Scars (The Triad 1)

ELLIOT

“Seb, we have got to go,” Tristan said again as Seb held Melody’s lifeless form in his arms. Melody. Sweet, loving Melody. Put up with our shit Melody. I found her propped against the wall, gun still in her limp hand, her body riddled with bullet holes. The moment I saw her, my entire body had gone cold.

“I will break every single bone in their body. After that, I will skin them like fucking animals.” Sebastian had been rambling and making promises I knew he would keep. “You said you told her to get out!” He was yelling at Tristan.

“I did, Seb. Last I spoke to her, she was going down to tell everyone else to leave. She told me she would leave right after. She must’ve come back up for something and got caught in the crossfire.”

“This has to be a diversion,” I said, thinking out loud. “They’d have to know that we would all show up. So why aren’t they here?”

“I don’t know,” Tristan said from his crouching position next to Seb, who was still running his hands through her matted hair, whispering into her ear. We needed to get him to focus on something else or he was going to break. Seb was the most emotional of all of us. He got attached the easiest, loved the hardest. Melody’s death was going to consume him if we didn’t get him out of that room.

“What if they wanted to get us out of the manor?” I asked. Worry washed through my stomach. We had left Scarlet there.

“Scarlet?” Tristan asked. “You think they’re going for Scarlet.”

“I do.”

Sebastian’s head tilted up and towards us. The look on his face would have made a lesser person shit themselves. He took a few steadying breaths and laid Melody on the floor and closed her eyes. I swallowed at the lump in my throat.

“If they lay a fucking finger on our girl, I will burn their entire city to ashes.” Seb stood and wiped at his face, smearing Mel’s blood across his cheeks in the process.

“We need to get back there in case that’s where they’re headed.” I turned on my heel and made my way through the broken loft, leaving behind my grief for the time being. I could feel both of them behind me, their anger radiating off them in waves.

I didn’t love the girl. Hell, I didn’t like her on the best of days, but she had proven herself useful and loyal over the past few weeks. I was getting used to having her around. Hearing her laughter and her sailor mouth booming through the house on a regular basis. Her naked, tattooed legs swinging from the counter in the mornings while she drank her coffee. The way her dark hair made her blue eyes look like ice sometimes.

I shook my head. Sebastian was right. If they laid a finger on our girl, we wouldn’t stop until their entire city was underground. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, Scarlet had gotten under my skin. I had fought it for as long as I could, but somehow that infuriating woman had wormed her way into my life.

Tristan was calling the cleanup crew behind me, giving special instructions for Melody. Each man was to be returned to his family, if he had one. If he didn’t, we would take care of it and give him a proper funeral. But Melody? Melody was our family. She was to be held until this mess was over and we could give her a send-off worthy of who she was to us.

We all squeezed back into the lift, and Sebastian hung his head. He was biting back all the tears he wanted to shed for Melody. He knew we needed to have clear heads going back to the manor. If this was all a ploy to get us out of the house, Scarlet could have already been gone. If he lost two women in one night, I pitied the people he took it out on. That bastard put both of us to shame when it came to torture. And the way he looked at Scarlet, the way he cared for her…they were in for some real fucking pain.

“They can’t have even known where we were keeping her,” Tristan said almost to himself.

“I don’t know how they would’ve found out,” I agreed. “We used our most trusted people out there.”

“Emily?” Sebastian asked with death in his voice.

“No,” Tristan said. “I paid her far too much money for her silence and shipped her off. I saw the way Scarlet looked at her. Emily wouldn’t have lasted five more minutes around all of us.” Tristan grinned, and I laid my head back on the wall of the lift. “I think she likes us.”

“You think?” I asked through a laugh. “She likes you two, that’s for sure.”

“Shut up, El. You don’t see the way she looks at you when you aren’t paying attention. She wants your attention just as much as she wants ours.” Sebastian grinned and crossed his arms. “And you’re starting to give in.”

I grunted and let the conversation drop. The ride back to the manor was going to be a long one. If we got there and Scarlet was gone, or worse, dead, we were going to have a long road ahead of us.