by Coralee June
"Long time no see," I said, my voice wavering more than I would have liked. I cleared my throat and stepped forward. Gavriel moved with me, never once leaving my side, providing me with comfort and security.
"Seems like you really did slut it up with those Bullets. I always knew you'd be a disappointment. You running away was the best thing you could have ever done for our family."
Callum was fuming, and I knew that he was itching for his chance to deal his hand, kill my father for killing his. "You always hated being told you were wrong," I said, switching directions in the conversation. I’d never really planned what I wanted to say to Paul Bright. I never really thought I’d have the opportunity. My father still had that emotionless stare in his eyes, and I knew just then that he was too insane to truly have empathy or regret for his actions. I would never get closure because Paul Bright couldn’t feel.
And that's how I knew that we were nothing alike. All this time, I feared that I'd become him, but I'd forgotten one crucial thing: I could feel. I could feel everything. Remorse. Guilt. Anger. Love. My father was a shell of a human, possessed by the evil living inside of him. There was nothing I could have said that would change him. Nothing that would have made him apologize. I had to accept that he’d never show remorse. Clinging to the hope of an apology would get me nowhere.
"I'm not usually wrong. But feel free to share your opinions on the matter," was his careful response. It was a verbal game.
"The best thing I could ever do for my family is happening right now. You're going to die tonight. You always wanted me to be like you, and for one night only, I'm going to accept that role.” I leaned forward, the whisper on my lips a frightening sound laced with my threat. “Because when Callum beats your body until it’s unrecognizable, I'm going to feel nothing. When you’re begging for death, I’m going to feel nothing. And when you breathe your last breath, I’m going to feel relief."
I straightened my spine as he smiled at me, his eyes looking up with awe and wonder. "There's hope for you, after all, Summer," he said. I turned to Callum and nodded, letting him know that I was ready for him to claim his revenge, then I watched as he bent down to pick up the crowbar. His grip on the metal was strong, his knuckles white.
Paul Bright seemed unfazed by the tool. "I thought you'd kill me with fire. That seems like a more reasonable route, considering I burned your parents alive," Paul mused with a grin, and Callum reared back to hit him, his muscles flexed and face contorted with fury. But just before the crowbar could connect with his stomach, he started laughing. It was a dark laugh, so loud that it made Callum pause and question himself.
Gav stepped forward, his eyes squinting with distrust as Paul Bright delivered his dying words. "You're all going to die by fire."
A clicking sound filled the room, and I turned around. Gavriel let go of my hand and ran down the aisle towards the door. He went to open the heavy wooden barrier but couldn’t. He grunted, thrusting his shoulder into the wood, but still the door didn’t budge. It was thick, too thick to kick down.
“What did you do?” Callum asked, his voice bordering on hysteria.
“You think Santobello was going to let me live after the little stunt my wife pulled? It looked bad, having her blow her brains out in a public space. My numbers in the polls are so bad, I wouldn’t get elected even if my opponent died,” Paul said through gritted teeth, spit flying from his lips as he spoke. “I’ve outlived my usefulness. But don’t you worry, I’ve learned lots of fun tricks from Santobello. Like how to build bombs. He also taught me how to lure someone to their own demise. He gave me a choice: I could die alone, or I could take all of you with me. Guess what I chose.” Paul looked up at the ceiling and laughed, the manic sound echoing off the walls of the church as my heart raced. “I bet right now he’s taking your empire and your sister,” Paul added while nodding at Gavriel.
The explosion came out of nowhere, igniting the podium behind Ryker and Blaise and billowing up in a cloud of fire. The force of it knocked us all down to the ground. My ears were ringing, a shrill echo through my brain. I couldn’t see more than three feet ahead of me through the flames, but my father’s face appeared through the smoke. The blast knocked him over, and his chair had fallen right beside me. We were face to face as the church burned around us.
Still, he smiled.
Blood. I was bleeding, I knew that much. Drips of the thick substance trickled down my cheeks. Did something hit my head? Was I dying? Yes. A hand, there was a hand on my ankle, hitting me. It was the second time I’d been blasted with an explosion in two days, but this time, the flames won.
Fire everywhere. On my skin, under my nails. Arms were picking me up, and I was looking into the beautiful eyes of Gavriel Moretti. He was mouthing something. Asking if I was okay?
Was I okay?
Pushing and pulling me through the flames, Gavriel didn’t let me sit to rest. I was so damn tired. The fire was so warm, I could have slept. Could we all just sleep? My vision was dark, black spots clouding the corners where Blaise and Ryker were crawling alongside us. I turned to look over my shoulder to find Callum. He was here, wasn’t he? But all I could see was a shadow, lifting a crow bar and slamming it into the ground where my father was. Once. Twice. A third time.
Gavriel was yelling again, I couldn’t hear him. There was nothing but that high-pitched ringing in my ears, begging me to stop. Glass was breaking. I was being passed through a window. It hurt, everything hurt so badly. Burning me up, swallowing me whole. Peeling back my skin.
I thought Summer was the one supposed to die. Strong arms laid me down in the grass, each blade cutting me deep. Blinking, I looked for my men. Though confused, I knew they needed me. Gavriel disappeared through an opening in the stained glass, his suit getting caught on a jagged shard as he entered. I think I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear it, I only felt the way my breath vibrated against my throat.
More blood flowed down my cheeks as I waited.
And waited.
Then waited some more.
Gavriel had to make it. The devil couldn’t die by fire.
One. Gavriel was in the burning church.
Two. Callum was in the burning church.
Three. We were all just burning, burning, burning.
Ryker was holding me now, stroking my hair, whispering words I couldn’t hear while everything went eerily slow. I clutched him tightly while keeping my eyes on the church. Bright. So bright. It lit up the sky.
Another blast made what stained glass was left fall to the ground, and Gavriel emerged from the flames, cradling a man against his chest. Fire clung to his back, like wings exploding in the sky. His face twisted in agony as he dropped to his knees and looked up to God himself, screaming his questions about eternity while bloody tears streamed down his cheeks.
My brain started protecting me from what my heart already knew, and my awareness started to dim. The last thing I saw was how beautiful Gavriel looked as he died.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gavriel
Five years ago
She’s gone.
I didn’t believe in fate or love or anything outside of myself. Believing was a waste of time for people destined for hell. But I believed in my gut that Summer Bright—my Sunshine—was alive.
Everyone was too quick to think her dead. Divers were searching the lake. Funeral homes were calling her parents. Three days of searching, and they were all ready to throw in the towel. Pretty damn convenient that her father was the one in charge of the search efforts. They were hoping for a death, something tragic they could nurse on for a bit. Summer Bright was now nothing more than tragic gossip. But Sunshine? She was alive.
I was sitting at the police station in an interrogation room. I had hot coffee in my left hand, the only thing keeping me awake, and a fist in my right. Officer Mercer looked just as bad as I did. Bloodshot eyes and pale skin. I personally thought he looked fucking weak for someone meant to be intimidating me.
“Ex
plain again what happened the morning she left the boathouse,” he ordered, though his voice was too rough to sound like a proper demand. My father would have kicked his ass and told him to try again, this time sounding like a real man.
My gut got that little pang of excitement. Everytime I told him that Sunshine fucked Ryker, his face contorted into pain. It felt good to see him as messed up about her as I was.
“Sunshine and Ryker did the horizontal tango in my foster parents’ boathouse,” I said with practiced cruelty. He winced. Oh yeah, Officer Mercer, let that sink in. Let it hurt. “I found her thoroughly fucked, naked, and with her hair all a mess.” Now his eyes got heated. That’s right. Imagine what you can never have. Feels good, don’t it? “We told her to wait outside so Blaise could take her home while I beat the shit out of Ryker.”
Ah. Now he looked pleased, like he was imagining how my fist broke Ryker’s jaw. Maybe even picturing himself holding him in a choke hold. My foster brother was still in the hospital and wouldn’t be ready for questioning until his mouth wasn’t wired shut. He could write down his statements though.
That reminded me, I needed to bring him some stuff from home. I’d spent my days looking for Sunshine and my nights at the hospital with him. Ryker paid the price of his punishment, and I wasn’t in the mood to lose another person I lo—another person in my family.
That dark look in Mercer’s eyes as he got off on my revenge told me that the golden boy of Chesterbrook wasn’t all that innocent. Maybe that's why he and Sunshine connected. Both of them were hiding their true natures behind their image. Sunshine because she had to, him because he was afraid to let the monster out.
“You can’t tell me that. Do you want assault charges?” Callum asked. The police had asked Ryker again and again who had hurt him. And not once did he break. I wasn’t really sure if it was because of his loyalty to me or because he knew he deserved everything he got. Either way. Bullets don’t snitch. Everyone knew it was me, but no one was stupid enough to point a finger without evidence. “And then what?”
“I left Ryker for dead and went to confront Sunshine. I had plans to love her better than he did.” I would’ve burned the memory of my body into hers so good that she had no choice but to pick me. He might have broken the rules and gotten to her first, but I would have been her last. I would have been everything.
“Blaise and I searched her house, our favorite hangouts, her hiding spots. When it got dark, we told her parents. It became clear that she wasn’t just hiding...she was missing,” I said. Officer Mercer looked at me like he could tell my angry voice was all for show. He looked at me like the sad little kid I was the night I showed up in Chesterbrook. Well fuck you, Officer Mercer. I don’t need your pity.
He took a sip of coffee. His hands were trembling. His shifty eyes were obnoxious. He didn’t deserve to care about her, but I’d allow his concern, only because I’d need an army to find her and bring her back.
“I know your father has made some enemies,” Callum began while shuffling through a file on his desk. “Do you think any of them took her?” The thought had crossed my mind, but I didn’t want to go down that path. I’d already sent word to some contacts left from Dad’s empire, pulling a few favors to have them on the lookout.
“Why don’t you ask what you really want to ask, Mercer? Ask the question that brought me in, so I can stop wasting time and go back to searching,” I said. Callum leaned back in his seat, scratching his scalp and letting out a dark chuckle. “You really are something, Gavriel. Fine. Did you kill her?”
In some ways, I had. There was a light in her eyes that dimmed when I pushed her away. From day one, I encouraged her to take what she wanted. I practically pushed her into Ryker’s arms because I couldn’t handle knowing I wasn’t good enough, then I punished her for doing it. I killed her faith in me. I killed her trust. I stabbed that part of her that believed we could overcome anything. Brutally beat up her reliance on the Bullets and her confidence in herself.
“No. I didn’t kill her.”
Blaise was waiting outside for me in his Mustang, looking worse than all of us. I knew he was beating himself up over the fact that he couldn’t find her. He was cocky about their connection. He thought he could rely on their innate ability to find each other in a crowd, but he killed their connection when he looked at her with disgust in the boathouse.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“As expected.”
He nodded and turned down the street, heading towards the hospital. Ryker would be released in a few more days. He was eager to join the search. It was killing him to sit there fiddling with his dick while she was gone.
Served him right.
“I hate you,” Blaise said. Join the club. “If it weren’t for your goddamn rule, I wouldn’t have…”
“What? You wouldn’t have fucked Brooklyn on the hood of your car? That was all you, Blaise. Don’t act like I ruined your chances with Sunshine. You ruined them all on your own.”
“Bullshit. What if she got hurt? Kidnapped? She was alone because you were afraid she wouldn’t choose you,” Blaise said, speeding through downtown Chesterbrook without a care for the speed limit or the pedestrians crossing the street.
“So what are you going to do when we find her, huh? Confess your love, live happily ever after?” I genuinely wanted to know. I also made sure to say “when” we found her, because saying “if” wasn’t even an option.
I’ve always been annoyed by the easy way Blaise and Sunshine connected. Their friendship wasn’t forced like ours was. But I wasn’t worried. One thing my father taught me was how to take what I wanted. And I wanted her.
Blaise drove in silence until he was at the hospital, chewing over my words like they were something he couldn’t swallow. “I’d give her no other choice but to pick me. Don’t think for a second I won’t cut you out of her life. You’re my brother, but she’s my light. I’ll always pick her.”
Blaise said the one thing I’d been truly worried about. He thought I was afraid to fight for her, and I guess in some ways I was. But not because I was afraid to lose her. I knew in my gut that Sunshine would pick me. I was mean enough to not really give her any choice.
But I couldn’t lose my family.
When I was six years old, I watched my first murder. It was in my living room. I didn’t really understand then. Life was this funny thing that snapped through reality. One minute, this man yelling at my father was standing next to my family’s portrait on the wall, and the next he was gone. I remember his blood getting on my face.
When I was twelve, my father strangled my coke-whore mother in her sleep. She had brought a man home. He snuck into my bedroom. He was high and perverted and painful. My father promised me protection in exchange for my loyalty. But I didn’t want his protection. I wanted a dad that was home enough to stop that shit from happening in the first place.
When my father went to prison, all the people who boasted of the importance of family, the uncles that made me sit on their lap and the aunts that squeezed my cheeks, all of them were gone, disappeared. There was no loyalty. Probably because most of them didn’t want to end up like him or six feet under.
The Bullets were the only thing I had. The only thing of value in my life. I wasn’t sure I could choose between her and them. Because in the end, I’d just end up alone again.
“We have to find her first, Blaise,” I finally said.
People stared at us as we entered the hospital. For years, I’d been cultivating an image that made Chesterbrook’s citizens have a healthy fear of me, so it wasn’t a surprise that they believed me to be the one who killed Sunshine. Hell, they weren’t completely off base either. Ryker nearly died because of me. And I didn’t care.
I snarled at a curious nurse, making her nearly trip over herself.
Ryker was lying in bed, only throwing me looks of disdain through black and swollen eyes. Losing his ability to speak wasn’t much of a punishment for Ryker. Blaise was the one
that would go crazy if he couldn’t flap his gums. Ryker was in his element. Bastard.
“They asked if I killed her.”
Ryker closed his eyes. He looked weird now without any hair. They shaved those long blond locks to stitch up the gash in his head. I wouldn’t say I did it intentionally. I was in such a mindless haze of murderous rage when I beat the shit out of him that I didn’t even know I broke his jaw. I just liked the sound of his crushing bones and put it on repeat.
But she liked his hair. And now it was gone.
Tough.
We all sat there for a minute, aching to go back out and search the lake. The town. The state. The world.
Ryker turned slightly towards the notepad on his table, and Blaise got up to hand it to him. Ryker quickly began scribbling his words before tossing it to me.
Her father came to see me while you were gone.
“What did he want?” I stood up and made my way over to him and handed the notebook back so he could scribble more words.
He just sat in the chair and stared at me for ten minutes then left.
Unusual, yes. Important to what was happening? No.
“We all know he’s a creepy fucker, but that’s not the point. We pushed Sunshine away, so it’s our job to bring her back,” I growled.
“Are you sure it was us though?” Blaise still had too much faith in their friendship.
I turned to look at Ryker and nodded. “We’ll save her.”
Epilogue
Sunshine
Present Day
It’s funny how an experience can make you hate a place. I started avoiding basements the night I almost died. And after yesterday, I’d be avoiding churches for the same reason. Even this makeshift chapel at the hospital downtown seemed to smell like burning skin, smoke, and the cologne of the man I loved. Everything hurt. I wasn’t supposed to be out of bed, but sitting there with nothing to do was driving me crazy.
