Chapter 14
Damian
The King mausoleum sat outside the city like my father had built himself a throne and called it a grave.
My mother refused to be buried there.
I understood that better with every step I took toward the black doors.
Rico pried open the east wall with his own hands. Behind the stone was a sealed metal box too small for the life it held.
When he pulled it free, he held it against his chest and whispered, "I'm sorry, Vannah."
Tammy knelt beside him and placed her hand on the lid.
"We're taking her home."
That was when the cemetery lights went out.
Gunfire came from the west tree line.
Bishop stepped from the dark with men behind him and a smile I wanted to carve off his face.
He called Tammy Savannah.
She corrected him.
He called Rico a failure.
Rico nearly moved.
I stopped him with one word because Bishop wanted rage, not strategy.
Then chaos hit.
Elaine took a bullet in the leg. Tammy ran low to pull her behind cover. Bishop came not from the trees, but from a hidden mausoleum entrance my father had built because even his death needed secrets.
He grabbed Tammy and dragged her inside.
The doors slammed.
Stone locks dropped.
For one second, I stopped thinking.
I hit the door with my shoulder hard enough to tear pain through my side.
Darius grabbed me. "Stone ricochet. Do not shoot."
I wanted to break his hand.
Instead, I breathed.
Think.
Tammy's voice lived in my head now. Think before you move.
Elaine, bleeding on the ground, pointed toward the east wall. "Lower crypt. Under the angels."
Rico and I ran.
We found the grate near a stone angel with one wing broken. From below, Tammy screamed my name.
The sound almost ended me.
I tore the grate open with Rico's help. Tammy's hand reached through. We pulled, but Bishop had her ankle from inside the passage.
"She is the key!" he shouted.
Tammy kicked back. His grip loosened. We dragged her into the cold air.
She was scraped, bleeding from the arm, hair loose around her face.
Alive.
I pulled her against me and checked her like my hands could count every second I had almost lost.
Her arms. Her throat. The scrape along her skin. The blood that was hers and the blood that wasn't.
"I'm here," she said.
"I heard you scream."
"But you got to me."
My hand shook once against her back. Just once. Then I buried it in her hair and pressed my mouth to her forehead because if I kissed her mouth right then, I might forget we were standing over a monster with a gun still in the dirt.
"Not fast enough," I said.
"Fast enough for me to still be here."
Bishop crawled from the crypt with blood on his mouth and a gun in his hand.
Elaine shot him first.
"That was for Savannah," she said.
Rico shot the gun from his hand.
I put my weapon to Bishop's head.
He smiled up at me. "Do it."
I wanted to.
God help me, I wanted to.
Tammy stepped close.
"Damian."
"Move back."
"No. Think."
Bishop laughed weakly. "She saves me, she owns you."
Tammy looked at him. "I'm not saving you."
Then she looked at me.
"I'm saving him."
My finger stayed steady.
Rico stood beside me shaking with everything he had not done to the man who killed his sister.
Then I lowered the gun.
Not for Bishop.
For Tammy.
For me.
For the promise I had made not to become my father with a better suit.
Darius tied Bishop and hauled him away.
I pulled Tammy into my arms and held her so hard neither of us pretended it did not hurt.
Rico stood over Savannah's box.
The sky was turning gray.
Sunrise was coming.
Bishop was no longer waiting for us in the dark.
We were bringing everything into the light.