Taking a deep breath, I stood up slowly, hands up.
Guns pointed in my face, the men smirked. The one holding Olivia smiled. “Drop the gun, sweetheart.”
“I warned you,” was all I said to him, smirking as Fedel came up behind the other one. I shot through the hand the motherfucker was holding Olivia with, and when he backed up, I shot him right in his eye.
Rushing over to Olivia as she screamed, I grabbed her bloody arm. Ripping my shirt, I wrapped it quickly and forced her to look me in the eyes.
“Why the fuck aren’t you in the safe room?”
“N-Neal . . .” she stammered in shock. “I–I-Neal.”
Slapping her across the face, I glared into her eyes. “Get your shit together and move, or I will kill you myself. Fedel, get her to safety. She fights, knock her out.”
He nodded and I left her in his care before running down the hall. This had to be a distraction. They wanted something. The east wing was nothing but bedrooms, and if they were smart, they had gotten blueprints of the house, which meant they knew what was in the west wing. Some of our most important documents, cash, and codes were kept in west wing.
Running up broken stairs, the heat of a bullet seared me as it pierced my shoulder with so much force, I landed on my back and rolled down the stairs.
It was the woman I remembered seeing at Amory and Saige’s wedding smiled as she looked down at me. “Oops, did I hurt you?”
I tried reaching for my gun, but she stomped on my hand.
“Do you even know who I am?” she hissed down at me, her gun pointed in my face. “Your people killed my brother.”
“Sweetheart, we’ve killed a lot of people. I don’t give a fuck about your brother, lady.” I said into the barrel of the gun.
“You bitch!” she screamed, but I would give her something to scream about. Grabbing on to a nearby electrical wire, I pressed the exposed wires against her leg, turning away as they sparked and shook her as though she was having a seizure.
Crawling away from her, I held my shoulder and tried to keep calm. I felt the urge to grab my stomach, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t allow myself to panic. But even knowing all that, I still found myself rubbing circles over my stomach for a moment before I got back up and headed up the stairs.
When I entered the secret room, I found no one there. Pulling up our files, I began to send them to other computers before deleting everything. I heard what sounded like glass cracking and turned around, pointing my gun at the face of the devil’s mistress. But the gun slipped from my hand as I glanced down at the blade in my stomach.
“I warned you,” Saige Valero said, laughing. It was the last thing I remembered before everything went dark.
LIAM
“Hold him still,” I told Declan and Neal as they brought Amory to his knees in front of me. The fucker thought he could out run me. The moment I had my hands on him, he knew his life was over and the prick ran. I caught up to him in what was left of my half-a-million-dollar garage.
Placing my brass knuckles on, I pounded his face.
“You thought you could come into my house,” I yelled as I broke his jaw. “You thought you could destroy me?” I loved the sound of the bones in his face breaking with only his skin to hold it together. “You thought you could burn my fucking house down!” I couldn’t even see his face through all the blood.
“You thought you could hurt my family? You reckless”—his teeth burst out of his mouth like popped corn—“idiotic”—punch—“motherfucking cunt!” Punch.
The moment I stopped, the flesh of his nose was kissing his lips and one eye was out of its socket.
“You? The great big piece of shit who no mother could love and no father could even respect. But worst of all, the man-whore who just had to fuck up my motherfucking day,” I sighed, wiping my nose before grabbing the chains.
“I saw this on a movie once,” I told him as Neal and Declan bound his feet and hands to the ends of two different cars. “I always wanted to know if the human body would actually rip apart.”
Amory coughed up more teeth as they bound him. “How’s your wife, Liam?”
It was only then did something click in my mind, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach. However, I couldn’t let it play on my face. Instead, I nodded to the two drivers and they begin to drive away from each other as Amory’s body rose from the ground and his screams increased.
“I’ll be sure to mail this to your father,” I told him, nodding once more at the drivers, and pushing it to full speed. I reveled in the sound of his cries as his body ripped open. But looking up, his words still haunted me.
“Where the fuck is my wife?” I yelled over the roars of the engines, and as I did, Olivia rushed in covered in blood. Neal didn’t even waste a moment, rushing to her side, but she just pushed out of his arm and ran to me.
“Melody—she saved me, but . . .” She stammered, and stopped speaking the moment she saw the two halves of Amory’s body.
“Olivia!” I yelled, grabbing her arms. “Where is my wife?”
Shaking, her eyes went wide. “She left me with Fedel, and he put me in one of the safe rooms. But I saw on the camera, Saige . . . some room full of computers . . . everything was . . . Melody didn’t see her . . . she . . . Saige . . .”
I never thought I would have to raise a hand to any woman in my family but in that moment, I slapped her so hard she fell on the ground. Neal stepped forward, but Declan held him back.
“Olivia, one last time . . . Where. Is. My. Wife?”
“Saige stabbed her in the stomach. Then Patrick came and helped Saige escape with some documents. Sedric is with Melody now,” she sobbed.
I never ran so fast in my life. I felt as though I was possessed. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear. And by God, I didn’t want to feel anything. The only room Melody would go to would be in the west wing. She would have tried to protect our files. Files they could have gotten with Patrick. I trusted him. I brought him into this family. And he fucked me over. He had balls, but not for long. I stopped when my feet could take me no further, and stared at the river of blood that led to my wife’s body. My father hovered above her, his shirt off and wrapped around her body.
“Your mother has called an ambulance. I’ve stopped the bleeding for now, but . . .” Falling to my knees, I wasn’t sure what to do. She looked so pale, so sick, and so different from the woman I saw only a few hours ago.
“Liam,” my father snapped at me, trying to pull me from my despair. “Your wife will live. Right now, you need to stay calm. Do you understand me?”
I nodded. All I could do was nod as though I was a fucking bobble head. “Patrick Darragh. Patrick betrayed us. I—”
“Son, you have done your duty. The house is secure. Take care of your wife,” he said, and I felt the pressure building up in the back of my throat. I wanted to hold her, but I couldn’t, not without possibly causing any more damage. Kissing her forehead, nose, and lips, it took all my willpower to back away as the paramedics came in.
MELODY
Everything hurt. Everything was darkness. But in that darkness, one voice rang out louder and stronger than all the rest.
“Melody. My beautiful Melody. I’m right here.” He sounded so sad.