He was a dead man any second, but I knew why Deck approached, raised his gun and shot him in the chest several times. It was a man’s need to put bullets in the guy who hurt his girl.
Jacob fell backwards. The gun slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor.
I strode over, yanked my knife from his neck, wiped the blood off on Jacob’s body then put it in the sheath at my waist. Then I went to London.
She was still on the floor as I crouched beside her. Fuck, I wanted so badly to pull her into my arms, tell her it was over. That the men who hurt her would never touch her again.
But for her, it wasn’t over. It was the beginning of finding her way back from what was done to her.
“Baby,” I murmured.
She closed her eyes, but kept her head down.
I gently put my arm around her and cursed under my breath at how much weight she’d lost. I felt Deck’s lethal stare as he was on his knees beside Chaos.
I turned back to London.
“London.” She didn’t respond and I closed my eyes as a wave of pain went through me.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
She spent years with Jacob and Alfonzo and seeing her like this hurt. No, it fuckin’ killed. Torture had nothing on this. The beauty of what London had always given me—lightness—was gone and that destroyed me.
I helped her stand then guided her over to Deck and the others. I saw Deck run his finger over the needle mark on Georgie’s arm. “Heroin,” I said.
I had my arm around London’s waist, and her head was tucked into my chest. Fuck. I didn’t want to let go, but I had no choice. There was a chance for her without me. A chance to bring the lightness back, the laughter, the sweetness. I was her destruction and I kept falling back into that rift and suffocating her in my darkness.
Deck nodded. “Probably better. Georgie would’ve gotten herself killed with that mouth of hers.” Deck stood. “Police will be here shortly. You better go.”
I peeled London away from me. I hadn’t intended on looking at her again. I should’ve just walked away. Instead, I had to look at her one more time and my heart stopped. Broken. The compassionate, brilliant woman with stubborn determination no longer existed.
Jesus, baby. You need to find your way back. You can’t do that with me.
I had to get out of here. “You need to stay with them. Deck will take you home.”
Her eyes widened and her face paled. Then she did what I never expected. She fell to her knees in front of me and grabbed my leg. “Please. Please take me with you.”
I remained motionless.
Fuck, London.
I’d never cared before. In order to care, you had to give a shit. I didn’t. Now I did and it was worse than any physical pain. It was acid eating away at my insides and feeling like there was no way back from the hell I lived in.
I belonged in the darkness and London belonged in the light.
I sighed and then nodded to Deck. He stood, took two steps then snagged London’s arm and pulled her away from me. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound.
Then I jogged away and didn’t look back.ERASED.
The word lingered in my head. I became a ghost after ending all communication with London. She was better without me. She was safer.
It had been a year and seven months since I saw her in the warehouse on her knees begging me to take her with me. I pretended it was business as usual, but it wasn’t. What I did had nothing to do with business. It was personal as I became the silent killer.
I killed instead of satisfying any sexual needs. I killed to stop the nightmare of seeing her on her knees. And I killed to ease the pain. Weaving in and out of the sex trafficking industry, I killed those who deserved it.
It was my outlet.
My link to keeping my sanity.
Ernie still watched her, but I’d insisted on not hearing updates. He ignored the order and sent me emails anyway, to which for the first couple weeks my finger hovered over the delete button without opening the file. But I always read them.
Shit changed a year ago when she ran away. My first thought had been Vault and after feeling that out, I knew they didn’t have her. From Ernie’s take on it, London simply left with nothing.
And since she had nothing, there was no trail. No trail meant she was making it one fuck of a job for Ernie to find her. The only good news with her missing was that if I couldn’t find her, neither could Vault and they’d been looking because a couple of months earlier, Mother asked me to bring London in. And for the first time, I didn’t lie when I told her I couldn’t find her.