67
SCAR
Blood dripped down over my eye, the splatter of one of the men Yavin shot in the face running down my skin as I forced through the moment of near blindness.
One man came too close in my weakness, forcing me to swing the assault rifle around to hang at my side as I pulled two knives from where I’d hurriedly strapped them to my thighs in the basement, before ascending into the chaos of the house. I swiped the first assailant across the front of the throat, not even sparing a moment to watch him fall to the floor before I spun and stabbed the next between the ribs.
He sputtered, blood trickling between his lips as I adjusted the angle of my knife to press toward his heart. “Where is Darragh?” I growled. If nothing else, I would gut the bastard alive before I left this world.
I’d make sure Irina was safe.
He smiled, something devious gleaming in his face as he shoved himself further onto the knife sinking into his chest. The life faded from his eyes as I watched, raising a foot to kick him back and pull my blade free.
He fell to the floor among the others as Yavin grunted at my side. His arm bloomed with red, his first bullet wound, as he hissed against the pain that nothing else could compare to.
Like being lit aflame from the inside.
“Aw, Yavin has his first boo boo,” I said, teasing to try to push back the terror consuming me. The surge of men slowly pouring into the building was too much, there was just no way we could survive.
“It’s about fucking time he cut his goddamn teeth,” Ryker said, charging into the fray. His hatchet swung, catching someone in the face and making a hole where his nose had been.
The others followed behind him, Matteo’s fear-filled face emerging from behind Simon’s protection as the guard clung to his boss. “Where are they?” he demanded, clenching his jaw as he prepared for the worst.
“Don took them,” I said, raising my head.
Matteo nodded, his brow furrowing as he turned and shot someone between the eyes. We’d fallen for the trap Darragh and Murphy had laid, let a viper into our nest carelessly because she’d been a victim.
Someone who Irina had sacrificed herself to save.
I grabbed a man around the throat as I spun, squeezing until his face turned blue. Calix was at my side in an instant, his knife pressing into the fleshy underside of the man’s jaw as he kicked the gun held at his side away.
It skittered across the floor, bumping into one of the bodies that littered Ivory’s beloved kitchen. “Where is Darragh?” I asked, knowing the others would ask for Murphy enough for all of us.
I wanted the man who had wronged my woman, wanted to watch his blood flow across the tile floor.
He laughed, flinching as Calix’s knife pressed tighter into his flesh. “You’re too late,” he wheezed, and the blood in my veins turned to ice as he glanced toward the hall that led to the basement. “He’s waiting for her.”
Calix shoved the knife deep, cutting off whatever else he might have said as he looked at me for a brief moment. He abandoned the knife, the two of us bolting for the door to the basement.
If Madison survived this, if I lived to tell the tale, I would peel the flesh from her bones so slowly that all that remained was pulp.
“They’re in the tunnels!” I yelled, making Matteo and Yavin stare at me in horror. They killed who they could, trying to retreat to the entrance as Murphy’s men closed in.
Their numbers were dwindling. We would win the fight with the rest of our men having returned to the property. But would it still matter if they were gone?
Matteo touched his hand to the basement door, prying it open as Simon moved in behind him. His guard’s eyes flared with panic, shoving himself forward to knock Matteo out of the way as an explosion ripped through the house.
Heat struck the front of my body, knocking me backward as everything went silent. I watched Calix fly backward at my side, his body airborne as the blast tore through the mansion.
Sound returned the moment my back struck the floor, the air knocked out of my chest as I wheezed and turned to heave.
A second explosion sounded upstairs. I felt a brief moment of terror. Then it all turned to black as the Estate, our home, crumbled around us.