“Turn the fuck around. I won’t say it again.” His eyes twitched like raising his voice had spurred a nervous tick.
“I’d rather face my death, you mangy diseased-looking asshole.” I spat what was likely my last words at him. I was a stubborn bitch, unwilling to bend to death no matter how it was presented. The itch to reach back and grab HB was so intense my hands shook.
His smile deepened and turned from sinister to teasing. With the speed of a striking cobra, it took him two quick steps to reach out and grip my arm. He swiveled me around with a strength that didn’t match his frail body.
A sinister laugh climbed out of his throat while he slung a boney arm around my neck. He jerked HB from the back of my pants, and his arm tightening around me was like being wrapped in razor wire.
Why the fuck were we just standing there, breathing and listening to the cadence of gunfire? The notion hit me that the monster behind me knew why I had come into the house. He didn’t want me to help the men.
He waited until the sound of gunfire lessened before he proceeded to shove me back towards the living room.
“Arjen! Arjen!”
His loud yell detonated like a boom, rumbling throughout the house. How was Arjen supposed to hear him yelling with weapons fire still sounding off?
Like the men were connected to his mind, the gunfire ceased. The silence hung heavily in the air, a willing participant in the chaotic drama unfolding. Arjen, along with two of his men stormed into the living room, M4’s jammed into their shoulders, aimed and primed to take down whoever and whatever.
They looked like members of the deadliest mercenary team ever assembled. The determined set in Arjen’s stance and grip on his weapon drew tighter once he set his sights on the man standing behind me. Recognition and anger flashed in his gaze that led me to believe he was staring at the living representation of the ghost that haunted him.
“How the fuck did you get out? Are you ready to die because your men are already dead?”
Who the hell was standing behind me? What devil had staggered from hell to put that death-threat of an expression on Arjen’s face and in his tone? Why at first glance had the man appeared familiar to even me?
He’s blind in the left eye, Mecca,the little voice of reason and memory reminded me.
Arjen’s face changed from dangerous sexy mercenary to a demon possessed by pure evil. There was no doubt about it, if I hadn’t been in the way, the man would be long dead.
“I figured you would kill them all, and would have been disappointed in you if you hadn’t. I trained you well, son.”
The chill that rode my back at the man’s confirmation was as chilling as if a black widow had bitten into my skin and poisoned my blood, before it dissolved my bones.
Silvia’s explosive reveal, along with Arjen’s father crawling his way back from hell, confirmed that the amount of chaos in this day knew no bounds.
The story Arjen told me about his father and their vow to get rid of him after he took Khane’s eye was still fresh in my mind. He was supposed to be rotting away in a Russian prison, but here he was, the devil himself with his hooves wrapped around me.
“I needed them to hold you off long enough to finally get my hands on this slippery little bitch, and you sent her right to me. You picked a good tough one. I’ll give you that. Twice, I’ve tried to kill her, but she refuses to fucking die. Figured I’d have to do it myself.”
If the glare in Arjen’s eyes got any deadlier, it would replace the weapon in his hand.
“After seven years of hell, the idiots I paid to find me if I ever disappeared finally did their fucking jobs. You’ve been getting feedback from a decoy they paid with cigarettes to take my place in prison for the last six months until I recovered, only to find out I will die anyway. Tuberculosis. I’m a fucking walking disease thanks to you and that bastard brother of yours.”
“Good. I hope you’ve been suffering well.”
The edginess in Arjen’s body suggested he was ready to set hell loose on his father. The hard shove that the old goose-necked bastard delivered to my back, had me standing in the middle of a father and son that hated each other enough to set the world on fire.
Why hadn’t Arjen’s men fired on the old man? A glance at them revealed the kind of stressed expressions I never expected to see on their faces. What had them so shaken? Why had Arjen’s grip on his weapon loosened? Why had Khane walked in and stopped in his tracks, his gun aimed, but his expression a thousand miles away? Why hadn’t I accepted the truth already?
I peered across my shoulder at the man whose smile cemented me in place. His eyes were aimed at Arjen and the gun at me.
“Revenge is all I wanted before I died. But, before you kill me, son, I’m going to take the one thing I know you cherish more than your own life. My plan was to kill that bastard standing next to you, until I discovered you actually had enough love left in you to give to someone else.”
He was going to shoot me in the back. Thoughts were zooming through my head like a freight train. My eyes were fixed on Arjen’s now, hoping he could read my last words.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
No sound registered, but the look of horror on Arjen’s face, and the rest of his men’s faces, was followed by the harsh push that came from the force of the bullet traveling from a Glock-17. My Glock. The asshole had used HB to end my life.
The heat, the pain, the pressure of a ripped apart organ. All of this registered as I ignited in burning pain before I went hurtling towards the floor. The first things to strike the immovable marble were my hands, which did nothing to stop the floor from giving me a full-body punch.