Cocked: A Stepbrother Romance (18 page)

It took me ten minutes to give him everything. I knew it might come in handy one day back when I was working for them, and so I had paid attention to every detail I could. I memorized it all, just in case I needed to trade information. Maybe that made me a traitor to my country, but I’d rather betray the people that failed me than watch the person I loved the most in the world get hurt.

“And that’s everything,” I said at last. I wasn’t sure what I had just done, but I was hoping I had saved the life of my family.

“This is all very good.” Mikhail stood up.

“What about our deal?”

“First, I talk to Castillo. Then, I decide if we have deal.”

He turned and left, slamming the door behind him.

I looked over at Lacey. She stared back at me, her eyes wide. I shuffled my chair toward her, getting as close as I could. It took me a few minutes and I nearly tipped over, but eventually our legs were touching.

“Listen to me,” I said to her softly. “You’re going to survive this.”

She made a noise.

“I know. You can’t live without me. I’m incredible. But you have to keep moving, no matter what happens to me.” I dipped my head, taking a breath. “I can die if I know it meant something. And saving you means something to me.” I looked back up at her. I bit my lip at the look she was giving me, the tears welling up in her eyes.

“Don’t do that,” I said. She shook her head, tried to speak again. “Let’s just be here, together, for a little while longer. Try not to cry for me, okay? Let’s just sit together.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, visibly controlling herself. When she opened them again, I smiled. “I knew you were strong, Lacey, but fuck. You’re even stronger than I could have guessed.”

We lapsed into silence then. I had never tried to communicate so much with just a look as I did in that moment. I knew it might be our final moment together, the last time I’d ever see her in this life. I knew I was going to die; there was no question about it.

Nothing was going to save me now.

But Mikhail had to keep his word. He may have been a gangster and a torturer, but he was also a father and an uncle. He understood the importance of family. And he understood the importance of keeping your word, especially when it would be easier not to.

Lacey looked back at me, her beautiful big eyes blinking softly, her chest rising and falling with her breath, and I hoped she understood.

I hoped she understood that everything I did, I did to keep her safe. I may have made mistakes a long, long time ago, but I’d worked so damn hard to make up for them. In the end, I hadn’t worked hard enough.

I hoped she understood that I loved her. That I was deeply fucking shattered whenever she came near me. That her touch was enough to make me hard, and her voice was enough to make me smile.

It was all so unreal and strange and fucked up. I was in love with my stepsister and about to be murdered by Russian gangsters. The only thing I hoped for in what was left of my time was that she would be spared.

It felt like hours that we sat there looking at each other, our knees and legs touching. We breathed together, syncing our bodies, and tried to understand.

––––––––

A
nd then the door opened.

“What are you doing?” Tomas said, coming toward us. He roughly yanked me over, toppling me to the ground, and dragged me back across the room.

“What the fuck,” I said.

“Stay away from each other.”

“Where’s Mikhail?”

“He sent me to check on you.”

“What about our deal?”

“Shut up.” He unrolled more duct tape and shoved it over my mouth. “Now don’t move.”

He walked out of the room again. I lay there on my side, staring at a blank white wall. I couldn’t hear Lacey, much less see her.

Is this the last thing I’m going to see?
I thought.

Not too long later, the door opened again.

“Sorry for delay,” Mikhail’s voice said. “Looks like you took a spill.”

I heard footsteps and then Mikhail’s face was looming over me, grinning. “I spoke to Castillo. He said deal is good.”

I stared back at him, but inwardly I felt relief spill through my body like water.

“Girl and family, they can live. Happy now?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now we kill you.”

Lacey made a noise but Mikhail ignored her. I could hear her struggling against her bonds. Mikhail cut the tape on my wrists and my ankles and then dragged me to my feet. Tomas was standing in the doorway, aiming his gun at me.

I went without a fight. I knew it was my only chance to save Lacey. I needed to cooperate, give them what they wanted. I didn’t want to give them any reason for petty revenge. As I left the room, I looked at Lacey for as long as I could. I wanted her to understand that I loved her and always would. I wished Mikhail had taken the tape from my mouth so that I could have told her, wished I had told her earlier, but at least I had kept her alive.

And then she was gone. They shut the door behind me and marched me back up the stairs. Tomas wrapped more tape around my hands, binding them in front of me, and marched me out the back door. I followed him, Mikhail behind me, into the woods.

“Not much farther, Tomas,” Mikhail said. “This should be okay.”

We stopped a few minutes later in a small clearing surrounded by woods on all sides. I could hear birds singing nearby.

“We didn’t want to get the house dirty, you know,” Mikhail said, smiling at me.

Tomas kicked me in the back of the knees, dropping me down. Mikhail crouched in front of me and ripped off the tape over my mouth.

“So, anything else to tell us?”

“Nothing.”

“You sure? Castillo said there was one more thing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“To keep your family alive. Castillo says he wants to know who the leader is. What his name is.”

“I told you everything I know.”

“Please, Camden. You love girl, yes? You love pretty girl?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me name. Save pretty girl. Make death mean something for you.”

“I don’t know his name,” I said softly. “They just called him ‘Spook.’”

“Is that all you know?”

“That’s everything.”

“Shame. I hope that is enough to keep your girl alive.” Mikhail stood up and nodded to Tomas. I heard a rifle click behind me.

“Wait. Please. You have to save her.” I stared at Mikhail.

“I’ll do what I can. Now die with some dignity.” He stepped away and nodded at Tomas.

My heart slowed down. I calmed my breathing as much as I could.

This was the moment. This was how it ended. This was what death was like. It was actually going to happen. I never really thought—

It never really seemed real.

I couldn’t actually be about to die.

My life wasn’t flashing before my eyes.

I wasn’t afraid. I was ready.

I told her I would try not to sacrifice myself, but maybe in the end it was the only way I could absolve myself of my sins. I had fucked up too much to keep on living. I had to die so that they could keep on going.

I had done as much as I could.

I sighed and felt the weapon press against the back of my head.

I
couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to cry, knew he wouldn’t have wanted me to, but the last look he gave me as they dragged him from the room kept replaying over and over in my mind.

Camden was dead. Camden had done exactly what I had told him not to do, over and over again. He had sacrificed himself for me, sacrificed his own life to save mine.

I didn’t want it. I didn’t want his sacrifice.

I just wanted him.

I felt the sobs rip through my chest. I could barely breathe as I cried, gasping for breath. After everything that had happened between us, after the whirlwind fear and sex and boredom, I couldn’t believe that it was ending like this, in some damp basement out in the middle of nowhere.

How had we gotten here?

I wanted to tell him everything I felt. When he first showed back up, I had hated him. I had hated him so much for changing everything, for dragging us into his shitty life, for putting us all in danger. I thought he was cocky and self-centered and the biggest asshole in the world.

But then I got to know him. As the days passed, my anger was replaced with something more, something much deeper. I couldn’t explain it to him. The night in the car, when he fucked me like there was no tomorrow, I had hoped he understood. And again when I tasted his cum, I hoped he understood. But I never said it, not really. I never really told him that my hatred had grown into desire, and then into love.

And now he’d never know. Because he was somewhere else, getting murdered.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Camden was the hero, the strongest man I knew, sexy and serious and funny and cocky all wrapped into one. I felt safe around him, like nothing bad could possibly happen.

He had it all under control. He knew what he was doing. In stories, the hero never got killed no matter what.

Things like this didn’t happen to girls like me. I had worked hard to stay away from bad things and bad people. I was a good girl.

But suddenly I was duct taped to a chair in a terrible damp room in the basement of some Russian mobster’s Alaska hideout while the man I was falling deeply in love with got a bullet in his brain just upstairs.

As the sobs slowly subsided, after who knows how long, I began to feel a rueful sort of mirth. Maybe life really was like this. Nobody could predict the future, which meant there was a chance any one of us could end up dead tomorrow or locked in a closet or on a cruise liner with the love of their life. Maybe one thing happened or another, and you just had no control over it, no matter how hard you worked or planned.

For some reason, the universe had decided to destroy me. It had decided that everything I held dear in my life should be taken away. I had no clue where our parents were or if I’d ever see them again. I didn’t know if the Russians would keep their promise to Camden and let me live.

Frankly, I wasn’t really sure that was what I wanted.

I hated that he sacrificed himself for me. That asshole had been trying to sacrifice himself since the minute he came home, desperate to make up for the bad shit he had done. But the truth was, he was as much a victim of circumstance as I was. He got unlucky in Chicago and he got unlucky in Mexico, and the repercussions of that bad luck just so happened to spread out around him in ripples. It really wasn’t his fault that the ensuing wave would possibly drown us all.

Sitting there in the basement, I remembered one of the last times I saw Camden back before he left Hammond for Mexico.

He leaned up against the railing of the bridge, looking out over the water. I stood next to him, studying the line of his jaw, oblivious to everything else around us.

“So, you’re going to college,” he stated.

“Maybe, I guess.”

“Sent out applications?”

“Sure. Everyone does.”

“Not me.”

“Why not?”

I watched as he shrugged slowly and threw a rock down into the slow-moving stream. “Seems like a waste.”

“Waste of what?”

“Time, money. All of it.”

“You’re not stupid, Camden.”

He grinned at me. “Thanks, Lace.”

“Seriously. You want people to think you’re this stupid thug, but really you’re one of the smartest people I know.”

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

“Come on. People practically worship you.”

“I know you do, at least.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just apply somewhere.”

“Is there even any time left?”

“For some schools, yeah.”

He shrugged again, not wanting to commit, but I could tell he was considering it. He had so much potential, was so smart and beautiful and exciting. I wanted to grab his hair and bite his lip and force him to see himself the way I saw him. I wanted him to understand that he wasn’t just some juvenile delinquent that loved to steal cars. He could be so much more.

“Maybe. College just doesn’t seem like it’s the thing for me.” 

“What’s for you, then?”

“I don’t know.” He threw another rock and I watched his biceps flex. “Working on cars, maybe.”

“Sure. But you’ll have to stop stealing them first.”

He laughed. “I don’t steal cars. Not officially, anyway.” He looked at me, grinning. “You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous of what?”

“Me. You wish you could be so free. You’re like this tightly wound clock that’s constantly running out of time.” He shifted his weight and faced me.

“Nice metaphor for an idiot.”

“Thanks. But that’s why you’re so into me. You like that I’m free.”

“I’m not sure that’s it.”

He grabbed my hips and pulled me against him. “You’re right. It’s probably my good looks and charm.”

“You’re as charming as an old tire.”

“Didn’t you just get done saying how smart I am and how much people like me?”

“I was lying. I had a stroke. Help, help, I forget where I am.”

His grin widened as he pulled me tighter against him. My heart was hammering in my chest.