Page 93 of Sacred Vow
The afternoon sun dips low on the horizon, and I suddenly feel as though I’m in a race against the clock. The second the sun disappears, plunging this small town into darkness, I’ll be fucked. Finding any sight of her will become a million times harder, but even if it comes to that, I won’t stop searching. I’ll never fucking stop.
I make my way behind the house to look out at the property around me when a blood-curdling scream comes from my right, and I whip around, focusing on exactly where the scream came from, when I find what looks to be an old tornado shelter.
My feet pound against the hard, dry earth, and as I grip the heavy door and yank it open, another terror-filled scream tears through the silence, the sound gutting me.
It’s Tilly.
My gun is in my hand, and the second the door is out of the way, I launch down the stairs, landing at the bottom with a heavy thud.
Tilly stands in the middle of the small cellar, but as I take a second to really take her in, I realize she’s not standing at all; she’s dangling from a fucking chain, barely fucking breathing.
Her skin is black and blue, cuts and scrapes littered across her body. She looks as though she’s been trampled by a stampede of angry gorillas. She sucks in a breath, her screams falling away as her broken stare lifts to mine, relief shining in her beautiful green eyes.
Blood is smeared across her face, but there’s too much, and until I can properly assess her, I won’t be able to figure out where it’s coming from. Either way, I see red.
Barely a second has passed since I opened that goddamn door, and my gaze snaps to the asshole beside her with a knife clutched tightly in his hand. His grin falters, and his expression shifts into shock, then fear.
He knows what’s coming for him, and he knows his chances of surviving are slim.
“Caesar,” Tilly whimpers.
I don’t hold back, storming across the small cellar in a flash of lightning. My hand wraps around Jordan’s throat, and I lift him off the ground before slamming the fucker against the side of an old shelf. Rusted cans tumble to the ground as his blood-stained knife falls right along with them.
I slam the tip of my gun right against his temple, my finger resting on the trigger, ready to pull, but something holds me back, a tightness in my chest forcing me to at least think this through. Can I really do this? Can I shamelessly take another man’s life and spend another ten years behind bars? Ten years away from Tilly and in the prison where my demons were born?The vile shit I had to go through, the man I had to become just to survive . . . fuck.
There’s no question about it, I would end Jordan’s life without hesitation if Tilly’s life were on the line. If it were either her or him, I’d take the shot a million times over, but she’s right here. She’s alive and banged up, still breathing, still surviving. If I take this shot to end his life, I’ll be thrown straight back into that prison, letting my demons rule my life, but knowing the alternative is spending the next ten years building a life with Tilly, there’s no fucking question about it.
I can’t do this.
My hand tightens around Jordan’s throat, not daring to give him a chance at taking even the slightest breath, and as I stare at the kid who has spent years hanging out with my son, building BMX tracks in my backyard, and dying my fucking pool green, the betrayal eats at me.
How the fuck could he do this?
The anger consumes me, and as that roaring beast inside me threatens to break free of his confines, I war with myself. This new life I’ve built for myself, a life I could so easily share with the woman I love, could all be over in a second.
“Tilly,” I breathe, my haunted stare swinging back to her, desperately needing her to tell me what to do, but as my gaze sails over her body, taking in the blood smeared across her face and the purple bruises peeking out from beneath her top, my control slips even further. I search out her stare, and as she watches me in return, I see the same desperation flashing in her eyes. “Tell me to stop,” I beg her.
Tears slowly roll down her dirtied cheeks, and she shakes her head, the slight movement looking as though it causes her pain. “I can’t do that,” she says, her bottom lip quivering. “I want him dead.”
I clench my jaw, my grip tightening on the gun as I slam it against Jordan’s temple again. “I . . . I can’t go back to that place,” I tell her, not sure if I mean the physical prison or the mental one I’d be trapped in if I had to become that old version of myself, the version who could slit a throat without so much as flinching.
A coldness creeps into her stare as she shifts her gaze from me and directly to Jordan. “He needs to be stopped,” she tells me, her chest heaving. “If it’s not me, then it’ll be some other girl. Somebody else’s daughter. Somebody’s girlfriend. Sister. Niece. I can’t just . . . I can’t walk away from this without knowing that it’s over.”
“Tilly.”
“What if Zeph is next? Chloe?” Her tears fall harder, and she groans, agony clear in her broken stare. “Please.”
My chest heaves, the mental war quickly weighing me down.
“Let the darkness in,” Tilly tells me, a stark sureness in her tone, as if somehow knowing exactly what she’s asking for. “It’s okay, Caesar. Let the demons out. Give them control. I trust you. I’m not scared of you, but if it’s too much to risk, then let me go. Release me and I’ll do it.”
Her words are like a magical undoing, stripping me bare, peeling back all the layers I’ve worked so hard to keep concealed. Within a moment, I’m tossing the gun aside, and I pull Jordan’s head away from the metal shelf before slamming it straight back and watching it rebound with a sickening crack.
I won’t kill him, but she’s right; he needs to be stopped.
I drop him to the floor, grab one of the discarded cans, and use it to nail Jordan again and again, punishing him for every little mark he left on Tilly’s body, every wicked thought he’s had against her, every time he attempted to take what’s mine.
It goes on and on, the beast inside of me completely taking control until I can barely make sense of anything that’shappening. I’m a fucking machine, working on autopilot. I keep going for Zephyr. For the betrayal he surely feels. For the thirteen-year friendship that was reduced to nothing. For me. For the anger of not having seen any of this. For letting this bastard into my home and into our lives.
