They feared my father, but they should fear me more. Roxanne is mine, she owns us, and they took the one thing we will do anything to protect. They kicked the goddamn vipers’ nest, so now they get the fangs. This city will run with blood before tonight, and when I find them, I will make them scream for every finger they ever put on her.
I dial a number for their restaurant, knowing they will get it. They will understand. “You took something of mine, something precious.” There is no use denying it, they already know what they have, it’s the only thing keeping her alive right now. “I’m going to let the streets run red with your people’s blood until I get her back, and then? I’m going to kill you all. Starting with your families, your wives, your sons and daughters, even your parents. Only then, when everything is burning and destroyed around you, will I kill you. You fucked with the wrong family.” After I leave the message I hang up.
One, two, three, four, five.
I repeat it again and again, trying to stay calm, but I can’t. It doesn’t work. Fuck the calm. All I can see is Roxy, the smile on her face before it fades to that blank, scared look she had on the highway.
The city is about to go to war.
And before the sun rises tomorrow, only one family will be left.
Ours.
We pull up outside Diamonds, and I wait as they get Kenzo. He slips into the car next to me, frowning. “What’s wrong?” he asks straightaway, pulling out his phone before I stop him.
“She’s gone.” My voice is empty, not reflecting the inferno burning inside me. How can I sound that calm when I’m this fucking angry…and scared? Scared I will lose her. Scared that the best thing that has ever happened to me will be gone before I can even tell her. Scared to lose my love.
“What?” he questions, scowling and looking at me over.
“Roxxane, they took her,” I rasp.
He freezes, his head jerking down to look at his phone as he scrolls through the messages. “What?” he gasps. “No.” He shakes his head as we pull away from the curb.
“Yes, they did.”
He turns to me then, his eyes outraged, his lips curled into a snarl. “How can you be so fucking calm?” he screams, and then throws himself at me. He always did wear his emotions on his sleeve. I capture his head in my hands, pressing my forehead to his as he struggles and swears.
“Brother, look at me,” I whisper, but he’s still fighting, so I grip him harder. “Look at me!” I command, my hands shaking against his skin. He stops fighting then, staring at me. His eyes are lost, scared, like mine. “We will get her back, I promise you that,” I whisper. “I’m not calm, I’m anything but, yet I have to hold it together. For you, for her. Now more than ever, she needs us, and we need to handle this, we need to find them. Breaking down will not help, not now. We need to use every goddamn ounce of our power and intellect.”
“You promise?” he begs, searching my eyes like he used to when I was a child and he was scared, when I swore to protect him. I do the same now, protect him, it’s my job. Because, honestly, I don’t know if we will get to her in time, and that makes me feel so sick, I want to throw up everywhere, knowing what they will do to her.
Every minute counts, but if he needs my lies to function, then he can have them.
“I promise, we will get her back, and then we’ll kill every last one of them,” I vow.
His eyes shutter for a moment, those long lashes concealing him from me as a shaky breath leaves his lips. When they open again, they are hard, cold, like mine. It saddens me, but I understand. “I can’t lose her,” he admits, his voice making my heart ache. I wish I could shield him from this. I wish I could keep this from him like everything else.
“I know. We won’t. I need you, she needs you,” I tell him, and he nods.
“We kill them all,” he agrees, deadly calm. He’s feeling the type of tranquillity where you feel too much and you become numb. He’s nothing more than the Viper now.
A cold-blooded snake striking out.
In those eyes, I see myself and I see our future, because if we lose her—the thought even hurts—there will be no coming back. We will cease to exist as we do now. All laugher and love will be gone until nothing, nothing is left but our venom.
He moves away, and I let him, hiding my shaking hands from him. He needs my strength, not my weakness. Because that’s what she is, our weakness, but they don’t know she is also our heart, our strength, our reason we fight now.
“What’s our first move?” he asks, his voice dead.
I stare out of the window, a cruel smile curling my lips. “We hunt them across the city, starting at the bottom. Get your gun, it’s about to get bloody.”
Chapter Forty-Five
DIESEL
“You need to calm down, you have already killed four people,” Garrett snaps, but despite his words, his hands are clenched and his body is vibrating with lethal intent. I’m not the only one struggling with our girl going missing.
My little bird.
Mine.
And they took her.
I will paint this town red. I will kill everyone in it and wear their skin to find her. She’s mine!
“They had it coming.” I shrug, wiping the blood from my hands.
“That last guy?” he scoffs, and I look over at him with a smile which he winces at. “D…” He sighs. “He only asked what he could do to help.”
“I didn’t like his attitude.” I sniff, and I feel him staring at me.
“We’ll get her back, D, but ya gotta hold on, okay?”
“We will get her back.” I nod calmly and then look at him again, grinning. “I’m going to rip their hearts from their chests and give them to her.”
“That’s…the spirit.” He sniggers. “Fucking idiots don’t know what they have unleashed.”
“You are one to talk.” I grin wider. “Why did you beat the shit out of the security guard at the apartment?”
He scowls then. “He let them go. Idiot.”
“He’s in ICU,” I point out cheerfully, but inside, a fire is burning. Like always, it flays me from the inside, but these flames are growing higher than before without my little bird to help control them. They scream for blood, for death, and I’m twitchier than normal. I don’t know what is right and wrong…even for me.
Garrett is right, I’m already carving a bloody path through the city, but I don’t care. When I was hunting my mum’s killer, the bodies piled up, and I never even loved her that much. Little Bird? She’s my world. My goddamn black beating heart is hers and she is mine.
Mine.
And they took her.
The carnage will be unimaginable. They will call me a serial killer. They will all fear me, but I don’t care, as long as she’s back in my arms before the night is through. When I saw the bodies of her guards in the car and her blood on the backseat…fuck.
Panic like I have never felt before poured through me. No one gets to hurt her, to hear her screams, but me.
She fought, of course she did. She’s a fighter, a Viper. She killed them and would have slain them all if she could have. But she couldn’t, so I will for her. I will place their bodies at her feet for hurting her. And after…
After she will have to survive me.
Because I am unleashed.
We meet Ryder and Kenzo at the warehouse. They have been busy as well. The scent of the ocean wafts to us, which is just behind the dock. The shops are not too far away, but inside the warehouse is an entirely different world. Our security is swarming the place, all of us are together.
All of us are furious.
All of us are seeking blood.
On their knees before my brothers are eight men, who no doubt work for the Triad. I don’t ask how they found them so quickly, I don’t care. I can already feel their screams, their bones breaking in my hands. I ache for their pain, to sate the monster inside me until I get my hands on the bastards who took her. But Ryder stops me as he steps forward and eyes them with disgust.
“The Triad took something of ours, and we won’t stop until we get it back. Anyone with any information is to come forward now. You all know something, you work for them.” He waits, and the men all shift nervously, not wanting to betray their employers. Ryder loses his patience.
Usually, he would let Garrett or me do the dirty work, not that he’s afraid of blood, but it paints him as the cautious leader. But now? He pulls his gun and suddenly fires, shooting the man at the very left in the head without even blinking, his face cold. The men on their knees shy away, some screaming, some crying. “I will kill you one by one until I get what I want to know, and if none of you know it? I will start on another lot, I don’t need you alive. I will kill all of you. So I will ask again, any information?”
“Oh God,” one of them sobs, and Ryder shoots him next.
Six left.
I prowl around them, taunting them, kicking them, needing to feel their pain, needing to make them hurt.
Crouching behind one, I stroke his sweaty hair. “I would tell him. I might be crazy, but he’s worse,” I murmur to him, as I look up at Ryder and Kenzo. Ordinarily, Kenzo would be smiling, playing the good guy and hiding the Viper underneath.
He might be soft and romantic for Roxy, but only for her.