6
Atwisted grin tugs at my mouth as I rise from my crouching position, cocking my head as I stare down at Jameson, or what used to be Jameson. You could hardly recognize the man now.
I flick my eyes to Ryker who stares down at the man impassively, like this is an everyday occurrence to him. But I guess it is, in this life, shit like this happens all the time.
Okay, maybe not, but we’re not shy to the scent of death.
Jameson has been crucified to the wall inside Valentine’s old apartment. A big oldfuck youto Valentine.
Ha.
He thinks he can threaten me.
No.
Did I believe he’d do something to Wren, damn right I did but I also wasn’t stupid enough to believe he’d simply hand her back either.
That little note was a bluff.
He wants my city, but I know he won’t give Wren back.
Would I give it up for the woman?
Probably.
And that shit terrifies me.
Jameson’s white shirt is no longer white but stained scarlet red, the buttons undone to reveal a large ‘S’ that’s been carved into his chest, the wound so deep you can see the layers of fat that cover the muscle underneath. I’d like to tell you he was long dead when I graffitied his skin, but he wasn’t. His screams of pain still ring inside my head, his pleas for mercy left unanswered as the tip of my blade sliced through his skin. He should have known there would be no mercy in this.
We did at least, manage to get some information from him before he croaked it.
An English organization, no names but there were plenty of English that could be the culprit. It would take some time to figure out who it was that was working with the vermin, but off the top of my head I couldn’t think of one that would sink so low or be so stupid. They were all big. The English and the American’s had very little do with each other.
There was no need.
He wouldn’t give up the location of Valentine, not for love nor money and I had to hand it to him, that was loyalty. He still had to die.
Blood runs down the walls and I dip my finger into it like it’s paint, smearing the thick substance over the note Valentine so lovingly left for me.
I have left one in return.
Run.
That’s it.
Because if he didn’t run, if he didn’t heed my warning, there would be only pain in his future. I wasn’t going to let him live, even if he did run and I would chase. I’d make a game of his demise, a sport for my entertainment and fuck, would that be entertaining.
My little bird was missing from my side, from my bed, her attitude and her soft body was absent and I was slowly going crazy without her.
I don’t know how it happened or when it happened, but she was under my skin, in my black soul, a light cutting through the shadows that is my life.
Ineededher and I’ve never needed anyone.
This shit sends men like me batshit, like an addict gone too long without a fix.
I didn’t know where she was. I knew she was alive and that at least settled some part of me but how bad was she injured? What was Valentine doing to her?
It was these questions, the ones that haunted me when I tried to sleep, when life became quiet, the silence too loud, whilst I was waiting and watching for the next lead, the next word, the next anything where I pictured her. And I saw what he was doing. I saw her bleeding, bruised, broken. I saw her spirit and her fight leave her wild eyes and it pumped me full of rage.