Page 30 of Unleashed
For a moment, everything else fades. The warehouse walls, the stench of sweat and piss and fear, the dying fucker gasping at my feet. All I see is her.
Everly.
That soft flush in her cheeks when she tried to act unaffected by me. The way her lips parted when I whispered her name like a curse. Her breathless little laugh when I pulled her into my arms, right there in the clearing, drenched in rain, her dress soaked, her body pressed against mine as we danced to music only we could hear.
I remember her fingers trembling on my lapels. The defiant tilt of her chin, even when her eyes were drowning in fear. Not of me—never of me. Of losing herself. Of losing us.
I remember that fear. It was mine too.
The second she saidI do, I thought maybe, just maybe, the world would stop trying to take her from me. That, for once, the blood on my hands would be enough to keep her safe.
I was wrong.
So. Fucking. Wrong.
The blade tightens in my grip.
Ryan’s breath is a wet rattle. Weak. Fragile. It should satisfy me, but it doesn’t. Not even a little. Because while Anthony’s men were hauling her into that helicopter, her screams rippingthrough my skull,hewas supposed to be protecting her. Ryan. My fucking man. On my fucking payroll.
Instead, she was ripped from my hands.
And now he’s close to me, breathing the air meant for her. The oxygen that surrounds me belongs to her and only her.
With anger pulled taut and rage strapped tight, the tip of my blade presses under his jaw, right where soft flesh meets bone. I apply pressure, slow—so fucking slow—savoring the way his skin dimples, stretches, then gives with a wet, tearing kiss of steel.
His eyes bulge. Wide. Wild. Bloodshot. He’s choking before I even hit anything vital. His mouth falls open, slack and trembling, a silent scream trapped in his throat as the blade keeps going—inch by agonizing inch—angling up toward the soft roof of his mouth.
His lips quiver. His teeth clench, but they can’t stop it. Can’t stopme.
I feel the scrape of metal against cartilage. Hear the wet pop as I breach through into the soft tissue above. His gurgling starts as a stutter—then becomes a gargled symphony of failure and death. Thick ropes of blood flood his mouth, spilling where his tongue should be, leaking from his lips, coating my hand as I keep pushing, watching his pupils dilate, flicker, fade.
His body jerks, a pathetic twitch, as the life seeps out of him in hot, stuttering bursts. But I don’t stop. Not until I feel the final shudder roll through him. Not until his eyes glaze, frozen wide in a look of shock and fear of finally meeting the devil.
I close my eyes, letting an image of her face into my head, allowing my soul to absorb the last violent vestiges of Ryan's life.With a deep inhale of breath, I finally extract the blade, ripping it from him, and viscous streams of blood patter onto the concrete like the ticking of a clock.
Time’s up.
For him.
Satisfaction hums in my veins as I clean the blade against my leather jacket, then stomp out, and Maximo falls into step beside me as we exit the warehouse.
“Feeling better now?”
I roll my shoulders. “Yeah.”
“You gonna go get her now?”
“Not yet.”
I slide into the driver's seat of the SUV when Maximo appears just as I try to close the door. “I ain’t letting you drive.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because right now you’re one crazy motherfucker, and I value my life, fuck you very much. Now get out. I’m driving.”
There’s still an inkling of sanity left, which is why I climb out of the car, but I scoff and purposely bump into his shoulder just to prove a point—point being…because I can.
Maximo starts the car as I slam the passenger door shut, and I lean back against the headrest. Every breath without her is a fucking war. I can still hear her screams. Clear as the night they dragged her to that helicopter. Her voice, raw, panicked, cutting through the gunfire, through the chaos, through the fucking storm roaring in my ears. I was halfway across the goddamncourtyard, bullets slamming into the stone walls around me, when they shoved her inside.
