Page 99 of Hearts Held
I realize I’m about to die.
Kenneth and Jacob continue to ignore me from outside the cabin.
I spy a small note that fell out from the luggage stating, ‘Love Bobby.’
This is not how my story was supposed to end.
Chapter 34: Everett
Rock and A Hard Place, Bailey Zimmerman
After finding out my mum was behind the murder of the massage parlor girls, I was hoping I could go home and just be at peace with my wife.
Though Brielle was nowhere to be found after the commotion of the events that transpired. She’s bloody kidnapped again, in plain sight.Jesus-fucking-Christ.
Marcus flagged us down, stating he saw Brielle get kidnapped by Michael, a last attempt to strike back at us for murdering his men and humiliating the Sabini family.
I floor it across town to the abandoned warehouse Marcus’s family reported seeing Michael take my wife to.
My men and I storm through the same abandoned warehouse the Sabinis had taken her to before.
My heart pumps ferociously as I remember her beaten and bruised, kicked to the point they caused her to have a miscarriage.
My eyes sting from the threat of tears. We clear the first floor, though a large bang gains our attention from above us. My brothers and I rush the stairs, feeling like time is moving so slowly.
Anxiety clutches at my lungs as fear produces the most horrid images of what Michael may be doing to her.
I can’t get to her fast enough. The huge bloody building makes her feel like she is a thousand yards away and I’m sinking in quicksand.
Once I turn a corner and find my wife in one piece, I stand processing at the situation in front of me, words freeing themselves from my lips as I mutter, “What the fuck?” Slowly, my hands move out, motioning in question toward the bloody bodies surrounding her.
Biscuit finally speaks up, his voice shaking. “Everett, we didn’t knowshe…she…”
My girl interrupts him, looking up at me with those large emerald eyes. They’re full of admiration and a hint of apprehension, as if she can’t anticipate how I’m going to react. Her lips curve into a somber smile as she slowly states, “I have a lot of explaining to do.”
As I holding in every morsel of air in my lungs, my eyes dart around the gruesome scene. Blood is splattered on my girl’s face. She has a pistol in one hand and her other is a tight, shaking fist. There are six bodies riddled with wounds around her, either shot or stabbed. I notice something shaking off to the side of her. As I tilt my head ever so slightly, I find myself staring at a tied-up Michael Sabini.
He is stark naked as a babe, tied to a beaten-down, wooden chair. There is a hole cut out from the bottom of it, where his hairy ball sack is drooping below the seat. His eyes are wide and pleading as they stare back at me. A cloth is shoved into his mouth to stifle his speech, and there are deep slits cut into his arms and legs. His blood slowly trickles onto the concrete flooring.
Anger and confusion flare through me, but I try to keep my composure.
There are four giant men surrounding the perimeter, guns at their sides and wearing hollow expressions. They’re all dressed in black three-piece suits painted with speckles of blood. I glance back to find my own men standing in confusion, no doubt eagerly awaiting an order. Time slowly passes as the world around me goes silent. It feels like the air has been sucked into oblivion and everything has been turned on its head.
Though the only thing my brain is focused on is Brielle.
I’m trying to stay in a logical state, but everything in my soul is demanding I direct my attention toward her. She is the only thing circling the forefront of my brain, squeezing at my temple until rage starts to crawl back into my body. Off in the distance, sound resumes. I can hear the small pings of water hitting the metal pipes within the factory, and my mind finally focuses.
She begins speaking in German to one of the men, something that sounds like an order. He moves to Michael’s side and cuts him loose from his confines. His limp body crashes to the floor.
I take several steps back, trying to take in the scene. One of her men moves toward me as we both state inunison, “Stand the fuck down.” Our eyes lock. In this moment, nothing else is supposed to matter, but I can’t find the words. I can’t speak. My heart is racing. My mind is blank. Torn between rage, anger, confusion, sadness and betrayal.
I’m so confused. How is Brielle a fucking German? She betrayed me.
I want to reach out to her, but the fury inside me ignites across my soul.
Brielle takes a couple steps toward me and says something, but my ears are ringing. The only thing I can do is shake my head in disapproval at her.
How did she keep this from me?
