The Vanity of Roses

by Lily White

  Standing down took effort, but with an audience just outside the box who could easily see what went on, I didn’t have the luxury of ripping his fucking heart from his chest and feeding it to him.

  By the time I backed off, keeping hold of Lisbeth to drag her as far away from Moritze as possible, the gates into the ring were sliding open, both Jacob and his opponent slipping out from the shadows to stand before the guard who read one of them their last rites.

  “Do you both understand that this fight is to the death? One winner. One loser. Once you step inside and the gates close, there is no turning back.”

  Lisbeth was a quiet presence beside me as the two men agreed to the terms, her body going still when the guard stepped aside to let them into the ring.

  I watched Jacob with laser focus, the audience falling silent as the fighters turned to each other to begin a dance that would end in blood.

  When the first punch was thrown by Jacob’s opponent, Jacob dodged with such fluid movement that I released the breath I’d been holding, choosing instead to have faith in the only person I knew could match me in the ring.

  To say this particular fight was brutal was an understatement, the minutes passing with a molasses crawl as Jacob dodged one blow after another, his shoulder and arm moving with such vicious strength that you could feel the crunch of bone each time he connected.

  Already, blood had sprayed to the dirt beneath them, his opponent not yet staggering despite the hits he’d taken to his chest and face.

  The crowd roared around us, the chorus of shouts and jeers like white noise against the pounding beat of my heart.

  The fighters circled again, sweat dripping off them, their bodies moving with such speed that it was difficult to keep up.

  When Jacob took a hit to the abdomen, my body tensed, teeth grinding, my eyes narrowing on the way he limped back on an ankle he swore had healed.

  The asshole fighting him didn’t miss the weakness.

  Franklin and I turned to look at each other. Benny swore under his breath. My gaze returned to the ring to watch Jacob lunge forward in a move Mortize’s man didn’t expect.

  He didn’t go down, though. Their height and weight damn near equal.

  Breaking apart, they circled again, and when Jacob struck out with a punch that would have broken the other man’s jaw had it connected, the bastard moved left and kicked out at Jacob’s weak ankle in a move that Jacob should have anticipated.

  He was knocked off balance, his ankle giving out. And when his opponent kicked again, he aimed for the same leg, the force so hard that Jacob’s knee hyperextended, bent backwards in a way that was unnatural.

  My heart stopped in that moment, both Benny and Franklin crowding forward as all three of us watched in disbelief.

  As soon as Jacob fell, I felt three men surround me and knew they were keeping me in place, preventing me from ignoring all the fucking rules to rush down there to pull him out.

  “Oh my God,” Lisbeth turned into me, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. I didn’t trust myself to comfort her with hands that could crush her if I lost control.

  My heart sank into my stomach, pulse so hard all I heard was the thundering rush of blood.

  The crowd around us lifted their hands as Jacob’s opponent circled him.

  Franklin, Benny and Connor crushed against me tighter knowing I was one second from exploding in a wash of violence that would bring this stadium to the ground.

  Jacob’s eyes opened, his unfocused gaze seeking me out, the silent goodbye stilling me in place as the crowd turned down their thumbs.

  I went cold in that moment, fucking helpless, time slowing to a crawl as I watched the only brother I’d ever known accept defeat, our eyes locked as his opponent reached down to end the fight.

  My heart thumped painfully in my chest, breath held, every muscle a vice across my bones as Jacob lay still.

  Mortize’s man went to his knees to lock Jacob’s head in a fatal hold, the crowd roared louder, Lisbeth cried harder, my fingertips dug into the cement railing beneath them just as Jacob reached up at the last second to cup his hands over his opponent’s head and pull him forward.

  The move was so sudden and unexpected that it took even me by surprise, a loud snap echoing out against the shocked hush of the audience just before a new wave of roars filled the air.

  I released the breath I’d held when Moritze’s man collapsed to the ground, his life snuffed out in the blink of an eye as time snapped back, my heart lurching painfully hard.

  Jacob wouldn’t be walking out like he promised, but he wasn’t dead.

  Cupping my hand against the back of Lisbeth’s head, I said, “He won.”

  She looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks as Jacob fell back against the ground.

  “Stay with Benny and Connor,” I told her, Franklin and I both rushing out to race to the gates to assess the damage, my trust in the two men to watch over her unquestioned.

  I didn’t wait for the gates to fully open before slipping through and running toward the asshole now lying with his eyes clenched shut, his leg fucking mangled.

  “How bad is it?” He asked, voice strained, barely audible beneath the roaring crowd.

  My hands ran over the knee knowing it could be repaired but would never support him in a fight again.

  “Bad,” I answered, refusing to sugarcoat the truth.

  “That clears it up. Thanks,” he grit out.

  My head fell forward, muscles unlocking as a fresh wave of anger surged through me.

  “When we get you out of here, you should know I’m going to fucking kill you myself.”

  He grinned despite the pain. “Good luck with that.”

  Franklin knelt down on Jacob’s other side, medics running in behind us. But before they were able to shove us aside to render care, the lights above our heads went out, the arena falling into absolute darkness, four muffled sounds drawing my eye up to the viewing box to see the flash of gunshots.

  I was running before anybody else knew what was going on, my body knocking disoriented people to the side, my steps heavy as I climbed a set of stairs and tripped over a heavy body.

  When the emergency lights powered on, I saw who I’d tripped over.

  Both Benny and Connor were dead, shot in the chests and heads.

  Moritze was gone.

  And Lisbeth was nowhere to be found.

  I was nothing but violence in that moment.

  The shadow of death.

  My eyes scanning the arena in search of a man that I should have killed the moment I’d first learned he was a threat.

  Lisbeth

  The first sensation I felt when my mind dragged from an unconscious fog was a pounding against my skull that was agonizing.

  Confusion held me like a desperate lover, my eyes refusing to open.

  I didn’t know what I was leaning against, but I could feel the cold chill of cement beneath my fingers and legs, could hear a steady dripping in the distance that wasn’t familiar.

  Struggling against the pain coursing through me, my mind raced, the confusion ebbing back as memory rushed forward.

  My eyes were locked on Callan and Jacob down in the pit, the arena filled with the chorus of the audience’s voices, my heart hammering as tears slipped down my cheeks, both fear and relief holding me hostage.

  But in the moment I’d allowed myself to believe that everyone I cared for was safe, I’d missed the danger that crept up behind me, didn’t expect the attack until I heard the muffled shots of a gun and felt something hit the back of my head.

  Struggling again, I forced my eyes to crack open, every beat of my heart a hammer against my skull. Breath shuddered out of me, the room spinning one way and then another, my stomach threatening to spill out everything churning inside it as I fought to focus on my surroundings.

  Nothing was recognizable. Not the stretch of cement floors, the single set of metal stairs leading up to a heavy door. Not the industrial beams above my h
ead, or the dirty windows that lined the tops of four walls of a room that looked like a warehouse.

  Hope bloomed in my chest that I was still in the outer shell of the arena, but as the minutes ticked past without a sound, that hoped died a slow death.

  Outside the windows, the sky was black, and the only light I could see by was the subtle glow of moonlight spilling inside.

  I tried to push away from the wall, but fell back when pain crashed over me, the pounding in my head so violent that bile shot up my throat.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks, my teeth gritting as I shoved forward again. Dizzy, my movement was uncoordinated, my body falling back as shaky breath poured from my lungs.

  The door above the stairs popped open, and my eyes lifted to see a shadow moving down, fear trapping me in place from my inability to lift so much as hand to defend myself.

  Tracking the shadow as it ran down the stairs and approached me, I tensed in place, my eyes refusing to focus, my heart a drum beating in my throat.

  “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Confused at the soft lilt of a female voice, I almost laughed at the ridiculous statement. I thought the pain had driven me mad, the fear scrambling my thoughts until I felt the wrong emotions, that I was imagining the person beside me rather than her actually being there.

  Forcing my lips apart, I sucked in a breath against the pain, my throat dry and sticky, my voice so gritty it didn’t sound like mine.

  “I don’t even know where here is.”

  A warm hand touched my face, crept back to examine my skull. When I cried out in pain and jerked from the soft touch, all I heard was her shifting her position beside me, the room too dark to see her face.

  “Here is the trap that’s being set for Callan,” she explained, “and I have no way of warning him. Not if I hope to get you out as well.”

  I forced myself to keep breathing, to calm my thoughts as if that would make the beat of my heart less painful.

  Her hand moved away from my hair.

  “You’re bleeding, but I don’t think your skull is fractured. Can you move at all?”

  The regret was instant when I tried to shake my head.

  “No.” I glanced up at her. “Who are you?”

  “A friend.”

  Closing my eyes, I had no choice but to believe her. For a moment, I let my thoughts drift, realization slamming into me that we’d all been distracted by one threat, while failing to recognize another.

  “Moritze,” I guessed, not sure the woman would follow the direction of my disjointed thoughts.

  “Who else?” she bit out, disgust obvious in her voice.

  “The fucking lowlife. He’s worse than his father. We should have hunted him down a long time ago.”

  “We didn’t think he’d do this.”

  Unsure why I was trying to explain myself, I clenched my fists, focused on the way my fingernails dug into my palm in an effort to ignore the pounding in my head.

  “It’s my fault,” she answered. “I somehow missed what he was planning. Callan and Franklin were caught off guard because of me.”

  As time crept forward, my thoughts grew clearer. Opening my eyes, I forced them to focus, attempted to swallow against what felt like burning coal in my throat.

  A small vein of recognition pulsed through me when I could finally see the woman’s face.

  She was older than me, near Gretchen’s age, but instead of the severe bun Gretchen always chose to wear, this woman had dark hair shot with silver that hung down over her shoulders. Her eyes met mine, but shadow prevented me from seeing the color.

  “I think I know you,” I whispered, my voice like sandpaper against my throat.

  Her mouth pulled into a quick smile, there and then gone again.

  “Maybe,” she whispered cryptically, “but we don’t have time for introductions. I need to get you out of here, hopefully in time to stop Callan.”

  Healthy fear doused my body. “You said this was a trap.”

  She nodded, her hand closing over my wrist. “One against twenty isn’t the best of odds. We have to move quickly.”

  I shook my head, my teeth clenching against the pain of it. “He wouldn’t come here alone. He’s not stupid.”

  “No, but he is a loaded cannon, and you’re the only thing that can set him off. He doesn’t think rationally when it comes to you. He never has.”

  She grew quiet for a second, her voice apologetic when she said, “Forgive me for this, but we don’t have time to chat.”

  Pushing to her feet, she tugged me to mine, her arm wrapping around my waist as I cried out at the pain of the sudden movement, my body unbalanced on my feet while she held me up.

  I almost fell back again, but the snap of her voice focused me. “If we don’t start moving, Callan will die. I know it hurts, but deal with it.”

  Forcing one foot in front of the other, I used the woman for support as we moved through the deep shadow of the room, the pain staggering, but I refused to fall victim to it.

  It took effort to climb the stairs, neither of us speaking as she pulled open the door to peek out. Satisfied that we could keep going, she wrapped my arm over her shoulders and helped guide me through the door and down a long hall.

  In the distance, I could hear low voices, but I couldn’t make out what they said.

  The woman turned to me, held a finger against her lips to remind me to be quiet. I nodded but winced against pain that felt like a simultaneous punch to the head and stomach.

  Before every corner, she would peek out, ensuring that the hallways were empty before forcing me forward.

  Voices surrounded us, none of them close enough to worry we’d be caught, but I knew the slightest sound would echo inside this place, alerting them to our presence.

  The halls reminded me of my mother’s rose maze, a series of different paths and directions that were disorienting. If not for the woman guiding me, there would have been no way for me to find an exit.

  Eventually we found a steel door that reflected the red light above it. I knew it was heavy, too heavy to be used for the interior. The woman’s relieved sigh gave me hope that we had found the way outside in time to somehow stop Callan from coming.

  However, that hope died an instant death when she shoved against the bar latch to discover it was locked.

  Cursing beneath her breath, she turned suddenly, hearing something that I couldn’t.

  “We have to find somewhere to hide,” she whispered, her expression worried, her tone clipped as she spoke.

  “What’s happening?”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer, but she gave it to me while leading me down another hall.

  “I think we’re too late.”

  Terror shivered down my spine, my gut a heavy ball of churning dread.

  “Why do you think that?”

  She didn’t need to answer me, not that she would have had time to before the first of the male voices started shouting and the first deadly shots of gunfire burst in the rooms surrounding us.

  Callan

  Moritze was a bigger idiot than I’d given him credit for. He was ballsy, I’d give him that, but so fucking stupid it almost made me feel sorry for him.

  Almost.

  Nothing could exist within the hatred that burned through me in blue flames, hotter than hot, a threat so fucking lethal that it singed my skin with the lick of death, of destruction, of a rage so damn violent that it wouldn’t be a simple bullet to the brain or a snapped neck. I would make Moritze beg for me to end him while I tore his body to pieces.

  But that’s not what was so fucking ignorant about the plan he struck out with to take something that wasn’t his.

  No.

  What he didn’t consider while killing my men, in my arena, while I was distracted with Jacob, was that he committed his cowardly act in the presence of over a hundred witnesses, some of which were the heads of families as powerful and bloodthirsty as me.

  Within an hour of the d
iscovery of Connor and Benny’s bodies, I was offered over fifty men to hunt down and annihilate a threat to all of us.

  While it was true there is no honor among criminals and thieves, what did exist was a tacit and unbreakable agreement that when one shows a weakness that could threaten the lot, we were a pack of wolves that would gather together to destroy the sick and injured among us.

  Moritze’s stupidity was his weakness, and for that he couldn’t be allowed to continue breathing while carrying secrets that could bring the rest of the powerful families down.

  My mouth was a razor thin line as I watched the first wave of men rush Mortize’s compound, Franklin standing next to me suffering his own quiet rage as gunshots burst through the silence of the night, as the screams of those who were stupid enough to help Moritze was a stark melody of blood and death.

  With my arms crossed over my chest, I waited for a signal that it was time for me to go in.

  “Take me with you,” Franklin insisted for the hundredth time. “You can’t trust that son of a bitch not to have other traps in place.”

  I shook my head, my voice incredibly smooth for how insane I felt. “Moritze is my problem to deal with. We tried your way. It didn’t work. This ends tonight.”

  Glass shattered in the building in front of us, bullets fired and more deep screaming as men died.

  “I cared for Connor and Benny as much as you. I’m just as angry.”

  My lips pulled into a feral grin, anger a simmering boil within my veins. “Somehow I doubt that. You should have stayed at the mansion with Jacob. He’ll need someone to hold his hand while they set his leg.”

  Franklin cursed, the word a slice of sound against the small war that occurred in front of us.

  He didn’t have time to continue his argument. Within seconds, a light flashed three times from inside the compound, the signal that it was time for me to go in and find the son of a bitch who thought he could touch what was mine.

  I stepped forward, only for Franklin to grab my arm. Twisting around to look at him, I growled at the effort he made to stop me.