Wrath (Written in Sin #2)

Chapter 1

Indie

bones for the crows - nickelback

All this anger that’s bubbling under the surface used to be something else entirely.

It used to be love.

It used to be happiness.

It used to be fucking innocence.

Naivety that darkness was concealed beneath the ground we walked on. When really, it’s hidden in plain sight, in the eyes of strangers.

In the blood of family.

My jaw grinds through the primal urge to hit something. Smash the glass of this booth with my own bare fucking hands. Snatch that gun from Saint’s waistband and shoot every single asshole on that stage.

Or better yet, set this place on fire, engulf every single demonic, blood-sucking creature that’s breathing the same air as me.

Except her.

I need answers from her before she suffers.

I can hear Dawson and Rex’s voices clashing in my ear; the sound grates against my skin like broken glass, causing me to tear the earpiece out.

“Indie!”

Saint’s vice-like grip is clamped around my bicep, tugging me up from the floor and trying to break my stare-off I’m having with my own flesh and blood.

My own fucking sister.

She’s a part of this, her and my brother-in-law.

How could I have been so stupid. So fucking naive again. They’re all the same, each and every single one of them.

My body is abruptly twisted to the side as Saint snatches my other arm, crashing me against his chest as he attempts to shake the rage from me. “We need to move—”

“Did you know?”

His thundering eyes widen at my question. He doesn’t answer; his jaw sets in a hard line, showing me his defiant silence. I see nothing but red. “Did you fucking—”

His large, inked hand clamps my words back down my throat, fingers gripping tightly against my cheek as I struggle to break free.

“We had suspicions about Jenna. Rex and I both did. Tonight was a gamble that paid off.” He drags in a lungful of the potent air that surrounds us, applause beginning to subside as the monsters lining the stage start to filter back out. “Louisa? No. I had no fucking idea.”

I want to believe him. I desperately do. My sanity depends on it, but his eyes flickered above my head the moment the word ‘no’ left his lips.

My heart threatens to shatter into something irreparable at the thought of him lying to me about this.

I yank out of his grip, brushing down the silk material of my dress, and steeling my spine. Now isn’t the time to let myself slip. I need to hold it together, lock down the burning rage that’s causing my body to involuntarily shake.

But I can’t, it’s all too much, and my mouth works before my mind can catch up. “Saint, you better not be fucking lying to me—”

“Or what?” He steps into me, glare so hot I can feel the risk of my own flesh quivering to melt from my bones.

My voice struggles to even whisper, coated in the betrayal that’s lacing through my membrane. “I’ll never forgive you.”

His hand clamps tightly around my neck. I can almost feel his coercion spill through his fingertips, snatching the air from my lungs in compliance. “We’ll talk about this later.”

I grit through my teeth, “No, we’ll talk about—”

He tightens the pressure, fighting as my eyes narrow into slits as the rage seeps, teetering me to do something really, really fucking stupid. “Do as I fucking say, Indie. We’ll talk about it back at the Pit.”

He gives me one last warning squeeze, then the noose around my neck loosens, his eyes and voice softening. “I promise.”

His hand drops from my neck, and I force down a swallow from the emotion kept clogged there.

The curtain whips open. Saint’s hand slaps against my waist as he forces me behind him, other hand reaching behind for the gun.

“Boss, we need to leave. We’ll take you to her, and then you two need to get the fuck out of here.”

Saint’s shoulders visibly relax, and I tuck the knife back into its sheath on my thigh. It’s Ross.

We follow him as he leads us down towards the stage, the lights now beaming above us as the crowds of people filter out from the doorway we entered through, the buyers gathered at the right side of the stage as they converse with staff on their purchases.

Saint reaches for my hand as I wobble with my weak knees, and I stare at it like it offended me.

I don’t know what I’ll do if he’s kept this from me, if he’s known all this time Louisa was a part of the Omnia. The thought has bile rising in my stomach.

This has to be a mistake; she’s a fucking Senator. She vouches for women’s rights. How can she so easily spill lies in front of millions of people, when behind closed doors she’s one of the biggest threats to their lives?

The pain coursing through my chest is unbearable; I feel like someone stabbed a knife right through the centre, continuously twisting it, offering me no sense of easing up.

Saint takes my hand in my hesitation, dragging me from my thoughts and along the opposite side of the stage, away from the snakes as they hand over their purchase confirmation.

Ross stops as a group of people chat away near a door to the left, eyes directed to the back of the room. He nods, and the place plunges in darkness.

Audible gasps and laughter erupt around us, and I’m yanked and blindly led forward. My pulse rushes in my ears, and a door opening creaks as we’re led through it. A faint buzz sounds around us, along with muffled whoops through the room we just walked through when the lights turn back on.

“Where is she?” Saint asks Ross, dim lights brightening up the corridor. The smell of damp and neglect fills the air, the evidence of wherever the fuck we are being relatively unused.

“She’s being prepared. We’ve managed to replace two of their couriers to hand her over to you, but they’ll figure it out soon.

I’ll get you to the car; she’ll be out for a good few hours.

” He glances over at me, tilting his head.

“Get the fuck out of here though. You’ve already been spotted in the area.

This passage leads us out on the opposite side of the loading bay.

I’ve already got word to bring the car around. ”

Saint nods, clapping his hand on Ross’s shoulder. “You need to leave. All of you do.”

“We will. Once you’re both out.”

I can tell Ross is ex-military, not just by the way he speaks, but the suit jacket he wears stretches across his broad shoulders, and he looks nothing like the other members of staff working here.

That observation fills me with dread, that if Saint’s been spotted, and anyone notices us not following what I assume is normal practice, we might already have a tail behind us.

Ross twists forward, walking down the corridor as we follow him.

Saint’s forceful grip never eases up on my hand.

All that can be heard as we sneak through what I can only assume is a hidden hallway, is the clacks of my heels, and static from the lingering treachery still violently spreading through me.

It takes a couple of minutes before we reach a door. Discarded boards and rusted nails are scattered along the concrete floor. Ross holds his hand up, gesturing we stay put as Saint brings us both to an abrupt stop.

My gaze follows him as he works the door, the hinges screeching as he opens it, making me wince as he peers into the night. The vibrations in my body worsen, the cold air nipping at my skin as it whips off the bare walls, erupting goosebumps along my exposed limbs.

Ross eyes us nervously, and Saint reaches back to grab the gun as he cocks it. “You’re good.”

Saint tugs my hand as we reach the door, Ross checking the right as we head to the left. The car that brought us here reverses along the side of the manor, pulling to a stop as Saint leans in to speak to the driver, still not letting up on his grip around our joined hands.

Ross walks along the driver’s side. “You know how to get out?”

I miss whatever the response was, as pounding footsteps rise around us.

One minute I’m upright, the next Saint’s swung open the back door, throwing me inside as two men approach us. “What the fuck are you doing?” I screech, but he closes the door on me as my palms press against the chilled glass.

I can’t hear what’s being said, there’s so many voices speaking at the same time; the driver’s barking at someone on the phone, mentioning Rex’s name. The trunk door swings upwards, and two members of Ultio dressed like the servers lay something long covered in a blanket inside.

My hands fist the leather seats as I stare wide eyed at the body.

“Christ, Jenna.” My voice breaks; the constant pain in my chest that feels permanent intensifies looking at her. Her eyes are smudged black with evidence of tears dragging whatever makeup they smeared her with, hiding that dullness that screamed from her when she was on stage.

I ache to touch her, to make sure this is real, that she isn’t dead. She doesn’t budge when I skim my knuckles down her cheek, feeling the wetness still coating her skin.

She’s real, and the hollow rises and falls of her chest show she’s breathing.

The sob rips from the containment of my chest, and I almost dive in the trunk to comfort her. To hold my best friend that I thought I’d lost forever.

My relief from a six-year grief is short lived; one of Saint’s men dives in the trunk beside her as he slams the door shut, throwing himself over her body, and that’s when the veil around me is lifted.

Bullets crack through the air from further up. Saint whips open the door, someone firing back as a bullet lodges itself in the car’s reinforced metal frame, the piercing of metal sounding like hailstones, the back window shattering as I duck behind the seat with a scream.

Saint roars, “Ross, get in the car!” The front passenger door swings open as one of the men gets in, firing over the roof of the car.

I scream Saint’s name, ducking again when another bullet whips just mere inches from my head. Ross has moved in front of Saint, acting like a shield as the both of them shoot towards the Omnia security that seems to be building, the number of cracks breaking the air evident in their numbers.

Hot liquid hits my face, and a blood-curdling scream rips from my throat watching Saint slam against the interior of the door. Ross’s body collapses backwards into him, catching under his arms as he slowly falls to the ground.

“Boss!” the driver yells, starting up the car as the engine roars to life.

Saint doesn’t move, despite him standing like a wide-open target as he holds a no-longer-alive Ross to his chest, face splattered with blood, his once crisp white shirt stained with death. Saint’s eyes are bulging, unseeing, and vicious.

My cries of his name go unnoticed, and I watch as his head slowly rises, his expression dipped in an unrelenting fury.

“Saint, please! Please get in the car. Please, I’m scared.” When the terror in my voice hitches, he snaps out of the shock, letting Ross’s body guide its dead weight to the gravel.

He jolts in beside me, and the minute the door closes, the force of the speed we hit sends me backwards. Our eyes collide, his hands searching all over me as he notices the blood. “Fuck, Indie. Are you hurt?”

I shake my head, wiping a hand along my face and neck, glancing down at my palm. The colour of my skin is no longer visible as it smears with the scarlet liquid, my fist closing over.

The car jitters violently as we follow a long dirt road winding through the treeline of the manor’s grounds, the opposite direction in which we arrived.

“Hold on,” the driver groans up front, the revving of the engine blaring as he drops gears, foot slamming the gas as a gate in the distance grows larger.

Saint grips the back of my head, forcing me to fold into his lap as he covers my body. The car smashes through the metal, the force so intense the back wheels bounce before slamming off the ground again, both Saint and I hurling forward into the back of the front seat.

“Jenna!” I pull out of Saint’s grip, turning into the trunk. But one of his men has her protected, body pressed to the side of her as he lays adjacent to her, gun raised as he peers out the cracked back window.

Everything eventually hums into a deathly silence, all bar the harsh breaths of lungs working through the chaos that erupted mere minutes ago, the tyres grinding through the woodland until we peer out into a dead-end road.

“Everyone alright?” the driver calls, all of us voicing that we made it.

Except for Ross.

I glance over at Saint. His jaw is clenched tight, a gruelling form set in the lines of his face. The sound of a vehicle door slamming jars me from my stare, the van we arrived in coming into view as Dawson and Rex hastily make their way over to us.

“Fucking hell. Get in the van,” Dawson barks as we each peel from our seats to step outside.

Saint holds his hand out for me, and this time I take it without hesitation. I’m not sure if he’s had to face a loss in his team before, but by the way his murderous expression is cemented in place, it’s either his first, or he’s unable to deal when someone falls for him.

“Where’s Ross?” Dawson asks, and I glance over at Rex, whose rigid body stands in the middle of the road, watching the guys pull an unconscious Jenna from the trunk.

Saint’s reply is toneless. “Dead.”

Dawson’s shoulders slump as he brushes a hand through his hair. “Shit.”

The guards who rescued Jenna carry her body over to the van, Rex taking a step back near the doors; the colour in his face vanishes the moment his eyes lock on to hers, fists tightening at the sides as she’s carried into the back.

When they place her inside, one of the guys returns with a canister, emptying it into the interior of the car we fled in, the strong, potent smell of gasoline assaulting my nostrils as its contents is emptied, the brown liquid glistening as it mixes in with the punctures of metal over the roof.

“Come on, Indie,” Dawson says, his hand hovering over my back as he leads me towards the van.

When I get inside, I kneel beside Jenna, her loose hand showing from within the blanket, and I take it, my breath catching when I feel the life inside it, the blood pulsing through her veins, her touch warm.

It’s a stark contrast to how I imagined her lifeless body the last time I witnessed her lying in the same position.

A whoomph sounds behind me, and I angle my head over my shoulder, watching Saint stand within the flames that engulf the getaway car, rising upwards as the flames lick the overgrown trees, the heat warming the chill in my bones.

Oranges and reds dance violently against his blackened silhouette as he watches.

He eventually turns, slowly walking towards me, the image conveying the devil really has risen from hell, and he’s here to see the empire that threatens him fall.