Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
DAMIEN
I was no stranger to rage.
Some days, it was so consuming that it felt as if it had its own heartbeat, like a parasite living inside of me, eating away at my soul.
That rage had been craving an outlet since the moment I’d watched the life drain out of my mother’s eyes, but there was only ever one man deserving of my wrath, and laying a finger on him was an immediate death sentence.
Even for his own son.
My father had taken everything from me—my mother, my home, my freedom, my identity—not the Bratva goons he’d sent to kidnap me, not the trainers in the Kletka or the sailors I’d enlisted with. They were all just following orders, a fact that I’d fought hard to remember every time I found my fist buried in one of their faces on the sparring mat.
These men weren’t my enemies.
Not until that morning, when I’d followed Clover’s muddy footprints up the cliff.
I could still see the impression of her body in the field—deep, as if there’d been a massive weight on top of her. The V of her spread legs, the profile of her face, the signs of her struggle were embedded in my mind just as deeply as they had been gouged into the wet earth.
And so were the boot prints that had led her away.
I’d been in agony when I left the cave to search for her—empty stomach, dehydration headache, stabbing pain with every step—but the moment I realized what had happened, where they were taking her …
My pain didn’t just disappear; I disappeared, completely. Consumed by a blackout rage so intense that I didn’t remember following their footprints back to base camp. I didn’t remember feeling another second of pain from my injuries. I didn’t remember buttoning my jacket and throwing open the door. But I would never forget the seething, writhing need to kill that exploded through my veins when a dozen men turned to salute me with their cocks in their hands. Because behind them, lashed to a metal counter and covered in bruises, was a naked, squealing redhead with a cock in her mouth and a gun pressed against her temple.
I’d known rage.
This was wrath.
It filled the room, swallowing every shadow as it sharpened my vision. It sucked the air from their lungs and pumped it into mine. It identified the exact location of every weapon and exit in the room within seconds, all while fluent Russian poured from my lips. And it deduced immediately that these men didn’t know that I’d defected. They wore camouflage instead of sailor stripes, meaning that they were part of the Naval Infantry battalion that had come to shore in the amphibious tanks. They had no idea that I’d jumped overboard before the ship exploded. To them, I looked like a battle survivor. But more importantly, I looked like their superior.
And superiors got first dibs on the spoils of war.
A plan formed instantly—one that would keep the entire room distracted while I got close enough to the fucker with the gun pressed to Clover’s head to take his weapon—but the reality of what I’d have to do was almost worse than the carnage that would follow. But my wrath didn’t give a fuck. It wouldn’t be satisfied until my boot prints were the ones leading Clover away—through a river of rapist blood.
As I stalked across the room, I poured all my concentration into keeping my movements fluid and my eyes focused. Every motion and sound made me want to attack. Adrenaline flooded my muscles, soaked my brain, and honed my reflexes to the point that I became a walking, talking hair trigger. But on the outside, I was exactly who my father had trained me to be.
Bratva royalty.
Power personified.
Death incarnate.
I refused to look at Clover as I unbuckled my belt, but I could feel her eyes on me. Her pain, terror, and betrayal threatened to penetrate the numbness of my wrath, but those emotions quickly vanished when my gaze landed on an electric cattle prod the size of a billy club in the hand of a man standing directly behind her.
He hadn’t used it on her yet—she wouldn’t have been conscious if he had—but my seething gaze still darted to her body, taking inventory of every single injury marring her freckled skin.
The ground was smeared with blood where her feet had slid across the floor, lacerated from days of walking barefoot over rocks.
Guilt gnawed at my stomach.
I should have given her my boots.
Her long, toned legs were still slashed and bruised from her fall down the cliff, but now, her arse was stained pink from their handprints as well.
My hands vibrated with self-hatred as I unzipped my trousers, preparing to touch her just like they had.
Heat radiated off my body as I followed the curve of her arse up to the valley of her back, where bruises as black as the cancer in my soul bloomed from her ribs to her spine. They were the same size and shape as a fist or the toe of a boot, and judging by the smoothness of the edges and the depth of the bruising, I assumed that it was the latter.
Water had pooled in the small of her back, fed by delicate streams running from her sopping wet hair, and I had to resist the urge to bend over, press my lips to her skin, and drink. I didn’t know what I was craving more—water or the opportunity to kiss and lick and suck every injury on Clover’s body until she was better. Until she no longer saw me as one of them.
When I lifted my gaze to hers, that thought, along with any hope that she could ever forgive me for what I was about to do, burst into flames of blinding murderous fury.
As Clover glared at me over her shoulder, the narrowed, hardened slant of her eyes did little to mask the single tear clinging to her bottom lashes or the swelling purple cheekbone that it finally cascaded over.
Tearing my gaze away before I did something stupid, like react, I pinned it directly on the dead man who’d been trying to fuck her face when I walked in.
He stumbled backward in response, which was the opposite of what I needed him to do. I was going to have to calm down before I could lure him back over. Be more convincing.
Clover’s arms hung down the other side of the counter, tied to something I couldn’t see below, and at the sound of my zip being lowered, she hung her head below the counter as well.
“I should have let you die.”
Her words caused the first slice of pain I’d felt since standing in that field, but the sensation was quickly consumed by the raging inferno burning inside of me.
“What did she say?” the balding bastard asked, spitting in his hand before smearing the filth all over his already-shriveled cock.
My presence must have intimidated him more than I’d realized.
Good.
Grabbing her hips with both hands, I replied in Russian, “She said she hopes my dick is bigger than yours.”
I wasn’t trying to taunt him; I just needed the distraction. As soon as the room burst into laughter, I yanked her head back by her thick, wet hair and thrust myself into the seam between her tightly closed thighs.
I hated myself for being even semi-hard. She was beaten and trembling and had possibly been tortured, but she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
And the first naked girl I’d ever touched.
They’d brought prostitutes into the Kletka every month or so to keep the men from killing each other, but every time I looked at them, all I could see was my mother. She’d been a stripper, but she also sold her body on the side. It was no secret—that’s how I was conceived. She would come home early in the morning—a split lip here, a black eye there—but she never wanted my sympathy. She never wanted me to touch her at all. And one glance at the hateful eyes and defensive postures of the women in the Kletka had told me that they felt the same way.
Just like Clover must have felt when her trembling body stiffened beneath me.
But my wrath quickly shut down that line of thought and refocused.
Leaning forward—my bullet wound now a distant ache, thanks to the adrenaline pumping through my veins—I pressed my lips to the curve of her ear and whispered, “Scream.”
Then, I thrust against her again. I felt the sound vibrate through her back and into my chest as it clawed its way out of her body. Every cell it passed through vibrated with the animalistic fury I heard in that scream. It was the frequency of my own soul.
I felt truly connected to her in that moment, understood in a way I hadn’t thought was possible. But then she opened her mouth again and remined me who had made her feel that way. Who had taken everything from her. Who had reduced her to this shivering, snarling beast.
“I hate you!”
I hate you.
I hate you.
More words came pouring out of her as she thrashed, but the rest of them fell on deaf ears as my wrath turned inward.
I glanced down at the place where our bodies were joined and felt as if I were seeing myself with someone else’s eyes. We weren’t sharing some fucking connection—my officer’s uniform was decorated with the patches of her enemy. My scabbed knuckles—sunk deep in the soft flesh of her hips—turned white as I struggled to restrain her bucking, terrified body. And my cock was now fully fucking hard, as if I got off on causing her this much pain.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
The words echoed through the vast emptiness inside of me, only this time they were spoken in my own voice.
First a whisper, then a scream as Clover’s body went limp. It was as if she’d passed out, her head dangling over the counter again. My pulse skyrocketed with concern, but while I debated what to do, what I could do with all these people watching, the gradual arch of her back let me know that she was still lucid. Then the tilt of her hips. Then the lift of her feet up onto her toes.
Once again, our bodies vibrated on the same frequency, this time humming in unison as something shifted between us. With a few subtle movements, Clover had positioned herself so that the head of my cock was now sliding along the seam of her, stroking her clit with every thrust. Silky and wet, she began to rock against me when I grazed her entrance, and like her fury, I understood this repressed need as well. She was seeking something to fill the chasm of emptiness inside of her.
A chasm that I’d helped create.
I wanted nothing more than to give her what she craved. After five years of only being touched in violence, of refusing the advances of desperate, hollow-eyed women, I couldn’t deny that the thought of losing myself inside Clover’s perfect body had become an obsession. That need whispered to me. It undermined my wrath. It told me to close my eyes. To focus on the slick, warm oblivion she was offering. A bead of cum seeped from my cock in anticipation as I kneaded her arse and drove myself along her slit faster and faster.
Do it , the need whispered. She’s beggin’ for it. Feel how wet she is? She wants you to fuck her. Make her feel good. Make her come until she cries.
Clover’s hips met mine, thrust for thrust, and the sound of our bodies colliding—desperately asking for something the other wasn’t willing to give—echoed off the rafters until more sounds joined them. The sounds of pushing. And shoving. And shouting. And stroking .
I’d let it go too far. The men had gone from being passively distracted to aggressively impatient, and their eagerness to hurt my girl reignited my wrath like a match to a fuse. I’d had a plan when I crossed that room, but now that I knew what it felt like to hold Clover down while she thrashed and screamed and begged me to stop—now that I’d felt her tremors of terror with my own hands, heard her cries of desperation with my own ears—there was no going back.
I was going to kill every motherfucker in that room or die trying.
And I was going to start with him .
Lifting my head, I took in his salivating, glassy-eyed gaze, his quickly jerking fist tugging on a cock he deserved to be choking on, and tried to keep my facial expression neutral. But inside, I couldn’t even feel my face anymore. The wrath was taking over. It seeped from my pores like a poisonous gas. I could see it in the air, darkening the edges of my vision, blanketing Clover’s naked body like a shield. It slithered out of me in smoky tentacles, wrapping itself around the necks of every man in that room. Marking them. Tethering them to me so that they couldn’t get away.
“Join us,” I commanded in Russian, gesturing for that limp-dick piece of shit to come closer with a flick of my chin. “Got her purring like a kitten for ya.”
By the time he stepped forward and pressed the barrel of his gun to Clover’s head again, I had become a spectator in my own body. Time shifted into slow motion as I watched myself reach out and snatch the pistol from his hand. His eyes went so wide they looked like blue targets with black bull’s-eyes. I aimed at the one on the left and pulled the trigger. I didn’t hear the blast or feel the spray of blood misting my face; I was already sliding across the counter with my arm around Clover’s waist.
I dropped into a crouch behind the counter and set her down on her knees beside me. Her wrists were twisted in front of her, bound to the metal shelf post below the counter with a cable tie, but I would deal with that later. I had about ten seconds to kill eleven more sailors before the lads outside heard the gunfire and burst through that door.
Make that nine.
Clearing the shelf, I ducked under the counter and blew a hole through the stainless steel back, opening fire on a room full of men who were still trying to zip their trousers. I couldn’t see my targets, but I didn’t need to. It was as if my awareness had extended beyond my physical body. I knew where every man in the room was, living and dead.
Which was how I knew that one of them was coming over the counter, even before I heard Clover’s scream.
Jerking back, I turned and fired at the space over her head as a sneering man with a bushy black beard launched himself at me from above. The bullet tore through his throat, causing his charging body to go limp and plummet toward mine. Covering my head, I caught the brunt of his dead weight on my forearms and tossed it aside. He landed next to the first cunt I’d killed, and their bodies immediately began to jump and twitch as a hail of bullets rained down from above, tearing through the plaster wall behind me and the men slumped against it.
Evidently, the remaining men had finally put their cocks away and found their guns.
Three of the original twelve were still out there, firing at us. I could sense their locations, just like I could sense that my gun was out of ammo without needing to check.
There was no time to unholster the bearded sailor’s gun, so I grabbed the knife out of his boot—same as the one I’d had before I lost it in the sea—and turned to face all three men as they rushed the counter at the same time.
And the wrath smiled.
I’d never killed anyone before that day, but every slash, every duck, every punch and stab felt rehearsed, like a dance I could have done in my sleep. It wasn’t just my training kicking in or the adrenaline sharpening my skills; it was as if I had developed muscle memory for something I’d never done. It wasn’t a possession exactly. More like … an awakening.
My hands instinctively knew that a quick stab to the jugular was quicker than slitting a throat. They knew to aim for the kidney beneath the rib cage rather than go through the rib cage, looking for the heart. And when my knife was kicked out of my hand by the last man standing—that scrawny fucker with the blond buzz cut and the cattle prod—a distantly familiar surge of bloodlust shot through my veins as my hands snatched the weapon out of his grasp and jammed it deep into his belly.
He convulsed and jerked as the current tore through him, foaming at the mouth, but my wrath only grew. It wouldn’t be satisfied with the simple pull of a trigger or the slash of a blade. My muscles screamed for a release that only my bare hands could deliver.
Throwing the cattle prod to the ground, I caught his falling body by the neck and felt that muscle memory take over again. I squeezed until his windpipe collapsed, knowing exactly what that crush would feel like before it happened. Just like I knew that my arms would shake from exertion and I’d need to widen my stance to support the weight of a thrashing man. I also knew what I would find shining out of Clover’s glistening green eyes before I looked over at her. I’d seen it in my dream in the cave. Acceptance. Gratitude. Overwhelming relief.
But that was where my knowing ended. Once again, I was reminded that Clover was not the girl from my dreams, She wasn’t staring at me like I was her hero. In fact, she wasn’t looking at me at all. She was too busy using the knife I’d dropped to saw through her restraints.
If time had been moving in slow motion before, the sight of her kneeling and naked, hands bound as if in prayer, made it stop altogether. I felt as though I were gazing upon a religious painting, a masterpiece in a museum somewhere that commanded my full attention. Dark auburn hair cascaded over the curves of her body as bright red streams flowed from her pale wrists. She didn’t look human. She looked … heavenly. A crimson angel of pain.
But when her eyes finally lifted to mine, the only thing I saw shining out of them was terror.
My arms went slack. The final body fell to my feet. And when the door burst open and the first of the troops filed in, guns and voices raised, I didn’t even move.
I’d already been slain with a single look.
“Shit!”
“What the fuck happened?”
“Sir! Sir, are you okay?”
“Who the fuck did this?”
“Lieutenant, you’ve been shot.”
Glancing down, I noticed that my jacket had fallen open, and my shirt was stained with fresh blood. Only this time it wasn’t my own.
Clearing my throat, I lifted one trembling arm and pointed toward the back hallway. “A prisoner got her hands on a gun …” I’d planned on saying more, but I shut up the moment I realized how hard it was to form a simple fucking sentence in Russian, how quickly the pain and hunger and weakness were returning, clouding my mind, blurring my vision.
Noting my unfastened trousers, the men nodded in solemn understanding. The prisoner had obviously caught us off guard with our dicks in our hands instead of our guns. There was no judgment in their eyes, only horror.
As if it could have happened to any one of them.
“Go!” the man in front shouted, jerking his gun in the direction of the back hallway. “Find the bitch! Now!”
The second they cleared the room, Clover bolted.
I lunged for her, pulling her to the ground just before a second wave of men burst through the door. I clamped my hand over her mouth as they filed in—gasping and cursing at the massacre before them—and felt my guts twist as Clover squeezed her eyes shut and stifled a whimper.
It was the way someone would react if they’d just been pinned to the ground by a fucking bear. That was what I was to her now—a mindless, murderous animal.
Clover managed to stay silent, but she was breathing faster than a rabbit, causing her perfect tits to heave against my chest. Having her naked body beneath me was a torture I hadn’t thought I’d have to endure again so soon. It was also making it hard for me to formulate a plan other than removing my hand from her mouth and kissing the shite out of her.
But that was a privilege I’d never have again.
We were right back where we’d started. I was the enemy, and she couldn’t bear to look at me. Only this time it wasn’t because I reminded her of someone. This time, it was because I’d just killed twelve fucking men in front of her and their blood was still splattered all over my face.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered, my lips grazing the soft skin of her ear.
She flinched on contact.
Our hearts were both racing—pounding against one another through the layers of bone and flesh separating them—when the commander emerged from the hallway and instructed the new crew to fan out and search for the escaped prisoner. From that angle, he would have been able to see us if he’d looked behind the counter, but my body was so much bigger than Clover’s that she was mostly hidden from view. I held perfectly still, my lips poised at her ear, and felt her body begin to tremble beneath mine.
“Shh,” I whispered, my own arms beginning to shake as they held hers against her sides.
I might have been trained to kill, to engage in every form of hand-to-hand combat on earth, but nothing in my training had prepared me for the violent adrenaline crash, suffocating dread, or nauseating sense of disgust that would come after slaughtering a room full of men and then lying among their oozing bodies.
“I’ll get you out of here,” I promised, “as soon as they leave.”
Clover’s cheek brushed against mine as she shook her head, so subtly no one but me would have noticed.
As the men passed through the room, I felt their eyes peer behind the counter. I squeezed Clover’s body so tight that her tremors finally stopped and held my breath until I heard the hallway door slam shut for the final time.
“Come on,” I whispered, pushing up onto my elbows so that I could look into her eyes. Not that they were looking at me. Clover kept them screwed shut as she turned her head as far to the side as it would go, facing the counter.
“I have a plan.”
I did. It wasn’t much, but it was better than lying there, waiting for someone to discover us.
As soon as I loosened my grip on her, Clover’s tremors returned. But despite her fear, she still managed to stun me with her bravery when she replied, “I can’t leave without them.”
Who? I didn’t even ask the question out loud. I just stared at her with my eyebrows pulled together and a ticking clock in the back of my mind.
When I didn’t respond, Clover’s eyes finally opened. She turned her head and gazed up at me as if she were staring into the sun. As if looking at me caused her physical pain.
“There are four women back there,” she whispered, eyes pleading, voice raw. “I can’t just—”
The rest of that sentence went unspoken, cut off by four gunshots that sounded as if they’d been fired inside the building. Clover’s face contorted from pleading concern to utter devastation in the span of a single breath. Tears filled her eyes as they widened in horror, and I felt her pain as if it were my own.
Because a week ago, it had been.
I knew what it was like to try to save someone a moment too late. I still saw the white house with the yellow door every time I closed my eyes. Which was exactly why I didn’t have time to comfort her. I would not make the same mistake twice.
“Come on,” I whispered, sitting back on my heels and zipping up my trousers. “Time to go.”