Ruthless Saints

“Please,” Hailey whimpers, her voice weak.

I can feel my heart beating everywhere in my body, the shattered pieces flooding my veins.

My hands tighten into fists, and as the blows begin again, I fail, and my eyes lift.

The man’s fists slam into her fragile body where he’s crouched over her. There’s too much blood. She’s not moving.

Hailey.

“Stop!” Admir orders.

Fuck. I blink slowly, knowing I just made a big mistake. I shouldn’t have looked.

My mind races. I try to calculate how much time has passed. Alexei will be here soon. Maybe ten minutes?

Ten minutes.

My eyes dart around the room, and I memorize where every man is. I assess who will move fast and who’s slower. Who looks like a fighter and who’s just a show of muscle. Who has their guns drawn, and who’s relaxed and just watching.

Admir crouches again, his eyes locking with mine. “Who ordered the kill?”

He’s my biggest problem. I won’t get to the other nine until I’ve killed him, and it won’t take a couple of seconds.

Admir’s phone begins to ring, and straightening up, he orders, “Finish the girl.”

He stalks out of the room, answering the call and my eyes go to the man nearest to me.

HAILEY

I can only let out a whimper, my body broken and filled with relentless pain.

I can’t take a full breath because it feels like my lungs are on fire, and the ache sharpens whenever I try. I taste blood, my mouth filled with it.

‘Tell me who hired you to kill Joseph…’

‘Who ordered the kill?’

The words keep rattling through me.

Contract. Kill. Carson can fight. He took out six men before he stopped because there was a gun to my head. I’m sure he killed two of those six.

Horrifically the pieces begin to fit together.

Carson killed someone.

We’re from different worlds.

An ache spreads through my heart, and it hurts more than the physical pain.

Carson’s not who I thought he was.

“Finish the girl,” Admir orders.

When I try to push myself up into a sitting position, the pain increases unbearably, tearing a whimper from my bloody lips.

I can only turn my head, and I watch as Admir leaves. The man closes in on me again, and I don’t even have the strength to beg.

Slowly, my eyes turn to Carson, and for the first time, he looks at me. Our gazes only meet for a second, and then he moves. He breaks the restraints easily and grabs hold of the nearest guy. Then, just like earlier, with one quick action, he snaps the man’s neck. He rips the gun from the man’s hand, and then he trains the weapon in my direction and fires off a shot.

The body falls over me, his weight sending an excruciating wave of pain through me as I feel something crack in my chest. It makes my vision blur for a moment, and when I’m able to focus again, Carson’s already taken out five men. His body moves agilely, his steps calculated, his hands moving fast as he dislocates a guy's shoulder before shooting him in the head.

God.

Unadulterated terror engulfs me.

Carson’s a killer.

Admir rushes into the room, and as Carson fires three shots at the remaining men, Admir trains his own weapon on Carson.

The bullet hits Carson in the left shoulder, forcing a broken cry from me.

Carson lunges at Admir as if he didn’t just get shot, and Admir drops the gun. Their bodies crash together, and a series of super-fast blows and kicks follow.

It’s surreal. Violence taints the air.

They keep blocking each other’s blows, neither of them getting a hit in. They’re mirror images of actions.

My breaths grow shallow, and I blink slowly. Then, for a moment, my eyes widen as Alexei comes up behind Admir, shooting him in the head.

I manage to watch as Alexei steps over the body, and wrapping his hand around the back of Carson’s neck, he yanks him into a hug. “We have to move,” I hear Demitri’s voice, and then he comes into the room.

Carson pulls free from his brother’s hold and turns toward me.

A sob sputters from me because I can’t comprehend what happened. I can’t link the man I love with this… killer.

They’re not the same person.

They can’t be.

Carson shoves the body off me, and with a deadly look in his eyes, he pushes his arms under me and lifts me up as he rises to his feet. A pain-filled gasp rattles from me.

The side of my head falls to his bloody shoulder.

How’s this possible?

How did I not know?

Why?

God, how? I can’t…

Feeling betrayed and distraught, beaten and broken, I close my eyes against the glaring reality.

When Carson climbs into the backseat of an SUV, keeping me in his arms, my world shatters. It’s as if it’s been straining, quaking at the edges until it couldn’t take more, and then it just splintered, cracks distorting everything I thought I knew.