I looked away, wanting so badly to kiss Tess and make everything disappear from her mind. I wanted her to wake up whole and undamaged. But I would never live with myself if I didn’t kill every last bastard. I had to relinquish her…for now.
Slowly, I angled my body toward him. Frederick moved closer, brushing my arms with his as he readied himself to take her weight.
“Wait,” I snapped.
Frederick didn’t say a thing, stepping away. I rolled my neck, centring myself.
I cleared my throat, facing the men and women who made their living stealing the lives of others. Police hadn’t punished them. Karma hadn’t cared. But me? I cared a shitload, and they were about to get their just rewards.
“See this woman?” I held Tess higher, raising my arms like she was on a pyre ready to burst into flames. “You did this to her.” My eyes glazed recalling the fighter, the amazing woman who captured my heart, and not the flightless bird in my arms. My voice came thicker, roughed with hatred. “You stole everything from her. You stole her entire life not once but f**king twice. I don’t know what goes through your head. I don’t f**king want to know. I’ve always classified myself as a fair man even though every day I battle black desires. I see the satisfaction such a trade can bring. I see the temptation for money and the dark call of lust. But what I don’t see is how you lost so much of your humanity that you let yourself give in. You sicken me. You disgust me, and I promise no one will care when you rot in your unmarked graves.”
The line of ten or so men squirmed on their knees, testing the ropes around their wrists, working the gags. The woman hung her head, but kept glaring at me with black evil. She was a true psychopath. No feelings or sense of right and wrong.
I motioned to Frederick to take Tess. He came forward and opened his arms, easing them beneath mine. My body ripped into pieces as Tess’s gentle weight transferred from my arms to his. He cradled her with such compassion I suffered a bolt of hot green jealousy.
I lashed out, clamping my fingers around Tess’s arm.
Frederick froze, watching me carefully. “She’s yours, man, I get it. She’ll always be yours. I’m just keeping her safe for you while you avenge her honour.”
It took everything I had to relax my grip and nod.
I held out my hand to Franco, who stood to my right. “Give me the pliers, Franco.”
Frederick sucked in a breath and stepped hastily back, cradling Tess’s head on his shoulder. Immediately Franco obeyed, passing over the tools used to break my woman’s finger.
I stalked forward until I loomed over the line-up of traffickers. The psychopath woman stiffened—too stupid to be afraid. “Cut her ropes and stand her up.”
Franco obeyed without question, slicing through the binding. Grabbing her long black hair, he hoisted her to her feet. Her nostrils flared above her gag and the first sign of fear glimmered in her gaze.
Franco wrapped his large arm around her shoulders, keeping her in place.
I inched closer, tapping the pliers in my hands. “How does it feel to be a traitor to your own sex? Do you enjoy it?”
She glared, tilting her chin in defiance.
Smiling coldly, I placed the pliers in my pocket and reached to my waistband. I pulled free the knife I’d used to kill the Wolverine and his son. The hilt felt righteous in my grip, urging me on. Using the tip of the exceedingly sharp blade, I sliced through the duct tape. She flinched as I nicked her and a small line of red appeared.
I had to hear her reasoning before she died. I had to understand what drove people to such things.
Spitting out the burlap sack, she hissed, “Go to hell, a**hole. I see you for what you are. You think because you wear a fancy suit you are different to us. You’re lying. You’re the one who wants to hurt and sell women.”
Not the answer I wanted.
I backhanded her. Her head snapped sideways and she stumbled.
Frederick moved further away, protecting Tess in his arms.
“Do you believe in redemption, cunt?” My voice was detached, killer-cold, precise.
She pursed her lips, denying me an answer.
I belted her around the ear. She muttered, “Yes. I will be forgiven.”
My lips curled in a snarl. I grabbed her hand, jerking it forward. She struggled, but it made no difference. Franco held out his palm to take my knife while I grabbed the pliers from my pocket. In one fast move, I inserted her finger into the nasty tool.
She sucked in a breath, wriggling in Franco’s grip, but it was no use.
I whispered, “I’m taking your life. You will die and become nothing. Not even a speck of thought, or whisper of second chance. I want you to know that as I take your life, I’m cursing you to the bowels of the underworld. I’m wrapping you in curses so your soul will never rise again.”
My hand twisted the pliers and she let out an ungodly scream. Her finger gave way as I snapped the bone and Franco pushed her away from him. He tossed me the knife and in one short slice, I cut her jugular. Just like Wolverine.
For one millisecond her neck stayed intact, then her flesh gaped open in a red angry gash, spurting my chest with red glowing blood. Hot and tangy, it spewed as if it couldn't stand to be in her body any longer.
Her hands flew to her throat, her finger bent to a horrible extreme, trying to staunch the blood. She gurgled rather than screamed.
Her rapidly beating heart hastened her death as litres of crimson evicted through the cut.
The bound and gagged traffickers all froze, staring in horrified realization. The realization that there would be no walking away from me. That they’d met their f**king maker and had minutes left to live.
The woman toppled to her knees, before crashing onto her face as the last pump of life-force drenched the concrete.
She twitched her last. My voice rang loud and clear. “Your blood will mingle today. All of you. You worked together, you’ll die together.”
I looked to Franco, who nodded.
“Gentlemen,” he said to his team. Instantly, the black-clad mercenaries ringing the space unholstered their guns.
Shaking my head, I said, “Too impersonal.” Holding up the bloody knife, I added, “No guns.”
“You heard him. Put your guns down,” Franco snapped. The sound of knives being pulled free from scabbards hissed around the room.
I pointed at the f**king ringleader in his pouncy blue shirt. “Not him.” Then I looked at the nak*d f**k who’d raped the blonde girl. “Him either. Both are mine.”
The mercenaries moved forward, standing behind a victim. Blair, one of Franco’s trusted men who looked like a Norwegian god of war, placed his knife across a trafficker’s throat, his shoulder tense and ready.
Darkness yowled inside, swarming thick and fast; I let myself be consumed. This is for you, Tess.
I never felt the need to be so barbaric, but the beast called the shots. And it wanted blood. It wanted an Olympic swimming pool filled with blood.
“Joined together in death, you will be entwined in purgatory. I have no mercy for you.” My eyes met Franco’s. “Do it.”
It was a morbid floor show gone horribly wrong as the mercenaries severed their victim’s neck in one swoop. Dying bleats and prayers smothered by their gags.
Waterfalls of red gushed forth, splashing wetly against the concrete. One by one their bodies twitched and convulsed, sending blood from veins to floor.
Franco moved closer and mumbled in my ear. “Can I have the rapist?” His eyes flashed black, and I felt a camaraderie like never before. Monster to monster.
I nodded.
The gruesome death scene played out. The air grew rife with metal and rust. The sweet stench of death followed not long after as their hearts gave out.
My eyes shot to Tess still unconscious in Frederick’s arms. Her hastily wrapped finger lay broken on top of the brown scratchy blanket. Her cheek pressed against Frederick’s black polo. If anything, she looked worse than before—her skin pallid, ashen.
I needed to touch her. Affirm she was still alive and would stay that way. Stepping through the pools of blood, I headed to Frederick and placed as delicate a kiss as possible on Tess’s forehead.
Frederick held her steady, while I caressed her cheek and tried to get my heart to stop hammering against my ribs. She’s still alive.
Her blue-grey eyes flickered open, her pupils so far dilated, I was afraid the drugs in her system might kill her. But her gaze latched onto mine with intelligence, fighting hard to be free.
“Y—you’re covered in blood—” She stopped short, wheezing and whooping with racking coughs. Goddammit, I had to get her to a doctor.
Seeing her so sick sucker-punched me in the gut. I smiled gently. “Esclave. We’re leaving soon. I’m extracting revenge and then we’re going home.”
Frederick scowled. “Seriously, Q? Calling her slave at a time like this?” His look of disapproval pissed me off.
“Tu ne sais rien.” You don’t know. I tried to keep levelheaded but anger made me mutter, “Don’t judge me.” He didn’t get it. Esclave had become an endearment. Aching with tenderness, encapsulating everything that had happened between us.
Tess mumbled something incoherent and I brushed my fingertips down her feverish cheek. “Tess, what would you have me do? What sacrifice would give you closure?” I bowed my head against hers. “Tell me, esclave, and I’ll make it happen. Tell me what will halt your nightmares and bring you back to me.”
For a while she didn’t respond. Then her eyes flickered open and her voice trembled with rage. “They don’t have h—hearts. I want to see if it’s true.”
Frederick tensed. “Q…don’t take that literally.”
What a f**king stupid thing to say. Of course I took it literally. All I could see was holding a black-threaded heart in my hands as the ringleader perished.
My eyes narrowed as Tess slipped back into limpness. She looked so innocent, so broken in her slumber, but the black part of me recognised the black part of her. How dark do you run? How alike are we truly?
Her one request told me more about Tess than any questions I could’ve asked. She wanted their hearts. She wanted the most integral part of a person—the one symbol that represented compassion and love. She wanted it carved out of the men who hurt her.
It would be my f**king pleasure.
I stood straighter, mouth watering at granting her request.
Frederick stepped back a bit, shaking his head. “Q. Don’t. Just put an end to this and be done with it. She won’t remember.”
I snarled. “It isn’t the point that she won’t remember. It’s the fact she asked and I promised. I swore I’d lay her kidnappers’ corpses at her feet. And I mean to deliver them in pieces.”
Tess’s request echoed in my skull: A heart for a heart. A life for a life. A thrum of living for the last beat of death.
It was only fitting. Only fair. Time to deliver the heart of the man who stole her, to put the past behind.
“Leave, Roux. I don’t want you here. Take Tess back to the plane and get ready to leave.”
“You won’t be able to run from the memories if you do this, Mercer. His death will be good enough.”