“Stay the fuck back.” He pulled out a knife and stuck the point in Torryn’s stomach, not penetrating, but a clear warning he could slice through her at any given second. When I took another step, a trickle of blood slid down into her belly button.
Red covered my vision, and I took the shot at his elbow. It was tight and I knew it could’ve turned out horribly, but luckily, he didn’t think I would do it. When the bullet left the gun, it shattered his elbow and the knife held against Torryn fell to the ground as they both screamed.
I took that opportunity to stalk to him and throw punch after punch to his face. Then kick after kick allowing every bit of anger I’d ever felt for my brother to come to the surface and get its judgment day. Every blow moved him further from Torryn, getting her out of his reach.
“You stupid worthless piece of shit!” I spat down at him.
Torryn was breathing erratically and as much as I wanted to immediately get her down, I had to make sure this dickhead was secured. Finding a thin rope used to tie hay bales together, I yanked his arms behind his back and tied them so tight, his hands would be turning purple soon.
He bucked and tried to move, but his busted face and probably some ribs from my assault stopped him. I wouldn’t make this quick. I wanted him to feel, I wanted him in agony begging for death. And death he would get—he crossed a line today.
Efficiently, I tied his ankles together, then tied his wrists to his ankles. This was the very definition of hog tying. I had done it enough on the farm growing up, I could be a professional.
I kicked his body away from Torryn even more and saw the rope that tied her to the ceiling. The knot was tight. Instead of fucking with it, I pulled out my knife and sliced it. As soon as I did it, I got pissed at myself, because Torryn fell to the ground in a heap. Fuck, wished one of the guys were here to catch her fall.
Rushing over to her, I quickly untied her and pulled the tape from her mouth, to which she screamed loudly. I knew it had to hurt, but I needed to assess her injuries. If I needed to get her to a hospital, then I needed to call Garrett to come get her for me. Dane was out of town on one of his jobs that had nothing to do with our business, and Paxton would want to smoke in the car with her.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, then shocking the shit out of me, she wrapped her arms around my neck and burrowed her face in my neck. I gripped the back of her head lovingly, holding her to me as tight as possible. She may be crying, and she was probably sore, but overall uninjured and alive. That’s what mattered to me.
My lips touched the top of her head. She felt so right in my arms, and it was that moment that it hit me like a fucking barbell against my head. I loved this woman. I cared so damn deeply for her that nothing would ever harm her, and I’d kill anything that attempted to. She was part of me, deep inside where no one had ever found before.
Even if my soul was tainted, it was hers.
“You stupid fuck. I’ll kill you!” James yelled from the floor. “She was my bitch first!”
Torryn gave a small shake in my arms. “Baby, I need to handle him.”
She looked up at me. “What are you going to do?”
“Something that should’ve been done a long time ago.” I pushed Torryn away slightly, pulled off my shirt, and placed it over her body. She swam in it which meant she was fully covered. “You can either lock yourself in my Tahoe or you can stay for this. But it’s happening, so you decide.”
28
Torryn
This moment was pivotal, I could tell it in his eyes. I had begged for this man to reach out for me all these months, hurt by his rejection. I had these walls built up around my heart so I could move on with life. But the moment he stepped inside this barn and his eyes met mine, I opened myself fully to him and was hopelessly in love with Onyx Blake.
His eyes didn’t move from mine as he waited for my answer.
Onyx Blake was giving me an out. I could feel it. As I studied him, I also knew if I walked out of this barn, turning my back on this opening, whatever we shared would be over with no going back.
Onyx wasn’t a man full of poetic words. He was far from even being a nice man. What he was though was loyal, honest, and determined. I knew there wasn’t anything to stop him from killing James. This was his world—dark, dangerous, and ruthless.
The question he was asking, without saying the words, was if I was ready to see how dark his world really was? He needed me to show him I was strong enough to face his ugliest of demons and remain at his side.
And remain with him I would.
“I’m staying.” I said firmly.
“It’s not gonna be pretty.”
I rolled up on my toes to plant a kiss to his cheek. I swore I heard him give a low growl at my touch. I loved the way it made me feel.
Powerful.
This man was always in control and always closed off, but he gave me this strength; he gave me so much of him that I knew without a doubt he never gave to anyone else. Something precious that I would hold on to forever.
“Go sit on the bale of hay. It won’t be quick, but I’ll make sure you get checked out.”
“I’m fine, Onyx. Make him pay,” I ordered, knowing Onyx needed to see I was in this for the long haul. While my body ached, it could wait.
He pressed his lips to mine, but didn’t deepen the kiss like I wanted. A warmth enveloped me, and I felt a peace I hadn’t had since leaving him months ago. He centered me and grounded me in a way no one had ever come close.
“I am so sorry he got to you. I never meant for you to be caught in the crosshairs.”
I nodded knowing he meant what he said, that he would’ve protected me with everything inside of him. That he cared for me, even though he was scared too.
“Oh how cute, Onyx and Torryn sittin’ in a tree. Make me fucking gag. You’re pathetic!” James taunted while trying to throw his body around on the dirty barn floor. He didn’t get far with the way Onyx tied him up.
“James Paul Shears, you die today,” Onyx said, his blue eyes turning to a stormy gray stone as he shifted from me to his brother.
Wrapping my arms around myself in his shirt, I settled on the hay bale, pulling the fabric down to protect myself from the rough texture. Onyx sat one gun beside me before pulling another from his back and letting it rest in my hand. The metal was cold, unforgiving, and heavy. I knew I wouldn’t need it, but I also could tell Onyx wanted me safe. Therefore, a slight smile tipped the side of my lips, letting him know I had this.
“You can’t kill me,” James challenged. “You wouldn’t do that to our mother.”
“That’s where you are wrong, brother!” Onyx roared before going to James and kicking him in the ribs. With the way James was tied up, Onyx had a direct shot of the man’s torso.
James coughed before crying out in pain.
“I have no loyalty to your mother. You still don’t get it. You’re a bigger moron that I gave you credit for,” Onyx teased before lifting his foot high and bringing it down on James’s bent knee. I heard the bones crunch and found I wasn’t shaken by the noise.
Instead, I relished it. Hearing this man howl from it didn’t bother me in the slightest. Instead, it made me want more.
James Shears was the evil one here, not Onyx. Onyx was right before. Even though I didn’t know him earlier, I did fall in love with the wrong brother. It was something I wouldn’t make the same mistake on again.
“Then tell me, brother. Better yet, tell Torryn. Let her see the devil she’s climbed into bed with.”
Onyx laughed sinisterly. “I’ve never hidden who I am from her unlike you. Wasn’t that what drove Marie to do what she did?”
“No, that was you!” James tried to spit on Onyx and missed, leaving some still on his face and no way to wipe it off. The more he turned, the more dirt and dust collected on his face.
Onyx kneeled to get to James’s level. “Let’s get one thing straight before you die. I only kill people who cross me or to
uch what’s mine. You should’ve died when we were teens, and you raped my first actual girlfriend. But you should know who saved you, brother.”
“Oh sweet Delia, she had a pussy like a vice. Saw you two together and knew I needed a piece of her. As for who saved me,” James laughed. “Onyx, it was you.”
Onyx rose from the ground, raised his foot, and slammed it down on James’s face. Blood pooled to the ground, and James had to blink rapidly to focus on Onyx again.
“You’re your own worst enemy,” James groaned out. “Delia, she loved you. Taking her virginity, that she was going to give you, I can still feel her tight around my cock. Rebecca was your fun toy for a bit before Delia, but alas she gave up her cherry to another boy when you tired of her whines. Those were good times for me brother.”
James was a sick piece of shit.
Onyx rolled him over to his side. He pulled out a zip tie from his back pocket. It was a long one. For a moment, I tensed, afraid he would cut the ties off James. The risk of James being loose and what might come next had me afraid. I knew Onyx would keep me safe, but James was wild in rage. One inch given to him, he’d take a mile and laugh doing it.
Onyx put the tie around James’s neck. He didn’t pull it tight, but rather left it loose, like he was preparing him. James tried to wiggle like a worm away from Onyx but got nowhere.
“Adryan Blake saved you.”
James gasped.
“Adryan Blake found me when I was fifteen. He told me a story. The story of a whore with a little boy. She promised to be the dutiful wife. Except her son was a sick son-of-a-bitch. Her son who was obsessed with his mom so much so, would sit outside the bedroom door while Adryan fucked his wife. The whore, she couldn’t get enough cock and found herself pregnant. Adryan knew even though she tried to hide it. You told me you knew where I came from when we were both too young to understand the world. You teased me in school every chance you got. Adryan, he gave me the truth when I was finally big enough to do something with it. He named me, watched me, waiting for me to be older, bigger, and wiser. Then he shared it all with me.”
My stomach churned. I once dated a rapist. Someone who took the innocence of a child and had no remorse for it, even to this day. My eyes were wide and burning as I gave all my attention to the men in front of me. It all hit me like a sledge hammer. I once dated a boy who had some twisted relationship with his mother and step-father. I once dated a boy who wanted to ruin his own brother. He was the one who told Onyx about his mother. What kind of childhood did Onyx really have?
James glared, and his nostrils flared.
“Did you ever wonder, James? Did you ever think about who named me Blake?”
James’s eyes grew wide.
“Yeah, he told me. He came to the orphanage. He paid Amos Beiler to keep me, and he named me Onyx Blake. Onyx for the blackness I was born into from my whore of a mother and Blake because although he was not my father, he would leave me with his vengeance. The envelopes I’ve given you over the years, the cash to keep you going, it wasn’t from your dear mother, James.”
“Fuck you!” His body began thrashing around again, fury pouring off of him.
“In fact, Olivia Blake isn’t dead.” Onyx laughed as James’s eyes blanched at the revelation. After Onyx gave James another sharp punch to the nose, he kneeled down close delivering a blow that was far worse than any hit he gave.
“Nothing in life is ever certain, not even death! Adryan Blake killed himself in the very car accident Olivia Blake ceased to exist too. To the world, Olivia Blake died alongside her husband in a freak accident where the car malfunctioned. You mourned your mother like the dutiful son. I was eighteen, almost nineteen. You were doing college life. I watched you, so obsessed with Torryn. She didn’t know she was in bed with the Devil himself. She didn’t know the monster you were. She didn’t know that you would leave her bed to climb into your mother’s because you’re that fucked in the head.”
Oh God, my stomach rolled over and over again. Clutching it didn’t help settle it. While I knew something was off with James back then, it was why I broke up with him, I would’ve never thought he was sleeping with is mother. And at the same time as me. I felt like I was going to be sick.
“Adryan knew, though. Adryan knew his wife’s pussy belonged to any cock that could sink inside it, even yours. She thought that shit was magic, that her pussy would keep the man happy enough to continue giving her everything. He set her up. She’s not dead. If that hasn’t set in yet, Olivia didn’t die in the car that day. She’s in a home, in case you’re wondering. She’s a vegetable, unable to do anything on her own, but lay there. The plug on her life will be pulled once you’re dead.”
Emotions overwhelmed me as tears slid down my cheeks.
“The letters, he made her write them with a gun to her head. You know I was the executor to the estate and given the timeline of when to pay you and each payout came with a loving letter from your mother. Adryan Blake gave me his name and his revenge. I took the task on proudly. He was not my father. I have no father, no mother, and soon no brother. When I finish with you, I’ll make the call to end her, your mother dearest. May you forever be together in Hell, brother dear.”
James looked at me and back to Onyx. “You’re gonna kill me, really?”
Onyx balled up a fist and punched James in the face. Blood ran from his nose, and he spit out a tooth.
“Why would I let you live?” Onyx asked, never turning to look at me.
“You took my mother, you took Marie, you took Torryn, and now you’re gonna take my life,” James muttered, defeated.
“I didn’t take your mother—Adryan Blake did that. I didn’t take Marie, you did that. She lost a baby, James. You treated her like an incubator all because Adryan made your mother tell you her dreams of grandchildren.”
“We came to you!” James roared. “When they told us the scar tissue from the endometriosis was too much to carry a pregnancy after the miscarriage, she came to you! And you, the man with the power of life and death, turned her away. That’s why she killed herself. It wasn’t me.”
“You stupid motherfucker. I told her if she was with anyone else, I would give her a baby free of charge. I would cover the expense personally. She killed herself because she begged you for a divorce and you beat the fuck out of her. Which you should know, in the autopsy, she was pregnant again. So you killed your wife and your baby with your selfish bullshit.”
James opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it as Onyx slid the zip tie tighter, closing off his air supply.
“As for Torryn, took her I fuckin’ did. I watched her with you. The beautiful woman with curves and confidence. I watched you disregard her dreams. Fate gave me a chance to have her for myself even for a short while. A beauty like hers, a spirit like hers, I wasn’t about to let her out of my grasp. So yes, I took her, but it wasn’t from you because you never actually had her. Torryn found herself and, James, her world is one of color while yours is one of black. And now I give her peace that the sick fuck from her past won’t ever touch her again. Because now, brother dear, I take your fuckin’ life.”
He yanked the tie as James choked and gasped, fighting for air. It was a horrid sight, but necessary.
Onyx didn’t watch. He turned his back, taking long strides to me. As I stood, he scooped me up and carried me to his SUV. He didn’t speak, and the intensity in his eyes told me I needed to give him space and my quiet support. He placed me gently in the seat, clicking my seatbelt in place, and rounded the Tahoe to the driver’s side.
He may have just committed a ruthless crime, but his control not to lose himself to the rage was always present. I was in awe of this man and still reeling from the information he just shared.
Onyx Blake, the man of mystery, the man with a dark past, just gave me his everything without hesitation or distrust.
29
Torryn
“I’m taking you to the hospital.” Onyx pressed on the gas hard,
the rock and dust spilled behind us. The replay of what just happened ran through my head, and I wasn’t disgusted or disappointed in Onyx.
No, I was happy that James was now gone. I wasn’t sure what kind of person that made me, with someone’s life being taken away, but in my soul, I was settled. Even relieved. It had me conflicted, but not uneasy like I would’ve expected it would. I guess this was truly a situation where no one could predict how they would feel until they truly experienced it.
“No. I don’t want to go there.” My hand itched to reach over the console and hold his hand, to feel his warmth around me, but his tight grip on the steering wheel prevented it. Truthfully, I feared of getting rejected by him once more.
He made me vulnerable in a way no man ever could. It was as if my insides were ripped open and he was the only one to heal it, but I was scared. He already tore my heart out once, could I handle a second time?
“Then I’ll have a doctor come to your sister’s house.”
My heart clutched, twisted, and then shattered to the ground beneath me, leaving pieces of me blowing on the ground as we drove. Each breath was painful as the hurt wrapped around me like a python taking all the oxygen from me. This was what I feared and it was coming true, once again.
He was going to leave me. Onyx was going to go on with his life without me.
This wasn’t happening to me again. I wasn’t going to live my life and not know what could have been, when there was something I wanted. These past few weeks, I’d gotten stronger and I couldn’t waste it.
When I looked over at Onyx, defeat crossed his features. Maybe, just maybe, he needed me to take the first step. He needed me to show him that I was all in with him, that I wasn’t going to run away. That I would stand tall next to him. Maybe he needed me to jump the first hurdle. It seemed so strange to see this vulnerability coming from him.
PowerHouse_Anti-Hero Game_Power Chain Book One Page 18
