Chapter 35
LILY
No, no, no, no, nooo! This can’t be happening. This has to be a bad dream. I can’t have just been sprung by the twins in a compromising position with their best mate! I just can’t.
“Lily,” Asher’s deep voice rumbles from somewhere, but I can’t see anything but the empty space my sons left behind.
Everything is ruined. Because of me. My sons hate me.
They hate their best mate. Joel is dead.
My salon has been turned to rubble. My staff no longer have a job.
And to top it off, my beautiful sisters can’t have children, and while that’s not directly because of me, if I had stayed, I could have done something to stop it.
But I didn’t. I ran off and only thought about myself, and now they’ve suffered too.
All of these bad things keep happening to the people around me.
ALL BECAUSE OF ME!
It’s hard to fight off the self-hate. The inner voice that tells me how pathetic I am. How selfish I am for thinking about myself and not considering other people. For even being present in their life in the first place.
It’s a dark hole of despair. One I’ve been in a few times before, yet nothing has ever felt this suffocating.
Nothing!
Why can’t I have a sliver of happiness? Why don’t I deserve that? Why can’t I live in a world where my sons love me and accept me for who I am? Accept that Asher is part of my life? Accept that I’m a Marx through and through?
I guess they would have to know about the Marx family to understand that. Just more fucking secrets I’ve kept from them.
“Lily.”
There it is. That voice again. His voice. A man I care about so deeply, yet can’t have.
I blink through the never-ending stream of tears, slowly turning to survey the room.
I’ve gotten used to it being Asher’s room in the short time he’s been here, yet seeing my sons in it has removed that.
It’s not Asher’s room. It’s Ronan’s. It’ll always be his room.
It doesn’t smell like him in here, though. It smells like Asher, his spicy wood scent already consuming the space.
I spot Asher still on the floor, leaning against the wall, his hand pressed to his side, blood seeping from the dressing.
Shit.
SHIT!
Kneeling, I focus on the wound, lifting his hand off the dressing enough to see that the flow of blood is easing. I can feel his eyes on me as I check each one of his wounds, but I can’t bear to look him in the eye. If I do, I might crack and shatter into a million pieces.
He’ll try to apologise for this. He’ll think it was his fault, but it wasn’t.
All of this is on me.
“Lily,” he whispers, and still, I don’t look up at him.
“I’ll go and get the first aid kit,” I say, keeping my eyes cast low as I stand and hurry to leave the room.
My son’s room.
What was I thinking?
I rush to gather the things I need before returning to Asher, never once looking him in the eye as I work.
When I peel the dressing off, I find a few stitches have popped.
Even though he’s bleeding, it doesn’t look too bad, so I clean up the wound and stick a few butterfly strips over it before applying a new dressing.
“Are you going to look at me?” Asher asks, and like the coward I am, I shake my head.
“Why?”
I suck in a sharp breath, biting back the ocean of tears that burn my eyes.
“I can’t.”
“Why?” he asks, frustration lacing his tone. “Are you angry at me?”
“No,” I whisper, more tears popping free and rolling down my cheeks.
“You should be,” he rasps and my eyes snap to his.
“No. I shouldn’t. And I’m not. I’m angry at myself, Asher. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
He frowns. “Neither have you.”
I scoff, standing and directing my gaze to his bed. “Get yourself into bed. I’ll get you a drink and some painkillers.”
I leave the room before he can say anything, and by the time I return, he’s laying back in my son’s bed. The one I fucked him in the other night.
Placing the water and painkillers on the bedside table, I turn to leave, but Asher catches my hand.
“Don’t push me away, Lily. We will work this out. The twins just need time. Once they see how much we care about each other, they will come around.”
I risk a glance at him, his whisky eyes piercing as he stares at me with certainty. How can he be so sure of this? Nothing feels like a sure thing right now, especially not us having a future together.
“Get some rest. I’ll pop in and check on you later.”
Tugging my hand free, I give Asher my back as I leave the room, going back down to hide in my bedroom.
I stay there for hours. Well past midnight. I don’t even go back and check on Asher, which is a shitty thing to do, but I’m just so scared of hurting him or anyone else that locking myself away feels like my only option right now.
It’s after three in the morning when my phone lights up with a message, casting the room in a blue glow. I don’t check it at first, thinking it’s probably Asher checking if I’m okay, but after a few minutes I cave and check the screen to find a notification from the app I use for my jobs.
Opening it, I find a message for the Crimson Angel.
Heard you were looking for the MacKenzie brothers. One of them is currently at the old church on the corner of Shepard and Dayble Streets.
That’s all the message says.
I consider it may be a trap. That perhaps this is another person attempting to kill me. But the hit is for Lily Bennett, and this message is for the Crimson Angel, and since I know Barrett put feelers out through this network for information on the brothers, I have to assume it’s real.
I’m also feeling a little reckless, and the idea of killing someone deserving sends a rush of anticipation through me, igniting the blood in my veins. The flat mood that’s been smothering me for hours falls away as I let myself feel this rush. My need for bloodshed nothing but primal at this point.
I quietly get changed into my gym pants, joggers, and a t-shirt before sneaking upstairs to check on Asher. The floor creaks as I approach his room, but he’s sound asleep, not stirring from the noise, and I take a moment to stare at his peaceful expression before I turn and leave.
As usual, I go to the warehouse to get changed before taking my second car to the location given to me. I park down the street in the shadows, making sure I have my knife, gun, and tool bag before creeping up the path towards the church.
It’s mostly dark inside, with a faint glow coming through the windows at the far end. I stand back for about ten minutes to try to spot anything that hints that this is a trap, and when nothing changes, I head to the closest door, surprised to find it open.
Well, that was easy.
Ducking inside quickly, I scan the old, dilapidated building, my eyes falling on the silhouette of a man sitting in the front pew. He’s unmoving, and warning bells sound in my head that perhaps this really is a trap. This all seems too easy.
The hairs stand up on the back of my neck, so I raise my gun, preparing to shoot anything that moves.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” The male voice echoes through the nearly empty building, and he stands from the pew, slowly turning to face me.
There’s not a lot of light in here, but there’s enough to show me this man is not one of the MacKenzie brothers.
“Who are you?” I snap and I stiffen when my ears pick up movement behind me.
Spinning, I find three others approaching, dressed in all black, their faces covered to hide their identities.
“What is this?” I ask, my gun raised, darting between each of them.
They don’t speak, but the guy at the front of the church does.
“This is us getting a payday.” He chuckles, and the other three do the same.
Well shit. I’m fucked.
I was right about this being a trap, but wrong about the sender of the message only knowing me as the Crimson Angel.
It looks like my secret is out.
Usually, I’m the predator in the room. I’m the one who takes people by surprise. I’m the one with the upper hand.
Right now, I’m not.
Very far from it.
I could take on two guys. But four? Even I’m not dumb enough to think I can walk out of here alive going up against four of them.
I take stock of who I’m dealing with. Definitely three men. Maybe one woman or a very small, framed man.
“Wanna tell me who I’m about to kill?” I snap, and they fall quiet.
“Wanna tell us why a suburban mum is turning up to a fight meant for the Crimson Angel?” the guy behind me asks, and I return my focus to him as I take a few steps to the side, trying to put distance between us.
“I’m guessing you already know that, since you were the one to send me the message.”
He nods. “It’s impressive, really. You wear the mask of a housewife, hairdresser, and mum, and in your spare time, you slaughter people.”
“Bad people. That’s important to note,” I say, stepping back again.
There might be a door on this side in the shadows that I can escape out of… I hope.
“I guess they are. But you’re obviously pissing off the wrong people. Now you have a target on your head.”
I shrug. “Just another successful day of business.”
“Well, that’s about to end.” The guy lurches forward in a sprint towards me, which distracts me from the knife gliding through the air before it lodges into my arm.
Pain explodes all the way down my arm and up into my neck, but I grip the handle as my adrenaline temporarily numbs the pain, spinning away from the guy as he nears, and I stab the knife into his back.
His bellow is loud, but the gunfire is louder as shots start whirring through the church, lodging into the stone wall behind me.
I shoot a few rounds in the general direction of the three, but I have no idea if any hit as I run in the opposite direction, towards the altar.
The loud pop of gunfire meets my ears again before a bullet slams into the back of my shoulder, so forcefully that it sends me flying forward to the ground. I cry out and try to get up, my hand slipping in my own blood.
The heavy weight of one of the assassins suddenly slams into my back, crushing me down to the floor.
My head explodes in pain as a blow to the back of my head rattles me, and a fist to the side of my face has my teeth chattering. Large booted feet slam into my legs and torso, pain exploding all over my body.
I should’ve known this was a trap. I was reckless. Not even considering a phone call to Barrett to discuss the lead that came through. He would’ve told me to wait, which is exactly why I didn’t call him.
Because I was being reckless. Too cut up about all the hurt I’ve caused others to think about my own fucking safety. And now, I’m going to die.
I want to cry at that thought, my mind going to Jude and Ronan and all the things I wish I’d told them. All the things I wish I’d taught them.
And Asher. Fuck, Asher. He has my heart and soul. It’s crazy, but it’s true, and I’ll never get to tell him just how much he means to me. How important he is.
As the hits and kicks keep coming, I wonder why they don’t just shoot me in the head and get it over with. Why prolong it?
Perhaps it was a stipulation by the person who called the hit.
Make her suffer.
Good fucking work, whoever you are. I’ll be waiting for you in Hell.
Just as I resign myself to that fate, I can hear something happening past the ringing in my ears.
A scuffle? A gunshot? Yelling. Yelps.
The hits lessen. The kicks vanish, and then I’m left lying there in a pool of my own blood. Left to die.
I try to speak. To make a noise, but all that comes out is a gravelly rasp.
“Lily.”
I must already be dead. Hearing that voice is so out of place here.
“Lily.” I’m jostled. Someone shakes me and I try to blink. Try to see.
It’s then that I realise I’m not dead. I’m still living in my hell, bleeding out on the floor of an old church. But I’m not alone. Someone is here with me, their blurred face in my line of sight.
I blink again, willing my eyes to clear, and as they do, they blur with more tears.
“I’ve got you, Angel.”
Asher.
This can’t be right. I must be hallucinating.
There’s no way Asher Scott can be here.
I don’t get a chance to find out, because everything I feel and know falls away as darkness drags me into a dark abyss.