With a final squeeze, he released her. She collapsed to the ground in a gagging, gasping, sobbing mess. Her entire body convulsed in pain and fear. She flinched when he crouched down next to her.
“So what are you going to do for me, Juliette?” He cocked his head to the side to peer through her hair into her tearstained and bloodied face. “You’re going to cozy up to Killian McClary and get me my shipping yard, right?”
Not sure what else to do, she nodded vigorously.
“Good girl. Now, go home and rest. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.”
With that, he got to his feet and strolled over to where his men stood. The group turned together and followed him back into the shadows.
Juliette stayed huddled against the building, her face radiating with its own heat and heartbeat. She couldn’t even tell if anything was broken, but she could feel the steady trickle of blood pouring from one or possibly both of her nostrils. The flow was dripping down her chin to stain her shirt and jeans. She wiped numbly at the flow with her bare forearm, smearing wet crimson across her skin. The sight of it brought a sob to her numb lips that she quickly bit back, knowing if she started, she’d never stop.
Shakily, she used the wall to heave herself up onto unsteady legs. She grabbed her purse and the folded piece of paper off the ground and picked her way carefully out of the alley. The staffroom doors were usually locked from the inside after six o’clock or she would have gone back in to clean up. Instead, she was forced to make her way home in an almost drunken haze. People glanced her way, but no one made any move to see if she was all right, to which she was eternally grateful for. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself not to fall apart if anyone stopped her before she got home.
At home, she went straight to her room and stripped. Her clothes were left scattered across the floor in a long row to the bathroom. She climbed into the tub without glancing in the mirror. She knew she would never be able to stand it if she saw herself in that state. The jets hit her like hot pins piercing flesh. Juliette sank to the bottom and stayed there until the feeling returned to her otherwise numb body.
It could have been five minutes or five hours, but the water had gone cold when she finally dragged her throbbing self back into her room and pulled on a t-shirt and panties. She threw back three aspirins, downed it with water and steeled every nerve in her body for the inevitable. Only when she was steady did she allow herself a peek at her own reflection.
The left side of her face was an explosion of colors that expanded across her cheekbone, starting from the gash. It bled across her temple and stopped just inches from the corner of her mouth. Her nose was swollen and tender and there was a split in her bottom lip. Otherwise, aside from the glossy sheen in her eyes, she seemed fine.
Moving away from the mirror, she headed for the bed and the sweet promise of a brief nap. Her entire body felt raw and she knew that was only the tip of the iceberg.
Arlo had never hit her before. He’d manhandled and assaulted her, but had never physically struck out. Certainly, she never believed it beneath him. He was a monumental asshole riding on a power trip that he didn’t seem to realize would ultimately end with his death, a fate she couldn’t wait for. Not that it would end the reign of terror that was the Dragons. Arlo had three younger brothers and a slew of cousins and other relations, all just dying to get in on the pie. So Juliette was under no fantasy that the nightmare would ever end.
Unless she made it end.
Reaching for the foot of the bed and the purse flopped over in one corner, she dragged the ancient piece of garbage over to her and tore out the envelope Killian had given her. The corners were bent from being shoved into her bag, but it was otherwise smooth and a shade of white that actually hurt her eyes.
There were two great evils in the world and both wanted a piece of her. The question as always was: which one was the lesser of the two?
She could stay with Arlo and be his punching bag or worse, his whore for the rest of her life or she could throw her hat in with Killian. While he was a criminal, he hadn’t hurt her and she had meant it when she said she would pick his side. If anything, he had gone out of his way to make sure he was gentle, something she knew he didn’t have to do. Arlo certainly wouldn’t have. Had Killian not taken her away that night … she couldn’t even think about it. The very idea made her want to curl up in a ball and sob.
Instead, she drew out the contract and followed the familiar lines through each page. She had already memorized most of it, but still she kept rereading until her pounding head reached its splitting point and she had to stop. She stuffed the agreement back into the envelope and tossed it down onto the nightstand to reread again in the morning.
Without looking at it, she rolled onto her side and drifted off into an immediate and dreamless sleep.
Chapter 9
Killian could never be mistaken for a patient man when it came to incompetence. People who went through life living on excuses of injustice and righteous indignation infuriated him beyond a reasonable measure of doubt. The man across from him was no exception.
Peter Jacoby was a minor nobody Killian had no time for. He ran some insignificant little group of marauders that peddled drugs from province to province. In the food chain of things, he was somewhere just above dirt. Most minor groups and gangs circled around a bigger organization. Each district had its monarchy and every monarchy had its ruler. Killian just so happened to be the monarchy for the north and that meant that, just because he would like nothing better than to shut it all down and take it all apart brick by brick, that wouldn’t happen overnight. It was a slow and agonizing process that required patience and the gentle snip of ties being cut. While toes were bound to be tread upon, when Killian finally threw off the final chain holding him to that life, it would be such a clean cut that he could live the rest of his life without ever looking over his shoulder. But before that could happen, first he needed to focus on the minor things, like Jacoby.
“As you can see, it’s a fairly large shipment,” Jacoby stated with a breathless sort of urgency.
Killian drew in a breath for what felt like the first time in ages and sat even further back into the soft leather of his chair. The hinges squeaked slightly and he made a mental note to get the joints greased.
“Mr. Jacoby, I honestly have no idea what you’re asking of me,” he stated simply, lifting his gaze to pin them on the man who looked like he was in desperate need of a shower, not to mention a shave.
Small and shriveled with skin sagging off bony limbs, Peter Jacoby reminded Killian of a grandfather biker. He wore dark shades, even though they were inside and a bandana over a receding hairline that had just enough straggly strands to be shoved into a greasy ponytail down the back of his leather vest. Underneath that was a white t-shirt and pale jeans that Killian had a feeling were his best attire. Unlike the goons he’d brought with him, Jacoby had six tattoos along his arms, though Killian could just make out the hint of more beneath the collar of his shirt. Most of them he recognized as prison ink.