Ruthless Knights (The Dark Elite 2)

1

Hale

Methodically, I swing my fists against the heavy punching bag. The rhythm is usually enough to keep my thoughts at bay, but not tonight. Over and over again, I punch and dodge, keeping on my toes and channeling my anger into the bag, trying to expel my rage before it sinks deeper into me and eats me alive.

Thwap.

My heart thunders in my chest, but it has nothing to do with the physical exertion I hoped would distract me. It’s about something else, someone else—

Grace.

The roar of adrenaline that’s pumping through my body is just an echo of what I felt when we rescued her, when I saw that bastard of a fiancé, Brian, pressing the gun to her chest.

Helpless.

Never in my life have I felt so fucking helpless.

Never have I felt so fucking desperate that everything seemed to stop for a moment. I pride myself in my ability to think through any situation, no matter how stressful. To keep my cool no matter what. But when I saw that gun, there was only one thought in my mind, only one instinct that made me raise my own piece and pull the trigger.

Thwap thwap thwap.

I shot him to save her, and I’d do it again in a second. But something inside me flinched when I saw the blood spray over her face, her body. I can still see the haunted look in her eyes as she stared up at Brian before he slumped against her, dead.

Something twists in my stomach.

Grace didn’t need to see that again. She didn’t deserve to see yet another person she loved shot right before her eyes in cold blood. She didn’t deserve to have her freedom taken away.

You’re not enough. You’re not fucking good enough for her. She deserves better.

Even though I saved her in the end, I’ll always be the bad guy. I’ll always be the person that ripped her life away from her and stole everything she had. To her, I’ll always be her greatest enemy, her hatred incarnate.

She doesn’t want you. Look how you treated her, asshole. You think you deserve her?

With each punch, I fight the doubt. The pain. The panic. The absolute empty ruin that’s welling up inside of me—emptiness I’m starting to realize only she can fill. It hurts more than any stab, any punch, any gunshot or wound that has ever been inflicted on my body. It hurts worse than the injury to my leg that still twinges with pain on an almost daily basis. It’s like a fucking disease that’s spreading through me and taking over, inch by inch.

My mind. My heart. My body.

“Fuck,” I mutter, pulling away from the punching bag as sweat drips down my chest.

You can’t have her.

That’s the truth.

It’s a truth I keep reminding myself of, one that I want to grasp and take hold of, but I can’t. I can’t fucking accept it. The emptiness in my chest is swallowing me whole. Before Grace, I could ignore it, but now that I’ve had her…

Well, I’d better get used to feeling this fucking empty, because I can’t have her.

I’m never going to have her.