Chapter 35 — Scorched Earth #2
He was looking directly at her. Ignoring the gun. Ignoring Julian.
“I said I’d come for you,” he said softly. “I never lie about important things.”
His eyes locked onto hers. They said: Trust me. Don’t move.
Ethan turned his gaze to Julian.
“Did you break my toy, Julian?” Ethan asked, pointing at Maya’s face. “That bruise on her cheek. Did I do that? No. I never hit the face.”
“She deserved it!” Julian spat. “She’s an arrogant bitch!”
“She’s mine,” Ethan corrected. “And you ruined the painting.”
Ethan made an almost imperceptible movement with his left hand.
It was a signal.
Not for the tactical team.
For Maya.
She understood. Instinct, or perhaps the deep, sick connection they shared, translated the gesture. Duck.
Maya didn’t think. She acted.
She threw her body weight forward and down, as far as the restraints allowed, pulling her head out of the line of fire.
In the same millisecond, Ethan fired.
He hadn’t even raised the gun to aim. He shot from the hip. An instinctive, trained, perfect shot.
BANG.
The sound was deafening.
Maya felt something warm splatter in her hair and on her neck.
The grip on her neck released.
Julian screamed.
He wasn’t dead. Ethan hadn’t shot him in the head.
Ethan had shot Julian’s right shoulder. The shoulder of the arm holding the gun.
The large-caliber bullet shattered the joint. Julian’s arm dropped useless, the gun clattering to the concrete floor far from him.
Julian fell backward, screaming, clutching his destroyed shoulder.
Ethan advanced.
He covered the distance in two long strides. He kicked Julian’s gun away, into the shadows.
Julian was on the floor, writhing, a pool of blood forming rapidly around him.
“Ahhhhh! My arm! You tore off my arm!”
Ethan stood over him. He looked down at Julian with cold disinterest.
“I’m a man of symmetry,” Ethan said. “You hurt her arm at the ball. I broke your finger. You hit her face today. I broke your shoulder. The math is fair.”
Ethan looked at Miller, who had emerged from the shadows.
“Release her,” Ethan ordered.
Miller ran to Maya and cut the duct tape with a tactical knife.
As soon as her arms and legs were free, Maya tried to stand, but her legs gave out. She fell to her knees on the concrete.
Ethan turned immediately at the sound of her falling. The coldness vanished. He ran to her, ignoring Julian.
“Maya!”
He knelt in front of her. His hands—those hands that had just shot a man—touched her face with desperate delicacy. He checked the bruise, checked her wrists rubbed raw by the restraints.
“Are you hurt? Where does it hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she sobbed, grabbing the lapels of his suit, staining it with Julian’s blood from her hair. “Ethan… I was so scared.”
“I know. I know. It’s over.”
He embraced her, crushing her against his chest. She could hear his heart beating. It was racing, furious.
“Look what you made me do,” he whispered in her ear, his voice trembling with adrenaline. “I came out of my den. I became an animal for you.”
Maya pulled back slightly to look at him. His face was dirty with dust. There was a bloodstain on his cheek. He looked wild. Beautiful.
“You came,” she said.
“I always come.”
A moan from the floor interrupted the moment.
Julian was trying to crawl away, leaving a trail of blood.
Ethan released Maya. He stood up. The tenderness vanished from his face, replaced by the Executioner’s mask.
“Stay here,” he said to Maya. “Close your eyes if you want.”
Maya didn’t close her eyes. She couldn’t.
Ethan walked over to Julian.
He stepped on Julian's chest, pinning him to the floor.
Julian looked up, eyes glazed with shock and pain.
“Ethan... please... I have money... my father...”
“Your father will sell me the hotels next week for pennies,” Ethan said. “He'll do it to pay the lawyers who'll try to keep you out of federal prison for kidnapping. But that's a problem for the future.”
Ethan crouched over Julian.
“The problem right now is that you touched her. You made her cry. You made her afraid.”
Ethan grabbed Julian's left hand—the one still intact.
“Do you remember what I said at the ball?” Ethan asked, his voice soft, almost intimate. “I said if you touched her again, I would destroy you.”
Julian whimpered, shaking his head.
“No... please...”
“I'm not going to kill you, Julian,” Ethan said. “Death is too quick. And I want you to be a reminder. A living monument.”
Ethan looked at Maya.
He didn't look away as he held Julian's hand. He wanted her to see. He wanted her to understand the extent of what he was willing to do.
“This is for you, Maya,” he said.
And then, with one brutal, efficient motion, Ethan broke Julian's wrist.
Julian's scream was inhuman. It echoed through the empty warehouse, mixing with the sirens finally approaching.
Maya didn't look away. She watched. She saw the violence. Saw the cruelty.
And she felt... safe.
It was a dark feeling, heavy, almost toxic. But it was safety. That man, that monster in a dust-covered suit, was the barrier between her and the world that wanted to hurt her. He was the wall.
Ethan stood up. He dropped Julian's hand—Julian was now unconscious from the pain.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket—always a handkerchief, always clean—and wiped his hands.
He walked back to Maya.
The tactical team was securing the area, collecting weapons, preparing the scene for the official “cleanup.”
Ethan stopped in front of Maya. He extended his hand to her.
“Let's go home,” he said.
Maya looked at his hand. There was no blood on it now, only dust.
She took his hand.
He pulled her up. She stumbled, and he caught her in his arms, lifting her off the dirty floor.
“I can walk,” she whispered.
“Not today,” he said. “Today, I carry you.”
He began walking toward the hole in the wall, toward the glow of the SUV headlights.
Maya rested her head on his shoulder. She looked back at the destroyed warehouse, at the bodies on the floor, at Julian, broken.
She knew she should be horrified. Knew that the girl from Ohio, the girl who drew on napkins, would have run away screaming.
But that girl was dead. She had died the moment she got into the black van.
The woman in Ethan's arms now... she understood.
The world was a place of wolves. And the only way to survive the wolves was to be the lion's queen.
“Ethan?” she whispered.
“I'm here.”
“Don't let me leave again.”
Ethan stopped. He looked at her. There was a mixture of pain and triumph in his eyes.
“Never,” he promised. “I'll lock the door and throw the key into the ocean.”
And for the first time, the idea of the locked door didn't sound like a prison. It sounded like home.
He carried her outside, into the desert night, where the air was cooling, but in his arms, the fire still burned.