Page 106 of Destroy (Deadly Hearts 2)

A phone rings in the silence and I hear David answer it with a shaky voice.

“Okay,” he says and hangs up. “Ruby,” he chokes out.

“Can it wait?” I say, clinging onto my two men for dear life as the tears fall down their faces in sorrow and regret for the past.

“No, it can’t,” David says, coming down the steps from where he was hovering on the platform. “You know that call I took earlier? It’s time to tell you what it was about.”

Declan and Cillian pull back at the seriousness of David’s tone, brushing their tears away.

“What was it?” I prompt when he doesn’t offer anything else up.

He clenches his jaw. “Remember I said the Southside gang will be calling on me for payment for their favor?”

I nod slowly. “Whatever it is, give it to them,” I say.

“They want you,” he says. “They’re outside.”

“What the fuck?” Declan snarls at him, but I grab his sleeve to stop him from attacking David.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “They want me, what? Dead?”

He shakes his head. “They want you to do them a favor. A very dangerous favor.”

“Any idea what that is?” I ask lightly, dread and fear bubbling up inside me. This sounds bad. Really, really bad.

“You’re coming with us,” a deep voice says from the doorway.

“Vinnie,” I say, turning to the huge, dark-haired man with a ruggedly handsome face, marred by a deep scar. “What is this about?”

“Your man here owes us. We diverted the heat away from you over that D.I.’s disappearance. We’ve come to collect.”

He indicates that two very burly men march over to grab an arm each, while another two hold automatic rifles up. We wouldn’t stand a cat’s chance in hell, and they know it.

“Any chance of some more information before you take me away?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re going undercover for us in the Liverpool crime organization. They have one of our people and we want her back.”

“Why not just take her?” I ask, eyes narrowed. Something sounds hinky about this.

“We don’t know where they’re holding her. You are going in to find out.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Layton growls. “She isn’t stepping one foot out of here with you.”

“Yeah, she is,” Vinnie says, turning to Layton with a look that says ‘defy me and see what happens’.

“Take me instead,” Layton says.

“We want her,” Vinnie says. “The Black Widow is exactly who we need for this op.”

“It’s okay,” I say to Layton, who’d taken a step forward, his fists clenched. “I owe them. I have to do this.” Do I want to? Fuck, no. But if it wasn’t for them, I’d be in a prison cell right now. “How long will I be gone?” I ask with a deep breath.

“Depends how long it takes you to find our girl,” Vinnie says and turns from us, discussion over.

“No,” Declan says, shaking his head.

“I have to,” I say quietly, lifting my hand up to stroke his cheek. “If I don’t, they will take back what they did and then I’ll be in prison. This is the only way.”

“I’m not losing you,” he says desperately, knowing he is helpless to do anything with a gun held to his head and me not fighting this. “We can help, we can…”

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