Chapter 16 #2
Brennan grins, showing teeth, and rolls his thick neck until it cracks. "There's the Russian beast." He spits again, a wet splat on the concrete between them. "I was starting to think you'd send the girl down and save yourself the trouble."
"I'm going to break both your arms." Kon says it the way he'd announce what he's cooking for dinner. Flat. Certain. A solid fact one can take to the bank. "Then I'm going to ask you where Seamus is hiding. You'll tell me. Everyone always talks for me just before they die."
I work my throat past the suddenly dry lump forming there. The implications of his words send shivers through my body. I mean, I know he’s a mafia man and has put bodies in the ground. It’s something entirely different to hear him talk about it.
"Big talk from a man defending a Malone whore."
Kon moves.
The collision shakes the floor beneath my feet. Two hundred and forty pounds of Bratva-trained muscle crashes into two hundred and fifty pounds of Irish enforcer and the impact sends a shelf of books cascading to the concrete, spines splitting, pages scattering.
Kon drives his fist into Brennan's ribs, a punch that connects with a sound that reverberates through my own chest, and Brennan absorbs it with a grunt and fires back, his elbow catching Kon across the jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways.
My feet won't move and I can't look away.
They grapple through the main floor, crashing through furniture, each man fighting for position.
Kon lands a combination to Brennan's face that opens a cut across his cheekbone, blood streaming down his jaw.
Brennan retaliates with a knee to Kon's midsection that doubles him for half a second before Kon straightens and drives his forehead into Brennan's nose.
The crack of cartilage is audible from the top of the stairs.
But I don't have time to watch because two of Brennan's men are coming up the stairs toward me.
I plant my feet on the top landing and wrap both hands around the gun the way Kon showed me, left hand supporting, right hand on the grip, arms extended.
My stance is wrong and I know it's wrong, my feet too close together, my shoulders too tense, but there's no time to adjust because the first man is rounding the stairwell corner.
My entire mindset about life always being black and white gets a real dose of reality. I never saw myself wanting to kill another person. I am not my father or uncle. But I am a fighter.
Brennan’s flunky spots me, raises his weapon.
At my head.
Fuck that and fuck him.
I squeeze the trigger.
The recoil jolts up my arms and the shot goes low, punching into the man's kneecap. He screams and crumples, his gun clattering down the concrete steps. Pure luck. I was aiming for his chest.
Ohmygodwhatthehellisgoingon is all my brain is screaming as blood sprays across Kon's floor. But that is all the thinking time I get before a second man sends bullets flying in my direction before he dives behind the stairwell wall .
I fire again, the bullet sparking off the exposed brick, and the sound of the gun in this enclosed space is so loud my ears ring and my eyes water.
"She's got a gun!" The man shouts to his partners on the main floor. “She’s got a fucking gun, man!”
"And bad aim," I mutter, adjusting my grip with sweat-slicked palms. "But I've got plenty of bullets."
Except I don't know if that's true. I have no idea how many rounds are in this magazine. Kon showed me how to check but my hands are shaking too hard to attempt it.
The fight spreads through The Foundry and I move with it, abandoning the stairwell when a third man flanks from the hallway. I fire once, miss, fire again, and the bullet catches the edge of his shoulder.
“Bingo, bitches.”
He stumbles and I seize the opening to sprint through the kitchen, my bare feet slapping against cold concrete littered with broken glass from the shattered entrance.
A shard bites into my heel and I grit my teeth and keep running because stopping means dying and that is not in the cards for today.
A man rounds the corner from the training room and I don't have a clear shot. I grab the cast-iron skillet from the stove with my free hand, the same pan Kon uses to make eggs every morning, and I swing it with every fiber in my jacked up being. Thank you, adrenaline rush!
The heavy iron connects with the back of his skull with a dull, wet thud that vibrates up my arm and into my shoulder. He drops face-first onto the concrete and doesn't move.
"Sorry," I whisper to the pan and then I deadpan, "But not sorry."
I keep moving.
The hallway where the typewriters sit is empty, the narrow tables overturned, one of the machines smashed on the floor, keys scattered across the concrete like broken teeth.
My bare foot lands on a loose typewriter key and the sharp metal edge digs into my arch hard enough to make me hiss.
The sight of the destroyed typewriter sends a spike of rage through my chest that burns hotter than the fear or the glass in my heel or the cold concrete numbing the soles of my feet.
These fuckers are destroying his home.
Heavy footfalls drag my attention over my shoulder.
A fourth man catches me in the hallway leading to the elevator.
He's bigger than the others, his hands closing around my arm with a grip that grinds my bones together.
I drop the skillet but I still have the gun and I shove the barrel against his thigh and pull the trigger.
The shot tears through his leg and he releases me with a howl that bounces off the brick walls.
The gun clicks empty on my next squeeze.
“Oh, shit!”
Panic hits my bloodstream like ice water. My mouth goes bone dry and for one full second my brain whites out, no plan, no strategy, just the hollow click of an empty magazine and two of Brennan's men still moving through the building.
“Now what?” Then the journalist in me snaps back online and my eyes sweep the hallway, fast, cataloging everything within reach.
A fire extinguisher mounted on the wall to my left.
I lunge for it, rip it off the bracket, and grip the heavy metal cylinder in both hands.
It’s not a gun, but fifteen pounds of pressurized steel swung hard enough will put a man on the floor and right now that's all I need.
I just have to be close enough.
If I survive this, I'm asking Kon for better weapons training. And maybe a bigger gun.
From above, through the ceiling, the crash of the rooftop access door being slammed open. The fight between Kon and Brennan has moved upward, their combined weight shaking the metal staircase, and then a sound reaches me that stops my heart.
The shattering of ceramic. The heavy thud of planters tipping over. The wet, fibrous snap of rose stems being crushed underfoot.
The garden. They're in the garden.
My body moves before my brain registers my legs moving. I grab a kitchen knife from the magnetic strip and I take the metal stairs two at a time, the cold metal grating biting into my already-cut feet, blood smearing on the steps behind me. The industrial elevator groans as I pass it.
Bullet casings ping off the metal stairs and chunks of brick and cement fly through the air. I keep my head down and my body tucked low.
The rooftop door hangs open and I fly through it, narrowly missing the bullet meant for my head.
“Shit, that was too fucking close.”
I take in my surroundings.
The dome is cracked, panels of heavy plastic hanging loose, and the October evening air rushes through the gaps and hits my sweat-soaked skin hard enough to raise goosebumps up both arms.
The amber light of sunset pours across a scene of devastation that makes my eyes burn.
The smell reaches me before the full picture does, crushed roses and fresh soil and the copper tang of blood mixing into a scent that turns my stomach.
Gravel digs into my bleeding feet as I push deeper into the garden and away from the doorway.
The rose trellis is toppled, the wooden frame splintered, climbing roses torn from their supports and trampled into the gravel.
Ceramic planters lie in shards, soil and roots and petals scattered across the rooftop in a dark, wet mess. The rosebushes I butchered during my pruning lesson, the ones Kon laughed about, the ones he called my "artistic interpretation," are crushed flat under boot prints.
Motherfuckers will pay for this.
The one beautiful thing he allowed himself, torn apart by greed and violence.
I stop cold and turn on my heel when I hear gravel crunch.
My eyes swing to where Kon and Brennan circle each other between the wreckage on the far side of the roof.
Both men are bleeding. Kon has a cut above his right eye that streams blood down the side of his face, his knuckles are split to the bone, and his henley is torn across the chest, exposing bloody skin beneath.
But he's still moving with that terrifying precision, still balanced on the balls of his feet, still reading Brennan's body language with the predator focus that makes him the most dangerous man I've ever known.
I clock every fucking detail.
Brennan is worse. His nose is a flattened ruin, blood coating his chin and the front of his tactical jacket.
One eye is swelling shut and he favors his left side where Kon landed a series of body shots that probably cracked ribs.
But he's still standing. Still dangerous.
And his right hand is creeping toward his hip with a desperation that tells me he's done trying to win with fists.
The gun clears the holster before Kon registers the movement.
"KON!" His name rips from my throat with a force that scrapes my vocal cords raw.
Brennan fires.
The bullet catches me above my left ear.
I don't feel pain, not at first, just the sudden wet heat blooming across my temple and the way the world lurches sideways as if the rooftop has been yanked out from under my feet.
My hand flies to my head and my fingers come away slick with blood that looks black in the fading light.
I'm on the ground. The impact rattles through my skull and every sound in the world drops to a muffled hum, like someone shoved cotton in my ears and turned the volume down on reality.
Through vision that blurs and sharpens in nauseating waves, I watch Kon's body absorb what just happened. His gaze snaps from Brennan to me on the ground, blood in my hair, and the sound that erupts from his chest is a roar that belongs to no human throat.
Raw, primal, the unleashed fury of a man watching the woman he loves bleed on the ground, and the force of it vibrates through the gravel beneath my cheek.
He charges Brennan. The distance between them closes in two strides that shake the rooftop.
Brennan fires twice more.
Kon jerks. Once, his left arm snapping back. Twice, his body twisting at the waist. Red blooms through his shirt, spreading across his arm and his side in wet, dark patches that make my vision swim.
But he doesn't stop. He doesn't slow down. The bullets hit him and he absorbs them and he keeps coming with the unstoppable momentum of a man who has survived unspeakable violence against his body and mind. I hold back a wave of fear for the man I’ve come to love.
I do not want to witness his soul leaving his body. His death cannot be for me.
But deep down I know nothing short of death is going to stop him from reaching the man who shot me.
He reaches Brennan and the rest blurs into violence I'll carry with me for the rest of my life. The wet crunch of fists against bone. The spray of blood across crushed rose petals. The guttural sounds of a man being beaten until he stops making sounds at all.
My fingers claw into the gravel beneath me, sharp edges biting into my palms, and every instinct in my body screams at me to get up and run to him.
To throw myself between Kon and the gun and the blood and whatever is left of Brennan on that rooftop.
But my legs won't hold me and my head swims every time I lift it and all I can do is press my cheek against the cold gravel and watch the man I love become the Beast.
Kon stands over Brennan's broken body, swaying on his feet, his dark hair hanging wild and loose around his face, blood dripping from his arms and his side and his split knuckles onto the gravel.
He turns toward me, those black eyes finding mine through the blood and the hair streaked across his jaw, and his mouth forms my name but the sound that comes out is barely a whisper.
He takes one step. Two.
My heart clenches. My throat goes bone dry.
His knee buckles. He catches himself, straightens, reaches for me with a bloody hand.
“Onyx, огонёк.” His voice is rough and fear is written all over his face. Dark eyes find mine.
I try to move but my body reminds me I am not in control of a single muscle.
To my left, more men arrive with weapons raised. They appear from the rooftop stairwell. I don’t recognize a single face. They can’t be Brennan's crew.
Kon goes down to one knee.
Panicked, I scream, “Kon, no! Don’t move.” My words are garbled to my ears.
Blood pools beneath him on the gravel, spreading between crushed petals and scattered soil.
Hands close around my arms, rough and impersonal, hauling me backward across the rooftop. I try to fight but my body won't respond to what my brain is screaming at it to do. My limbs turn heavy and slow. Around me, the world fades at the edges while the bullet graze above my ear pulses hot and wet.
The last image before darkness swallows me whole is my beast on his knees in the ruins of his garden. Roses crushed around him. Blood on his hands. His arm outstretched toward me, fingers reaching for a hand I can't reach back.
Dread fills my chest and my pulse pounds in my ears.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
The darkness takes me and my last conscious thought is that I never told him I love him.
I never said the words.
And now I might never get the chance.