Chapter 62
Aclusterfuck of emotions come alive within my chest, battling for dominance.
Oh, my beautiful flower, what did they do to you?
I resist the urge to run to her, to cradle her angelic face in my hands and trace the threads that bind her crimson stained lips—cage her smart double-edged tongue.
She’s spiritless. Lifeless. A complete void of anything that once resembled her.
Rose hangs suspended, shoulders near dislocation, sandwiched between two men aggressively thrusting against her soft skin, seeking release. The bald man at her back has his hands around her neck, rapidly squeezing the life from her.
Why isn’t she fighting?
A smattering of new bruises bloom across her skin, thin red rivers trailing from new lashes.
They whipped my fucking girl. My light. My escape.
The man at Rose’s front digs his fingers into her hips. Crimson colours his face, his hands, as it makes a slow descent down her legs.
Nothing so much as a whimper passes Rose’s lips.
Something new thrashes within me, giving birth to an unforeseen rage. Heat radiates from my skin as I divert my gaze to Maximus. He watches me intently, trying to get a read on the emotions threatening to surface.
I cannot give him that power. He can’t know I care for her in a way I know not how to describe.
“Is this how you honour your deals?” I snarl, hoping Rose will stir at the sound of my voice.
She doesn’t.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“I assure you, it’s not,” Mr. Smythe replies through a sickening smile.
“Then, please enlighten me as to what the fuck is going on here.”
Come on flower, wake up.
“Just a little chat about how we don’t go wandering around in places we aren’t supposed to.”
Give me something, baby. Anything. A twitch. A blink. A tear.
“This seems a little drastic for snooping, wouldn’t you say?” I counter.
“Snooping? Yes. Escape attempts? No. Unfortunately, I feel the punishment fits the crime.”
I take a step forward. Maximus’s eyes alight from within. I can’t stop myself, the unrelenting need to ensure her heartbeat drags me another step.
The man in front of Rose tucks his dick away, intercepting me.
His blue eyes are a wildfire of hate, blazing toward me.
I don’t know who the fuck he is, though his features strike a chord in my brain.
I've met this forgettable fuck before, and he’s about to get beat into next week if he doesn’t step out of my way.
“Move,” I growl.
He doesn’t budge an inch. “I don’t take orders from you,” he glowers.
The man behind my woman steps back, doing up his cargo shorts. A flicker of recognition flits through my brain. Something deep, dark, and long since buried.
“Bradley?”
“Do I fucking know you?” he grits out, fingers digging further into the neck of my flower. He’s clearly clocked me as a threat. He’s right to. I’m three seconds away from losing my shit. However, the past barrels into me like an eighteen wheeler, holding me back.
He wouldn’t know me. Not with this face. Not even before the surgery. Puberty drastically changed my features, taking me from a gangly boy to this monster who now wants to murder my baby brother for touching what’s mine—hurting what’s fucking mine.
“You should, it’s not everyday you get accused of kidnapping in a grocery store parking lot.” My eyes flick around the room. Maximus and Richmond remain calm, neither has moved an inch since I entered.
“Shit,” mutters the blue-eyed one.
Seems my hunch was right. They are the ones I encountered that first day. I don’t know how I missed it then, that the fucker with the lip tattoo was my kin. But years of no contact are bound to change a few things.
Rose doesn’t stir. That fire inside of her snuffed out by the four in this room.
I’m too late.
Do I seek retribution? Or fandango my way into a new fucking deal, a better one?
Maximus pipes up, “Interesting.”
“Why is that fucking interesting?” I snap.
“No one informed me there was a bystander to that interaction.”
“What does it matter?”
“I don’t like liars in my ranks.” Maximus casts his gaze from Bradley to the other man. “Both of you, step away from Miss Rose.” His tone is sharp, lethal. It sets me on edge.
“Boss…?” The hesitation in my brother’s voice tugs at my gut.
It’s the same small voice I hear in my nightmares, calling for me.
“Rippy,” he says, messing up my name as any small child would.
But I’d drown him out, turn him away, because our sister didn’t like interruptions.
He probably lives thinking I turned my back on him, never looked for him.
However, that’s not true. I did. Endlessly.
For years. But if this is where he wound up, Maximus would’ve scrubbed his existence from everywhere Bucky or I searched.
“Take your pick, Mr. Morgan.”
His voice jars me from my stupor. “I beg your pardon?”
“Retribution. Don’t you want it?”
“Of course…” This is too good to be fucking true.
“I denied you before. This time, I won’t. Take your pick.”
Where do I even start? The choice should be obvious. It is. But the pit in my stomach begs me to reconsider.
“Richmond, hand Mr. Morgan your firearm.”
“Sir?”
“Now, Rich.”
“Yessir,” he hisses.
I can’t contain the smile that beams out of me. Fuck this prick. I should end him with his own weapon.
“Don’t even think about it, Mr. Morgan.”
Well, fuck. Never mind, then.
Richmond slams the cold metal into my outstretched palm, and I right it in my grasp. Raising it, I train it on the blue-eyed one.
“One more thing, Mr. Morgan. Well…two actually.”
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. Finger on the trigger staring down the man about to piss his pants before me. “What?” I growl.
“Bradley here, has been assaulting your flower almost nightly since her arrival. He’s the reason for the makeup you so thoroughly detested.”
The gun swings toward my sibling, body moving of its own accord, as my brain battles my heart in a fight to the death.
“Max, what the fuck?” Bradley whispers.
What the fuck indeed. What’s his endgame?
Raising his arm, he gestures to the other man. “Samuel is the whole reason Rose is here.”
Fuck.
The guns at my back burn hotter. I only need one to take out all four of them. But another form of protection in my hand will decrease the likelihood of me getting pumped full of holes.
“Here at Bleakcrest, and here in this room now. It’s. All. His. Fault.” Max’s smile is vile. Clearly enjoying the chaos he’s orchestrating in this dank-ass prison cell.
“Maximus, stop,” Samuel chokes on his words.
“He lured her in, fucked her senseless, promised her freedom, then betrayed her. Didn’t you, Samuel?”
Samuel neither confirms nor denies what the boss says, proving he’s nothing but a spineless coward.
My aim lands back on Samuel, though it aches to take the risk extinguishing everyone in this room.
Maximus shoves off the wall, moving toward me with slow calculated steps.
“He fucked her,” he hisses. “And she thought it was you coming back to say goodbye.” He stands beside me, leaning over to finish his fucking taunt.
He knows I want to kill them both. But he’s only allowing me one.
My suffrage brings him joy, it’s why he’s doing this.
Spilling everything. “She moaned your name, so he stitched her lips shut. Never to moan another’s name ever again. ”
A shot fires. My finger tight on the trigger making the decision for me. Samuel drops, writhing in agony as he cradles his knee.
“She ran because of him. Wound up in here, punished, because he couldn’t follow orders,” Maximus breathes far too close to me.
“She was mine!” Samuel bellows through the pain. “My fucking Rosie!”
I don’t fucking think so.
Squeezing off another shot, the bullet passes clean through Samuel’s flip-flop, blowing off his big toe.
He screams with ear-piercing agony, and I huff in his torment like the smoke from the calming weed I smuggle.
“Fuck,” Bradley exhales, shuffling in the direction of the door.
Quick as lightning, I fire again. Just missing Bradley’s boot inching across the floor. “Don’t fucking move,” I snarl.
Maximus chuckles darkly. “Your flower’s withered and died because of them. Make your choice, Mr. Morgan. Who lives and who dies?”
He must see the torment scrawled across my face because he leans ever closer, his voice baiting me like a worm on a hook.
“Samuel may have broken her body, but Bradley was breaking her mind, piece by piece, night by night. A slow and torturous descent into a pit of despair she was never going to crawl out from.”
Not true. Not true. Not true. My mind chants like a mantra. She was fine here. Surviving because she’s so fucking strong.
“He almost killed her. Twice.”
My thoughts start to cloud. A weight settling over me so insurmountable I cannot bear it.
Guilt.
I cast my sight toward Rose, dangling and lifeless. My eyes start to burn.
Max’s hand lands over mine, guiding the gun to aim on her. “Maybe the problem isn’t my men, Mr. Morgan. Maybe it’s her. Love’s made you soft—weak,” he spits the last word like he detests the very feel of it on his tongue. “I don’t work with men like that. Like you. Make your choice.”
I don’t fucking love her. Love’s an ugly, dreadful emotion. It twists those that feel it into vile, ruthless monsters, all in the name of love. It’s cruel, calculating, and manipulative. People do horrible things in the name of fucking love.
Love doesn’t describe what I feel for Rose. It’s light, and heat, and passion. Open arms and untainted happiness.
A wet, rasping breath escapes through a sliver of room between my flower’s lips.
The death rattle.
She’s left me for good.
There’s no reason for me to lose this deal on top of her. No longer will I be torn in different directions, head fogged up and chest tight, the tether back to her wound so unyielding I can’t fucking breathe properly when she’s not near.
If I’m fucking free, why does it feel as though I’ve been eviscerated?
The gun’s heavy, the emotions plaguing me heavier.
Guilt. Shame. Despair.
“Is our deal still on?” I snarl, glaring over my shoulder to Maximus.