We crashed together like two beasts in a cage. Sergio was feral, fueled by madness and pain. His fist connected with my jaw, snapping my head back. I tasted blood. I drove my elbow into his ruined face, feeling scar tissue split further under the impact. Warm blood sprayed across us both.
He screamed, a wet, animal sound, but didn’t fall. He tackled me into a rotting bookshelf, wood and old books crashing down around us. We rolled across the floor, fists flying, elbows smashing, knees driving into ribs. He bit my shoulder like a rabid dog, teeth sinking deep. I roared and slammed my forehead into his nose, cartilage crunching.
Flames from overturned candles began licking at curtains and old rugs. Smoke thickened the air.
“You took everything!” Sergio shrieked, clawing at my eyes. “My face! My life! My Aurora!”
I pinned him momentarily and drove my fist into his throat. He gagged but headbutted me hard enough to split my brow. Blood poured into my eyes. We smashed through a doorway into another room, trading brutal, sloppy blows that would have killed lesser men.
I was winning on skill and rage, but his madness made him unpredictable. He grabbed a shard of broken glass and slashed at my side, opening a burning line across my ribs. I caught his wrist, twisted until bone snapped, and slammed him into the wall.
Leo burst in behind me, gun raised, face twisting in horror at the sight of Sergio. The Serpent had seen many monsters, but this broken thing seemed to genuinely shock him.
Sergio laughed through blood and tears, slumping as the fight drained out of him. The madness cracked, revealing the shattered man beneath.
“Kill me… or don’t. She’ll never be yours. Not really.”
I released him, breathing hard, covered in blood. “He’s yours, Leo. Finish it.”
I turned and left the room as Sergio broke down completely, sobbing, muttering about weddings and purity and the baby that should have been his. A pathetic shell of the man he once was.
“Aurora!” I shouted, voice raw as I searched room after room. Empty. All empty. Panic clawed at my throat. Where the fuck was she?
A single gunshot cracked through the house from the direction I had left.
Sergio was dead. Good.
Then I heard it.
A soft, broken whimper from behind a locked door at the end of a narrow hallway.
I didn’t hesitate. I slammed my shoulder into the door once, twice. Wood splintered on the third hit and the door exploded inward.
The sight that greeted me nearly brought me to my knees.
Aurora was chained inside an old, rust-ringed bathtub filled with water. Her lips were blue, her body trembling violently. Heavy iron manacles locked her wrists to the sides of the tub. She was naked, soaked, and barely conscious, but her hands still tried weakly to protect her stomach.
“S-Santino…” she whispered, voice hoarse and shaking.
I crossed the room in two strides, dropping to my knees beside the tub. “I’m here, baby. I’ve got you.”
I tore the chains free with pure fury, then lifted her out of the ice water and crushed her against my chest. Her skin was like ice. She sobbed weakly into my neck as I carried her out of that hellhole, wrapping my jacket around her shivering body.
“You’re safe,” I murmured against her wet hair, voice breaking. “Both of you. I swear it.”
Chapter Twenty-Four: AURORA
Thecoldhadsunkso deep into my bones I thought it might never leave.
I was dimly aware of strong arms lifting me out of the freezing water, the clank of broken chains hitting the tiled floor, and a voice raw and trembling as it repeated my name like a prayer.
“Aurora. Baby, I’ve got you. Stay with me.”
Santino.
The scent of smoke, blood, and him wrapped around me as he crushed me against his chest. His jacket was warm from his body, and he bundled it around my naked, shivering form without hesitation. I tried to speak, but my teeth chattered too violently. All I could do was press my face into the crook of his neck and breathe him in.
He carried me out of that rotting hellhouse like I weighed nothing. Behind us, flames crackled and roared as the old wooden structure gave itself over to fire. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.
