Ruthless People (12 page)

“You will be monitoring the GPS,” Liam stated, finally catching up.

Monte nodded, and Liam turned to me.

“Declan can hack into the surrounding frequencies and keep track. The area should
be filled with paramedics, cops, and the coast guard,” Liam said, and in his eyes
he was daring me to agree, now of all times.

Seeing as he was being a good little boy, I would let him have his moment of dominance.
Monte looked at me, and I nodded. I had planned to have Declan on the sea with me
since he was great with hand-to-hand combat as well and we may need it, but sure,
Liam could pretend he helped. Once finished, Monte stood up quickly to get out of
the negative bubble created by Liam and me.

He did not say a word, but I could see Liam’s mind racing, and I could tell he didn’t
like me being here. I almost wanted to tell him to get the fuck over it, but the helicopter
was tense enough. Declan and Monte were focused on the four sets of laptops between
them, while Antonio and Neal both kept checking their rifles. They seemed close already
since Neal threw him a pack of chewing tobacco and Antonio accepted it like it was
gold. One moment they were fighting, the next they are trading toys.

Finally, when my eyes fell back on Liam, I found him watching me. He didn’t look away
like most people would when caught staring. Instead, he just stared harder, as if
I were a book he was trying to read, but it was in a language he didn’t understand.

“Yes?”

He shook his head. “We’re here.”

And sure enough, the helicopter began its illegal descent on the beach.

“Sir, ma’am,” Declan said, looking between us both. “We have a problem.”

“What?” Liam and I asked at the same time.

Monte clicked away at his computer. “The Valero have just gotten the recorder and
are heading further out to sea. They have a boat waiting.”

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the button overhead. “Jinx, take us . . .” I looked
over at Declan and Monte for the coordinates.

“38.09, -72.50,” they both said, quickly.

Liam nodded, looking over at Antonio and Neal as the helicopter pulled up. “They’ll
bring it to us. Melody and I will wait on their boat. You guys will shoot from the
door.”

They nodded while Liam stood up and looked over to me. He was doing so well until
he opened his mouth again. “Or you can shoot and Neal and I can go.”

Standing up, I glared right back at him. “Give me a rifle and the bullet goes in your
spine,” I told him as I waited by the helicopter door. Jinx was going to have to circle
around continuously. Liam stood in front of me, hand on the door handle and just stared
at me, once again. Always with the staring, the creeper. For a moment, in the midst
of the storm that was in his eyes, I saw worry. He was fucking worried about me, the
fucker. This was not my first—nor would it be my last—jump out of an aircraft. He
needed to grab his balls and take a shot of testosterone, because I wasn’t worried
for shit. I just wanted this over so I could drink myself to sleep.

Monte walked over to hand us parachutes, but we both shook our heads. They would only
slow us down enough to be shot. We need to drop down quick and hard.

“Jinx, take us as low as possible,” I said.

Our stomachs dipped as we felt the helicopter drop. Somehow, knowing before Jinx even
had to speak, Liam opened the door and in the darkness of the night, we could both
see the yacht waiting below. He looked back at me, but I ignored him and pushed off
the wall to jump. The moment the cold breeze hit my skin, I braced myself for the
impact of the deck. When my body landed, I rolled as bullets came flying my way.

Grabbing onto my gun, I turned and shot one right between his eyes just as Liam dropped
onto the shoulders of another. There were screams and curses in Russian as Liam dove
right beside me.

“Come here often?” he said, chuckling as adrenaline clearly pumped through his veins.
I supposed he was no longer seeing me as a china doll in that moment, but as another
person on his side.
Finally
, the dipshit.

“Not really.” I tried not to smirk back as more Russians came shooting at us. “The
hospitality here is fucking shit.”

“You should write a strongly worded letter.”

Rolling my eyes, I turned and shot a man on the top deck in the kneecap. “This is
more eco-friendly. Save the trees, and all that shit.”

He grinned and then shot the man now screaming in pain in the head. “I was never good
at recycling.”

Two more men came forward, one right behind Liam, and another behind me. We both raised
our hands as they yell at us.

“
Kto vy? Vy lokhi!
”
⁹
they shouted at us.

Liam smiled at me—he truly smiled for once—obviously enjoying this. “
Ya
, Liam Kallahan.
Eto moy zhenikh, vy tozhe mertv
.”
¹⁰

Just as the man finished, bullets went into the side of their heads, courtesy of Antonio
and Neal, before the helicopter spun out of view once again. A second later, Liam’s
phone rang and he placed it on speaker.

“They are four miles away and will be there shortly,” Declan said. Liam said nothing
before hanging up as I reached down to grab their guns.

“Yarygin or Stechkin Pistol?” I asked him, causing him to frown.

“The Russians can’t make guns for shit,” he said in disgust, and he had a point.

Smiling, we began to throw the few bodies overboard as we waited for our friends.
It only took a second, and by that time, we had thrown the overweight, drunken Russians
off.

The boat was silent except for another crew as they made their ways back on deck.
They stumbled and laughed liked fools.

“
Vse chertovski narkotiki ushli. Chert by pobral etikh vlagalishcha v ad. Valero sobirayetsya
ubit’ nas.
”
¹¹

One of the men asked where their brothers where Liam was already on his feet.

“Dead.” Liam said as he shot one right in the nose and I shot the other in the eye.
He screamed in pain as I walked over, patting him down for the mini-equipment. Once
I had it, I shot him once more for the heck of it.

“I’ll call the guys,” I said, handing it to Liam, but once I turned around, I found
myself looking down the barrel of a gun. It was the man whom Liam landed on, and he
had his gun pointed right at me. Liam pulled me out of the way and shot the fucker
in the face, but not before taking one in the arm.

“Fuck it all to hell,” he said, pulling back his wounded limb.

He must have left his guardian angel at home.

“Jinx, head in, we’ll meet you onshore. We’re fine . . . for the most part,” I said
before hanging up and grabbing his arm.

He pulled away. “I’m fine, just wish I didn’t kill the fucker so I could torture him.”

“You have a bullet in your arm.” I glared at him. “A Russian bullet, which you, yourself
said was shit. I am going to take it out.”

“I said I was fucking fine, Melody!”

Angry, I holstered my weapon before I shot him in the other arm, and grabbed on to
his wounded arm again, causing him to hiss out in pain.

“You are not fine.” I pressed down harder. “Now stop bitching and let me fix it, you
asshole.”

I didn’t allow him to speak before pulling him inside the cabin and pushing him onto
the nearest bed. They must have been ready to eat because alcohol and an array of
meat, bread, and apples awaited them. Getting a napkin and a knife, I poured the alcohol
over it and his wound before giving him the rest to drink.
Hopefully, the liquor would keep him quiet.

He smirked at me before taking the bottle to his lips. “I think I like you as a nurse.”

Glaring at him, I dug the knife into his bullet wound. “You really shouldn’t say stupid
things to a woman with weapons.”

He hissed and roared in pain like a fucking baby until I got the bullet out and used
the napkin as a bandage.

“Drink and shut up, I’ll be right back,” I said to him before going back on deck.

I made sure to drag and throw the bodies off the boat before setting course back to
the mainland. I also called Monte to let him and Liam’s brothers know what happened.
It took me about an hour and a half. By the time I went back to Liam, he was frozen
on the bed, listening to the audio from the plane he had destroyed.

All either of us could hear were screams, crying, and prayers. They brought back memories
I would rather forget. Walking over, I pushed stop and he, was pulled out of his trance.

“I thought you were going to set the boat on autopilot,” he said, proving just how
out of it he was.

Grabbing another napkin, I took the old blood-soaked one off and redid the bandage.

“Do not take a bullet for me again.”

He snorted before pulling away. “No good deed goes unpunished. The correct words you
are looking for are ‘thank you.’ ”

I pulled tighter, and he winced, the baby. “Thank you, but don’t do it again. The
last thing I need is for any of my men to think I can’t handle myself.”

“You are so fucking ridiculous. Why must you always try to prove that you’re a cold-hearted
bitch?”

“Because a
cold-hearted bitch
is what I need to be,” I snapped back, rising in front of him. “You can fuck up as
many times you want, but at the end of the day, no one will doubt you. I, on the other
hand, make one mistake and it’s over. Some cocky asshole like you will come over and
claim I’m too soft, or that I don’t have the balls. I’ve worked too hard to backtrack
now.”

He said nothing. He knew I was right. I didn’t have time to waste, proving and reproving
who I was.

“And in a way, they would be right, because I should have blown that plane up myself,”
I confessed, grabbing the wine from the table and leaning against it. “If I had, I
would get the credit—”

“You want credit?” He eyed me up and down, his green eyes picking up only the dimmest
light of the cabin we now shared. “You want credit for the mass murder I committed.”

“Don’t say it like that. We are not serial killers. We do not kill for the fun of
it or chaos. It is just business. Every last person we kill is for family. If we do
not kill them, they kill us. It is the way of the world. It is self-defense. It is
survival. If it were your life for theirs, they would kill you in a second to save
themselves or their family.
Everyone
is ruthless. They just don’t know it. You do. I do. And that is why we are on top
and will remain so.”

“And you feel nothing.”

“And I feel nothing,” I repeated.

He looked me in the eyes, and I hoped to God he understood, because I didn’t know
how else to explain it. It was that kind of thinking that made it easy for me to sleep
at night.

“Neither do I,” he said, and I believed him.

I tried to move, but he grabbed on to my sides and held me in place. There was that
look in his eyes—the hunger, the lust, and the caged animal dying to get out. Pulling
me even closer, he pressed himself against me.

“L—” His lips were on mine and he was pulling at my clothes. With his one good arm,
he cupped my ass and the other one cupped my breast as he rubbed himself against me.
His lips hummed against my neck before he lifted me up, throwing me on the bed.

He stopped for only a second to look me over, and the storm in his eyes raged worse
than I had ever seen. “This is your one and only chance to tell me to stop.”

TEN

“It takes two to make a murder.
There are born victims,
born to have their throats cut,
as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.”

~ Aldous Huxley

LIAM

She leered, and I could see the lust growing in her eyes until it reflected my own.

“You better not rip my clothes.” Her brown eyes narrowed at me and with that, every
chain, lock, and bolt in my mind broke loose.

I grabbed her by the ankle and spread her legs until she was no less than an inch
from me taking her. I could feel her become wet just from the sheer closeness of our
bodies. Brushing my hand on the side of her face, then against her lips, I grabbed
on to her hair and pulled it back, allowing me to latch on to her neck. Neither of
us needed to speak. We knew what we wanted, and there were not enough words in the
human language that could express what my tongue physically could, as I bit, licked,
and sucked on her neck. I felt like a fucking animal, but I could not stop myself,
and by God’s name, when she unzipped my vest and rubbed her cool hands all over my
torso, I became ravenous.

Pushing her back, I pulled off her top as quickly as possible, trying my best to do
as she asked and not rip the damn thing off her. However, it didn’t work, and I heard
a small tear before the top was in shreds.

“Damn it, Liam!” she yelled at me, and I stopped, pushing up to stare into her deep,
dark eyes, my breath on her lips.

“Say it again,” I muttered as I grabbed her breast through her bra. I would have preferred
a laced one instead of a sports bra, but a breast was a fucking breast.