Prescott

So plain looking, he couldn’t stand out in a sea of black. But he wears tailored suits, a cunning smile and the confidence of a man who never had to count his pennies. Likes: Drinking, screwing and using his father’s power to get his way. Loves: Me. Hates: Everything and everyone who might get between him and me.

“Put the gun down.” My pitch dances high and low. Shit. It could have been different, if Nate wasn’t here. I would care much less about my death.

I know Camden, and if he kills me, he’ll grieve for me more than he grieved for his dad. He’s been peppering me with kisses, wet with tears and his stinking cigarette saliva, ever since he hit me and dragged me out of his car. He ordered Simon to stay in the living room and wait for Nate as he pulled me into his bedroom, kissing, crying, apologizing and slapping me across the face all at once.

So mad. So crazy. So, so insane.

He’s rambling, something about how we could’ve been great parents. I don’t hear a word he says. The only sound that bounces inside my skull is Nate, Nate, Nate.

He’s hurt. I can’t turn around to look because of the gun that’s digging into my temple, but the blood. . .Nate’s blood is making its way to my feet. I see it running over to where I sit on the floor like a wounded animal begging to be saved, the copper scent so strong it fills my mouth, even though it’s nowhere near my tongue. Trying not to gag, I pop my neck back and forth and inhale deeply.

Please don’t die on me. Please don’t go.

It would hurt so much more than the beatings I endured from my ex-boyfriend.

“I need to take him to the hospital, Camden. You’re not your dad. You can’t get rid of two bodies without leaving evidence. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”

He wrenches me by the hair so that my ear meets his lips, the skin of my forehead stretches from the impact of his grip.

“You can’t give me what I want, because you already gave it to the poor sod who is dying on the floor behind us. That’d be your heart, by the way.”

My goddamn tears betray me again. I’m shaking violently. He’s dying. My peace, my everything, may already be gone.

“Camden, anything. Name it. I’ll give it to you. I came here for my brother, not for you,” I lie. “I’m over what happened between us. I just want my family back.”

And Nate is my family.

I’m trying to sound firm, but not desperate.

“I don’t want your life, Prescott. I want what I set out for. Even after everything you’ve done to me. . .to my family. All I want is you. That cold thing that beats inside your chest,” he hisses, grabbing onto my left boob and pinching hard. I feel urine trickling between my thighs, which prompts my eyes to leak too. “That’s the thing I ache for.”

“Then have me. Let me take him to the hospital, release Preston, and I’ll come back. I promise.”

Nate has his fake passport and some money left. He could make it, and help Preston. Complete my quest in my absence. I trust him. That’s if he’s still alive. I might fall behind and become a slave again. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay after everything he’s done for me. It’s a price I want to pay, despite the consequences.

Camden places his lips on top of my head again, stroking it like I’m a fragile doll. It’s chilling. His way of treating me like nothing more than an object.

“You miss your brother.”

Careful not to react, I stare blankly at the wall. Camden wants to squeeze the shit out of my despair and agony. Breaking apart will only make him stall.

“How old is he now?” Camden muses, his fingers tickling the sensitive spot behind my ear. He used to do that when we fell asleep together. Now, he does it to taunt me.

“Shouldn’t you know? Your father said he’s with you,” I sniff my runny nose, unable to keep this inside me anymore.

There’s a dramatic pause of words and movements, before he resumes running his fingers through my hair. His tone is calm and blasé.

“Prescott, love, what are you on about? Preston is dead.” I feel a shot of pain straight to my heart. He tugs my hair a little, enough to make my skull burn, still brushing my blonde waves. “He practically begged us to kill him. After you had my father and Sebastian locked up for years”—he smiles, reminiscing about the time like it was a sweet memory—“I got mad, and naturally, wanted to get even. I know you don’t care for your dad very much, and that your mom is in a crazy asylum. That left me with. . .” He extends my neck, forcing me to stare at his broad smile. “Baby Brother Dearest.”

I want to cry, to scream, but am too paralyzed to do any of those things. Preston is no longer alive. My brother. My only real family. Nate, by the lack of sound or labored breaths, is dead too.

Everything I care for—gone.

“In hindsight, I could’ve handled it better. He came to me trying to find you. Bad timing.”

Shit, Preston, shit. I told him not to look for me after he gave me the money. He wanted to save me and got killed for it.

“When he realized what I’d done to you, it was too much. I gave him two options—end up as my slave or say goodbye. He didn’t even blink.” Camden rests his forehead on mine and our eyes level. “Preston pressed his forehead to the barrel like a trooper. He had balls, I’ll give him that.”

I’m peeing myself. Doing exactly the thing I wanted to bring Camden to do. Shattered into mosaic pieces of pain and agony.

“You pulled the trigger?” My teeth chatter.

“I did,” Camden confirms. “I’m sorry, Diabla. I was quite mad at you back then. Well, we both were a little over the top, weren’t we?” He chuckles.

My fists flex and my vision clouds. “Please. No more death. Let me take Nate to the hospital. You want me? You can have me. Just let him go.”

Camden shakes his head, sighing heavily. I look at the man I thought I used to love and hate myself for letting him into my life. His face drips malice, his usual cocky glint replaced with a mad glow. It’s the same insanity I saw in his father’s eyes before I finished him. An electrifying intensity that will shut off like a power outage the minute he’s dead. He blankets me in the scent of stale cigarettes and Royal Mayfair fragrance. His lips press into my throat.

“You’ll never be mine. I saw the way you looked at him. If I keep you, you will kill me. It would only be a matter of time. You’re a hurricane, Diabla. I can’t risk you blowing up my life.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I won’t, I won’t. I promise. I’m done. Let me take him and I’ll leave. You have my word.”

He seems to be considering this. His hand is still buried in my hair as he strokes it lightly. Lovingly. Sickly. Is Camden about to do the right thing for once? He finally believes me when I say his father raped me all the time I was trapped in that apartment.

“What happened to us, Prescott? We could’ve been good together. Now I have to kill you, so you won’t kill me.”

“No you don’t. I’ll stay away.”

“You’ll be desperate and poor,” he snaps. His palm twitches as he fights the urge to slap me. “And you’ll get back to doing what you do best—hustling. If I let you go, I’ll need to make sure you’re being taken care of financially.”

The conversation confuses me. My head is about to explode. Does Camden want to help me now? After killing my brother? After killing my lover?

“My father touched you.” I hear his voice above my head. “Repeatedly.”

I nod, eyes on the ground. “Seb would watch. It was the only thing that made him smile.”

When I look up, a tear hangs on his fair lashes. That’s when I see that behind the cheater, the abuser, the man who ruined me, my baby-brother’s killer, is still the thirty-year-old guy I once fell for. His eyes flicker as mine turn off.

“Kill me,” I whisper. I mean it. I’ve nothing to live for anymore without Nate and Preston.

He kisses my lips and I let him, because it doesn’t matter anymore.

“No, Diabla. That wouldn’t be fair. Know what is fair? Russian Roulette. A game of chance and dare. Now, there’s only a single round in my revolver. Then again,” he says and brushes the barrel softly across my cheek, whispering into the shell of my ear, “It’s my lucky bullet in there. Life or death? Decisions, decisions. Where do you want me to aim the gun?”

“Temple,” I swallow. I want it to be quick.

“Not very original, but whatever tickles your fancy.”

I feel the gun sliding against my sweaty temple effortlessly, plowing into my flesh like a nasty migraine, and squeeze my eyes shut.

The sound of the spinning cylinder dances in my ear, so terribly close, and I hold my breath, the air trapped in my lungs. I want to die. I need to rest. I need my peace. Maybe it won’t be in the form of Nate, but at least it’d be quiet. At least I’d be safe.

The cylinder stops spinning and everything is illuminated by the silence.

Click.

Am I alive?

I don’t know.

I feel my body quivering frantically, sweat and my own urine making me glide across the floor. But I also feel pain. I need to do something. Try and lift my hand or blink. Why is it so hard to move? My brain commands me to do something, but my body doesn’t comply.

My brain. It still works. The realization sends shivers down my arms.

I’m alive. I’m going to be okay. If Nate makes it out of this room with me. If not, the bullet might have been the best thing that could’ve happened to me.

“Camden,” I plead. He knows what I’m asking for. Uttering it aloud is unnecessary.

“This guy doesn’t deserve you.” Camden throws himself back on the recliner and pats his pants for his pack of smokes. Lighting up one, he sends a rancid cloud to the ceiling. “Besides, he’s probably dead.”

“It’s over. Everybody got what they deserved. Let’s just move on.” I prompt. Other than you. You get to walk away unaffected. I killed his dad, but Camden only ever cared about the money and the power. The thought of letting him walk away from this makes sour bile tickle my throat, but I care more about Nate.

“I want you out of my life and off this island, Prescott. And I’m willing to pay. One hundred grand. In cash. If you walk out of here and promise not to retaliate. See this as my farewell gift to you. . .and as my apology about Preston.”

He’s going to let us go. He really does love me in his own, screwed-up way.

My voice shakes. “I promise.”

“So now,” he says, while his hand snakes to my jaw, his finger tucked under my chin, angling me to face him. “All I need is a souvenir.”

“Anything.” I feel his other fist gripping me from the base of my hair and dragging me to his crotch. For a second, I think I know what he means and am tempted to bite off his dick. It was bad enough to go through this when my heart didn’t belong to anyone but myself. But with Nate lying here, I’d never be able to do it.

“Something of yours,” he continues, twisting my head to face him. I collapse backward and reposition so that I’m sitting with my body facing his. He likes that. His smile suggests victory.

“What?” I keep peeking behind him, trying to catch glances of Nate.

“An arm? An ear?” he wonders aloud. “A finger.” He grabs my palm and strokes it, his scowl melts into a grin. “You always had beautiful fingers. Thin, delicate. . .and mine.”

White dots fill my vision. He wants one of my fingers? How the hell would he. . .I know exactly how. I get it now. Camden wants to punish me. Not for what I did to his father and Sebastian. He wants to see me tortured for giving my heart to someone else.

“This is punishment for Nate, isn’t it?” I grit out.

He nods once. “Smart girl.”

“You asked for someone else’s hand,” I argue. “The wedding might be postponed, but you’re still going to take her as your wife.”

“Marriage of convenience,” he says simply and pats my cheek, like I’m a loveable puppy. “She’s a bloody Lady. And a rich one, at that. But my heart will always belong to you.”

Yeah, but your dick was everyone else’s. But I don’t care anymore. I just want to crawl to Nate and mourn him quietly. Screw my fingers.

“Take a finger, Camden. Just be quick.”

He gets up from his chair. “I was never one to stall when it comes to violence.”

The minute he strides out of the room, I slither toward Nate’s prone figure. There’s so much blood around him, his white shirt is soaked. I’m crying and grabbing on to his cold cheeks, begging him to say something, but he’s limp. There’s a faint pulse in his neck. I need to get him to the hospital as soon as possible. I don’t have my phone on me; Camden tossed it out of his car when he took me, and if I yell from the window for help, my ex-boyfriend might backtrack on his offer.

Camden steps back into the room with a wrench.

“Give me your hand, pretty lady.” He’s still standing up, me kneeling before him, his index finger curled for me to crawl closer. I do.

“Pick a finger.”

I offer him my left pinkie.

“Oh. Come on now. Give us something you’d actually miss. How about your right hand’s index?”

“Fine,” I bite. Just take the whole arm and let me attend to my boyfriend, I want to scream.

When the cool iron touches my bony finger, I wince and look away, but when I feel it twisting against my skin, I think about Nate. How it would feel to have it all with him. The life he offered me. We would have it by now had I pushed away my thirst for revenge. I don’t even want Camden’s life anymore. It’s so hollow and meaningless, now that I know what real pain feels like.

Not the wrench. Physical pain is nothing.

Nate.

After my bones disconnect with a chilling sound, Camden produces a knife from his back pocket and cuts the skin surrounding it. The burn is agonizing. The pain is everywhere. I want him to tear my whole limb apart so that I don’t feel the throb between my fingers. I shake my head back and forth, biting back my scream.

“All done,” Camden says cheerily, tucking the wrench in his back pocket and fisting my ripped body part. “Remember, sweetheart, if you come after me, I will pluck the rest of your organs one by one.”

I collapse on my stomach and moan.

“Please, let me make one phone call. I have to take him to the hospital,” I groan in pain.

“Don’t take advantage of my kindness,” he taunts, laughing to himself. “Drag him down to the street. It’s only two floors. Goodbye, love. I wish I were strong enough to kill us both. But the truth is, I love you too much to see you go so young. Enjoy what’s left of your life, Prescott. I fully intend to enjoy mine.”

With that, he strides out of the room with my finger clutched firmly in his hand. I’m confused, but I don’t have time to dwell on my grave situation. Camden caught me, exposed and unprepared, armed with a muscle man and a plan, two things I didn’t have with me.

Still bleeding from where my finger used to be, I grab Nate by the hem of his jeans and drag him out of the room into the corridor. He’s heavy as hell, too tall for me to be able to maneuver him alone. I bang his limp body against the doorframe by accident, but he doesn’t even flinch. My arms burn and my legs shake under the strain of his weight, as I pull him out to the living room area of the apartment, one inch at a time. I catch Simon lying flat on the floor, his neck cut open. I drag Nate outside the apartment, but this is an old Victorian building. There’s no elevator.

The adrenaline that exploded in my veins subdues, and I feel the sharp pain in my hand and my thighs itching with my own urine. I have to hurry up before I faint.

Reluctantly, I round behind Nate’s head and grab him by his shoulders, each arm hooked under an armpit, and protecting his head. I slide him down the stairs, all while trying to pull him up to me so his head won’t take a hit. He looks so fragile, even with his huge size, with his eyes closed and that hole in his stomach.

The minute I get out of the building, I lose it. Every ounce of self-control evaporates as I yell for help. I grab strangers by the collar, staining them with my blood and sweat, begging them to call an ambulance, knowing that they are going to call the police too, but I’m far too gone to care. Trapped in a bubble made of insanity, I desperately want to burst. It’s ironic, my need to be strong for a man who is my only weakness.

I can’t lose him. Can’t let go of my peace.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re both at St. Mary’s Hospital.

Nate is being ushered to the operating room while I fight the staff who are trying to tend to my wound, demanding to join him.

The art of letting go. Camden thought he was bad at it, but me, I’m worse.

Five hours later, my hand is wrapped up and Nate is recovering in the other room. He lost a lot of blood and had to have a transfusion, but Simon didn’t manage to reach any of his inner organs. I was not allowed to stay by his side as I’m not next-to-kin, but the minute he wakes up, he asks for me. A nurse approaches my sad plastic table in the cafeteria and places her palm over my bandaged hand. “Your companion said he’d like to see Miss Cockburn?”

Nate is still subdued under mountains of morphine, but he squeezes my healthy hand when we meet. His lips are chapped and he has an IV drip attached to his arm.

“He’s dead,” I croak as soon as my ass hits the chair beside his bed. I’m too tired to cry. “Preston. Camden killed him.”

“Baby-Cakes.” His sucks in a shaky breath, stroking my palm in his. He doesn’t need to tell me he’s sorry. It’s all in his facial expression, wrapped in grief.

He knew this all along, I didn’t want to listen.

Our foreheads meet, and I take a whiff of my peace. Fragile and hurt, it’s still there. I used to look at Nate as someone invincible who could catch a bullet in his hand. Now I know that he is mortal, like me. It makes me love him even more.

“Tell me something beautiful,” his lips speak into mine. This time, I don’t have to search my brain for an answer. No words written by someone else can do us justice.

“Us,” I rasp. “We’re beautiful and ugly and broken. . .and whole.”

Four days later, the police finally come to terms with the fact that they aren’t getting anything from us. “Snitches are bitches,” Nate whispered to my neck when they first arrived in his hospital room. I stick to my story that a bunch of teenagers in beanies cornered us in an alleyway, stabbed Nate, cut my finger out when I didn’t want to give them my bag and ran away with our money. We’re just two tourists from America who want to go home and lick our wounds. It’s a crazy lie no one believes, but you can’t force the truth out of people. Especially people like us.

A week later, we’re free. Me sans a finger, Nate with a new, fresh scar on his stomach. Simon hit a spot that’s already heavily covered in ink. His “tainted” side, as Nate calls it. The scar will not be visible under the steampunk clock scribbled on his stomach.

Time.

Our whole lives are ahead of us now.

I need to live mine in memory of my loving brother, who couldn’t handle hearing how much I suffered at the hands of monsters. In memory of my mother, who went crazy with grief. And with Nate in mind. For all the time he lost in prison. While being Godrey’s do-boy. But he’s not a memory. He’s my future.

We walk into the tube station hand in hand, taking the train back to our room to get our stuff and move into a hotel that can better accommodate our new, fragile situation.

The missing finger bothers me; it feels unnatural to do the simplest things, from flipping pages in a book to browsing the touch screen of my phone or even making coffee.

I pluck a free copy of the Metro from a stack of newspapers before getting into the subway, my mind begging for a distraction. We walk the length of the platform silently before I freeze. Camden’s face is smiling back at me from the first page, hugging a beautiful young woman who looks like some kind of a ginger princess. “The Wedding is On!” The headline celebrates. My knees buckle and nausea slams into me once again.

Nate’s nostrils flare and he grabs the paper, balling it in his fist and throwing it behind his shoulder without looking back.

Our train arrives, and he finds himself dragging me inside. This was a bitter reminder of my defeat. This man raped me, killed my brother and ruined my life, and he walked away free of punishment. What’s more, he bribed me with money, and I took it. Because I’m a coward. Because I’m a loser. Because I’m the very lowlife he treated me as. A part of me wants to chase after him, screw the money, and kill him. But a bigger part knows I value my second chance with Nate too much to fuck it up again.

“Camden is still alive. We lost,” I tell Nate, resting my head against the blue seat of the subway and moving my palm across my face

“No, Baby-Cakes.” He pulls my head to his shoulder. “We survived.”