Chapter Thirty
Death Dogs’ Hideout
I was up and out of my chair the second they dragged them away.
Fuck this shit.
I was done.
My debt was paid.
I was free. I didn’t have to play by their rules anymore.
I may have done many unscrupulous things in this life, but a rapist wasn’t one of them.
Heading for the back door, I could still hear the fuckers behind me laughing, cheering excitedly as the girls screamed for someone—anyone—to help them.
They were as good as dead, about to be snuffed out before their time, and I was sorry for that, but I couldn’t risk everything I’d done, everything I’d given up, to rescue them.
Did that make me a fucking bastard? More than likely, yes.
But I didn’t give a fuck.
My time here was done.
Another dead end.
For the last five motherfucking years I’d scoured this godforsaken earth searching, investigating every lead, every hint of my beautiful flower, and I refused to piss it all away for some convoluted need for revenge.
The thought of those girls, their fear, their terror, gnawed at me, a sickening counterpoint to the desperate hope that had fueled my every move for half a decade.
I knew, with a certainty that curdled in my stomach, that leaving them to this fate was the same as condemning them.
It was a betrayal of everything I claimed to stand for, a stain on the very memory of the woman I was searching for.
But the image of her face, her vibrant smile, her unwavering strength, was the only beacon in my desolate world.
To turn back now, to dive into that maelstrom of violence and retribution would be to throw away the last tangible thread connecting me to her, the chance of finding her alive.
Was the potential salvation of a few strangers worth the near certainty of losing her forever?
The question was a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.
As I stepped into the bright sunshine, the laughter and screams still echoed in my ears, and I felt the weight of my choices settle in my gut. Every step away from that fucked-up place made me feel both lighter and heavier—liberation tainted by the bile of guilt.
I told myself I was done, that I owed nothing more, but the sounds behind me clung to my conscience like chains I couldn’t see. Even as I stood under the bright sun, I wondered if some debts could ever truly be paid.
Was the price of my own freedom the damnation of others?
And if so, was it a price I was truly willing to pay?
I knew what my flower would say. She’d be disappointed in me, disgusted that I walked away and did nothing to help.
My beautiful flower was a fighter, a tenacious woman with a strength that belied any man behind me.
And it was because of her strength I knew she was still alive somewhere, fighting, enduring until I could find her.
But what if her strength was the very thing that kept her alive, and my interference, my misguided attempt at a grander rescue, put her in greater danger?
This doubt was a poison, turning my conviction into a fragile shell.
Sauve-les, Mario, I heard her enchanting voice whisper on the wind blowing around me as my feet halted.
Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “I can’t, baby.”
I knew it was a lie.
I couldn’t not go back, not really. The phantom touch of her hand on my arm, the memory of her laughter, was a stronger tether than any chain they’d forged. To walk away would be to extinguish the last ember of my own humanity, to become the very monster I’d sworn to fight.
Sauve-les, Mario
Her voice haunted me, each syllable a plea wrapped in love and disappointment.
I wanted to move, to run away from the sound, but I couldn’t.
I was trapped between the man I’d become, a pragmatist hardened by loss, and the man she still believed I could be, a savior.
The sun beat down on my face, urging me forward, but my heart thudded against my ribs, threatening to drag me back into the darkness I’d just escaped, back to the screams and the laughter.
For a long moment, I stood at the threshold, torn, knowing that walking away might save me, might bring me closer to her, but it would damn me all the same. I was caught in a cruel calculus of survival, where every choice felt like a failure, every path leading to a different kind of ruin.
Sauve-les, Mario
The wind howled, carrying the ragged edges of their screams, desperate pleas for help that clawed at my sanity.
But instead of a clear path forward, I was paralyzed, a statue caught in the amber of memory and the suffocating weight of my own inaction.
The world around me seemed to warp, the trees becoming skeletal fingers pointing accusingly, the very air thick with the bitter ashes of promises I’d long since burned to the ground.
Every breath I drew was a reminder of the man I’d failed to be, the man my flower had loved.
Was there truly a chance to mend those shattered fragments, or was this just another phantom limb of hope, destined to ache and deceive?
My fists, slick with a clammy sweat born of pure terror, clenched until my knuckles were bone-white.
This was it. This agonizing, gut-wrenching crossroads was undeniably, terrifyingly mine alone.
Could I be the coward who faded into the shadows, or the man my flower had seen, the man whose name she’d etched into my very soul?
Sauve-les, Mario.
Her words echoed in my head, a phantom whisper that felt more like a command from a ghost than a plea.
Reaching for my phone, my hand trembled, the cold metal a stark contrast to the burning in my chest. This was a decision I’d never dreamed I’d have to make, a betrayal wrapped in a desperate gambit for survival.
This was not a rescue; it was... something else entirely. It was the only thing I could do.
The unthinkable act gnawed at my core.
“Brother?” My voice cracked, a stranger’s sound. “Tell Morpheus the Death Dogs have his daughter-in-law,” I choked out, my words tasting like bile.
I slammed the phone shut, the click echoing in the sudden, profound silence.
No explanations, no apologies, just the grim finality of my betrayal.
Looking back at the shack, its flimsy walls shaking with the ferocity of their screams, a cold dread settled over me. I prayed they survived, not for their sake, but for the slim, desperate hope that they might somehow find peace—a peace I had just actively, brutally, fractured.
“I’m sorry, Fleur. Forgive me.” My plea was a raw, desperate wound, a confession I could never truly deliver.
Running for my bike, I jumped on, its engine roaring to life.
It felt like a snarl of defiance, a desperate attempt to outrun the hollowness growing within me.
The familiar rumble sounded, a poor substitute for the solid ground of my convictions, as I sped off.
Never looking back was the only way to outrun the monster I’d just become.