79. Rory
Rory
“HOW LONG CAN SOMEONE SURVIVE IF YOU CUT THEM OPEN?”
Citizen Soldier Playlist - ALL
“Let It Burn”
Ikeep it on the lowest setting.
I want this to last. Vincent already had the pleasure of kicking the bastard’s teeth in. Well, a few of them. I can’t focus on Briella right now. Need to let the Doc work and put all my faith in him to bring her back. Tasing this bitch is a distraction.
Not like Seth.
All he’s doing is standing there. Gaze glued on her. Raphael’s the same, but he’s on his knees like he can command her very soul to return.
Probably can.
If she doesn’t come back…there won’t be a canyon big enough for the corpses I’ll make.
Cowardly weakling wets himself after three shocks. Right to his goddamn arse.
The moans and sobs and whimpers coming from his mouth are music to my ears. Well, ear and a half.
I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. I’d give Briella the other ear—just as long as she comes back. Fuck, I’d rip out my own rotten heart for her.
Sudden gasps behind me, the feminine cries. Fuck, it feels like my soul is being ripped from my body. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jude holding her. If I look at her too long, if I see all the damage done to her, I’ll lose it. And I can’t lose it. Not when the kill belongs to her.
“Stop,” Raphael commands while Alden’s body is still twitching below me.
With a silent snarl, I rip the stun gun from his asshole, rolling my eyes when he shites himself. He spits more blood from his Vincent-ruined mouth.
Not so wordy now, is he?
Finally, I turn and stare down at my woman.
She meets me head-on. Tears on her cheeks, eyes so glassy and warm and pretty.
She’s exhausted. But she’s here. And it feels like she’s pumping new life into my veins.
Looks mighty cute with just Jude’s coat over her, those sweet legs and ripe thighs on full display.
Ack, fuck the bastard in me. Shameless bastard with hunger on his brain. Nah, not brain. All dick.
“Bring her,” Raphael directs Jude, and he picks Briella up and carries her closer to the fucking waste of a soon-to-be rotting corpse.
“How would you like him punished, Briella?”
She’s surprised by Raphael’s question, then turns to Jude. “Do you have a paralytic?”
He gives her a twisted grin before nodding to Raphael, handing her to our alpha. She winces at the transfer. Can’t imagine the level of pain she’s in.
Then again, nothing can compare to the pain Alden’s in.
The bastard opens his mouth just as Jude sticks him with the paralytic.
“How long can someone survive if you cut them open?” she wonders, and I love that deviousness.
Jude inclines his head to me. “If Rory does a surgical cut, the intestines can hang out for up to an hour in pure agony.”
Impure for him.
“We don’t have an hour,” Raphael reminds her.
Pity. Easthaven is burning. More guards could pour through here at any second.
Briella glances at me, waiting. I waste no time in twirling my cleaver before I carve a clean slice through the meatbag, spilling some of his intestines. He can’t even scream. But we know the pain’s excruciating.
She spends five minutes watching, resting her head intermittently on Raphael’s shoulder and inhaling and exhaling, deep and slow.
Jude has to give the asshole adrenaline to keep him conscious. Vincent remains close to the door, monitoring for any potential attacks. Seth just looks edgy, gripping his axe strong, eager to dismember the jackass. Can’t blame him.
Five minutes of torture is not enough for him. But Briella doesn’t need to spend an hour watching her greatest demon suffer. Don’t waste the energy on the worthless carcass. Time to send him to death. And get her out of this damned place so she can live.
After five minutes, Raphael withdraws a sharp dagger from his belt and closes her palm around the handle. He doesn’t let go. They will do this together.
He lowers her to the body. With hellbent feminine wrath written all over her, unlike any I’ve ever seen, she stares down the wreckage of the devil who haunted her like a poltergeist all her life—
—and together, she and Raphael bring the blade down.
He shows her how to carve out the heart.
It has the faintest of beats when he severs it from the chest. She’s not looking at the heart.
She squeezes it, but she’s watching the life drain from Alden’s body, the soul leaving, falling straight to hell.
And as Raphael crushes the heart in both their hands, she gasps, snapping her head to his. Fuck, it’s like an aphrodisiac watching them. Their expressions are like twin mirrors, both feeding on the kill. And we’re getting a taste.
“Not to interrupt, but we need to get a move on,” Vincent alerts us.
My boy takes it as confirmation. Like an eager beaver, Seth swings his axe, dismembering the corpse in four clean blows.
Raphael hands Briella back to Jude and arms himself with his bow and arrow, prepared to lead the charge, ready for anything.
The highlight of my night is finding a flamethrower in one of the supply closets.
I sling it over my back and follow Raphael out of the blood-soaked room, the taste of victory sharp in my mouth like iron and adrenaline.
We leave Alden’s corpse in pieces behind us—no grave, no peace, no fucking legacy.
Outside, Easthaven is in chaos. Smoke slithers through the halls, flames feasting on everything it can find.
I torch every goddamn thing I can—curtains, beds, files, all of it. The devil’s house deserves to burn.
My kind of therapy.
Raphael stalks ahead like the predator he is.
Seth and Vincent keep their weapons drawn, just in case some poor bastard is stupid enough to come at us.
And Briella—Briella is wrapped in Jude’s jacket, pale but upright, cradled in the afterglow of vengeance.
She’s wrecked and radiant, and I’d burn this place ten times over just to see her like this again.
I’m the backup. Not because I’m observant, but because I’m damn fast with my cleaver.
Once we reach the main double doorways of the lobby, the last stretch before the exit, Raphael nods to me, a silent reminder of the grenade.
I grab it from my pack, close the distance to Briella, and place it in her open hand. Her breath is shallow, eyes locked on the fire eating through the walls.
But then, she presses her lips into a smile. And kisses my cheek. “Thanks, Red.”
She pulls the pin from the last grenade with her teeth, that signature little grin like sin curling at the corners of her lips. My fucking Firecracker.
I take it from her, let her fingers brush mine.
“Boom.” I wink, and lob it over my shoulder.
The explosion rips through the wing behind us, a fireball blasting against the walls. We don’t flinch. Just keep walking as the whole compound begins to collapse inward, screaming and wailing in its death throes.
Outside, we flip the bird in unison. One last fuck-you to the place that tried to break her.
Vincent’s radio crackles to life. Sirens. Cop chatter. They’re moving in fast.
“We gotta go,” he says, eyeing the treeline.
We spot a truck by the loading dock—keys still in the ignition, like a parting gift from the gods of chaos.
I wanna jump shotgun, but Vincent’s worth two bodies in the back. So it’s Jude on one side with Briella in his lap, and me and Wood Boy on the other. Raphael climbs in last, closing the door with finality. Vincent nods to him.
Briella leans her head against the window, glowing with quiet fire. “Where are we going?”
Raphael doesn’t look back. He just shifts into gear.
“Home.”
We vanish into the smoke.
“Hey, Red?”
I turn to the prettiest voice belonging to the prettiest Lass I’ve ever known. Give her my signature smirk. The one vowing weeks of worship after this.
Goddamn! She’s like sunlight sparkling on snow. All soft and glittery.
She leans over Jude’s other side, her lips parting in a not-so-subtle request. I waste no time and dive for her sweet mouth.
Don’t rightly care if she smells and tastes like smoke, sweat, retch, and blood.
Cupping the side of her face, I kiss her something fierce, tilting my jaw and going as far as I can.
I run my fingers through her curls. And tell myself over and over again that she’s here. And from now on, she always will be.
When she finally pulls away, she hovers above my mouth, her lips swollen, her face a little chafed from my beard.
But then, she stares up at me through those tear-glistening eyes, lifts her hand to brush her fingers along my ear bearing her teeth marks, and says so sweet and proud, “I love you, Rory.”
My brothers all turn to gawk at her. Even Raphael in the rearview mirror.
I grin from ear to ear.
Then, she sweeps her gaze across the lot of them. “I love you all. Cheekbones. Vinny. Timber. Red. And Raphael.”
She settles against Jude again. I don’t take her away, no matter how much my arms want to hold her. She still needs him in these moments. His heartbeat. His healing. His care.
I just tip my head back against the seat, puff out my chest, and keep smiling through the whole trip.
The others gripe and brood.
Cause I don’t stop reminding them: out of all the big, dumb, moronic jackasses, she said it to me first.