My Demons (The Angel Trilogy #2) (15 page)

I roll to the edge quickly grabbing for my gun. It’s already loaded and ready to go. I disable the lights. Can’t catch what you can’t see. The bedroom door’s closed. I turn the knob and step into the hallway. Closing it quietly behind me.

I hear them. Fuck!

I quickly play every option in my head. If I go out in a blaze of glory of which I’ll happily do, Abby gets hurt. If I attack; who knows how many of them there are, Abby wakes up and they get her too.

I need to put the gun away and give myself up to deal with the repercussions later. I slip the gun on the floor hiding it in the curtains that hang on the window covered walls.

My heart’s beating hard and fast because this shit could go so many different ways. At the end of the day, Abby never knowing this is happening is all I can hope for.

I play stupid and cross the long hallway. When I reach the dark room in front of the apartment, I’m bagged. Nothing’s said, no get the fuck on the ground. Nothing.

My hands are tied and my feet left bare. My body is thrown and someone speaks telling me to shut the fuck up when the air is knocked out of me and I moan.

My boots are slammed at me, landing right on my fucking balls. “Fuck.” My head is kicked. I’ll kill these mother-fuckers. Maybe not right now, but they
will
die. Portuguese is the language their speaking and I know right away who’s responsible for this.

Marco
…

I want to fight back and it’s killing me to be giving in right now. Definitely goes against my nature. No, I have to make this quick and quiet. I have to give myself up. I need to sacrifice myself to protect the one person that’s been hurt enough in her short life.

When she wakes up, she’ll think I’m working or maybe she’ll think I’ve left like Marco did except she’ll know
I
didn’t say goodbye. She’ll be safe though and the money that I’ve left to her in the case I die will take care of her for the rest of her life.

Knowing that she will be taken care of brings me an inch of peace. It’s not much, but when you’re looking your fate in its dark eyes, an inch could be everything and in this case knowing that she’s sleeping
is
everything at this moment.

I hear muffled voices, I catch a few words one of which is ‘
empty
’.
Yes.
They think the apartment’s empty and a dark sense of peace washes over me. I consider that the assholes I’ve hired to watch her should know what the fuck is going on right now, but I told them I had this. It’s been so quiet lately, I should’ve known better and that’s my fault. I wanted to believe that we could have one night of happily ever after. Just on night of peace.

The last few weeks of her being here has been amazing. She remembers me she loves me and I love her. It’s looking like that’s all coming to an end. It figures there are no lows in this life we’ve created. Always drama, always something coming after us.

“Get him in the car,” I hear a deep raspy voice knowing right away who it is. I recognize him as Marco’s right hand, Sam. That raspy voice would be hard not to remember. I can only imagine why they haven’t killed me. Maybe torture is what gets him off.

I’m dragged out the door with my feet trying to catch up. There’s a guy on each side holding my arms. I know that we’ve just entered the stairwell and within seconds we descend taking each step in a quick succession.

They yell at me under hushed growls. I want to kill every fucking one of these mother-fuckers. From what I can tell there are five of them. Two lead the way, one on either side of me and one behind, and that’s the one barking at me. If I wasn’t worried about Abby, I’d say fuck it and take a bullet if it meant I could take a few or hell, even all of them out with me.

I contemplate my next move, well fuck, I guess it would technically be my first move. I’d like them to take me to their leader though. Maybe see where this plays out, see what that fucker is up too.

We’ve reached the bottom of the stairwell. I don’t see it, but I know that we have because there aren’t any more stairs, the ground is leveled and the fuckers are pull me harder. The parking garage is echoed with the loud screeching of tires.

“You’re going to pay for everything you’ve done Mr. Young and very soon,” I hear the raspy voice spit.

I know we’re out of the building and I know that if I’m going to fight now’s the time. The bag’s still covering my head and the location of each voice is throwing me off because of the echoing sounds that linger in the garage.

My body is suddenly shifted and my head is shoved into a car. It’s quiet and still dark. I don’t guess they're taking this damn bag off anytime soon.

“Now you sleep,” The voice growls and the people sucking up all of the oxygen in the car burst out into laughter. The last thing I remember is the stench of their cologne before I’m out for the count. Maybe it’s a fist, maybe it’s a weapon, but whatever it is hurts like a mother-fucker.

I bring my knees up to my stomach and squeeze my wrists together. I want to get away, but the darkness is taking over in my head. This isn’t going the way I had thought it would. I’m sure there taking me to Marco and that’s one thrill I’ll seek any day. I’d pay to hear every bone in his body snap on any day of the week.

I may not have many options now, but they better watch the fuck out ‘cause I
will
be taking it back.

Until then…

Chapter Eighteen

Evan

“You’ll never have her, Evan. I may not ever have her either, but you’ll not be the lucky one. You and I have a lot in common, did you know that? My father runs my life and your father runs yours,” Marco says running his hands through his hair.

“Yea, my asshole father has no control over me,” I grit, my teeth together.

“Huh, well tell me why you become a killer for hire? Was it because you like to kill innocent people? Or because you jump when he says jump or maybe because you know what he’s capable of?” Marco swings the whip in a circle as he walks in my direction.

“Fuck you,” I spit.

“Oh, we’re the same, Evan. That’s why she loves us both…” he pauses and lowers his head where he’s just sat down on a wooden beam. “She’s the reason I left...” he pauses again.

“What the fuck? You’re gonna blame her?” My jaw’s flexed so tightly it’s about to snap. I’m trying to get these handcuffs loose, but it’s not going to happen, and as much as I don’t want to admit it I have no other choice, but to see what he wants from me. “Why am I here, Marco?”

He stands from the beam turning away from me and faces the barn doors. “I love her, Evan. I have always loved her. I love her to my core. She’s the reason I left.” He turns back to face me and balls up his fist punching himself in the gut to prove his point.

“Yea, you said that already, bro,” I mumble sarcastically as I search the barn for anything that can help me get the fuck out of here.

“He was going to kill her.” He leans against the wall staring out of the window.

“Dude, if you loved her so much then why’d you cheat on her like you did?” I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to pull, but it isn’t going to work.

He turns to face me. “I had to. He had to think that she wasn’t important to me. I didn’t want to run a fucking cartel. I actually wanted to be a doctor. I thought I’d go to the states and live free from him.” He drops his head again.

I really don’t want to listen to this douche right now. I want to break his fucking neck.
Play nice, E.
“What do you want from me?” I yell.

Marco is pacing the dirt floor kicking the straws of hay with his boots with each step he takes. “I need you to help me kill him.”

I tilt my head to the side furrowing my brows.
Did I just hear him right?
“What the fuck?” I shake my head. “Why would I help you do anything?” I laugh.

I’m handcuffed and sitting in a dirty ass barn in Brazil. I know that I have to do something if I’m going to get out of here, but shit this isn’t what I expected him to say.

“You’ll do it to save her, Evan. You’ll do it because no matter how much you hate me and the person that you
think
I am, you love her more than you could ever hate me.”

I consider what he’s saying for a few minutes. I love Abby more than anyone has ever loved anyone, ever. That I do know. “Stop playing games with me and tell me what the fuck is going on?” I lunge forward.

Marco takes a deep breath and takes his seat again on the wooden beam. He doesn’t speak for a few minutes and instead smacks the whip into the dirt.

I really want to yell at him. Well, I really want to be a fucking superhero and break these cuffs off. Any other day I would’ve had a master key on me, but today I thought I was good.
Today
I fucked up.

“I messed up really bad.” He’s holding his head down with his forearms laying on his knees. “I’ve been watching her for a long time. I’ve been watching her since I left. I knew she was with you, but I had to let her be happy…” he pauses to look up and crosses his hand over his chest like catholic people do when they pray.

“Dude, what the fuck?”
He’s stalking her?

“When you saved her that night at the club, I knew you loved her. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now, but I couldn’t do anything to save her, because if I came out of the dark and did something it would’ve gotten her killed in the long run.” He smacks the whip into the dirt.

“You knew? You fucking knew what they were doing and you did nothing?” I grunt.

“I couldn’t. If they knew what she was to me they would’ve killed her, or at the very least used her against me. Do you want that for her? Because I sure don’t.”

“Get to the fucking point.”

“I wanted to leave this life. When I went to the States, it wasn’t to sell drugs or any of that other shit. I really did want to go to school. I told my father that it was my ticket there to do what he couldn’t, but he didn’t know, that
for me,
it was my way out… out of this life. When he heard that I wasn’t doing what he expected, he sent his own people to check on me and that’s when they found Abby and that’s when I left—”

“So your father thinks she’s the reason you don’t want to run the family biz, huh?” I interrupt because he needs to get to the fucking point.

He nods and looks me right in the eyes. “He’s going to have her killed.”

“What I don’t understand is why did your guys attack me that day in the hospital if you needed my help why have them attack me?”

“They aren’t my
‘guys,'
” he throws up air quotes, "they’re my father’s men. All of the men, accept the men here, these are my men and the only ones I trust.”

“So why not just walk in and do it yourself?”

His facial expression goes completely blank and then he laughs. “My father is guarded very well com pandeiro.”

“I’m not your friend.”

“Yea, well… he’s guarded, and there’s no way that I’ll get away with it. I need you and your expert killing skills as much as I hate to admit it.”

Ok, so I see what’s going on. He has me locked up so that I can do his dirty work, but is he going to let me go once it’s done? That’s the question of the day, isn’t it?

“What makes you think I can do it? Are you going to let me go once I do?” Of course, I’m going to kill is father because the second someone says that Abby’s in danger the devil himself isn’t going to be able to stop me.

“If you don’t kill him she’s going to die, do you understand that? I need you to do this, and then yes, I will leave you be.”

“What about Abby?” Are you gonna to let her be too?”

“I want her, Evan, I’m not going to jerk you around about that…” he pauses and stands with that fucking whip in his hands then throws it across the barn. “I think that it would only be fair to let her choose for herself.” Oh, he has no idea that she’s agreed to be my wife, and since it literally just happened no one knows. I consider telling him, but I’m not sure that’s the smart thing to do right now. He doesn’t speak, but instead drops his head running his hand through his hair.

“Where’s your father?”

“Rio, and we leave at nightfall,” Marco says as he heads for the door.

“Are you gonna keep me locked up till then? What the fuck.” He doesn’t answer and instead walks out swinging the door behind him.

“Hey, it’s time to go.”

I’m leaning up against the wall sleeping when Marco kicks my boots.

“Time to go.” He kicks me again.

“Yeah dude, yeah, I’m awake.” I stand wishing he’d hit me in the fucking head with a hammer and then maybe I wouldn’t have to endure this shit.

“Today is the day you protect, Abby,” he spits.

I protect her every day, freak! You, however, just up and left her, I want to say, but I know I need to see what this douche is really playing at.

We drive through several towns along the way to Rio. When we pull up to his father’s home, I see the guards parked everywhere.
Major security.
Now I see why this was an option for him.

“I’ll take you in there as a gift. You take him out then.”

“What about the guards? And what’s your escape plan?” His eyes go dark and I consider there
isn’t
an escape plan.