Page 36 of The Last Time You Break Me

Johnny wheezed, head snapped back revealing a perfectly shaped Adam’s apple that I crushed under the palm of my hand. My elbow flew back, clashing with Eddie’s nose. It popped and the spray back of his cherry blood pushed back against me and splattered against my cheek.

I smirked savagely as I circled my prey and stalked their every move. Eddie threw a punch and it sent my head swinging. I chuckled like Harley Quinn as I felt the rush.

Fuck me, that one smarted.

I liked them when they smarted.

“Keep ‘em coming big boy. Make me feel the pain,” I teased as I spun into a roundhouse kick that sent him sailing through the air in a gravity-free spinning cartwheel. He landed with a thud and I lapped at the blood pooled along the seam of my lower lip.

Johnny was up next. He threw himself at me and wrapped his hand around my throat. Lifted from the ground, he slammed me against the floor of the cage in a move that replicated Reggie’s not even an hour ago and the air rushed from my lungs like the huff of a dragon.

It blew wild and fierce against Johnny’s face and made him blink back the wind that assaulted his dark lashes. He followed me down to the ground as he straddled my waist and solidified his hold.

Darkness crept in from the corner of my eyes, darkening the world around me and I allowed it. Letting go as I basked in a moment of the in between. Floating like I was once again sucked between the veil of life and consciousness. It was peaceful here. It was silent.

But my daddy taught me to never throw a fight.

After I had been given exactly what I came here for, oblivion. I swung my legs up and snapped my eyes open. Johnny’s widened in horror as he saw the destruction that dwelled within my harrowing and demented depths. My legs wrapped around his throat, and I squeezed until he could no longer breathe. He tapped out, fist slammed over and over again against the mat but I held fast, squeezing until I knew he was in oblivion too.

As I allowed my thighs to go slack, I leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “You’re welcome,” before I tossed him aside and stalked from the cage bloody and bruised, smiling in a warped kind of victory.

I needed the silence.

I needed the dull ache of pain that tried to awaken the numbness I have forever lived with.

What I could not handle was the pain that tore apart my chest and brutalized my very being.

What I could not handle was feeling like my mother had died all over again.

On numb and shaking legs, I stumbled toward the exit. An arm caught my wrist and stopped me, I looked up to see David, The Gates manager and one of our loyal men. “You alright, girl? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before,” he asked, his buzz cut, shaven head and dark thick brows furrowed and beaded under the hue of the weak yellow lights that swung overhead. He was covered in tattoos and about seven feet tall with a chest built like a wall. But he had a heart of gold underneath it all.

“Like what?” I asked in a flat, emotionless tone.

“Bested,” he replied without hesitation. “I don’t know what’s going on, girl. But you need to pull your head out of your ass and bring the psycho back. You hear? Bring her back. Because she was a thing of beauty. Sorrow? It looks awful on you.” He smirked and let go with a comforting pat to my shoulder before he wandered back through the crowd.

I let his words sink in as I shook off the depression and searched for the anger.

It would be the anger that saved me and destroyed them all.

I kicked open the door and prowled into the back alley ready to head home and see what our plan of action was.

When I stepped into the darkness, an abyss consumed me.

Chapter Fourteen

Reggie

War Of Hearts - Ruelle

“What. The. Fuck,” I growled slowly.

Deadly. Viciously.

My ears still rang from the shot he fired. The one that whizzed right past my ear, deafening me, and embedded itself straight into the wall before us. I glared at the hole, the thought of the fact it could have been in my skull turned me deadly as I turned around to face Dom. The boys looked stricken as they stepped back with agape mouths.

“What. The. Fuck,” I reiterated again. Because the more times, I said it aloud, the more chance that fucker had of surviving.

“I asked you a question, and you answered. Given your history, I had to test that answer to be sure it was truthful,” he declared proudly. His slick brown hair, brushed back and parted at the side, glistened under the lights.

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