Chapter 22: The Devil’s Bargain: Chapter 21

If you asked me this morning, I would have said the most significant phone call in my entire life was when I was sitting at the Playground and saw Ava’s digits pop up on the screen.

It’s still up there, but the call I got from Burns about fifteen minutes ago tops it.

I always knew that the crooked cops of the Springfield PD double-dipped. For the right price, anyone could buy Mason Burns especially. Like me, he only has loyalty to one person—his wife, Angela—and he treats the rest of the world as disposable.

Even so, we have a good enough working relationship that I’m not surprised Damien Libellula got wind of it. Why else would he have picked Burns to pass his message along to me?

Damien wouldn’t call himself. That’s not his style. He has a tendency to delegate in a way that I never got the hang of, and what made us good partners before we split up and each started our own crime ring.

In the beginning, we worked a lot of jobs together. But fifteen years is a long time, and money does strange things to people. The Sinners Syndicate took over our turf on the West Side, the Libellula Family claimed the East End, and so long as we stayed apart, we could coexist.

Of course, then Royce was blamed when a Dragonfly’s sister was killed, and friendly rivals turned into enemies in the middle of a turf war.

Royce wasn’t responsible. I put the whole syndicate on the line to prove that, but the damage was done. I haven’t talked to Damien in six years, and I’ve done everything I could to keep us apart.

Until now.

Until he used one of my guys against me to steal my wife.

The message made that clear. Damien Libellula has Ava on his turf, but he’s willing to give her back if I meet with him in an hour’s time on neutral territory. He assured Burns that she was perfectly safe and sound and would stay that way so long as I agreed to the meet.

Then, to show that he had good intentions, he gave Burns the name of the Sinner who sold me out, willing to abduct Ava and carry her off to the East End of Springfield for a thousand bucks and the promise that he could become a Dragonfly.

Robert Cullens, better known as Bobby—and the Sinner I trusted to watch over my wife before she disappeared earlier this afternoon.

I should’ve known better, but now that I do, I’m going to take care of it.

I have to meet Damien Libellula in—I check my phone—forty-three minutes. With my personal driver behind the wheel, I can make it to the meeting point in fifteen, maybe ten.

If Royce did what I asked him, too, I’ll have more than enough time to make the meet and take care of some business.

* * *

I enter the Playground through the back, moving at a quick clip to reach one of the empty offices set along the same stretch of hallway as the conference room. When I see Royce leaning up against the door, his back to it, ankles crossed in front of him, some of the red dimming my vision fades a little.

The promise of revenge does a lot to help a bastard like me see a little clearer.

My second nods at me. “All set, boss. Just like you thought. Dumbasses were celebrating at the Playground, acting like they didn’t do anything wrong.”

“They?”

“Yup. I got Bobby and his girl in the room, as requested.”

My lips curve into a wicked grin. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. “Thanks.”

“You want me to stick around?”

I glance at my phone again. I haven’t put it down since Burns’s first call almost eight hours ago, and even after his second, the edge of the device is a furrow against my palm. No way in fucking hell will I miss a single ring if I get an update on my wife.

I’m down to thirty-two minutes. I gotta make this quick. “Yeah. I’ll need clean-up.”

“Rolls” Royce is the best gambler in the syndicate, my trusted second, and a pretty damn good fixer. Of all his skills, though, I put him on clean-up duty because he likes it, and if that’s another way he deals with his demons, who am I to judge?

“I’ll be waiting.”

I clap him on the soldier, then reach for the doorknob.

Inside the office, Bobby is standing with his arms crossed, eyes darting toward the entryway when I fill out. I can see the sweat beading on his brow from across the room and know instantly how this is going to go.

His girl—Heidi Fox, thirty-three, and formerly a waitress at the Playground until she abruptly quite four nights ago—is sitting in a chair, one leg crossed over the other. The top one is bouncing. Her nails are tapping the tabletop, though she doesn’t look at me as I stride into the room, tugging the door closed behind me.

Nervous. Both of them are nervous.

Good.

I don’t have time to ease them into telling me what I want to know. They’ll lie, they’ll deny it, they’ll try to tell me I get it wrong… and I’m on a deadline here. I’m not dealing with that bullshit.

I point at Bobby. “You. Roll up your sleeve. Show me your mark.”

“Devil—”

“I didn’t ask for any commentary. I said roll up your sleeve. So roll up your fucking sleeve, okay? Now.”

He gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing as he pushes his long-sleeve shirt up.

The newly inked dragonfly is all the proof I need to know that he’s in this up to his eyeballs.

I don’t care why. I don’t give a shit that he’s a Dragonfly now. The Sinners aren’t for life. He could’ve walked away at any time and I could’ve replaced him easily. The only thing I demand is loyalty so long as you wear my brand, and he’s not wearing it, is he?

But he fucked up when he touched my wife.

Something must have passed across my face because Bobby’s hand jerks a second before he covers the tat up with his sleeve.

I’ll give him credit for having balls when, instead of dropping to his knees and begging for my mercy, he juts out his chin and says, “You mad that I changed sides?”

“Nah.”

I took the wind out of his sails with that one, didn’t I?

“Oh. Okay. I mean, no hard feelings, right? It’s just… I got a better opportunity with Damien’s crew. You know how it is.”

He’s right. I do.

And that’s why I check my phone again—thirty minutes to go until the meet—and, slipping it in the inner pocket of my suit jacket, I trade it for my gun.

“This isn’t about the Sinners, Bobby. You tried to take away the most important thing in the world to me. You saw what happened to Twig. You had to know that I wouldn’t let that go.”

His eyes go wide and wild. “A pussy? You’re pulling a gun on me for some snatch? Devil, man, c’mon.”

Is that all he thought she was?

Ava talked about him with me. She liked him, and when I got pissed he let her slip away to the Playground, she asked me not to punish him. It’s for the same reason I didn’t hold it against him when Ava disappeared today. He was at the penthouse, supposedly taking a shit when she left it, and he was still there when Glenn came to relieve him before Burns called to tell me he saw her.

He was fast. He must’ve had a window of about a half an hour to pass her over to Damien’s Family without arousing suspicions, and he might have gotten away with it if Damien himself didn’t give him up.

But he did, and I’m down to twenty-nine minutes.

“You take from me,” I tell him, “I take from you.”

Bobby stiffens. Heidi whimpers, but she’s still purposely avoiding the death in my eyes. It’s not going to save her. I’m too far gone to be merciful. This is Skittery all over again, and if I had time, I’d really make it hurt.

Too bad I don’t.

I lift the gun.

Bobby gulps. “Are you… are you really going to hurt my girl, Devil?”

“She’s just a pussy, isn’t she?”

I watch as it hits him. I swear to God, we gotta do a better job vetting these new Sinners. Look at this one. He’s another dumb fuck. To him, my wife’s only worth was in her body. But threaten his woman? And he’s suddenly realizing how serious I am.

I look at my Sig and sigh. “I don’t think I can avoid it.”

And then I shoot him. Once in the skull, once in the chest, once in the cock.

He was dead at the first bullet. The other two just make me feel a little better about finishing him off so quickly.

Falling out of her seat, crawling on her knees over to Bobby is crumpled on the floor by the wall, Heidi lets out a shriek that might’ve moved me if I wasn’t obsessing over my Ava screaming just like that.

Royce pokes his head in the room. “All done, boss?”

I jerk my thumb at the wailing woman. “Take care of the traitor and the collateral damage, would you?”

“You can trust me.”

I know I can. That’s why I have no problem leaving Royce to clean up another mess.

Me?

I’m going to get my wife.

* * *

Thanks to my driver, I make it to the meet with three minutes to spare.

I’m not surprised that Damien picked this part of town. This particular alleyway, either. It’s dark, especially closing in on midnight, and none of the locals will look twice down it. Even if they do, they’ll look away again, and no one will involve the cops.

I know that for a fact. After all, this was the exact spot, fifteen years ago, where I lost control when Skittery threatened Ava.

Damien knows, too. He wasn’t there that night, but he was the one that our old boss assigned to help me clean-up the old junkie’s remains.

For the next two years, we were as tight as thieves, each one working toward something. I wanted Ava. Damien wanted his Family.

Now, fifteen years later as I walk into the alley to find him standing at the back of it, holding Ava at gunpoint in front of him, I realize that we both got what we wanted for a short amount of time. I had my wife if only for a few short weeks. Damien had the Libellula Family for more than a decade—but unless he can do what he promised Burns he would and explain himself to me, one of us is going to lose what we hold dear the most tonight.

And it’s not fucking gonna be me.

“So glad you found us, Lincoln,” he calls out. He has his gun in hand. So do I… and if Ava wasn’t positioned as a shield between us, I would’ve taken my shot and ended this without having to do this at all. “I wondered if you could find the place. If you remembered.”

To Ava and Royce, I’m Link. To the rest of Springfield, I’m Devil.

But to my old friend, I’ve always been Lincoln.

“Yeah. I remember.” When he quirks his eyebrows at me, I shrug. “Skittery.”

Ava’s eyes widen in recognition at the name. They shouldn’t… but they do.

How?

“Forgive me,” Damien says. “I told the story to your wife earlier. I guess she didn’t believe it could be true.”

Of course not. Even when presented with evidence to the contrary, Ava has only ever seen the good in me.

I needed her to. That’s why I forbid any one of my men from telling her anything I’ve ever done as Devil, starting with the murder that kept me away from her for so long. I never wanted her to known what I was capable of. For fifteen years, I strived to be a better man… and maybe I’m not.

Maybe I am Devil. Heidi Fox would definitely agree that I am. And while I did my time, I did my penance, I protected Ava as best I could, I’ve decided that the only way to keep her safe was with me. Even then, I fucked up. She wouldn’t be standing with a gun at her back if it wasn’t for me, and I decide then and there that it doesn’t matter.

I’ll save her, but I’m not giving her up.

“You got me here, Damien. Just like you wanted. Burns passed your message along. If I showed up to talk, you’d give me my wife back. Drop the gun. Let her go.”

I didn’t honestly believe that would work. When we were partners, Damien’s best quality was his sense of honor. I’d lie to anyone and everyone—except for Ava, of course—but Damien? He thought it beneath him.

Oh, no. He preferred to manipulate and maneuver people instead, like they were pawns on a chessboard.

Then again, I haven’t had any thing to do with him in years. Maybe he changed, because I’m caught flatfooted when he crooks his arm around Ava’s waist before I can react, tugging her against him. The mouth of his gun kisses her temple, an obvious threat.

If I make any sudden move, he’ll kill her. No hard feelings, just a casualty of the war brewing between his family and my empire. To Damien, she’s just a bargaining chip.

To me, my wife is everything.

“You asshole,” I rumble. “You said you’d let her go.”

“And I will, Lincoln. But I also told Burns she was my leverage. This talk is a long time coming, and I’m not going to let her go until we… negotiate.”

Negotiate? “Negotiate what?”

“Territory. Terms.” In the moonlight, his pale blue eyes seem to flash. “A truce.”

This is why he had Bobby take my wife? Because he still has this ridiculous idea that, with a truce, he could move drugs into the West Side, and I can expand my operations into the East End?

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“I’m not.”

He better be. “You really think you can call me out here, in the shadows of Springfield, threaten my wife after kidnapping her, making me wait eight fucking hours to find out you had her… and I’m just going to shake your hand, make a truce, and not hack your head off like I did Skittery?”

For some reason, Damien takes my very reasonable—and absolutely serious—threat as a joke. He doesn’t laugh, though the moonlight reveals his tiny smile as he nudges Ava with his gun.

I growl, but neither one of them reacts… until he says to Ava, “I don’t know, Mrs. Crewes. Do I?”

Ava?

She licks her lips, eyes turned pleasing. “Link, please… listen to him.”

“Ava…”

Her name is like a prayer on my lips. She doesn’t sound frightened—though any civilian with a gun to their head should—and I found out why when she calls out, “He just wants to talk. He said… he said that, if you agree to a truce, I’m covered. He won’t come after me for what happened to Joey. I don’t have to worry about it anymore, but only if you agree. Please… I think this would be good for us.”

Us…

If I agree, there is no ‘us’.

Okay. I finally get it. Damien has wanted a truce for as long as we’ve been rivals, and his efforts only increased after what happened with Royce and Heather. I shut him down every single time because I couldn’t see how it benefited me.

Now I do. He’s using my wife, just like he said. She’s leverage for him to get what he wants.

And because I’m a sorry sap, I’ll do it because Ava just begged me to.

“Deal,” I spit out. “You got your fucking truce, Damien. You know my word is good.” When it comes to something like this, it has to be otherwise I would never command any respect as the head of a syndicate. To go back on my word… that would be the same as giving him the green light to eradicate the Sinners and take over our territory. “Ava’s my witness. Royce will listen to her. You’re set.”

“What about you, Lincoln?”

That’s pretty simple. Damien gets what he wants. Ava gets what she wants.

And since I’m the one who lost, there’s only one thing that makes sense in my cold, lonely mind.

From the moment I became the Devil, I discovered how easy it was to solve all of my problems with death. Skittery threatened Ava? I went cold and massacred him. Twig thought I’d let her touch him willingly? Dead. Bobby betrayed my wife? Blown away.

I’m about to lose Ava again?

“You don’t need my protection anymore,” I tell her, and I jerk my hand, digging my Sig Sauer into the flesh beneath my chin.

She gasps, and Damien curses under his breath.

I keep my hand where it is.

“Link? What are you… put that gun down!”

I don’t. “I only got to keep you because you needed me to keep the cops coming after you. I did. Then you needed protection from the Libellula Family. I thought I could use that to keep you at my side… but if he’s not gunning for you, what reason do you have to stay?”

“What reason?” Her lovely green eyes glitter with angry tears, pushing against Damien’s arm as though she’s forgotten about the gun to her head. “How about because I love you, you asshole?”

I stumble back on my heels. “What did you say?”

“I love you, Link. I love you, I love you, I love you… and if you blow your head off and I don’t get the chance to tell you, I’ll figure out a way to bring you back from the dead and kill you myself!”

My lips kick up in a small grin, heart pounding harder than it ever has.

That’s my spitfire.

My Ava.

My wife.

I lower the gun at the same time that Damien simply releases her. It has to be that. He’s not as strong as I am, but he could’ve kept Ava right where he wanted… but he drops his gun to his side, letting her run to me.

If I wanted to, I have a direct shot at him. If he wanted me dead, he could turn his gun on me. So long as Ava isn’t being threatened anymore, I could give a shit what he does.

Only I do.

Because she loves me.

That realization makes me feel fucking bulletproof. Damien can fire every round in his gun. I don’t care. Ava loves me.

I throw open my arms as she launches herself at me. Lifting her off the ground, I squeeze her to my chest as she buries her face in my neck.

Even then, she can’t stop telling me how much she cares about me.

“I married you because I needed it. I was scared. Terrified. I didn’t want to go to jail. I had no idea why any of the mobsters in the city would be after me… but if you’d walked back into my life at any point in the last fifteen years, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was meant to be your wife. I love you, you big idiot, and I can’t wait for ”

“You know?” I murmur.

“I know,” is all she says before the tears finally begin to fall, sobs following shortly after, the heat of her tears scalding me beneath the collar of my shirt.

Over her head, I meet Damien’s icy blue eyes. His hands are empty, I notice, as though he’s already honoring this truce he wants between our factions.

It won’t last. I have no idea why Damien thinks this is the right time to work together, to combine our might, and move our specialities into each other’s territory. Back when I knew him, I could never figure out how his mind worked; I was always the brawn to his brains, just like Ava is my beauty.

“You agreed to the truce,” he reminds me.

“I did.”

He taps his pocket. “You shoot me now, or pull a Skittery on me, my men will know. You won’t like how they avenge me.”

I’m sure I won’t.

Damien always was a smart fucker. While the only backup I have is my driver, he must have a radio or something to connect him to one of his men. That way, he didn’t break the spirit of our agreement—that we would both enter the alley alone—but I can’t break my word when there are other witnesses than just my wife.

My wife.

As if reading my mind—and sometimes I wondered if he could—Damien points at Ava.

“Do a better job of protecting her,” he tells me. “If I could get her that easily, someone else could, too.”

Someone else? When we’re the only two players in Springfield? If I’m protecting Ava, and so is Damien, who else is there to worry about?

I go to ask him, but he’s already gone. Disappearing down the far end of the alley, slipping off into the night, the Dragonfly flies away—and I know that that’s not the last I’ll see of him.