34. Lorcan
Lorcan
I see her. That’s all I see.
She’s tied to that rusted metal chair under the single dangling bulb. Her left eye is swollen shut, a dark purple-black knot of bruised flesh. There’s a smear of dried copper on her chin and a fresh trail of blood leaking from her nose onto the collar of her torn knit dress.
They touched her.
The sanity I’ve spent five years keeping behind locked gates simply snaps.
I look at the four enforcers standing between us. They are holding short-barreled rifles, their stances lazy, confident because they think they have a broken man in their sights.
They are dead. They just haven't stopped breathing yet.
The guard closest to me on the left makes the mistake of shifting his weight, and I move before he can raise his barrel.
I close the six-foot gap in a fraction of a second, my left hand snapping out to catch the handguard of his rifle, shoving it down as it spits a wild, deafening burst into the dirt.
With my right hand, I drive the heel of my palm upward under his chin. The impact is a dry, solid crack as his neck breaks backward. He’s still falling when I rip the rifle from his grip, swing the stock around, and smash it into the face of the second guard.
The wood of the stock splinters against his nose.
Cartilage and bone cave inward in a wet spray of red.
He goes down, clawing at his ruined face, and I don't wait for him to hit the floor.
I spin, pulling the Glock from the small of my back, and fire three rounds center mass into the third guard before he can clear his holster.
The heavy rounds tear through his chest, punching him backward into a stack of rusted steel drums. He slides down, leaving a thick, dark streak of gore on the metal.
"Kill him!" Silas shrieks, his voice losing all its unhurried, arrogant charm. "Shoot him, you idiot!"
The fourth guard, a thick-necked bastard with a scar across his lip, tries to retreat, swinging his rifle toward my chest. I don't slide. I don't duck. I stride straight into his line of fire, my hand snapping out to catch his wrist.
I twist. The joint pops with a sickening, wet crunch, the bone tearing through the skin at his elbow. He lets out a high, fractured wail. I drive my boot into his knee, snapping the patella backward, and as he folds, I press the barrel of the Glock to his temple and pull the trigger.
My breathing is heavy, the copper smell of spent casings and fresh gore thick in my throat. I feel the blood, none of it mine, splattered across my cheek, warm and sticky in the cold draft.
I take a step toward Atara.
"Stop right there, Lorcan," Silas growls.
He steps out of the dark, sliding his left arm around Atara's neck. His right arm is wrapped in a thick, clean bandage, but he’s holding a heavy black revolver with his left hand, the cold steel of the barrel pressed hard into the soft flesh right below Atara's ear.
My boots freeze on the concrete.
My fingers twitch on the grip of my Glock, the memory of the wet thwip of the bullet, the dark blood spreading across the floor, and the five years of carrying a ghost trying to drag me down into the dark.
But Atara isn't Elara.
She doesn't look at me with the panic of a rat caught in a trap.
She doesn't scream or beg me to sign over the papers.
Her jaw is set so hard that the muscle in her cheek looks like iron.
Her remaining eye is wide, clear, and absolutely furious, glowing with a fierce, stubborn heat that makes my chest heave.
She is here and she is looking at me like she’s ready to tear Silas’s throat out with her own teeth if I don't do it first.
"You missed the heart by an inch five years ago, Silas," I say, my voice a low, gravelly vibration that shakes the dust off the corrugated roof. "I won't miss it again."
"You won't get the chance," Silas spits, his fingers tightening on the grip of the revolver, pressing the barrel deeper into her neck.
Atara doesn't flinch, though her breath catches.
"You see this? I’ve spent five years rotting in a basement while you built your little castle in the desert.
An eye for an eye, Lorcan. That was the deal. "
"You're a ghost, Silas. And ghosts don't make deals."
"I'm the ghost who has your leverage," he chuckles. "You don't do casual, Lorcan. We both know that. If she's at your table, she's in your heart. So, let's see how much that heart is worth."
Atara glares at him, her voice sounding like gravel being ground under a heel. "He’s better at math than you think, Silas. And currently, your survival probability is sitting at zero percent."
"Shut up, you bitch," Silas snarls, shaking her slightly.
He looks back at me, his eyes wild, bloodshot with a desperate, manic pride.
"Here’s the transaction, Lorcan. You pull out your phone.
You log into the Syndicate's master ledger. You transfer every offshore account, every shell company, every holding in Vegas to the routing number I’m going to give you.
Every single cent. Or I paint this wall with her brains. "
"Don't do it, Lorcan!" Atara shouts, her voice cracking over the silence. "Don't you dare give him a single dollar!"
"I said shut up!" Silas clicks the safety of the revolver off. The sound is loud enough to make my heart stop for one brutal beat. "I'll count to three, Lorcan. One—"
"I’m doing it," I say.
I reach into my pocket, my fingers steady, and pull out my phone.
"Lorcan, no!" Atara begs, her head trying to turn toward me, her eyes wide with a sudden, terrifying panic that has nothing to do with her own safety. She’s looking at me like she’s trying to hold me up. "Please. Don't do this. You'll have nothing."
"I don't care," I say.
I slide the screen open. My thumb moves over the glass, hitting the master bypass code, opening the encrypted files that hold the keys to every house, every dock, and every account I’ve spent twenty years building out of blood and dirt.
I look at her.
"I love you, Atara," I say.
"I’d rather be a pauper with you in a walkable studio in Brooklyn than a king in a golden cage without you," I continue, my thumb tapping the screen, executing the transfer. "It's just basic risk management. You're the only asset I can't afford to lose."
Atara stares at me, her chest freezing mid-rise, her swollen eye shimmering with a sudden rush of tears that she refuses to let fall. Her lower lip wobbles, but she sets her jaw, her fingers curling into fists against her knees.
"The transfer is complete, Silas," I say, throwing the phone onto the concrete between us. "It's all yours."
Silas looks down at the phone, a greedy, triumphant grin spreading across his ugly face. He lets out a loud, wet laugh that bounces off the metal walls.
"Look at that," Silas chuckles, his voice dripping with malice. "The King of the West Coast. Ruined. A beggar in his own city."
He looks back at me, his eyes darkening with a sudden, vicious intent.
"But did you really think I'd let her live?" he asks.
NO! NO!
My face changes. The cold precision vanishes, replaced by a blinding, white-hot fury that has no ceiling.
"NO!" I roar.
I lunge the same instant Silas fires.
Atara ducks, her head snapping down toward her knees on instinct as the heavy round from the revolver punches through the air where her neck was a millisecond ago, shattering the lightbulb above her head.
The warehouse goes pitch black, save for the pale morning light cutting through the high windows.
I hit Silas, our bodies crash onto the dirty concrete floor, the revolver flying from his grip and clattering into the dark.
I grab his head, my fingers digging into his hair, and slam his face into the concrete. The sound is a wet, heavy thud. He gasps, his hands clawing at my chest, his bandaged right arm trying to push me off.
"You touched her!" I snarl, driving my fist into his jaw.
The bone splinters under my knuckles. He spits a mouthful of blood and teeth onto my collar, his bared teeth bared in a desperate, ugly snarl.
"She's... she's still... going to die," Silas wheezes, his hand reaching for a broken piece of rusted iron on the floor.
I catch his wrist before his fingers can close around the metal. I twist it until the elbow pops with a dry, splintering sound. He lets out a high-pitched, wet shriek.
I don't stop. I drive my elbow into his sternum, feeling his ribs collapse under the impact like dry twigs. He goes limp beneath me, his chest cave-in, his breathing turning into a shallow, rattling wheeze.
I wrap my hands around his throat, my thumbs pressing deep into his windpipe, cutting off the air he doesn't deserve to breathe.
"This is for Meave," I whisper, my voice dropping into a register that is dead, cold, and absolute.
I press down, my fingers sinking into the flesh of his neck, until the final, frantic struggle in his chest simply stops. His eyes roll back, wide and glassy, staring at the ceiling of the warehouse he’ll never leave.
It’s over.
He's dead.
I stand up slowly, my legs shaking with a mix of rage and the sudden, violent drop of adrenaline. I’m covered in blood, Silas’s blood, the guards’ blood, the dust of the concrete. My knuckles are raw, the skin split and bleeding, but I don't feel any of it.
I cross the floor to Atara.
She’s still tied to the chair, her chest heaving, her swollen eye tracking my movement through the dark.
I pull the black-handled knife from my forearm and slice through the heavy plastic zip-ties with one quick, fluid motion. The ties snap, and the moment her hands are free, Atara stands up.
She lunges forward, wrapping her arms around my neck, burying her face in the crook of my shoulder. I catch her, my arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her into my chest with a completeness that feels like I'm trying to fuse our bones together.
I hold her, my face buried in her dark, tangled curls, breathing in the scent of her, the smell of vanilla. I am shaking, the terror of almost losing her finally catching up to my knees.
"I've got you," I whisper against her skin, my voice thick and cracked. "I've got you, Kisa. You’re safe."
She clutches my shirt with her small, dirty fingers, her whole body trembling against mine, and for the first time in five years, the dark warehouse is completely quiet.