Chapter 4

CHAPTER

FOUR

Noah

I jolted awake to the crunching of tires on snow. Light streamed through dusty drapes, so it was day out. How long had I been asleep? A few hours? The fire had burned down to just smoldering ash and a chill had crept in.

A car door slammed. Killian was back with supplies. I'd convince him to untie me so I could use a proper bathroom, and then, once I'd locked the door, I'd climb out of the bathroom window. There had to be other cabins around. People. Cars. I'd steal a car, drive, and keep on driving. Never, ever return to Boston. Problem solved for everyone.

Boots stomped closer to the cabin, clomped on the porch, and stopped.

What had he stopped for?

The door handle rattled, the door opened, and the man who entered was definitely not Killian. Most of him was thick coat, then my gaze dropped to the rifle in his hand and back up to a grizzled, gnarly face that had seen a few too many harsh winters.

"What the hell do we have here?" the old man said.

"Uh… Hey. Long story, but as you can see, I'm tied up, so if you'd like to let me go, that would be great."

He kicked snow from his boots, closed the door, and shrugged off his coat and draped it over one of the chairs Killian had shoved against the wall. He didn't seem in a hurry. Or all that concerned to find someone tied up in what I assumed to be his cabin. He grabbed a few logs from the stack, stoked the fire, and tossed the logs on, taking his sweet time.

I eyed the gun he'd left by the door. Hunting rifle. Was that what he was doing out here, hunting? The cabin hadn't seemed lived in. It had been cold when we'd arrived. The kind of cold suggesting it had been empty for days, not hours. Why was he here now? Had Killian sent him?

When he straightened and eyed me again, I showed him my bound wrists. "So, yeah, the ropes?"

He barely looked at the ropes, instead staring at my face. "Who did this to you, huh?"

"Probably best not to say."

He stood with his back to the fire, warming himself and not untying me. In fact, his eyes roamed in a way that had me wishing I'd bothered to button my shirt up to my neck. With every passing second of the skin-crawling gaze on me, it was becoming clear he was not going to let me go.

There are dangerous men, like Killian. Men who will pull a trigger without blinking.

Then there are men like this guy, whose vibe was way off and into crazy town. Who the fuck had Killian brought me to?

"Just let me go, and nobody has to mention this to anyone."

"I could do that."

But he wasn't going to. Not with the way he was drooling over at me as though I was his next meal. His bottom lip wobbled, like his hands did. Trembling from age, or something else. I preferred staring down Killian's gun to whatever this was.

He started over, and if he so much as touched me, he'd soon realize I was not gift wrapped for him . Fuck.

He knelt, knees popping, and leered. "You look familiar."

"That's nice." He looked as though he'd climbed out of the window of a high-security mental hospital.

"I know you."

"No." I smiled, trying to be polite. "I don't think so."

"Your Val King's son. Neil… Nolan?"

"No." This guy was going to be a problem.

He reached out and touched my leg. I kicked him off. "The fuck?—"

"Feisty, aren't you," he said with a laugh.

"Touch me again, old man, and find out how feisty I can be."

He lunged, and this was one of those times where growing up as a mob boss's son and being exposed to casual murder paid off. I looped the rope around his neck and cinched it tight, choking off his air. He wasn't big, not like Killian. He struggled, mouth gaping, his bent, sticklike fingers trying to grab at the rope. I held on, even tightened it. Fuck this guy. Nobody touched me like I was meat. As his bucking slowed, I eased off, untangled the rope, and shoved his limp, unconscious body away. He sprawled on the floor—not moving.

I shuddered. "Fuck." And gave him a kick for good measure. He wasn't awake, but I couldn't tell if he was dead and didn't much feel like touching him to find out. With a ragged sigh, I slumped against the couch.

I hadn't meant to kill him, just choke him out. Maybe he'd had a heart attack? If he was dead, hopefully he wasn't someone important to Killian.

Not the best start to the day, but at least he'd put some logs on the fire.

More hours went by, and the logs had burned down again, until finally, the sound of another car engine hummed outside. If it was another fucking rapist so help me God, I'd scream the whole fucking cabin down.

Footsteps stomped up the steps and Killian flew through the door, gun out.

His eyes widened at the dead/unconscious guy on the floor beside me. "What the fuck happened?"

"You brought me to a pervert's murder cabin is what happened."

Rage swallowed the shock on Killian's face. I'd only seen that look on him once before, when he'd dragged me out of a brawl—a murderous look that left no room for doubt. That ruthless glare fluttered my heart, stealing my breath. "Did he touch you?" Killian growled.

"He didn't get that far."

Killian strode over, aimed the gun at the man's chest, and fired. Blood splatters dashed my chest. I flinched. And he fired again, this time in the man's head. The first shot had probably been enough, but the second one left no room for argument. He was for sure dead now.

"Jesus, there's blood on my shirt." A few splatters dribbled down my chest.

" Nobody touches you," Killian growled, then turned on his heel and left the cabin. I stared after him, blinking. What the fuck was that?

He reappeared with a bag of groceries tucked under one arm. All right, color me confused, but what was happening here? He brings me out to the woods to kill me, then gets all macho-protective when someone else tries to have a go?

And now he was unpacking groceries in the kitchen as if he hadn't just shot a man I'd strangled?

Killian sauntered back into the living room, coming straight for me. He loomed and handed me a beer. I took it with both my bound hands, thoughts falling over how—this close, with him peering down at me—his pants hugged thick, sculpted thighs, and how the black T-shirt he wore strained to contain his chest. He'd always looked good, but maybe a little murder on my behalf had me reassessing Killian Donovan. Because fuck, he was hot when he got his murder on.

"Who is he?" I asked, taking a swig.

"Garren Reed. Piece of shit your father knows. I didn't think he'd be up here."

"Guess he didn't think you'd be here either."

We both stared at the dead man, drinking our beers in a weird moment of mutual disgust and something else. Some kind of shared chill.

"You going to untie me now?" I asked, breaking the comfortable silence we'd fostered over a dead body.

He downed the last of his beer and set the bottle down on a table he'd pushed to the side of the room. "Are you going to run?"

"I might," I admitted. "I haven't decided. Are you going to kill me?"

"I haven't decided." His mouth, always fixed in a stern line, ticked. It ticked . Which for him was a full-blown grin. And that tiny little twitch changed his mean face into something a lot more interesting. Made him seem younger too, not the miserable, grumpy dickhead asshole who my father sent after me. But an actual living breathing human being. He maybe even had a heart under all that macho bullshit, since he'd gotten all ragey after learning the wannabe rapist had almost touched me up.

"Wow, you can smile."

"I'm not smiling." He stopped smiling.

"I saw it. It's okay. I won't tell anyone. If you untie me." I used both hands to drink from the beer bottle again, hoping he took pity on my sorry state. "Also, I really need to… go." I glanced at the unused bucket. "And neither of us needs the trauma of that. Come on, man, be a human, not the gorilla you pretend to be." I raised my hands and fluttered my lashes.

There was that tiny twitch again. Look at that. A little miracle of a smile. Two in three minutes, in fact.

"Fine, you can help me clean this up. But if you fuck me, Noah, I'll be digging two graves."

He came over and untied the ropes. I watched his big fingers work, unpicking each knot. There was something about a man with capable hands. He didn't waste gestures; when he used his hands—like when pulling a gun—he meant it.

Finally free of the chafing restraints, I hurried to the bathroom.

"Keep the door open," he groused.

"Jesus." A glance over my shoulder revealed him leaning against the back of the couch, arms crossed over his barrel chest, dark eyes on me. "You going to watch me? I might start thinking you and your dead friend there want the same thing."

"Reed was no friend of mine." His eyes skipped way. "Shut the door, then."

I swung the door shut and eyed the narrow window. It wasn't locked. I might have been able to squeeze through. But I really needed to piss.

"You won't make it more than a few miles," Killian grumbled behind the door, sounding closer now. Did he have fucking X-ray vision?

I unzipped my pants and did the necessary, sighing out my relief.

"It's below freezing," he went on. "You'll start out fine, then within the hour become confused, start wandering in circles. Delirious. Hypothermia. You'll wish I'd shot you."

I rolled my eyes. He knew all the best ways to die. "How do you know that shit?"

"So, don't climb out the window."

I frowned at the window, finished up, and tucked my dick away. Farewell to that escape plan. "I wasn't going to." What was I going to do? I stared at the filthy mirror, washed my hands, and wiped my face clean of blood. If I stayed, there was a fifty-fifty chance he'd come to his senses and put a bullet in the back of my head, probably when digging the grave for his not-friend.

Unless Killian planned to stand against my father, I wasn't getting out of this. Killian wasn't as dumb as he looked. He'd have figured out I wasn't going to get a happy ending, same as I had. He'd fucked up my assassination once, but he'd have to pull the trigger eventually.

If my father found out I was still alive, Killian would be killed right alongside me.

Or, we figured out who the asshole was who had lied and put me in crosshairs. Maybe if we found the liar, we might have some negotiating room with my father.

It could have been any number of my father's men. I wasn't short of enemies. Most of the Back Bay family wanted me gone. Killian included. At least, I'd thought he did. Now? Now, I wasn't sure what he wanted.

"Open the door or I'm breaking it in."

I opened the door, found him with his arms braced on the doorframe, his handsome, snarly face right there, and cocked a hip. Now I'd noticed how pretty his eyes were, it was impossible not to notice them. Long, soft black lashes, like my expensive paintbrushes. Bad men like him shouldn't be allowed to have such gorgeous eyes. "You going to let me through or do I have solve a riddle?"

He blinked, realized he was holding me up, and stepped aside. "Your smart mouth is going to get you killed," he grumbled as I sauntered by.

Ah, that was what he'd been looking at: my smart mouth.

A trickle of lust tingled down my spine. Strange, how I liked how he'd been staring at my lips. Killian Donovan was not my type. Besides that weird month-long crush, after seeing him work out. Too muscular, too monosyllabic, too old. And then there was the fact he was straight. And uninterested. I'd have known if he was into guys. Or anything with a heartbeat. All the times he'd scooped me off the floor of some bar restroom with questionable clients who sold their company by the blow job, not once had he made a suggestive remark.

Maybe he wasn't into sex.

Shame though. Underneath those basic black clothes was a body that wouldn't quit. He'd fuck like an animal. And I wasn't thinking about that. I'd gotten over my Killian Donovan phase. I did not need a deep dive back into that fantasy, especially while he was holding me captive.

"As much as I like beer for breakfast, did you bring any real food?" I asked, heading for the kitchen.

"We should move Reed," Killian said, moving to the corpse. "It'll be easier while he's warm."

Oh fucking joy.

Killian looked over. "You hold his legs."

This was not how I'd planned to spend the first Saturday of the rest of my life.

"Grab his coat."

I scooped up the dead guy's big coat and handed it out as Killian lifted the body under the arms.

"It's for you," he said, sounding irritated. "It's cold out."

I shrugged it on, grabbed the dead guy's limp legs, and helped carry the body to the door. "Won't the ground be frozen?"

"There's a spot out back, under a bunch of crates. Dirt will be softer there."

He took all this in stride, as if it were just another day at the office. My father had learned early on that I'd rather throw paint at a canvas than kill people, and that was about the time he'd given up on being a father too. He'd have probably preferred he had a son like Killian. Someone strong, someone who knew how to dispose of a corpse, who could take over the family business. Not me, an art major who was good at spending money but not making it.

Outside, a dusting of snow fell. Killian handed me a shovel, and we got to digging while sharing a strange, contented silence. The sounds of the shovel cutting into dirt filled the quiet, and all right, maybe it was kinda okay, being next to him?

Was this fucking Stockholm syndrome? How quick did that shit kick in? It hadn't even been a whole day since he'd had me on my knees and his gun in my mouth, and now I was out in the snow, digging a grave, as though we were friends.

Jesus, I needed to get my head on straight.

Killian worked for my father. Always had. Always would. His loyalty was with the family, and I already knew he believed me a risk to all that.

If he'd believed that though, he would have killed me. And he hadn't. Not yet, anyway.

"Did you tell my father I'm gone?" I blew into my hands. I hadn't been digging for a while, too fucking cold. Each of Killian's shovels shifted twice as much dirt as mine anyway.

He peered up from the bottom of the hole. He wasn't wearing a coat. Steam rose off his broad shoulders, and okay, maybe I'd been watching how all those muscles moved because the free porn was keeping me warm. "I told him," he said flatly.

"How'd he take it?" I doubted my father would have shed a tear, but the little boy in me hoped he had, for reasons I didn't fucking understand. I knew he didn't care, but I'd always hoped one day he would wake up and love me.

Killian shoved the shovel in the dirt and then paused. "He…"

"He didn't bat an eye, did he?"

"No." He winced.

"Well, fuck." I laughed. It was that or scream. "Is that hole deep enough, because I'm freezing my balls off."

"Go inside, I'll finish up."

Alone? Like I could be trusted not to run? "You sure?"

He grunted something as he climbed out of the hole and grabbed the dead guy's ankles. I glanced at the cabin, pining after the warmth of the fireplace, but also, I'd helped some, and the deal was he'd untie me if I helped bury the body. Whatever he thought of me, I kept my word.

We dumped Garren Reed in the hole, and together, shovel by shovel, we filled in the grave, covering the newly disturbed earth with crates. Nobody would find him, if anyone bothered to search.

"Nice work," Killian said, brushing clumps of dirt from his hands.

Was it weird, how we both stood over a grave, muddy, half smiling as the snow fell around us, and I liked it? Liked it a lot. Like… fuck, what was going on here? And how come Killian wasn't growling and shoving me around? How come he hadn't pulled a gun and shot me?

Why wasn't I in that grave?

Was it stupid to think Killian didn't want me dead because he cared? Like nobody had ever cared for me before?