Chapter 57 #2
Clamping a hand on his shoulder, I dip my mouth to his neck. Carefully, I roll the razor blade with my tongue, slide it from my cheek, and bite it between my canines.
“This is for Celeste and David,” I whisper past clenched teeth.
With my back to the room, the guards can only assume I’m running my lips across Crowe’s throat. They don’t know I’m slicing him ear to ear until he gurgles and spurts and makes a nasty, wet mess.
Blood drenches my face and chest before I can dodge it. The trajectory and reach of the projectile spray is fucking impressive. I’d love to watch it spew until the end, but the room is slowly losing its ever-loving shit.
“Please remain calm.” I hold up the bomb switch. “Or we all die screaming.”
Bodies surge, and guns fly up, like they didn’t hear a word I said.
Fucking mall-cop energy.
The rent-a-cop behind me shouts, cut off mid-sound, as I spin and open his throat with the blade in my mouth.
The taste of blood clogs my throat, making me gag. I spit the dental weapon into my hand, dance into the mob, and start slashing fingers, arms, bellies, faces, every inch of exposed flesh within reach.
“Congratulations.” I slam my modified brass knuckles into an angry face. “You unlocked the bonus level.”
Adrenaline detonates through me as I finish him off with the razor.
Sweat stings my eyes. Breath burns, and every nerve screams as I move faster.
Wounds open in flashes. Fabric darkens. Crimson splashes the concrete, and the air fills with the tang of blood and the grunts of effort, pain, and surprise.
Jag is a storm beside me.
The chain snaps taut between his hands, steel singing as he whips it up and around a man’s throat. One hard pull, a sharp jerk, and the body drops.
He’s done that before.
The next guard doesn’t get his weapon up before Jag pivots and cracks the chain across the man’s face.
He swings it again, using it as a shield, garrote, lasso, whatever presents itself. Metal and flesh tangle as he drives forward with brutal economy.
That’s what ten days of restraint looks like when it breaks loose all at once.
His injuries don’t slow him. They sharpen him. And I’m feverishly, inappropriately turned on.
“Focus!” Oliver shouts in my ear. “Get out of there!”
Fists smack flesh. Chains clang, and someone lunges. I dodge by inches and feel heat rush past my ribs.
Hands slip. Bodies collide. My razor sinks deep, again and again. The floor slicks underfoot. Someone stumbles. Someone doesn’t get back up. Another crow stupidly aims his gun at me.
“Careful.” I gesture at my open vest. “This outfit explodes if startled.”
As the goon waffles, Jag steps behind him and snaps his neck.
Two more crows rush me, all bad timing and worse judgment.
“If I trip…” I smile at them. “We all redecorate.”
My hands move on instinct, and I feel it through the rings, the wet crunch of steel meeting bone.
One of them staggers back, nose gone wrong and soundless shock splashed across his face.
The other hesitates long enough for regret to register. I love that half-second, the moment they realize my rings aren’t decoration, and the skirt-wearing wacko is very, very good at this.
I pounce, knuckles heavy, breath hot, and heart kicking. There’s no mercy here. No room for it. Only the need to end the threat before it ends us.
The rings bite. The razor slices. Faces fold, and one by one, the room empties of resistance.
The noise collapses into ragged breathing. The echo of movement fades. Silence creeps back in, thick and stunned, broken only by the drip of blood against concrete.
Every crow in the room lies unmoving on the floor.
Jag stands beside me, breathing hard, eyes wild but clear. Still upright. Still here.
I wipe gore from my face with the back of my hand, spit a mouthful of blood, and meet Jag’s eyes.
His hands shake. His breath comes in sharp, uneven pulls, and his muscles appear locked as if the fight might start again. I know the feeling. My own pulse is crashing, heat draining fast, leaving a hollow tremor behind my ribs. Shock with teeth.
His gaze flicks to the body on the floor.
Adrian Crowe.
The pedophile kingpin he hunted for two decades.
The reason he and Dove lost their parents and lived on the streets.
No more.
“Where is she?” His wrecked, broken voice guts me almost as much as the question itself.
“She’s not here. Surveillance confirmed she’s not in this building.”
The swollen lines in his face fracture. Not loud or dramatic. Just a hairline split where hope had been white-knuckled into place. His eyes return to me, and through the damage, behind the bruises and blood and ten days of hell, I see it.
Trust.
He’s barely standing, held together by adrenaline and determination, a twitch away from buckling.
There’s so much I want to say. So much I need to say. But there’s a van full of mobsters and mouth-breathers listening and watching. This isn’t the moment to break.
“Move!” Oliver snaps in my ear. “Now. Sirens are inbound.”
“We’ll find her.” I push into Jag’s space, clasp his hand, and hook our pinkies together in a language he understands. “I swear it.”
He stares down at our entwined fingers, his eyes stark and brows furrowed. Then his gaze lifts to mine, and he nods. That’s all he’s got. It’s enough.
I turn us toward the door, my shoulder braced against his and my grip tight on his hand.
We hurry out of the kill room, out of the building, and away from the bodies, the blood, and the monster that tried to keep him.