Chapter 52
Myles
I can still hear her scream.
It doesn’t matter how loud Phoenix is yelling, how hard I slam my fists into the wall, how fast my heart’s fucking pounding in my ears. It’s still there. In my head. Like she’s still screaming now, and I can hear it through the void she left in my chest.
We let this happen. We reinforced every side last week, but missed our patrols last night after we found out Ivy is knocked up.
Was it enough time for them to clear an entry point?
Now she’s gone. The laughter, the sun… it’s all gone. My chest feels like someone’s prying my ribs apart with cold fingers. The world is drowned in grey again. Ivy was the only thing that gave life its colour.
Thick clouds roll in, bathing her garden patch in shadow. Seeds are scattered over the soil, birds ripping at them as if it’s not a sacred site.
Turning away from the window, I smash my fist into the bastard we caught, splitting my knuckles.
Good.
I want pain. I need someone to blame. And he’s it.
We beat him into the road and then dragged him inside, tied him to a chair and beat him again. But he’s refused to talk.
I slam my fist into him again and again. But it’s my own ribs that ache, my heart shattering.
Every punch echoes with the thought of her state. Of the baby. Our child. I can’t even picture it without my ears ringing with her shriek.
“She ain’t yours,” the guy spits, blood mixing with saliva. “She chose to go back. You think she wanted to stay with freaks like you?” His words taunt me harder than his fists ever could.
I’m seeing red. She wouldn’t have chosen this. She chose me!
They didn’t just violently kidnap her—they stole the last thing in the world that might’ve been mine. And I feel like I’m imploding.
All my life, people either left or died. Ivy wasn’t supposed to. She chose to stay. And gave me something I never dared to hope for. A family… with a baby on the way.
I never even got to tell her how I really feel about it. That even if Zane and Phoenix are freaking out, I’m not.
She soothes the longing I’ve always felt. Her presence fills a void that made every breath ache. And her belly being filled with our baby, completes a part of me that I never knew was missing.
Now my throat’s clogged with the words. They sit there like shards of glass, cutting me open each time I swallow.
Phoenix is losing his mind and Zane… well, he might’ve already lost it.
He’s watching me exhaust myself beating this scum, staring at our prisoner with fire in his eyes. Rolling his shoulders, he paces the room again, like it’s helping him hold back. But his voice has lost every trace of patience
We’ve been asking the same question for an hour. Testing my restraint when all I want is to bleed this snake dry.
“Where. Did. They. Take. Her?” I snarl.
The fucker just grins, lips split, red streaming from his face. Every time he refuses, my fists find a new place to land.
I want to tear this entire town down brick by fucking brick until I find her. But I know she won’t be here.
Phoenix’s voice booms from the hall as he enters. “We were supposed to watch her!”
He storms through the room like a live wire, hunting knife clenched in hand. Face twisting in fury, he looks like he’s one breath away from completely shattering.
And for a second, I see something that makes my blood chill.
He’s… scared.
Phoenix. The man who never flinches, never falters. Never even cracked since he hardened after losing Gemma. He’s scared.
“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Phoenix screams, pointing the blade at Zane. “You took her out there! You let them take her back! She never should’ve been outside! She was a sitting duck out there!”
Zane’s eyes flash with violence, mouth a hard line. “She needed it. She was wilting,” he growls.
She was. We all saw it.
Ivy smiled, yeah. But it never reached her eyes. I just kept thinking if I stayed close, if I kept giving her little things—blankets, food, orgasms, a goddamn flower I found on the side of the road—she’d brighten. I would’ve given her the world if it’d make her just breathe again.
“Well now she’s gone!” Phoenix’s voice cracks, and it slices through me.
Zane’s nostrils flare. “Don’t you fucking dare put this all on me!” he roars.
“You’re the one who gave her a fucking garden, Zane!”
“She needed to breathe!” Zane shouts. “You were both fine with it. You both agreed!”
“I didn’t agree to her getting taken!”
They ripped her from under us like it was nothing. Like she’s still theirs and they’d just been waiting for their chance.
Leaning on the back of the chair, I try to breathe normally, but everything’s spinning, my hands trembling.
“You two can rip each other apart later,” I snarl. “We need to find her. Now. This motherfucker needs to start talking!” I emphasise my point by punching our prisoner again. Head rolling, he sputters more blood.
But it doesn’t stop dark thoughts flooding my brain.
What if she’s already chained up back in that place being beaten? What if she’s screaming for us right now? What if they’ve killed her and our baby?
My stomach lurches but my mind won’t stop.
I see her lying on a dirt floor, stripped naked, knees pulled up around her belly, shielding it with her hands. One of those bastards climbing on top of her as she sobs my name hopelessly. Her eyes going glassy… giving up… shutting down.
I squeeze my eyes shut. No. No. No!
The image almost buckles my knees. If she’s calling my name and I’m not there—what kind of man does that make me?
Stalking forward, Phoenix flips the knife in his hand and leans down till he’s eye-to-eye with the man. His voice rumbles low enough to make even me shiver. “We can start cutting, or you can start talking.”
The scumbag in the chair freezes, eyes darting to the door, the window, anywhere but us.
Eerily calm, Zane crouches beside him. “Tell us where the farm is. Or we’ll start getting creative,” he warns, eyes glinting with sadistic hope.
“P-please… y-you don’t understand—” the weasel whimpers
Phoenix exhales hard, eyes wild and unfocused. Then his face hardens before he lifts the knife and stabs it into the guy’s thigh.
He screams, shaking in the ropes. “PLEASE! They’ll kill me!” he begs. “You don’t understand who you’re dealing with!” The panic makes his voice wobble, but he still won’t give in.
Zane laughs bitterly. “We’ll kill you,” he states, with a hint of amusement. “We saw which direction they went. It’s only a matter of time before we find her anyway.”
The three of us are like wolves circling, teeth bared, but the little doe we’re supposed to protect is gone. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the weight of her hand on my chest from last night, a warmth that’s already fading.
Rounding the chair, I yank the knife out of his thigh. Screams ring my eardrums again but I need him to squeal.
The fucker’s chest heaves, eyes rolling wildly. He coughs, muttering something about ‘the farm’ but not giving the location.
I shove the tip of the blade deep up one of his nostrils and cut right through, slicing his cheek as it puckers in pain. Gore sprays onto Zane’s face, his hair dripping with it.
“Where?” I snarl, holding the knife to his other nostril.
“I couldn’t tell you if I wanted! You’ll never find it! It’s a two-hour drive. Down a beaten track off the highway. It’d take two days to walk from here!” the weasel shrieks.
“Then you’re wasting our time,” Zane growls, standing and snatching the knife from my hand. He grips the scum’s hair, yanks his head back and drives the blade into the guy’s eye.
Bloodcurdling screams fill the atmosphere. Then Zane twists it deeper, cracking the eye socket to reach the brain. The body slowly stops twitching.
Finally, Zane steps back, wiping the dripping steel on his pants and smearing the crimson across his chest like war paint.
Holy shit. He snapped before me.
He looks like the lunatic we found three years ago. Right now, I’m glad to have the psycho on our side.
“A two-hour drive narrows our search radius. This prick was just trying to buy them time to get off the highway,” Phoenix seethes. His hands are shaking but his eyes are dead.
“The truck has to make this trip,” I bite out, pushing past Phoenix and storming to the armoury.
Hearing them enter behind me, I start grabbing my gear with shaky hands. Knives, guns, grenades. Forget something? Fine—I’ll rip them apart with my teeth.
“I’ll check it over,” Phoenix says, cold but vibrating with rage. “We find them. We burn every fucking shack in this state if we have to.”
I look at them both, and I mean it when I say it. “No one touches her and lives.”
Phoenix meets my gaze with something cold and calculated settling over his face. “We don’t stop. Not until they’re all dead.”
Zane’s still panting like a bull. “I’m gonna tear them limb from limb.”
They have no idea what they unleashed.
We’ll go to war for Ivy. We’ll get her back, and rain mayhem on that farm.