Chapter 22 Mad Love
MAD LOVE
* * *
Pushing through the busted front door of my home, I nearly dropped my rifle at the sight I found. Alongside all the destruction, the recognizable body of a large man was lying face down on the hard floor of the foyer, the back of his head surrounded by a puddle of blood.
Walking around the body, his face was turned to the side with a gunshot wound planted in the middle of his forehead. The dead eyes of the man who had worked tirelessly by my side for close to a decade stared up at me from the cracked floor beneath him.
Scott. What the fuck.
Of all the people I had ever worked with, Scott had been the most dependable, and the most formidable.
There wasn’t much to know about his past, mostly because he had nearly all of it scrubbed from the world.
All I knew about him was what he allowed me to learn, which was very little.
No family. No relations with anyone. The man was practically dead to the world before he found me.
A chance encounter that resulted in a shoot-out of epic proportions, and he just happened to get caught in the crosshairs at just the right time.
That was when I saw what he could do, right after he was done risking his life to save mine. I knew military training when I saw it, but this was something different, something much darker than the shadow operations of an unchecked government. This was a war machine in need of a new home.
Standing over the bodies he had piled up next to mine, I offered Scott a job on the spot. He accepted, no questions asked, and together, we restructured a kingdom into a global empire that was now officially on the brink of fucking collapse.
If Scott was dead, then Sloane and Jaden were on their own. I had to hope Sloane had done her fucking job and gotten Jaden out of the house long before Scott had finally met his end.
I pulled out my phone and called the emergency cell phone that was included in the bugout bag at the boat house down the way where Sloane should have taken Jaden. But the line never even rang, which meant it hadn’t been activated yet.
Shit.
They must still be in pursuit.
Pocketing my phone, I gripped my rifle and moved through the darkened house, witnessing the wreckage of what was left of my childhood home. The devastation was great, but nothing was irreparable. Once the heat of this day was finally over, I would rebuild anew.
Nearing my office, I peered around the corner to see the doors had been blown apart.
The bodies of every one of the syndicate families trapped inside were strewn about, blood and severed limbs discarded in all directions, while the remains of my office were left in tatters.
My desk looked like it had eaten a grenade for lunch.
The cleanup over this would be massive, but the upside was that all their territories were officially up for grabs.
Leaving the mess behind, I continued down the hall toward the ongoing noise, rounding the corner only to stop completely in my tracks as a face I hadn’t seen in almost a year abruptly cleared through the wreckage.
Matt swayed to a wobbly stop among the damage and destruction he had facilitated in my life, the side of his face coated in blood and bruising on his skin. Despite the fact that he looked like he’d been hit by a truck, he still managed to sport a look of disappointed arrogance on his face.
“Well, I see Jason is just as fucking useless as I always thought him to be,” he commented as he looked me up and down with distaste.
“Was,” I corrected, returning the same assessment of him.
Matt snorted, a low chuckle climbing up his throat as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that saves me the trouble then, I guess.”
I cocked a brow. “The trouble of what?” I shot back. “It seems to me that betraying your longtime partners is of no trouble to you at all. What did Jason promise you in return for your help, Matt? Was it Kayla? Don’t tell me you’re actually that stupid.”
He had to have known there was no way Jason would have handed Kayla over to him in exchange for a partnership, not with his annoying-ass hero complex.
Matt and Jason probably both had the same plan to kill each other once their business with me was done.
Too bad they were never going to get the chance.
Matt glared at me as he took another step closer over the wreckage strewn across the floor.
“Patience over petulance, Darren. You taught me that. And it’s the only fucking reason I’m here.
Because I am fresh out of patience,” he growled through gritted teeth.
“I came here to finally collect the rest of Daniel’s head, but a little bird told me you already took care of that. ”
Unease seeped under my skin at the mention of this little bird, spilling dangerous secrets to dangerous men that were supposed to remain buried with the dead.
“And what little bird would that be?” For all I knew, Scott could have been that damn little bird.
“You’re lying bitch of a wife,” Matt spat. “So, you can imagine why—”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish his sentence before I was gripping his vest and shoving him into the wall. “Where the fuck is my wife?!” I roared into his face. “If you touched her—”
“I don’t know where the fuck she is, you crazy prick! She took off somewhere after a Hummer crashed through your house.”
What the fuck? A Hummer? Was Jaden actually still here?
Seizing on my moment of silence, Matt shoved me away. “Now, is it true? Did you really kill Daniel? After fighting me so damn hard to keep him alive?”
I scoffed at his question, as if it were any of his business who I kill or why.
“Sorry, did I steal your glory, Matt?” I retorted, the taunt in my voice unmistakable. “Or are you just upset over your wasted time and effort coming here?”
His jaw clenched before he spoke through gritted teeth. “So, it is true then.”
I rolled my eyes in annoyance. “I’m surprised Sid didn’t clue you in any more after having already betrayed me by coming to you in the first place. Seems he had his own agenda to meet if he kept that very significant piece of information to himself.”
Matt shook his head, the hint of a smirk hiding in the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, what an inconsiderate asshole,” he replied, running his dirty hands through his hair. “But honestly, who would ever suspect one traitor of protecting another traitor? That’s just unheard of.”
My brows knitted together in confusion, the bait in his sarcasm just as distasteful as his arrogance.
Sid was protecting another traitor? It wasn’t a tough guess that he had grown soft on Jaden in his final dying year. And Matt would naturally consider her a traitor for helping Kayla escape him.
“Wow, Matt, what a puzzle you’ve truly presented me with.”
Asshole.
Charging forward, I kicked a nearby end table into Matt’s torso, the distraction enough for me to reach out and grab the AR he had pulled out from his back. We wrestled for control, throwing each other over broken furniture until we both fell over, the gun soaring well out of reach.
Fists flew in all directions, knuckles connecting with noses and jawlines as we exchanged blows throughout the house.
Tossing him over my shoulder, I threw him into the next room, his ass sliding over the dining room table and crashing onto the floor.
When he stood on the other side of the table, a sneer stretched across his face.
“You’re really not interested in who your other traitor is? Or have you already figured it out?” Matt snickered as he kicked the table in my direction.
I grabbed the edges of the table and tilted one side off the ground, then threw it out of my way so that it no longer separated us.
“It’s no great mystery to me, Matt, besides, Jason already claimed your bragging rights.
I’m sure Jaden and I will laugh about her silly story of revenge when we tell it to our future grandchildren,” I explained as I reared back to slam my fist against his cheek.
“I just need you to die already so I can go find out how she did it.”
Matt laughed as he ducked down to avoid my second swing at his face, rolling out of my reach. “Wow, you really are that fucking delusional, and coincidentally, so is she. And you don’t even care. I guess you guys truly are a match made in Hell.”
I rolled my eyes as my elbow connected with his nose, sending him flying back against the wall.
“It doesn’t matter what Jaden does,” I continued as I sidestepped his kick to my abdomen.
“She will never be free of me. That will be her punishment. Whatever sabotage she plans in this life or the next is my burden to bear and my responsibility to correct. Death will not release either of us from that duty.”
Matt’s brows rose as he shot around me to create enough distance for him to stare back at me. “Damn, you really do love her, don’t you?” he murmured, his voice just as smooth as his curious observation.
I could barely contain the wolf-like grin curling my lips. “It’s so much worse than that.”
He cocked a brow as his mouth fell open in disbelief. “Clearly,” he commented, his bloodshot eyes widening despite all the bruising. “You’re willing to lose everything and everyone just to keep her. That’s not love, Darren, that’s madness.”
He had no idea. “Like I said, it’s so much worse.”
“No shit. She can try to kill you on multiple occasions, destroy your relationships, manipulate everyone around her into murdering her enemies, including your own kin, start several wars in secret, crumble your corporate and criminal empire, and even fake a pregnancy. She could literally burn your entire world down and you’d still worship her at her feet. ”
I nearly rolled my eyes at his dramatics and ignored the accusations that had yet to be proven.
I would eventually find the truth as I always did, through brutality and persistence.
But until then, it was an absolute joke to consider my devotion to my own cause to be anything other than a strict testament to the family moto.
Absolutum Dominium wasn’t some silly catch phrase. It was our eternal way of life.
“Sure, Matt, I’ll worship her from the comfort of my desk while she’s wrapped in chains and on her knees with my dick down her throat,” I growled as I rushed him, exchanging more blows until we slammed into another wall.
Despite my own confidence, the mention of Jaden’s pregnancy gave me pause as I wrapped my arm around the backside of Matt’s elbow, which I had trapped against my rib cage, keeping him locked in place.
But I refused to acknowledge the possibility of such a wild conspiracy until I could confirm the truth with my own eyes.
“You know, at least I’m not the fucking moron who decided to abandon everything he knows to avenge his bitch cousin and partner with a complete nobody under the delusion that a little team effort could bring down the most powerful crime syndicate in the Western Hemisphere.
And then have the audacity to expect that they’ll give me my woman back for being such a good boy.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? ”
Holding tight, I pulled Matt away from the wall only to slam him back against it even harder, but only a chuckle erupted from his throat.
“I guess we’re both just fools in mad love,” he mused, blood coating his teeth. “But at least I’m not so far gone that I can’t see through the smoke of my own world on fire.”
Bored of the exchange, I stepped back and twisted my body to the side, the pressure causing Matt’s elbow to dislocate from its socket.
His sudden scream was minimal in satisfaction, so I yanked his ruined arm over my shoulder and threw him down to the floor, where he landed hard on his back.
Lifting my knee, I then slammed my foot straight into his gut, causing him to hunch in on himself.
Standing over what was left of him, I sneered down at his broken body, ready to make him regret every move he ever made against me.
“I’ll bounce back, Matt. I always do.”
With that, I pressed my foot on his throat, holding it down with enough pressure to cut off not only his blood flow but also his air supply.
Matt thrashed under me, his one good hand pushing uselessly at my boot in an attempt to dislodge the crushing weight pinning him down.
Increasing the pressure, I watched the blood vessels in his eyes burst, the redness overtaking the whites of his eyes while his face turned an ugly shade of purple.
And then he finally stopped struggling.
Matt’s eyes closed with a final grimace before his entire body went lax, his hand flopping lifelessly to the floor. Removing my boot, I knelt to check his pulse. When I felt nothing, I stood over the man I had once considered a friend and felt absolutely nothing but disappointment.
“Another fucking waste,” I muttered under my breath for the second time today, then turned away to finish my search of the grounds before making my next move.
But I didn’t have to go far because the second I looked away, my eyes collided with the object of my never-ending turmoil.