I have to get up. Pain chews up my side like a rabid animal, but I force myself up, groaning, and twist to peel back the rip in my blood-matted shirt. Just a flesh wound, it looks like. More blood than there should be, making it look worse than it is.
Probably nicked a minor artery. Fuck. It hurts, but it won’t keep me down.
Another grunt escapes as I push myself to my feet. James glances over his shoulder. “Boss, stay down.”
Then he's bolting. He breaks off as the door slams open and a bruiser in a Crown Security jacket comes barging in, firing wildly.
I fling myself instinctively to the ground, going for my own gun, only to find it gone. James and Riker drop to guard position – and in two sharp shots he’s down. I hear the gunfire outside dying down, and I only hope that means my team has the upper hand. I selected them all for their training and ability to stay cool in a crisis. If Skylar and her team have got the others pinned down from behind, we're good.
Dallas' men are sloppy.
It’s only in the quiet that I realize I instinctively wrapped myself around Kenna’s limp body, ignoring the pain to make a shield out of myself. Now I force myself to uncurl, brushing her hair back and kissing her brow. “Hang in there, Reb.”
Even I don’t know if it’s a reassurance, or a plea.
Then, standing, I pull her into my arms. I don’t care how much I hurt. I can’t let her go. I lock eyes with James and Riker.
“Followed protocol?”
“Cops are already en route after the Milah call. We should have containment soon.”
“Dallas?”
“Ran the second we showed up,” James says with a sneer.
Fucking coward. Of course he did. It doesn’t matter.
He’ll get his.
Kenna first.
Riker starts toward me. “Hey – you’re hurt. Let me take her –”
“No.” I clutch Kenna closer against my chest, even though breathing is hard and my right eye is twitching from the pain. I grit my teeth. “Just lead the way. Paramedics still here?”
“I don’t know. People scattered pretty fast with the gunfire, but they’ve gotta be close.”
“Then let’s move. She doesn’t have much time.”
Both Riker and James look at the unconscious woman in my arms with a touch of dread, before nodding and leaving the room ahead of me.
We slip out into the now quiet hallways. Bodies are everywhere. Most of them in Crown jackets. I can’t stand to see if any of the faces are familiar, and I don’t want to think about how to explain this to the police. There are cameras that will tell the story better than I could.
All I really care about is Kenna. We step over bodies, James and Riker forming a protective frontal phalanx, peering around every corner. I hover a safe distance behind. If anything happens, I need to be able to drop and guard Kenna –
Something snaps around my throat, cutting off my air, cutting off my voice, forcing me to immediate silence as I’m dragged backwards.
Blood loss makes me weak, off-balance, leaving me twisting and struggling as I’m garroted into the dark, pulled into the off-stage shadows in the wings, grappling to keep Kenna close and not drop her.
Her legs fall to the floor, her body clutched to me as I scrabble at the slick thing around my throat with my other hand, straining to find my voice, to call James and Riker back, but I barely manage a wheeze while my fingers slip off the electrical cable cutting into my windpipe and making my vision burst into oxygen-deprived stars.
“Did you think I would let you fuck this up for me so easily?” Dallas hisses in my ear.
Bitter, black rage explodes inside my chest, flooding my veins until I can’t feel the pain.
I can’t feel anything but the pure destructive power flooding through me, whispering that I can’t die here. Not like this.
Not silent in the smothering dark, while Kenna slips away in my arms because I couldn’t save her.
Instinct takes over.
I whisper a soundless apology as I let her go, sending her slipping gently to the floor.
Then I smash my head back, ramming straight into Dallas' face. There’s a deafening crack.
The cable in my throat loosens. I suck in a quick gasp of air, instantly clearing my head, and snap my elbow back before he can recover, jamming it into his ribs.
The moment his grip eases, I snare the cable, yank it away from my neck, duck out from under it, and twist to throw myself against him.
Dallas doesn’t have a chance to struggle before I’ve got him against the wall, pinning him with my body, my forearm rammed against his throat.
We’re eye to eye, almost nose to nose, two wild animals locked in a struggle for dominance, teeth bared.
He’s losing when I crush down on his windpipe with all the force of the built-up anger inside me, the years of rage and betrayal, the fresh sharp cut of fury that he dared lay a hand on my Reb, my woman, my life.
His eyes roll with fear, whites showing all around. He gasps, struggling like a beached fish.
“How does it feel?” I hiss, pressing down harder, just to see him squirm. “Not as much fun when it’s your turn, is it?”
“L-Landon, don’t,” he pleads, words coming out in choked guttural gasps. “You h-have to u-understand –”
“Understand what, shitface?” I barely growl it through my clenched teeth, adrenaline pumping through me until I feel strong enough to snap his neck in one blow...and I want to.
Murder is hot and dark and in control of me, a drug as heady as lust. “You tried to kill me, asshole. Tried to kill Kenna. You even tried to kill Milah. For what? Just to get ahead? Is money that important to you?”
“You were in the way!” he flares, voice finding strength. “You were always in the fucking way. You and your idiot father. You could never just let things be easy. Always had to fuck everything up, too stupid to know what was for your own good and ours, and –”
Enough.
I cut him off, clamping my free hand against his jaw, slamming his head back against the wall. There’s something deadly quiet in me, trembling and ready to snap. “What about my old man? Try the fuck again.”
Dallas’ eyes glitter. He lets out a wild, manic laugh, mocking. “You’ve been looking for his killer for so long. Chasing every trail I sent you down like the good puppy you are.”
A roar bursts out of me. White-hot madness takes over, and I crash my fist across his face.
Once. Twice. Three vicious times.
Blood bursts out of his mouth. “What did you do?” I snarl the question again, barely even sounding human.
That fear is back in his eyes, and I love it. That sick black part of me loves it, loves seeing him cower and squirm. He shrinks against the wall, dangling from my grip. “We...we didn’t have a choice,” he whimpers. “Your father was going to ruin Crown Security refusing to play the game. You don’t survive in this business without paying the big players, and he was...he was going to get us all killed! We did it to protect you and your mother from his damned stupidity, too!”
“You did it to protect yourselves,” I snarl. “You did it to have it easy and line your pockets. You’re disgusting. You and Reg. You sat back and let Reg murder my father, and strung me along all these years.”
There’s a moment. Cunning and dark, something flashing across Dallas’ face that tells me exactly how crazy he is, this two-faced demon born in blood, thriving on others’ misery.
“Oh, no, Landon,” he sneers, a wide, leering grin turning his face into a horrible mask. “You don’t understand. I pulled the trigger myself, darling boy. I killed Micah Strauss.”
Everything inside me breaks.
If he’d thought that revelation would make me weak enough to let him go, he misjudged. Fatally.
All it does is drive me into a pure berserker state.
Everything smells like blood.
Everything turns the color of death.
I’m dark inside, a shadow full of hate, this driving purpose inside me finally having a target. And that target flops limply from my grasp as I grip him by the front of his suit and whirl him around to smash his flesh and bones against the wall with all my strength, bouncing his head off the hard surface, and then driving him down to the ground, following him with the full force of my killing need.