Chapter 29 #2
All of a sudden, the gunfire stops, and I exchange a concerned look with Roman. Why have they stopped? Nausea swirls in my stomach as the answer comes to me, my stomach bottoming out as it becomes obvious.
“It was a distraction,” I whisper, locking eyes with Roman. Comprehension dawns on him just as we hear the door to the stairwell slam open, and I know, before even looking, that we’ve somehow lost.
“Time to come out, little Shadows,” Sergi’s voice is full of glee as it rings around the courtyard. “And drop your weapons. You wouldn’t want your precious flower to have her petals plucked.”
My eyelids slide closed, my world ending when he confirms my worst nightmare. They have Iris. They’ve overpowered Rowan. They have us surrounded, outmanned, and outgunned. I can’t save my people and her.
With a heaving sigh, I get up, my arms raised as I slowly spin and face the direction of his voice. Seeing something is different from believing it, and the moment I see her beautiful face, tears glistening on her perfect cheeks, my soul fractures.
“I’m so sorry, Hunt,” she whispers, the words somehow making them to me, cutting into me, even given the distance between us.
I lower my arms, dropping my gun on the tarmac, the sound bouncing around the night. “Drop your weapons.” The sound of guns hitting the floor rings around us, my crew following my order as we face the devil him-fucking-self.
Roman appears beside me, his sharp intake of breath making my eyes look away from Iris’s face to see Sergi with his hand wrapped around her arm, a knife pressed against her delicate throat.
My beast roars at the audacity he has of touching our woman, and I swear a vow that he will die by my hand one day.
“Good. Now, you took something that didn’t belong to you, boy,” Sergi chides, like I’m some naughty child to be told off. My hands clench into fists at my sides, my jaw working as my brain tries to find some way out of this. “I’m taking it back.”
Beefy hands pull my arms behind me, the grunt to the side of me telling me the same is happening to Roman, and we’re pushed towards Sergi and Iris. I don’t take my gaze off her, unable to look away as her eyes plead with me to make this right. To fix this somehow.
One of Sergi’s men steps from behind him, and Roman’s growl fills the space as a bloodied and almost out-of-it Rowan is brought beside us. His chest is coated in red, and I’m pretty sure he’s been at least shot, a head wound trickling blood down the side of his face.
We’re forced to our knees, the cold, unforgiving pavement sending pain ricocheting up my legs from the impact. Then the cold barrel of a gun is pressed to my forehead, Iris’s stuttered cry filled with terror as my attention is brought back to the man in front of me.
“Y–you promised that if I came with you, you wouldn’t hurt them,” she says, her wide gaze flitting between the twins and I.
“Oh, Kukolka,” Sergi coos, and a red mist coats my vision as he leans in and brushes his nose along her cheek. “That is just to make sure they don’t do something stupid.”
A small whimper sounds in her throat when he finally moves that fucking knife, rage filling my veins when he uses it to slice down the front of the hoodie that she’s wearing, her naked breasts exposed to the night as he cuts it away from her.
“You motherfucker!” Roman snarls, grunting when the massive guy holding him pistol-whips him with the gun. I see the bloom of red on the side of his head, but my guy pushes his gun painfully into my skin, forcing me to look back at his boss.
“No!” Iris cries, fresh tears welling in her eyes as Sergi ignores all of us and starts to cut away the leggings she’s wearing next. Her body trembles, fresh tears dripping down her cheeks as she holds still, her hands balled into tight fists at her sides.
“You will learn, Kukolka, that I can do whatever I like to the things that I own,” Sergi tells her softly, gently, like it’s words a lover would speak. My blood boils, my body burning as I watch him cut away her underwear until she’s naked and shivering in the freezing air.
The leggings land with a soft thunk, and he pauses, an eyebrow raised.
Then one of his men dips down, searching and pulling out something that was hidden in the fabric.
Iris’s jaw sets as Sergi takes the object, a low, goosebump-inducing chuckle falling from his lips when he presses a button and a razor-sharp blade slides out.
“Seems like our baby doll has some sharp edges,” he muses, the switchblade that Rowan gave Iris glinting in the moonlight. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to smooth them out.”
He hands the switchblade off to one of his men, who swaps it for a circle of black leather.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Rowan’s slurred words are a harsh whisper, like a knife as it slides into flesh, but Sergi doesn’t even spare him a glance, placing the fucking collar around my wife’s neck and buckling it up.
It’s an abomination. If anyone should collar her, it’s us, not this cunt.
I watch as her eyes slide shut, defeat rounding her shoulders as his fingers gently trace the collar like she really does belong to him.
Then he reaches out, still fucking ignoring the three Shadows promising him murder, and a low growl leaves my lips when he’s handed a chain, the sharp snick of it being attached to the collar loud in the silence.
“You will come to heel,” he whispers, wrapping the chain around his fist until it’s pulled taut and her eyes pop open.
It takes everything in me not to fight the hold that grips me tightly, but I can’t do anything to put her in any more danger.
Sergi twists so that he’s facing us, his dark gaze locking with mine.
“Or I will send her to you in pieces. Then I will kill everyone you’ve ever loved.
Your sister in that American academy. Your crew turned to dust. The men who stand beside you, carved up like animals for slaughter.
” He steps closer to me, dragging Iris along until he’s looming over me, speaking my deepest fears as she shudders, naked beside him.
“And you, Hunter Anderson, will be the last to die. You will watch as they all fall, knowing that you could have saved them if only you’d submitted. ”
I swallow hard, drowning in the horrific picture he’s painted, holding his gaze and frozen to my very bones. There is no way out of this, not right now anyway, and the smirk that slowly spreads over his lips tells me that he knows this. He’s won. For now at least.
And so with the taste of ashes filling my mouth, I lower my gaze, dipping my head in submission as I do the only thing I can to save everyone, to keep us all breathing, just for the moment.
My heart shatters, my soul flickering out as the light leaves my world when he drags her away, her soft sobs ringing in my ears as I continue to kneel long after all of Sergi’s men have left.
Forgive me, Peaches.