Cane finally answered. “Yeah.”
Crow put his gun away and pulled a long dagger from inside his jacket. I could see it gleam under the streetlight because the steel was spotless. He stood in front of the first man and stared him down coldly. He wasn’t the man I was used to seeing. This was the version of him he warned me about.
A ruthless killer.
One by one, he slit the throat of each man. It was so gruesome even I had to look away. Instead of giving them a clean death with a gunshot wound he made them suffer until the very end. It was a message the Bones and the rest of the world.
When he reached the last man he put his blade away. The man stayed on his knees and didn’t show an ounce of fear. Even has his comrades bled out to death on the concrete he didn’t flinch. His loyalty was just as strong as ever.
Crow stared him down, just as fearless. “Call him.”
The man didn’t move.
He held up the blade, still dripping with blood. “Do it and I’ll give you mercy.”
He eyed the blade for a moment before he pulled the phone out of his pocket.
“On speakerphone.”
The phone played the ring over the line. The solider continued to hold it in his hand, but his fingers started to shake.
Finally, his voice came onto the line. “Do you have her?” His deep voice sounded just as grotesque as I remembered. It was full of entitlement, brutality, and pure evil. I remembered all the terrible things he would whisper into my ear as he fucked me until I screamed. My blood boiled in a rage and I struggled to breath.
Crow stared at the phone, his mocha eyes appearing black. “Don’t. Touch. My. Girl.” Crow took a step forward and stared down at the phone with venomous hate. Without raising his voice he possessed the authority of a king. He was powerful and majestic, terrifying and cruel.
Bones gathered his thoughts before he spoke. His silence was an indication that he recognized the voice over the phone. To him, it was unmistakable. “I see that—”
Crow threw the phone on the ground and stomped on it with his foot. It shattered into dozens of pieces and Bones’ voice died away immediately. He stepped back and pointed the gun right between his eyes. Without another word he pulled the trigger, and the man crumbled to the street.
Three police cars drove up that instant, their lights flashing and their sirens screeching. They breaked hard into the street and threw their doors open. They all took their defensive stances under cover with their weapons drawn.
“Shit.” Was this all going to come to an end?
Crow turned until he directly faced him, his gun in one hand and the bloody blade in the other. He took a few steps forward without raising his gun. Without an ounce of fear he stared them down, seeing the dozen police officers stare back at him. “Leave now and no harm will come to you.”
The police held their stance but snuck glances at each other. They didn’t exchange a single word but a conversation happened within their ranks. One by one, they holstered their guns then got back into the cars. The lights and sirens were turned off and they drove away, heading in the exact opposite direction of the war zone that just took up the entire block. He stayed his ground and made sure they were completely out of sight before he headed to the alleyway where I was hiding.
I’d never seen him in action and never knew exactly what he was capable of. The only side I saw of him was the softer version, the man who was wise in wine and treated his employees like family rather than workers. He told me about his darkness but he’d been nothing but gentle with me since the moment we met. I never knew this kind of ferocity and war raged inside him. But the beast broke through the gates once it’d been provoked. The second they took me he launched into action and showed the kind of brutality he warned me about. He stopped being a man and turned into a monster.
Crow turned to me when he saw him approach. “And you still think he doesn’t love you?”
***
Crow walked to me at his normal speed but his tense arms and clenched jaw told me he wanted to run until he his hands were finally on me. The second he reached me he cupped my face, my hair stuck underneath his palm, and he examined the wound on my head. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” I didn’t care about the bleeding or the fact my back was killing me after being thrown at full speed against a full grown man. All I cared about was being safe from Bones and the man standing in front of me. “I’m sure it looks worse than it feels.”