Breathless (Merciless Book 3)

I recognize some of these faces. Men who have stared at me from a distance with hate but didn’t have the balls to pull the trigger. I’ve passed so many of them on street corners as I drove past Carlisle and sometimes into Talvery territory over the years.

Bang!

I’ve imagined the bullet holes in their foreheads for years.

My blood is ringing with anger as I point the trigger at a man hunched behind the car and waiting with his back to me for one of my men to come into his view. He won’t even see it coming. Bang!

Declan’s iPad shows each of the streets, lined with dead bodies and riddled with bullet holes, broken glass and the shells of bullets that have stolen dozens of lives tonight.

War comes with a hefty cost and it’s sickening but it fuels my need for vengeance.

“Four more on Second Street,” Declan speaks into his mic.

Jase and I watch him carefully and keep an eye out on each side of the building we’re stationed behind. Declan cheats at war, using surveillance that doesn’t let a soul hide.

“Straight down from the street sign, head up the right side of the street and get them from the back. They’re behind the–”

Shots ring out and I glance at the screen to see each of the four turning around too late. Their guns held in the air, aiming, but too slow to do anything before their bodies drop.

The night air is quiet.

It hasn’t been more than thirty minutes since I’ve left, but the realization of how much time has passed since I’ve heard a word about Aria sends a tremor of terror rocking through me like a slow wave.

“We still have the two,” Jase reminds me and tugs my arm to follow him.

Only two of Talvery’s men are left. But he wasn’t among them and neither was Nikolai.

The thought reminds me of Aria, crying on the bed as she confessed how she’ll never forgive me if I killed them. How easy it would have been for the two of them to have died tonight at the hands of other men.

Swallowing the regret, I check my phone and see Cason’s text that they’re secured and safe. He sent it only ten minutes ago. She’s safe. And at this moment, she’s still in my grasp. That’s all that matters.

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I read that message and then the next, a text from Daniel saying that he was almost to the safe house.

Go straight to them, I text him and then add, It’s over. There’s just a message left to send.

Jase is peeking over my shoulder and his lip twitches as he mutters, “message to send,” and then kicks in the back door, a door scarred with bullet holes. It reveals two men on their knees with a row of my men behind them.

“What are your names?” My voice bellows in the small room that looks like it was once used for entertainment. A busted bookshelf stands in the back left corner, board games spilling out over the floor and the projector screen straight ahead is littered with small holes.

Nearly every house on this block and the next will be just like this. The people were cleared out two days ago, bribed or threatened to leave, whichever method was more effective.

Jase crouches down in front of one of the two men and says, “If I were you, I’d answer my brother.” The man behind him, the one pointing a gun at our captive lets out a single rough laugh and the man next to him follows.

“Fuck you,” the old man says. He’s on his knees and bent like that makes his stomach look even larger. He’s got to be in his forties and as he spits at Jase’s feet, the wrinkles on his face tighten. He nearly topples over without being able to put his hands out in front of him; they’re cuffed behind his back, just like his friend to the right of him.

Jase stands up and moves to the next man, but when he does, my heart drops and a sick feeling spreads through my veins. “Where’d you get that hoodie?” I ask him and come closer to him, close enough to grab his collar and pull him up to look at his face.

He’s younger with beady eyes and thin lips. He doesn’t say anything at all, but there’s a hint of a smile on his lips like he knows a secret I don’t.

“You,” my voice comes out harsh as I drop the asshole in the black hoodie and let him fall hard on the ground. He coughs up a laugh and I grab the old man’s shirt, fisting it and the back of his head with my other hand.

“What’s his name,” I grit out the question and shake the old man, repeating myself in a scream that rips up my throat when he doesn’t answer. “What’s his name!”

“Fuck, I don’t know!” The old man looks back at me like I’ve gone mad as I breathe heavily, my lungs heaving air.

“This one is Talvery,” I drop the old man and move to the one in the hoodie, the one whose eyes are nothing but a well of blackness.

“This one is hired,” I speak as I crouch in front of him, feeling my heart race.

“Talvery doesn’t need to hire anyone.” The old man speaks up until his executioner chambers a round and the click shuts him up.

“Where did you find this one?” I ask the man standing behind him. When I peer up, I see it’s Logan.

He looks to his left and then to his right, stuttering to answer.

“Logan,” I stand slowly, “Where did this one come from?”

“He was inside the line, shooting at the target, sir,” another man speaks up.

“The target?” My heart pounds, but I remind myself that Daniel should be there.

“The safe house,” the soldier clarifies.

A cold numbness runs through me as the man in the black hoodie, barely on his knees says, “My partner went in and finished what I started.”

I turn to my brother, who’s already on his phone. “Where’s Daniel?” I ask him as my chest heaves for air. I squeeze the gun harder and when the fucker laughs at me, a deep laugh that chills the very marrow in my bones and fills the room, I whip it across his face, feeling the force of it splinter up my hand.

“Confirmed man dead in the safe house, wearing a black hoodie,” Jase’s response soothes the fear, bringing my rage down to a simmer.

“He’s dead?” I ask Jase to tell me again as relief teases me.

“Addison said Aria shot him.”

“She never fails to amaze me.” As much as the pride fills me, there’s nothing but rage that shows. Anger that they got close to her. To my songbird. They came close enough to hurt her. My fists clench tightly, spreading the thin skin across my knuckles as I breathe in slowly, deeply, seeing nothing but red.

“Daniel came up the south side, where there was less action and he’s with Addison now.”

I hear Jase’s words, I know I do, but they don’t register.

This man with the sick smile on his knees in front me, he conspired to hurt her. My stomach churns at the thought of how narrowly Addison and Aria escaped being hurt, or worse.

The first punch to his jaw, I don’t even realize came from me. Not even as the skin across my knuckles splitting sends a pain up my arm. Again and again, I land punches across his face, listening to the cracking of bone in the deafening silence that fills the room.

The pulse of my racing blood is all I can hear. That and the sound of the man spitting blood across the floor as I grab him by the collar and roll him on his back to crouch on top of him. With his hands cuffed behind him, his back arches and he tries to roll back to his side, clenching and giving me daggers through his narrowed eyes.

“Who hired you?” I grit out the question and a beat passes, then another. He huffs a breath through his nose and the corners of his lips pick up in an asymmetric grin, displaying a ring of crimson blood around his teeth.

The fingers of my right hand crush his throat, forcing it to the ground and feeling his blood rush beneath my grip as I slam my fist into his face again. His eye is swollen and when I punch him again, I hear his nose crack and watch blood seep around his eyes, making them black although not nearly as black as the depth of his irises.

“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…