Chapter 30
BLADE
I’m coming, angel, I’m coming.
Those words echo in my mind, a mantra driving me forward, preventing me from breaking down again.
The car engine hums beneath us as Asher and I race through the darkened streets. After what felt like hours of shouting back and forth, he finally found the signal. The moment he did, the weight in my mind lifted, letting me breathe without each breath hurting.
He tracked Jacob’s phone to a remote cabin in Colorado, and after five hours of driving, we’re just a few blocks away now. The only thing that kept me sane during the long ride was knowing we sent Jacob the money, which hopefully spared us some extra time.
We park a little way up the street, unsure of what we’re walking into. For the few short years I’ve known Jacob, he’s always been tough, smart, and conniving. Most people don’t think two steps ahead, making them easy to outsmart, but with Jacob, I’ll have to rely on the element of surprise.
Asher cuts the engine, and the sudden silence is deafening. The air is becoming thick again. Usually, I’m not anxious before a mission, but those times I didn’t have so much to lose. Even if I had lost my life, it still wouldn’t have come close to losing Amelia.
As we stalk closer, I see the place is a decrepit old cabin, the wood splitting and falling off the roof. According to tracking Jacob’s phone, he’s come here over a hundred times in the past two years, so it has to be some kind of headquarters. Which is why, when I’m done, I’ll burn it to the ground with him in it.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Asher blurts out, visibly shaking. I can feel his nerves radiating off him. I should’ve brought someone else—he’s built for tech and algorithms, not blood and death—but desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Don’t worry, you’re not gonna have to kill anyone. Hopefully. Get control of your nerves, that’s how you mess up. Just take a few breaths.”
“I’m sorry, not all of us can go on a murder mission after just taking a few breaths!”
“You know what? Go back to the car. You’ll be her driver home, and I’ll take an Uber. I’ll handle it myself. When I send you a signal, just come and collect her.” I keep my voice low as we’re approaching the cabin. He blows out a relieved breath. “Stay alert, though. If you see anyone else coming towards the house, text me immediately. Remember, I have all your texts being read aloud in my ear.”
He nods and carefully makes his way back up the street.
Before getting any closer, I inspect everything. First, the gun. Safety off, silencer securely attached, bullets fully loaded. Then, I check my bulletproof vest—straps adjusted perfectly, no deformities. After making sure all my tools are inventoried in my gear pockets, I’m ready.
I take one last moment to center myself. This is it. I’m finally getting her back.
A dark silhouette appears against the moonlight, a man stationed at the front of the cabin, smoking a cigarette. He’s sloppy, inattentive. No wonder Jacob needed that money, he can’t even hire a decent guard. I move quickly, gun raised, squinting to get a perfect aim. With the silencer, the shot is barely a whisper in the night. The man crumples to the ground, thankfully without making much noise.
I advance to the side of the cabin. The ground is a mess, overgrown with waist-high grass and littered with trash. I’m one footstep away from getting caught in a bear trap, and I blow out a relieved breath, thanking the heavens that I missed it. My focus shifts to the window it’s under. You don’t place a trap unless it’s guarding something valuable. A sliver of light escapes from the window, peeking through the boards of wood nailed to the outside.
Peering through the crack, all the air leaves my lungs when I see her. She’s chained to the bed, her face a little pale, but she still looks as beautiful as ever. Seeing her gives me a surge of energy, lighting a fire up under me. It feels like a physical weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
I quickly tear off the boards with my bare hands, eager to hurry up and touch her. Kiss her. Hug her. Smell her rose scent that I’ve been dying without. The window isn’t that high, so I’m able to climb inside easily.
At first, she shrinks back against the headboard, her brows scrunched tight. My head-to-toe gear includes a black headpiece that covers half my face. But as she gradually realizes it’s me, her fear melts into a smile that lights up the room like the sun breaking through a storm. The smile also manages to break through the storm that’s been brewing in my chest.
When I finally reach her, I pull her into a tight hug, our rapid heartbeats syncing against each other.
“Aiden…” she whispers.
“I’m here. I’m here.” The chains clink softly as she moves to wrap her arms around me, but I stop her. “Shh… we gotta be quiet. Here, let me take these off.” I pull out the heavy-duty bolt cutters from my kit—I often need them to cut through locks and chains on missions. With a grunt of effort, I snap through the metal links, freeing her. And within a second, she’s in my arms again, this time clinging to my neck.
For a fleeting moment, nothing else matters. Until reality sets back in. The danger is still real. I take her necklace out of my pocket and place it around her neck, where it belongs. Where it’ll always belong and I’ll make sure it never leaves its rightful place again.
“Stay here,” I whisper gently. “Don’t move until I come back.”
She nods. I give her one last look before moving silently through the house. Every step is deliberate, every breath controlled. I reach the kitchen and peer around the corner. Some ex-con looking dude with tattoos covering every inch of his body is sitting at the table. I take him out the same way I did the guy outside. And keep moving.
The sound of a woman’s voice, along with Jacob’s, reaches my ears. I edge closer, listening from behind the living room wall.
“Please, Jacob,” she begs. “Let her go. She doesn’t deserve this.”
Hm, maybe I should spare her life.
The woman catches sight of me as I step into the living room, her eyes widening. I put a finger to my lips, signaling her to stay quiet. Jacob’s back is to me, like a small guppy fish unaware there’s a shark right behind him.
I move to the side of the couch, positioning myself at an angle to shoot his leg. He doesn’t deserve to die just yet—not until I’ve had my fun with him. He cries out, collapsing to the floor in agony. The sound brings me pure fucking happiness. When he looks up, surprise and pain are evident on his face as he clutches his wounded leg.
Before I can speak, a scream pierces the air. I spin around to see Amelia standing in the doorway, her face a mask of horror as she covers her mouth with both hands. I can’t tell if it’s the sight of blood or seeing someone get shot that’s horrified her.
“Amelia!” I say in a growl. But then I remember, I can’t raise my voice with her like her father does. So I speak softly when I say, “I told you to stay in the room.”
I glance at Jacob, writhing on the floor, then back at the woman, her mouth agape as she looks between us. Taking a step towards Amelia, I grab her arm gently but firmly. “You need to get to the car.”
“But—” She snatches her arm away.
I grab it again, rougher this time. “What are you doing?”
She points to the woman. “My mom has to come with me.”
Her mom?
Okay, now that I’m really looking, they do look just alike. Her mom couldn’t have been more than nineteen when she had her, she still looks pretty young. And her dad is almost sixty, which means that disgusting pig preyed on a college student in his late thirties.
What the hell is she doing here in a remote cabin in Colorado, working for Jacob? Last I heard, she was with her sister in California somewhere. John had been tracking her movements.
“Are there any more people here besides the guy out front and the tattooed guy in the kitchen?” I ask her mom, and she shakes her head. I turn to Amelia. “Take her with you and go–”
A scream splits the air, ringing in my ears. “Amelia, duck!” her mom yells.
Instinct takes over. I don’t even think twice or look back to see what we’re ducking from. I tackle Amelia, pulling her to the ground just as a knife flies past us, embedding itself into the wall. Jacob’s hand is outstretched from where he threw it.
My heart pounds wildly—one more second and it could’ve hit her right through the chest. A fit of anger surges through me, so intense I start shaking. He tried to fucking hurt her, again. I rise to my feet and fire at him. The bullet tears into his arm.
My voice is rough with urgency, but I speak to her mom so I don’t have to raise my voice at Amelia. “You need to take her to the car. Now !”
I text Asher to meet them at the front door, keeping my eyes on them just long enough to confirm he’s got them safely. Jacob is a bloody mess, barely recognizable, but he’s still writhing, still moving. That means he can still feel pain, and that’s all that matters.
Where should I start? That’s the million-dollar question. I know hundreds of ways to torture a person. And I know which ones hurt the most because I’ve been through most of them myself. With everything in me, I want to sit here for days brutalizing him until he begs me to off him, but I want to hurry and get back to Amelia more.
“I’m going to ask you some questions. Don’t bother lying—she’s a phone call away to confirm.” I crouch down to eye level with him.
“Did you rape her?”
He shakes his head no, and an ethereal relief washes over me. The whole time she was gone, my insides churned, haunted by the thought of him causing her sexual trauma.
“Did you kiss her?”
He nods.
I start to reach for my knife but pause as another idea pops into my head. “I’m going to kill you with your very own knife.” I walk to the wall where his knife is lodged, keeping an eye on him the whole time. It’s stuck in the wall good, but with a little extra force, it wedges free.
“Please! I’ll disappear and never bother you guys again!” he pleads as I take a few steps towards him.
I smirk. “I was wondering when you’d start begging.”
“I hated you. I hated you so much because she cried for you every night. I was never enough for her and she went crazy because she couldn’t have you. I wanted to be enough—”
Grabbing his tongue, I interrupt his useless speech mid-sentence. Using a technique I learned in junior year, I cut the wiggly thing off. It requires a certain angle for a knife to get through the muscle. It’s a good thing I’m wearing gloves and don’t have to touch it with my bare hands.
It plops to the ground with a thud. For some reason, the sight of the small, pink stump makes me laugh as he screams his head off—well, as much as he can scream without a tongue.
“That’s for having that dirty thing anywhere near her mouth,” I hiss, the image of him forcing it down her throat, kissing her , flashing in my mind. “Now you can’t plead for your life anymore. Tell me, when you brought that knife did you stop and think… this will be the thing that ends my life? How ironic.” I chuckle. “That question is rhetorical by the way, considering you can’t talk much right now.”
I slash him across the chest, not deep enough to kill him. “Did you think you’d get away with taking the person who means the most to me?!” I slash him again in the opposite direction, forming an ‘X’ with the two cuts. The last one is just below his belly button, sinking deep enough to tear through abdominal fat and muscle tissue.
He’s still whining and yelling, but it’s getting quieter as time presses on. Antsy to get back to the mansion and see Amelia, I decide to end the torture here. There are so many things I could’ve done to him, so unfortunately, I’m still going to have the itch to torture someone even after he’s gone.
“I usually ask for any last words. So, I’ll take yours as ‘I’ll disappear and never bother you guys again’. Guess those words are about to ring true, huh?”
I line the blade up to his neck, pausing for a moment to savor the pure panic radiating from him as he frantically shakes his head. “When you get to hell, tell Eli I said hello.”
Once I have a picture of the scene stored away in my head for later, I finally slash the blade through his jugular, watching as he goes limp. Seeing the life drain from his eyes sends a manic thrill through me. It’s a sight I’d watch every day if I could.
I pull out a small canister of gasoline and start dousing the kitchen and living room. The acrid scent fills the air, mingling with the smell of blood. Once everything is soaked, I step back, pulling a lighter from my pocket. The small flame flicks awake, dancing in the darkness.
The electrifying colors of red, yellow, and orange roar to life, spreading quickly and devouring everything in their path. The heat is intense, the light blinding. I back away into the front yard, watching for a few seconds as the fire consumes the cabin.
Now time to go see the girl who sets my heart on fire just as much as the one I’m seeing before me.