“Let’s just say she’s been put out of her misery, shall we?”
Rage.
Pure, unadulterated rage washed over me as he smirked and cocked his eyebrows like the fucking madman he was. I lurched forward and tried to wrestle him to the floor, but he had a few inches on me and a hell of a lot more muscle, and I ended up getting thrown onto my back like a goddamn fool. I wanted to tear him apart, destroy both of them.
What the fuck had they done to her?
Why had I let this happen?
This was all my fault.
“Don’t worry, we made sure she went out with a bang. Little bitch put up a fight... for what it was worth,” he said, holding up his hand to show her teeth marks embedded there. Then he moved to leer over me as I pushed myself up to stand. I was so ready to try for round two, I couldn’t hold back, but he pressed his gun right into the middle of my forehead and sneered. I didn’t care. I pushed my head back into his gun and dared him to end me now. Anything he did from that moment on couldn’t hurt any more than the pain of losing her.
“You’re a fucking animal. You’re gonna pay for what you’ve done,” I said, choking as I spoke.
I wanted to cry. To curl up in a ball like a fucking baby and scream the pain away, but I couldn’t let them see that I was weak. Not yet, anyway. They might’ve ripped my heart out by taking the one good thing in my life, but I hadn’t finished with them. I had debts to collect. And they needed to pay for their sins. I had to do this for her.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Cill. I’ve got this.” Jackson kept his gun pointed at Enzo, but Enzo didn’t seem fazed. He was grinning like he was at a fucking party watching a bitch fight.
“Yeah, Cill. Listen to your friend. The sooner we put you out of your misery, the better.” Isaac nodded to himself and then looked across the room at Jackson. “Take your gun off my brother or I’ll shoot him now.”
“Ignore him,” I said, hoping Jackson would do something he hadn’t done in all the years I’d known him and take my advice. “Just shoot the bastard.”
“I mean it,” Isaac urged. “Let my brother go and we can work something out. We’re all grown men here. Let’s just… talk.”
I gave a sarcastic laugh as Isaac moved back slightly and lowered his gun to point it at my chest.
“That’s it. Nice and slow, so no one gets hurt.” Isaac smiled and I turned to watch as Jackson lowered his own gun.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I hissed. I didn’t know whether impending fatherhood had turned my best friend’s brain to shit, but he clearly wasn’t thinking properly. And sure enough, seconds later, Enzo had knocked Jackson’s gun out of his hand, and had his own pistol pointed right back at him. Two guns on us, none on them. The odds were shit in anyone’s books. We were fucked.
“Never trust anyone,” Isaac said, with pride in his voice.
“I don’t,” Jackson spat back, and even though it looked like we were seconds away from meeting our maker, he didn’t look afraid. He looked defiant.
“I would tell you that’s wise, but I can see from here that you’re anything but a wise man.” Isaac’s focus was solely on Jackson now. He was taunting him.
“Oh, I’m wise,” Jackson replied, folding his arms calmly. “And I don’t trust easily, but I do have friends. Friends I can rely on. Can you say the same?”
With the fraction of a second’s distraction that Jackson gave me, I barrelled forward and knocked the gun out of Isaac’s hands.
Then all hell broke loose.
Gunfire was going off in all directions, and I dived to the floor for cover. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, but there was more than one gun firing, that was for sure.
I heard a thump and looked to the left to see Isaac Conti’s dead eyes staring back at me. It should’ve made me feel something, to see his lifeless body lying there. He’d got his perfect ending. But it did nothing to quell the burning inside of me. My thirst for revenge wasn’t quenched in the slightest. I wanted to torture, maim, and punish him until he was screaming for mercy. I wanted him to suffer for as long as I saw fit for what he’d done to Paige. For what I’d lost. No one death was appropriate for this man. He could’ve experienced a thousand deaths over and over and it still wouldn’t be enough for me. I’d always be trapped in this torturous hell, knowing I hadn’t saved her. I hadn’t done enough.
I became mesmerised watching the red blood ooze from the back of his skull and make a patterned pool in the carpet. I was surprised he bled red like the rest of us. I would've expected him to bleed black ink, just like the colour of his heart. Black like every inch of his soul.
“Cill… Cill… Mate, can you hear me?”
I felt myself being shaken, and I realised the noise of the gunfire had subsided. Jackson was crouched down next to me, shaking my arm to try to pull me out of the hell that was my own mind.
I looked back at him in a daze, then at the carnage that lay around us.
“What the fuck happened?” I shook my head to try to clear the fog. I could see a few men I recognised walking around the room with their guns drawn.
Then I saw him.
