CHAPTER 71 - RED
CHAPTER
Red
T HE FRONT OF MY SHIRT is drenched in sweat, sticking the wet material against my chest in the cold night air. My hair has come loose from my ponytail as I run wildly around the streets, my handmade leather dress shoes pounding the pavement in a blind search for the woman I love.
Love. There, I’ve said it.
Love isn’t a subject I know anything about. All I know is that I’ve never felt like this before about a woman - about anyone . And the thought that Arianna has left me - or worse - fills me with a combined terror and rage that I cannot control.
I stop to check my bearings. I then dart left, change my mind and dart right in this endless pursuit. I’m looking for a needle in a haystack - an impossible task, but I have to try. I have to keep on.
No, I must succeed.
I have to find Arianna. I have to.
She belongs to me .
Although it’s unreciprocated, that woman has stolen a piece of me, and I need her to function; to breathe; to exist.
The persistent tendril of suspicion about Liam and Oscar unwinds within me once more. Even just now, Liam attempted to stop me from searching for Arianna. Then there was him cutting Slater off from what he was saying about the people against me within the firm.
Was Arianna right in thinking it was my brothers that she overheard in that corridor?
My head pounds with tension.
Am I deluded in refusing to accept my brothers could be behind this entire vendetta? All the digs, the jibes, threats and comments they’ve made... Oscar and Liam resent my decision and hate Arianna enough.
But it can’t be them.
Can it?
Wherever the threats are from, Arianna is out here alone...
“ARIANNA!” I roar, my throat dry as I barge between more people on the pavement. One man glares at me, about to give me a piece of his mind.
I dare him to fucking try!
Clearly, something about me shows this man that I’m not the person to pick a fight with because he averts his eyes and jumps out of my path. I’ll happily shoot any fucker who impedes my search. No one will stand in my way. I regret nothing, except that the gun in my waistband is not loaded.
That, and not keeping a better hold of Arianna in the lift.
Fuck! I knew she was upset with what she’d stumbled into witnessing, but to run away from me out here - out into danger...
If those Bristoni bastards even think about...
Stopping, I lean against a wall and drag air into my tortured lungs. Fuck’s sake, this isn’t going to work. I won’t find her now. She’ll have long gone.
I rake my fingers through my wayward hair, my jaw set like stone.
If anything happens to her... If anyone...
What the hell am I doing? I can’t give up.
Swinging away from the wall, I pick up my rapid pace, scanning every shop, alleyway, doorway and as many windows as I can see, for the smallest hint. I’ll recognize the tiniest part of her because every millimeter of Arianna is chiseled into my brain.
I ignore the mobile buzzing in my jacket pocket like it has done since leaving the hotel. What is there to say? It will be Liam or Oscar telling me to get back to the event and leave the search. Perhaps even Del too.
Yeah, they’ll all be happy Arianna’s gone.
But I am not. And I’ll find her.
I continue down the street, sure I’ve been down here already.
My fear of losing Arianna - because that’s what it is - fear - is taking over my sense of reason and logic about where I’m going and looking.
I don’t bode well with fear. It’s not something I handle well.
I don’t know how to deal with it as it’s an emotion I rarely experience.
But I’m experiencing it now, and it’s making me snowblind.
I rush past more darkened shops and alleyways. I’m on a losing streak. I’m...
Suddenly stopping, I pivot on my heels and double back, focusing on a small lump in a puddle outside a shop. Ice shoots through my veins.
Arianna’s bag!
One second is all it takes to recognize the marabou-feathered clutch she used tonight. It looks different with its sodden feathers, but it’s hers all right.
I spin around, my gaze sharp.
Instinct pulls me into the nearest alleyway, and a guttural roar spews from deep inside me. Covering several meters in an instant, I grab a man with both hands by the back of his neck.
His heavy, muscular body is featherweight faced with my white-hot fury.
Ripping his body away, I see Arianna underneath, her tear-streaked face numb with terror, her dress ripped open...
I can’t bear looking at her and spin the man in my grip around, putting him down on the alleyway floor in one deft maneuver. His skull hits the concrete with a sickening crack, and then I’m astride him, slamming his head down again and again and again...
I’ll kill the cunt.
This is Bristoni’s doing, and his man will die. He will die now .
I smash the man’s head into the concrete once again. “Don’t think you can hide your fucking face!”
The man’s eyes are all I can see, and with an animalistic roar, I shove my thumbs into both of them. The yowling noise he makes aggravates me further.
This sick fuck thinks he can hide under a cap and neck scarf? “You sad, pathetic bastard!” I scream, ripping the baseball cap off to reveal his closely cropped fair hair now drenched in blood. I yank the necktie away, my senses dulling momentarily as I immediately recognize the face.
I know exactly who this is.
“You wanker!” I growl.
Stuffing the necktie into Steve’s brother’s mouth, Joe Farrow flails, his strength depleted by his grotesque head injuries. He can’t fight or stop me. He can’t win. No one can.
No one.
This cunt was about to rape Arianna. My Arianna.
Or he already has...
A growl escapes through my teeth as I lay into Joe, my fists pounding and smashing his face to a bloody pulp. I haven’t killed anyone with my fists for many years, but for this cunt it’s the only way. This is personal.
I keep on pounding his head and face. There’s little left of it, yet I won’t stop until this bastard is obliterated and every last cell of his stinking body is no longer.