by W Winters
* * *
“How did you get past my men?” I scream the question, bringing my face close to his. The words tear up my throat, grating as they go and leaving a searing pain. All I can see is Aria, surrounded by men in black hoodies and before he can even answer, I slam my head into his, hearing the sickening crunch of his broken bones grinding against one another from the impact.
I have to release him, to get up and walk around him, staring at the man on the ground and picturing Aria standing over another just like him.
They got too close. Too fucking close.
“That one… that one I’d love to answer.” I barely make out the words, they’re spoken so softly. He coughs up blood, but then rests his head down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. The man sways, barely coherent, but the smile still wishes to stay on his lips. It falters as he blinks slowly, his consciousness failing him.
Licking my lower lip, I steady my breath and bend down to get closer to him, gripping the back of his head. I grip onto his skull as I tug at his hair and force him to look at me.
“Tell me,” I utter the demand gravely and his eyes flash with something. A look of delicious contentment. It’s only then I realize how much I’ve shown him. How much I’ve shown everyone.
Aria is my everything. She alone has the will to turn me into a madman.
“Tell me,” I push out the words through clenched teeth and feel my muscles coil, ready to assault him again, but he answers quickly this time.
* * *
“Every exit is an entrance.”
My eyes search his, trying to register the meaning of his words. “I don’t have time for—"
“Your little underground escape route… it was our way in. My job was easy, get outside and cause a ruckus, so my partner could do his job.” He answers my unspoken question and seems to settle, so I grip his hair tighter, not giving him a moment of comfort.
“And what was his job?”
My heart beats faster, knowing they wanted Addison, but unsure of where Aria stands.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he mutters under his breath as his eyes roll into the back of his skull. I shake the fucker, waking him and stare into his cold gaze.
“Tell me.” My command comes out low and vicious, my face getting closer to his as the life slips from him.
“I’ll tell you one thing. It was only one girl a month ago, but then he upped it to two.”
Bastards! My throat closes, and I struggle to stay where I am, my muscles burning to go to her. To Aria and to keep everyone away from her forever. No one will ever get to her. Never!
“Who did?” I don’t know how I’m able to ask the question or to stay still as I wait for his answer.
“I’ll die before I tell you,” he replies, but then his head falls back. He’s close to death already. Close, but not quite there yet.
“Logan,” I say and raise my voice, but I don’t look away from the man in my grasp. He’ll soon be dead.
“Sir?” he asks hesitantly from somewhere to my right. I can hear his feet drag again the floor as he comes closer. “Brass knuckles?” I question him and then the sound of other men moving about registers.
“Someone,” I say as I stare straight into my victim’s icy gaze, “give me brass knuckles.”
“Carter!” Jase shouts my name and rips my attention away. The warmth of blood splatters on my forearm and the man coughs in my grasp.
“What?” My question is sneered, pissed off that he would dare interrupt this. “He came after Aria!” I scream so loud; her name reverberates off the walls as I stare at Jase.
My chest rises and falls, my breathing coming in ragged and faster.
“Carter,” Jase’s voice is low but accompanied by the sound of the man in my grasp speaking at the same time.
“I couldn’t wait to get them,” he mutters beneath his breath.
“Carter!” My brother screams at me as I slam my fist into his jaw, hearing it crack as it dislocates. It dangles from his face and the sight only fuels me to take out more of my rage on him.
My shoulders are wound tight, needing more of a release as the asshole falls forward and Jase screams my name again. “Carter!”
“I’m not done with him,” I grind out the words as I push Jase away from me, refusing to look at him and not the man who dared threaten my Aria. The man rocks on his shoulder, his face deformed and covered in blood. He has to roll forward to keep from choking on it or drowning in his own blood as he struggles to cough it up, but his movements are weak and slow. He’s close. Too fucking close. I want him to live to see what true pain really is.
“Sir,” Logan’s voice is heard as a metal block is placed in my periphery. I’ve never smiled as sadistic of a smile as I do now.
“Should I do him the favor of killing him?” I ask no one in particular as I crouch in front of him and slip the thumb of my right hand over the brass that covers the knuckles on my left hand.
“Carter!” My gaze narrows as I peer up at my brother who’s reaching out for me, reaching his hand out with a look that begs me to listen to him.
I don’t take his hand, but I search his expression. He’s worried, his eyes a pit of loss and despair. All the heat in my body suddenly feels doused with ice. A chill runs through me as I ask him with the last breath I have, “What?”
I barely register the painful groan the man, still barely alive, utters at my feet.
“What about Aria?” Jase asks me with a look of desperation and I finally hear the other men in the room. The war isn’t over, and this place isn’t safe now that it’s been breached.
“I’m taking her home.” I give him the only answer I can. It doesn’t matter what she wants; a man got to her and that’s unacceptable. Fuck! I grind my teeth and throw the brass knuckles into the torn projector screen when I remember the house was hit.
My body is shaking, vibrating with the need to protect her yet having my options limited. I will protect her. The very thought soothes me. She is mine and no one will hurt her. I’ll never let anyone close to her again.
“I’ll take her wherever I go.” I give him my answer in a tone that brooks no further discussion, hiding the agony of what’s devouring my every thought, but that doesn’t change the look on his face. It doesn’t remove an ounce of the fear in his expression.
“Where is she?” Jase asks, and my pulse slows, the adrenaline leaving me at the very thought of being with Aria tonight. Even if she hates me tomorrow.
“Daniel has her.” I feel my brow furrow when I look at him, and everything slows. It slows and the world around us turns to a faded, blurred image. My heart beats once. He was just talking to Daniel. My heart beats again. “He has her,” I repeat when Jase does nothing but visibly swallow and the already quiet room goes completely silent.
“No, he doesn’t.” I see nothing but red and everything turns to white noise as Jase tells me, “Aria’s gone.”
* * *
To Be Continued…
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Carter and Aria’s story concludes in Endless. Don’t miss the conclusion of their gripping story, order now - Keep flipping the pages for a sneak peek!
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Sneak Peek at Endless
From USA Today bestselling author W Winters comes an emotionally captivating and thrilling, romantic suspense.
* * *
He holds a power over me like no one else ever could.
* * *
Maybe it’s because my heart begs to beat in time with
his.
Maybe it’s because my body bows to his and his alone.
Maybe it’s because he thought he loved me before he even laid eyes on me.
* * *
He thought wrong, it wasn’t me he thought he loved, and nothing has made me suffer like that little secret has. He thought I belonged to him, but he was wrong. It was never supposed to be me.
* * *
Our memories are deceiving, but I know what I want now.
What I need more than anything.
I won’t rest until he’s as much mine as I am his.
It’s always been him.
Prologue
Aria
* * *
I only know what Tyler looks like because of pictures. But even before then, when I first had the dream, I knew the boy was someone related to Carter. The Cross brothers all look so alike. He stared at me in the dream, his dark eyes piercing me even from across the field of blues and whites.
I should have been scared because I knew I didn’t belong in this make-believe land conjured by my dream, but a soft smile lingered on his lips. Welcoming and endearing. He was kind. A kind soul among the flowers, although his words were anything but.
“She lied to you,” he said casually. Words that etched confusion onto my face, but sent a prick of fear to chill my blood like ice.
It’s only then that I heard my mother. I knew it was her instantly from her voice; we sounded so alike. A rustling noise came from somewhere on my right as she walked through the thick field. Her name begged to spill from my lips, rasping up from deep in my throat, but my voice was silent. And my body longed to move to her side, closer to where she was as she walked away slowly from me. But my limbs were still.
I was caught in place as they moved nearer one another, yet continued speaking to me, looking at me. As if they knew I was there even though I was held prisoner by whatever kept me immobile and quiet.
Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes and heated my skin as they rolled down my cheeks.
My father always spoke of my mother’s beauty, and I knew it to be true, but she was older in the dreams than I remembered her to be. Age was more than kind to her though.
I tried to call out to her again, ignoring the boy, the Cross brother who had long since passed.
“I never lied,” my mother spoke to me, but all I could feel was the way her words soothed my soul. It’s been so long since I heard her voice. Too long. My fingers itched to move, to reach out to her and feel her embrace once more. I needed to be held so badly and my breath halted, imagining that she would come to me since I couldn’t go to her, but she didn’t.
Her hazel eyes were drenched in sorrow as she whispered, “I never lied to her.” The biting wind carried her voice over the field.
As if her words were a cue, the sky darkened and dry lightning cracked it in two.
“Did you even love her?” the boy asked, looking up at her. “In all of this… did you even love her?” he asked my mother and the anger I felt was immediate, pushing the words up my throat although they still hung silent in the air. Of course she loved me. A mother always loves her children.
Even though the words had gone unvoiced, they both heard me and peered at me, judging my silent comment, but neither answered me. What I silently say to them changes each time the dream comes back, but the lack of an answer never does.
“Of course I did… I still do,” she said and my mother’s voice dragged with regret. “I died for her.” She spoke clearly although pain riddled her words, and Tyler’s expression only showed more agony as he shook his head.
With her head hung low, my mother pushed the hair from her face and delicately wiped the tears from under her eyes. The glossiness of her tears made her eyes more vivid and they called to me to ease her pain.
I’ve cried a thousand wretched screams, praying she could make out my words that I love her. That I miss her. But it doesn’t change what happens next.
With the dark gray sky opening up and hard hail raining down on us mercilessly, pieces of the vision fall like a painting soaked in water. The colors smear and run together before fading to a blank canvas, and I’m left with nothing. Nothing but the sound of them arguing over her hate versus her love and what all really mattered the night she died. And another night… the night she changed the course of fate. She screams out that she died for me. Her confession is filled with a note of anger that burns through my veins.
But the last thing I always hear before I wake screaming, is her muttering, “We do stupid things for the ones we love.”
* * *
No matter how many years pass, the nightmare never leaves me.
The first time it happened, I was in the cell. All those years ago when Carter, my love, first took me. But the visions have clung to me over the years, stained into my soul.
Chapter 1
Aria
* * *
“Don’t scream.”
With my breath caught in my throat, my body paralyzed from the rush of fear forced into every inch of my body, I hear the voice, but I don’t obey.
My scream is muffled by his large hand and he holds me tighter, pulling me closer into his hard chest, his strong fingers digging into my skin.
The sound of his voice shushing me as I kick out, butting my head uselessly against the wall of muscle I’m pressed to—that sound is what calms me. I’ve heard it before.
Daniel.
My body relaxes slowly, barely held up by my weak legs. Adrenaline still courses through my veins, but consciously I’m aware that it’s him. The man who grabbed me and held me tight, it’s only Daniel.
“Don’t scream,” he repeats, his lips close to the shell of my ear. So close that his warm breath tickles my neck and sends goosebumps down my shoulder. Too fucking close. He didn’t just startle me; he scared the shit out of me.
I’m slow to remove my fingers from his forearm, one by one, knowing my sharp nails are digging into his arms. Blood is everywhere and so many stabs of pain race through my body, I’d rather be numb. Numb after everything that just happened.
It’s only then that he loosens his grip and slowly moves in front of me, a hand still gripping my wrist.
“What are you doing?” The words rush from me in a single breath, but Daniel doesn’t answer. As my heart pounds harder, he only observes me closely, noting my expression. The night air feels colder, and it’s so much darker now that he’s here than it was just a moment ago.
He looks behind me before meeting my gaze to ask, “Were you going to run?”
Of everything that he could have asked me just now, this question brings me more guilt than I’ll ever admit. With Eli lying dead on the ground behind us, Addison upstairs somewhere, hiding from everything that’s just happened, the fact I even thought about running makes me sick to my stomach. I could have. I could have run and left all of this behind like a horrid nightmare.
And I seriously considered it too.
“No,” I whisper the word, not knowing if it’s the truth or a lie. The nip of the evening air licks along my exposed skin as I stand in the open doorway of the safe house. The night is dark and unforgiving, much like Daniel’s gaze. I can’t hold it, knowing the emotions I’m feeling are written on my face.
Taking half a step back, I feel the pain of a small cut on my heel shoot up my leg, but it’s nothing. Nothing compared to the pain of knowing what happened. All the small scrapes I got from the broken window, shattered from bullets, mean nothing.
War is here. The deafening sounds of gunshots have come and gone. But death has only just begun.
“What happened?” I voice the question with raw pain present in every whispered word. “Carter?” I ask him and open my eyes to meet his as they soften, then add, “My father?”
“Your father didn’t come. Neither did Nikolai.” His answer is clearly spoken and holds no pretense into what his thoughts are as his eyes roam over my face.
Before I can speak Carter’s name again, feeli
ng the familiar pain of loss already numbing my heart, he says, “Carter’s fine. The Talvery men took a hit coming here. They should have known better.”
Talvery men.
Men I’m supposed to be loyal to, and allies with. I don’t know what to feel or who the real enemy is anymore. I just want it all to stop.
The breath I didn’t know I was holding finally escapes, slipping through my parted lips as I lean against the doorway, letting the cool air drift along my heated face. But my throat is tight, the words and emotions tangled together and trying to escape me all at once.
“How many…?” I start to ask, but can’t finish my question with the knot in my throat. How many died tonight?
“A lot,” Daniel answers me and my eyes whip to his, demanding more. “Dozens, Aria.”
I grip the top of my pajama shirt, balling the fabric together right at my chest, twisting it and wishing I could steal the pain away but it stays, growing with every beat.
I won’t cry, even though a part of me wishes for nothing but to mourn. I’ve failed. And the very notion leads to a sarcastic response in the form of a hiss from the back of my mind. As if you ever had the power to stop this.
“Do you want to leave?” Daniel asks me, and the question is one I hold on to, craving the thought of running to take my mind elsewhere. Somewhere away from the thoughts of betrayal and mourning.
My lips part, but no words come out. Not at first. Daniel looks behind me once again, down the hall and to the front door of the large estate. He’s waiting for someone to come, and I know deep in my gut this conversation needs to be finished before that person arrives. “I don’t know,” I answer him honestly and his gaze returns to me.
