Page 89 of Tear Me Down
Each circle of hell will be brought to the earth’s surface, and every inch of this pathetic world will burn until she’s in my arms again…
This is Hugo’s doing… The message at the warehouse was an indication of that. He took my girl, and unknowingly our baby… I can’t wait to tear that piece of shit apart. If he feared what I would do to him before this treachery, he won’t be able to imagine it now. I will dive into the deepest parts of the underworld to ensure the maximum sentence for his crimes.
I need to leave. Feeling like a caged animal only solidifies my dark divinity. Let me out. Let me go. I’ll find her. Our connection will lead me back to her. I can hear Zeke and Alex argue outside while Serena’s cries play in the background. They’ll try to stop me, force me to come up with a plan and not act until it’s too late. They’re in the way. They’ll only slow me down. Just let me go. LET ME GO!
“DAMIEN!”
Her screams ring through my mind, echoing again and again in a tortuous loop. Every whimper, every pained cry will forever play like a broken record, a playlist of my failures to sound out as a performance.
“GET OFF OF ME, YOU FUCKING VIPER!”
Something about that emits a tingle on the back of my neck. Viper? I’ve never heard that insult come out of her mouth before, and she’s said many… Why would she say that? I go over the moment in my mind. The man was mostly covered, and there isn’t a single detail that I can pick up from that far away besides his height and build. I can’t even pick out his eye color from that angle…
But she could.
That’s why she chose those words, because she’s a genius. A beautiful genius.
I reach into the broken lower cabinet to retrieve my clothes and quickly get dressed. There are holes with singed edges all over the tactical suit, but it’s better than this hospital gown. I need to be ready, and as long as this covers my dick and can hold my holster, nothing else matters.
Pain caresses my back and into my chest as hope begins to stir, but I immediately push it away, refusing to feel it just yet. I can’t right now. I can endure it when she’s safe. Whenthey’resafe…
I snap my head to the door to see Carter inch his way in and take a horrified look at the damage I caused.
“Get Serena in here now! And pull up that fucking video again!” I demand, but she walks in the moment I say her name and was clearly waiting right outside. She may not like me that much, but she loves Ashia enough to stick around this time, and at least that’s some common ground we can work with. Carter pulls up the video and I fast forward it to her horrified insult. Playing it back, she flinches at Ashia’s pain. “Have you ever heard that before?”
“What? My best friend’s terrified screams? Not in a long time!”
“No, not that. What she says.” I rewind it again and she listens a little more closely.
“Viper? What does that mean?”
“Carter, scan their bodies. Look for anything on them that looks like a snake. We don’t have time for facial recognition. Tell whoever has that man’s body to search for the same thing. Tattoos, jewelry, fucking scars. Anything,” I command, and he starts frantically typing and moving his fingers like a mad man when Zeke and Alex walk back in.
“What’s going o—holy shit…” Zeke says as he looks around at my destruction. Alex doesn’t say anything, but the shock on his face tells me everything I need to know.
“Damien, your hands,” Serena says to me, and I look down to see the blood pouring from my knuckles. Glass shards stick out almost everywhere from my fingertips to my knuckles, but I don’t feel an ounce of it.
“I don’t give a shit.”
“You’ve lost enough blood, and you’re going to need your hands.” She starts rummaging through the destruction and pulls out supplies to pick out the glass and bandage them.
“There!” Carter shouts and points to the screen, gesturing to when the three men first walked into our bedroom. I look at the screen to see an enlarged frame from the video, showing off the man’s neck tattoo. “The one that grabbed her has one, too.”
“That’s my girl…” I let out a relieved breath, and shake my head, needing to focus. “Get Tony on the fucking phone! Send this to him and tell him to run through his database until he finds a match! And find any other markings on these motherfuckers! Send it to my dad, tell him to call his friend at the FED’s office, and then run it through our systems. They’re not Dust, but they’re someone.”
“We’ve got three of the Dust goons from the warehouse at the Attic, D,” Zeke says confidently.
“Hugo?”
“There’s no sign of him, and so far these three are hard to crack. Ezra offered to try, but I figured you’d want the honors.”
I feel another wave of rage run through me, and thankfully, Serena finishes wrapping up my hand at just the right time.
“Take me there.” I push past them all and walk right out of the room, focusing all my rage into my soon-to-be next three victims.
Chapter thirty-one
Damien
