Page 19 of Rise By Sin

I’d love to say I ended that with a terrific storming exit, but instead I was forced to settle for clumsily making my way up the stairs above me, very slowly and messily. It took forever before I reached the floor I’d left a while ago, and went right to the elevator, bypassing Gibb who stood a small distance away looking worried. When I stepped inside the metal box Jack wasn’t behind me and I had no idea if I was relieved or disappointed, but I was way too tired to pull apart that realization. I’m falling apart and I know it, but I don’t know how to stop it other then to leave and go back to my sad and lonely existence, and that I can’t do until Colt is safe.

CHAPTER 6

AVA

“Fucking mother fuck!” I hissed angrily at my reflection watching me from the mirror in my car. I had made it back across the city on the subway and back to my car, thankfully without any more breakdowns of the emotional of physical kind. My back ached terribly and my head was thumping angrily, but none of the physical pain compared to the tempest ripping at my emotions. I was a mess, hence me swearing at myself in the tiny mirror. I had broken my one rule.

I’d been sat in my car around the corner fromTemplefor the last hour. I was, in fact, parked down the very deserted and run down back street I had been grabbed from that awful night as I fled the club, filled with young emotions and feeling heartbroken.

“Stupid little fool,” I hissed angrily, and I wasn’t wrong. I had been a fool back then. Two men I wasn’t even in a relationship with played with another sub and I fell to pieces and endangered myself. If only I’d known what true fear felt like back then, maybe I’d have made better choices.

I rose the almost empty vodka bottle to my twisted reflection, then drank down every drop that remained. It was the only way I knew to get through being not only with Mason and Jack that night, but also being inTempleitself. I was terrified the sound ofone whip, or once scream from another woman and I would end up a rocking nervous breakdown in the corner, as I had so many times in the beginning after it happened.

I tossed the empty bottle into the back foot well of my car and checked the time on my cell phone. 5 P.M. I had some time before I had to face the music. I’d need the time between then and Mason and Jack arriving to strengthen my resolve and try to acclimatize myself to the noises and activities in the club around me. I needed to do anything I could to stop Mason and Jack seeing through my fears and working out I was even more fucked up than they had already realized. Hell – Deacon too. I liked and respected him. I didn’t want him to witness me freak out either.

All I really wanted was to go home and hide away again, but I couldn’t and I knew it. I needed to see Jack and Mace to find out if they had any leads I could work with to find Colt.

I could feel the buzz of the vodka, but nothing like I used to when I first started drinking, and when I stepped out of my car I stood as steady as I ever did considering my injury. Yeah, I thought as I swung my back pack over my shoulder. I was definitely going to need more drinks before the guys arrived atTemple. I’d already decided to leave my car at the club for the night. I was a mess, but not one who would endanger others by driving after drinking. My money was dwindling fast, but I’d used my credit card from Colt to pay for a ride back to the apartment, just this once.

I slammed the door of the car closed, and before I even turned to walk away from it a huge impact smashed into me from behind until I was slammed into the side of the car and held there between the weight behind me. The pungent odour of sweatclued me in that it was a person, and by the cold metal at the back of my neck, they held a gun on me.

“Where’s the gun?” a deep voice rumbled close to my ear. I tried to glance behind me, but the gun was pressed harder against my neck. It was dark out and the quiet street I’d chosen to park in was deserted around me.

“What fucking gun?” I bit back angrily. My options of slipping were nil considering my actual physical abilities and how hard he held that gun on me and it pissed me off.

“From your apartment. Give it to me now.”

Fuck. I had completely forgotten about the gun I picked up. I was so damned dumb! Why hadn’t I handed that off to Mason? We’d have prints back on it by now and a very promising lead. Instead I’d kept the damned thing in the bottom of my back pack and forgotten all about it. What kind of detective did that make me?That’s probably why they put you out to pasture, idiot, I reminded myself.

“I gave it to the cops. Tell me where my brother is and maybe I can get it back,” I told him as calmly as I could.

“If that’s true, I have no use for you then,” he sneered, like he was delighted with my reply. I knew he was going to shoot me, so those impossible options became all I had.

Ducking as fast and low as I could I felt the bullet he’d just fired graze the side of my head, but I didn’t have time ti think about it as I moved around him just enough that when I stood I could smash my metal stick down across the back of his head like I was taking a baseball swing. The hit was hard and he stumbled back,losing the grip on his gun as he seemed to lose consciousness for a split second.

That was all I needed to pull the knife from my boot and I held it out before me as a warning.

“Who do you work for?” I gasped. “What the fuck do you want with Colt?”

I had stupidly underestimated the sheer size of the masked man stood before me. In a second he was upright and racing towards me. I braced myself to go at him with the knife, but he was faster – which wasn;t hard nowadays – and he knocked my knife from my hand and slammed one of his own deep into my shoulder. The pain was inexplicable as I dropped to the ground and fought to keep breathing. It wasn’t the first time I’d been stabbed. It had happened in the early days of my career when I was a patrol officer, but that had been shallow and nothing compared to the pain I felt now.

I was helpless to do anything but watch on as the masked man scooped up his own gun, then tipped out the contents of the back pack I’d dropped somewhere in the scuffle. He grabbed the envelope with the gun and glanced inside, then took off with it tucked into the pocket of the dark jacket he wore.

“FUCK!” I roared as I sat there, blood pouring from my shoulder as I berated myself for forgetting about the huge fucking lead I’d been carrying around this whole freaking time! I was tempted to grab my knife from where it sat on the snow covered ground beside me and stab myself in the other shoulder for being such a useless asshole.

Knowing I had to move I tried to make myself stand, but getting up from the ground was hard enough for me, without blood loss and the fact I was freezing my ass off to consider.

Admitting defeat I moved slowly and made a grab for my cell which had fallen from the shallow pocket of my leather jacket in the scuffle. It sat close to me in the snow and I just about got my finger tips on it as I cursed up a storm from the pain the movement caused.

“Hey,” Deacon greeted almost the second I’d hit his contact.

“Hi,” I gasped. “Where are you?”

“Just got to the club. I’m not working tonight, so I figured I’d get some paperwork done while…”

“Deak, gotta stop you there, bud. Can you…shit!” I hissed as a spasm raced up my back and caused me to jolt, only making my shoulder flare in agony. “I need you to come outside. I’m around the side of the club…on the shitty back road. I need some help.”

“What’s wrong. Are you….” I didn’t even listen to what he was calling down the line, instead ending the call and throwing my cell back to the snow. I reached for my shoulder and felt around the knife to try and figure out how bad the wound was. I wasn.t too worried until I reached to the back, with a loud groan of pain, and felt the tip of the knife poking out. It had gone right fucking through me! That sonofabitch was dead if I ever laid eyes on him again.

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