“Rook!” I roared, turning my head towards the ramp which led up to her and hearing nothing at all in reply aside from new gunshots as more men moved to block my path to her.
But that wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t be kept from the owner of my soul and she wouldn’t be left without me when she so clearly needed my help.
“We’ll get to her,” Mateo snarled, reloading his gun as we were forced to take cover. “She’ll be okay, gigante.”
My lips curled back on a feral snarl as I held onto his words and turned my attention towards the men who were shooting at us, keeping us from the woman I loved.
I nodded once then let myself go, unleashing the worst of me and thinking of nothing other than her. I lurched out from behind the car and took off running straight towards those foolish enough to try and place a barrier between us and our woman.
I would rip and tear and destroy my way to her if that was what it took to get there. Nothing would stop me from doing so. Not even death itself. I was coming for my sweet obsession and all she had to do was hold on until I made it.
A nastasia had one of her two men holding me in place with my arms behind my back as she threw punches at me, her mafia blood on show as she let the darkness in her come out to play. Brutus had scrambled under the Land Rover, a trail of blood marking the route he’d taken and my heart squeezed in pain for my dog, and for my Niall who’d been stolen away from me in a rain of violence. My spider knife was now in Anastasia’s pocket, taken just like she’d taken everything else.
I cursed Anastasia with every strike she landed on me, her next punch splitting my lip open and her perfectly styled hair starting to poke out in places and stick to her sweaty face.
“You flouncy-titted-whore!” I shrieked and her fist slammed into my mouth again, shutting me up and making me taste blood instead.
“You ruined everything, you little tramp,” she spat at me. “Niall O’Brien was the expansion of my empire. He was mine.” She struck me with the palm of her hand, sending my head wheeling sideways and the cracks in my mind grew bigger, deeper. The fractures in my sanity were sinkholes now, sucking everything in around them as the walls caved in and left chasms in the essence of who I was. Without Hellfire, I’d die, I’d known that all along, just as I’d die without the others. But when I followed him to the Devil’s door, I’d be dragging three Russian souls down with me.
Anastasia got up close to me, her nails tearing into my chin as she forced me to look at her sneering face.
“You’re not even that pretty,” she hissed, all snake as she filled up with so much venom it made everything about her cold and bitter. “I’m sick of looking at you. Get her on her knees, Grigory.”
The man holding me kicked out the backs of my legs and I hit the ground between him and Anastasia, the shadow of Anatoly drawing closer behind her, his head still bowed since she’d bitch slapped him for killing Niall.
“Give me my gun, Anatoly,” Anastasia demanded, holding her hand out for it and he shifted foot to foot, not handing her anything. “Now, Anatoly,” she barked.
He cleared his throat. “Um, your revolver, ma’am?” he asked in a Russian accent.
“Yes, my fucking revolver. The one with my family name engraved on its side, the one my grandfather was gifted from his grandfather, for generation after generation. The one I kill all my enemies with,” she hissed, whipping around to look at him, her hand still extended in a demand.
Anatoly twiddled his thumbs together before adjusting the big gun hanging from his shoulder. “I forgot to bring it, ma’am. But you can have your pistol back instead?” he suggested sheepishly, the huge man scuffing one foot against the ground as he gave her an apologetic look.
“You idiot, Anatoly,” she snapped, backhanding him and he dropped his head in shame.
I breathed heavily, barely able to focus on them as my mind went to a place made of nightmares and terror. A clown was there, laughing and laughing as blood ran down from his eyes and he pointed a knife at me. “Stupid little Brooklyn. All alone again. Just like the world intended. Ha ha ha!”
He closed in on me, reaching into my chest and snatching Glenda from within my heart, flapping her little duck wings frantically as he brought the knife to her throat and beheaded her in front of my eyes. The pain of it all weighed down on me so heavily that I couldn’t draw in air.
A horrible, eerie tune was playing off key in my ears and a carnival of destruction swirled around me, lights flashing, and colours that clashed and glared blinded me. I was snapping thread by thread, falling deeper into a brand of insanity even I’d never tasted before. It was full of all the bad emotions from shock, to horror, and fear, and worst of all, loneliness. Because suddenly all the lights and music stopped, the clown ceased to laugh and the world went quiet and oh so dark. I was in a chamber of endless silence and though it felt like I was screaming loud enough to rip my throat raw, no sound filled the space. I was so dreadfully alone that even my voice had abandoned me.
Then the dark lifted and I was looking up at my enemy, a blonde woman whose name I’d forgotten. All I knew was that she had stolen something so terribly important to me and now Death was sliding an hourglass onto her head and tipping it upside down, the grains of sand trailing down from top to bottom, marking out how long she had left in this world. The rest was up to me.
I threw my head backward with all my might, the back of my skull slamming into Grigory’s balls and making him shriek like a school girl, as he stumbled aside.
I was on my feet in the next heartbeat, sprinting to Niall’s bag of weapons beside the wall he’d fallen from and dropping to my knees as I unzipped it.
“Get hold of her!” Anastasia shouted just as my hand closed around a grenade. I pulled the pin without a flicker of fear inside me. I’d take us all out in one bloody hit and hunt down my Hellfire in the afterlife.
I threw the grenade at my enemies and Anatoly screamed, running for cover before a bang rang out. I leaned into it, embracing my end, my arms stretching wide as I waited to feel Death’s bony hand slide around mine. But instead of that, pink smoke burst from the grenade, swirling up and blinding us all in seconds.
Smoke bomb. Shitballs.
Well then, that just gives me more time to play psycho.
I grabbed the bag, darting for cover between the front of the Land Rover and the wall, taking an Uzi into my grip, stuffing a knife into my waistband and a couple of grenades into my pocket before hurling the bag over the wall to stop them from using anything within it against me.
I kicked my shoes off and climbed up onto the hood of the vehicle then scrambled higher still, as silent as a cat as I dropped down onto the roof. I flattened myself to the surface, waiting for the smoke to clear, fighting back a cough and holding it in my lungs like a beetle in a bug trap.
“Where the fuck is she? Get hold of her!” Anastasia barked somewhere to my right and I swung my Uzi that way, squeezing the trigger with a savage snarl twisting my lips.
Gunfire sprayed out from my Uzi and Anastasia screamed in alarm before a heavy thud sounded.
“Fuck – Grigory!” Anastasia gasped and the smoke cleared enough for me to spot his huge body on the ground, his chest bloody and his eyes gazing lifelessly up to the roof.
I aimed my gun at Anastasia’s voice once more, firing blindly towards her, but the sound of my bullets hitting the far wall came in response. Bullets were far too easy a death for her anyway. I wanted to feel her heart stop when my knife pierced it. I wanted her to know that Niall’s wife had beaten her in every way that counted.
“Shoot her, Anatoly,” Anastasia commanded and gunfire immediately sprayed the Land Rover.