Page 116 of Beautiful Ruins
“What did you say?” My voice was a low growl, barely audible.
My blood ran cold. Not just rage this time—grief, disbelief, and something blacker than hate.
“You heard me,” he wheezed, choking on a surge of blood. “Logan was just as stupid as your old man.” His gaze bore into mine, a defiant edge in his tone that I didn’t like one bit. “Iron wasn’t going to take the kid out, said he’d come round when he figured out what was good for him. But your brother didn’t want to play nice. He wanted to run his mouth. So I tied the loose end. Like I always do.”
Silence. He let it sit there, like a corpse no-one could bring themselves to bury.
He licked his lips. “Should have seen his face, VP. He begged. Said he’d keep it shut. Said to tell you, and the little one, that he loved you.” Snake’s eyes danced, lit up with sick triumph. “You should’ve seen the way he swung, Rowan. Looked like a kid on a playground. Sad, really.”
Snake’s words twisted around my insides, drawing tight until I couldn’t breathe. I replayed every shitty day since Logan had died, every moment I’d blamed myself for being too slow, too weak, too cowardly to protect him. Now the truth presented itself, as ugly as I’d always known it would be.
A noise behind me penetrated the static filling my head.
Sadie.
She made a sound—part scream, part sob, like something breaking in slow motion. It carried across the field. It was unmistakable grief. She’d heard Snake’s words.
I wanted to run to her, to block every word, to tear out Snake’s vocal cords with my bare hands. I wanted to erase the memory before it poisoned her forever. But I couldn’t move. My feet were lead, and the world was a red tunnel.
It collapsed the second Sadie’s footsteps pounded across the dry earth, her face contorted in a way I’d only ever seen once—when she’d walked in on Logan.
“You fucking monster!” she screamed, her voice raw and primal. “I’ll fucking kill you—” Her knees buckled.
Scout lunged forward, catching her before she hit the ground. He struggled to hold her back as she clawed at the air, her nails raking his arms.
“Let me go!” She thrashed in his arms, a wild thing trying to break free of her restraints.
Her pain was a mirror of my own, raw and bleeding.
“Look at that, boys,” Snake choked out. “The little bitch has some fire in her, after all. I bet she’d fight for her life harder than Logan did.”
Something snapped inside me. For a moment there was nothing but silence, a shrill ringing in my ears as the edges of my vision sharpened.
The bastard killed my brother. All this time, I’d thought Logan had given up. Thought he’d left me by choice. But he hadn’t. Hadn’t kill himself. Hadn’t left on purpose.
My brother . . . had been murdered. And Snake, the piece of shit, was proud of it.
A sound escaped my throat, but it wasn’t a sound I recognised. It was primal, ripped raw from somewhere deep.
My legs moved before my brain could catch up, and I launched myself at Snake, my hands finding his jaw. I slammed his skull into the packed mud, once, twice, three times until the top of his head split open, and the metallic scent of violence filled my nose.
The need to obliterate him came from somewhere so old it might as well have been written in my DNA.
My tears fell silently, burning against my cheeks like salt-laced fire, but the only thing that existed was the collision of my fist with Snake’s face, the cartilage breaking under my knuckles, his eyes rolling back with each impact.
I punched him until my nails cut into my palms, and myskin split open. I couldn’t stop, not until there was nothing left but wet pulp and tooth fragments. Until the only thing anyone remembered of Snake was that he died screaming under my hands.
But then arms like steel cuffs circled my chest and yanked me from Snake’s crumbling body. I thrashed as Bear hauled me backwards, his grip tightening around my ribcage, pinning my elbows to my side.
I bucked and kicked, my desperation to finish what I’d started raging inside me. I wouldn’t have stopped until Snake was ground into the dirt for the fucking worms to eat. He had to pay for every fucking thing he’d taken from me. Even if I had to carve it out of him.
“Let go,” I barked, choking on spit and rage. “Let me finish the fucker. He deserves it?—”
“Enough!” Bear’s gruff voice cut through the haze of fury. “He ain’t worth your soul, brother. Look at what you’re doing—look at Sadie. You’re losing yourself.” He used my love for Sadie against me, forcing my head towards Scout as he held onto her.
I struggled against Bear’s iron grip, my chest heaving.
Sadie was there physically, but her eyes were raw and red-rimmed, hollowed out as tears and saliva carved lines down her dirt-covered face. Scout gripped onto her, both collapsed to their knees. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. She had exhausted her scream.
