Chapter 20 #2
Winters’s hand clamps over my mouth, the pressure of it familiar in the worst possible way.
I surge toward the table, toward the knife, abandoning all pretense of subtlety. Panic robs me of coordination, and the ropes hold fast. My muscles scream as I strain at the bindings, shoulders threatening to tear loose under the force of my struggle.
Gabriel fights with equal desperation as Darrow drags his chair backward toward the hallway, his heels kicking at the floor.
“Saint!” My name rips out of him, fury and fear braided together, his whole body straining toward me. “Saint!”
I yell his name in return, the sound muffled by Winters’s palm. I buck and writhe, fighting both my captor and the ropes as Gabriel disappears from view, pulled around the corner by Darrow’s implacable grip.
When a door slams at the back, I scream until my throat gives out, and I sag forward, panting through my nose to fill my lungs.
Winters removes his hand from my mouth, wiping it on his pants. “Alone at last. Just like old times.”
My eyes squeeze shut as I fight the tremor running through my body. I can’t lose it now. Not when Gabriel needs me. I can’t let the monster who broke me years ago win.
“You’ve put on some muscle since juvie.” Winters squeezes my shoulders. “Though I always preferred you skinny. Easier to handle.”
His fingers brush my hair, and my stomach rolls.
“We had a good system, didn’t we? I was so sad when I got transferred and had to leave my boy behind,” he says with a fondness that makes my skin crawl. “You were such a quick learner. It made all the others pale in comparison.”
Cold sweat breaks out across my forehead, trickling down my temple to the floor. The tremors I tried to hold back take over, starting in my fingertips and radiating up my arms. I hate this weakness, this physical submission that happens without my permission.
“Nothing to say?” Winters tuts, circling back into my field of vision. “You used to be so vocal. I remember every sound.”
Staying silent won’t save me. It never did. Every time I tried to disappear into myself, he just worked harder to drag me back, to force me to acknowledge what was happening.
“Fuck you.” The words scrape out of my throat, raw and sharp.
His eyebrows lift in surprise, then pleasure. “There he is. I was worried I’d broken that spirit.”
“You should be dead,” I spit, each word carrying years of suppressed rage. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”
“But you didn’t,” he counters. “Too scared. Too weak. Just like always.”Anger flares, and I use it to fuel my next shift toward the table. Almost within reach, if only I could get my hands free.
“No one believed you, even when you told that counselor. Some people are just born victims.” He draws in a deep breath along my throat. “They can sense it about you.”
My teeth grind together so hard my jaw aches. “Is that why you need ropes to talk to me? Afraid you can’t handle me now that I’m all grown up, big man?”
“Always running that mouth when you should be using it for better things.” The taunt draws him around to my front, his pupils dilating with a hunger I remember. “But that’s the fun part, isn’t it? Breaking you down again. Teaching you your place.”
I twist my wrists within their binds, my blood slicking the rough threads.
“You never escaped me, not really.” His voice drops lower, intimate and vile. “I’ve been living in your head all these years.”
I jerk my head forward, aiming for his nose, and he laughs as he moves backward. I use the same motion to hide the hard yank on my wrist, and I bite the inside of my cheek to stifle the pain as my skin rips, my hand sliding free from the rope.
“Tell me,” he chuckles. “When that pretty Rockford boy fucked you, did you think of me?”
“Every day,” I purr. “I think about all the ways I should have killed you.”
His hand shoots out, grabbing my chin with bruising force. “Still pretending to be tough, but you turn into a little bitch the moment I apply pressure.”
A scream cracks through the air, and I flinch, my head jerking toward the hall where Darrow took Gabriel.
“Sounds like they’re already having fun.” Winters rises to his feet, reaching for me. “Let’s move you somewhere more comfortable. That couch should do.”
As Winters grabs my arm, his fingers digging into my bicep with bruising force, I keep my freed hand hidden. Another scream echoes from down the hallway, and rage burns through my veins.
“Don’t fight me,” Winters grunts as he hauls me upward. “This always ends the same.”
I lean into him, letting him think he’s controlling my movements while I angle my free hand toward the table.
“That’s it,” he says with a sickening coo. “You remember how to behave.”
His hand slides to my neck, thumb tracing my pulse point, and the touch sends ice through my veins.
“You’re going to be a good boy for me.” He starts to lead me toward the couch, away from the table.
Now or never.
I lurch to the side, flinging my body toward the dining table with every ounce of strength I possess.
The rope around my torso restricts the movement, cutting into my ribs, but desperation fuels me past the pain.
Winters curses, yanking me back, but my fingers scramble along the underside of the table.
The knife. Where’s the fucking knife?
My nails scrape wood, searching for metal. Winters’s grip tightens, dragging me backward, and panic surges through me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re—”
My fingertips connect with cold steel, and I curl them around the handle. The knife slides free from its magnetic holder, and the solidity of it in my palm floods me with power.
Winters hauls me away from the table, spins me around, and freezes when he spots the blade in my hand. For a split second, the years between us collapse.
I’m sixteen again, trapped under him in a dark cell, praying for someone to hear me scream.
I’m twenty-five, bleeding but no longer defenseless.
“You little shit!” He lunges for my wrist.
I swing the knife as best I can, and he jerks backward, avoiding the blade by centimeters, but his foot catches on the rug, throwing him off balance. I launch myself forward, tackling him to the ground.
We hit the hardwood floor with a thud that knocks the wind from me. The knife clatters away, sliding across polished wood, and my heart stops as it spins out of reach.
Winters’s fist connects with my jaw, snapping my head back. Stars explode behind my eyelids, but I roll with the punch, using the momentum to pin his arm beneath my knee. His other hand flies toward my face, fingers hooked into claws, and I block it with my forearm.
“I’ll break you,” he snarls, spittle flecking his lips. “I’ll fucking break you.”
“Not this time.”
I slam my forehead into his nose, and cartilage crunches under the impact. Blood sprays across both our faces, filling my nostrils with its copper scent. The pain radiates from my skull outward, but adrenaline pushes it aside.
He bucks beneath me and almost dislodges me before I drive my forearm into his throat. His eyes bulge as he chokes, hands scrambling at my chest, nails raking through my shirt to score my skin.
The knife lies three feet away, a gleam of silver on the dark hardwood.
I lunge for it, but Winters’s hand latches onto my ankle, yanking me back. His thumb digs into the tendon at the back of my ankle, and waves of agony streak up my leg.
“You never learn,” he wheezes, blood bubbling between his lips. “Always thinking you can fight back.”
His weight flips me onto my back, and his knees pin my arms to the floor. Blood from his broken nose drips onto my cheeks and forehead, hot and sticky as he lowers his face toward mine.
“Lights out, Samuel.”
Those words snap something inside me. A dam breaks, and sixteen years of fear and rage pour through the cracks, drowning everything else.
With a roar that tears from the deepest part of my soul, I buck upward, twisting at the waist. The movement catches him by surprise, and he pitches to the side. I roll after him, broken ropes trailing from my torso, my body moving on pure instinct.
The knife handle meets my palm, as if it belongs there. As if it’s waited for this moment as long as I have.
Winters scrambles backward with the dawning realization that the power has shifted. That the boy he broke years ago isn’t the man before him now.
“Samuel—” He raises his hands placatingly. “Saint. Let’s talk about—”
I drive the blade into his throat, burying it to the hilt.
His words cut off in a wet gurgle, and blood spurts between his fingers as his hands fly to his neck, trying to stanch the flow.
A sound escapes me, half sob, half laugh, as the life drains from his body. The same eyes that haunted my nightmares for years are now glazed over with the emptiness of death.
“You never fucking owned me.” I twist the knife once more before pulling it free.
Blood fountains from the wound, soaking his shirt and pooling on the floor beneath him. My hands, slick with red, tremble as I cut through the remaining ropes around my torso.
Then another scream jerks me back to the present.
Gabriel.
I stagger to my feet, swaying as the room spins around me. Blood drips from my split lip, mixing with Winters’s on my shirt. My fingers find the console table, and I wrench open the drawer.
A handgun rests on a velvet lining, loaded and ready. I grab it, checking the chamber with muscle memory born from years of fighting to grow past being a victim.
As I race down the hallway, following the sounds of struggle, a trail of blood marks my path. Winters’s or mine. I can’t tell anymore.
I reach a closed door at the end of the hall and kick it open, gun raised, ready to fire.
The scene before me freezes my blood.
Gabriel stands over Darrow’s body, chest heaving, spattered with blood. His wrists bear raw circles where rope burned through skin, but his hands grip a letter opener— No, a stiletto blade, covered in crimson to the handle.
Darrow lies sprawled on the floor of what appears to be a home office, throat slashed open, staring at nothing as the carpet beneath him darkens with spreading red.
I lower the gun with a relieved exhale. “Gabe.”
He turns, blade still raised, muscles coiled to attack. When he registers it’s me, the tension drains from him all at once, and he staggers forward, dropping the knife.
“Saint.”
We collide, his arms crushing as they wrap around my shoulders, mine wrapping around his chest.
The gun dangles from my fingers, forgotten as I bury my nose in his neck, inhaling his pheromones beneath the blood and sweat. “I thought—”
“It’s okay.” His hands cup my cheeks, thumbs wiping at blood and tears I didn’t realize were there. “I’m safe.”
His mouth finds mine, tasting of salt and copper. The kiss contains all of the fear, relief, and raw need to confirm we’re both alive.
A crash from the front of the townhouse tears us apart.
“Fuck.” Gabriel dives for the bookcase, pulling out a sawed-off shotgun from beneath the shelf. “It sounds like Tony didn’t come alone.”
The gun returns to my grip, safety off, as we turn toward the new threat together.