Chapter 31.
Reuben
The building is massive for a town like Snoqualmie.
Most would consider it to be a strange place for a mall in such a timeless neighbourhood, whose only tourists are the ones who come to see the falls, but there are vast rooms—lounge and reception areas, as well as multiple other spaces for stalls and smaller shops.
The lighting is dim. Much like the lower floors, this area is still under construction, with scaffolding along the walls, concrete mixers and ladders scattered around, and yards of plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling.
But unlike the lower floors, this one is completely empty.
I know a trap when I see one, but either way, I don’t intend to stop until I’ve found Father, Aster and Baal.
Some of the men we left with Xavier come up to join the search for our Don, but the sounds of gunfire still bleed up from below, mixed with the sounds of a wild beast.
I knew when I picked you up, you were amazing, baby.
It still brings a fucking smile to my lips—a fucking tiger.
That… That’s a different kind of sexy.
Now, there isn’t a single thing about you that’s hidden from me... and I almost can’t take my eyes off you because of it.
We retrace our steps towards the stairs to push through to the third floor, and the moment we step into the open, the enemy jumps out of their hiding places with their guns trained on us—men clad in back from within the smaller stalls.
I’m barely able to grab Mama and pull her behind the wall when they light the place up with the sound of gunfire.
We brace ourselves, waiting for our opening, and the moment there’s a pause in the air we step into the space with our own guns blazing. I can’t tell how many of theirs we’re able to take down, but we manage to duck behind the railing before they return fire.
“We’ll handle them!” Mama shouts over the sound with a ferocious expression, firing a barrage of deadly shots over the wall before taking cover again behind it with practiced agility.
“Go find my boys.” When she locks eyes with mine her expression is cold but her eyes burn brightly. Her tone leaves no room for disobedience.
I nod once. Our numbers are dwindling in comparison to the enemy, but it’ll have to do; I take only three men with me and leave her with the remaining five.
The moment there’s a pause in the air—the sign that the enemy is reloading their weapons—she steps out from behind the railing, firing with the other men and covering me as I dash past her and up the stairs to the last level.
There are more open areas so it is easy this time to watch for enemies as we scout each room.
“Baal!” I shout for him the moment I see him, stepping through the last chamber to run to where he is. The space is empty save for a few dead men and Baal’s gaze cuts to me from his place on the floor, with a panic in his eyes.
I kneel to press his head to mine with one hand, slinging the gun behind me and he does the same, holding my shoulders tightly, “It’s a trap, Rubenito.” His voice wavers. “August locked us in. He’s going to trap you here and kill us all. He’s going after every member of the family.”
“Then we have to kick his ass for trying,” I say firmly but Baal only squeezes his eyes shut tightly and pulls away, face contorted in agony.
Only then do I see him.
Aster.
My heart kicks up this wild beat in my chest as my eldest brother blinks up at me weakly, blood pooling beneath his body and trailing at the corners of his lips.
“Can always trust you to make an entrance, brother,” he says with a weak smile.
Something akin to terror sparks intensely in my chest as I reach for his hand. A torn shirt is wrapped tightly around his stomach but the blood only seeps through. Even I can tell he’s lost too much. His face is pale and I can tell from his eyes, he’s barely conscious.
I can tell he’s dying.
My panic is so intense that for a moment, I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
He squeezes my hand with a brave smile, “Rubenito—”
“Don’t,” I stop him before he can waste his breath, but it sounds strangled in my throat. “It’s okay. We can still get you out of here.” We have to. We will.
My eyes catch on a familiar figure and when I turn, Father is lying beside him.
There’s a flare of rage inside me. An itch for violence that sparks only for a moment, until I see the rise and fall of his chest. On closer inspection, his blue suit is ruffled, and a purple bruise is forming at his temple… but he’s breathing.
“He’s alive.” I barely register Baal’s voice. “Aster… Aster protected him. That asshole.” Baal’s voice trembles with his anger, “He left Aster to bleed out in here. He could’ve killed us but he didn’t.”
To lure the rest of the family here.
August… I’ll kill you for this.
“You—you were right,” Aster mumbles and I shut my eyes tightly, bringing his hand to my forehead in a small prayer.
“I’m never right, Aster.” It feels like I’m being ripped apart. My throat feels so tight, it’s like I can’t get the words out. “You know that. Little brothers… are always wrong.”
Aster shakes his head, “If he was your person... I should have considered him... family. No matter what. That’s the rule—father taught me.” He squeezes my hand, but even that is weak and it’s… unlike him. It’s unlike the man I’ve been afraid of my entire life.
“I messed up.” His smile is bitter, and this time I don’t care that his emotions are white.
A raw ache swells in my throat and my vision blurs. I’d never considered myself a crier… but recently, all the men in my life have been testing me.
“I messed up, Asterito.” A tremor runs through my voice without my permission and I have to push the words through the tightness in my throat. “I was… afraid of you. But I was wrong all this time… I’m sorry. If you’d just—” my voice breaks. I fight the tremor in my jaw. “If you'd just told me—"
“You've always... seen the world differently.” He smiles at me, “I knew you did. I… didn’t want you to think I was… different.”
I remember someone else saying those words too. A certain shapeshifter.
I thought you and Christian were completely different. Lightyears apart from each other.
But now I realize you’re both opposite sides of the same coin. All this time, carrying everyone’s burdens. Suffering silently. Hiding yourself away.
“Maybe you can’t see it,” Aster’s eyes are glassy—unfocused—and it breaks something in me, “but I love you, brother. I love... the family.”
“I know you do.” My tears escape because I can’t stop them, “I know. I’m sorry. You’re my brother. I’ve been afraid of you. But I’ve looked up to you the most. You and Father… are my heroes. Always.”
A tear breaks away across Aster’s cheek, and this time, I can tell they’re real. This time, I understand everything he feels without needing his energy. His expression hardens as if pulling himself together to be the Underboss once more.
“If he’s your person… don’t give him… to August.”
Those aren’t the words I expected. They create an ill sense of foreboding inside me, and Aster grabs my collar with all the strength he can.
“Don’t… give him to August.”
It is a warning bell going off in my head and I nod.
I don’t even get to hear his last breath, because men storm into the room, snapping my attention away.
And when I look back, my oldest brother is gone.
My hero.
The man I was convinced nightmares were made of.
The man I’d misunderstood my entire life without even trying to understand him better.
And it is agony.
Agony I instinctively turn to bloodlust, before it can break me.
I run towards the enemy because I can’t see around the red.
I sprint into their defensive line without hesitation as though I’m consumed by madness. By violence.
And I use the knife at my side to slice open their throats.
There is shouting in my periphery, the sound of gunfire, before Baal is beside me—a mirror to my grief and bloodlust.
I grab the barrels of their guns and get in close to drive my blade into their necks. I use their dead to defend against bullets—to get closer to others—before shooting them in the head with my pistol.
My brother is at my back and we are a whirlwind of blades and guns. Of agony and hatred.
But we are outnumbered.
We are outnumbered and Baal is the first to fall.
They grab him when he’s much too far from me. They hold a gun to his head and ask me to stand down.
My knife finds its target between the enemy’s eyes—the man who dared to hold a gun to my brother’s head.
A shot rings through the air and pain tears through my leg.
I fall to one knee, but still, I swipe the gun from a fallen man to return fire, managing to kill two of their own.
“I said stand down!” A man screams at me and this time I have to force my entire being to pause. To hold the violence back.
He forces Baal to his knees and tugs his hair to force his head up. Baal glares at him unafraid, but his captor isn’t looking at him.
He’s looking at me.
I am out of blades to throw… Out of guns to fire.
Yet still, he looks afraid of what I might do.
I’m happy to have that effect on people.
They hold me down because I let them. When they get close enough to tie me up, I snap my body out to the nearest man, taking his ear into my teeth and tearing it out viciously.
I spit the bloody flesh out with a grin and it earns me a bullet in my arm and the strike of a gun against the back of my head.
Overkill for an ear if you ask me.
“Reuben Taiga.”
A familiar voice calls my attention away from the pain, and I blink the dark spots out of my vision to focus on him clearly.
August Antonovna.
I’d spoken with him only once, back when I was doing damage control after the Millenium Star incident. When we’d met then, I’d given my heartfelt apologies for his brother’s death.
A lot of good it did me, in hindsight.
I should get those apologies back.
“For a man with so many filthy dealings, you still look clean,” I speak through uneven breaths, fighting through the pain with a forced smile. “Must be all the money.”
It’s true, just like that day, he looks like he’s never held a gun a day in his life.
But I suppose underworld financiers don’t need to hold guns or learn how to kill.
Money is their weapon.
And money can always be cleaned.
Money kills all on its own.
“And for a violent Taiga brat, you’ve given me a lot of trouble,” he huffs through his nose with obvious indifference, before pulling out his phone.
His men tie harsh, tight ropes around my hands, knees and ankles, before taping my mouth. They do the same with Baal and the other men, who I’m impressed are still alive, before more of them enter the room—more enemies.
When they throw my mother to the floor, hands tied and mouth taped like the rest of us, her expression is wild and vicious.
But when she sees Aster’s body, the fight vanishes from her eyes instantly.
She stumbles. Her eyes widen… and the grief—the denial—in her energy makes my heart sting.
She crawls to him and I glare at August as she does—as he takes his photos from a cheap phone.
“With this, the Taiga family is done.” He snaps the phone shut. “And there’ll be a new legacy for this city.”
Mama’s cries, even through the tape, are visceral. It burns my eyes and a similar agony rises up in my chest to meet hers as she grieves.
This can’t be the end of it.
There’s no way this could possibly be the end.
The hatred in my eyes doesn’t recede, even when August raises his hand, giving the order for his men to raise their weapons.
Even if I die here, I’ll haunt them all.
I’ll follow them around like a curse and take them to their graves as a ghost.
But the moment they prep their weapons, I’m seeing a familiar face in my mind’s eye.
A vivid vision of a shapeshifter I love.
Whose energies are pure and beautiful.
Suddenly, he’s passing through my memories like a moving photo. His smile. His ferocity. His exasperation. His voice.
His love.
And for the smallest of seconds—
I don’t want to die.
I want to see him again.
The regret—the sadness—is so sudden, it’s unexpected. It’s so intense, that for the first time… I am afraid of death.
Because hell will be so empty without you, baby.
The closed doors across the room slam open as he runs in, and we lock eyes for a single moment.
His panic, his fear when he looks at me, when he sees me at death’s door…
Maybe I’m crazy for thinking it’s beautiful.
“AUGUST!” He screams for him with such power and command, the air trembles, and when he shifts I know it is to get his attention. I know it’s because he’s desperate.
His features warp before my very eyes—becoming softer and delicate—his white hair becoming longer, until it falls to his waist, elegantly.
But it’s the wings. Three pairs of them unfurling from his back, strong and powerful black feathers with an otherworldly glow.
He becomes ethereal, his wings flutter behind him gloriously and his eyes shine a bright silver that both disarms and seduces. That makes my cock hard even with a gun to my fucking face.
His next words are a feathery sound, enchanting and melodic.
But his eyes are both cold and unforgiving.
“If you hurt them, there won’t be anything in existence stopping me from killing you.”