Unbeautifully (Undeniable, #2)(83)

“Where. Is. Danny,” he repeated, straining his ears, trying to pick up on any noise that might be coming from behind Mama Vi.

Cocking her head to one side, she gave him a lazy smile.

“You’re shakin’, honey. This personal for you?”

Shit. Fuck. Shit.

Holding up one obscenely long red fingernail, she mmm-hmm’ed him, her finger swinging back and forth like a goddamn metronome.

“I got your girl inside, don’t I?”

He was f*cked. He’d f*cked their entire game plan straight to shit within seconds. He was so damn strung out, he’d lost the only edge he’d had. That he wasn’t Deuce and didn’t love Danny.

Only he did. And he couldn’t hide it. Worry, gut-wrenching fear, a desperate need to see her, touch her, to f*cking know that she was still breathing, was radiating out of him in thick, palpable, suffocating waves.

So, now what? More than likely he’d just gotten Danny and himself killed.

So, yeah, now what?

Thinking fast, he said the first thing that came to mind.

“Deuce ain’t comin’, nobody is,” he told her. “He wouldn’t risk the club for this bullshit.”

Mama Vi lost her smile. “You’re lying.”

Spreading his arms wide, he shook his head. “Wish I was. He didn’t even want me comin’. But you’re right, that’s my girl you got and she’s why I’m here.”

It happened fast, too fast. She spun away, disappearing inside the dark condo, leaving him momentarily startled. It took precious seconds for his brain to compute what had happened and then he was lunging for his guns and phone.

But he wasn’t fast enough, and Mama Vi was shoving Danny through the doorway just as he was straightening.

“Drop ’em,” she spat.

He dropped them.

This was the second time he was witnessing a gun being held to Danny.

It was two times too many.

Ripper scanned Danny quickly, looking for injuries. She was a mess. Covered head-to-toe in filth, shaking and crying.

He zeroed in on her bound wrists and the long stretch of freshly sliced rope that Mama Vi was holding in her hands. She’d hog-tied her. She’d f*cking hog-tied Danny and now the bitch was holding his woman on a leash as if she were a f*cking dog.

Being tied up like an animal, being demeaned, seeing Danny like this, knowing how it felt, knowing how scared she was, was killing him. It took every last bit of willpower he had not to charge Mama Vi.

If he didn’t get to kill her in this life, he’d find her in the next. And she would suffer.

“I lost everything,” Mama Vi hissed, shoving Danny forward. “My crew, my brother, everything…and if I can’t get to Deuce, the least I can do is make good on my promise to you.”

“Bitch,” he growled. “You already have.”

She laughed. “You think?”

Ripper was quickly losing hope that Danny was going to come out of this alive. Plan A had failed, Plan B hadn’t worked, and now all he had left was the hope that his brothers were here, somewhere, waiting to pounce.

Otherwise, they were both f*cked.

“You want her?” Mama Vi asked, stroking the barrel of her gun up and down Danny’s cheek.

He did. He wanted Danny in more ways than this bitch would ever know, would ever be capable of understanding.

“Yes,” he said, his voice breaking.

Grinning, she gestured to the muddy, weed-ridden lawn beneath him. “Beg.”

Beg.

He didn’t know the first thing about how to beg. What did he say? Please? Fuck that. Danny deserved more than empty pleas.

Especially if this was the last time he had with her.

He fell to his knees.

“I love her,” he rasped, his eyes on Danny. “You want me to beg, I’ll f*ckin’ beg. I’ll do whatever I gotta do if it means she keeps breathin’.”

Danny choked on a hiccupping sob and broke into a fresh wave of tears.

“Let her go,” he pleaded. “You’re hard up for blood, you want someone to blame, you blame me. I ain’t runnin’.”

He stared hard at Danny. “I ain’t runnin’,” he repeated.

Danny’s breath left her in shuddering spurts. “No…” she whimpered breathlessly. “Ripper…no…”

“Ain’t that sweet,” Mama Vi sneered. “Some real Romeo and Juliet vibes I’m feelin’.”

Ripper caught the small movement, Mama Vi’s thumb gliding along the hammer of her gun with killer precision. Not even Danny, whose ear was no more than a few inches from the weapon, heard the mostly silent click, only a lethally skilled gravedigger could pull off.

He saw it, he knew what was about to go down, knew there was nothing he could do about it.

In the midst of his terror, there was a sudden sense of peace. Danny was going to die, yeah, but there wasn’t anywhere in hell or on earth that he’d be living one day without her. Either Mama Vi was going to take him out next or he’d do it himself.

And knowing that—knowing that it was over, knowing they were done here, but also knowing that he’d follow Danny anywhere, that even in death, he knew they’d never truly be done, he found his peace.

What they had was some real forever kind of bullshit.