Beg for Mercy (32 page)

“No, we don’t want the girls. You need to take them back.”

He tried not to look at the girls, but he couldn’t help it. He bit back a swear. Even if David wasn’t demanding that he shut down the Club One operation, these girls would never do. There were five in total, and the oldest couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Disheveled, dirty, and scared to death, they shivered as the cold winter rain soaked the flimsy dresses that were supposed to be sexy. Instead the thin fabric showed off one’s flat chest, another’s too-plump thighs, and another’s shoulder blades that were so sharp they threatened to rend the material.

The driver and his companion looked at them expectantly, and the driver held out his hand, indicating they should pay him the money he was expected to collect.

David shook his head. “No, I’m not paying you. Take the girls back.”

The driver and his companion looked dumbly at David, then at each other.

“Tell them,” David said to him.

He’d picked up some Russian in the military. “Take them back,” he said, making a shooing motion with his hands. “We don’t want them anymore.”

The driver shook his hand and started arguing vehemently. “I bring girls—you give money.”

The girls stood in a frozen, huddled knot, shaking and crying. “Get back in the truck,” he told them. A spasm of guilt squeezed his chest. He wasn’t doing them any favors sending them back with the driver. They would end up somewhere, with another buyer who would work them for weeks, months straight until their bodies gave out.

But at least he wouldn’t have to look at them. He wouldn’t have to look at those accusing eyes as they were subjected to a fate none of them deserved.

The driver and his friend began yelling in Russian, and one reached inside his jacket. Shots rang out as David’s security detail took them out in two shots.

The girls’ screams died as the security goons swung the guns in their direction.

“What the fuck was Roman thinking?” David circled the girls, scanning them up and down like he was searching for redeeming features. He shook his head. “They’re not even worth trying to move ourselves.”

“But the loss—” Carl broke in.

“We’ll eat it,” David said. “And then we’ll let Roman know what happens when he misrepresents his merchandise.” He paused then. “You.”

Tension snapped down his spine as his uncle pinned him with a cold stare.

“Take care of them.”

He shook his head. His hands started to shake.

“What’s the problem?” Carl sneered. “This should take the edge off for at least a couple of weeks.”

He swallowed hard, tried to control the tremors coursing through him as he struggled to keep the beast caged as it foamed at the mouth, urging him to wrap his hands around Carl’s throat and squeeze until his eyes popped
from their sockets. They didn’t understand how it worked. Girls like Evangeline, Bianca, Stephanie had chosen their fates, chosen to let men use their bodies because they were too lazy or too stupid to do something worthwhile.

All whores, just like his mother. He had no trouble unleashing the demon on them.

But these girls, they were innocents, staring at him with their big, wide eyes, pleading for help. “They haven’t done anything wrong. They don’t deserve any of this.”

His uncle stared at him as if he’d grown a horn from the center of srepresentorehead. “After all I’ve done to help you, now you’re going to try to take the moral high ground? You have a job—now do it!”

“No.”

Even in the dim light of the parking lot, he could see the vein pulse in his uncle’s forehead, the frustration he couldn’t contain making the muscles in his jaw pulse. “How can you expect me to protect you when you won’t fucking listen?” he asked, his tone that of a parent struggling to keep it together while dealing with an obstinate child. David pinned him with a look full of disgust and disappointment and held out his hand. “Gun.”

His thugs exchanged a look, but the AK was handed over without protest. A metallic click pierced the rain, and David took aim.

Bam.
The first girl went down, followed by the other four in quick succession.

He swallowed hard and kept his gaze locked on his uncle so he wouldn’t have to look at their wide death stares.

“I gave you a place, protection, and even a means to deal with your need to do things no sane man can wrap
his head around,” David said in a low whisper. “In exchange, you do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it. Got it?”

He nodded mutely, swallowing against the acid burning his throat.

“Now get this cleaned up.”

The cars disappeared into the rain. As he dragged the limp forms back into the truck, he fought away the memories of Sarah—another girl, another innocent he couldn’t save. But he still had Megan. He closed his eyes, called up her image and clung to it.

He moved his mind away from the grisly scene in front of him. Soon all of this would be over, and he would be with his Megan. He would be saved.

Megan sat on Cole’s couch, sipping coffee and checking her voice mail as if it were just another February morning, the sun hidden behind bullet-dark clouds as rain smacked against the skylight above her head.

Right, just another Thursday, she thought as she listened to a voice mail from Devany, the second in two days. The meeting with Devany, her mother, her aunt Kathy and the social worker hadn’t gone well, and Devany had been inconsolable. And it didn’t help that Devany had been put through another round of questioning by the police about Bianca’s work at the mission. But Megan had been so distracted she hadn’t even called her back.

Okay,
distracted
was a bit of an understatement. She made a mental note to call Devany in a couple hours. The next message was from Nate, who had called yesterday
evening when she was still being questioned by Petersen. She hadn’t had a chance to check her messages before she’d been otherwise… distracted.

As she thought of the man sleeping down the hall—the reason for her distraction—her guilt took on the bitter cast of shame. Nate was so freaking
nice. “Just calling to see how you’re doing and let you know Ivm here if you want any company.”

Perfectly nice guy out there to lend a comforting shoulder, and she’d spent the better part of the night coming her brains out with a man who two weeks ago she would have sworn up and down she hated with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

Now, as she sat on his couch, her emotions in a hopeless tangle, she knew it wasn’t that simple.
It’s a thin line between love and hate.
Megan immediately shied away from that thought, not even wanting the L-word to so much as enter her consciousness in relation to Cole.

Yet she couldn’t deny the truth, that Cole’s appearance in her life had unearthed a whole host of emotions she thought she’d buried, and hatred wasn’t even close to the top of the list. She closed her eyes, picturing him as she’d left him. The sheet pulled down to his waist, one muscular leg flung out to the side. His broad, tanned chest dark against the white, rumpled linens. His craggy features were soft with sleep, the dark shadow of beard on his jaw tempting her to trace her finger along the delicious roughness.

It would be so easy to slip between the sheets with him.
He was right here, so close….
The desire to go back down the hall, climb back into bed with him and shut out reality for another precious hour pulled at her until it was like a physical ache.

Her nipples tightened under her sweater, and her thighs squeezed against the knot of desire that pulled tight at just the memory of him inside her.

But their relationship was complicated enough before she’d given in to temptation. Now, thanks to her weakness, things were a whole lot messier.

When they had been together years ago, she’d known sex with Cole would change everything.

How stupid of her not to realize that was still true. After last night, she felt rocked to the core, like she’d been broken apart and put back together with enough cracks in the facade she would never be the same. Left with a need that gnawed at her, a yearning so powerful it threatened to consume her.

But it wasn’t just about the sex. Her feelings for Cole would be so much easier to manage if they were all about scratching an itch, finally satisfying her curiosity about what it was like to sleep with him.

What she felt was so much more complicated than that.

Yearning. That’s what he made her feel, an emotion so absent from her life for the past three years she’d forgotten what it felt like. The helpless desire for something different, the useless wish that their lives had taken an entirely different direction.

She sank back onto the couch and swallowed back tears as that yearning mingled with the bitterness of guilt. What kind of person was she, sleeping with Cole, wallowing in thoughts of what could have been, while Sean was in prison?

While she was rolling around Cole’s king-size mattress, shutting out the rest of the world, Sean was locked in
a cell, destined to die in four days if she didn’t find some real evidence that someone else was guilty of Evangeline Gordon’s murd lo/font>

A possibility that was dwindling by the minute as she sat on the couch mooning over Cole. She needed to focus, face reality, and follow every last lead, no matter how tenuous.

Stephanie’s death was a morbid indicator that Megan was onto something. Too bad she didn’t know what.

She swallowed a sip of coffee, the pain in her throat a stark reminder of her own brush with a violent end. She shivered a little, wondering if the police had picked up Jack yet, or if they even took her suspicions seriously.

She heard a door open and heavy footsteps on the hardwood floor. She quickly dialed Devany’s number, using the phone call as an excuse not to face Cole head-on just yet. The call went to voice mail. “Hey, Dev, it’s Megan. Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday.” A pair of large, tanned feet appeared in her view. Megan tried to ignore them but found her gaze drawn involuntarily up. “I know you’re angry but…”

She completely lost her train of thought as her eyes were dragged up a pair of strong legs covered in green plaid flannel, past the substantial bulge in his groin, giving way to a symphony of tawny skin sliding over six-pack abs and powerful pecs. Her brain froze as Cole’s body called to her, tempting her to lean just a few inches forward and run her tongue along the grooves of his abs, trace the silky line of hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his pants. She would take him in her mouth, run her tongue around the thick head of his cock, savor the hot, salty taste of his arousal….

“Who are you talking to?” Cole’s voice was neutral, but the molten look in his eyes told her he could read her mind as if it were a billboard.

It was enough to jerk her out of her sensual haze. She rose to her feet and brushed past Cole on her way to the kitchen, trying and failing to ignore the sleep-warmed scent of his skin as she passed. She kept her gaze forward as she strove to put as much distance between them as possible. “Anyway,” she said into her phone, fumbling to reclaim the thread of her message, “you don’t need to worry about the cops. They’re going to protect you. As for your mom, it’s going to work itself out.”

“Good mor—” Cole started, cutting off when Megan raised a silencing hand. “What, no good morning kiss, no thanks for the amazing sex? I feel so used.”

Megan’s fingers tightened around her phone, not wanting him to see that it was taking all of her restraint not to throw herself into his arms.

He shook his head and followed her into the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee, ignoring her as he gathered bread and eggs for breakfast. Desperate to get some distance between them, Megan retreated to the adjoining family room and curled up on the couch. She shoved aside the pinch of shame at blowing him off as she responded to Nate’s message. More guilt there as she tapped out a quick text.
Thanks for ur call. Sorry I’ve been MIA. Too much going on with Sean and work!

The text was a cop-out, but she didn’t have the energy right now to risk talking to Nate, knowing what he wanted from her when she’d just left Cole’s bed.

She closed her eyes, bracing herself to face reality in the form of six-foot-three inches, two hundred twenty or
so pounds of half-naked male whose irritation she could sense from across the room.

He’d turned on the radio, and she could hear the clank of utensils against the pan mixed with the voice of the newscaster. She snuck a look at him in the kitchen. She could see the thick slabs of muscle shifting under the skin of his back as he worked at the stove. Her fingers tingled at the remembered feel of smooth, sweat-slicked skin as he moved over her….