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29
SCAR
Night made the storage facility feel eerie as we pressed through the darkness. The sheer number of storage containers made it impossible to know which one might house the women. Which one they’d hidden Irina away or left her to rot in with countless others who’d been unfortunate enough to attract the attention of Tiernan and his men.
A year ago, I’d have been horrified with myself, because I didn’t give the first fuck about any of them.
None of them mattered but my butterfly, and I would gladly trade every last one of them to save her. No matter what that said about me as a man. Any doubt I had that I’d belong to the fires of Hell when I died evaporated with that singular thought pulsing through me—a truth like I’d never known.
I’d burn the world to the ground to save her. Sacrifice anyone for her.
I peeked around the corner of one of the units, ducking back when my eyes landed on an armed guard standing in front of one of the containers. Glancing back to the men behind me, I waved my fingers in a salute that I had to hope they could see.
It would appear we’d found our container.
Matteo, Calix, and Rafael stayed behind, as much as it killed them not to be in on the main action. Ryker and Enzo crept forward, a group of seven others following at their heels and moving with the kind of stealth that only years of training could ingrain in them.
I moved to follow, rounding the corner as gunfire lit up the silence. The muffled sound of women’s screams came from inside the metal container, driving me forward.
A hand on my forearm stopped me, pulling me back around the corner to wait with the men we couldn’t risk. With the ones who were too valuable to lose in a time of war.
The men who ruled over cities—or would, once the war for Chicago was over.
“Wait until they’re dead,” Matteo said, his voice stern with all the warning I needed to hear. It was the voice he used when he wanted his men to know he should not be tested.
Normally, I listened.
But not fucking today.
I jerked my arm out of his grasp, glaring back at him and thinking of what he would have done, if anyone tried to stop him from going after his wife when she’d been taken. “Scar, she needs you alive. Think of what it would do to her if we rescued her only to make her look at your fucking corpse,” he said, raising an eyebrow as if he dared me to defy the logic.
I growled my frustration, turning to watch Ryker hack through his enemies with his hatchet, while the others shot with all the precision and skill the crazy-ass had, if he ever bothered with a gun like a normal person.
A bullet pinged off the container next to my head, making me duck back with another glare for Matteo. I hated it when the fucker was right, on a good day.
But I especially hated it today.
We waited, my blood tingling with the need to move. My fingers and feet throbbed, desperate to get to Irina and make our enemies suffer. But I held off, doing what was best for her and her recovery.
Because she would recover. The alternative wasn’t an option.
“Clear!” Ryker yelled finally. I rounded the corner to the metallic sound of a key in a lock, and vaulted over the pile of bodies to get to the doors just as he tore them open. The metal groaned, and Ryker was thrown to the side when a group of naked women and girls raced out of the container.
They screamed or cried as they ran, charging through the group of men like they couldn’t tell the difference between their rescuers and their abusers. Judging by the state of the bruises on their bodies, I suspected they couldn’t.
I searched through them desperately, fighting against the press of bodies as I moved into the container. The smell hit my senses like an assault, the body odor and metallic scent of blood like something from my worst nightmares.
There was no sign of Irina, and I began to fear the worst.
What if she wasn’t with the others? What if Tiernan had decided to keep her with him, after all?
Once I finally made it through the gauntlet of women and girls, I froze in place. My heart stilled. My lungs stopped drawing air.
Even in the dark, I would know that head of raven hair anywhere.
I took the first step, feeling like a ghost trapped in my own body. Like I was already dead, and my limbs moved of their own accord. She rested against a girl’s shoulder, her neck bent backwards so that her head was draped over the crook of the girl’s elbow. The girl spoke to her, her eyes glassy and cheeks wet with tears.
Irina’s face was nearly unrecognizable—mottled and bruised and covered in small cuts. Her lip was split and swollen, and, as my eyes trailed down over her body, my fury rose with every mark to her skin.
From the bruises around her throat to the blood coating her thighs, red filled my vision. Nothing existed but the red stain of blood that I would paint the city in. Nothing but the fire I would use to burn the world that had taken something so beautiful and shredded it.
Nothing.
Irina didn’t move as the girl curled her tighter into her chest, rocking her back and forth as she spoke to her. My butterfly’s naked body was a canvas of trauma, wounds marking her flesh the likes of which I had never seen before.
Except on me.
“She saved me,” the girl murmured, staring up at me with wide eyes. She drew Irina even closer, turning away as if she needed to protect her.
The fury in the girl’s gaze despite her fear told me she planned to do just that. That she’d honor Irina’s memory with her life if need be.
The whimper Irina emitted was the first sign that she was even alive, filling my chest with hope. I shoved down my fury, trying to force it away. The vengeance I would take would have to wait until Irina was stable. Until she was tended to and safe on the Bellandi Estate. Approaching her with violence would help no one, even if I wanted to lay the hearts of her enemies at her feet.
“I want to help her,” I said, approaching the girl as I spun my gun around to my back and raised my hands placatingly. She loosened her grip, letting Irina’s head loll to the side so that she could see me.
Our eyes met for the first time, her normally vivid green eyes hazy and dull. As if all the light had left them, she looked at me without seeing me.
As if she was already dead inside.
“Butterfly,” I whispered, reaching out to wipe the hair away from her cheek where it was stuck to her in dried blood. She flinched, cowering back into the girl with a whimper that broke me. “It’s just me, cuore mio. I promise you I won’t hurt you.”
She didn’t respond, staring back at me with those blank eyes.
“Butterfly,” I murmured again, reaching a hand beneath my shirt. Pulling the necklace out for her to see, I let the bright green shine against the black fabric for a moment before I reached around the back of my neck and unfastened the clasp. Drawing it away from my chest for the first time since my sister’s death, I stepped closer to Irina and dropped to my knees in front of her.
She flinched away again, some of the emptiness fading from her gaze as fear took its place. I stretched across the remaining distance, clasping the butterfly around her neck while her body trembled.
“You need a doctor, Iri. Let me help you,” I begged, inching my way closer. Her breath rattled when she drew it in, and I slid my arms underneath her body.
She gasped, lifting one of her arms to push me away; the other hung limply at her side. One leg scrabbled to kick me away while the other couldn’t seem to move. The bump sticking out from the side of her knee explained the lack of motion.
I would fucking tear him apart, limb from limb, and make him eat his own flesh when I got my hands on him.
“Let me help you,” I repeated, watching as her bottom lip trembled. She stopped fighting, staring at me for a moment before she finally took ownership of everything inside me.
“Scar,” she whispered, curling her head forward to rest it on my shoulder. My eyes burned, but I pulled her into my arms. With my throat constricting to the point that I couldn’t breathe, I maneuvered up to my feet as smoothly as I could.
Enzo was already in the front seat of an SUV pulled up to the storage container, the bodies of our enemies crushed beneath the tires with how little he fucking cared for them in his desperation to get Irina to safety.
The others closed their eyes as I carried her past, the dread on their faces something I knew Irina would never want to see. I hurried her into the back of the SUV, connecting eyes with Enzo in the driver’s seat.
“As fast as you can, but try not to—”
“I know,” he said, shifting the car into gear.
We couldn’t get to the Bellandi Estate quickly enough.
