Unshackle (Deliver 7)

She blinked, snapping out of a suspended fugue, and that was when the real pain kicked in. All at once, it crashed into her like a vengeful flood, slamming her teeth together and bowing her back.

The room spun in a cacophony of chaos. Fists pounded on the door. Silvia wailed. Romero unshackled Luke, and through it all, she clung to that grenade.

“Vera!” Luke’s voice grew closer.

Then she felt roaming hands—on the grenade, her face, her leg. Oh, God, her leg.

“I need to tie this off.” His breaths came in bursts. “Can you hold the grenade?”

“Got it.” She clenched her teeth, tasting blood.

“We knew all along!” Silvia screamed from across the room. “We knew when you chose her in the basement that you were with Restrepo, you lying, miserable, limp-dick murderer! You’re dead. You’re so fucking dead!”

She was coming, her voice announcing her approach.

“Deal with her.” Vera pulled the grenade against her chest, blinking through tears of pain. “I’ve got this.”

Luke’s beautiful face turned to stone. Cold. Brutal. Lethal.

He stood, gloriously nude, and just as Silvia reached him, he punched her screaming mouth.

She went down, and he followed her, caught her by the throat, and wrenched her close, nose to nose.

The cartel continued to bang on the door, shouting and ramming the steel frame.

He ignored it. “I came here to free Vera Gomez, kill your brothers, and destroy the cartel. I’m part of a vigilante group. We annihilate monsters. People just like you.” He bared his teeth in a terrifying smile. “I fell in love with Vera the night I saw her fight. You, on the other hand, have repulsed me from the moment we met.”

Her head hit the floor as he dropped her. Then his fists flew. One punch after another, he bludgeoned her face. She made no noise, no attempt to fight him. Soon, the sounds of wet smacks gave way to crunching bone. He didn’t stop.

Vera recognized the torment in his eyes. The rage. The haunting nightmares. Silvia had raped him, and she hadn’t been the first. Vera’s heart broke as she watched him unleash eight years of memories in the harrowing drive of his fists.

He hammered strike after strike, raging in a gruesome trance, long after Silvia was dead. Long after Vera could stomach the macabre sight of blood and bone splattering beneath his blows.

Romero sat in a huddled ball with his eyes clamped shut.

“Luke.”

He didn’t hear her.

“Luke. Luke! Snap out of it and look at me! I need you!”

He stopped, stared at his bloody hands, and met her eyes.

“Time’s up.” Her body felt like ice, her head squishy with fuzz. “I’m losing blood, and you need pants.”

He looked down at himself, brows knitting as if noticing his lack of clothes for the first time. Rising to his feet, he didn’t give Silvia another glance. He strode directly toward Marco’s corpse, stripped off the suit pants, and dragged them on.

By the time he returned to her, the blood was gone from his hands. He appeared composed, hawk-eyed, and laser-focused. One-hundred-percent Luke.

“Romero.” He snapped his fingers. “Stand up.”

“Don’t hurt him. He designed the cartel’s security system. Really smart kid.” She felt herself fading, her fingers slipping on the grenade. She readjusted her grip. “I promised him amity and protection. He’s coming with us.”

A period of murkiness flickered in and out, disorientating her. Seconds passed. Or minutes? She was losing her sense of time and awareness.

Luke was bent over her, his shirtless torso bulked up and strapped with weapons. Expression hard, eyes aglow with green flames, he looked like a rogue soldier, armed and ready for a revolution.

“Let me have it, baby.” His hands were wrapped around hers, keeping the grenade safe.

She released the locked grip of her fingers and watched through blurred vision as he passed the small missile off to Romero. Then he removed the heavy artillery from her body.

A necktie appeared in his hand, one that Marco had worn. He tied it tightly around her thigh above the bullet wound. She cried out and pressed a fist to her mouth, shaking through the unholy pain.

“I’m so sorry.” He kissed her face and pulled her hand away to kiss her mouth. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“For the second time.” She tried to smile, but her lips were numb.

“For the last time.”

As he bent to lift her, an explosion rocked the foundation. The ground shook like an earthquake, and the atmosphere charged with electricity. He spun, grabbing the grenade from Romero’s hands.

Her ears rang, and the boom lingered in her chest. When the tension released, overpowering relief swept in.

His team was here.

As the dust settled, Luke turned to her, thunderstruck. “Tell me that was our guys.”

She looked to Romero for confirmation.

“I hooked your friends into my phone’s GPS so they could track us, and vice-versa.” Romero removed the device from his pocket and tapped on the screen. “They’re on the south side. All the activity is there. We should be able to escape out the main gate.”