43. Christian
CHRISTIAN
G et the lights!”
“On the table!”
I clutch Mila tightly to my chest, hoisting her from the ground while Collin is dragged from the house by a few members of our security team. The lights kick on, illuminating the dark, red stain in the grey material of Mila’s shirt.
“What happened?” Paulina gasps when she rushes through the door, her gaze on my bloody wife in my arms. I’m not sure who called her, but I’m thankful she’s here. I couldn’t do this without her. Mila’s head lulls against my chest, the knife in her side dripping blood onto the shining wood floor with every step I take. I hurry into the dining room, and Levi rushes ahead of me to shove the chairs out of the way.
“Fucking Collin,” Levi growls.
“Collin?” Paulina gasps, but I cut off whatever she was about to say next.
“She’s been stabbed.” Mila’s blood soaks through my shirt to my skin beneath. “Get Toole here, now.”
“Is she okay?” a small voice says from the doorway, and I turn back to find Ava watching the commotion with a look of resolute fear in her gaze.
I fucking hate it.
“Ava,” Paulina rushes to the girl. “Take this. Call Toole. You’ll find her in my contacts.”
She shoves her phone into Ava’s hand. Ava doesn’t move, her eyes wide with fear as she stares down at Mila in my arms.
“ Ava . Go,” Paulina orders, and Ava’s eyes snap to hers. “This is important.”
Ava’s eyes harden and she nods, turning on her heel and running from the room.
“Levi, tie her hands.”
“No—I growl, but Paulina cuts me off.
“We can’t have her ripping the knife out before Toole gets here.”
“I can hold her.”
“It’s either this, or you run the risk of her dying,” Levi snaps, and if I wasn’t holding Mila, I know I would have punched him for the hell of it.
Paulina looks at me expectantly. I look down at Mila.
Fuck.
“Get her here quick,” I growl. I place Mila on the table, and she stirs, big gray eyes fluttering to meet mine. I don’t like how fucking pale she is. How her top is ripped, the knife breaking through the material of my T-shirt soaked in her own blood.
“Chris-tian?” she whimpers softly, and I brush a bloody thumb over her cheek.
“I’m here, baby. Stay still.”
“It hurts.” She arches her back, her eyes filling with red-tinged tears.
“I know. Look at me, Mila.” Her hand reaches for the handle of the knife sticking out of her side, and I grab her wrist, pinning it down to the table.
Her eyes widen, and she peers around at the chaos. I catch the towel Paulina throws at me from the other side of the room, nodding to Levi over Mila when he enters with two belts he must have gotten from our room.
“Do it.”
Quickly, he wraps the leather around her wrist, then drags it underneath the leg of the table. Mila sees what he’s doing, and her eyes grow large with panic. She tries to rip her hand away. But Levi keeps it pinned with his own, struggling to buckle the leather belt and hold her in place.
“No!” she screeches, and my chest tightens, listening to the agony in her voice. “Please!”
“Shhh . . .” I try to soothe her, but Levi rushes to the other side, grabbing that wrist from me, too, and repeating the motion until both her hands are secured to the side of the table.
Once she can’t move, the panic sets in.
“Get her ankles,” I growl. I press the towel in my hand around the handle of the knife, putting as much pressure on the wound as I can, forcing Mila’s back to arch and a pained scream to rip through the air.
“Where the fuck is Toole?” Levi growls, struggling to hold Mila’s feet.
“She’s on her way,” Ava rushes from the stairs, her eyes never leaving Mila.
“Ava, towels,” Paulina orders without even looking at her, still rushing around the room to get things ready for Toole. Mila never stops jerking around, only causing me to move the blade in her side.
“ Fuck ,” Levi groans when she manages to kick him in the side of the head, but he secures her feet, and Mila’s wide eyes meet mine.
“Don’t do this to me,” she pleads, tears swimming in her soft gray gaze. It feels like I swallowed battery acid.
“Shh . . .” I stroke my free hand over the top of her head. “It’s going to be okay.”
She shivers, her lips quivering with each breath, and I fucking hate the fear in her eyes.
Her eyes flutter, and I know her consciousness is fading fast.
“Mila,” I growl, tapping her cheek, and her eyes open only for a moment to meet mine.
Then, her head lulls to the side, and she passes out again.
The sound of Collin’s cries fill the air when I enter the bunker hidden in the trees behind Mila and I’s house two hours later, shutting the door behind me with a heavy thud.
Dr. Toole, a friend of Home of Hope and the only doctor I’d trust to call in a time like this, arrived right after Mila passed out and began the process of removing the knife. Luckily, Collin didn’t manage to get as deep as I’d thought, and none of her organs were hit. If they had been, I’m not sure I’d be standing here right now.
I watch Levi punch Collin. Collin’s lip is busted, his teeth tinged with the red of his blood. Unfortunately, for him, this is the best he’ll look for the rest of his miserable life.
“What the fuck?” Collin spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor at Levi’s feet. “He send baby brother to do the dirty work for him?”
I chuckle darkly under my breath, sticking to the shadows.
Oh . . . You’re going to beg for what Levi’s doing to you when I get to you .
“How’s his little bitch? She bleed out, yet?”
Levi shrugs. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
Stepping from the shadows, Collin’s eyes go wide when he sees me stalking toward him.
“Wait—” he jerks in the chair, but it’s bolted to the floor.
My fist connects with his cheek, knocking his head back in the metal seat.
“I’ve been dreaming of this day, Collin.”
My knuckles fucking hurt, but I ignore them.
Collin’s face is bloody, his eye swelling shut from what Levi’s already done to him tonight.
He uses his one good eye to glare at me, and I almost wish he could see out of both, so he could know what I’m about to do to him.
“You touched my wife,” I murmur, stalking around him. He rolls his neck, pretending like he’s not shitting his pants, but I can see the tightness in his shoulders. He knows there’s no way he makes it out of this room alive. “I really don’t like when people touch my wife.”
“I did what I had to do. I hope your little bitch dies from what I did to her.”
I smile when I step back in front of him. His eyes flash with fear.
“We’ll see who the little bitch is when I’m done with you.”
“Why did you go after Mila tonight?” Levi asks, stepping forward. Collin spits at his feet in response.
I twist my knife around in my palm.
—Then, I sink it into his thigh.
“ Ffffuck !” Collin curses, throwing his head back and gritting his teeth against the pain. I’m happy to see tears well in his one good eye.
“Now, we can’t have that, dear Collin.” I stoop down, running my thumb across his lashes and wiping away the tears that linger there. He glares up at me, his chest heaving through the pain. “I want you to see what’s happening.” I shrug, standing back. “You need to know what happens when you touch a Cross.”
“Who the fuck are you working with?” Levi snaps, cracking his knuckles. They’re already bruised and bloody.
“Fuck you.”
“Unfortunately, I’m straight, but I know a few men that might be down,” Levi looks him over. “Maybe if they couldn’t see your face.”
“What the fuck do you want?” Collin spits.
“Answers. You hurt one of us.”
He laughs maniacally. “You should have seen what else I was planning for her.”
I smirk, the blood roaring in my ears. I can feel my self-control threatening to snap, but that’s what he wants. He wants me to lose control so we don’t get the information we need.
Stepping back to the table across the room, I look over the instruments. Grabbing the bolt cutters made for industrial-style bolts, I step back over to Collin, laying them over my shoulder.
“Collin, I really don’t have time for games tonight.” I look at the clock. “My wife’s asleep in bed recovering from what you did to her. You’re wasting my time.”
“What the fuck are you going to do with those, Cross?” Collin challenges. “You think you can kill me and get away with it?”
I look to Levi, who nods.
“Yeah, I think we can.”
“How about this,” I stoop down in front of him, resting my arm on the bolt cutters. “You tell me who you’re working for, and I’ll kill you quickly.”
“Fuck. You.”
“ Or you continue to waste my time, and I kill you very slowly. You’ll be in excruciating pain either way.”
“Go to fucking hell.”
I chuckle. Fucker can’t say I didn’t warn him.
“Look around, Collin,” I look to either side of me. “You’re already here.”
I stand back. “Release his hands.”
“What the fuck ?” Collin thrashes in the seat, but Levi’s bigger than him. He cuts the binds and drags his hands around to the front. He secures his wrists to the arms of the chair with zip ties, his fingers resting over the sides.
I take the pointer finger of his left hand, positioning the bolt cutters over the flesh, visions of my wife fading in and out of consciousness from the blade in her side flashing through my head.
“This is going to hurt.”
“ Wait —” Collin fights, cut off by the sickening sound of bones crunching fills the air milliseconds before his screams.
Blood pours from the wound, and his finger falls to the ground.
“That’s one,” I tell him. “One finger for touching my wife. Unfortunately, I’m not satisfied.”
“Wait, I’ll fucking tell you!” he screeches when I line the second finger up. I pause, still holding the finger in the cutters.
“I know you didn’t do this all on your own. You’ve never been a leader. So . . . who did you do it for?”
“I don’t know!”
Snap
Another finger falls to the floor, and blood splatters my jeans and boots.
Collin’s wails echo around the room, but I’m so far gone I barely hear them.
He hurt my wife. Tried to take her away from me. That’s not something I can stand by and let go unpunished. Collin’s going to die soon. It’ll just be as slow and painful as I can make it.
“Try again.”
“I told you, I don’t fucking know!” Collin thrashes in the chair, and Levi circles behind him, holding his head in place. Collin spits, but it drips down his chin, staining his torn shirt below while I line up for a third finger.
“I think you do,” I smile wickedly, closing the cutters around the digit.
“Fuck!” he screams, trying to break the ties that bind his legs to the bottom of the chair but failing miserably.
“One more time, dear Collin,” Levi chimes from beside me. “We can do this around the clock. Slowly cutting off more and more until you’re nothing but a rolling torso and a useless head.”
“Please,” he croaks around Levi’s arm, cutting off his airway. “Please stop . . .”
“I don’t think you’re being truthful . . . are you?”
“You know more than you’re letting on,” Levi says with a smile. “This is your last chance. Give us a name, and we’ll stop. You don’t,” he shrugs with a smirk. “We’ll start peeling layers.” He flicks the knife in Collin’s leg, and he screams in anguish. His head falls forward, blood oozing from his mouth and dripping on his pants.
Defeat is a harsh fucking mistress.
“Your father.”
Fucking finally.
Snap.
“What the fuck!” he screeches, his face red and dripping with a mixture of his own sweat and tears. “I fucking told you everything.”
“And now you’re going to tell me more.” I fist the short strands of his hair at the front of his scalp and rip his head back to look at me. There’s real fear in his eyes. The same fear he put in Mila’s eyes. “What did he tell you to do to her? Kidnap her? Hurt her? Kill her?”
“Answer the question, dickhead,” Levi grits in his ear, tightening his hold.
I’ve got to say. Collin’s a ballsy little fucker. He has the audacity to smile cockily, blue eyes flashing with malice.
“Told me to finish what he already started,” he smirked, and my blood ran cold. “Do what should have been done in the first place. Listen to her little cries for help and carve her up real pretty for you to find. Only this time, I’d make sure you couldn’t even sew her back together with what I was going to do to your pretty little wife.”
Red clouds my vision, the hum of a thousand bees swarming at the edges of my brain.
My wife. My fucking wife.
Seizing him by the throat, I shove his head back, baring my teeth.
I don’t even think. Everything goes black.
I rear back, smashing the bolt cutters into the side of his face, and Levi falls back. I swing the bolt cutters as hard as I can, over and over, until the sounds of Collin’s faint cries of pain die.
Adrenaline courses through me, and the only thing that stops me is when there’s a crater in the top of Collin’s head, his eye gone and his face unrecognizable through the blood staining his skin.
I’m not nearly as satisfied as I want to be when I toss the bloodied bolt cutters to the floor, my chest heaving with each violent breath.
Levi and I lock eyes.
A phone rings, echoing in the silence of the room.
“Yeah?” Levi answers before he nods to me. “She’s waking up.”
I look back at what’s left of Collin.
“Go. I’ll take care of the body,” he says, lighting a cigarette despite the blood on his hands.
I nod to him, and head towards the door.
Mila’s stirring when I step into our bedroom. Paulina is brushing a wet washcloth over her face, her expression grim.
“She’s stable,” Toole says, nodding to the knife on a tray in front of her. It’s broken and jagged. Probably the only thing that saved her. “But she’ll need a few weeks to heal. She can’t be on her feet, or she’ll risk breaking the stitches open.”
I nod, watching the steady rise and fall of Mila’s chest.
She’s alive. She’s fucking alive.
“I would like to stay here tonight,” Toole says. “I want to be close.”
I nod towards the hall. “Through the living room. The second door on your left. Should have everything you need.”
“Good. Wake me up if anything happens. If she’s in pain, give her one of these.” She hands me a bottle of pills, and the rattle echoes throughout the room.
“Thanks,” I murmur, knowing it’s not enough for what she did. “For saving her.”
“She saved herself. I just did the stitching.”
She walks away, leaving me alone with Paulina and Mila. The silence is filled with my racing thoughts when I stare down at my wife.
“Chris-tian . . .” Mila breathes, her eyes hazy when she squints at me.
“Go to sleep, baby,” I brush the hair back from her face. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
She doesn’t respond, her head lulling to the side, and I know she’s fallen asleep again.
Paulina moves to stand. “I’m going to get fresh water and bathe her.”
“I’ll do it. You go to bed.”
She pauses, an odd expression crossing her face. As if she can’t believe I’d like to take care of my wife.
She doesn’t say anything, though, and instead nods, leaving the bowl on the nightstand in front of me.
“Is he . . .”
“He’s dead,” I respond, knowing her question before it even leaves her mouth.
She’s silent for a moment, looking back at Mila.
“Good.”
Alone with Mila, I stand and grab the bowl, crossing over to the bathroom. I wash my hands and refill the bowl with warm water and soap, grabbing a fresh washcloth and heading back to Mila.
Pulling a chair up beside her, I start to wash her face, then the blood that’s on her arms, and finally, her stomach that’s not covered by the thick gauze covering her wound.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I whisper, even if I know it doesn’t make up for what happened to her. “I’ll make it right.”
When she’s cleaned up, I dump the bowl and stoop down to press a soft kiss to her forehead. Then I pull the chair closer and sit down, closing my eyes to try and get a few hours of sleep.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling it’ll be plagued with the sound of Collin’s voice uttering that name.
Reaching for Mila’s hand, I hold it in mine, pressing my lips to the ring on her finger.
If something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.
Gritting my teeth, I pull my pistol out and place it in my lap before I lean back and close my eyes.
Tomorrow, I have some tough decisions to make.
Right now, I focus on the feel of her skin against mine and quietly plot my revenge.