Page 11 of A Dance With Devils
Something grabs the back of my jacket. I’m so quick to swing for the cunt he’s on the floor before anyone else can react. Another duck, one dive, and two more get sent to the floor just to prove a point that I can, and will, retaliate if I have to. My hands go up the minute four of them come in faster, signalling my surrender to some degree. At least for now. Besides, if being in a cooler is more stimulating than the real world I know, I’m happy to oblige for a while. Maybe she’ll come visit. Amuse me. Temper the stench of these assholes still groaning and panting as they get up from the floor and glare some more.
“Quicker next time, boys,” I mutter, frowning in return. “Let’s at least play properly if we’re going to.” The heavy force of the punch that lands on my jaw out of nowhere makes me stumble, my own back shoved forward the moment I fall into one of them.
“No one plays with my sister,” a gruff voice says. My gaze rises up to the guy who I saw at the house earlier and I find the kid standing next to him, both of them glowering. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, but this was a bad fucking idea on your part.”
Hands shove my back again, several of them forcing me forward until I’m being handled into a truck parked a way over the road and my wrists being taped up. I glance sideways, looking for escape routes, only to realise that I’m enjoying myself more than I thought. My senses are high, muscles primed, energy swimming through me like a long lost chemical balance is finally returning.
I smile, and then chuckle again as I’m wedged between two fucking idiots and the doors start slamming around me. The engine starts, the roar louder than any of mine, and I watch on as they all start muttering to themselves about how I’m going to pay for this shit, and how no one fucks with Ally, and how long it’ll take for me to learn some fucking manners. I’m a fucking dick, apparently. A stupid ass fool with no appreciation of how to treat a woman. I chuckle again at that. I know exactly how to treat a woman, especially one who plays me as well as this one has done. I’ll do all sorts of things to her when this interlude has been concluded. Abysmal things. Nasty things. Things that the likes of these assholes can’t even imagine. And I’ll enjoy them all the more because of the situation she’s now put both me, and herself, in.
So much for manners.
So much for bargains.
The tirade of barely human conversation carries on the further away from the house we get. I lose interest in it after a while and retreat into thoughts of fucking and dark intent. It makes me wonder if that voice of hers ever gets above a calm, considered, level. Whether it screams and bellows, pleads even. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just stays relatively collected, regardless of its soft Bronx drawl. That’s not real to her, though. It’s covering something, some other accent hidden under the layers. I look at the younger kid in the car, wondering where they came from originally.
Not here, that’s for sure.
The truck eventually pulls to a stop down some dark alley round the back of some deserted units, and I get pulled out of the car and led through the rough wasteland until we reach some doors hiding a barrage of noise. They crank open slowly, both of them levering backwards to reveal an arsenal of bikes and fucked up vehicles, saws and motors running loudly around them. I note a few of the licence plates ripped off, then cast another glance over the chop shop and vehicles ready to ship out soon. The whole place makes me laugh out loud. She tried. I’ll give her that.
Too bad she’s picked the wrong ship to try sinking me with.
“Get the fuck inside,” one of them says, shoving me again.
I do, unconcerned with the imagery or shapes emerging out of the corners now we’ve arrived. Not that I know this place, but I do know who must run this ship now they’ve brought me to somewhere I can get a feel for. There’s only one of him in New York, and everything beneath him goes through him whether he’s here or not. With any luck he will be. If not, I’ll need a conversation with whoever thinks they’re in charge.
Two minutes later and I get my answer.
“The hell is this ruckus?” his voice eventually shouts over the din.
I wait, listening to some of them shouting back at him, and watch as he walks over in his usual jeans and roughed up shirt. A minute's worth of him muttering something about Ally and he comes to an abrupt halt in front of me and frowns. “Malachi?”
I smile and raise my chin, part dismayed that my fun just ended. “Whit.”
“The hell are you doing here?”
“Apparently, I’m a captive to taunt. Ally cats didn’t like my idea of hunting.”
“Jesus Christ, Malachi.” His head shakes, fingers running through his beard to cool his temper down. “You’re still doing that?”
I can’t even comprehend the question.
He scours his gaze over his team, flicking his hands at them to let me go with a sigh. The tape’s cut, regardless of the posturing way it’s done by one of the idiots, and I wander over to one of the cars being polished up rather than bother with conversation about my motives here. I don’t have to explain a damn thing to Eli Whitney, let alone tell him about my plans from this moment forward. We have a past, that’s all. A past that forged a reasonable friendship through the years because of manners I’m not currently beholden to with regard to this woman.
“You didn’t think to check out who you were trailing first?” he asks, joining me in the corner of the unit. I look up at him for a second, scowling at his sense of disapproval.
“Why would I do that? It spoils the hunt if I know who I’m hunting.”
He sighs and rolls his sleeves up. “You can’t have her.”
“I can, and definitely will now you’re telling me I can’t,” I reply, running my fingers on the hood of a dark green corvette.
“No, she’s … You don’t understand and-”
My head ducks inside the window to look at the inside, taking in the leather, the basic crafting, the sense of old ideals wrapped up in luxury. “I don’t care who she is, or why you’re defending her, she’s mine for a week. That was our deal.”
“Deal?”
“I fixed her electrics. The payback was a week of skin.” I hold up one finger behind me to clarify the obvious. “I want this car.”
