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Konrad is between us in seconds. He grips my throat, getting into my face. “Put. Him. Down.”
I drop Jakub like he’s burning coals, not because I don’t want to hurt him but because Ido. I want to fucking kill him right now.
Konrad gets into my space and presses his forehead against my own, forcing my mask to dig into my skin. “What are you doing, brother?”
“What you’re both too chickenshit to do!” I retort, baring my teeth, willing to go head to head with both of my brothers in order to protect the woman who’s fucked us up worse than The Collector ever managed to do. I don’t understand my reaction any better than they do. All I know is that Ihaveto protect her from them, just like I had to save her from the fire. “I’m protecting her!”
“Protecting her?” Konrad shakes his head, and there’s pain in his voice before he quickly swallows it down. “Brother, you’vekilledher.”
“Enough!” Thirteen shouts, her hoarse voice cracking.
I shove Konrad off me and watch as she lowers her ear to Christy’s mouth. “Stay the fuck away from me,” I hiss at him. “Thirteen?”
She holds her hand up for silence. “Let me listen!”
Jakub takes a step towards Thirteen and without hesitation I pull out the handgun that I always have holstered to my chest on nights when we have guests. “Move one more step and I’ll fucking shoot.”
“Leon!” Jakub growls.
“Stay fucking back!” I warn, flicking off the safety.
I’m all too aware that I’ve just crossed a line with my brothers, but I don’t give a fuck. Right now, I can’t even breathe. I don’t want to breathe, not unless she’s breathing too. When Thirteen draws back and presses her fingers against the pulse point in Christy’s neck, I pray for a fucking miracle.
She shakes her head.
“No!” I refuse to believe it. “Bring her back.”
Thirteen nods, looking up at me as she positions Christy’s head. “Keep them away.”
Konrad’s gaze flicks to Christy. I see the longing in them and his desire to bring her back to life. His crazy God complex is a sickness. He’s sick. We all are. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
“It’s not like that!” he protests.
“Bullshit! Move!” I order.
My brothers step back. They know me, they know I’ll pull the trigger if I have to. Jakub doesn’t utter a word, but I can see how disturbed he is by the turn of events. Konrad doesn’t know how to act or who to back. Alongside his sick need to heal what he’s broken, there is an emotion he’s failing miserably to hide.Remorse. I can see it written all over his face. Right now he’s battling his own demons as much as I am, even if he doesn’t realise it yet.
I was always the biggest monster, the one with the blackest heart and the coldest soul. Nothing fazed me. You want me to chop off a man’s dick and feed it to him? I’d do it. You want me to string up an enemy of my father’s and peel his skin off slowly over days? I’d do that too.
Yet here I am.
Hereweare.
I don’t like what I’m doing. It’s wrong to threaten my brothers, to go against every code we live by, but I can’t seem to stop. The monster in me howls in pain, lashing at my insides as it tries to force me to lower my hand and stand beside the only family I’ve ever known.
But I can’t.
If I do that we’ll have no hope of bringing her back because, despite those conflicting emotions, I can’t risk trusting them. Allowing her to live goes against everything we’ve ever been taught. She’s a threat and we’ve always been taught to take out any threats.
Jakub knows it. Konrad knows it. As do I.
The difference is, I’m saying no more.
Me.
It has to be me. I have to be the one to protect her, just like I’ve always stepped in to protect my brothers. I’m the only one who can do that now.
Beside me Thirteen instructs Five. “When I tell you to, I need you to give Christy thirty compressions to her chest, just like I taught you, okay?”
