Brutal Prince: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (Brutal Birthright Book 1) Page 24

  So I pull my shirt partly over my face and run up the stairs, thinking only of Aida.

  I let my guard down. I’m not holding my gun up.

  As soon as I reach the head of the stairs, Oliver charges me from the side, with all the speed and technique of the athlete he once was. He barrels into me so hard that we slam into the opposite wall, smashing into the drywall. My gun goes spinning off down the hallway, hitting the doorjamb and disappearing into one of the rooms.

  Oliver is hitting me with both fists, throwing wild haymakers and body shots. By bad luck, one of his blows lands directly on my amateur appendectomy, ripping open the stitches and making me roar with pain.

  He’s an inch shorter than me, but probably thirty pounds heavier. Plus, he’s been in plenty of frat-boy brawls.

  He’s not a trained fighter, though. After the initial shock and the wild onslaught, I get my hands up and block several of his punches, before hitting him in the stomach and jaw.

  The hits barely seem to faze him. His face is almost unrecognizable—his hair is a tangled mess, he’s got a manic gleam in his eyes, and dried blood has run from his nose down around his mouth and chin, like some macabre goatee.

  “Where is she, you fucking psychopath?” I shout, fists up.

  Oliver swipes the back of his hand across his face as fresh blood seeps from his nose.

  “She belonged to me first, and she’ll belong to me last,” he growls.

  “She was never yours!” I shout.

  Oliver dives at me again, grabbing for my knees. He’s so reckless and inflamed that he knocks me backward down the stairs. We go tumbling end over end, the side of my head slamming against one of the bare wood steps.

  Oliver gets the worst of it, though. He’s on the bottom when we crash down on the landing. It knocks him out cold—or, so it appears.

  The smoke in the air is thicker than ever, and I’m breathing hard from the fight. I double over with a fit of coughing, hacking so hard that I feel a sharp pain in my ribs, like I just popped one out of place. Or Oliver broke it when he threw his giant body at me.

  I drag myself back up the steps, shouting, “AIDA! Aida, where are you?”

  The shouting scratches my smoke-filled throat. I cough harder than ever, tears streaming out of my eyes.

  Oliver seizes my ankle and yanks, pulling my feet out from under me. I fall straight down on the top stair, my jaw slamming against the wooden edge. I kick out hard with my foot, wrenching it out of Castle’s grasp and ramming the heel of my dress shoe directly into his eye. Oliver goes tumbling backward, back down to the landing.

  I’m scrambling up the steps again. The upper part of the house is filling with smoke and I can feel the heat rising up from the kitchen. The fire must be all across the first floor now. I don’t even know if we’ll be able to get back down the stairs. Assuming Aida is even up here.

  She’s got to be up here. Because if she’s anywhere else in the house, she’s already dead.

  I run down the hallway, opening every door and looking in every room as I pass. Bathroom. Linen closet. Empty bedroom. Then at last, at the end of the hall, I find the master suite. It’s devoid of furniture like all the rooms, the house cleared out for sale. But there’s a figure laying in the middle of the floor, hands tied in front of her, feet bound with rope, head propped up on a pillow. Nice. I’m glad he made sure she was comfy before he tried to burn her alive.

  I run over to Aida, lifting her head and turning her face so I can make sure she’s alright.

  I press my fingers against the side of her throat. I can feel her pulse at least. As I tilt up her face, her lashes flutter against her cheek.

  “Aida!” I cry, stroking her cheek with my thumb. “I’m here!”

  Her eyes open, clouded and dazed, but definitely alive.

  “Cal?” she croaks.

  There’s no time to untie her. I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder. As I turn toward the doorway, I see a hulking shape blocking our way.

  Gently, I set Aida back down on the bare floorboards. I can feel the heat radiating upward, and I can hear the fire getting louder and louder. We must be right over the kitchen. The wallpaper is starting to blacken and curl. The fire’s in the walls, too.

  “It’s enough, Oliver,” I tell him, holding up my hands. “We have to get out of here before the whole house collapses.”

  Oliver gives his head a weird, twitching shake, like there’s a fly buzzing around his ear. He’s hunched over, limping a little on one leg. Still, his eyes are fixed on me, and his fists are balled at his sides.

  “None of us are leaving,” he says.

  He charges at me one last time. His shoulder hits my chest like an anvil. We’re grappling and clawing at each other. I’m swinging punches at his face, his ear, his kidneys, any part of him I can reach.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Aida slamming her hands down against the windowsill. No, not her hands—her cast. She’s trying to break the cast off her right hand. Grunting with pain, she bashes the cast down one more time, breaking the plaster. Now she can pull her hand loose from the rope, and she begins to fumble with the ties around her ankles, her broken fingers clumsy and the knots too tight.

  I lose sight of her as Oliver and I roll over again, each of us grappling with all our might. We’re both big men—I can feel the floor groaning dangerously beneath us. It’s getting hotter by the minute, the air so black and dense that I can barely see Aida at all.

  She jumps to her feet and I shout, “Get the gun, Aida! It’s in one of the rooms . . .”

  She won’t be able to find it, though. I couldn’t see it before, and it’s ten times smokier now.

  Really, I just want her out of here. Because the fire is raging beneath us, and I have a feeling I’m about to plunge down to hell.

  I get my hands around Castle’s throat and I pin him down, squeezing as hard as I can. His eyes are popping. He’s clawing at my arms, reigning blows on my face and body, weaker and weaker each time. I tighten my grip, even as I feel the floor starting to shift and groan beneath us.

  The whole corner of the room gives way. The floor becomes a titled platform, a slide leading from the door down into the fiery pit that’s opened up beneath us. We’re sliding down, Oliver Castle and me on top of him, sliding and falling into the bonfire that once was a kitchen.

  I let go of Castle and try to scramble backward, but it’s too late. I’m sliding faster than I can climb. There’s no way to save myself. Until something seizes my sleeve. I see Aida, clinging to the doorframe with one hand, and my wrist with the other. Her teeth are bared with effort, her face a rictus of pain as she tries to hang on to the frame with her broken hand.

  I don’t grab her arm, because I can see how weak her grip is. I’m not dragging her down with me.

  “I love you, Aida,” I say.

  “Don’t you fucking dare!” she yells back at me. “You grab my arm, or I’ll jump in after you!”

  With anyone else, it would be an idle threat.

  Aida is the only person I know who’s stubborn enough to actually do it.

  So I grab her arm and I haul myself upward, right as the joists give way and the whole room collapses. Oliver howls as he tumbles down into the flames. Aida and I fling ourselves through the doorway, scrambling down the hallway hand in hand. There’s no going down the stairs again, that much is obvious. We run to the opposite end of the house instead, finding a child’s room with sailboat decals still stuck to the walls. Oliver’s old room.

  I wrench up the windowsill and climb out, letting out a fresh pillar of dark smoke. I hang from the window frame and then drop down. Then I put up my hands to catch Aida.

  She jumps down into my arms, still only wearing one shoe.

  As we sprint away from the house, I can hear the distant wail of sirens.

  I’m pulling Aida down the drive to the Jeep. Aida yanks her hand out of my grip, yelling, “Wait!”

  She runs in the opposite direction, past th
e inferno of the house, out on the sand toward the water.

  She pauses, stooping to pick something up—her purse.

  Then she runs back to me, her white teeth brilliant against her filthy face as she grins at me.

  “Got it!” she says triumphantly.

  “I can buy you a new purse,” I tell her.

  “I know,” she says.

  I’m about to start the engine, but there’s something I can’t wait another second to do, either.

  I grab Aida and I kiss her, tasting blood and smoke on her lips.

  I kiss her like I’ll never let her go.

  Because I won’t. Not ever.

  29

  Aida

  Callum and I turn onto the main road right as the fire truck comes roaring up the lane, headed for the Castle’s beach house—or what’s left of it, anyway.

  I can see the firemen’s faces as our car passes their truck—they’re looking down at us, eyebrows raised, but unable to stop us fleeing the scene.

  “What a fucking trip!” I shout, my heart still galloping like a racehorse. “Did you know Ollie was that crazy? I thought he was just normal crazy, like ‘I don’t want my food to touch,’ or ‘talking to yourself in the shower’ crazy, not like full-out Shining.”

  Callum is driving way too fast, hands locked on the steering wheel. Improbably, he’s grinning almost as much as I am. Could my uptight husband actually be starting to enjoy our adventures?

  “I can’t believe I found you,” he says.

  “Yeah, holy shit! Did you find my shoe?”

  “Yes, I found it! And I remembered.”

  He looks over at me, his blue eyes brilliant against his smoky skin. I don’t know how I ever thought his eyes were cold. They’re fucking beautiful. The most stunning eyes I’ve ever seen.

  Even more striking is the fact that he understood me, that he remembered our conversation. It almost means more to me than the fact that he came to rescue me.

  “Actually, I’ve got the other one in here somewhere,” Cal says, twisting around to search the back seat.

  “Eyes on the road!” I tell him. I find the sneaker a minute later, slipping it back on my foot. It’s comically cleaner than the other now, so they no longer look like a matching set.

  “There,” I say. “Fully dressed again.”

  Cal’s eyes alight on my bare left hand.

  “Not entirely,” he says.

  “Oh, fuck,” I say angrily. “I forgot about that.”

  “Is it back at the house?” Cal asks.

  “Yes. But Oliver smashed it.”

  “I don’t think it would have survived either way,” Cal says. He squeezes my thigh with his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I wanted to get you another anyway. You know I didn’t pick that one out.”

  “I know,” I grin. “I’m getting to know Imogen’s taste pretty well.”

  Cal turns onto the highway, heading north toward the city again.

  “You better call your brothers,” he says. “They thought Zajac stole you.”

  “I might have been better off if he did,” I say, wrinkling up my nose. “Honestly, I think his villain speeches were better. He’s a proper badass, you know? Whereas Oliver was so whiny, putting on the guilt trips . . . like Jesus dude, get on Tinder, get over it.”

  Callum stares at me for a second, then he starts laughing so hard that his shoulders shake.

  “Aida, you’re out of your fucking mind,” he says.

  I shrug. “Just a helpful critique.”

  I dial Dante’s phone, but it’s Nero who picks up.

  “Aida?” he says.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Thank fucking hell. I thought I was gonna have to drive over there in a second.”

  “Why, where are you?”

  “At the hospital. Dante’s been shot. He’s alright though!” he hastens to add. “Zajac got him in the side—he didn’t hit anything crucial.”

  “That filthy shit!” I seethe. “He’ll pay for that.”

  “He already did,” Nero says blandly. “He’s dead. Dante’s got better aim than the Butcher.”

  “Dead? Are you sure?”

  Cal looks over at me, following my side of the conversation, but equally disbelieving.

  “Totally sure,” Nero says firmly. “Unless he’s got a spare head laying around somewhere, he’s done for.”

  “Well, shit,” I say, leaning back against my seat. This really was an eventful night.

  I look over at Callum, whose face looks pale beneath the soot. He’s got a nasty cut over his right eyebrow, and he winces a little every time he takes a deep breath.

  Come to think of it, I’m not exactly in tiptop shape myself. My hand is throbbing in time with my heartbeat, and my ring and pinky fingers have swollen up again. I’m probably going to need another cast.

  “What hospital are you at?” I ask Nero. “We might need to join you.”

  It takes a couple of hours for Callum and me to get cleaned up and patched up at St. Joseph’s. Dante will be there a few days at least—they had to put three pints of blood back into him. Jack and Nero are keeping him company. I’m shocked to see their bruised and battered faces.

  “What the hell happened to you?” I ask them.

  “While Dante was having a shootout at the mistress’s apartment, Jack and I were NOT finding the Butcher and getting our asses kicked by his lieutenant instead.”

  “Not just the lieutenant,” Jack says. He’s got a black eye so bad he can’t even see on the left side. “There were at least four of them.”

  “Jack here is a serious brawler,” Nero says, in an impressed tone. “He gave em the old ground and pound, didn’t ya, Jackie boy?”

  “I guess he’s not so bad when he’s on our side,” I say.

  Jack gives me a half-grin—only half because the other side of his face is too swollen to move.

  “Was that a compliment?” he says.

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” I tell him.

  “You two aren’t looking so hot, either,” Nero informs me.

  “Well that’s where you’re wrong,” I snicker. “If we were any hotter we would have been charcoal briquettes.”

  Fergus Griffin comes to pick us up, even though we have the Jeep parked outside.

  “Two hospital visits in one week,” he says, giving Cal and me a stern look through his horn-rimmed glasses. “I hope this isn’t becoming a hobby for you two.”

  “No,” Cal says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders in the backseat of the Beamer. “I don’t think we’re going to do anything too crazy next week. Except maybe look for an apartment.”

  “Oh?” Fergus pauses, before putting the car in reverse. He glances back at us in the rearview mirror. “You want to get your own place together?”

  Callum looks down at me.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I think it’s time.”

  My heart feels heavy and warm in my chest. I love the idea of finding a place with Cal—not my house, or his, but one we chose together.

  “That’s good,” Fergus says, nodding. “I’m glad to hear it, son.”

  Funnily enough, when we pull up in front of the Griffin mansion, for the first time it actually feels like home. I get that wash of comfort. I know it’s a safe place to lay my head. And damn am I exhausted all of a sudden.

  I stumble a little, getting out of the car. I’ve gotten stiff and sore all over from sitting. Even though I know he’s just as exhausted, and probably more injured than I am, Cal scoops me up in his arms and carries me into the house, like a groom carrying the bride over the threshold.

  “Shouldn’t you save that for our new apartment?” I tease him.

  “I’m going to carry you everywhere like this,” Cal says. “For one, I like it. And for another, it will keep anybody else from snatching you.”

  “You got snatched too, one of those times,” I remind him.

  He carries me all the way up the stairs.

  “You’re goin
g to break your ribs again!” I tell him.

  “Oh, they’re still broken right now,” he assures me. “They didn’t do much about it at the hospital. Didn’t even tape me up. Just gave me a couple Tylenol.”

  “Did that help?”

  “Not a fucking bit,” he says, puffing and groaning as we finally reach the top of the stairs.

  Then he does set me down. I go up on tiptoe to kiss him softly on the lips.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “I’m not done taking care of you yet,” he says. “You still need to get cleaned up.”

  “Oh nooooo,” I moan, remembering that I’m utterly filthy. “Just let me go to bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “Go brush your teeth,” he says. “Or you’ll hate yourself in the morning.”

  Grumbling, I head into the bathroom to brush and floss. By the time I’ve finished, Cal has the shower running and fresh, fluffy towels waiting for us.

  He soaps my whole body, lathering me up until the suds running down the drain switch from black to gray to while. His fingers knead into my stiff neck and shoulders. Together with the hot water, he works out all tense and knotted bits, until I feel like a wet spaghetti noodle instead of a folded-up pretzel.

  By the time we’re both completely clean, I’m not tired anymore. Actually, parts of me are very much awake.

  “My turn,” I say, rubbing Cal down with his towel. I run it down the curve of his broad back, down over his perfect ass, the bulges of his hamstrings and calves.

  He’s covered in bruises, scratches, welts, as well as the deeper cuts from the Butcher. Yet I’ve never seen a more flawless body. This man is perfect—perfect for me. I love the shape of him, his smell, the way his arms feel, wrapped around me.

  I turn him around and start drying the front side of him, starting down at the feet and working my way upward. As I pass the thighs, I come to that thick, swollen cock, warm and clean from the shower. I take it in my hand, feeling it expand inside my grip. The skin is phenomenally soft. I stroke my fingertips down its length. His cock strains toward my hand, almost as if it has a mind of its own. I squeeze the shaft right below the head, making Cal moan.