Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Maddox (Shade)
Idon't...I don't know where to look first.
Koa just collapsed into a puddle of Cassie's blood and piss. Ripley's crawling toward her with a knife sticking out of his side. Parker's standing in a pool of my cousin's blood, some of his own oozing down his leg. At his feet lies Victor's body and mangled flesh where his face used to be.
"Is she dead?"
Parker's question snaps me out of my bone-deep shock. Rip's still moving; Cassidy isn't. She's my destination. My critical destination.
Cassie is kneeling. Arms above her head, one shoulder with a protruding bone, too many wounds to count, limp neck, a swollen eye and mouth, and bruises blemishing every inch of skin I can see.
I've never been so horrified by anything in my life.
The woman I've loved for almost a decade literally dangles from the ceiling by chains while her essence seeps out of her.
"Parker, help Rip! Call the medics," I order and rush to Koa.
I don't have the liberty to cringe or acknowledge the splash of my boots in her fluids. Nor can I wave my hands around her like Koa, too afraid to hurt her further. Time to step up. Be the boss. Be their fucking man.
There's no other choice. I need to help her. This is my doing. My fault. I wasn't there to protect her.
All I can think as I crouch and slip two fingers between her curtain of red hair is how, if I had done my job as her man, I wouldn't be feeling for her pulse right now. I sure as hell wouldn't be begging the universe to give me a sign that my soulmate isn't dead.
If I had been half the man I promised her I would be, I wouldn't have been too late to save her. Cassie would be blinking up at me in relief right now if I had been faster. Harsher in my demands of Connor.
Maybe we could have done this without the FBI. We would have been here sooner. Her neck would be thumping beneath my fingertips, and I would be breathing a sigh of extreme relief.
Thump.
I should have taught her how to use a gun. She could have defended herself.
Thump.
It all goes back to the fact that she couldn't trust me enough to tell me about her condition.
Thump.
The woman I love felt like she couldn't tell me she was in constant pain. It drove her from the compound to seek help elsewhere.
Thump.
I didn't earn her trust. My knees wobble, threatening to send me to the ground.
Thump.
And it cost Cassie her life.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
"Fuck. Fuck! Cassie? Baby, we're here. Don't try to move."
Thump.
"No, stop, baby girl! You'll hurt yourself," Koa hisses at the same time the hair swallowing my hand shifts.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Warm air tickles my wrist, and hair slides away, no longer curtaining the bright blue eyes I thought I'd never see again. Filled with relief and so much pain, I stop breathing as Cassie blinks up at me sluggishly.
"Sweet girl?" I croak only for my words to morph into a shout for help when her eyes roll into the back of her head, and she goes limp once again. "MEDIC!!!! WE NEED A FUCKING MEDIC!!!"
In a flurry of chaos, armed men with bags over their shoulders come barreling through the dirty basement. A man and a woman drop to help Ripley, and while I'm distracted by the fight he puts up, I'm fucking detained.
"Sir," some fucking asshole says, "we need space to release her."
His words only slightly breach my brain. It's incredibly hard to accept his statement when he just pulled me away from Cassie.
Arms pinning mine behind my back, I have to wonder if I put up a fight I don't remember. Time and space cease to exist, but when four nameless people surround my woman, everything warps.
"Calm down!"
Sight, hearing, even fucking smell, zero in on Cassidy. She needs me. I need her. These fuckers won't stand in my way. Nobody will get between us ever again.
I buck, snarl, and I think I even fucking bite the fucker dragging me further away. Nothing reaches my brain. I wasn't doing jack shit to help Cassidy survive her wounds, but allowing other people near her scares me more than logic makes sense.
Right up until one of the most horrific sounds pierces the protective, devastated part of me, I'm pretty sure I plan to kill everyone in the goddamn room. The only thing that snaps me out of my delusion, the only thing that could ever possess the ability, is one of my men.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER!"
Parker breaks free of two men holding him back, stumbles but catches himself with the tips of his fingers on the ground and barrels full steam ahead to the medical team.
With determination, I somehow manage to shove the guy holding me back without breaking his nose. All I know is Parker needs me, and I can actually help this part of my soul. The four of them make me the man I am; nobody is more important. If one needs me, I'm fucking there.
But I wasn't.
I will be. No matter what I'll be the fucking man my lovers can count on and trust. I've done plenty of horrible things, said some awful shit to Cassie over the years that has destroyed our foundation.
No more.
We're a fucking family. If I can help one, just one, of us from getting handcuffed or tranquilized, I'll do it.
I didn't know it was possible for my heart to break while reaching for a man hellbent on murdering everyone in his path. Yet, when I catch Parker around the chest milliseconds before his fingers can graze Cassie's limp frame, my heart crumples.
I know what he’s feeling. The desperation to be beside her is strong, but we would only get in the way. She's getting the help she needs, even if it's painstakingly slow.
"CUT HER DOWN!" Parker shouts, feet pushing off the ground like he can fucking jump out of my hold.
Finally my brain starts firing, taking in everything around me instead of working off my baser instincts. Four people talk in calm tones and move around Cassie, assessing her like a sack of meat, but I know that’s not true.
"They’re making sure that when they cut her down, they won't do any more damage."
"She can't—They're not helping!" he cries, some of his fight drooping as my explanation takes root.
Parker takes a backseat in my mind for a moment when the medics move in on Cassie.
Jesus. I have to squeeze my eyes shut as one man kneels and braces himself beneath her good shoulder and wraps his arms around her.
A woman grasps her bad one in two spots in support for the dislocated shoulder while the rest of them get to work on the chains.
One clank of the horrendous metal is all it takes for another form of hell to break loose.