10. Magnus
Magnus
It’s been too many days since I’ve seen her.
Yesterday, I went to her work in an attempt to settle my sights on her, but she never arrived while I was there, lurking in the shadows for a glimpse of her beautiful face.
I’d go to her house but I’m not sure where she lives, and it’s not like we exchanged phone numbers. Shit, she barely gave up her name.
I could ask Coen more details to find her, but then that goes against the whole leave her alone thing that Dominic has ordered. So, I take the little bit I do know about her, and use it to resolve the ache in my chest and pit in my stomach caused by her absence.
I lean against the building across the street, just hidden enough in the darkness not to be seen by passersby. I wait and hope for her to be in there today, to fuel my addiction and stave off the craving I have for her.
It’s dangerous to linger like this, but I do it anyway without a care of what might happen.
Seeing her is somehow more important than my continued existence.
A feeling I’ve never had about a woman in all thirty-two years of my life, which only makes me chase the high that much more.
The owner of the diner, Bram, an older man with kind yet sad eyes lifts the partition to the counter and steps through, a carafe of coffee in his grasp.
He glides to a booth, pouring a cup and going to the next and topping another off.
A teenage waiter cleans off a table and wipes it down.
Typical business as usual. The same thing I witnessed yesterday until I was finally called away to my own job, no longer able to ignore the buzzing of my phone.
My heart lurches out of my chest, almost like it spots her before my eyes do.
But when I focus on her, my stomach drops, my jaw with it.
My pulse picks up and I move from the shadow, out onto the sidewalk.
I step into the street, a car blaring its horn at me as it skids to stop itself from hitting me.
I continue, completely disregarding the peril around me.
I scan her, my gaze trailing from the injuries on her face to her wrapped wrist and hands.
A rage building within me, unlike anything I've ever known.
My hand itching toward the gun at my waist, ready to end the life of whoever laid a finger on her.
My soul is pulled to her, begging to wrap around and protect her from any other threats.
To nurture and care for her while she heals from this terrible attack.
I press my palm against the glass, peering into the diner, still unnoticed by her.
She stands at the end of a table, taking the order of an elderly couple, jotting the details onto a small pad of paper. Her frail fingers gripping the pencil. She offers them a smile and walks away, pulling off the sheet and sliding it across the counter to Bram.
He nods and attaches it to the clip for the line cook.
June flexes her left hand, almost like she’s working out a cramp in it, and I ache to be there, to offer whatever aid I can. But right now, the one thing I’m wired to do is eliminate the cause of her despair.
I power walk the entire way home, not giving two shits about being out in the open like this. By the time I arrive, sweat has accumulated on my brow and the anger inside me has continued to fester at an insane rate.
I swipe my badge at the gate to grant myself access, and rush up the stairs and into the house. Immediately, I draw the gun from my hip and the other from my waistband, securing them in both of my hands.
Bursting into the kitchen, I train them on both of my targets.
“Whoa, buddy, what the hell?” Hayes raises his palms in the air.
“Which of you?” I look between them. “Who fucking did this?”
Dom stands, his chair scooting back behind him. He reaches for me, but I shake him off, straightening the gun I have pointed toward him.
“I swear to Christ, I will kill you both if someone doesn’t start talking.”
We have a strict no killing each other in the house rule, but that went out the door when they laid a finger on her.
“We can’t tell you if you don’t explain to us what happened.” Dominic crosses his arms over his chest, a bit of irritation at my disturbance settling into his features.
“June.” The word leaving my mouth raises the tension in the room.
“What about her?” Hayes’ nostrils flare, the possessiveness of his tone telling me he’s innocent, at least when it comes to the harm that was done to her.
I tilt my head at Dom, shifting my body and shoving both pistols in his direction. "You sick fuck." My head spins, my heart pounding wildly.
The three of us have gone head-to-head in the past, but I never actually thought I’d end the life of either of these men. Especially Dom, my mentor, the man who took me in and gave me a chance when no one else would. He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.
But none of that matters now. Not with her involved.
“Maggie.” Coen tries to gather my attention. “What happened to June?”
“I went to her work.” I grit my teeth. “I know I wasn’t supposed to. I wasn’t going to say anything. I just wanted to see her. To verify she was okay.”
“And…?”
I flit my gaze to the floor, recalling the cut across her lip and brow, the bruising on her cheek, the bandage wrapped around her wrist and hands. The same intense anger I felt then only continues to grow.
“Someone.” I point the gun in my left hand at Dominic. “Roughed her up.”
Dominic’s expression changes, his arms dropping to the table, his fist slamming into the wooden surface. A low growl escapes him. “What?”
Either he’s a damn good actor, or it wasn’t him who hurt her.
Telling me that someone outside this house got to her.
Which might mean several things. June could have enemies of her own, or our rivals could very well know how important she is to us and are using their easy access to her to their advantage.
Somehow that will only end poorly. For them, or for us.
The latter is much more likely given our dire circumstances.
But how would they have known?
They must have eyes on our house and saw her leaving the other morning. Or one of the men standing in front of me might have gone against Dom’s order and saw her, putting her even more at risk.
“Tell me, exactly, what you saw.” Dom stares at me with an intensity that I feel within my bones.
Hayes drops a magazine from his gun, checking to make sure it’s full and shoves it back in, pulling the slide and putting a bullet in the chamber.
Dom grabs my shoulder, shaking it and snapping me out of my stupor. “Focus, Bryant.”
“Her face.” I motion to mine. “It was all fucked up.” I hold up my hands, the guns still gripped in them. “She had bandages on both, and her wrist.” I replay the image of her in my mind. “She was limping, nothing drastic, but definitely noticeable.”
Dom’s entire exterior hardens, and he exhales, taking a step away.
“Where are you going?” I call out after him.
“To find her, to see who did this, so I can end him.”
“What happened to the no June rule?”
He slides the gun off the table and secures it in his holster like a person would grab their keys before leaving. “Null and void. If anyone is going to kill her, it’s going to be me.”
Without thinking, I raise my weapon at him once more. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Dom swats at me as though I’m a fly in his face. “I’m not going to, you idiot.”
“I’m coming,” Hayes chimes in.
“Wait a minute.” I position myself in their way so they can’t leave.
“First of all, neither of you know where she is. Secondly, what makes you think she wants to see either one of you?” I nod at Dom.
“She fucking took off the other day when you tried to talk to her.” Then at Hayes.
“And you, she looked like she saw a ghost.” I cross my arms, the gun still in my hand.
“If anyone should confront her, it should be me. The one person she doesn’t hate. ”
The two of them look at each other, then at me.
I add my last point. “And all three of us storming into her work doesn’t sound like a solid plan.”
For once, Dominic is speechless, his mouth parting briefly then closing.
“I’ve known her the longest,” Hayes blurts out.
Dominic rubs his temple. “Two months.” He points to me. “You?”
“A week.” He clearly has me beat on this one.
We both pivot to Hayes, waiting to see if he’ll win this one or not.
“Over a decade.”
“What?” I’m not sure if it comes from me or Dom.
“It should be me.” Hayes runs his fingers through his surfer boy hair. “She trusts me. I’ll get her to tell me who did this to her. Then we can take turns torturing them.”
“She doesn’t trust you. June doesn’t trust anybody.” Because if I learned anything from my short but sweet time with her, she’s got mad trust issues.
“This, right here, see.” Dom raises his voice. “This is why we can’t get involved. We’re in the middle of a fucking war and we’re completely focused on something else.”
Hayes stares right at him, a look that could kill. “She isn’t just something.”
It’s like he took the words right out of my mouth.
“I know, damn it do I know.” Dom reaches into his pocket to pull out his keys. He hands them to Hayes. “Hurry back so we can end this.”
“What the fuck.” I stand my ground. “I get no say in this? I’m the one who found her. If she’s going to talk to anyone, it’ll be me.”
“How about this?” Hayes grips my shoulder. “You can come with me, stay in the car. If she kicks me out, I’ll send you in.”
“Can you two shut up and come on already?” Dom snags his keys back and shoves me out of the way to open the door. He stops in his tracks. “Wait, you said you saw her at work? Where?”
I hesitate, not wanting to give away my precious secret just yet. Like having it to myself means I somehow know her more intimately than they do.
“I thought she worked at a bar.” He glances at his watch. “Last time I checked, bars aren’t open this early.”
“Definitely wasn’t a bar.” I bite at my lip, hating what I’m about to say—the tiny detail slipping from my grasp. “It was a diner. Bram’s, over on?—”
Dom cuts me off. “I know where that is. Come on.”
“Shotgun,” I call out.
“What the fuck.” Hayes stomps behind me.
We climb into Dom’s SUV. A Mercedes AMG G 63, fully tailored to Dominic’s specifications.
Obsidian black exterior, Nappa leather inside, blacked-out rims, and bulletproof accents.
It cost a pretty penny, but it's totally Dom's style.
It's quick, it's sleek, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.
We could have easily taken one of the unmarked vehicles, but knowing how I feel right now, Dom doesn't care about someone spotting him either.
Almost like he's inviting them to him, to summon the war and go on a rampage, ending anyone in sight.
It doesn’t take long to get there, especially when Dom blows through stop signs and goes the wrong way down a one-way to cut across quicker.
Hayes hops out as soon as we park, shoving his gun into the back of his pants and pulling his shirt over it.
I watch his every step with precision, my fingers digging into my thigh with the desire to trade places with him.
To be the one to confront June. In a loving but attentive way.
The Hayes I know is rough, brutal, and not the comforting type.
How he thinks he’s more equipped for this job than me I’ll never understand.
Hell, Dom might be better suited and he’s a fucking psycho.
Hayes claims he and June go back over ten years, yet he’s never once mentioned her name. She’s important enough to invoke a rage inside of him and a fierce possessiveness but not actively have her in his life?
My gut tells me he’s going to make this entire situation worse than it already is because he can’t handle a woman like June.
She’s strong, resilient, powerful, and if I had to guess, she’s fully capable of handling her own.
I mean, she’s back at work with minimal downtime after whatever happened.
A second job at that. And from the looks of it, she was fucking tortured.
What other person, aside from those in my line of work, operates that way?
In addition to her strength though, there’s this broken part of her. The wreckage that created her toughness and forced her to push everyone away.
She needs someone in her life that sees her.
That understands her. That shows her a bit of kindness and actually means well.
That won’t use or abuse her. That will treat her with caution but give her the ability to flourish and treat her like the princess she really is.
And most of all, won’t break her trust and leave her once she’s finally opened up.
Maybe that man isn’t me, but it sure as shit isn’t Hayes.
That’s when it dawns on me. The dynamic between Hayes and June. The raw ache I felt between them. The tragic story that was unspoken and yet still heard by my soul.
Coen Hayes is the person who abandoned June.
I grip my thigh harder, the anger inside of me bubbling nearly out of control while I watch him reach his hand out and touch her shoulder to get her attention.
No, it wasn't Hayes who inflicted the recent injuries on June, but his damages run much deeper than any surface-level wound. And for that alone, it puts him at the top of my kill list.