Beyond Redemption (Marked Series Book 2)

by Jesse Lorenzo

  “I’m not going anywhere. No matter what happens,” she promised determinedly, cupping his stubble roughened face in her hands. A smirk stretched across her face as she kicked the ankle monitor. “Even if you go and get lost on me, I’ll still be able to find ya.” She snickered when he attacked her neck, playfully nibbling the sensitive flesh like a starving dog needing a bone. Giddeon groaned as she wriggled underneath him, rousing his insatiable need for her once again.

  Once again, his desire for her made its presence known. Eva stopped her movements, raising a devilish brow. “Well, looks like someone’s finally waking up to join the fun,” she teased.

  Giddeon feasted on the delectable skin along her neck, continuing the torturous ministrations up to the earlobe that silently begged for his attention. “Mmhmm,” he murmured against the soft flesh he concentrated on. The deep timber in his voice sent tremors down the length of her bare body. Chills swept through all her trembling limbs, raising goosebumps.

  “I need you, Angel. Right now.” Giddeon groaned as he shifted over her. Eva was anxious to feel him closer, knowing already how badly her body wanted him once more. She would never grow tired of how he made her feel.

  Their bond could be described as a puzzle just shy of being complete. No other piece could ever replace the empty space. When the right pieces were finally found, they fit together so naturally, flawlessly completing the puzzle. Try with all her might to stay away… it was no use. Giddeon and Eva just fit.

  In their tragically imperfect world, they made perfect sense.

  Deep into their aroused haze, Eva thought she heard a faint buzzing sound. Choosing to ignore it, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. This time, the buzzing sounded louder, almost panicked. “Ugh!” Giddeon growled his frustration at the interruption through gritted teeth. “It’s probably Dominick. He’s probably freaking out. I’ve gotta take this.”

  Giddeon stretched out his arm as far as he could, unwilling to break free from Eva’s embrace that kept them connected. Finally, he snatched his cell from the nightstand, reluctantly answering it. Looking down on his precious Angel, he asked harshly, “What the fuck do you want, Detective?”

  A roaring engine blared offendingly in the background on the other end. “Giddeon… I’ve got Dalton. He was in Portree this whole time. I’m bringing him into the station now. I thought you’d like to know. It’s over. We’ve got him. It’s over.” The line ended abruptly, as did all the contented peace and blissful happiness he’d cherished over the last few days.

  Giddeon’s short-lived carefree world was yanked out from under him at the mention of Dalton’s capture. All the air was sucked out of his lungs as the now suffocating room closed in on him. Robotically, he rolled over and sat hunched over at the end of the bed.

  It didn’t feel over, not to him. He was supposed to be there when Dalton was captured… no one else. Giddeon had waited all this time to exact his long awaited revenge, unleash all his pent up rage, and release his wrath on the evil that had utterly destroyed his life. Instead, he’d followed his other head, straight into this girl’s bed, when he was supposed to finish what he’d sought out to do from the very beginning. This wasn’t right. Giddeon had to get down there before his window of opportunity was gone… forever.

  Pushing himself off the bed, Giddeon stood rigidly.

  Feeling the air change between them, Eva’s stomach plummeted when Giddeon wouldn’t even acknowledge her presence anymore. The space between them grew, as though they were miles apart, the tension in the room now thick with guilt and regret. A dreadfully nauseating sensation twisted inside her gut. “Who was that, Giddeon? What’s happened?”

  He continued to put the rest of his clothes on in a remarkably cold and detached way. Eva quickly snatched a t-shirt and pulled it over her head. She made her way around the bed to stand in front of the emotionally void stranger, who stood staring off at nothing. He didn’t answer her, never even looked at her, as if she wasn’t even in the room.

  Eva’s legs quaked under her as the sinking feeling of what she knew was about to happen overtook her. She marched in front of him as he tried to go. Effectively blocking his exit out, she grabbed his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. What she observed made her sick as the acid in her stomach churned angrily inside her. Bile threatened to make its way up when she realized… That man was back.

  Giddeon pinched his eyes closed. He couldn’t look at her when she gazed back with hurt tears glistening in her breathtaking eyes, begging for him to stay. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he had to get to Dalton. He needed to get to Dalton. His obsessive demand for vengeance was clouding every other rational thought in his head.

  A faint voice in the back of his mind spoke. “Don’t go, not like this, Giddeon. Stay here with me.” His growing frustration at the overwhelming need to stay against the overpowering pull to go warred inside of him. Each emotion battled to get the upper hand, leaving Giddeon’s body quaking as she stood in front of him.

  Trying her best to block his path, Eva shook his shoulders roughly, trying to get an answer out of the robotically numb man. Giddeon realized as he watched through a foggy haze at the stunning Angel before him, begging for some answers, he owed her that much.

  Dragging his eyes off his targeted exit, Giddeon focused on her face. “They found him, Eva. The man who’s responsible for butchering my parents. The man responsible for turning me into… this.” The raw hurt that had tortured this man for countless years crashed to the surface. Giddeon threw his hands out to the side in self-disgust.

  “I have to go. I promised I’d avenge them. I have to finish this.” Giddeon walked forward, forcing Eva to stumble backwards as she pushed back against his solid chest. Her efforts were easily thwarted. Even her pounding fists worked to no avail, unable to halt his forward momentum.

  “No, don’t go, Giddeon. Don’t do this. Let the detective deal with him. He’s caught. They’ll put him away where he’ll rot, like he deserves. Don’t sink to his disgusting level. It has destroyed you all these years. Can’t you see that? He can’t control you anymore, Giddeon, unless you let him.”

  Giddeon knew she would never let him leave in his current enraged state. He’d have to hurt her; that was the only way she’d let him out of the room. The thought stabbed him in the deepest part of his heart and twisted. She would never forgive him. He deserved it. He was never worthy of her anyway.

  “What did you expect me to do? Move in with you? Be your fucking boyfriend? I got what I wanted from you. I’m done with you now anyway.” Eva winced at the sharp edge to his biting words, like she’d been struck by them. “Your performance wasn’t good enough to hold my interest, or to keep me here with you.” With every vile word spewed, the short-lived warmth Eva had filled inside Giddeon’s heart drained out.

  Once again, his body grew cold, empty, and numb at the loss of her love that she’d poured into his heart. Eva stood frozen, her eyes wide and unblinking. New tears collected at the corners of her stunned eyes, ready to fall. Her mouth hung open at the deplorable things he’d emptied out of his mouth. After an agonizingly long and painful pause, Eva’s brows dipped in righteous anger.

  “I know what you’re doing. Don’t push me away, Giddeon. I won’t back down that easily.” Her voice was cracking as she forced out every word, fighting hard to keep herself from crying. Drawing in a ragged breath, she gathered up her courage and continued. “I know you feel just as strongly for me as I do for you. I know you want me just as bad as I want you.” Her voice was softer when confessing her true feelings for him, and it was killing him inside.

  His Angel was breaking him, and he couldn’t let that happen. Pinching his eyes closed, he called upon his anger, willing it to come forward and take over. Slapping her hands away from his face, he roughly pushed past her steadfast stance.

  Unwilling to give up, Eva grabbed hold of his arm and yanked back as hard as she could. “You don’t need to do this! Stay with me.
I know you want to stay here with me. I can feel it. I can feel your body call out to me. You need me, Giddeon. Don’t be afraid to admit it. I can help get you through this.”

  Giddeon whirled on her, flinging the arm she held, cruelly shaking it off. “Do you help all your patients get through tough times in your bed, Counsellor? You can’t save me, Eva”

  His words echoed in her ears, his low blow rocking her to the core as his shouts thundered in the small room. Standing her ground, undeterred by his growing anger, she continued. “You’re right. I can’t. Only you can do that. Fight for it, Giddeon. Fight for that second chance that’s been lying in wait for you. Wake up, reach out, and take it.”

  The unrelenting man continued his pace down the hall with Eva following alongside, trying her hardest to get him to stop. To listen… to stay.

  “It’s too late for me. There’s no reason for me to stay that’s good enough to stop me from avenging my parents.” Giddeon shook as the beast gradually took over his shell of a body. The false poison he was spewing to get her to let him go actually caused him physical pain, ripping him apart. Finally at the front door, she plastered her body against it in a last ditch effort to keep him from leaving and doing something incredibly stupid that he’d live to regret.

  “Giddeon Cane… Please… Stay here. You may have lost your parents, but you still have me. I am right here. I will always stay by your side if you let me. Stay here with me.” Her voice was scratchy with the hoarseness of forced back tears that burned in the back of her throat.

  Her whole body trembled as she struggled to keep her composure. She wished there was a way she could shield him from all of his pain. She would take it all herself over and over again if it meant shielding him from destroying himself any farther. This man had experienced enough suffering in his life. He deserved to be relieved from it.

  Giddeon clenched his fists. He’d love nothing more than to stay right there, wrapped in her loving arms, in her warmth, and let her love drown all the demons that dwelled in the darkest parts of him. But, flashes of the look on his mother’s terrified face as that man gutted her, and the hauntingly heart wrenching screams from his father as they slit her throat and dumped her lifeless body onto the floor, played out in his mind’s eye.

  Giddeon could still hear the weight of his father’s body thump to the ground next to his beloved wife. Those unforgotten memories all but solidified his reasons for leaving. “Why would I stay here with you? I don’t feel anything for you. I’ve gotten what you oh so willingly gave up, and I want nothing more from you. I’ve made my choice, Evangelina. And. It’s. Not. You.”

  The use of her full name rendered her completely hollow inside, like someone had savagely ripped her chest open, cut out her heart, and threw it away. That raw ache is what finally broke her. With fresh tears flowing freely, she replied with a whisper, “Giddeon, your faith has been broken for a very long time, but it can still be redeemed. You can still be redeemed. You just have to want it bad enough. You have to fight harder for happiness than you have ever fought for anything else in your life. But it’s worth the hardship in the end.”

  Giddeon’s cold, unforgiving wall was brought back up, piece by piece around his heart. He reached out for the knob, easily opening the door she was trying so desperately to keep closed. Pushing past her and out the door, he destroyed the only happiness he’d ever had in his long suffering existence. “Sorry, Counsellor. I’m beyond redemption now.”

  The sound of her sobs quietly echoed down the building’s narrow hallway. They seemed to get louder in his mind as he walked farther and farther away from her, knowing deep down he should turn around and run back to the Angel who breathed life back into his long dead heart. For a brief amount of time, he’d almost been happy. But, he knew deep down that he could never truly be happy, not until he looked upon the face of the man responsible for ripping his whole life apart and destroying it.

  Eva’s broken voice played out over and over in his head, the sound ringing in his ears, sealing up his heart for good. The beast, which had laid dormant for the longest period of time it ever had, was itching to claw its way back out and exact its wrath on anything within reach.

  Giddeon struggled to keep himself under control. He would wait… wait until he was face to face with Dalton Ramsey Claiborne. Racing down the dew dampened sidewalk, the twisted fierce expression etched on his face gave him a sea of space as pedestrians jumped out of his way. Dalton’s arrogantly smug grin flashed behind his eyes like a flickering strobe light, the image pushing his pace toward its target.

  Twenty minutes later, he stormed up the stone steps and into the main hall of the Syracuse Police Department, realizing he’d never been this desperate to get into a police station. After his fast paced sprint, his breathing was short and ragged, and his surreal surroundings seemed to move in slow motion.

  Passing down the hall with high arched doorways, his adrenaline had spiked so high, his hearing had become fuzzy, and his sight had blurred as he struggled to regain his composure. Staggering down the hall like a drunken old man, Giddeon’s heart rate elevated to an all-time high.

  Somewhere inside this building, he was here. The obsessive need to come face to face with the man himself was unbearably overwhelming. His whole body pulsated in eagerness, ready for the attack.

  Approaching a long, rich, wooden check-in desk, Giddeon’s voice came out laced thick with the tension he could no longer hide. “I’m here for Detective Dominick Antonelli. Go get him and tell him Giddeon Cane is here… NOW!”

  The middle-aged, red-faced man behind the desk dipped his brows in annoyance at his tone. “He’s in the middle of something right now and is unavailable. What can I help you with, son?” The impatient man hopped over the desk, attracting a lot more attention from his erratic behavior as he rushed down the hall.

  “HEY! You can’t go back there!” Dodging a few hands that grabbed for him, Giddeon was able to avoid them all as they tried to halt him.

  “Dominick! Where the fuck are you? Dominick, get out here. Don’t hide him from me.” A few men rushed him, grabbing him and wrenching his arms behind his back. “No! You can’t do this. I just need to see Detective Antonelli. It’s important. Get your fucking hands off me!”

  Hearing a loud commotion, and his name being shouted over and over, Dominick leapt up out of his chair and ran to the door. He popped his head out and rushed over to the hysterical man. “It’s okay, guys. He’s here to see me. Sorry about this. You can let him go. I’ve got him.” The officers pushed the unruly man toward Dominick and sauntered off.

  “Giddeon, what the hell are you doing here? Have you lost your fucking mind, storming in here like that?”

  The riled man approached him in a stand-off, stopping inches from his face, seething with an uncontained rage that rolled off him in waves. Through gritted teeth, he hissed out, “You know why I’m here. I’m not leaving until I see him. I have to confront him, and you have to let me, Detective. This may be my only chance to do it.”

  Dominick blew out a frustrated breath. He was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. Weighing the good and the bad of the situation, finally, he reluctantly came to a decision. He would let him see Dalton. He was, after all, locked in a holding cell until they could have him arraigned in the morning. As long as the two men stayed on opposite sides of the bars, and he had eyes on the encounter, it should be okay. If not, Dominick’s ass would be on the chopping block. He was already in enough trouble as it was for making a trip out to Scotland, for the second time, without authorization.

  Maybe Giddeon’s presence could draw enough of a reaction out of Dalton that he would let a confession or two leak out. He’d been very tight lipped since his capture in Portree, demanding his lawyer immediately, which Dominick had expected. “Keep your fucking voice down, and try to contain yourself, and I’ll let you see him. You’ll have five minutes only. Try not to go fucking nuts, all right? Control yourself.”

  Giddeon snorted
inwardly. Yeah, right. He couldn’t keep that promise. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Detective. Your house, your rules. Now, take me to him. I’ve waited long enough. My parents have waited long enough for peace.”

  Dominick pursed his lips tightly and nodded stiffly, motioning for the agitated man to follow him. They passed the general population holding tank, which Dalton refused to step foot in. He’d kicked up a fuss, demanding his own cell. Hoping this would get him to open up and talk more, the officers reluctantly obliged.

  Giddeon could barely contain the growing rage that pulsed just below the surface. It was as though his blackened soul was moments away from bursting outward, barely contained with a desperate need to get to Dalton.

  They finally approached a smaller cell in the very back, and Giddeon’s face split into a malicious grin. Dominick crossed his arms over his chest and backed up a few steps, giving him some room. “Dalton, you have a visitor.”

  The marked man approached the cell like a panther stalking a caged bird. Dalton was sprawled out on the concrete slab, lounging back confidently, as though he was relaxing on his very own couch at home. Dominick gave a pointed look at Giddeon in warning. “You’ve got five minutes.”

  Dalton sat a little straighter, a broad smile stretched over his thin lips. “Aaah, the traitor has finally reared his ugly head. I have no desire to speak with the likes of this disgusting, criminal trash, Detective. I’d rather talk to an underpaid social servant, such as yourself. I have no need for this vile excuse for a human being.” Looking over Giddeon, Dalton’s expression was dripping with disdain. His formerly relaxed demeanor hardened the longer he stared into the malicious sneering face of his former employee.

  “You really ought to have him in cuffs. I believe it is he who has committed far more violent acts than me. Just ask Ellora’s parents… Oh, yeah, that’s right. You can’t.” Dalton smiled when he was rewarded with the twisted fury in Giddeon’s expression, no longer hidden. Slowly, he rose from his concrete seat, inching his way closer toward the bars. “It was you who killed them, after all… wasn’t it?”