to speak to her?”
I nodded. “She’s alive.” I didn’t know anything else. It was difficult to ask a four-year-old questions when she wasn’t being held prisoner by a monster. Getting straight answers from her while she’d been ripped away from me and terrorized for sixteen hours was impossible. I’d settled my expectations for just hearing her voice.
She was alive. She was strong enough to cry. Strong enough to scream. Those were good signs.
“What will it take to get her back?” Frankie’s dark eyes were assessing, intrusive. She wanted the truth. She wanted the bill of sale.
“He wants me to visit the bosses,” I told her honestly. “And to use my real name when I go.”
Frankie dropped her gaze to the sidewalk and thought over Atticus’s demand. “There will be more,” she finally decided. “We won’t get Juliet back without spilling blood.”
I already knew that, but I had to take this one step at a time.
Sayer punched in the code to enter his apartment building and held the door for us. I could have done it for him. My fingers still knew the way inside.
Stepping through the door was like walking into a graveyard. Ghosts from my past lingered in every corner, followed us to the elevator and waited in the hallways.
Once we’d gotten into a fight. I couldn’t remember what it was about, something stupid… something totally insignificant. I’d stormed out of his apartment and fled down the stairs, knowing he would come after me. I’d gotten off on another floor and walked circles in the hallway, trying to wait him out.
That had turned out to be impossible. I couldn’t outwait Sayer. I couldn’t even piss him off enough to let me go.
He’d found me an hour later, and by that time all the anger had leaked out of me, released into the air on the tenth floor. We hadn’t made it back to his apartment for the makeup sex. It had happened in the alcove we passed this moment. Hidden by a fern and Sayer’s body, he’d taken me against the wall as I grasped for him, desperate to have all of him.
We were so young. So greedy for each other. None of our actions had consequences back then. And it wasn’t just our youth that taught us that, it was our whole damn life— the way we were raised. When you’re taught to lie, steal and cheat for a living, you grow up believing it’s possible to lie, steal and cheat your way out of anything.
It wasn’t until Juliet that I realized there were some consequences in life that couldn’t be undone, that you couldn’t cheat or steal your way out of. It was impossible to lie your way out of being pregnant. And while I am forever grateful for the change she brought to my life, I will also always remember her as the valuable lesson that she was.
I ignored the alcove and the blush painting the high planes of my cheeks. Those were different days. I was a different girl. And Sayer was certainly a different man.
This used to be one of the trendiest buildings in downtown DC, but today the carpet looked worn and the paint on the hallway walls was smudged and chipped. It was still a beautiful building, but the allure had worn off.
He pulled keys from his pocket and opened the familiar door to his top floor apartment. If this building was the graveyard, Sayer’s apartment was the crypt. Walking inside felt like waking the dead. I sucked in a breath of stale air and planted my feet to keep from running.
Everything was the same. The view of downtown from massive windows taking up the length of two of his walls. His barren kitchen with cement counters and stainless steel appliances. His massive TV that was out of date by now, old technology that undoubtedly would no longer satisfy him. The master bedroom door was closed, a small blessing in light of the emotional pain just stepping inside Sayer’s space caused me.
“This place looks exactly the same,” Frankie whispered, plucking the thoughts from my head.
“I haven’t been back here,” Sayer told her. “After I got out, I headed straight for Frisco. There was no time to remodel.”
His dry tone pulled my attention and I turned to face him. “Why did you keep it?”
“In case you came back to town looking for me. I wanted you to have a place to stay.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that or what to say. It was unaccountably thoughtful. Too thoughtful. I didn’t deserve his kindness.
Turning my back on him, I dropped my bag on a high-backed chair tucked into the kitchen island and set my purse on the counter. “How long is the drive to Central Detention?”
“It will take at least forty-five minutes by car,” Cage answered near the window, he had a map app pulled up on his phone. “We should leave soon.”
I spun around. “You’re coming too?”
“You can
think of me as your new best friend. For the duration of this trip anyway.”
Shooting Sayer a sidelong glance, I realized I’d been right. Cage was here for my security.
“That position is already filled,” Frankie told him tartly.
Gus snorted. “Maybe she should reconsider her friends. You only get her into trouble.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Because you and Sayer are so much more responsible? At least the two of us don’t have a prison record.”
I decided not to add to that conversation, it was bound to only get me in deeper trouble. “Do I have time to shower?” It wasn’t that I wanted to look my best for the bosses, but I hated the grimy feeling of travel, the recycled air from the plane that seemed to linger in my hair and crawl all over my skin. And if I was being completely honest with myself, I needed a few minutes to wrap my head around what I was about to do. I was headed to war and I needed to be at my absolute sharpest. That meant I could also use a twelve-hour nap.
After hearing her voice, I couldn’t even entertain the thought. Sleep would be impossible until I had Juliet safely back in my arms.
“You can use my bathroom,” Sayer offered. “It’s this way.”
My hand froze on the top of my suitcase. “I know where it is.”
He didn’t bother turning back to me. “I’ll show you anyway.”
I glanced at Frankie for help, but she was busy trying to hide her smile. Traitor.
With no other options, I followed Sayer to his bedroom, a room I had practically lived in once upon a time. Memories assaulted me inside his room. His bed. His desk. His shower. Even his closet felt familiar.
It was the man everything belonged to that caused the worst kind of ache in my chest. Sayer turned around, his gaze capturing mine, holding it hostage, stilling the frantic thoughts in my head and the desperate urge to run. Reason disappeared. Fear melted into heat and courage and something deep and unnamable. He was everything in my past and all of my present. He was sweet and sexy, wild and dangerous, hope and despair. He was my biggest mystery and my feeling of home. He was mine. And I knew, I just knew, I would never be able to walk away from him again.