by Shayla Black
Jed’s expression took on a familiar twist of rage. Their father’s face had contorted with that same maniacal gleam—just before Beck had slit his throat.
His crazy brother raised his hands to the heavens. “And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
By unleashing his army now? The hair on the back of Beck’s neck prickled. Beside him, Seth cursed under his breath and slid his finger over the trigger of his AR.
“Smite those who rise against Him and hate Him, for they will never rise again,” Jed bellowed.
“You just butchered that passage, asshole. You’re not much of a Messiah if you crucify the word of God,” Beck tsked.
With hate blazing in his eyes, Jed tucked led Esther to safety behind one of the big trucks and shouted at his army, “Destroy this blaspheming minion of Satan!”
“You just had to egg him on, didn’t you?” the PI groused.
Then hell began to rain on them.
Beck hunched down farther as the plate-glass window behind them exploded. “Figured you were antsy to get this party started.”
“Yeah, and the second those bozos stop to reload, we’ll start having fun.”
The anticipated lull came seconds later. Beck already had his brow pressed against his scope and his finger wrapped around the trigger.
“Now!” Seth roared. “Make it count, boys!”
When they returned a hail of bullets, the Saint Squad went scrambling for cover behind the trucks. Had the stupid, cocky bastards really expected them not to retaliate? They were learning the hard way otherwise. Any too slow, they cut down. The soldiers who crumpled to the ground cried out as their blood oozed across the driveway. But most made it behind the heavy-duty vehicles, leaving Beck and his friends still vastly outnumbered.
“Aim under the truck,” Seth urged the shooters on the porch. “Take them out at the knees. When they fall, cap ’em in the head. They won’t get back up.”
Beck moved his scope and aimed the crosshairs at the multiple legs exposed between the big knobby tires. He squeezed the trigger as rapidly as he could. Screams peppered the air. The Saint Squad started dropping like flies. When his weapon was empty, Beck tossed it aside and grabbed another fitted with a full magazine.
A brave idiot rushed behind the fifty cal and swung the big gun in Beck and Seth’s direction.
“You want to play with a big gun? Suck this, motherfucker,” River called out.
“Wait! We’re too close,” Seth yelled. But a grenade was already sailing above their heads. “Shit! Duck and cover!”
The projectile landed with a metallic ping and rolled under the Jeep as they curled up against the sandbags and covered their ears. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, Beck was nearly blinded by the explosion. The detonation was deafening. The wave of heat rolling over them felt like it might singe his face off. Hot metal fragments rained down on them, burning through their clothes.
As soon as they dared, they uncoiled themselves and brushed the smoking shrapnel from their bodies. The Jeep was now in pieces, engulfed in a raging bonfire.
“Liam?” Seth shouted to his friend in the balcony above.
“Fine. Won’t need to shave for a few days but…”
Ears still ringing, Beck took aim at the rest of the enemy—and started pulling the trigger.
Seth did the same as he hollered up again. “Nice shot, River.”
“It’s not my first rodeo.” Raine’s brother snorted.
Around them, Hammer, Liam, Adam, and Dean continued pelting the Saint Squad with their triangulated fire. Beck heard his mother scream out. A baffling mixture of relief and wretchedness sliced him as he watched Esther crumple to the ground, clutching her side. Blood stained her fingers as she wailed.
“Look around, you idiots,” Jed railed. “They’re hiding in the trees!”
Suddenly, the frontal assault stopped, and bullets began pelting the foliage on either side. Panic slammed through Beck. They hadn’t planned for this contingency. Though Dean and Adam were high up in the branches, neither had any way to shield them from oncoming bullets.
As if also realizing their strategic mistake, Seth stood, torment etching his face. “No!”
Jed’s army fired rounds gleefully. Almost immediately, the caretaker screamed. Beck watched helplessly as the man clutched his heart. Blood spurted from between his fingers. Then the older man crumpled, plummeting to the ground.
“Hold on, Dean. Stay with me, man,” River yelled frantically. “I got you.”
But before the former soldier could lob another grenade, the Saint Squad turned all their firepower on Dean. Seconds later, he let out a strangled howl before he tipped from the deer stand and cartwheeled toward the ground. His cry was cut off with a sickening thud.
Beck’s heart clutched. Terror wrapped icy hands around his throat. A gnawing pit of guilt followed.
Dean and Adam were dead. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing Beck could do now to help them.
Ngaire had lost her husband, her soul mate. Dean was gone from River’s life forever, negating any chance the two could find their magical one, the way he and Seth had with Heavenly.
It was his fault. Their blood would stain his soul forever.
He should have fucking left before his demented family caught up with him, before they’d had any chance to steal his friends’ light and happiness.
Beside him, Seth let out a curse.
From the roof, an inhuman howl of rage resounded, echoing off the mountain. River shot another grenade. Beck barely had a moment to take cover again before one of the trucks and all the cowards hiding behind it exploded in a thunderous fireball of annihilation.
When the smoke cleared, half the Saint Squad lay dying or dead.
Beck watched, dazed, as the half dozen remaining members of Jed’s army began to dart and skitter from behind the last deuce-and-a-half, weapons pointed toward the ground.
Were they so afraid of suffering the same fiery fate as their fallen comrades that they’d decided to give up?
“What are you doing?” Jed shouted. “Don’t let Satan beat God’s army, you cowards! Fight!”
“Yeah. I’m not done with you, cocksuckers,” River spat. “Look at me. Up here.”
The soldiers half-heartedly lifted their eyes—and their weapons.
“In Afghanistan, I watched hundreds of good men die protecting your right to believe in whatever twisted bullshit you call God.” Fury dripped from River’s voice. “I never imagined that here, on US soil, I’d be forced to watch someone who’s like a brother to me be mowed down by the same zealots I risked my life to protect. So I’m going to tell you what I told every terrorist asshat I took down in that godforsaken desert…” River pointed his weapon at the wide-eyed men below. “Time to let whatever God you sick motherfuckers believe in sort you out.”
“Kill him!” Jed screamed.
River pulled the trigger first, mowing down the rest of the Saint Squad with one wide sweep of his AR.
Beck’s stomach pitched at the violence. He clutched his weapon tighter as Jed appeared, dragging a bleeding, crying Esther out into the open and shoving her to the pavement at his feet. She whimpered as her blood began to pool around her.
Jed picked up one of his soldiers’ discarded weapons and aimed it. “You might kill me, Gideon, but with my last breath, I cast thee into the bowels of hell!”
Beck lifted his AR and stepped from his cover, meeting his unhinged nemesis halfway. “Really?”
“What the fuck are you doing, Beck?” Seth barked.
“Get back,” Hammer vowed. “We’ll end him.”
Stare still locked on Jedediah, Beck shook his head. “This unholy bastard is all mine.”
“If you kill your Messiah, think of what will become of your black soul.” Jed’s maniacal laugh, as if he thought he’d won, mimicked their father’s cackle all those years ago. “You can’t kill me.”
Beck smirked. “Funny, that’s exactly what Fa
ther told me just before I proved him wrong. I can teach you the same lesson.”
“No. Wait!” Esther pleaded, rising up on an elbow. “We’ll leave…and never come back. Don’t kill our savior.”
“Savior? Never. Shitbag? Yeah. He deserves to go to hell, Mother. But I’ll be merciful and off him quickly…unlike the way you killed me slowly all those years ago.”
“Satan had possessed you,” Esther wailed. “I had no choice.”
“Neither do I.” Beck sent her an ugly smile, then set his sights on Jed again.
“Die, bastard!” An evil grin spread across Jed’s face as he pulled the trigger.
Instead of a bullet ripping through Beck’s head, the hollow click of the empty magazine filled his ears. Jedediah gaped, wide-eyed in shock.
Yeah, he knew he was dead.
Beck didn’t waste a moment, just pressed the muzzle between Jed’s eyes and watched his face erupt in raw panic. “When you get to hell, tell Father I said hello.”
Justice wound like sweet satisfaction through his blood as Beck ignored his Hippocratic Oath and pulled the trigger.
The back of Jedediah’s head blew off.
In that instant, he freed all the victims his brother had ravaged and exorcised the nightmare that had haunted him for the past twenty years.
Well, almost.
“No!” Esther wailed, sobbing hysterically as she crawled to Jed’s body and threw herself across his unmoving chest.
Beck stared at her, now slowly dying mere feet away. A red haze of rage tinged his periphery. Raising his gun, fingertip poised on the trigger, he aimed it at the woman who’d once given him life—then made it absolute hell. The same woman who’d spent sixteen years tormenting, beating, and crawling inside his head to plant seeds of worthlessness and shame.
Clutching her bleeding middle, Esther glared at him. “Do it, Satan. I dare you!”
It would be so easy. But no way would he give the bitch what she wanted.
Beck lowered his gun and knelt beside her. “You don’t know this, but I’m a successful vascular surgeon now. I save people from death every day. I could pick you up and carry you into the lodge, give you medicine to numb your pain, and repair the damage that bullet has likely done to your kidney, spleen, and stomach.”
“Y-you can?” she whimpered, clutching desperately at his wrist. “You’ll save your mother, won’t you? After all, you wouldn’t be alive without me.”
“Would you like that?”
“Yes. Do it, Gideon.” She grabbed him tighter. “You owe me.”
“I owe you the same compassion you gave me growing up, Mother. You have somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes before you bleed to death.” Beck leaned in close to her ear. “I suggest you prepare to meet your Maker. I’m not lifting a goddamn finger to help you.”
Without an ounce of remorse, he turned and headed for the lodge.
Before he trekked inside, River burst out the door and sprinted across the drive, toward Dean’s lifeless body. Seth stood near the portal, expression grim.
“You bastard,” Esther coughed from behind him. “Fix me…”
Beck blocked out her gurgling venom as he spun around to see River drop to his knees beside his fallen friend.
With a backdrop of the blazing vehicle fires, he drank in the carnage around them. The stench of death and gunpowder hung in the air. Puddles of blood ran into the spent ammo casings that littered the pavement.
So much death and destruction. So fucking pointless.
Anguish stung Beck’s eyes and squeezed his heart. He would carry the guilt of Dean’s and Adam’s deaths to his grave.
Buddy sidled up with a clap on the shoulder. “I’ll go tell the girls the fight is over.”
“Don’t let them out here,” he croaked. “They don’t need to see—”
“I won’t,” Buddy assured. “Liam has already said he’ll give Ngaire the news. I’m sure the other ladies will want to keep her inside to console her.”
When Buddy turned away, Zacharias stepped off the porch, his eyes locked on Esther. Beck wasn’t sure what his brother was thinking, but it didn’t matter. Their mother was on borrowed time.
“Beck!” Heavenly cried, racing toward him, hair flying, arms open.
Though the tears streaming down her face were a punch to the gut, his heart expanded. She was love. The sunshine, happiness, and the hope of a million brilliant tomorrows—all the things he’d believed for over three decades he didn’t deserve. But here she was, crashing into him and clutching him, holding him tight.
Beck dropped his gun and gripped her against him, biting back sobs as he breathed her in. She was his air, his sustenance, his tomorrows…his whole fucking life.
“When I heard all that gunfire, I was terrified. We all were.” Her trembling voice flowed over him like sweet honey.
“Shh. I’m fine.” Beck cupped her face before he dipped his chin to capture her mouth. Greedily, he drank in her light and her love, let her chase away the dark shadows of death swirling around him, all the while reassuring Heavenly he was safe, alive, and hers.
“I lay mine eyes on Satan’s whore,” Esther choked out raggedly.
Heavenly jerked back and zipped her stare to the dying woman on the ground. “Is that…”
“My mother,” he bit out.
“She’s hurt. She’s bleeding.”
“Actually, she’s dying. And she needs to burn in hell with my father and Jed.” Beck pinned Esther with an ugly smile. “Take a long, hard look at her, Mother. This is an angel. I doubt you’ve ever seen one before. I know you won’t see any where you’re going. This is what love, kindness, and glory look like. But you wouldn’t recognize them since you’ve spent your life so greedy for power that you placed it above honesty, righteousness, and the love of your own fucking children.”
“I held our flock together. I made it strong. But I was cursed with you. You murdered the two Messiahs we all worshipped.”
“Then I’ve lived up to my name, haven’t I?” He smirked.
“What do you mean?” Heavenly looked puzzled.
“Gideon was a great warrior who, despite being outnumbered like we were today, defeated an army.” Beck narrowed his stare at his mother. “Tell her how Gideon accomplished that.”
“Go to hell,” Esther spewed, despite choking on her own blood.
A caustic chuckle rolled from his throat. “He won the war by killing two of his enemy’s kings. History repeated itself, Mother. Father and Jed are both dead by my hand. Ironic, don’t you think?”
“I should have drowned you when you were born.”
“I’m sure you wish that now. But once you pass to your fiery eternity, I’ll still be standing, living a full and happy life with this amazing woman who will be my wife.” Beck placed his hand over Heavenly’s stomach. “One day she’ll grow ripe with my children.”
Seth approached, flanking Heavenly and adding his palm over her middle. “Our wife. Our children.”
“Absolutely.” Beck nodded, then sent his mother a mocking stare.
Esther gasped. “This harlot lies with you both? Sacrilege!”
“Shut your fucking mouth. She has a heart big enough for us both—something you couldn’t possibly understand.”
His mother sneered. “Sinners—all of you! The fruit this Jezebel bears will be abominations!”
“They’ll be children raised with unconditional love. We’ll never fail to show them how special they are. They’ll never question our love for them. And they’ll never know the kind of torture and abuse you poisoned my childhood with.”
Zacharias stepped toward Esther. “You deserve hell, Mother. I’m going to follow in my brother’s example and leave Messiah City with Faith and Joanna to live a happy life.”
“They’re dead,” Esther sneered, then coughed up more blood. “We sent them to hell when we discovered you were a lying Judas.”
Heavenly gasped, horror filling her face. But his little girl with her compa
ssionate heart reached out for Zach as he sank to his knees with a wail of denial and tears began to spill down his face.
Beck’s heart clutched for his younger brother. Life as Zach had known it was over.
Esther’s lips parted in a malevolent gash of red teeth as she exhaled her last raspy breath.
It was finally over.
Now they had to make it through the aftermath.
“Can you two take Zach inside?” he whispered to Seth and Heavenly. “Sit him down?”
Seth paled, but he managed a nod. Beck wondered why the other man’s eyes suddenly looked somewhere between frozen and haunted. Their girl wiped the tears from her face and stepped in, mustering a kind smile as they knelt to help Zach to his feet.
“My name is Heavenly,” she murmured softly. “Follow me, okay? Let me help. If you want, you can talk to me…”
Zach nodded numbly as he leaned on a stoic Seth.
“Beck!” River yelled near the trees. “Dean’s alive!”
As shock pinged through him, he darted to River’s side and bent over Dean’s prone form. The raw hope on the former soldier’s face jump-started his own.
“Let me see.” He began a visual assessment of Dean’s injuries. Aside from the open fracture of his ulna and the wide, flowing gash across the cop’s forehead, Beck didn’t see any other open wounds.
Where’s the fucking blood?
He had his answer when River rapped his knuckles on Dean’s chest—and a solid thud resounded.
“Holy shit. He’s wearing a vest. The motherfucker was wearing his vest.” Tears streamed down River’s face, but he was grinning like a loon.
Depending on the type of protective armor, there might not be much to celebrate.
