22. ~Brianna~

22

~Brianna~

A strip club.

Sultry Sirens.

That was where Tommy was spending his night.

I really hadn't known him at all.

Not the true him, anyway.

Just the fa?ade he'd put on to win me over and then keep me close.

To weaken me, I suspected. To keep me immersed in my trauma.

He'd claimed he hated this sort of place.

He'd never even looked twice at any of the club girls.

And whenever one of the club members had strippers in the clubhouse for their birthdays, he'd never participated.

Just not around me, clearly.

"Shithole," I murmured as Levi and I passed through the doors and into the place, hair metal blasting through the club.

His hand slid into mine in his protective and possessive way.

But that was all he did.

He'd let me go in first, he hadn't tried to talk me out of doing this.

Despite his need to ensure I was safe and well and all of that, he was also working hard just like Mason and Colt were not to be overbearing about it or to take away my agency.

My leather jacket with the studs and pink stripes across the hard black leather swished with my rapid movements like my ponytail as we made our way through the place.

Levi was decked out in his go-to cargo pants and packing heat, just in case, and wearing his well-worn riding jacket too.

We'd come down here on his Harley.

I had a little something on me too, the blade he'd given me stowed in my inside jacket pocket.

"This is the second time in a few weeks that I've set foot in one of these seedy places," Levi commented, his eyes bouncing off all the topless women serving drinks, some performing lap dances, others up on the stages working their moves on the golden, glittering poles.

There was no fakery with him. he could barely stand it.

"Second time?" I wondered.

"Yeah, it was that night I went to see Kyle Trass. He owns one now."

"Huh. Want a lap dance while we're here?"

"From you , yes. But in private. I don't want anyone seeing you in your throes-of-passion state. Only me, Mason, and Colt get to see that. Our eyes only, baby."

" Throes of passion state," I chuckled to myself. "You're too sweet."

"Keep my sweet side to yourself for tonight. This fucker's only getting my scary and fucked-up side."

I leaned into him as we continued scanning the place for Tommy. "You'll give me a taste of that sweetness later?"

"Damn, Brianna. You're not making it easy to remain focused and on-mission."

I pulled away smiling. "Sorry, just you and me going on mission together is hot as hell."

"Yeah?" he said, briefly tapping into that sexy teasing tone of his.

" Hell, yeah, lovely."

"Fuck, woman." He stilled suddenly, then pointed. "There's the motherfucker."

I followed his gesture to see that long, dirty-blond hair skimming the shoulders of an off-white tank, that hawk tattoo on his right shoulder.

He was with one of the strippers, her hand delving into the back pockets of his jeans as she led him to one of the back pleasure rooms.

We headed over there and Levi hung back as we'd agreed, while I stealthily entered the dimly lit room.

The pleasure had gotten underway quickly.

Now that was an aspect of him that was the truth then. He'd always been wham-bam-all-done whenever we'd been together.

I couldn't see his face because the girl grinding on him was blocking the view.

But then I heard his voice as he fisted his hand in her hair and held her painfully to him as he hissed, "While we're in here, you're Brianna, got it?"

Revulsion rolled through me.

It got worse when she nodded, he shifted his grip to her ass, then told her, "Call me Big Daddy, bitch. You got me?"

"Yeah, okay," she said quietly.

As the names thing hit me, I realized that the girl had long, flowy black hair like me, and my compact build. She was also decked out in all pink.

A shudder rolled through me—he knew about that change in me then.

Her shiny pink booty shorts ground back and forth on his lap as he lounged in the velvet chair with his eyes closed, his hands spread over her breasts that were encased in a silky hot-pink bustier.

"Harder. Roll those hips for Big Daddy. Please me like the whore that you are for me."

Eww.

In the next beat, I drew my knife, took aim, the tossed it.

It cut through the air violently and embedded in his right thigh.

He shrieked and the girl gasped and jumped off him.

She spun around and took in me there. "Go, I'll take care of this creeper."

She nodded frantically and gave me a grateful smile, then rushed off, past Levi who was outside guarding the door.

Tommy eyed me incredulously. "What the fuck? How are you here?"

"That was one hell of a show," I said, sauntering toward him.

His eyes were all over me, flaring with erotic need.

"Yeah? You think so? Finish it with me. Show me how jealous seeing another woman with me made you, B. Take it out on me."

Urgh.

When I reached him, I yanked the knife out, then smashed my fist into the side of his face, making his head snap back. "A sick show, you piece of shit! How fucking dare you?"

He went to push out of the chair, to come at me, but I spun my knife in my hand, making the threat clear.

"What the fuck is your problem?"

"That's my question. You're working for Malcolm Lynch."

He paled. "How do you—did Knight find that out for you? Little interfering shit."

"I found it out."

"What?" He scoffed. "No. Don't bother protecting him."

"I'm not. There you are, though, completely discounting me and underestimating me. Is that what Lynch ordered you to do? To gaslight me? To keep me down? To have me reeling in what happened?"

"Yeah, all right? That was the deal." He smiled nastily. "And it worked. Like a fucking charm."

"When? When did you start working for him?"

"Six months before the kidnapping. He needed somebody on the inside."

"You betrayed me! Betrayed the club!"

"It wasn't personal. Just money. A hell of a lot of money. Well, and getting to fuck the club princess. That was a big time achievement I was real proud of. You being so scared and submissive after Lynch fucked you up was a treat too." He winked. "I like them pliant."

Something caught my eye in my peripheral vision, a moment before Tommy shrieked as a knife plunged into his groin, driving deep through the denim of his jeans.

He collapsed to his knees, shrieking and shrieking non-stop.

Levi bolted past me and took him in a sleeper hold, slapping his hand over his mouth to silence his screams. "Take your punishment, motherfucker."

Before I could get over the shock of him suddenly rushing in here and doing that to Tommy, he reached underneath Tommy's jacket, then he was tossing me a gun.

"He didn't leave his Desert Eagle at the door. The woman who ran out of here warned me."

"Shit," I breathed.

He smiled at me. "Got you, baby. Always." That smile faded as he glared down at Tommy flailing in his arms in horrific pain. "You want to do the honors? Or should I?"

"The knife to the dick was satisfying enough for me. More than I could have hoped for."

"Well, the punishment fit the crime. He hurt you, played you… he's working for the monster who tortured us. He can't survive that."

"No," I ground out, glaring at Tommy with a dangerous cocktail of fury and vengeance. "He can't."

As much as I knew that to be true, and that he was too dangerous to be left alive with his close association with Malcolm Lynch, and knowing that we'd tracked him, what we were capable of together, I still fucking well hesitated as I stepped forward to finish him with my blade.

Levi, knowing me so well and being his amazingly attentive self to my needs, noticed right away and recognized what it meant.

He yanked the knife from Tommy's groin, then jabbed it into his eye, killing him in an instantaneous move.

Releasing him, he got to his feet and spat on his corpse with absolute disgust.

He dialed Roman's unit waiting in the wings hidden outside to shut the strip club down for the night so they could come in and conduct their cleanup and bury the body—literally and figuratively.

And then he was there, wrapping his arms around me. "He's gone. That chapter of your life is over. The lies and manipulation have died along with him. It's brutal justice. It was necessary, my Wildflower."

My Wildflower.

That was what I held onto in order to fight off the chill that ran through me as the cold, hard reality of taking a life started to sink in all too quickly.

I shored up my conviction.

He'd suffered because of his own crimes.

I'd been used and abused and so much of that in my life had come down to Malcolm Lynch and his acolytes.

Tommy Dixon was just another one of them.

And now he'd been defeated like all of them would be soon enough.

"I love you," I breathed to Levi.

"I love you. No one will ever hurt us again. It's our time now, Brianna. All ours."

It really was.

And soon we'd both be able to feel that once this last mission was completed.

Soon there would actually be peace for us after all.