Chapter 15 Bonds Forged In Blood #2
Rafael hears, whirls, sees me with my hands free, and springs at me.
I roll to my back and lash out with both feet, catching him mid-jump. My kick flings him backward to slam against the side of the door, momentarily dazed.
I roll forward, toppling to my knees in the slick pool of blood, grabbing at the knife hilt. I yank it free. The woman's eyes meet mine, faint and weak. "Kill me."
I snick the blade through the plastic binding my feet. Rafael groans, stirs, rolls to his hands and knees, shaking his head, and then glares at me. "I don't think so, bitch."
He lunges. The fact that he slips in the blood is the only thing that gives me enough time for my act of mercy.
I drive the blade up under her ribs and into her heart. Her eyes fly wide, locked on mine. "I'm sorry," I whisper again, as the light fades from her eyes.
Rafael slams into me in a flying tackle.
The wind is knocked out of me, and I crack my head against the floor.
Stars whirl behind my eyes as Rafael clambers atop me, his greater weight pinning me to the floor.
His hands wrap around my throat, and he starts squeezing.
The dancing stars grow larger, obscuring my vision with whirling white spots.
I hear gunfire, closer now. Feet on stairs. A familiar voice. A three-round burst.
Just before the white spots threaten to pull me into nothingness, I kick upward, hook my leg around Rafael's throat, twist and roll like a crocodile with his thrashing body clamped in the unforgiving vise of my thighs.
Blood is tacky and cold under me. Gunfire rattles.
The helicopter thumps. Rafael gurgles, thrashes helplessly, his hands pawing at my leg, heels kicking in the blood.
Something heavy smashes against the door, which flies open with a loud slam.
Ren.
My Lorenzo.
He's here.
He hobbles into the room, rifle sweeping the space as his eyes land on me, and Rafael struggling in my grip.
He grins, a small, pleased curve of his lips that I doubt he's even aware of. Limps toward me, draws his combat knife—a long, serrated, razor-sharp KA-BAR—and tosses it onto the floor beside me.
Rafael sees it, hears it, and thrashes even harder, gasping for air, gurgling, trying to plead.
I grab the knife hammer-style. "I have waited a very long time to do this, husband,” I whisper, the words intended only for his ears.
I press the tip against his belly, just above his navel. Apply just enough pressure to slowly—so, so slowly—drive the knife into his belly. It pierces his skin first, and he tries to cry out. I loosen the grip of my thighs so he doesn't choke out too soon.
Sucking in a hissing, desperate breath, he gurgles a plea. "So—Sophia—p-p-please." He wriggles like a worm on a hook.
I slide the knife in another inch. "This is what gets you off, is it, Rafa? This?" I twist the knife a little. "Not so arousing when you're the one in agony, is it?"
He tries to scream, and when he does, I drive the knife in a little further. Twist it. Push it deeper.
I hear footsteps—many.
Flick my gaze toward the door—Lorenzo is just inside, watching impassively; his jeans are dark with blood from a wound to his hip. Silas is just behind him. Chance, Rev, Lash, Kane, Saxon, Solomon, and Scarlett are all clustered behind Silas, crowded in to watch.
Plunging the knife in to the hilt, I grab a handful of his hair and yank his head to the side. "You see them, Rafa?" I whisper. "My friends. My brothers. My family. We are survivors. Warriors. We beat you."
I yank the blade free, release my grip on his throat, and scramble to my feet, slipping in the blood. He gasps, coughs. "Sophia—"
I whirl, kick his face as if trying to boot a football across the pitch. His jaw cracks and teeth clatter.
I stomp out. "Bring him topside. Do what you want on the way, but make sure he's alive."
Lorenzo grabs at my arm. "Sophia, meu amor—"
I jerk my arm free. "Not yet, Lorenzo."
He lets me go.
"What about…her?" Kane's voice follows me.
I turn in place, frantically trying to keep my icy mask in place, to keep my shoulders from shaking.
My legs threaten to give out as I look at the poor, dead, innocent woman.
"I…she…" I choke on my guilt and sorrow.
Turn to Lorenzo but don't meet his eyes—I can't. "Deal with it. Please? He—so I’d…
but I didn't. I couldn't. Ren, please. I can't. I can't."
He brushes my cheekbone with a thumb. "Of course. I'll take care of her."
I turn away, leave the room. Ascend the stairs. I hear a dull, soft thud and a groan.
Back under the open sky, dawn is a creeping blush of salmon and tangerine on the endless western horizon. Acid batters the back of my teeth, and I bend over the bow railing and vomit until my stomach curls in on itself, empty, and still I retch.
The scent of death surrounds me, wafting to me in snatches and fragments, and that's when I look around.
Dead bodies everywhere—Rafael had quite a few men on this boat. No way I'd have taken them all out alone, had I tried to escape any sooner. I couldn't have saved her. I could only have died trying.
Each dead body leaks gore from bullet holes to T-boxes, precise and perfectly placed, each one.
A minute or two later, I hear scuffling. Rafael lurches and trips onto the deck, sprawling face-first. His face is a ruin. He's drooling blood, groaning, sobbing. His belly seeps blood. But all in all, I think the men let him off fairly easily.
Kane goes to yank him to his feet, but I hold out a hand to stop him. "Leave him, for now. He'll need what strength he has left."
I turn, spying an orange life preserver on a nearby wall. With curious eyes watching me, I tie the ring to a corpse. Glance at Silas, nearest me. "Knife."
He draws one, flips it to grasp the blade, and proffers the handle to me. I stab it into the corpse's diaphragm and drag it downward in a single, violent yank.
"Um, he's already dead, boss-lady," Kane says.
"I am aware, Kane, thank you." I wipe the blade on the corpse and return it to Silas, and then step back, glancing at Chance. "Toss him in."
Frowning in confusion, Chance does as I ask, dragging the body to the railing and heaving it over the side with a splash. The life preserver prevents the body from sinking while the effluvia leaks out, staining the water.
It doesn't take very long for them to arrive.
Fins, slicing the water. Circling. Tugging. Yanking. The orange ring bobs and dips like an oversized fishing bobber.
"Oh," Kane says. "Oh fuck."
The water thrashes wildly, red and pink bubbles frothing the surface.
I turn away to face Rafael. "Stand him up." I glance at Solomon. “Record this, please.”
Solomon pulls out a cell phone and begins recording a video, focusing on Raphael.
Chance grabs a handful of Rafael's hair and hauls him to his feet. Rafael can't stay on his feet, however, hunching and curling in on himself. He may have broken ribs. Who knows? Who cares? Not me.
I step into his space. Put my face to his, grab his jaw and force him to look at me.
"My father tried to break me. You tried to break me.
You both failed." I squeeze his broken jaw until he howls in agony.
"Your son will never know you. You die, now, Rafael, and your name dies with you.
" I shove him away. "Yours is the last life I will ever take. "
Chance frog-marches him to the railing and lets him go; Rafael hunches over the railing, a string of bloody saliva stretching down to the boiling, bloody, fin-filled water. "No," he groans, the word more of a garbled sound than speech. "No, no! Please, please! I'm sorry!"
At least, I think that's what he said.
I put my lips to his ear. "Think of all the times people begged you for mercy, Rafael. Think of them while those creatures down there tear you apart."
"Sophia—please—"
"Fuck—you," I snarl in English, because the phrase just doesn't have a direct counterpart in Spanish or Portuguese. "Fuck you all the way to hell."
I shove him over the railing.
We all stand at the railing together, watching as the sharks tear him, screaming, limb from limb; Solomon records the entire process.
The screams stop after a minute, and I watch until the sea goes still and the waves take the red away.
I find Solomon's eyes. "Get us out of here. Burn the ships.” I give him a phone number. “Send the video to that number.”
"Yes, ma'am," he says. He turns and immediately starts issuing orders, and the others obey without question. Solomon became the leader, at some point.
"Gentlemen?" I call, and everyone stops to look at me. My throat is tight, hot, thick. "Thank you."
No one seems to know what to say, for a moment.
Except Lash. He comes over to me, gently takes my arms, and holds me at arm's length.
"You are ours, Sophia. We are yours. We are a family, we and the women back at the hotel.
We would take on hell itself for you." He holds my gaze. "We owe you everything."
I shake my head. "No, you—"
Solomon moves up beside Lash, resting a hand on my shoulder. "Yes. We do. You chose us. You branded us. You gave us new lives when we all had nothing to live for. You dragged us all out of the darkness."
"It was Jakob," I say, knowing the time for secrecy has ended. "Our employer. It was his plan. I was merely the first."
"Jakob," Solomon echoes, tasting the name, sort of. "His idea, maybe, but it was you who was there for us. It was you, Sophia."
My eyes burn. Silas joins his brother and Lash, and then Saxon, and then Chance and Rev, and then Kane, and then Scarlett, surrounding me the way the women did back at the club.
Except these men…they know. They know the horrors of war and bloodshed and death.
They understand the bond forged in battle.
They know the demons that haunt me, because they haunt them too.