Chapter 30 #2
The cartilage under my knuckles softened and then gave way.
I hit him until his attempts at breath turned to silence.
Until his hands stopped moving.
Until the only sound left was the music from inside and my own breathing.
I stayed there for a moment, kneeling over him.
This was the first time I had taken a life because I wanted to.
Not because someone aimed a gun at Scarlett.
Not because I had to survive.
But because I chose to end him.
There should have been hesitation.
There wasn’t.
Satisfaction ran cold through my veins, so much so that it startled me.
Is this what runs in the Byrnes’ blood?
Is this why they hid us?
I wiped my knuckles against his shirt and stood.
He looked smaller now, just meat cooling on the concrete.
I walked out of the alley without looking back. It emptied into a narrower lane that cut toward a residential district. My knuckles throbbed with every swing of my arms, skin split, bone bruised, and blood drying in the lines of my hands.
I welcomed the pain because it kept my emotions grounded after what I’d done.
The city was quieter this far from the club. My breathing steadied as I headed to the rendezvous point where Katya’s men would pick me up.
Killing de la Torre had been personal.
Killing Lola had been necessary.
Her flat sat three streets over from the club, and according to the dossier Nik had sent, it was paid for by the same charity she used to hunt for girls like Scarlett. It amused me that she hadn’t bothered locking her door. The righteous rarely imagine judgment arriving in the dark.
I’d walked in and found her standing in her kitchen in her nightgown.
As soon as she saw me, she saw the blood.
I told her I was a friend of Scarlett Hayes, and the smile fell from her face.
I didn’t shout. I didn’t threaten. I made her talk.
I made her explain how she identified girls at the soup line. How she called the monastery when one looked promising. How she convinced herself that selling a girl was worth her paycheck.
She tried to say it wasn’t her fault, that the priest made her do it. That wealthy, powerful men paid willingly, and this was how the world worked.
When she saw I wasn’t moved, she bolted for the hallway.
She didn’t make it two steps.
I caught her by the hair and dragged her back. She clawed at my arm, shrieking. I locked my forearm across her throat and pulled her tight against me, her body thrashing in blind panic.
“There’s no one coming,” I told her.
She kicked backward, heels scraping against the tile.
There was no rage left in me by then.
Only decision.
I shifted my grip, planted my stance, and wrenched her neck hard.
The crack was sharp. Final.
Her weight went slack in my arms.
She deserved worse.
As I continued walking, my thoughts drifted to the different types of death one could face.
For the first time in my life, I had taken lives because I wanted them gone from the earth. I’d been judge, jury, and executioner for their crimes against humanity.
There should have been hesitation.
Instead, there was peace of mind.
The realization unsettled me less than it should have.
Is this what the Byrnes men are meant for?
We were hidden from the underworld our whole lives. Kept in the dark while others built empires and waged wars. Lachlan always carried more restraint than I did, but when he broke, he broke without warning. His temper was quiet until it wasn’t.
Maybe this was the path we were always walking toward.
Judgment doesn’t come from saints.
It comes from men willing to bloody their hands so others don’t have to.
Headlights flashed once at the end of the lane.
A dark sedan idled beneath a flickering streetlamp. Katya’s man stepped out, opened the rear door, and gave a short nod. No questions.
I slid into the back seat and shut the door. The car pulled away without a word.
Madrid at this hour was quiet—empty streets, shuttered storefronts, just a few delivery trucks making predawn deliveries. The driver took back roads, avoiding cameras and main arteries, crossing the rail yard district before turning toward a row of industrial buildings.
The sedan rolled to a stop beside a commercial laundry facility that operated at all hours. Steam vented from the roof. The low hum of machines masked everything, and the odor of bleach hung heavy in the air.
The driver led me through a side entrance that required a coded keypad. Inside, stainless steel tables lined the walls, and industrial washers churned in steady rotation.
A deep stainless-steel utility sink was mounted against the wall, fitted with a heavy-duty sprayer suspended from the ceiling on a retractable hose so it could be pulled down into the basin or swung out over the grated floor drain for larger washdowns. The concrete beneath it sloped toward a drain.
On the adjacent steel worktable, a folded change of clothes and a thick towel had been laid out beside a bottle of industrial stain remover strong enough to strip blood from cotton.
Without a word, the driver turned and stepped back through the side door, pulling it closed behind him to give me privacy.
I stripped, carefully laying my holster on the table before dropping the ruined clothing into a heavy bin and turning on the utility tap.
The water ran cold at first, then warm. I scrubbed my hands, forearms, and face until the pink swirls in the basin faded to clear.
Blood had dried along my knuckles, caked under my nails, and stained my skin, requiring firm pressure to work it off.
I showered off the rest of myself and called it good.
The knuckles would swell by morning and bruise, but there’d be no trace of blood on my skin. No scent clinging to me.
I dried off, dressed in the clean clothes Katya had arranged, and holstered my weapons once more.
By the time I stepped back into the night, there was nothing on me that would traumatize Scarlett.
Nothing but clean hands.