63. It Will Haunt You
IT WILL HAUNT YOU
Axel
Pain tore through my side, and I hit the ground as the world spun, black sky melting into a dark ocean. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down. Lorelei’s anguished shriek was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.
She was in danger. And I had to protect her at any cost.
Hot liquid leaked over my palm as I pressed it to my side where a vicious throb radiated. That son of a bitch shot me.
Brock’s laughter poured ice down my spine. “I remembered to remove the safety this time, Vanderhart.”
Just moments ago, I’d been inside of Lorelei—exactly where I was meant to be—and now I was bleeding out from a gunshot wound. But the pain wasn’t as severe as I’d imagined. When Stan shot Killian, the agony was written all over his face even though he’d tried to hide it from Lexi.
So why wasn’t I drowning in white-hot, searing torment?
I peeled my shirt up to examine the crimson-stained flesh. A chuckle almost slipped out at my stupidity. The bullet had only grazed me, tearing a shallow trench in my flesh. I’d live.
Another one of Lorelei’s screams burst into the atmosphere, full of terror.
“Let me go!” She kicked and fought like a demon as Brock gripped her hair and dragged her farther away.
“It’s time to tie up loose ends, Lorelei. Like I said, if I can’t have you, no one can.” He waved the gun around as he spoke, his gaze darting in my direction to ensure I was still down.
If he knew it was just a graze, he’d pull the trigger again. The wild, feverish look in his eyes made that a hundred percent clear. He had to believe I wasn’t a threat.
But watching him hurt Lorelei ignited fire through my veins. How much could I stand before my control snapped and I charged him, regardless of the weapon in his hand?
“You won’t get away with this,” she hissed, her fingers digging in the ground. “Axel will—”
“Axel won’t do shit.” He jerked his chin toward me. “He’s dying.”
Lorelei’s frantic eyes shifted in my direction as I hunched over, pretending to be struggling to stand. I forced one corner of my mouth up, hoping she would understand I wasn’t as close to death as I looked.
Her head tilted, and her mouth parted, understanding flicking across her face.
“It’s a shame I never got to fuck the disobedience out of you.” Brock paused and scratched his forehead with the barrel of the gun. “I suppose it’s not too late to at least give you a punishing send-off. And as a plus, your boyfriend can watch me defile you as he bleeds out.”
A mixture of rage and disgust clashed through my insides as Brock spun and fell on Lorelei, straddling her. She kicked and bucked as he unfastened his belt with his free hand.
“Keep fighting, sweetheart.” He forced the gun into her mouth. “I like it rough.”
Streaks of crimson bled over my vision. But with his back now turned, he’d given me the perfect opportunity.
My heart raced, and fury pumped through my bloodstream as I shot to my feet and bolted forward. Lorelei’s frightened expression came into view, stoking the fires of rage within.
I wrapped my arm around Brock’s neck, hauled him off, and tackled him to the ground. The gun fell from his hand and tumbled several feet away. When I turned him over, the shock flickering in his wide eyes made me laugh.
“I-I shot you,” he sputtered.
“Barely a flesh wound, you pathetic excuse for a man.” I crushed my fist into his face, blood gushing from his lip and splattering his chin. “If you’re going to threaten someone with a gun, make sure you know how to use it. And I thought you were from Texas. Doesn’t everyone own a gun there?”
He snarled. But with him on the ground at my mercy, the sound had lost its arrogance. “Why go through all this trouble for some little whore, Vanderhart?”
“Call her a whore one more time, and I’ll finish your sorry ass.” My nostrils flared as images of him ruining my beautiful, kind Lorelei inundated my thoughts. “You know what? Fuck that. I’m just going to kill you.”
My fingers wrapped around his throat, and I squeezed.
Everything suddenly became so quiet, as if the world stopped while I committed murder. Again. The waves crashing against the bluffs were barely whispers on a gentle wind, and I couldn’t even hear my beating heart.
Maybe it had stopped too.
Brock’s eyes bulged out of his head as scarlet pooled in his cheeks. And then he started to turn purple.
“Ax, stop.” A soft hand wrapped around my arm, and that familiar, hypnotic fragrance I’d become so addicted to infiltrated the red haze fogging my mind. “You don’t need to do this. Please.”
My jaw clenched, teeth grinding. “Why not? He was going to do it to us. To you.”
The world could stand to lose me.
But not Lorelei.
“I don’t want you to have to live with murdering Brock.” She gripped my chin and forced me to meet her gaze. “If you kill him, it will haunt you, and you’ll never be free of him. You can pretend this won’t affect you, but I know it will.”
She was right, of course. Haversham might have been a loathsome, vile creature, but killing him would only ensure his memory lived on forever in my nightmares. I never took my eyes off Lorelei as I released his throat. The bastard sucked in ragged gulps of air, choking and wheezing.
“You’re the only one who can talk sense into me when I’m on the verge of completely wrecking my life,” I muttered.
A sweet smile curved her mouth. “Maybe you should keep me around to prevent any future wreckage.”
“That’s the plan.” I brushed my fingers across her bottom lip where faint bruises had already formed from that asshole’s gun. “Call the police. We’ll let them handle Haversham. Two counts of attempted murder should put him away for a while. I’ll make sure of it.”
And if he ever bothered her again, I’d gladly endure a lifetime of being haunted by the prick, because he’d be a dead man.
She stood, making her way to where her phone had dropped on the ground.
“That bitch has made you soft, Vanderhart.”
As my head snapped toward him, fire erupted across my eyes. Wet heat streamed down my face, blurring the world into a searing smear of pain.
What the fuck?
“Did you just mace me?”
Brock shoved me off, and moments later, Lorelei’s scream shredded the night.
Panic slammed into my chest, and I tried to blink through the burning agony, but my vision was a blurry mess.
“You’re not getting away that easily, Lorelei.”
The words slithered through the dark, and my blood turned to ice.
Fuzzy shapes moved near the cliff’s edge. Two figures. One too tall and the other one too small in his grip.
“No.” The word tore out of me as I shoved myself up, the ground tilting beneath my feet. My skull throbbed and eyes burned, but I staggered toward them anyway. “Let her go!”
Brock’s laugh rolled over the cliffside, low and cruel, a sound dragged straight from the pit of hell. “I intend to.”
My stomach dropped.
For one horrible second, the world sharpened just enough for me to see her. Lorelei. Her hair whipping in the wind. Her body twisted in his grasp. Her eyes locked on mine.
Everything stopped.
The wind. The sea. My heartbeat.
I was back there again, trapped in that night from years ago. Only this time, Peter wasn’t the one about to plunge into the black.
It was my fucking heart.
“Lorelei!”
Her name ripped from my throat as I bolted forward, grief and terror shredding through me with every step.
This was punishment. It had to be. For every sin. Every lie. Every drop of blood on my hands.
I was doomed to lose the only thing I had ever truly wanted to keep.
Brock stood at the edge, his silhouette carved against the moonless sky like some nightmare made flesh.
Then he smiled.
And swung Lorelei toward the darkness.
“Axel!” she screamed.
The sound ripped through me.
I lunged, my boots skidding over loose gravel, and threw myself forward as Brock let her go. For one horrifying heartbeat, she vanished from the ground completely, her body tipping over empty air, blonde hair whipping around her face.
My hand shot out.
My fingers clamped around her arm hard enough to bruise.
“I got you, Lore.” My voice came out shredded as her weight nearly dragged me down with her. “I got you.”
Her body slammed against the cliffside, knocking a cry from her lips, and my shoulder screamed as I hauled her back toward me. Dirt broke loose beneath my knees, and pebbles rained into the black below, swallowed by the violent crash of waves.
I wrapped my other arm around her waist and yanked with everything I had.
She came up hard, trembling and gasping, her hands clawing at my jacket as I dragged her against my chest.
I had her.
She was alive.
She was in my arms.
My heart thundered as I staggered away from the long drop, keeping her safe in my arms. “Lorelei, baby, are you okay?”
“It’s going to take a lot more than some psycho rich prick to get rid of Lorelei Battenberg.” She gave a shaky breath, her body trembling.
The relief flowing through my veins was enough to make me float a hundred feet off the ground.
She was okay. My fucking heart was still alive and well. She hadn’t left me to rot.
I reluctantly set her on her feet and then buried my face in the crook of her neck. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I’ll try, Ax,” she whispered.
“Help me! Please.”
Icy fear prickled my flesh at the panicked voice echoing from beyond the cliff. I released Lorelei and inched toward the edge to find Brock trying to climb back up, his feet on a narrow ledge.
How the hell had he gotten down there?
Every move he made loosened the soil even more. Blood trickled down his pale face, and true fear permeated his gaze. He looked like a man terrified of death—probably because he knew the devil had a special place for him in hell.
“Please, Axel!” he shouted. “I don’t want to die.”
Lorelei shook her head. “I don’t trust him.”
But as I stared at the churning water below, that night came rushing back, and instead of Brock, Peter was the one barely hanging on.
If only Peter had been able to grab hold of something.
If only I could have saved him.
I didn’t think. Didn’t ask myself whether the monster dangling from the cliff deserved mercy. My body moved before my mind could catch up.
I flattened myself against the cold, damp earth and reached over the edge for the asshole who had tried to ruin our lives. Tried to kill us.
“Take my hand, Brock.”
His head snapped up, eyes wild in the moonlight. For one second, suspicion twisted his face. But he grabbed my hand. “Pull me up. Hurry!”
Rocks bit into my ribs as I tried to haul him up. “A little help, Haversham,” I gritted out. “Dig your fit into the wall and climb.”
An ugly grin stretched across Brock’s face, freezing my blood. “You really are stupidly noble, aren’t you, Axel?”
Before I could move, he jerked me forward.
“Fuck!” Pain detonated through my shoulder, and my arm threatened to tear from its socket as he tried to yank me off the cliff.
A cry echoed behind me.
And then a gunshot cracked through the night.
Brock’s body jolted. Blood burst from his shoulder, warm and wet, splattering across my face. Somehow, I still held onto the bastard.
He stared down at the wound, stunned, as if the laws of the universe had personally betrayed him. “You fucking shot me, Lorelei.”
His grip on my hand loosened.
And he fell.
His furious scream ripped through the night as he vanished, echoing down the cliffside, raw and endless, until the ocean swallowed him whole.
As I shoved away from the edge and used my shirt to wipe Brock’s blood from my face, Lorelei ran to my side.
“What did I do?” Her voice cracked, anguish tearing through every word.
I snapped into action and shot to my feet, taking the gun from her and shoving it in my waistband. “You saved me. That’s what you did.”
Her lip quivered as she stared off into the darkness like I’d done the night Peter died. “But I k—”
“No.” I cradled her face and forced her to focus on me. That sadistic fuck got what he deserved. “He would have survived that gunshot. He fell off the cliff all on his own. It was an accident. Say it.”
“It was an accident.” Tears streamed down her ashen cheeks as she sucked in a ragged breath. “I thought I lost you.”
“Not happening, blondie. You’re stuck with me forever.” I kissed her forehead and pulled her into my arms, holding her so tightly that her trembling became my own. “Nothing will ever tear us apart again. Not. A. Damn. Thing.”
If anyone ever tried, they’d end up just like Brock.
A dead man.