Scarred

nine-2

“Usually that’s enough for me,” Archer said, stopping about four feet away from Tulio to link his hands at his back and widen his stance. “Usually it’s enough for me to scare a guy shitless and send him on his way. They never screw me over again. They never want payback because they know they’re lucky to get away.”

“Yeah, lucky,” Tulio said. “Lucky. Lucky. Now please…” He tried to shift around further and the chain scraped on the pipe, and he winced, so she figured the mark Archer had left on him the previous day had to be rubbing against the rusted metal he hung from. The b****y line on his cheek was new and blood still trickled down from his cheekbone over the stubble on his jaw.

“But we’re not here for me,” Archer said. “You want to know what I found out now, Sweets?” Though he called to her, he measured his gaze on Tulio. “You want your surprise? You told me there are ways to kill a guy slow, baby, and I know how we can make this guy dance for us. Tulio here is married to a beautiful Italian woman who has a couple a big-a*s brothers, a huge family, they’re a great bunch of people who welcomed him in, a sad pathetic orphan with no family of his own. How long you been married now? Ten years? Twenty?”

“Twelve,” Tulio said.

Nya wondered why he was so eager to offer that information when clearly Archer wasn’t about to buy him an anniversary gift. “Twelve years is a long time. You must love her a whole lot.”

“Don’t threaten my wife,” Tulio said. Nya found a smidgen of respect for the way he jumped to his wife’s defense. “You kill me now, man, before you go near her.”

Is that what Archer thought she wanted? Another innocent woman hurt because of this man’s mistakes? “I wouldn’t touch a hair on her head,” Archer said and Nya breathed an internal sigh of relief. “No, I wouldn’t. But I would have a conversation with her.” Tulio’s chain scratched again when he dropped some of the tension from his arms.

“A conversation about what?”

“Anything that comes up,” Archer said and she recognized his wry tone. “Maybe about that little blonde thing, way across town, you know the one I mean, Tatiana, is it?”

“You leave her alone too!”

“Defend your women? Yet others are fair game? Doesn’t seem like an even playing field to me,” Archer said.

“You leave them the f**k alone, both of them. You don’t touch either—”

“Doesn’t look to me like you’re a man in a position to be giving orders,” Archer said. “I know plenty of guys who would do more than hurt your beautiful women. But you’ve missed the point again; we’re not here for me. I need an ironclad guarantee for my lady, that you won’t ever hurt another woman again in your life and if I hear so much as a whisper that you have, or you do anything that upsets my lady, I’ll make sure, not only to talk to both of your women, but to make sure they talk to each other. Married for twelve years, do you know her brothers well? They are scary motherfuckers… I’m wondering how they’d feel finding out you’ve been screwing around with Tatiana for going on four years. And Tatiana doesn’t even know that you’re married, does she?”

There were more ways to hurt a man than by putting a knife in his back, Nya was pleased with this surprise. Archer’s ability to ferret out information had proved useful. While it was nice to see this man in physical pain, what was more important, was the lesson he learned. And that was, that he wasn’t invincible.

Archer knew Tulio’s weak point and from Tulio’s reaction, she knew he cared about both of these women. If one didn’t know about the other, then he’d been stringing them along, lying, cheating. He wasn’t a nice human being. Archer was right; Tulio was their b***h because he cared about the women enough to offer his own life in place of theirs, even if it was just in a snap of anger. So if Tulio stepped out of line, Archer could bring these women together and Tulio’s world would implode before he was confronted by his wife’s formidable family.

Archer turned around and their gazes locked. “Now, honeybun, if you want me to slit him open…”

She shook her head but wouldn’t make the same promise for the others they were going to track down. Tulio only got a pass because he hadn’t laid hands on Jamie and he knew now that he was on borrowed time. If the need arose later, Archer could finish him off. But for now she quite liked the idea of him living in fear, looking over his shoulder, aware every time he touched one of his women that they could be snatched away at Nya’s unpredictable discretion.

“Then you’re in luck, Tulio.”

Archer came over to take the roll of duct tape from her arm. Despite Tulio’s protests, Archer wrapped it around their captive’s mouth and around over his eyes. He taped the guy’s feet together managing to avoid touching flesh or fluid. Then Archer stood up and unlocked one wrist, which sent Tulio onto the floor on his back.

The man couldn’t fight, he didn’t have the strength and his arms were basically dead. So all he could do was grumble behind the duct tape gag and buck as Archer stood astride him and bent to wrap duct tape round his wrists. Archer retrieved the rope. Tossing it over his shoulder again, he rolled up his knives and presented the bundle to her.

“Go out the door and up the alley,” he said, handing her the car keys. “Just keep going forward, the light will find you. Do you need me to—”

“No,” she said. Coming down here, facing the unknown was difficult, now all she had to do was depart and run.

“Take everything out the trunk,” he said. “And leave it open.”

She nodded, understanding what he meant. She grabbed his arm when he took a step backward. “Wait,” she said.

The faded florescent light made his features appear haunted, and although he was focused on what needed to be done, she could see his love for her behind the mask. “Change your mind?” he asked. “It’s not too late. I’ll slit the prick stem to stern for you, it’s really nothing.”

“You’re amazing,” she said and hooked a hand around the back of his neck, to pull him down so she could plunge her tongue into his mouth.

He hummed in surprised pleasure, which might have been for Tulio’s benefit because she’d never heard the sound before. But she didn’t care if Archer was performing because he was returning her kiss like it was their first.

His splayed hands snaked around her waist and their span reached from her ribs to her hips. Sliding them down, he cupped her a*s and rocked her against him. “Save it for later, Sweets,” he said after sucking his kiss away from her lower lip.

Nya stood, watching as he went over to Tulio who was trying to wriggle his way toward the door. Archer put a boot on his a*s to stop him and bent to tie the rope around their victim’s ankles. Archer wasn’t going to carry the man who was covered in his own filth.

When he gave her the nod, she went for the door and ran up the passage, just as he’d instructed her to do. Tulio’s moans echoed through the corridor a few seconds after she’d entered it and were joined by the sound of his body being dragged at quite a pace along the concrete shaft.

She kept on going, thinking only of the task Archer had given her, and she’d fulfilled it by the time Archer came out of the building.

“Get in the car,” he called.

Nya went straight into her seat, so she didn’t have to see Archer transfer the man into the trunk. There was a thump and some kicking, and then the lid went down. Archer got into the driver’s seat, but before he started the engine, he reached over to the glove box to pull out a bottle of antibacterial liquid. Rubbing some on his own hands and then on hers, he tossed it back in and took a breath as he started the car.

“Do you want me to take you home before I dump him?” Archer asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve never shied from going all the way with you.”

He got them moving, accepting her statement without acknowledging it. They could’ve turned Tulio loose right here. But if Archer used this location on a regular basis, they wouldn’t want it to be revealed to outside parties.

Staying quiet as they drove, she was overwhelmed with such gratitude that she found herself touching him frequently. His arm, his shoulder, his leg, she leaned over and pressed her lips to his bicep and appreciated him offering his hand from the wheel.

“There’s still time if you want me to—”

“It was perfect,” she said. “He’s a prick and we could’ve killed him, then he would’ve just been more hassle, a body to get rid of and evidence to clean up. Now he has to live with what he’s done, knowing that someone’s watching him. You really are good at what you do.”

“Don’t sound surprised,” he said, bringing her hand up to kiss her knuckles. “We get rid of him and then get back to mine.”

“We?” she asked. “I can come to your place? What about your friend?”

His eyes stayed on the road. “You can meet him,” Archer said. “But you’ll have to split before the business starts. He’s an old-fashioned kinda guy.”

As opposed to Archer who was such a modern man. Even if it was just the tiniest c***k of a view into his life beyond her, she would take it. After what had happened tonight, Nya would be in his debt forever, and her gratitude overflowed.

“I love you,” she said, nuzzling his wrist. “So much, Archer, I…”

“How much?” he asked, pulling her hand to his groin to rub her palm on the thick, hard shaft nestled in his jeans.

“Threatening men turns you on?” Continuing with the intimate massage, after both his hands went to the wheel, a little TLC was the least she could offer him.

“You, like this, turns me on. You’re so f*****g happy right now.”

Her happiness made him horny? Nya thought she had always been happy when she was with him, maybe she’d been wrong. She wasn’t usually this exuberant and the adrenaline would be causing a heightened reaction to the emotion that bubbled through her.

Maybe that was the reason for her opening his belt and his fly, and that which made her climb onto her knees on her own seat to bow over his lap.

Bending her body across the car, she took him into her mouth. “Jesus,” he exclaimed, curling his fingers into her hair. “You are f*****g grateful.”

Her response was to suck harder because she was exactly that. He’d put everything on the line for her tonight and he’d trusted her to watch him work and to know another man’s secrets. One man down and six more to go.

She wasn’t afraid anymore. She was invigorated. Tonight, wherever she was, Jamie would rest a little easier and that was all because of Archer. This wouldn’t have been possible without him.