Chapter Forty #2
How the fuck did I miss this? The little golden retriever best friend, always smiling, always trailing after Serena like some obedient puppy, turns out to be a fucking wolf in disguise. A little psychotic. A gun pressed to my head, a threat in her voice as steady as any made man I’ve ever faced.
I wonder if Serena knows.
If she’s seen the darkness coiled behind her best friend’s pretty face.
If she knows the girl she giggles with over coffee could pull a trigger without blinking.
But then the thought curdles, rotting in my chest.
Fuck Serena.
Fuck what she knows.
Fuck what she does.
She’s the reason this storm is ripping me apart. The reason I can’t breathe without rage clawing at my lungs. The reason I’m standing here, shaking, trying not to put my fist through something living.
I storm into the basement, my sanctuary of violence, and the world narrows to one thing: destruction.
My knuckles slam into concrete again and again, each thud ricocheting up my arms, numbing the bone-deep ache. Blood smears across the wall, bright and wet. My skin splits, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop.
One hour passes. Maybe more. Time dissolves into the rhythm of violence, thud, thud, thud, the sound of my heart beating itself raw against the cage of my ribs.
The wall doesn’t give. My rage doesn’t fade.
All I’m left with is the taste of blood in my mouth and the echo of her words, We’re over, princess, carved into my fucking soul.
“Who the fuck are you?!” Ian’s muffled voice tears through the fabric of the bag over his head. His tone is cocky, loud, pathetic. “You’re going to regret this! I’m a fucking FBI detective!”
A smirk curls on my lips. Brilliant. If you’re looking for a fast track to an early grave, start bragging about being a fed when you’re tied to a chair in my basement. Looks like Ian Archibald has zero survival instincts.
“Take the bag off his head,” I say, voice controlled, flat.
The moment Lev rips the bag away, Ian freezes. His bravado shatters when he sees who’s standing in front of him. Not me, Lev.
I don’t blame him. Lev’s a monster. Six-foot-eight of Russian-bred brutality, covered in ink, riddled with scars, eyes like frozen steel. The kind of man nightmares are made of. And Lev doesn’t disappoint, he leans down, gives Ian a wink, and his lips curl into a predator’s smile.
“Who do you wanna play with, sweetheart?” Lev’s voice is low, mocking. “Me… or Lorenzo?”
Ian’s eyes go wide. He doesn’t even glance at me. He knows Lev would tear him apart piece by piece just for fun. “Fuck you!” he shouts.
“Language, sweetheart,” Lev adds when Ian mutters under his breath. “Or I’ll cut that pretty tongue out of your mouth.”
The color drains from Ian’s face. He’s silent now. Good boy.
I give Lev a small nod, and he backs away, throwing Ian a dramatic blown kiss on his way out. The poor bastard flinches. I almost laugh. Almost. But the ringing in my ears drowns out everything except the pounding of my pulse.
I step forward and loosen the ropes around Ian’s wrists. His eyes flicker with confusion. He thinks he’s being freed. Idiot. My fist connects with his jaw before he can even process it. The crack echoes off the walls, blood spraying from his lips. He stares up at me like I just kicked his dog.
“What the fuck do you want?” he spits, blood dribbling from his mouth.
“I’m giving you a fair fight, Ian.”
I watch the shift in his eyes, panic to determination. He lunges for me, throwing a pathetic punch. It’s laughable. He’s slow, sloppy. How the fuck did this weakling ever become a detective?
I catch him by the throat, slam my knee into his stomach.
The air leaves him in a strangled groan.
He folds, but I don’t give him a second to breathe.
My fist smashes into his nose, the crunch of cartilage sharp and satisfying.
He stumbles back, blood pouring down his face, trying to swing at me again.
He doesn’t stand a chance. I’m dodging easily, dancing around him while he bleeds and gasps like a fish out of water.
“What do you want?!” he yells again, voice ragged, broken between blows.
And then, like a ghost, I hear her voice in my head. “I love you… don’t push me away.” Serena’s brown eyes, red, tear-streaked, flash in my memory. The way she begged me at the club. My chest tightens, rage flooding in hotter than before.
I see red.
I grab him by the collar, slam my knee into his gut again, harder this time. He crumples to the floor with a groan. I kick him in the ribs, his body jerking.
“Fucking do something,” he groans, spitting blood. Pathetic.
He’s nothing. Just the shadow standing between me and her. The solution to everything that’s tearing me apart is lying right here in front of me, bleeding on my basement floor.
I haul him upright and slam him into the chair. His head lolls, but he forces himself to look at me.
“What do you want?” His voice is weaker now, but there’s still that smirk buried underneath the blood and swelling.
I lean in close, my words venom. “You’re gonna call your daddy. And you’re going to tell him you won’t marry Serena anymore.”
I hiss her name like a threat, like a promise.
And then he smirks, smirks through the blood dripping from his mouth.
“So that’s what this is about,” he rasps. “Serena.” His split lip curls into a grin. “I wonder how she’ll feel when she finds out her fiancé was kidnapped and beaten by a brute like you.”
My vision tunnels. My pulse slams in my ears so loud it’s deafening. He thinks he has a say in this. He thinks he matters.
I throw his phone onto his lap. “Make the call.”
My voice is deadly calm. There’s no bluff here. No second chances.
“Why would I do that?” Ian smirks through the blood, his voice taunting, grating. “We’re in love.”
My hand twitches. My vision narrows.
“And after this rough day…” He leans back, deliberately slow, eyes burning with defiance. “…I can’t wait to go home to my fiancée.” He sneers, his lip curling, the word fiancée slicing through me like a blade. “Ask her to ease the tension in my body. Maybe she’ll even moan my na—”
My vision snaps to black.
The ringing in my ears drowns everything out.
The last time I felt this way was when my father died.
When I lost control in Kirill’s underground ring and beat a man until there was nothing left but a broken, lifeless body at my feet.
Lev cheering. Andres silent, his face unreadable.
Kirill smiling like a devil who’d just found his new favorite monster.
That monster is back.
Before I even register it, the gun is in my hand.
Bang!
The shot tears through his knee. Blood splatters across the concrete, his scream ripping through the air, raw and desperate. He topples sideways, clutching at the mangled mess of his leg, writhing like a worm on a hook.
The smell of iron fills the room.
The door bursts open and Andres storms in, scanning the scene, his gaze landing on Ian’s crumpled, screaming body. His jaw tightens. His eyes flick to me. Disapproval. Judgment. A silent, you lost control again.
I don’t care.
“I can’t do fucking anything!” Ian screams, his voice high-pitched from pain. “I don’t even want to marry her!” He glares up at me, his face red, wet with sweat and blood.
“Of course you can.” My voice is calm. Deadly calm. “Just call off the wedding.”
“I fucking can’t!” he roars back, clutching his bleeding leg. “Thomas is obsessed with having Serena marry me! My father wanted to cancel it wanted to call the whole thing off when he saw she was always with you, didn’t want to tie me to a slu—”
“Careful.” My jaw tightens, my voice a growl. “Finish that sentence, and I’ll put a bullet through your other knee. Or your tongue.”
He swallows the word, eyes wide. He knows I mean it.
He spits blood onto the floor instead, his chest heaving. “My father wanted out. But Thomas,” He winces, shaking from the pain. “Thomas called him. Offered him a deal.”
My brow arches. A deal. The pieces are moving.
“What kind of deal?” I demand.
“I don’t know,” he hisses. “They never told me.”
I glance at Andres. “Find it.”
He nods once, sharp and silent. Already thinking of where to start digging.
I turn back to Ian, disgust curling in my chest. “You’re useless.
” I spit the word like poison. “You can’t fight.
You can’t think. What stops me from killing you right now, Archibald?
Hm?” I press the barrel of my gun against his blood-soaked temple.
“I guess there’s no wedding if the groom is rotting in the ground. ”
His breathing comes fast and shallow. His face is pale, sweat dripping down his forehead, but he still manages to rasp out: “Beaumont… is obsessed. If it’s not me… then he’ll find someone else. Even my father.”
My stomach twists.
“He wants Serena married into our bloodline,” Ian croaks, eyes rolling back from the pain. “Wants our families tied.”
My blood goes cold. My grip tightens on the gun.
So that’s it.
“So he can have the FBI on his payroll,” I mutter, more to myself than to him. “That’s what this is about.”
“Why?” I snap, forcing his head back against the chair.
“I don’t know,” Ian wheezes. And for once, I believe him. He’s not clever enough to hide it. He’s just a pawn bleeding out on my floor.
Pathetic.
I holster my gun, my hands trembling with the restraint it takes not to end him right here. Because the truth cuts deep and cruel, I’ve achieved nothing today. No answers. No control. Just rage, and Serena still slipping through my fingers.
I watch Ian’s body slump in the chair, head lolling, blood soaking his jeans. Pathetic. My guards drag him away like dead weight, hauling him toward the room we keep for “accidents,” a doctor and a nurse always on standby. Insurance. For nights exactly like this one.
I drag a hand through my hair, pacing, my chest burning with fury. I can’t even think straight anymore.
“Can you find out?” I ask Andres, my voice low, taut with barely contained rage.
“What Thomas offered to John? It wasn’t enough that I was already chasing Beaumont for my father.
Now I have to stop this fucking wedding too.
” My voice breaks into a snarl, frustration spilling out of me.
“My life became a goddamn mess the moment she walked into it.”
The weight in my chest tightens. No answers about my father’s death. The Italians breathing down my neck. Serena’s engagement being shoved in my face. My control, gone.
“Fuck!” I slam my boot into the chair, sending it skidding across the concrete, the crash echoing off the basement walls.
Andres doesn’t flinch. He never does. His voice is steady, grounded. “I already said yes. There’s nothing I can’t find.”
I breathe hard, glaring at him, then finally nod. He’ll get it. He always does.
“Any news about the other matter?” I press, though my voice is rough, like I’ve been swallowing glass. I’ve neglected my goals, let the fire in me burn too hot. I never lose control. But tonight, I did.
Andres’s face is unreadable as he answers. “Ninety percent is hacked. Nothing useful yet. Just what we already know.” He pauses. “But I found something strange.”
I narrow my eyes. “Strange how?”
“I checked all the Beaumont files. Nothing. No dirt, no leverage. Like they’ve been scrubbed clean.” He folds his arms, tone sharpening. “So I dug deeper. Looked at Archibald’s files. Family members, history, everything.”
I tilt my head, waiting.
“And Ian’s birth certificate is falsified.”
My brows lift. “Falsified?”
“Yeah.” He slides a photo across the table. The edges are blurred, but the stamp, the dates, they don’t match. “I found the original buried in state records. No mother listed. Just the father.”
My jaw clenches.
“I tried tracing the mother’s name,” Andres continues, his voice even. “But she doesn’t exist. No records. No history. Like she was never alive. The official file claims she died giving birth to him. But…” He shakes his head. “There’s nothing. It’s like she was erased from existence.”
I stare at the photo.
It’s strange. Too strange. And it gnaws at me, crawling under my skin like something I can’t shake.
But I shove it aside, shaking my head. “Irrelevant.” My voice is clipped, though doubt coils in my gut. “I don’t give a fuck about Archibald’s family tree. I need leverage. Answers. And this,” I jab the photo with my finger, shoving it back at him “isn’t it.”
Still, the thought sticks. It is strange. And strange means dangerous.
Maybe I’ve been looking at the wrong Archibald all along. Maybe the son is nothing but a shield. And the father, the father is where the truth waits.
For the first time tonight, I feel a chill instead of heat. Because I might have taken the wrong pawn.