Perfect Rage (Unyielding 3)

I hadn’t said one word to her. Not one.

She’d been crying. I left her sobbing in the fuckin’ sewer, but the crying wasn’t because I was leaving her there or that she was scared or afraid for her life.

No, Alina wouldn’t cry for herself. She cried for others. And that day she’d cried for me. She fuckin’ cried for me. Begged me to talk to her. To say something. But I didn’t. Not with the fragmented memories and uncontrollable rage ripping through my body.

And that rage was focused on the bastard who stole Alina from me and destroyed us. Who kept me locked up in a cell for years torturing me with videos of her. Who stole my life. My memories. My ability to feel or care about anyone by forcing a drug into me.

Another drop of rain hit the back of my glove.

Fuck this.

I looked away from the bar, put my hands on the handlebars, revved the engine, then kicked it into gear, lifted my feet, and pulled away.

It was ten minutes before I pulled a U-turn and headed back. The light sprinkles of raindrops had turned into a steady drizzle and the pavement glimmered under the streetlights with slick wetness.

All I heard was the deep roar of my engine and the pellets of rain hitting my helmet and leather jacket. Rhythmic, like several drums banging the exact same beat over and over again. I was used to it. The pounding. But most of the time when the pounding in my head hit, it was painful.

No, it was agonizing.

This was calm. I was calm and I knew why: I was headed back to the bar.

My grip on the handlebars tightened. No, I was headed back to her. She was now my addiction. My craving. My need.

I pulled into the alley behind the bar and parked. Getting off my bike, I lifted my helmet and hooked it on the handlebar.

I took off my gloves, opened my satchel, shoved them inside and pulled out my lock pick tools. Walking to the door, I crouched and inserted the two metal pieces. It took some effort to pick the lock, but I’d always had a knack for it.

I remembered being outside my sister’s grade three classroom at midnight picking the lock. I’d already broke through the main doors of the school, which took a little more work than a flimsy classroom door. Flashbacks of me breaking into her school to steal the hamster Fiddlehead surrounded me. Georgie said the kids were teasing the rodent and the teacher ignored it. So, I was breaking Fiddlehead out of purgatory and bringing him home.

My fuckin’ memories were better off forgotten, but they refused to leave me the hell alone, and continued to haunt me.

If they’d remained buried, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d probably still be in Colombia where I’d spent several weeks dying in some fuckin’ filthy motel room after taking Moreno down. Where I’d prayed for death as I retched my guts out. Where I’d fought the nightmares that turned out to be memories. All the time not knowing what was real and what wasn’t.

I’d destroyed the room. Fist through the television, then the drywall.

Unable to face looking at myself in the bathroom mirror, it ended up shattered on the floor.

Demons. Shadows. I fought them all until I couldn’t anymore.

Finally, I collapsed on the floor, my body shaking so bad it took me hours to pull myself into bed where I lay for who the fuck knows how long.

I knew I was dying from the drug withdrawal. Felt it since I escaped the basement where Deck and the other assholes had kept me prisoner, attempting to gradually wean me off the drug. That was when I remembered Catalina.

No, Alina. She’d always been my Alina.

But they weren’t all good memories. They were of Alina and me in Colombia with Moreno. I’d been on Vault’s drug and had no fuckin’ idea who she was.

I’d done things to her… watched her cry. Watched her beg.

And I’d fucked her. I’d goddamn fucked her. I was cruel and cold and hadn’t given a shit if her husband killed her for fucking me.

And when I remembered and went after Moreno for what he’d done to both of us, I hadn’t planned on leaving Colombia alive. Whether Moreno and his men killed me or the drug withdrawal did. All I knew when I went there was there was no chance I was leaving this fuckin’ earth until Alina was free of that sick bastard.

Nothing else mattered.

Once she was safe and Moreno was dead, I didn’t have to fight anymore. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to remember.

The fucked-up thing was Deck and his buddies had been there to take down Moreno, too. So, I used him to get Alina out of the sewer and out of the country. Away from the cartel because they’d never let her go even if her husband was dead. You didn’t walk away from that shit alive.