“Please,” she barely gets out, her voice so small and the chatter of her teeth louder than the words she can manage. Every step I take is without my conscious consent. My feet move one after the other. I can feel Nate’s and Hale’s eyes on me as they watch, dutifully.
“It can all be over for you,” Ronnie says. My heart beats in time with every stride until she comes into view.
The sight of her destroys me.My Braelynn.
Soaking wet from the top of her head, her dark hair is stuck to the sides of her face, and her eyes are reddened even though her lips are blue. “Declan,” she whispers and everything in my vision turns red as her eyes roll back. The iron cage is lowered and she screams out our safe word.
Red.She cries out for me to stop it all.
Out of everything to come from her, out of every word to hear.
My intention was to confront her, to tell her I know the leak could only be her. That I’m the one who set up the trap to expose the rat and that it kills me she betrayed me. I would have given her anything. I was fucking falling for her like a fool.
I saw her interrogation play out in my mind’s eye and I hated it, but this … this is a hell I didn’t know could exist. “Get her out.” I order the command beneath my breath. There’s scurrying from behind me, but it’s then that she sees me. She’s lowered into the water, trapped in a cage and sinking.
Her black dress clings to her and when she sees me, her mouth opens to say something but water rushes in. She nearly chokes on it.
“Get her out!” I scream with a fury I didn’t know was possible. The crane grinds and groans as Braelynn sputters. “Going easy on her.” I mutter the words from Nate’s text as rage consumes me. They’re torturing her. Her entire body shakes as she heaves in air and the cage rises.
“Red!” she screams in a shrill voice searching for me in the dark room, but I’ve already moved behind her.
Without a thought at all, with everything blurring around me, silently I remove my gun from its holster. I’m only vaguely aware of my actions.
“Boss?” Ronnie questions with thinly veiled fear and surprise before I pull the trigger. The gunshot is muffled from my silencer and practically drowned out by the objections from Nate and Hale. A perfect red circle forms in the middle of Ronnie’s head, and the look of shock on his face is almost comical before his dead body falls to the ground, blood spilling from the wound.
“Get her the fuck out!” I scream, not stopping, not waiting, but getting in the damn tub myself.
All I can see is red as I open the locks to the cage. Red blood, reddened eyes, everything is red. Nothing could ever be black and white when there’s so much red.
Nate and Hale are quick to act, silently aiding me with no further objections or questions. Hale’s shorter than the two of us, a stocky guy who doesn’t mind cleaning up messes. But I swear he pissed himself. I can fucking smell it through the faded blue jeans before I spot a stain on the denim.
There’s not much focus on him, though, not with her there, barely coherent.
She’s limp and her entire body trembles. Her breathing is labored by the time her body’s removed. Deep gouges areevident around her wrists and ankles from her attempts to pull away.
“Declan,” she barely manages, her head falling into the crook of my neck. Soaking wet, heavier from the water, and trembling from the cold, I don’t think twice about getting her out and saving her. She’s unconscious by the time I’ve pulled her from the cage.
As I climb out of the tub, Nate offers a hand to help me and with Braelynn braced on my left side, I land a punch to his jaw, quick and hard.
He’s damn lucky I didn’t have the gun in my hand still.
The only thing that saves Nate is the fact that he grabs some towels and a thick blanket. “We tried, Boss,” Hale tells me, his eyes wide and the uncertainty and confusion evident. “We added ice but she—”
“I told you not to—” I start but can’t finish. Nate stares back at me, hunched over with his hand on his jaw and just as shocked as Hale is. With water seeping into my shirt, I hold Braelynn close to me as I realize what I’ve done.
“I’m sorry, Boss, I—” Nate starts and stares back at me, “I don’t …”
They were just doing their job. Reality sinks in. They were doing what they were fucking told. I glance at Ronnie, dead on the floor, his wide eyes still open as he lies there.
“Clean him up.”
“Yes, Boss,” they answer in unison.
My heart hammers hard as I hold her in my arms.
What the fuck just happened? What the hell have I done?
DECLAN