This Cruel Love

“I like your fire, but save it for your new owner.”

He went to stand, pushing himself up off the sofa. I didn’t stop to think about the consequences, I just acted purely on instinct. Using the lapse in his concentration as he moved, I made a grab for a marble ashtray from the coffee table. I whacked him on the side of the head as hard as I could, throwing my whole body weight behind the blow.

Ed grunted and fell to the floor, but my hit wasn’t enough to knock him out. He rolled onto his back and then lurched forward, making a grab for me and pulling me down onto the floor with him. The ashtray fell from my hand, and angrily, he kicked it away.

“You sneaky little bitch. Don’t think I won’t send you off to your new home with a few new bruises.”

He raised his hand up and smacked me hard across the face, making my head jolt to the side and my jaw radiate wit

h pain.

He moved to straddle me as I lay on my back on the floor, then put his hand around my neck and squeezed hard.

“One more move like that and I’ll cut you. I’ll leave a permanent mark, something to remind you of me when you’re gone.”

He leaned forward, grinning down at me. His rancid breath made me recoil with disgust, but the way he’d moved his body gave me an edge, and I was going to take full advantage of it. I took a deep breath, and with every ounce of strength I had in me, I lifted my knee up and kicked him in his balls as hard as I could.

He howled like an injured animal and rolled onto his back, grabbing between his legs. Suddenly, a flurry of action erupted around me. As if appearing from nowhere, Chloe hurtled herself across the room, screaming like a banshee and holding some kind of metal rod in her hand. She jumped onto Ed and stabbed the rod straight through his right eye, causing him to convulse and jerk all over the place. It was like a scene from a horror movie, only this wasn’t a movie, it was our grim, fucked up reality.

I didn’t even have chance to gather my next breath before Chloe was snatching Ed’s gun, and firing one single shot into his head. Then silence. Ed stopped jerking. All you could hear was our breath panting, our hearts thumping loudly in our ears and out of our chests.

“Are you okay?” Chloe asked me, looking totally unfazed herself, like it was all in a day’s work for her.

I went to answer, to tell her I thought I was okay, but honestly, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

“What the hell was that?” I managed to ask, nodding to the metal embedded firmly into Ed’s eye.

“Oh that? It’s some kind of metal flush rod I managed to wrangle free from the toilet cistern back there. Good job the building isn’t the only old thing around here, hey? The toilet was gross, all rusty and old, but thank God it was. I was able to pull that rod off easy enough.”

“Jesus, Chloe. You’d give Jason Bourne a run for his money.” She smiled then looked back at me with a sad expression on her pretty face.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Ryley? You look really pale.” I couldn’t believe Chloe had done all that she had. She was pregnant, and yet she was still worried about me.

I went to speak, but I was cut short by the sound of the front door bursting open and angry bellowing voices bouncing off the walls.

As we pulled up to the address Luca had given me, I saw him and his men pour out of their vehicles like a plague of rats ready to crawl all over this shit. I swerved into the nearest parking space I could find, leaving the car parked at a peculiar angle, but I couldn’t give a fuck. I didn’t want Luca going into that apartment without me. I wanted to be the first guy my angel saw. I had to get to her.

The adrenaline was coursing through my veins, burning up my body. I felt like a killing machine, programmed to lock and load. Find, kill, and destroy at all costs. Hell, this whole fucked up shit storm was of my own doing and I needed to put it right.

I didn’t stop to speak to Cill or Dennis. I didn’t even wait for Travis and his dad to find us. I was on automatic pilot. I darted forward, pushing my way past the tail end of Luca’s men and taking the stairs two at a time. My breath was heavy and laboured, but it wasn’t from exertion. I was close to hyperventilating, panic rising in my throat like bile. All I could think about was her. All I could focus on was tearing down whatever doors and walls stood in my way of protecting her. Why the fuck did everyone I loved have to be ripped away from me? Was I really that cursed? Destined to spend my life miserable and alone, forever seeking vengeance against those that’d wronged me and the ones I loved? This had to stop.

The sound of a gunshot ringing through the stairwell had us surging forward with shouts of ‘fuck’ and other cuss words. I felt that shot in my very soul, tearing through my chest, ripping out my heart. A flashback to the last time I’d been on the outside, hearing a gunshot go off for a loved one, made my head spin and I felt myself sway. My eyes glazed over as I fought the urge to scream out in terror. This couldn’t be happening, not now. Not when I’d just found her.

Thank God Luca knew exactly which door to approach. He wasted no time launching himself towards it to bust it down. It didn’t budge the first time, but I charged forward to join him, and with a few more of his men helping us, the locks burst open. We tumbled into that apartment, pumped up for revenge and ready to unleash hell.

Luca pushed through first and I followed him. I didn’t know what we’d find behind that door, but I couldn’t stop to think, I had to get inside, to her. Frantically, I scanned the room looking for my angel, and when I saw her standing in the middle of the room shaking like a leaf, my heart stopped beating and everything froze in time. She was alive. Thank God, she was alive. I felt weak at the sight of her. She had a mark on her face, which made me clench my jaw so tight I could’ve cracked my teeth. I was so angry. But seeing the look of relief and pure love in her eyes made me dissolve into a pool of warmth, all for her. This woman was my everything.

I saw Travis and his dad out of the corner of my eye, standing to the side of me. In a way, I felt jealous that they were there, ready to sweep her away from me. Manipulate her into spreading her affection between the three of us, when all I wanted was to carry her away and just love her. Bring her back from this in my own way.

Her face began to crack as she ran towards us and then she bounced up into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist, and burying her face into my neck as I buried mine into hers. We stayed like that for what felt like forever, just breathing each other in and letting the warmth of our bodies begin the healing process. My heart was bursting from my chest with the love I felt for her. Three men stood before her; me, her brother, and her beloved father, but when she’d needed comfort, she’d chosen me. She’d put me first. No one had ever put me first, not like this. If her family didn’t know it before, they did now. I was hers and she was mine. We needed each other to survive. She calmed me, and judging from the way her tense little body was starting to soften, I calmed her too. This wasn’t just a connection, this went far deeper than any bond. We were etched into each other’s souls, forever fused together, and it felt so right. She was my soul mate. She was made for me.

After a minute or so, she reluctantly dropped her legs down to the floor, but she kept her arms wrapped tightly around me, and I held her close to my chest. It was only then that I was able to take in the true extent of the nightmare my angel had endured before we came here.

Justin, the gutter rat, was lying in a pool of blood just behind the door in the living area, a single gunshot wound to his head. So, he really was a rat, getting pulled into Ed’s plan and fucking Ryley over yet again. If he wasn’t lying in a pool of blood now, he would’ve been after today. I’d have made sure of it. Ed lay a little further away from him, with some kind of metal rod sticking out of his socket, and a single gunshot wound in the middle of his forehead. He’d had the ending he deserved. I just felt pissed I hadn’t been the one to hand it to him.

Luca was holding Chloe, hugging her tight and whispering into her ear, but she appeared placid and almost detached from the carnage lying around her.

“How did you-” I didn’t get to finish my sentence.