Page 48 of Dragon Strife
“Are we storming the place with our two-man army?” I ask as I crumble the empty paper cup in my hand. “Or are we being snuck in the back like Daddy’s mistress?”
Laith’s head snaps back toward me, letting me know I struck the chord I was looking to hit.
“Through the back,” Diego confirms, then looks at both Chino and Laith before his eyes darken as his mouth curves in one corner with an ominous look. “For now.” It’s a thinly veiled threat, but it’s not idle. Both of us would gladly die soaked in Dragons’ blood.
“If I don’t have my slayer back safe with me in three hours,”—I look from Chino to Laith—“I will skin you alive and wear your fucking faces into that compound.” Chino is smart enough to look horrified, but my brother is not surprised by my words. He shouldn’t be. He knows exactly how ruthless I can be. “I’ll pawn those gold teeth I gave you too.” I grin at him.
Rage simmers in my brother’s eyes, the deep brown depth holding a promise of violence in our near future. We may be cordial right now to serve a similar cause, but once that’s out of the way, our feud will be reinstated.
Laith and Chino push up out of the booth and the whole time Laith’s eyes are on me, his jaw ticking with barely restrained violence. He likes to project himself as a docile, logical man, but he’s not. He’s as volatile as I am, and our inner cores are made up of the same material: tumultuous wrath. He’s just better at concealing it than I am.
Diego and I watch them leave, the bell announcing their departure. A few moments later, two bikes start up and I finally pull my eyes away from the window to find Diego looking at me.
“Can you handle working with him?” he asks with genuine concern.
“For her? I can do anything,” I promise. “But once she’s safe and back in our arms, I can’t promise I’ll restrain myself.”
“Will you ever divulge what happened between you two?” I know he means well, but some things just aren’t meant to be spoken frivolously in passing conversation.
“Some blood is thinner than water.”
When I come to, my head pounds with a migraine and my throat is coarse with thirst. I rise from the cold, steel floor and cringe when the fabric of my jeans shift, the material still soaked through with urine. My skin is itchy from the ammonia and my nostrils flare from the scent, threatening to turn my already weak stomach.
A sob works itself up from my chest, erupting from my throat and ricocheting off the walls in a taunting echo. I almost give in to the misery, nearly letting myself become that girl from so long ago, the one who succumbed to death. Then I remember who’s waiting for me on the other side of that door.
Diego and his sweet nature, his need to help any living creature and nurse their souls in the process. Those baby blue eyes are like windows to his essence, giving anyone worthy a glimpse into his purity and offering a piece, even if it’s to his detriment. He loves his family immensely, and he’s loyal and devoted.
I push myself up to sit and rest my head against the wall, trying desperately to hold the tears at bay. How easily one can slip into their past when thrusted into the same circumstances. No matter what I’ve learned from the first time I was held in another basement, no matter how hard I’ve trained, I’m still teetering on the edge of defeat.
That is until Malik’s face swarms my vision.
Where Diego gave me back my life, Malik helped me carve my identity. His unwavering belief in what I could achieve and who I would become has crafted me into the person I am now. Someone I know would make my dad proud. Malik’s tough exterior is only encasing a soul worth waiting for. He’s slow to trust, fearful of opening up, and yet he fills every void inside of me.
I brace my bound hands against the wall behind me and force myself to stand on my shaking legs. My back hits the wall as I release a groan, and shockingly, Laith is the next one I think of. The last time I saw him inside that deli, I couldn’t believe just how identical he was to Malik. Identical yet drastically different. Laith is a gentle giant with melted chocolate eyes that slip their way inside of you. I know he’s a kind man and I have never doubted that. I would bet if he were there the night I was taken, he would’ve put a bullet in his own brother to stop it.
The warmth inside me soon fades into stone-cold anger as thinking of Laith automatically brings Quinton into the picture. The man who took my innocence while plotting with my brother to take me out. The man who looked at me as though he could love nothing more, but turned his cheek when I begged him to save me.
My body vibrates with rage, the emotion giving me a second wind as I suck in a deep breath. I won’t just push myself to get out of here for the men who’ve sacrificed for my survival, but also for Quinton and Jaeger, who deserve to be run through with a rusted kitchen knife. I want to break them just as Jaeger is trying his hardest to break me.
He almost succeeded.
Just as I’m at the height of my rage, a key scrapes into the lock as I move to stand behind the door. The timing couldn’t be better and I hope brother dearest is up for round two. This time, I won’t be so soft on him.
The door slowly opens, the hesitation almost making me laugh out loud, but I swallow it down and breathe in. It’s his cologne, and he’s smelling as though he’s fresh from a shower. Pity his blood will ruin another outfit.
“Genni?” he calls out into the room and I clench my teeth at the name. I fucking hate that name and its attachment to the girl I was before. That innocent woman looking for love in all the wrong places.
As soon as his body steps past the door, I kick it closed and slam my fists into his temple. Pain ripples up my hand and wrist, but I welcome it and the sound of his grunt.
“What the fuck?” he bellows as his feet shuffle along the floor toward the door where I’m standing. It’s dark in here without the light from the hallway, and I refuse to let him reach the switch on the wall. Where I’ve acclimatized a bit to the dark, his eyes are still trying to focus, and I need to strike while the iron is hot.
The urge to taunt him is strong, but I keep my mouth shut to keep my position a mystery. I know he’s stronger than me and has trained much longer, but I have pure hatred on my side.
He steps closer to the door and I take that opportunity to kick his legs out, biting back a smile when his back hits the steel floor. I bounce away from that spot as he rolls, reaching out and searching for me as he curses.
He moves onto his hands and knees as his dark chuckle slowly echoes throughout the room. “I was hoping you had died—”
A sharp kick to his face shuts him up as he flies back to the floor with a pained yell. Then I’m on him, straddling his waist and using my bound hands to pummel his face. I feel the cartilage of his nose crunch beneath my clasped fists and dodge his hands as he reaches for me but changes his mind at the last second and decides to shield his face instead. That’s the first smart decision he’s made in the past year.
