Leather & Lark: The Ruinous Love Trilogy (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, 2)

I wake to darkness.

No sliver of light. No sound. Nothing to orient my brain as to where I am or how I got here.

Only a familiar smell, a vague recognition my brain can’t pull from the haze of whatever drug still swirls in my veins.

I slide my arm across a cold metal floor and tap my wrist to check the time. But my watch is gone.

“Fuck,” I whisper. The word is too thick on my tongue. I roll onto my back and blink at the dark, willing any filament of light to appear, but nothing comes. All I see is a blackness.

Every heartbeat pushes me to a cliff edge of panic.

My breath quickens. Bile roils in my stomach. I pat my pockets down for my phone. Nothing.

Memories surface through the haze of drugs. A man in my apartment. My dog snarling. Blood on my throbbing head. I touch my hair and there’s a crust of it clumped in the strands. I remember a pinprick of pain in the side of my neck. My trembling fingers drift down to the mark.

I press my eyes closed. I will myself not to cry. The drug still lingering in my veins is both a blessing and a curse, dulling the memories of another darkness. Even still, I see the red numbers of the clock through the slats in the door as I huddled with my sister in the closet. Those glowing lines are so clear in my mind despite the many years that have passed.

Five thirty-nine. “How much longer?” I’d whispered to my sister. It had been hours since we’d heard any sounds from the house, but we refused to disobey our mother. We saw the desperate fear in her eyes when she closed us in and demanded we keep our promise to stay hidden.

Ava held me close. Kept me warm. “Figure it out, Lark,” she said.

Figure it out, Lark.

My fingers land on a small circle of metal embedded into the floor. I push myself up to sit and trace it, looking for a latch. But there isn’t one. There’s just a smaller, raised metal circle with eight screws near its perimeter beneath me. The surface of the circle feels slicker than the surrounding floor. I try every inch of the circle, hoping for a solution, some kind of button or clue. Nothing. Just the roar of my heart and the tremor in my hands as I fight to keep my fear at bay.

I crawl forward with one hand reaching into the darkness and hit a wall. The metal is the same as that beneath me, but there are small slats in rows, precise openings in the wall just wide enough to stick my finger in. I can’t feel anything inside. After trying a few of the holes, I trace the length of the wall and reach the next one, then the next. Halfway through my progress to map the metal in the dark, my fingers land on glass.

A window.

I press my face close to it and try to look out, but there’s nothing on the other side. Just darkness.

My fist is weak when I ball my hand tight to pound on the narrow strip of glass. “Let me out.” My voice is gravelly, barely more than a rasp. I try again, putting as much strength as I can into my fist as I bang on the window. “Somebody let me out—”

Something is pulled away from the window and I take a startled step back. Suddenly, bright light flicks on behind the glass. In the window, there’s a man looking back at me with a lethal smile.

Abe Midus.

I fall back on my ass. The light goes off.

On. Off. On. Off. His silhouette is illuminated only to disappear in darkness with the metronomic pulse of light. My heart pounds so hard it feels like it’s crawling up my throat. But I put my hands on the floor and force myself to rise.

When I’m standing straight and facing him, Abe leaves the light on, a remote control clutched in his raised hand.

My eyes dart to my surroundings now washed in light.

I know exactly what this is. A rotary batch oven.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose,” Abe says, his voice muffled by the heavy steel and thick glass. His lightless smile is triumphant. “It was God who provided me with the idea to bring you here. Through you.”

“Let me out.” Furious tears well in my eyes. I hold Abe’s unwavering gaze as I grip the handle I can now see on the inside of the door. I jostle it, but it doesn’t budge.

Abe rotates his arm to display bloody marks that weep through white gauze taped across his forearm. “Your dog made an admirable effort to defend you. So loyal.” Abe’s head tilts as his eyes scour my face. I curl my short nails into my palms. “Do you think your husband will be as loyal to you? Or do his loyalties lie elsewhere, I wonder?”

I say nothing. Fear is a spiral that coils tightly around my thoughts and traps them. I might not know what Abe’s plans are, but I can already tell they’re designed to test every boundary and burn through them. And if he’s asking this question, there’s a good chance my heart will be the first thing to break by his design.

“Why are you doing this?”

“A tooth for a tooth.”

My brows knit together. I try to draw a connection between this man and anything I’ve done but I can’t find one. For him to go to this effort to sow chaos in my family and orchestrate an elaborate plan, there must be only one reason.

“I killed someone important to you.”

Abe’s expression clears and then fills with wonder. Excitement, almost. He lets out an incredulous laugh before he raises a hand to the heavens in praise. “But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” His smile transforms as his arm falls to his side, and I realize that what I confessed is not at all what he expected. “You know, I almost gave up on my plans for whole-scale retribution in favor of simply killing you and Kane, and then God put you together in marriage. A second time, I nearly strayed from my path when I went to Kane’s studio, intent on indulging my weakness and bringing my vengeance to him, and God stayed my hand when you walked through the door. You delivered His wishes for the final notes of my masterpiece. The Lord knew what I did not, that your wickedness deserved to be punished. Divine inspiration indeed.”

“For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you,” I say, and Abe’s eyes narrow. “You can cherry-pick from the Bible all you want, but I still know what kind of man you are. Let me out.”

“That’s not up to me.”

“Yes it is.”

Abe shakes his head. “It’s not.” He turns with a sudden motion as though he’s heard something in the distance. When his gaze returns to me, it’s bright with the kind of exhilaration that comes from watching your intricate plans come together. It’s a look I know, because I’ve felt it too. “It’s up to Kane.”

Abe presses a button on the remote and the room beyond the narrow window is plunged into darkness. His silhouette disappears.

As soon as he’s gone, I try the door handle again, desperately tugging at it. I resort to a few kicks that accomplish nothing. I head to the back of the oven where there’s a second door, but that handle doesn’t budge either, and the window on this one is covered so I can’t see out. I’m still jostling the door handle when the lights flick on in the window behind me.

“Put down your weapon and you’ll have a hope of saving someone you love.” Abe’s voice booms from beyond the door, directed at someone I can’t see. “If you don’t, they all die.”

My eyes narrow as I try to work out what he means. His words tear at my chest, claws that rake across its depths and leave venom in the wounds. Someone else is at risk here, and I don’t even know who.

A new wave of desperation floods the chambers of my heart. I search the perimeter of the door for a hidden release.

“Isn’t technology wondrous?” Abe says, pulling me from my efforts to think my way out of a steel box and a situation where I know I have no control. “I can program all of these ovens with an app. For example, I can set a simple timer to start baking in five minutes. Just like I can follow Rowan Kane’s car with an app and see that it’s on the road, driving in our direction on I-95. I can even use my phone to set a timer that will detonate the bomb I placed beneath his engine, all with the touch of a button. With one tap of my finger, I can press send on the pre-drafted email I wrote to the authorities, the one that contains damning evidence pointing to none other than Lachlan Kane as the man responsible for the murders of Stan Tremblay, and Cristian Covaci, and Kelly Ellis, and all the other serpents in that nest of snakes who have recently wound up dead. And then I just have to lock my phone, and you won’t be able to stop it from happening.”

I feel a choked sob bubbling in my chest. But before I fall apart, I hear a derisive laugh coming from somewhere beyond Abe. The tone is instantly familiar. Lachlan. I press my face to the glass and look to the left, but I can’t see him.

“A bomb?” He might try to sound skeptical, but there’s no mistaking the worried undertone in his voice. “I don’t believe you.”

“Have I proven myself incapable? I do have your wife here, after all. Taken from your very own home. I’ve watched you for months. Slipped right beneath your world to shape it. So, believe what you want to believe, but is it a risk you’re truly willing to take?”

There’s a pause, silence beyond the door.

“Your gun. Or they all die now.”

I hear the clank of metal as it falls on the floor.

“Smart decision. But the next one you can’t make with your head. You must make it with your heart.”

Abe crosses in front of my window, a gun in one hand, a phone in the other. He backs away slowly until he disappears from view, and the next thing I see is my husband.

Lachlan tries the handle but it doesn’t release for him either. “Lark—”

“It’s locked, I can’t get out,” I say, slapping the steel with my palms even though I know it won’t get me anywhere.

Lachlan makes a move toward where the control panel must be, but Abe warns him off with a threat and he refocuses on me. “Are you hurt?”

I shake my head, though his eyes fixate on the blood in my hair. He looks at me with the kind of terror that I never imagined he could possess.

“I’m okay,” I say, and though it might sound impossible, it’s true. There’s no lie in it, even though I’m terrified too. Maybe it’s because I already know what’s coming. I can see my path ahead, even in the dark.

But Lachlan, I know he’s not ready. He’s caught in a riptide, trying to swim his way free. He still tries the door, still glances at Abe as though there’s some other solution to get me out. And there’s so much pain in his eyes, so much distress in this man who I once believed could never be anything but callous, even cruel. I thought for so long that he was jagged and sharp. But in time, I saw the soft edges of old wounds. And now I see the broken shards of dwindling hope. Of impending loss.

I can barely see through my tears. The only thing I want is to embrace this man who stands right outside this door, and I can’t. This trap is designed so that I never will.

“It’s time to right the wrongs done to my brother.” Abe’s voice booms, rich with both menace and victory. “An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. You have one minute left. You can stop the timer to the oven and save your wife. Or you can stop the timer for the bomb and save your brother. But you cannot have both.”

Lachlan shakes his head. “No,” is all he says, a whisper I can see but can’t hear.

“Your wife, or your brother. Choose.”

Lachlan doesn’t break his gaze from me. Tears shine in his eyes.

This is meant to make us suffer. And the only thing I can do is try to lessen Lachlan’s pain.

“I love you, Lachlan. Let me do the choosing.” I press my hand to the glass. And then, loud enough that Abe can hear me above Lachlan’s anguished pleas, I say the two words that feel like a betrayal even though I know they’re the right decision. “Save Rowan.”

Lachlan cries out as I take a step back from the window. He hits the glass over and over until his knuckles bleed. He calls my name. “Stop the oven. Stop it now—”

Abe’s voice is clinical and detached in the periphery. “She made the choice for you. It’s done.”

I take another step back. Tears gather at my lashes as Lachlan desperately tries to break in. My shoulders square up even though they shake. I raise my chin and give him a smile so full of sorrow and apology and love and pain that my heart shatters when Lachlan’s eyes meet mine through the glass.

An alarm goes off.

“Lark, no—”

“Tell them I love them.”

“No, no, no. Stop the fucking oven, goddammit—”

“I love you, Lachlan. I’m sorry.”

It all happens so fast—just not fast enough.

There’s a sound of metal falling on concrete. A determined cry. A yell of frustration, then one of pain. A gunshot that echoes beyond my steel walls.

And then the oven fans start.

Air blows through the slats in the walls. The circle in the floor turns clockwise, the rotary function spinning me in a slow dance as the current of air grows warm. There’s commotion outside the door. When I turn in that direction, I see Rose with Lachlan at the window.

“He locked it somehow,” Lachlan says. “Hit the emergency stop—”

“Where?”

“There.”Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

“It’s not working—I don’t know why it’s not working.”

“He fucked with it. Get her out—”

The air is already hot, getting hotter with every heartbeat that knocks against my ribs. My skin is slick with sweat. I drop to the spinning floor in search of a cooler breath that never comes. When I look up to the window, I see Lachlan with a gun pointed to the door handle.

Rose pushes his hand away. “No, you could make it worse. Shoot the window.”

I try to keep hold of Lachlan’s eyes as I spin. The heat becomes nearly unbearable as the fans pick up speed.

“Get down, Lark.”

I fold my slick arms over my head.

With a deafening bang, glass shatters into my enclosure and rains down around me. Some of the heat is released and I’m able to fight back the wave of darkness that threatens to knock me unconscious.

A moment later, I hear Rose’s sound of triumph and feel a rush of cool air. Two hands wrap around my ankles to drag me from the steel and onto the concrete.

The cold floor. I’ve never felt such relief as when I press my hot skin against it. I blink. Breathe. I try to control the nausea roiling in my belly as shock and adrenaline and the remaining sedative swirl in my body. With my pulse raging in my ears, I lift my head just enough so that I can meet Abe’s lifeless eyes. A hole sits between them, a rivulet of thick crimson trailing toward a growing pool of blood on the floor. A discarded tool lies at his side. It’s the same one Abe had in my apartment; the silver end now painted crimson.

I pull my attention away to reach out a hand and Rose takes it with a squeeze. “What about Sloane—”

“I contacted them as soon as that fucker said he knew they were driving. They managed to pull off the road and get out of the vehicle.” Rose kneels beside me, heavy, unsteady breaths heaving from her lungs as she looks down at her phone. There’s a tremor in her hands as she taps out a message. “They’re fine, the car hasn’t blown up but it’s not like they really wanna check it, you know?”

I let out a long sigh and close my eyes. When I open them Rose’s tired smile is waiting. “I might call in a contract for that one. Anyone here know if Leviathan does bombs? I bet I’ve got a guy.”

With Rose’s help, I push up enough to look at Lachlan where he sits near my feet. His forearms rest against his knees. His dark hair, slick with sweat, hangs over his brow. He tilts his head up to look at me. In his eyes, I can see all the pain and fury and fear rising to the surface.

“You feckin’ catastrophe. Don’t you ever. Ever. Do that to me again,” he grits out as a tear slips from his lashes to fall down his cheek.

“Getting kidnapped by a psychopath? I’m not planning on any do-overs, Batman,” I whisper through an unsteady smile.

Lachlan shakes his head. “No. Forcing me to not choose you.” Though he grasps for control of his emotions, he’s as powerless as I am to stop them. “You’re brave as hell. But you’re my person, Lark. I can’t do this without you.”

And this is one of my favorite things about Lachlan. I can look at him and that one glance tells me everything that words can’t. It shows truths that are locked away, about how hard it is to love. How much it hurts to let go of the armor we wear, to peel it back and show the most damaged layers of ourselves, to bear all our wounds.

Lachlan opens one arm toward me and I launch into him like a crashing tide.

His arms wrap across my back, powerful even though they tremble. He lifts me from the floor. This is the feeling I thought we would never have again. The feeling of being entwined with each other. To stitch together and know it’s not the last time. It’s just the beginning.

“You’re my wife, Lark Kane,” Lachlan whispers, his breath hot against my neck before he presses a lingering kiss to my skin. “And I’m not letting you go.”

Lachlan’s arms tighten around me. And he keeps his promise.

He doesn’t let me go.