Borden (Borden #1) Page 6

  No. No. No. No. No. No.

  It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

  His vision swam and darkened. He nearly lost consciousness from the shock as he reached out to her. Her pale skin was ice cold to the touch. He wrapped his arm around her body and pulled her to him.

  “Kate?” he whispered fearfully.

  He turned her face to him and his heart collapsed in his chest. Her eyes were open, but there was nothing there. He shook his head in denial and stroked her cheek.

  “Wake up,” he pleaded. “Wake up. Don’t do this to me. Don’t… Don’t fucking do this to me! No, no, no.”

  He let out a guttural cry, sucking in the air in his lungs as he tried to accept what had happened, what he was looking at, what he was touching.

  “I fucking love you,” he let out, feeling the knife-like pain cutting into his chest. “I fucking love you and I never told you. I never fucking told you. I never…”

  His thumb roamed over her lifeless face, over her thin lips, and fuck they were still red, even in death. His fingers floated through the strands of her long blonde hair, and he grabbed a fistful, sucking in more air as his world twisted apart around him.

  No. No.

  Shaking, he swam back to shore with her and carried her to a spot on the sandy ground. His body was an earthquake, his face had paled at the sight of the woman he returned for. The woman who had given him purpose when he had been lost and gone. He opened his mouth but his voice was trapped inside his lungs. His vision swam but no tears fell out.

  He collapsed over her, burying his face into the soft curve of her shoulder. That was the moment the colours in his world diminished. He tore himself away to look down at her face and saw nothing but black and grey everywhere. Digging his fingers into the sandy earth, the acute pain in his chest was accompanied by an anger that made his blood run cold as death.

  It was exquisite, this anger.

  It gave him purpose, this anger.

  It changed him.

  Whatever was left of Marcus that day died on the riverbank with Kate Davenoth.

  Part Two: Borden and Emma

  “The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.”

  Norman Cousins

  Six

  Emma

  They nicknamed him the Tank, and I could see why now that I was standing in front of him. The man was bloody huge. Like, Ajax the Great kind of fucking huge. I had to crane my head to take in all six and a half feet of him.

  But Marcus Borden was a lot younger than I expected. He looked to be in his early thirties. His brown hair was longer than previous images I’d seen, curling just a little at the nape of his neck and over his forehead. His face was heart shaped, and he had plump lips, a strong straight nose and high cheekbones. I’d have thought pretty features such as his screamed pretty boy, but that was the last thing he was. At the calculated way he moved and with cold eyes like those, he screamed predator instead.

  And only one word was going through my mind in that moment: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

  I was immediately overwhelmed with fear. I felt like somebody had knocked the wind out of me. His grave expression instantly put me on edge, and when his resilient blue eyes flashed to mine, even for the half of a second that it did, my heart picked up and I could feel my speedy pulse thump in my ears.

  Why the fuck am I here? The one night I agree to come out and this is what happens…

  There were three of his men standing around him and a tall, slender redhead in a skimpy red dress hanging by his side. She was looking at me, amusement scribbled in her gentle features at my predicament. I instantly hated the bitch.

  Borden, wearing a thick black sweater and dark jeans, was standing in front a large steel table, sorting through an open briefcase when we first walked in. I couldn’t see the contents of his briefcase from where I stood, nor did I want to. What I wanted desperately was to be away from all of them. This was like a bad scene out of some B-grade mafia movie, and any second someone was going to put a bullet through the back of my head. I looked behind me, just to be sure.

  Yeah, I was losing my shit.

  Again: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

  I had been dragged here forcefully by a man they called Hawke, and his hand was still currently wrapped tightly around my bare arm. When I looked down at it, I felt my stomach churn. He was missing his third finger, and the skin around his forearm was thickly scarred.

  He roughly situated me in front of the table across from Borden. I watched as another man walked to where he stood and leaned into his ear. “Found her in the alleyway when we were taking care of business. Think she saw everything…”

  The walls were vibrating from the music roaring outside the back room of the club, drowning out the remainder of his words. Or maybe that had been the cause of my heart climbing into my ear canals, beating my hearing riotously into deafness. Whatever. It didn’t matter, did it? Fact was I couldn’t hear shit without straining.

  Still looking down at whatever was in the briefcase in front of him, he said, “What did you see in the alleyway, Miss…?” His voice was low and smooth but had a backbone of authority in it. He appeared almost bored, as if this was yet another inconvenience.

  “I didn’t see anything,” I quickly responded.

  “He asked for your fucking name, bitch,” growled Hawke, digging his fingernails deeper into my arm.

  “Well, I didn’t really know that, did I?” I couldn’t help snapping. I honestly wouldn’t have done it if I was in the right frame of mind.

  My heart picked up at the way Hawke looked at me. I swallowed hard and uttered, “Emma Warne. That’s my name.”

  Borden instantly looked up at me. “Emma Warne?” he repeated, a note of surprise in his voice.

  My brow furrowed at his strange reaction before Hawke’s grip tightened once again in warning. “Y-yes,” I quickly said.

  Borden just stared at me for a long moment, and the silence was awkward as shit. I sort of wanted to fade into nonexistence at the look in his eyes, all hard and curious. Then, before I could question that look, his face smoothed out and he returned to normal.

  “Have you given her a pat-down?” he asked Hawke.

  Hawke nodded. “There’s nothing really to check. The dress is pretty skin tight.”

  Borden eyed me carefully, roaming my body from top to bottom. It wasn’t heatedly either. Just clinical. “Did you check her bra, see if she’s concealing…blades of any kind?”

  I tensed suddenly. How the hell could he know that?

  “I didn’t check her bra. I’ll do that now.”

  The second Hawke’s mangled hand shot up to my chest, I jumped back. “No!” I hissed. “I’ve got a switchblade in my bra. I’ll get it myself.”

  He looked to Borden to see if that was alright, and Borden nodded. All eyes were on me as I stuffed my hand down my top, searching for the blade concealed under my breast. I pulled it out, and my breasts were practically on display before I fixed them back into place. My face was flaming red as I reluctantly handed Hawke my switchblade. Not that I would mourn it or anything. I had a dozen others in my apartment. He took it and placed it on the table before returning to stand next to me.

  Silence again.

  Borden looked like he was deliberating, shooting a quick glance at the weapon every few moments.

  “Do you make a habit out of using this blade, Miss Warne?”

  “It’s for protection,” I simply responded, my body breaking out in sweat at how hard he was looking at me.

  “Do you put yourself in danger often?”

  “No.”

  “Then what were you doing out there on your own in an alleyway this late at night?”

  Strange how simple questions you would have easily answered before become hard and impossible to clearly put into words when fear took you. I stuttered, blinking several times, trying to put together a line before Hawke cursed loudly. “Fuck this, she’s going to lie, Borden,” he said. “She
can’t put two words together–”

  “I wanted some fresh air.” I interrupted him. “It’s very cloudy in the club and I’m not use to being in crowded places… I wanted some fresh air. That’s all. I didn’t see or do anything–”

  “She’s lying,” Hawke cut in sharply.

  “I’m not lying!” I didn’t mean to raise my voice but this Hawke guy was really aggravating me. It was like hate at first sight with this douche, and he glared at me like I was a fly that needed to be squashed/burned/mutilated.

  Borden’s mouth formed a frown at my outburst. Fuck. He shut the briefcase loudly and set each palm face down on the table, leaning forward just a little to study me.

  Staring at his face was difficult, but I felt like I had no other choice. He was willing me to with those hypnotic eyes; there was no way I could escape them. Then he glanced over my shoulder, and just the simple action prompted Hawke to shove me closer to Borden, until my legs were touching the steel table, and I was merely feet from him.

  Closer to him than ever before, my eyes danced around his face. I could feel every part of me tense, bewildered for a moment at the stark beauty the man embodied, and then caught up in a wave of trepidation when I remembered who I was really staring at.

  A bad man.

  A dangerous man.

  Regardless of the way he looked, he was cold and wicked, and I was just a lamb brought for slaughter.

  “You’re holding yourself quite well, Miss Warne,” he remarked, going over every inch of my face and body as if it answered something to him. “You haven’t been drinking.”

  Still tense, I shook my head. “No.”

  “Odd for someone to come to my club and avoid a drink.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “What a load of shit,” Hawke said under his breath.

  “I don’t drink,” I repeated quickly before they all started to doubt me. “I-I haven’t for years.”

  “She’s lying through her teeth,” the redhead pitched in loudly. “Look at her. She’s stuttering and shaking –”

  “If I wanted your input, I would have asked for it.” Borden’s voice hadn’t changed but his face flashed with anger as he looked over at her. Shit, that look was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. She instantly went quiet and crept back. Any bit of confidence she had before completely drained away, which was sort of alright in my books after she’d smiled like a bitch at me just minutes ago.

  It seemed nobody felt safe around this man, no matter who they were.

  “How long have you been here?” he then asked, turning back to look at me.

  “Two hours maybe,” I answered hesitantly.

  “Did you come with a man?”

  “No.”

  “Who did you come with?”

  “A friend of mine.”

  “Is your friend still here?”

  “Yes.”

  Curtly, he said, “I recommend next time you come out this late at night and hang around alleyways, Miss Warne, that you come with a man on your arm. Being alone like this makes you vulnerable and easily taken advantage of. The last thing I need is a trail leading to my club because you were dumb enough to get into some trouble with a measly switchblade you wouldn’t have found time to dig out between your breasts for protection.”

  I was beyond red. “I told you I was with a friend.”

  “And you also just told me your friend doesn’t have a pair of swinging balls, isn’t that right?”

  “Well, yes, but –”

  “Point made. Don’t fucking do it again, in or around any of my establishments.”

  I shut my mouth, fighting the urge to tell him I was a grown woman and I could do whatever the hell I wanted to, but, yeah, that wasn’t happening. Not when I was standing in the middle of a dragon’s den, ready to be devoured if I so much as blinked the wrong way.

  “And next time,” he added, a small smirk accompanying his lips, “try avoiding alleyways for a place to take a breather. That’s simple street logic.”

  I bit my bottom lip, holding back the curse words itching to come out. I was pretty sure it was the fear stopping them from taking over.

  “So where are you headed to now?” he harshly asked.

  “To my friend?” I had no idea if that was the answer he wanted.

  “Wrong. You’re going home. Isn’t that right?” His face darkened as he regarded me.

  Heat rose to my cheeks. I nodded quickly.

  He eyed my bare arms. “Have you no coat, Miss Warne?”

  “I do… I don’t know…I don’t…” I began stammering, looking down at my black dress and bare arms, wondering where the hell I put it before I remembered I never even brought it.

  For several moments he watched me flounder before turning to the asshole beside me. “Hawke,” he said irritably, “Miss Warne is a little confused. Perhaps we didn’t account for her slow mind. Take her to her house before she continues talking shit.” His grim gaze landed back on me. “I don’t want to see you at my club ever again. Do you hear?”

  I nodded again.

  “Good. Get the fuck out.”

  Hawke steered me roughly out of the room. My head was spinning and I could hardly keep my legs up. My knees buckled, but Hawke kept me upright. Even though we were heading away from the danger, I knew I was having a panic attack. My vision was blurry and spotty. I stared at my feet moving unevenly on the ground. I was practically being dragged by this man. I heard loud voices and music in the background before cold autumn air hit my body. Before I could process anything, I was in the back of a moving car.

  “What’s your fucking address?” Hawke roughly asked me.

  “2514 Maple Street,” I answered through numb lips.

  I had my arms wrapped around my queasy stomach the entire way there. When we reached the tall apartment building, Hawke walked me past the group of men that usually loitered around the complex during the night. He didn’t say a word. He stayed put behind me, watching me carefully unlock the glass door with the key hanging on my necklace.

  When I opened it, he continued to watch me walk hesitantly to the elevator. I looked back at him several times; his long hair and thick beard stood out in my memory the most. When the elevator closed and I could see him no more, I immediately hunched over and threw up in the corner of the elevator. Nothing came out because I’d hardly eaten anything that day, but I couldn’t stop heaving. Acid burned my throat, tears and black hair blurred my vision, and my stomach clenched painfully until the feeling passed.

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and almost crawled to my small one bedroom apartment, using the walls for support on my way there. It was three doors down from the fourth floor elevator and it felt like the walk of my life. I could hear the normal television noise next door and the screaming of a couple across from me. Usually I’d be annoyed at this, but I welcomed it for the first time. It brought me back to the familiarity of my world instead of what I’d just walked out of.

  I didn’t change, or wash my hands, or even make it to the bedroom door. I collapsed into my three seater couch and shook violently. It would have been just after midnight when I’d come in because I watched every hour from one to six tick on by.

  I’m not sure what I was thinking about the most: Marcus Borden, or the man that was being strangled in the alleyway.

  Seven

  BORDEN

  With his forehead pressed against the glass, Borden stared out of the floor to ceiling window of his penthouse, overlooking the New Raven River. He tapped his gun against the glass as he watched the water sway. If he stared hard enough, he’d begin to feel the motion of it too. Pain skyrocketed through him as he tried to imagine a body in the darkness of the waters, floating with the current, swaying just as he was.

  He put himself through this torture often. It was the only thing that really gave him any feeling at all. His world had turned black and grey, but the pain was like a shade of red every now and then. It gave him pain, and with pain there
was the feeling of being human.

  And that was the last thing he felt anymore. Human, that is. His life now operated on power, control, and business that had long lost its appeal. The adrenaline that had energized him before had now weaned into nonexistence. He was a void, playing a part he was no longer interested to play. He was suffering in the way a man who couldn’t feel anything positive could suffer. The emptiness was a curse. Karma had struck five years ago and the bitch remained since. And because Borden had nothing to lose, he didn’t give a fuck if the bitch won in the end.

  He turned away from the window and set the gun back down on the coffee table in the lounge. It sat next to the opened briefcase, and Borden unaffectedly stared down at its contents, at the hundred dollar bills that took up every inch of its interior.

  Money did nothing for him.

  Numb.

  Numb.

  Numb.

  That’s all he was.

  And yet despite all that, his mind went back to one thing.

  Emma Warne.

  How was it possible that this had been the very same girl he’d rescued in that alleyway nine years ago? She looked exactly like her. No, she was her. The little alley cat with the switchblade. He remembered that girl like a picture inside his mind, and from time to time he’d revisited that memory, thinking of her jet black hair and haunted eyes.

  She didn’t recognize him, and why would she? It’d been dark, and he was night and day the man he was back then, both physically and mentally. Death did that, though. When it struck, it changed parts of you forever.

  “Emma Warne,” he whispered out loud, tasting the name on his tongue.

  Hawke had passed along her address to him, so he knew the poor girl had no business being on this side of the city. She’d barely looked the part, anyway.

  “Since when do we make sure these people make it home safely?” Hawke had asked him after he’d returned. “The bitch could have went back herself.”

  “She could hardly walk,” Borden had replied in return. “She wouldn’t have made it far. Anyone would have taken advantage of her on her own, especially after we stripped her knife off her.”