Chapter 17 #2
He drops to his knees beside my chair and saws at the zip ties with hands that shake so badly the blade nicks my wrist before finding the plastic.
I hiss at the sting but I don't pull away because the look on his face tells me this is the bravest thing Declan Malone has ever done and I will not take it from him.
The first zip tie snaps and blood rushes into my right hand so fast the pins-and-needles burn brings tears to my eyes. Then the second tie gives way. Seamus's men grab Declan by the shoulders and throw him to the concrete, but the damage is done.
I am free.
I stand. My legs protest after however long I've been in this chair, knees stiff, calves cramped, the cold concrete biting into my bare soles. But the adrenaline overrides all of it.
I roll my shoulders and shake the last of the numbness from my arms. My legs are shaking but holding and my vision has gone diamond-sharp, every detail in the warehouse crisp and vivid and burning itself into my memory.
Seamus is four feet away. His blue eyes are wide, his mouth open, genuine shock plastered across features that have never known what it feels like to be challenged by someone he considers beneath him.
Forty years of controlling everyone around him and he never planned for a twenty-five-year-old woman with blood on her face to swing back.
I punch him in the jaw with everything I have.
The crack echoes off the steel rafters. Pain shoots through my knuckles and up into my wrist and I don't give a damn because the look on his face, that pure, unfiltered shock, is worth every bone in my hand.
He staggers backward, hand flying to his mouth, blood spraying from his lips. His polished shoes slip on the concrete and for one beautiful second the great Seamus Malone looks exactly like what he is.
A bully who just got hit.
"That's from my mother." I shake out my throbbing fist. "And from me."
The warehouse door explodes inward.
The steel panel rips off its track and slams into the concrete wall hard enough to shake the rafters. Headlights flood through the opening, dust and debris swirling in the beams, and a silhouette fills the doorway that sends a jolt through my entire body so hard my vision blurs.
Kon.
Alive. Massive. Covered in blood that soaks through a field dressing on his left arm and another wrapped around his waist. His henley is torn half off his body, exposing the barbed wire and roses inked across his chest and the thick slabs of muscle rolling beneath his skin as he steps through the ruined doorway.
His dark hair hangs wild and loose around his face, matted with blood and sweat, and his black eyes sweep the warehouse with a predator focus that raises every hair on my body.
My heart explodes into thundering beats. My hands tremble at my sides. He's been shot, but he’s still standing. I feel like I can finally breathe, but we are not safe yet.
His eyes find me. He quickly logs the blood on my mouth, my knuckles and then his attention shifts to the man over my shoulder.
I angle my head around to see Seamus clutching his jaw.
I turn back to Kon and watch his expression shift.
The rage is still there but relief cracks through it, raw and unguarded, and for half a second I can see the man I love underneath all that blood and fury.
His chest heaves on a breath that shakes his entire frame and his dark eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that makes my knees buckle.
I blink and then the Beast comes back. And he is terrifying.
I've watched Kon spar in the training room. Controlled punches, pulled force, careful technique. I watched him fight Brennan on the rooftop, savage and territorial, two big men trying to destroy each other.
This is a different animal entirely.
Seamus's guards raise their weapons and Kon is on them before the first trigger gets pulled.
His arm sweeps the nearest barrel upward and the shot punches into the rafters while his fist drives into the guard's throat.
The man drops. Kon is already turning. The second guard swings a rifle stock toward his wounded side and Kon catches it mid-swing, rips it free, and cracks it across the man's jaw. Teeth and blood hit the concrete.
He moves through them with brutal efficiency, every strike precise, every counter anticipated, his massive body flowing between targets in a way that makes my breath catch because a man that big should not move that fast. The third guard pulls a knife and Kon catches his wrist, twists until the joint pops, and drops him with a knee to the chest. The fourth guard takes one look at what just happened to his three colleagues and runs for the loading dock.
Kon lets him go. His eyes are locked on Seamus.
My uncle backs against the wall, his silver hair messed up for the first time in my life. Blood stains his otherwise always impeccable suit. He presses a weathered hand to his bleeding mouth and real, honest fear twists his aged face.
In a blink, forty years of power get stripped away by one man. Kon.
Kon closes the distance between himself and Seamus with the slow, measured walk of a man who has all the time in the world and wants his prey to feel every second of it.
His fists hang at his sides, bloodied and swollen, and the muscles in his forearms jump with every clench and release.
He doesn't speak. He doesn't need to. The four men on the floor behind him have already made his introduction.
Seamus presses his back flat against the wall. Nowhere left to run. His silver hair hangs in his face and his tailored suit is spotted with blood and for the first time in my life the great Seamus Malone looks small.
Kon's hand closes around my uncle's throat and lifts him off the ground.
Seamus's polished shoes dangle above the concrete, kicking uselessly, his fingers clawing at Kon's wrist. The choking sounds that come out of his mouth are wet and desperate and nothing like the smooth, controlled voice that has ruined lives for forty years.
My heart slams against my ribs so hard my entire chest aches.
The warehouse smells like gunpowder and blood and the acrid smoke still curling from the metal drum where my files turned to ash.
My palms are slick with sweat and the bullet graze above my ear throbs in time with my pulse, hot and relentless.
Kon's arm doesn't shake. His expression doesn't change. The Beast has his prey by the throat and the only question left is whether he squeezes until it's over.
Part of me wants him to. The part that read my mother's therapist notes and watched my files burn and felt my uncle's backhand crack across my face. That part of me wants to watch the light leave Seamus Malone's eyes.
But the other part of me, the part that loves the man behind the Beast, knows that if Kon kills my uncle with his bare hands in this warehouse, a piece of him won't come back from it.
A piece of the man who grows roses and whispers Russian in the dark will stay on this concrete floor alongside Seamus.
And I cannot lose that man. Not after everything we've survived to find each other.
"Kon." My voice breaks. My legs are shaking so hard I can barely stay upright. The cold from the concrete floor seeps up through my bare, bloodied feet and my fingernails dig crescents into my palms. "Kon, please. Come back to me."
His hand tightens around Seamus's throat. The tendons in his forearm strain against the barbed wire ink. Seamus's face turns a mottled purple and his kicks grow weaker, his shoes scraping against the wall behind him.
My heart hammers in my ears. My breath comes in short, ragged pulls that taste like copper and smoke.
He doesn't turn or let go.