Chapter 38
Bria
The drive back was quiet for the first few minutes.
Streetlights washed over the windshield in steady intervals.
I sat with my knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them, staring out at the dark road.
Blood from Miyori's face still stained the side of my jeans where I'd helped carry her.
I could still smell the copper and gunpowder that had clung to Priest when he walked back into that basement carrying Lilith's head like it was nothing.
Like she was nothing. Like all those years of obsession had ended in a single swing of his arm.
I should have felt something—horror, relief, anything. I felt nothing.
Kael glanced at me. "You okay?"
I didn't look at him right away. "I don't know."
He let another mile pass before he spoke again. "You thinking about leaving?"
That made me turn. "What?"
"Now that you've seen what this life can look like. Heads on the floor. Houses burned. People we care about getting shot at. You thinking about walking away?"
I was quiet for a long moment. The road hummed under the tires.
"It's not much different than the life I'd been living before you," I said finally, my voice coming out low. "Just cleaner now. And I don't wake up wondering if I'm going to die on a bathroom floor with a needle still in my arm. So no. I'm not thinking about leaving."
He nodded once and kept his eyes on the road. Something in his posture eased.
We didn't talk much after that.
Kael pulled into the driveway. The house was dark. He killed the engine and got out first, scanning the porch the way he always did. Nothing looked off. The cameras were green; the door was locked. He unlocked it and stepped inside, flipping on the hall light.
I followed, close enough that I could feel the heat of him at my back.
He took two steps into the living room. I heard the crackle of electricity, and then Kael dropped.
Before I could process what I was seeing, everything went black.
Pain dragged me back. I don't know how much time had passed.
My head throbbed as if someone had taken a hammer to my skull. The floor was cold under my cheek.
I didn't move. My body remembered what my mind hadn't caught up to yet—danger. I could feel it in my bones, the wrongness in the air.
I blinked, trying to make the room stop spinning. I was face down near the couch.
As my vision cleared, Darius came into view first.
Kael was tied to a chair in the middle of the living room, his wrists bound behind him, ankles secured, blood already at the corner of his mouth. Standing over him like he owned the place was the one person I never wanted to see again.
My stomach dropped. My skin went cold. Every nerve in my body screamed at once.
Fuck my life. Less than an hour ago, I thought a crazy bitch would kill me. Now this.
"Wakey, wakey, motherfucker," Darius taunted Kael.
I didn't move; I watched through my lashes. Kael glared at him.
"You think you can just take my woman?" Darius circled the chair.
"I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to settle this score.
" He laughed. "Until that bitch gave me the address.
Crazy bitch came out of nowhere and said she could help me.
I thought she was lying until she gave me the security codes and everything. Then I was inside."
Kael didn't flinch. "She's not your woman."
"She was." Darius stopped in front of him, leaning down until his face was inches from Kael's. "She was mine long before you came along. I had her under control—drugs, fear. She knew her place. And you—" He spat. "You took that away from me. You made her think she could be something."
"She is something."
"She's nothing." He stood up, pacing. "She's a junkie. A whore. A failure. And you—" He swung a crowbar, stopping just short of Kael's face. "You're going to watch me take her back. And then I'm going to kill you. Slowly."
He walked over and drove a fist into Kael's gut—hard. I heard the air leave Kael's lungs in a rush. Darius hit him again, then once more across the face. Kael's head snapped sideways, blood filling his mouth.
"I had her trained. Had her on a short leash and a shorter high. She didn't eat, sleep, or breathe without my permission. You ruined her—got her mouth running too much again."
He crouched in front of Kael, still smiling.
"I'll put the needle back in her arm and remind her who she belongs to.
You know she used to cry and thank me for it?
She'd thank me while she was shaking. That's control.
That's ownership. What you did was theft.
You killed Brook, too, you thieving motherfucker. "
My hands curled into fists.
He stood and paced a slow circle around the chair.
I was fuming, but I didn't move. I waited.
He hadn't even tied me up—that's how little he thought of me.
I ran options through my head. There was a gun under the bar, one in the kitchen—I couldn't remember the other hiding spots, but the bar was closest.
He kept taunting Kael. "Once, I made her trade pussy for a chicken sandwich." He laughed.
Something in me snapped. Not broke—snapped, like a rubber band that had been stretched too far for too long and finally let go.
Rage hit me so hard it blurred my vision.
I sat up fully. "You piece of shit ass nigga."
Darius turned, then laughed. "There she is."
He crossed the room in two strides and backhanded me hard enough to knock me sideways. The sound cracked through the living room. I hit the floor again, my lip split open, blood already welling. My ears rang.
For half a second, I just lay there, breathing hard, tasting copper, remembering the beatings that usually followed a slap like that.
Then I thought about Lilith—crazy, unhinged, willing to burn everything down if she had to. She had been wrong about so much, but she had been right about one thing: sometimes the only way out is through.
I wanted that courage.
I shoved myself up and charged him, pure, ugly rage fueling me. I grabbed a heavy lamp off the side table and swung it with everything I had. Glass shattered against the side of his head. He staggered, cursing, blood running down his temple.
I didn't wait. I ran.
He caught me before I made it three steps, one arm around my waist, hauling me back.
I fought like an animal—nails, teeth, knees, elbows.
I raked his face, kicked his shins, and twisted in his grip until he slammed me into the wall hard enough to knock a picture frame down.
I kept fighting. Blood from my mouth and his mixed on my skin. He hit me again, open-handed.
"You brave enough to fight me now, bitch?" He hit me with a closed fist when I wouldn't stop.
I went down hard, gasping, one eye already swelling shut.
Kael's voice cut through the room, raw and furious. "Touch her again and I'll gut you slow, you fucking—"
Darius ignored him. He stood over me, breathing hard, wiping blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. "Stay down."
Kael raised his voice, louder, meaner. "You're a bitch. Cut me loose and fight me—but you won't."
Darius turned on him, face twisted, taking two steps toward the chair. "You think you're better than me? You're just the next one she's gonna run from the second the high of playing house wears off—"
I moved while his back was turned.
I crawled, scrambled, then lunged for the bar. My hand disappeared under the counter and came back up with the compact 9mm Kael kept taped there.
Darius spun at the sound of the slide racking. He snatched a gun from his holster and raised it, smiling again, cocky as ever.
"You won't," he said. "You're still that same scared little girl who used to cry when I—"
I didn't let him finish. I didn't want to hear the end of that sentence. I didn't want to be that girl anymore.
I pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit him squarely in the forehead. It was clean. He dropped as if someone had cut his strings, his gun clattering across the hardwood. Blood sprayed the wall behind him.
I stood there, arm still extended, chest heaving. The gun was steady in my hand. My whole body was shaking, but my grip wasn't.
Blood ran from my split lip and the cut above my eye. My knuckles were raw. I didn't look away from his body for a long time.
For years, he had felt larger than life—untouchable, the monster under my bed.
Dead. He was just a man—just flesh, blood, and bone like everyone else. I saw that now.
I lowered the gun.
The shaking hit me then—all of it. The adrenaline, the fear, the rage, the years of pain—it all crashed down at once.
I walked over to Kael, my legs barely holding me up. I fell to my knees in front of him and just cried—not pretty tears, but ugly, choking, messy sobs that tore out of my chest as if they'd been waiting years to escape.
I didn't care.
He was alive. I was alive. And Darius was dead.
That was all that mattered.