Chapter 62 Ballet of Brutality
ballet of brutality
Lorien
He drops the gun no doubt from the shock of what just happened. His body knows what his brain can’t yet register.
I kick it away with my shoe and reach for it, fire licking my insides at the movement. I hold the heavy warm metal, the weight of which wants to drop the nose or whatever it’s called.
Seamus takes two steps to the side, moving for the SUV.
“Don’t.” I point the gun at him. I wave it, just like I’ve seen in the movies. I have no clue what I’m doing but they don’t need to know that. “On your knees.”
“You don’t mean to—”
I squeeze a round into the dirt that seems far away and feel the reverberation all the way to my shoulder. My ears ring, my nostrils burn from the stench, and I really don’t want to do it again.
“Don’t test me. I have had a day.” I glare at him until he complies though his eyes dart to the SUV more than once.
“Toss your cellphones.” I point at the ground with the barrel.
Ever so carefully ballpoint pen man reaches toward his pants pocket.
My eyes hover between his freakishly slow movements and Seamus eyeing the vehicle.
“I won’t ask again,” I parrot the words of the would-be rapist with my eyes locked on his.
He reaches for his pocket as his lips pull wide in the creepiest smile I’ve ever seen.
There’s no warning. There are no beeps or dramatic, long-drawn-out moments. In the blink of an eye, the car behind me explodes.
I crumple and everything inside me vibrates. I’m deaf from the pressure on my ear drums and blind from the smoke and dust sprayed everywhere. My skin burns as if I got too close to a bonfire, and worst of all, I’m thrown facedown onto the ground from the force of the blast.
If my ribs were merely cracked before, they’re broken now.
And to think I was thankful that he hadn’t hit any internal organs with his kicks. Rib bones are certainly poking into flesh they shouldn’t be. The pain is acute, and I might even black out from it.
Correction.
I did because when I come to, Seamus holds a phone to my face and a gun to my head.
“… that’s right. And come alone.” I think that’s what he says. I’m reading lips as much as anything, only I’d think he was screaming from how red in the face he is.
And as if things couldn’t get any more chaotic, bullets whiz and a hollow thwap has the other man hitting his knees beside me. His left leg is blown out at an odd angle and…
… the ballpoint pen protrudes from the back of his neck at his hairline, having gone all the way through when he faceplanted.
I killed him.
I killed a man.
The only person who knows is the only other one who could be accused.
And that man holds a pistol in his shaky hand, looking around in panic with no means of escape.
Liam
Lorien crumples just as Briggs drops.
Fitz was going for incapacitation and he got it.
I wanted the kill shot and I got it too. I don’t know whether the force of the bullet took him down or our timing was synchronized, but I don’t give a fuck.
There was an explosion just as we disembarked from Fitz’s SUV. We didn’t have to worry about the doors opening or closing giving away our presence here. Hell, we probably could’ve slammed them at the same time and no one would be the wiser.
But my father looks manic and has no means of escape. He’s going to make himself dizzy spinning in circles, looking for a threat he’ll never see unless we choose to reveal ourselves.
Fitz calmly retrieves his bullet casing and lifts it my way in reminder.
I mime in return that he should watch what’s happening in front of us as I find and pocket mine. We move on silent feet through the scraggly trees that provide no cover. There’s a berm that provides some protection but that won’t get me close enough to the situation.
“Cover me.”
Standing from my crouch, I walk around the embankment. Bold as brass with my hand at my side, my pistol held loosely, I shout, “Drop the gun, Seamus. You’re surrounded.”
He whirls on me, hand shaking, eyes wild and searching.
I remember what a gunshot feels like. Hell, my wounds haven’t even scabbed over from the last ones. I’m not interested in another.
But I would never survive watching Lorien be shot, so here I am, making myself a target.
Again.
“You? Of course it was you. Don’t call me Seamus.”
“That’s where you want to start?” I extend my hands wide, surveying the damage. “All of this, and you’re most bothered that I won’t call you Dad?”
“Did you blow up my car?”
As if I would ever do anything that reckless so close to Lorien.
I shake my head. “Nope. And if you didn’t.
And I didn’t. That leaves your partner”—I spit the word—“or your victim.” Gesturing to the woman on the ground, I use the time to assess her.
“And since she was kidnapped, I’m guessing she didn’t either.
That leaves… him.” I use my handgun to indicate Briggs’ prone body.
“But—”
I laugh but see Lorien’s thumbs-up from her position behind my father.
“Do you really think an attempted murderer, a man who would violate a restraining order twenty-four hours after its issuance, has the moral high ground?” I take a couple of steps toward him.
“How stupid are you? No, you’re not stupid so much as you’re arrogant.
You thought you couldn’t be double-crossed by the likes of that fucker?
” Another step and another, my hand growing tighter on my weapon.
“He worked for me.” He thumps his chest.
“I was wrong. You are stupid. Did you just admit that for everyone here to hear? I was embarrassed before with your last name, but damn.”
He scans behind me.
“You can look, but you won’t see them. Five in total,” I bluff. “You think that stunt in Woodland Park was an accident?”
He lifts his gun and points it straight at me, in return I lift an arm and make a hand gesture that he assumes is me talking with the team at my back. Team of one, yes, but he doesn’t know that. In a move quicker than his age belies, he spins, turning his weapon toward Lorien.
Fuck that.
“That’s my wife.”
I charge. Call it adrenaline. Call it rage. Call it what you want, but I hit him with the force of a battering ram, my bad shoulder leading the charge.
It doesn’t matter that the wound was to the back, it’s still sore as fuck, swollen, and wrecked.
Throwing it into the back of an overweight man while rolling to ensure my knee visits his balls is a ballet of brutality.
My kneecap feels the contact. His testicles surely must as well.
I land atop him and knock his wrist against the ground until the handgun hits the dirt.
I fling it away, all too aware that the barrel faces us.
Seamus reaches for my neck with one meaty hand while swinging wildly with the other. I bob and weave, taking the hits I can’t defend as I watch my wife scramble from her position, grunting and moaning.
Her arms wrap tightly around her body as if she’s holding herself together. She screams as she picks up the gun.
“Get to Fitz.”
She hesitates.
“Go, baby. Please.”
Her whimpers fade as her footsteps do the same. She’s safe.
“Baby?” My father mimics before trying to hock up phlegm to spit at me but ends up choking instead. “I knew something was off with her. She was fool enough to fall for you?”
I land a blow to his jaw with what little strength is left in my bad arm, my dominant arm. I growl as the fight drains from me, adrenaline dying out. “That’s for my wife.” The next strike is weaker and a finger breaks when it lands in the same spot. “That’s for Cian. For Ayla.”
My body jerks roughly backward and I land on my ass ready to scrap.
Fitz rolls my father over, binding his wrists with zip ties before doing the same to his ankles. “Get to Lorien. I’ve got this fucker.”
“I—”
“Now. She needs you.”
That’s enough. I roll to all fours, regretting it instantly. My knees scream in pain. That was before collapsing onto my father and rolling on the ground. My right hand is mangled, and my shoulder will probably need more than Fitz’s care.
But my wife needs me. I limp away as quickly as I’m able, listening to Fitz whistle “Deep in the Heart of Texas” as if he has no care in the world.