Chapter 41 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
I tipped my head back, inhaling deeply as Carson’s blood dripped down my neck. Sanctum smelled of whiskey and copper, and I filled my lungs with it, shivering even though it was far from cold.
We’d never get his blood out of the mat under our feet in the fighting ring. The whole thing would need to be replaced. The once gray-white color of it entirely stained with varying shades of crimson.
The splatter patterns from seven days ago when we started were the deepest color. A near black. While the freshest smears were still a raw red that looked almost pinkish by comparison. It was our canvas, and we’d painted it well.
I gripped the blade in my hand, flipping it edge over edge as I caught my breath and licked my lips.
At my feet, Carson let out a weak, wet moan from a toothless, tongueless mouth. He was fading fast.
Rook was right when he said we’d be here until New Year’s Eve. I lifted my gaze to the clock on the wall across the space, finding it was already past nine in the evening and I promised Grey we’d watch the fireworks together. The four of us.
“Are you ready, Ghost?” Rook asked from behind me, and I instinctively leaned into him, resting my back against his solid chest, breathing him in as my panting subsided.
“Ghost?” he pressed when I didn’t reply, my nickname a rumble against my back. He dipped his head, nudging my neck with his nose, making me sigh.
Fuck, I was so tired.
We’d been sleeping upstairs, in one of the back rooms of the bar each night since we’d been here.
Showering on the third floor. Surviving on pub fare, water, and whiskey.
It would be nice to be finished, but something inside of me still thirsted for vengeance.
I didn’t know if I could be finished. Not yet.
The things this piece of shit put us through.
What he almost took from us.
From me.
I didn’t think I’d ever be finished. There was no ending fitting enough, brutal enough , for him.
Rook wrapped a hand around my middle, kissing the nape of my neck.
I closed my eyes, my core tightening.
They hadn’t touched me, not like this, since I woke up in the hospital.
A sweet kiss here and there. A warm body next to mine while I slept.
But no more. At first, I thought they were afraid to break me while I was still healing.
And this week? This week we spent every waking hour down here until we were all too tired to do anything but sit in a hot shower and fall into bed.
Carson let out another weak sound, ruining the moment. I drew my hand back to throw my blade and shut him up, but Rook caught my wrist. “Wait,” he said, his chin jerking to our prey.
He kissed me again, and something in Carson’s dying eyes betrayed discomfort. Anger.
The fucker still thought he had some claim on me? Even after everything I’d done to him. He’d never touch me, or anyone else again, and not just because he’d never leave this basement.
He didn’t have fingers anymore.
And suddenly, I knew how I wanted to end it.
There was one more form of torture we hadn’t explored.
Rook loosened his grip on my wrist, and I let my hand drop, spinning to face the others. Corvus and Grey lounged on the old black sofa we’d dragged down here a few days ago. Grey wiping down his hands and wrists, all the way up to his elbows.
He’d surprised me the most out of the three.
I expected the ruthless thirst for blood from Rook, and even on some level, from Corvus.
But Grey took his pound of flesh, too. This morning, with a sort of quiet resignation, he skinned Carson’s back like a hunter might work to remove the pelt from a stag.
In trained, precise movements as Carson screamed hoarsely.
When he was finished, he’d discarded the pieces and stood back to let someone else have a turn. Entirely unfazed.
“I’m ready,” I finally told Rook, knowing this needed to end. We’d already taken everything from him that could be taken without killing him. Corvus, his balls and fingers. Rook, his cock, both nipples, and each one of his toes.
We’d taken our time, keeping him with us by cauterizing each wound with Rook’s blowtorch. Sticking him with IV needles to replenish him with a steady supply of liquids.
But it was time.
“How do you want to do it?”
Grey finished washing up and pushed his blond hair away from his face with a sigh. “Together.”
This had Corvus looking up from his phone, and Grey fixing me with a piercing stare.
“I want you to take me while he watches,” I announced, discarding my blade on the floor. “All of you.”
I wanted the last thing he saw to be his Angel getting absolutely destroyed by three Saints.
Three Crows . I wanted him to watch as they made me come.
As I enjoyed every touch. Every stroke. As I cried out for them .
As they erased everywhere he touched me, replacing every last memory of him with more of them .
Until he was expunged from my skin. My bones. My soul.
And then when we were finished, I would end him for good.
“You’re still healing,” Corvus said, but I could already see the hunger in his watchful stare as it traversed my loose, blood-spattered Primal Ethos t-shirt and tight yoga pants.
“So are you.”
So were we all. But it’d been over two weeks since the bunker.
I wouldn’t be running a marathon anytime soon thanks to this fucker.
I kicked Carson hard in the stomach, and he choked, the misshapen mitts of his hands pulling in close to shield himself from another attack.
My shoulders rolled back as anger sizzled down my spine at the reminder of yet another thing he took from me, whether permanently or not.
No running for me, but I’d be damned if I was going to give up fucking, too.
Grey rose from the couch, removing his shirt in one swift movement, discarding it on the floor. His toned abs rippled all the way down to his low hanging jeans and the ‘V’ of his Adonis belt.
He undid his belt and slid it through the loops, coming to stand in front of me, never taking his eyes off me. “Take your clothes off, AJ.”
My Superman.
I heard Corvus’ rough curse as he, too, gave in, standing up from the couch, discarding his phone behind him on the seat.
Rook was already helping me with my shirt as Grey lifted his arms high, feeding his belt through the grates of the metal cage overhead.
Carson had stopped trying to run—stopped being able to run—days ago, but we still lowered it over the ring every morning when we came in to start the workday.
Once he had it so both ends hung down on either side of a bar, he lifted his chin. “Can you reach?”
I lifted my arms as Rook unlatched my bra, and I felt my breasts drop free of the soft material. I wrapped my hands around both sides of the belt, able to loop the leather around my palms but only if I rose up on my tip toes.
Grey nodded. “Good.”
Corvus placed himself between me and Carson, lying half conscious on his side on the mat, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t want him looking at you.”
I released the belt, falling back to my feet to finish removing my bra, standing before him topless, my nipples already so hard they hurt. “This is my body, Bones. My choice. I want him to see. I want him to watch you take everything from me that he wanted for himself. And then I want to kill him.”
His brows lowered as he rolled a reply around in his mouth before finally nodding, his veins popping. “You don’t have to join us,” I offered. “You don’t have to be here.”
Hurt crossed his eyes and I grabbed his hand, holding it tight in mine. “But I want you to be.”
Corvus let out a shaky breath. “So do I, Sparrow. There’s no place else I’d rather be.”
I found Rook watching me, pawing his erection, and I smirked. “Sit him up. In the chair. I don’t want him to be able to look away.”
Rook righted the chair and reached down, hauling Carson up by the crook of his elbow like he weighed nothing.
He shoved him into the wooden chair, strapping his head back.
It wasn’t the same chair he used to restrain me, that one was gone for good, but it was a damn close copy, and we’d used it quite a bit in the time we’d spent down here.
Carson’s face pinched, the skin between his brows bunching as he tried to speak. I thought he was asking me to kill him. It was either that or he really wanted a cami. Hard to tell with the missing tongue and burned out throat.
Not for the first time, I felt a rush of skin tingling satisfaction at the sight of him broken. I promised him I would end him, and I’d made damn good on that promise. He thought he could fuck with our lives, hurt us, twist us against one another. Now look at him…
“You’re going to watch,” I told him, slowly removing my yoga pants. “Close your eyes and I’ll have your eyelids.”
“ Sffuck ouu ,” he hissed, trying to pry his head away from the restraints, but it was no use.
“ You won’t,” Rook chided, his dark eyes sliding to me with a gleam of lust in their boundless depths. “But I sure as fuck will.”
My core tightened as he slung off his jacket, chucking it toward the couch.
“ AJ ,” Grey whispered, the only warning before he took me by the neck, spinning me back around to face him, his plush lips colliding with mine, drawing a low moan from someplace deep.
He pulled me close with a hand on my lower back, pressing me flat against him.
His tongue slipped into my mouth, tasting me before he ran his teeth along my lower lip, sucking it into his mouth.
He palmed my right breast, and I cried out into his mouth as he twisted the nipple.
“ Fuck, Grey ,” I panted, and he swallowed the words with another kiss. I could feel him hard against my belly through his boxers and eagerly reached between us to feel him. He groaned as I stroked him through the thin fabric, still claiming my mouth.