Cruel Seduction (Underground Kings 2)

“Jaxon! You son of a bitch! You better fucking answer me. Quinn will kill me if you die.” I don’t want to think about him being dead; it makes my eyes water and right now, I need to retain all the damn moisture I can.

Jaxon was the first man I met in prison who was innocent of a crime he didn’t commit. We shared stories, and he told me his plan when he got out to seek revenge. Somehow, we ended forming a little group of our own, and men like us flocked to be around others who were just me and Jaxon. It was how our misfit band of brothers formed, and since I had no one else on the outside, these men were who I considered family. That might not mean anything to some people, because how could criminals like us know how to love the way a family should?

Fuck those people.

I don’t hold a fraction of the amount of love I have for my own blood brother as I do for these men. These guys would risk their life for me, poor their blood for me, prove their loyalty to me, while Kendrick likes to continuously stab me in the back.

“Jaxon?” I hang my head for a second when the smoke starts to get the best of me. My vision blurs, the fire is hot, and I can’t feel the palm of my hands.

“Sebas-tian.” My name comes from the distance. It is broken, garbled, soft, but I hear it. I could be imagining things, but I don’t think I am. If my brain plays a trick on me, I’ll never forgive myself.

“Jaxon? Call out for me again, okay? I can’t see you.” I push the blown-up bit of marble out of the way, my arm burning from rubbing against a chunk of something earlier. I let out a cry, pushing myself to the absolute limit. I’d die trying to get Jaxon out.

Bang, scratch, bang, scratch.

The sound of rock smashing against the floor, then dragging and smashing again tells me Jaxon is signaling me that way.

Bang, scratch, bang, scratch.

It plays on repeat, and the closer I get to where the noise comes from, the more that evil emotion hope sprawls in my chest.

“I’m coming, Jaxon,” I try to yell, but at this point, my throat is hoarse and raw. I can barely breathe. Every bone, every muscle in my body aches. My nostrils burn and my eyes are so dr

y, when I close them, I can feel the lid scrapping against the cornea.

Bang, scratch, bang, scratch.

Just a few more feet. I am so close. I can’t stop now.

“Jaxon?” There is nowhere else for me to go. It’s a dead end. The only view I have is a pile of marble and drywall.

Movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention.

Bang, scratch.

Jaxon’s hand peeks from under the rubble. His fingers are bloody as they curve around whatever he holds, trying to slam it against the ground, but his movements are getting weaker.

“Jaxon.” I climb up and down piles of rubble and get as low to the ground as I can to investigate the small hole his hand peeks out of. “Hey, buddy. You with me?”

He coughs, and the rocks on top of him jostle. “Yeah,” he answers with a slight wheeze. He is suffocating under all the wreckage. “I’m here.”

“I’m going to get you out of here, okay? Think of Quinn, Jaxon,” I say. “Think of the life you want to build with her after having so many years ripped away from you.” Reminding him of her is my way at keeping him awake. If he falls asleep… This nagging fear of him not waking up presses against the adrenaline swimming in my veins, helping me toss off the junk weighing against Jaxon.

“He’s under this?” Owen finds me and jumps right in, picking up slabs of marble and throwing it to the side.

I don’t answer because obviously Jaxon is under this or I wouldn’t be pushing myself to the limit to get him out. I lean against the pile and try to breathe, I really do, but smoke wraps its tendrils around my throat and starts to choke me.

With drunken-like moves, my pace slows, and while holding a chunk of marble in my hand, I fall to the ground.

Spent.

Done.

“Hell no,” Owen grips me by the shirt and shakes me. “You don’t get to give up. You don’t get to die. No one fucking dies. I don’t give a shit how far you must dig in that know-it-all head of yours, but you’re going to fucking dig, and don’t you stop, damn it. You can’t fucking stop. We’re running out of time.”

I know what Owen means. We are running out of time before firetrucks arrive and out of oxygen. If we don’t get out soon, we will die. We have minutes, maybe.

Owen slaps me across the face and shakes me, but I barely feel it. I am too tired. “You told Jaxon to think of Quinn. Think of her, Sebastian, think of the woman you promised to save from the hands of your brother. You don’t get to give up. I doubt she has, so you can’t.” Owen smacks me again, and an image of Gabrielle forms in my mind, happy, smiling, hair blowing in the ocean’s breeze as she enjoys the view. She loves the sand between her toes and the waves crashing against her feet.