Hell Transporter (Between) (28 page)

“What are you doing here, Ravi?” Aggravation over his sudden and unwelcome appearance marred her otherwise beautiful features. His eyes became chocolate discs of confusion and fear as he looked from me to Aiden and over to Mona, who still held the gun pointed at Aiden’s chest.

“I f-followed you,” he stammered. “I thought you were cheating on me with Micah.” The vision of Micah in the shower popped into my head and I groaned in sudden recognition.

Mona had been in the shower with him. It all made sense now. Now that I couldn’t do a damn thing about it!

“Of course I am, you fool,” she snarled at Ravi. “And I have some unfinished business with Aiden here, too. Unfortunately for you, I don’t need you running off to get help, so it’s too bad you picked tonight to finally be a man.”

With lightning speed, she whipped the pistol around at Ravi and pulled the trigger. Aiden charged her at the same moment. With a sweeping motion, he knocked her arm down. The bullet hit Ravi in the leg instead of in the head as she’d intended. He let out a painful cry and crumpled to the floor. A circle of bright red blood blossomed on his thigh.

Mona and Aiden fell to the ground together, but she didn’t let go of the gun. Aiden drew back his fist and she twisted underneath him, pointing the gun at me through the crook of his arm. She sank her fangs into his forearm.

Aiden!
I cried and her ferocious snarl erupted in my head, infecting my mind with her dark, pulsing energy. Covering my ears to try and block out her out, I sank to my knees.

She fired the gun and the bullet whizzed past. The air compressor behind me exploded like a hand grenade. Metal shards sliced through the air in all directions like hundreds of serrated knives. Aiden had turned back to me when the gun went off and a chunk of metal slammed into his right temple. The force of the explosion blew me forward toward the two of them and knocked me against a metal support beam. The resounding clang of my head hitting the post was the last thing I heard.

When I came to, Mona had drug me off to another part of the building. She pulled me to my feet with the gun pressed to my head. Aiden stood before us, his face contorted with rage.

“Let her go,” he demanded.

“Maybe I should just kill her now and get it over with. What will you give me to let her live?”

Aiden didn’t answer but just stared at her, his jaw hard set. I could see his mind working, but she apparently took his silence for a challenge.

“You don’t believe I’d do it, do you? You think I give a rat’s ass about her?” She knocked the barrel of the gun against my temple, as if to make her point.

“I have no doubt that ye would. After all, people don’t get sent to hell for nothing.”

I gaped at him, unable to believe he was baiting her while she held a gun to my head. To my surprise, she laughed again.

“Oh, it wasn’t for nothing, I’ll grant you that. My parents were poor Italian immigrants, running away from the mob scene in Sicily. When they came to the states, all they had were the clothes on their backs. I grew up in the Bronx, living hand to mouth and working late nights in their sweaty, stinking laundry shop.

“And then one night, Rocky Luciano came in to get some shirts pressed. He was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen and when he smiled at me, I thought my knees had gone to mush. He came in every week after that and I always dressed in my best outfits when I knew he was coming. One night, he asked me to come out with him and I finally saw a way out of that miserable place. His uncle, Lucky, had just been made the Big Boss and I knew if I could get Rocky Luciano to marry me, that I would be dumb, fat and happy for the rest of my life.

“My father was afraid of the mafia, though. He said they were nothing but a bunch of crooks and he forbade me to see Rocky. So I set his damned laundry shop on fire while my parents were asleep in their bed above the store, and I married my mobster. And we were one big, happy family until a little bird told me Tony Maranzano was planning to take out Rocky as a warning message to Lucky for some money he’d been stiffed. I tried to tell Rocky but the idiot wouldn’t listen to me.

“So I followed him one night to the Oasis Motel. When I saw Tony bust in the door, I jumped in front of him and he shot me point blank in the chest. It was a dumbass thing to do really, since I couldn’t save Rocky anyway. Tony stepped right over me and filled him full of daylight three seconds later. I heard Gina Marletti screaming from inside the room before the gunshots started, so it turns out I sacrificed myself for a no-good, double-crossing, cheating whoremonger anyway.”

Her attention had wandered as she recounted her story and Aiden had slowly moved to one side and drawn his dirk without her noticing. When she got to the end, though, her focus sharpened and she glared at him in warning.

“Don’t even think about it, Scotty. I’ll pop her right now. I swear it.” She pressed the gun hard against my head and yanked my hair. I whimpered a little and a muscle at the corner of Aiden’s eye twitched. “Drop the knife and kick it over to me,” she hissed at him and after a moment, he did as she asked.

“You,” she growled at me, “see that cable over there? Grab it and tie his hands behind his back. Wrap it around that pole. Now!” She walked behind me with the gun at my head. Tears streamed down my face as I fumbled with the cable. “Make a good job of it. Any tricks and I’ll kill you. Do we understand each other?” she snarled in my ear and I nodded helplessly.

Be strong, Lindsey. We’ll get out of this. Just pray, lass.
Aiden’s voice in my head was like cool water to parched lips.

Mona barked out a derisive laugh and broke my spirit again.

“Yeah, pray, lass! That’ll help!” She cracked me in the back of the head with the gun once more for good measure. “Where you’re going, prayer won’t do you a damned bit of good. Now move it.” When Aiden was well secured, she grabbed my wrist and yanked me over to one of the workbenches. She set down the pistol to pick up another length of cable and I seized my chance. I went for her throat and she batted me away like a pesky fly. She struck me hard across the face and her claw-like nails left bloody scratches on my cheek. Grabbing a fistful of my hair, she smacked my head against the table repeatedly until I saw stars and begged her to stop. When I dropped to the ground, she tied my hands behind my back, securing the cable around one leg of the heavy metal bench. She stepped away and admired her work.

“Mona, what do ye want with me?” Aiden demanded, his voice terse and cold. “If ye came to kill me, why not just do it?”

“Oh, my sweet, I didn’t come here to kill you, though I am sure that would be fun. You turned down heaven when it was offered to you, so you’ll go directly to hell anyway.” She batted her eyelashes at him like that was good news. Her words pierced me through the heart.

“No!” I screamed, but she ignored me. Aiden’s face turned to stone.

Unencumbered now without the gun, she sauntered over to Aiden and ran a long fingernail down his chest and over the front of his jeans. Honey oozed from her voice.

“I tried to do this the easy way. You’re the one who’s made this so difficult.” She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout, then put one hand on his shoulder and pushed him down the pole until he was half-sitting and half-leaning against it. She stepped back and unzipped her dress, letting it pool at her feet. Completely naked except for black thigh-high stockings, a garter belt and her heels, she looked spectacular, her skin marred only by the red scar on her shoulder blade where Aiden’s dirk had pierced it.

Aiden immediately turned his head but she yanked his face back with one hand, her red nails like slashes across his cheek. Her voice came out low and husky as she knelt before him.

“I haven’t come to kill you. I could have done that easily a dozen times already. No, pretty boy, I’ve come to take your seed.” He stared at her in disbelief and she chuckled at his reaction. “I know, there’s worse things, huh?” She got up and grabbed his blade from where it was lying on the floor and proceeded to slice open his shirt. Splaying her fingers over his naked chest, she purred like a jungle cat.

“The offspring of a heaven transporter and a hell transporter will rule the realm in between, and my master has claimed the child for his own. When I give birth to the babe, the master will reward me for my devoted service.” Her face took on a wild, animalistic quality for a moment before she locked her normal mask back into place. She stripped off Aiden’s belt and wrestled his jeans down his thighs so that nothing stood between her and her desire.

“If you were sleeping with Micah, how do you know you’re not already pregnant?” I demanded.

“I told him I was saving myself for marriage,” she said, then threw her head back and howled with laughter. “We found other ways to satisfy each other,” she said, then proceeded to show me exactly what she meant.

Blinded by rage, I writhed against my tether, hardly noticing the pain in my wrists. I wished she had killed me, since I felt so powerless.

“Get away from him, you bitch!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, fury burning in my chest.

She turned to me and cocked an eyebrow. “Why, Lindsey,” she said innocently, “don’t you remember I promised that you’d get to watch?” She turned back to Aiden then, chortling to herself and suckled his neck, pressing her bare breasts against his chest. “There’s no reason we can’t enjoy this,” she purred as she ran her hand up his thigh to fondle him.

He turned his head sharply and chomped down on her ear. She made a horrible, piercing cry that reverberated throughout the room and made my teeth ache. She jerked back and hissed at him.

“Do that again if you want her to be a pin cushion,” she said, blood streaming down one side of her neck. Then she grabbed his dirk from where it lay on the ground and flung it at me. The blade buried itself in my upper thigh. I screamed, expecting pain, but felt only shock. Gasping for air, I stared at the knife in my flesh. Then a hot throbbing began in my leg and spread throughout my body, turning tighter and tighter like a crank. Tremors overtook me as my mind grew hazy with hysterical panic.

Have to get out of here. Have to save Aiden. Have to kill Mona.
My mind spun in circles like a dog chasing its tail, getting nowhere.

Mona strolled over to me and yanked out the dirk, sending another jolt of agony through me. Bright white flashes of pain exploded behind my eyes.

“Maybe this would help put you in the mood, lover,” she offered in a conciliatory tone. Grasping the edges of my coat and blouse, she ripped them open in one swift motion, exposing my chest. She cut off my bra with the bloody dirk and twisted my nipple with her finger.

“Would two dames together do it for you?”

Aiden roared something in Gaelic, his face contorted with pure hatred. “Enough! Let her be, Mona. You can have what ye want from me.”

He didn’t look her in the eye as she lowered herself before him once again. I didn’t want to watch but I couldn’t look away. So horrified by what I saw, I just sat and sobbed. Mona made a contented moan and licked him all the way up his chest, stopping to suckle his nipples. Straddling him, she flung her head back in ecstasy, her dark hair trailing like a shadow over his white thighs. I heard him groan with frustration and I hung my head, unable to bear any more.

I prayed anyway, since there was nothing else I could do, and wished I could block out the noises they were making. My eyes moved over the shredded remains of my bra lying on the ground and in my haze of pain, it occurred to me that I hadn’t been wearing a bra earlier. We’d come straight from the pool, so I’d just put my shirt on over Jen’s red bikini top.

I stared as the fabric transformed from white to red, complete with gold hoops.

My mind was racing to try and figure out what was happening when Mona breathed lustily, “You’re just as good as I dreamt you’d be.”

In the space of a heartbeat, it clicked.

The scene in the band room came rushing back, where she’d convinced me that she had me by the throat, her talons sinking into my skin, when in truth, she hadn’t been there at all. She’d grabbed a hold of my mind and twisted it into believing what she wanted me to see.

A flame of hope lit within my chest. She must have taken control when I’d called out to Aiden before the air compressor exploded. In fact, I remembered seeing a piece of metal hit Aiden on the temple a second before I was knocked out, and he didn’t have any blood on his head now. I’d forgotten that detail and perhaps she hadn’t seen it to start with. Even as the thought flitted across my consciousness, a crimson slash appeared beside his brow.

All these thoughts ran through my head in the time it took me to draw one breath. My realization weakened her control and I wrenched my mind out of her grasp with all the rage of a wounded lioness.

The scene around me dissolved and I found myself crumpled up against the metal pole, back in the room where she’d fired the gun. My head ached like I’d been hit with a baseball bat, but I didn’t care.

My eyes flew to where I’d last seen Mona, pinned under Aiden. I’d been completely immobile while she controlled my thoughts, but apparently she’d used that time to extract herself from beneath him. Aiden lay completely still on the floor, his pants unzipped. She was slowly maneuvering to straddle him, her back turned toward me.

I launched myself at her.

Ramming her with my shoulder, I yanked Aiden’s dirk free from his belt just as he came to. Her head smacked the concrete floor and she landed with one leg hooked under Aiden’s body. He twisted around and snaked out a hand, gripping her throat in his fist. In that split-second, I had a vision of Aiden’s youngest brother Willie at the castle.