CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1) Page 45

  And that there was the moment that I was truly saved.

  That there is the moment that instead of giving up and letting this beat me, I took her advice and thumbed my nose at every bastard in the world.

  She taught me a lot after I finally sprung myself from the loony bin Mom had dumped me in. The biggest lesson was to never give up and let the enemy win.

  And I won’t let them win either, because remembering it all has forced me to examine it in a way that I could never let myself before, and I remember one thing. Nobody had spoken that night, except one. Their silence added to my fear.

  One of them had rasped a full sentence that I’m forcing myself to remember. This is what happens to uppity bitches who don’t do what they’re told.

  One simple line, and I know who said it.

  Gareth Knox.

  I’m disgusted that I’ve spent years in these peoples’ company. It's as if they think they’ve gotten one over on me and won. Not for much longer though, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my cold husband, it’s that losing is not an option.

  For this reason, I hope Chase is ready. Because I’m not a quitter and he’s in a whole lot of trouble if he thinks I’m going to take this lying down.

  But first, I have some plans to make for the five animals who tried to ruin me.

  Chapter 31

  Remy

  “I need help.”

  Hensley and Dec tense where they’re sitting at the kitchen table, wolfing down the fried chicken and salad that I made for dinner. Chase isn’t home yet, something he’s been doing the last few nights since I told him to go screw his fist. So I’m graced by not just one hottie in my kitchen but two.

  Two men who are now very appreciative and more than willing to snap to attention the moment the words leave my lips.

  “What you need sweetheart?” Dec asks, pushing his plate away and groaning. I serve them each a piece of the cherry pie I baked—I'd had to Google the video instructions—and a cup of coffee.

  I sit down and pull my own teacup to my lips, meeting their eyes over the rim, sort of steadying myself before lowering it to the saucer.

  “This does not concern Chase, so if you feel some sort of loyalty that will force you to tell him, tell me now and I won’t even continue,” I say, keeping my voice as steady as I can.

  When Liv and I had talked about this, she’d warned me that Brick and his men have some sort of deep bond thing with Chase. They’re not all friends, but he’d done something for them that means they will forever be in his debt, even though he’s tried to discharge them of that without fail.

  It seems they think of him as one of them and will do anything for him and, by extension, me too. But I need this to be just about me and Liv thinks that may not be possible.

  “If it endangers your life or in any way means you leave Chase, then you shouldn’t continue,” Dec says after sharing a look with Hensley.

  They both nod at each other as if coming to some understanding. Now I know that they’ll at least listen.

  “You can decide if you want to help me or not. If not, I need a promise that what I tell you stays between us.”

  They share another look. I can almost hear the gears grinding but both of them look at me and nod once.

  “It stays between us. No matter what.”

  Relief hits me and I blow out a breath at their promise, feeling a little less intimidated. I mean, of course I’m intimidated. These two are deadly from what I’ve seen I couldn’t ask for better protectors and now, if they do this for me, saviors.

  If this works, I might finally be able to lay these ghosts to rest and maybe save my relationship too. He can search for the guys who abducted me, and then I’ll finish what was started over a decade ago.

  “What’s this about, Remy?” Hensley asks when I get a little lost in thought.

  “When I was in high school, I dated a guy, my ex-husband, Brian Carson.”

  The look they give me is not kind. I get the idea they know who he is and feel about as warm and fuzzy about him as I do, and considering my feelings fall more toward slasher flicks and baseball bats, well…

  “Yeah. Anyway, sometime in that year, I got a rude awakening and was forced to see the mess I was. And I started down a different path. I changed, a lot, and by the time I was done, I sorta realized he was not the guy I wanted to be with. I broke things off with him but he didn’t take it well. He was sort of grooming me to be his long-term girlfriend, and then the perfect politician’s wife.”

  “Asshole.”

  I grin at Dec and incline my head.

  “Quite. So anyway, I cut him loose and he did not take it well, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least I didn’t think there was.”

  Their eyes narrow at that and I swallow. I’m not going to go into detail here, but I think they should at least have enough to understand how serious this is for me.

  “So anyway, I was not in a good place when…that’s not important. Let's just say I suffered a major loss and I wasn’t very smart about some things. I had a late class one day and ended up walking home when my car had a flat that my prissy ass couldn’t change or call for help because my phone died.”

  They grin and I roll my eyes.

  “On the way, a car stopped…and let me just say that I knew I was in deep shit. There were five of them, all wearing masks. They chased me down like a dog, threw me in the trunk and shoved a needle in my arm. I woke up in a field around dawn, naked and pretty messed up.”

  Okay, now those grins are just gone and, wow, they look about ready to start tearing heads off. I’d be afraid if I thought for one minute that I could be a target, but I’m not, so I kind of gloat inside about what will now happen to Brian and his friends.

  “I woke up and crawled till my knees bled but I was so weak, I just… A trucker found me and took me to the hospital and I… things didn’t go well for me after that. But that’s not important right now. What is important is that my stupid brain thinks it knows who those guys were.”

  “Names,” Hensley growls, his eyes going so light I swear they look like they’re glowing.

  Dec doesn’t seem to be any better off and I hear his knuckles crack when he clenches a fist.

  “No killing.”

  “Rem—”

  “Nuhuh. All I want you to do for me is get some information so I can put a few plans in place. Just information.”

  “But—”

  “Please. This is important to me guys. It’s my one chance to put those ghosts to rest so I can be free of it. I need to do this my way, not by handing it off to a man to fix. Please.”

  I didn’t tell Doc about this when I’d called her because: one, I’m afraid she’ll warn the cops since if this works, I’m going to watch five men scream; and two, she’ll tell me some bullshit about violence not being the answer.

  Too bad. I feel violent so therefore it must be some sort of answer, maybe just not her version of the right one.

  “Fine. Names,” Dec barks, pushing away his uneaten pie.

  I tell them and I can literally feel the air around me freeze with their anger. Gosh, it’s so nice to have them in my life. They may be stone-cold killers doing the work they do, but I love them like the brothers I wish I had—my one and only brother being less than useless. I’m grateful just to know them.

  After that, they stand and leave me alone in the kitchen, each bending to give me a kiss on the head.

  “We’ll be there when you do what you have to. Understand?”

  “Yup. Love you guys.”

  Chapter 32

  Chase

  No sex.

  That’s all I can think about lately and it’s driving me so fucking crazy. I wake up humping the sheets, my dick so hard I’m embarrassed to admit it.

  Shamed at my behavior—and the insane urge to wake Remy up with my cock already filling her—I slam into the bathroom and treat my dick to an icy shower that deflated him almost instantly. Till I walk
out of the bathroom and find her sprawled on my side of the bed, my pillow clutched to her face as if she’s seeking my scent.

  Instant boner.

  Damned woman is being so stubborn!

  So what if we’re not sharing our feelings and doing pottery scenes from Ghost! We’re compatible where it counts, and we share a mutual respect that many couples don’t have.

  I’m so damned desperate to touch her right now that I consider getting her drunk just to see if she’ll loosen up a bit. Now don’t go all feminist outrage on me, I’m not going to. Mostly because for me it’s not just the release that I crave but that one moment when she’s so open that we connect on more than a physical plain.

  That’s what’s got me on edge—that Remy has completely withdrawn from me to the point of seeming unaffected by my touch. Just weeks ago, she’d attack me if I so much as looked at her with heat.

  I bloody miss the wench and it’s killing me to sleep beside her without feeling her in my arms. She doesn’t even roll into me anymore. So, short of pinning her to my side, I’m shit out of luck and up the creek without a bleeding paddle.

  I know what it will take to get her back in my arms and writhing beneath me. Sharing. She wants to tell me about her past, and she wants to know who I am.

  I can’t risk it though, because I know that if she tells me something that I can’t get over—someone is dying. My temper since the incident with Carson and his goons is not something I want to even contemplate around my wife.

  God, I love calling her that. It implies an ownership that makes me hard and achy with the need for her.

  She’s mine, and I protect what I…own. Even from myself, and I will never let her see that part of me because she’ll bolt; I know she will. Remy is way too soft for a dark, broken beast like me but—

  “Jesus, you’re still sulking? Just talk to your wife and get it over with you idiot.”

  I look up from my paperwork and glare at Gabe when he saunters in and plops into the chair across from my desk, his limbs loose and relaxed. Someone in this place is obviously getting laid. Bastard.

  “Mind your own bloody business, Gabriel.”

  His grin is full of smug glee and it takes an effort for me not to vault over the desk and wipe it right off his face. I resist the urge and try to ignore the blighter.

  “Fine. So, how about I bring you up to speed instead? Knox is fully done. The company and assets are now yours. I left Knox Sr. with the house and the trust fund you convinced him to set up for retirement. All that’s left now is waiting for Carson’s senatorial prospects, and I’ve got someone on the inside to shake things up.”

  At the words, I feel a kernel of satisfaction that’s only cut short at the ongoing frustration that we still have no answers as to who set up Remy and Liv’s abduction.

  “Good. I want answers as to the other,” I grumble, feeling my words become more clipped and accented. “I wanted to surprise Remy with her old job, but I can’t till it’s safe enough for her to go out.”

  It’s my patch, my attempt to sort of smooth over the cracks. Perhaps if I give her something she wants, she’ll cut me some bloody slack here. I know that short of spilling my guts to her, I’m not looking good in the ranks. I hate being apart from a woman I have quickly come to realize is so ingrained in me it feels like I’m missing one of my limbs.

  “Dude, take my advice, because I think you really need it, just take the plunge and talk to her. Liv busted my balls good and hard for weeks, only giving me booty and nothing else till I told her all my deep and darks. That spill session, while really awkward and painful, gave me an in and she told me everything about herself. Including some things I would rather not know. It makes me antsy not having the power to beat the shit out of her parents and her ex.”

  God, yes, that’s the way I feel now. I want every part of her, but I’m leery because of who am I now. I know, just know deep down that I won’t react well and having her see that part is not my fondest wish.

  Rather a bastard than a monster I’m thinking, though at this point I can’t in all honesty say she doesn’t already think it. She’s too soft for this new me, but even knowing that, I still won’t give her up.

  “I don’t want her picking at me. Some things she doesn’t need to know. She may be flawed by the way she was raised but I can overlook all that. Deep down she’s innocent. Soft. Good. I want her to always stay that way.”

  Gabe mutters something that sounds suspiciously like a slur to my character and shakes his head, rising with a huff.

  “You aren’t looking at Remy as she is now, Chase old buddy, you’re looking at her through those same rose tinted glasses you wore as a young boy. Take that shit off and give her a chance. I fucking guarantee that when you do, you will see a woman more than pure and strong enough to be your equal.”

  He turns and strides out of my door before I can even venture to answer that bollocks. I left contemplate his words well into the rest of the day, my thoughts not on business or the hundred other trivialities that I’ve been using to bring myself to heel and stay away.

  Can it be true? Have I been painting my wee lass with that same distorted brush I used so many years ago? For sure I’d adored her, but even then I’d been distrustful of her every move and intention. I spent a lot of the time brushing off her attempts to engage me with the notion that she was using me as a means to an end.

  She’d broken things off with Carson at one stage and I’d been over the moon, but still, I hadn’t trusted that she was strong enough to stay the course.

  So maybe Remy is right. I am the problem here. I’ve gone and lumped her into a category that is frankly not very complimentary. I’ve stereotyped her, sabotaged her before she even had a decent chance.

  “Fuck.”

  “Good to see your head’s finally coming out of your ass.”

  I jolt and look up to see Brick leaning nonchalantly against the far wall of the office, his gaze trained on the view over my shoulder, looking for all the world as comfortable as all get out.

  “Christ! Where the fuck did you come from?” I bark, righting the pile of papers I scattered. “I didn’t hear Betty buzz you in.”

  Brick smiles and shrugs lightly. His prowling gait as he stalks forward and falls into a seat with a sigh is grating on my nerves as much as his casual pose and the smile flirting at the edges of his mouth.

  He stretches lazily and brings up a foot to rest on the corner of my desk, not seeming to care that the bloody thing cost more than he makes and used to sit in a British PM’s office in the late nineteenth century.

  “She didn’t. I slipped in with Gabe,” he drawls, making my skin prickle.

  “You’ve been standing there for hours then.”

  “Yup.”

  “Have you any idea how fucking creepy that is, Brick?” I ask with a grimace, wrenching a drawer open to retrieve two glasses and the bottle I have hidden there.

  I pour and slide the glass at him with a flick, almost smiling when he catches it before it can sail over the edge and into his lap.

  “Oh, I dunno. I enjoy watching you stew in your own stupidity man, always entertaining to see the mighty fall and all that. So, you’re getting the picture?”

  Bloody pompous, sanctimonious prick.

  “Shut it you wanker. Fine, I’ll have a talk with her.”

  I may have to get goggle-eyed blitzed to do it without tearing our home apart, but hey, what’s a few drinks when my actions could fix things with my girl.

  “Strange to see you drinking though, man.” He points out.

  “I do sometimes. Not much though.”

  Can’t go back to that. Never.

  “Okay,” he says, blowing out a breath. “So, you’re gonna do it. Might make things easier if you know your girl isn’t as pure and angelic as you think, though.”

  That catches my interest and I lower my glass to stare at him, cocking a brow.

  He laughs, a little darkly, and I see that he’s enjoying wh
atever the hell it is he knows. Wanker.

  “So, I didn’t have to snatch and torture Carson for the truth—it turns out your Remy told Hen and Dec. No, let me finish, man. She told them because it seems she’s enlisting their sleuthing services to tag some info on your targets.”

  I come out of my chair in a rush and start pacing. I know that whatever he’s gearing up to tell me will not be good. Bloody fucking hell. I don’t want Remy involved in any aspect of the ugliness I’m embroiled in.

  “Tell me.”

  Brick sighs and scrubs a hand over his stubbled chin, his actions making my muscles clench with worry. Brick never allows anyone to see emotions unless he wants them to, and not even really then, so whatever he knows is not good and I know it bodes ill for my continued sanity.

  “Won’t tell ya what all she told them because that would be a gross violation of her trust, but believe me, man, the reason behind her current plans is a good one. Your girl’s looking to get revenge on those assholes and I’m buying a front row ticket right now. Hen and Dec both said they pity those bastards after seeing her face and, man, that girl is all kinda pissed if her recent movements are anything to go by.”

  God in heaven, she must know they’re responsible for those photos. I can’t imagine what she must be feeling. Those pics are explicit and raw and leave nothing to the imagination.

  “The photos are only a part of it,” he says, reading my mind in that eerie way he has about him.

  “Brick.”

  “Nah, man. You want the whole story, it’s time for you to pay the piper. Ask her. She wants to tell you.”

  “Fuck. You better be close by.”

  “Aren’t I always, buddy?”

  Chapter 33

  Remy

  Something is most definitely up with Chase tonight. I’m not just saying that because he strode into the house earlier than his usual midnight return.

  Nope, he walked right in, grabbed me and kissed the living shit out of me before slapping my ass and ordering dinner for after he gets out of the shower.