SEBASTIAN
Present
They were so severely underprepared it was humorous. I was taking out men left and right. Hell, we wouldn’t have even had to call in our guys to help. They were dropping like flies, and I was a kid in a fucking candy store. Blood and brain matter exploded from every guy I took down. We needed to do this shit more often, I thought to myself. It was a high I hadn’t experienced in too long.
Elliot was shouting something at me, but I couldn’t hear him over my phone blasting AC/DC out of my pocket. Elliot and Tristan had fought me on the idea before we had left the house, but if Scarlet was alive, I knew she would appreciate it.
And she was alive.
We had watched her get pulled and lifted out of the car boot before being thrown over the shoulder of some soon-to-be-dead asshole. Once they had her inside, Tristan had snuck in behind them, leaving me and Elliot to command our men and make sure we got them both out alive.
I was a man on a fucking mission in that house. The number one rule I told the men was to make sure my ass was covered. Because my plan was to storm into that place and make my way directly to Scar, and I was going to kill anyone that got in my line of sight.
With a gun in each hand, I shot everyone I crossed paths with, opening every door I came across until one opened into the basement. Suddenly, I saw someone coming up on me out of the corner of my eye. I went to shoot, but both of my guns clicked with empty rounds. I was so distracted thinking about finding her that I had lost count of my rounds. Thank fuck he was empty-handed as well. Hand-to-hand combat it was.
“Come on, then, sweetness. I don’t have all night,” I said with a smile.
He swung, and I ducked, coming back up with a punch directly to his chin. His head went flying back as I grabbed his shoulders and kneed him in the balls. He crumpled to the floor in a heap of moaning man meat. I stepped back and kicked him hard across the face, watching in sheer delight as his blood and teeth went flying across the floor. His jaw was hanging from his skull at an awkwardly limp angle. I squatted next to him and pulled the switchblade out of my back pocket.
“I don’t know if you touched her or if you even looked at her,” I said down to him as his face rolled back to face me. He was half-delirious with pain. “But I’m going to err on the side of caution and say you probably have. So…I’m going to kill you now.” I smiled and shoved the blade into the side of his neck. Blood gushed from the wound and sprayed across my hand.
Good. I needed some more blood on me to make my girl proud.
“Seb?” I heard her voice come from behind me. I turned towards her and ran my bloody hands through my hair. It had gotten longer in those few weeks without her.
I took in her tiny figure. She looked like a small child in Tristan’s arms. Her normally shiny, healthy hair was matted and tangled. Her skin had lost all its glow. She was pale with bruises across every inch of flesh I could see, with deep purple bags under her eyes. Blood was smeared and dried across her face, and her bright blue eyes were dull and heavy-lidded.
But that smile? Fuck me, that smile was the same I had seen that night before we had laid down in bed together. It was what had consumed my every waking thought. It haunted my dreams every night as I lay in her bed, smelling her fresh scent. I never wanted to go without it again.
“AC/DC?” she asked, her grin growing wider as her eyes skated over my body. I puffed my chest out a bit and winked at her, holding myself back from running to her and ripping her out of Tristan’s arms. The need to feel her warm body was all-consuming, but I could see in the way she flinched with each step up from the basement that she was in pain. Tristan was holding her as gently as possible and walking slowly so as to not jostle her, but her body was in awful condition.
“I thought it set the mood, princess,” I answered her as they came to the top of the steps.
“I’d reach for you, but I think a few of my ribs are broken, and moving hurts. Like, really fucking hurts.” Tears started to stream down her cheeks. It was killing me to see her so broken.
“It’s okay, pet,” I said as I closed the distance between us. I leaned in, restraining every instinct in my body to grab her and rut her into the ground, and gave her a soft kiss on the mouth. I wiped her tears away. “Let’s get you out of here, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said, curling herself a bit more into Tristan’s body.
“Let’s go!” Elliot yelled from the front room. “Get her in the car. We’ll finish up here!”
“Hi, Grumpy!” she squealed when they made it closer to Elliot. He just grunted in return, but he couldn’t stop the smile from growing. Stupid fucker needed to nut up and join the Scarlet fan club.
I watched them leave the house, seeing absolute bloody red rage for what they had done to her. They took our vibrant, carefree girl and made her feel broken and helpless. But we would show her that wasn’t true. We would get her back on her feet, help her heal, and make her feel whole again.
It was kind of disappointing that I had killed everyone so quickly. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if I had been able to choke the life out of each and every one of them. But after how many of their people I had killed since they took her, they were definitely feeling the dent in their numbers, and that’s what mattered. We were taking down their entire operation. If they didn’t know who they were dealing with when they first took her, they were definitely starting to learn their lesson.
“Is that everyone, El?” I asked.
“Lads are checking around to make sure no one was missed, but yeah. Seems like we got everyone.” He walked down the corridor and pulled my phone out of my back pocket, turning off the music that was still blasting before handing it back to me. I grinned at him when he shook his head. “You look psychotic. You’re covered in blood. Jesus Christ, Seb. Get your shit together.”
I tilted my head at his tone. He was always an ass, but he had really taken a turn in the last few weeks. I thought once we found Scarlet, he might loosen up a little bit. But I had been patient for as long as I could stand it. I had already knocked him out once, and I really didn’t feel like starting another fight. But he was walking on thin fucking ice with me.
“Problem, Elliot?”