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42
SCAR
One hour prior
Darragh’s house was a run-down piece of shit in one of the worst neighborhoods of the city. There was no evidence of any of the money he’d made working for Murphy, no hint that the man must have made a small fortune off the sale of women and children into sexual slavery.
Just a filthy house—in a shitty neighborhood—where a scumbag lived.
Ryker moved forward, the gun he hated to use held in his grip as he nodded at me to kick in the door. I raised my foot, shoving it into the door itself so hard that the wood frame splintered as it crashed inward.
I stepped out of the way, letting Ryker take the lead as I covered his back. We moved into the dark house, clearing it room by room.
Filth covered the floor. Drug paraphernalia lay atop the kitchen counter and the coffee table in the living room. Ryker and I exchanged a look, pressing toward the closed door at the back of the house.
He took the lead, kicking open the door suddenly and stepping in with a frantic look around the room. He lowered the gun slowly to his side, staring at something on the wall as I stepped in behind him.
TOO LATE.
The note was written in red on the wall, a red that I recognized with a single, uninterrupted glance.
“Is that lipstick?” Ryker asked, stepping closer. I nodded, knowing without a doubt it was the fire engine red Irina favored and wore every single day. I followed, moving to the note folded on top of the bed.
Next to it lay a pair of women’s underwear, torn to shreds as if they’d been ripped from her body. They were stained with red, the lacy white fabric covered with red fingerprints that made my blood boil in my veins.
Ryker reached out a hand, picking up the note. His eyes skimmed over the words as I stared at those underwear, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’d belonged to Irina. We’d never found her underwear in the clothes at the house where they’d taken her.
“What’s it say?” I asked, my voice completely devoid of emotion as dread filled me.
Something was wrong.
“You don’t need to know,” Ryker said, folding the note to shove in his pocket. I snatched it out of his hands, my eyes skimming over the words scrawled on the paper. My dread rose with each word, plaguing me with the need to move.It was addressed to his pet— the same word he’d carved into her stomach while he’d raped her.
He talked about how much he missed being inside her. How much he missed the feeling of her blood on his hands.
How he couldn’t wait to do it again. How he would know if she took anyone else while they were separated. That he’d have to cut her once more to make her new again and erase anyone who’d touched her.
I fought back the surge of vomit in my throat, covering my mouth with my hand as I handed Ryker the note. “We have to go,” I grunted, making my way toward the front of the house.
Darragh’s obsession with Irina was a circumstance we hadn’t planned for, thinking she was nothing more than a pawn for Murphy, and she’d no longer be a convenient target once she was under Bellandi protection at the estate.
This level of obsession was different.
This level of obsession was psychotic, driving even logical men to do things they would never normally do. Any man who worked for Tiernan Murphy was far from balanced in the first place.
I climbed into the driver’s seat, my foot hitting the gas the moment Ryker threw himself into the passenger seat. He was already on the phone, calling Enzo to have someone sent to Darragh’s house to scour it for more evidence.
I didn’t give the first shit in that moment, far more concerned with seeing Irina alive. With convincing her it would be okay.
The fear she must have felt knowing he was out there...that wasn’t something I’d planned for.
Fuck.
I drove as fast as I dared, ignoring any speed limits while Ryker clung to his oh shit handle. “Call Ivory now,” I ordered Ryker, glancing at the man out of the corner of my eye. He touched his cellphone screen, raising it to his ear as silence filled the SUV.
“No answer,” he said, swallowing as he ended the call. I rounded the corner to the house so quickly that the SUV felt like it might tip onto two wheels.
The guards barely managed to get the gate open before I barreled through, parking at the curb right in front of the house.
I was out of it in an instant, racing up the front steps. I shoved my thumb into the scanner to open the front door, hurrying into the mansion with all of my fear driving me forward. I skidded to a halt in the foyer, staring at Ivory where she stood on top of broken glass in the middle of the room.
I followed her eyes, tracking up and up and up until I saw what held her so transfixed: Irina, sitting on top of the railing at the edge of the gallery and staring down at us in shock.
Her arms trembled, weakening as she held on, and I knew she wouldn’t last much longer.
My heart battered my chest, like it might bruise my ribs with every emotion that suddenly poured through me. With everything that consumed me.
Because Irina and I both knew that, despite her nickname, she didn’t have the wings to survive that fall. She’d knowingly climbed up over the railing.
She’d wanted to die. To leave me. And with that knowledge, the wall inside me crumbled, shattering into a million pieces and letting in everything I’d spent months denying.
Her arm slipped, her fingers grappling for purchase as a moment of panic twisted her features. For one single, heart-stopping moment, I stood helplessly as Irina fought to live. Her fingers wrapped around the railing once more as my relief stole the breath from my lungs.
Something in her eyes gave me a moment of hope. A moment of wonder when I watched the old traces of my butterfly flutter across her face. As if she was still in there.
Waiting for me.
