15. Chapter 15 Finn
Chapter 15: Finn
T he basement door exploded inward under the force of my kick, my entire being focused on the scene in front of me. Cara. Naked. Her once flawless skin now bloodied, cut and bruised. The light in her eyes, once fierce and bright, was dimmed. She hung limply in Mikhail Sokolov's grasp, his meaty arm wrapped around her throat, a wicked-looking knife pressed to the delicate skin under her jaw.
For a moment, the world stopped. That space between one heartbeat and the next, something in me snapped. I felt it happen, felt something in me shatter and realign into something new. Something hard and cruel and utterly fucking merciless. These men, these pathetic excuses for human beings who had dared to lay hands on what was mine, they had signed their own death warrants.
"Let her go, Sokolov." My voice was calm. "It's over. Your brothers are dead, your compound is ashes. There's nowhere left to run."
Mikhail's piggy eyes darted from side to side, a trickle of sweat oozing down his temple. He was afraid, I realized with a distant sort of satisfaction. Afraid of me, of the reckoning he could see in my eyes.
Good. He fucking should be.
"You think you've won, Gallagher?" he spat, his hand tightening on the knife until a thin line of red appeared on Cara's throat. "You think this changes anything? I still have her, still hold all the power here. One wrong move and I'll slit her throat."
"You've already lost, Sokolov. You're just too stupid to see it." Then I was moving. I saw Mikhail's eyes widen, saw his arm jerk as he tried to bring the knife slashing across Cara's throat.
But he never got the chance. Because in that same instant, Cara moved. A sinuous twist of her hips, a lightning-fast jab of her elbow into Mikhail's gut. It was enough to loosen his grip, to send her tumbling out of his grasp and across the filthy concrete floor.
I didn't hesitate. Didn't falter in my headlong charge, even as every instinct screamed at me to go to her, to gather her up and shield her from any further harm. The threat still needed to be eliminated.
Mikhail met me head-on, a roar of fury ripping from his throat. He slashed at me with the knife, a wild, uncoordinated strike that I dodged with ease. And then my hands were on him, slamming him back against the wall with enough force to rattle his teeth in his skull.
"You fucked up, Sokolov," I growled, my forearm pressing against his windpipe. "You fucked up the second you touched her, the second you thought you could break her. Because now? Now I'm going to show you what real pain is. Now I'm going to make you wish you'd never been fucking born."
Mikhail thrashed in my grip, his eyes bulging and his face turning a mottled shade of purple. His strength no match for the icy fury pouring through my veins. I slammed him against the wall again, watching with grim satisfaction as his head cracked against the damp stone.
"Finn..."
Cara's voice, weak and thready called to me. I risked a glance over my shoulder, my heart clenching at the sight of her trying to push herself up on trembling arms.
"He won’t live. It's going to be alright." I told her.
She shook her head, her tangled strawberry hair falling around her face in a blood-matted curtain. "No. Not alright. Not until..." She trailed off, her gaze locking onto Mikhail with an intensity that sent a chill racing down my spine. Slowly, painfully, she dragged herself to her feet, one arm wrapped around her middle like she was trying to hold herself together.
"Finn," she said again, and this time there was no weakness in her voice. This time it was pure hate. "Give me the knife."
I stared at her. "What?"
"The knife. Give it to me." She held out a hand, palm up, fingers steady despite the livid bruises encircling her wrists. "Now."
I knew she had to do this. She had to take back the power that had been so brutally ripped away. She was a fucking warrior. A queen, in every sense of the word. And it was time for her to claim her throne, to take her vengeance with her own two hands.
Never taking my eyes off Mikhail's snarling face, I handed her the knife, the same one I'd used to end Declan Maguire's miserable life. Cara's fingers closed around the hilt, her knuckles white with the force of her grip. And then she was moving, a slow, deliberate stalk. She came to a stop in front of Mikhail, the point of the knife resting almost gently against his bobbing Adam's apple.
"You thought you could break me," she said softly, her voice soft but pure steel. "Thought you could use me up and toss me aside, like I was nothing. Like I was weak."
Mikhail made a strangled noise, his eyes rolling wildly in their sockets. But Cara ignored him.
"But I am not nothing," she continued, the knife pressing harder, a thin trickle of blood welling up around the point. "I’m not weak. I am Cara fucking Maguire, and I bow to no one.” Then she ripped the knife across Mikhail's throat. A brutal, vicious slash that parted skin and muscle and artery in one sick, glorious rush of crimson.
Mikhail gurgled, his hands flying to his ruined throat. His life was pouring out of him in a steaming flood, soaking into the filthy concrete and splattering Cara's bare skin with viscous red droplets. She watched him die. Watched the light fade from his eyes, the last choked breath rattling in his chest. And as she did, as she stood there naked and trembling and drenched in her tormentor's blood, I saw something flicker to life in her eyes. Something fierce. Something defiant.
"Rot in hell, you sick fuck," she spat, letting Mikhail's corpse crumple to the ground in a heap. "I hope the devil fucks you with a rusty poker for all eternity."
And then she was turning, facing the dozen hard-eyed Irish soldiers who stood silently on, watching their Queen. Men who had seen their share of violence and brutality, but as they stared at Cara, at the slip of a girl who had endured horrors beyond imagining and come out the other side, I saw something like respect in their faces. The first stirrings of a devotion that went beyond loyalty to any man or cause.
They were looking at her like she was a goddess. Like she was vengeance and deliverance and absolution made flesh. I watched Cara square her shoulders, watched her lift her chin and meet their gazes. I knew that everything had changed.
My emerald queen was now theirs also.