by Smoke , Lucy
48
Dean
The gun feels right in my hand, but at the same time, it doesn't feel like enough. I need something more. I need blood on my skin. The hail of violence in my ears. My comm unit beeps, and Troy's voice comes over the receiver.
"Mission started," he states. "Target acquisition engaged."
Braxton moves along my back as Abel strides ahead. Each of us is covered by bulletproof vests, and I am intricately aware that Avalon won't be. The blood in my veins fucking sizzles with barely suppressed fury. Like a demon, it slides through me, curling in the dark corners of my mind, moving closer and closer until all I see is fucking red, and the oncoming rampage is upon me.
Is this what Brax feels like? I wonder absently, my gaze sliding his way as I take in the expressionless mask he’s wearing. Always on the verge of losing control? Constantly teetering on the edge of a darkness that threatens to consume him? If so, I can’t fucking imagine how he keeps himself from crossing that line.
Two minutes ago, two of our scouts infiltrated the warehouse—one belonging to Eastpoint, which tells me that regardless of what my father said to me earlier—he’s more involved than he’s admitted thus far, but that's a matter for another time. My only focus right now is to get to Avalon and make sure she's safe. The sounds of gunfire grow closer and closer to the doors, and then they cut off. Two of the guards outside move towards it. Every step they take marks the countdown.
Three.
Two.
One.
The doors on the warehouse blow open, and the two guards are flown from the scene as the blast sends them sprawling out on the concrete pavement. The building shakes but remains standing for now.
"Go time," Abel says and takes off.
I follow him, quickly overtaking him as I storm through the rubble the door blast has left behind. Braxton hovers back to put a bullet in each of the guards as they groan and sit up. No one leaves here alive. No one but the girl we came for.
This warehouse is unlike the one we'd met the old men in before. It's much larger, the layout more complex. We'll have to search each and every fucking room until we find her. The second someone steps out that doesn't belong to our crew, I lift my gun, take aim, and pull the trigger. The asshole's head goes back the second my bullet makes contact. His body falls, and I'm already on the move, picking up the pace. Abel slams into a room ahead of me, calling out a frustrated, "Clear" before moving on to the next.
Halfway down another hallway, a body comes flying out of a doorway and straight into me. I react without thought. Shoving my fist into the guy’s face. He dives into me, slamming me back into the wall, making me lose my grip on my gun. It clatters to the ground, and I use my now freed hands to grip the back of his skull and bring my knee up into his face. He stumbles back and then growls, punching me in the face. His fist skims up the side of my cheek into my eye socket, and I roar with fury a split second before he delivers a second punch. It’s the last one he gets.
A gun goes off, and the unknown man slumps to the ground, dead. I turn and scowl as Abel glares at me. “We don’t have fucking time,” he snaps. “Pick up your gun.”
I spit out a wad of blood and reach beneath the fucker to grab my gun. He’s right. We don’t have time.
"Dean." With all of the gunfire, I almost don't hear Braxton's voice as he rounds my back and stops at my side.
I jerk towards him. "What?"
"We need to keep one of them alive to confirm who was behind this," he says, scanning our surroundings as we stop along the intersection of another hallway.
Abel turns and looks back with a scowl. "We know who the fuck is behind this," he snaps.
Oh, how I wish that were fucking true. We think we do, but we don't know why. I snarl low in my throat. "Fine," I growl, "but only one. And after he gives us what we want, he's a dead man too."
Abel stomps back towards us, fury on his face, but halfway back down the hall, he stops and jerks his arm up. "Down!" he yells just as a gunshot splits the air.
Braxton and I hit the ground, rubble digging into my sides as I swivel my head and look behind me just in time to see a man with a rifle go down. Only, Abel's bullet isn't the one to send the motherfucker flying to the floor. No, instead, it's a fucking avenging angel.
Avalon steps out from a doorway, her shoulder soaked red with blood and her hair hanging in wet strands around her face. She looks like complete and utter shit. Bruised as fuck. Swaying against the wall as she reaches out and puts a free hand to catch her fall as she sags against the side of the hallway. But she looks fucking perfect to me because she's alive.
"Avalon!" I'm on my feet and barreling down the corridor without a second thought. The sound of Braxton and Abel's curses trail after me, but I couldn't give a fuck less. She's here. She's alive. She's ... about to pass the fuck out.
The second my arms are around her, the gun in her grip drops to the floor, and she slumps against me. The heat of her breath against the dark fabric covering my arm, however, lets me know that she's still good. Especially when her lips part, and she mumbles something.
"Avalon?" I reach down and lift her up fully in my arms, letting my own gun fall to the floor as I do so. "What is it?"
"Stupid asshole," she grunts. "What the fuck took your asses so fucking long. I swear to God, you're never going to hear the end of this. I'm gonna string the three of you up by your motherfucking balls. I'm gonna—"
I bark out a laugh, shaking my head. It feels like all of the anger and violence I've been stewing in for the last several hours has been cut off. Oh, it’s all still there but shoved further back into the recesses of my mind to deal with the fact that Avalon is in my arms and threatening my balls. It's a shock of relief I've never felt before. I sink against the wall, just relishing the feeling of her in my arms, cursing up a storm.
Abel steps up and reaches down, retrieving the guns from the ground. "We've got to go," he says. "She needs a hospital." He nods down to the still bleeding wound in her shoulder.
I inhale sharply and heft her up further against my chest. "Save the theatrics for later, baby," I suggest. "Abel's right."
"Fuck you," she mutters.
I shoot a look at Braxton. "Go," I order. "Get what we need. Be out in fifteen. As soon as we're back to the vehicles, this place gets fucking leveled."
He nods and turns to start jogging back down the hallway—towards the sound of more gunfire. Once he's gone, I turn to Abel. "Lead us out," I say. "I don't think she can walk."
"I can walk just fine," Avalon barks, squirming in my arms. I tighten my hold.
"Well, you're not going to," I reply. "Stay where you are, or I'll tie you up and throw you over my shoulder."
Her squirming must upset one of her wounds because instead of replying, she merely grimaces and stiffens against my chest. Yeah. It's definitely time to get the fuck out.
Abel tucks Avalon's gun into his empty holster and then puts mine in his pack. "Let's go," he says.
The three of us take off, moving back through the maze of hallways, over rubble and bodies that litter the place. Once we make it outside into the clean, unstifled air, Avalon begins to shift in my arms. I don't let her down. Not until we reach the SUVs waiting. In my ear, static sounds, and then Troy comes over the receiver again.
"All hostiles have been taken care of," he says. "What's your next order?"
Abel moves ahead of me, to the backseat of the SUV, and opens the door. I set Avalon gently in its interior, half expecting her to be passed out. Instead, I find her wide awake. I cup her face and lean down, pressing my forehead to hers.
"You're never going anywhere without me again," I say to her.
She snorts. "Good luck keeping to that."
"I'm serious," I snap.
Her storm cloud gaze finds mine. This close, I can see all of the popped blood vessels in her eyes. It makes the anger in me flare back to life for a brief moment. Avalon Manning is mine. Mine. And someone touched what was mine. Whoever they are, th
ey have no fucking clue the war they just started.
"So am I," she replies, but immediately after the words leave her lips, she reaches for me. Her hands find mine, and she breathes, the sound a shuddering hiss. I can only imagine the kind of pain she's in.
"We'll get you meds," I promise. "Soon as we leave here, we're going to the hospital."
"And how do we explain all of the blood?" she asks, raising a single brow.
I give her a look that I know she'll understand. "Did you forget who you agreed to be with?" I ask. "Don't worry about it. It will be dealt with."
"Dean." Her hands tighten on mine, squeezing until there's pain. Her eyes—no matter how bloodshot, no matter that they're surrounded by already forming bruises—are fucking gorgeous, especially when they take on the glint that I know means something dangerous. "I want them dead," she says.
"Do you know who took you?" I demand, pulling my head back a bit to look at her more fully.
She shakes her head. "No," she replies. Then a scowl overtakes her face. "But I know exactly who to start with."
My fucking god. The look on her face is one of bloodlust. A glimmer of something sinister in her eyes. The desire to unleash a world of fucking agony on those who have wronged her. Who have wronged me, too, because whoever hurts my girl, hurts me. My cock swells with the realization of who this girl is.
She's no girl at all. She's a woman. A dangerous one. And I think I fucking love her.
"We'll get them," I promise her. "We'll get them all."
"Dean," Abel's bark captures my attention, and I lift my head. He taps the comm unit in his ear and gestures for me.
"Dean?" Troy calls into my ear. "Your orders, sir?"
Right. The building. I turn my attention back to it and see that Braxton is walking across the pavement with an unmoving body over his shoulder. He takes one look at us, nods, and then moves to the back of a second SUV, tossing it into the trunk. It's done. We've got what we need to move forward.
I press the button on my comm and push out the order that will end this fucking night from hell.
"Raze it all to the fucking ground," I say. "Leave nothing left behind. We're sending a fucking message."
Those rats better scurry back to the dark because we are coming for them, and we'll leave nothing but a trail of fire and blood in our wake.
Epilogue
Avalon
There is a catalyst out there.
Lights flash outside the darkened windows of the SUV. Dean’s arms are hot around me, but I feel chilled down to my fucking blood cells. Someone is manipulating this little drama that’s become my life, and I have the feeling that they have been for a long while. Well, I’m ready for the curtains to be stripped back. I’m ready to take center stage and face the shadows that have been plaguing me.
No amount of torture can stop me. No amount of betrayal. This will be a tragedy, just not mine. I’ve got a long list of people who deserve what I’m about to do to them. My only hope is that once it’s all over that’s all it’ll be. I’m fucking tired of fighting just to survive.
I tip my head back against Dean’s chest as Abel leans around the side of his front seat and looks back at us. He scans first Dean and then me, and when he finds my eyes on him, he gives me a small smile. “I’m glad you’re okay, Ava,” he says. I don’t know what to say to that, but he doesn’t force me to come up with something. Instead, he turns back around and faces the windshield as we race through town.
My thoughts fall back into their dark little places. Is it my fault? Am I to blame for being born? Or is there more?
Dean’s hand touches mine, his fingers intertwining with my own. The heat seeps into my flesh, and I close my eyes to the passing scenery around me. The city lights are too bright for my burning irises. There’s nothing but dark shadows beyond the car and buildings as the clock on the dashboard etches twenty-four minutes past four a.m. I can’t remember when I was taken. I know it hasn’t been more than several hours, but it feels like a whole lifetime has passed because, in those several hours, some of the faces behind all of my past pain and trauma have come to light. They now have an identity. They now have a name. I don’t know who would want to hurt me, but Corina does, and so does Ace.
They may think they’re safe, but no one is. Not from this level of sheer hatred. And they’re not the only ones.
I squeeze Dean’s hand back as the images of Patricia’s death spring up from behind my closed eyelids. Perhaps a better person would have felt remorse or even the need to cry for someone who, for so long, I had known as my only parent. I am not a better person. I have never been, and I never will be.
I was right all along. The dead can fucking breathe. And that’s all Patricia had been doing for the last eighteen years. While I was scratching, clawing, and fighting to survive, she was just … breathing. Now, she’s not. She just hasn’t realized it yet.
“This isn’t over.” For a moment, I think the words have jumped from my circling thoughts out of my mouth without consent, but when I reopen my eyes, I realize they didn’t come from me. They came from Dean.
Dark brown eyes look down at me as he brings the back of my hand up. His lips press against my cut and bruised knuckles. We’re both a fucking wreck. His right eye is partially swollen. It’s forming a black eye that I don’t think he realizes he has. He has a cut on his bottom lip. Small, barely there, but it’s bleeding slightly, and a small swath of that red liquid spreads across the back of my hand as he kisses me there again. I don’t mind it. It feels like his blood belongs on my flesh. Like it was always meant to be there.
“No,” I respond. “It isn’t.”
“We need to find out who we can trust and who we can’t,” Abel agrees from the front. Braxton remains curiously silent, and when I glance at him, I realize he’s not listening. His eyes are trained on the road, his hands strangling in their grip on the steering wheel. Wherever he is, he’s too far away to hear us.
I turn to Dean, already knowing he’s not going to like what I’m about to say. “We need Luc,” I tell him.
He scowls. “Did he have something to do with this?” Even though the tone of his voice is even, his hands on my skin are hard. He’s not squeezing—as if he realizes he could hurt me if he does—but it’s clear that it’s a concentrated effort on his part to not react.
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” I say. Abel glances back at me, and finally, even Braxton’s gaze looks up into the rearview mirror for a split second before returning to the road. “It’s Corina,” I tell him. “Corina planned this—I don’t know who she works for, but she did it because of him.” I let out a dry chuckle. It’s more disgusted than amused. “And apparently, my mother works for whoever those people are too.”
Dean’s face goes slack, and his lips part. Before he can say anything, Abel leans over the side of his seat. “Why?” he demands.
“Because of him,” I answer. “Corina’s in love with Luc—ergo, she hates you.” I direct that last comment at Dean.
“She went after you to get to me,” Dean says.
“I was so fucking stupid not to see it.” My hands clench into fists, and I feel a responding ache in my shoulder.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dean demands. “How could you have known?”
“Think about it, Dean,” I snap. “We weren’t friends, yet she was constantly trying to get on my good side. The sweet, ditzy, dumb rich girl act? She played it—and me—fucking good. I didn’t see it.” The harder I squeeze my fists, the more pain seems to flare in my shoulder until, finally, I force myself to relax. I take a deep breath and settle all of my attention on Dean. Ignoring Abel’s curious, albeit furious, gaze as he listens in.
“She went after me to get to you,” I tell him, hoping like fuck I’m not making a huge mistake giving this to him. This vendetta against me runs deeper than I ever thought. It’s not just about Roger or Corina or even my fucking mother—all of them are mere pawns. But all pawns have connections
to their masters. If Corina could use me to hurt Dean, then I could use Luc to get to her and her to get to whoever is behind all of this. “Luc will help.” I know it in my bones.
Whether Dean realizes it or not, he and Luc are the same. Two strong kings, both alike in dignity and sickness. It’s a shame they haven’t yet come to grips with the fact that if they work together, they’ll be far stronger for it. Maybe I can make that happen—later. Right now, only one thing matters.
“Fine.” Dean hisses the word through clenched teeth as if it comes unnatural to him to give in to a request such as this. “Luc will help.”
“I’ll pick him up later,” Braxton says with a nod.
Now that it’s all out there, I sink into Dean’s side and continue to watch as the lights and the buildings go by in a blur out the windows. I think back to what Ace asked me before. Am I a strong person? I don’t know. Is it weak to like the feel of Dean against me? To find relief in the fact that he did come for me. That somehow, I knew he would—that they would?
“We’ll find them,” Dean whispers against me, not just a promise but an oath. “And when we do…” His voice trails off, growing rough. I reach up and touch his face.
“And then,” I finish for him, “we’ll kill them.” I gaze up into his eyes, finding something there—a darkness that matches my own. “We’ll fucking kill them all.”
THANK YOU FOR READING!
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout both my career and this series. I am forever grateful.
To my editors, Heather and Kristen. Thank you for believing in me and this series even when it was driving me insane. To my lovely assistant, Allison. To my author friends and my amazing readers.
