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I sense the attacker coming closer and feel his hot breath on my face as he bends down to taunt me, whispering, “I was told you were a fighter, Raven. Good to see it’s true.”
Everything inside my body turns to ice.Raven. Is he calling me that because he knows Luca or because Vin shared that information and the name is meant to fuck with my mind?
Hope or despair? It could be either one, and I have no clue how to know which is the truth.
He stands and kicks me in the thigh hard enough to have my body instinctively curling in on itself to protect my midsection. Bruising and broken bones I can heal from, but internal bleeding might be a bit much if I don’t get out of here soon enough.
His departure isn’t quiet as his feet stomp across the room, and I get one last smirk when I hear the sound of a splash once he’s at the door.
He snarls, but mercifully, doesn’t return to retaliate. I listen as the door opens, then slams closed. I expect the lights to come back on to add to my suffering, but I’m left in the darkness. A small blessing in the shit storm of beatings.
I stay curled in a ball on the floor, slowing my breathing and trying to determine if there are any injuries I need to be concerned with before I allow my body to finally pass out. My hand lightly touches my face and head. There’s blood on my scalp, but not enough that I need to bother with trying to cover it with a strip of my shirt.
A lump protrudes from the side of my head where my skull became acquainted with the guy’s fist and the wall, but it’s just swollen and not another open wound. It hurts to swallow after being choked, but again, not something I need to worry about now.
With that knowledge, I allow myself to drift off into the darkness. Rest is my only friend until I’m free. I’ll need as much of it as I can get, because I suspect this first beating is just one of many to come my way unless I give in, which I won’t.
They’ll be relentless unless I agree to work with Titan. A fleeting thought crosses my mind that I should just give in. Agree to work with him and tell him what little I do know to save my own hide, but just as quickly as the thought comes, it’s dashed away.
Luca hasn’t been in my life long, but he’s cared for me in his own way. He’s done his best to protect me, paid for all of my debts, made me that garden where I could paint, and he ignites a fire within my body that nobody else has ever come close to matching.
No, I won’t turn on him. Not even to save my own life. I’m a better person than that, with more honor than any of these men. On top of that, even though it might be stupid after what Titan said, I’m still holding out hope that Luca meant what he said before. That if anything happened to me, he’d burn the city to find me.
With that final glimmer of hope, I surrender to sleep, praying for a better tomorrow.
4
LUCA
Blood drips from my chin, an untamed river of vengeance marking my progress through the chaos I've orchestrated. The air resonates with the metallic tang of blood, mingling with the stench of sweat and desperation. I stand over one of the many bodies I’ve slain in the last hour, each fallen form serving as testament to the wrath that consumes me.
Each and every one of them has been useless to me, mere pawns in the twisted game they've found themselves caught in. Unless I give them credit for allowing me to take my…aggressions out on them.
Though, it’s not as if they were willing to die. Their pathetic attempts at fighting back or pleading with me revealed their fragility. Their cries, begging for their lives, all fall on deaf ears.
I wipe the blade of my knife over my black jeans, the fabric absorbing the crimson evidence of my wrath. I spit on the dead body at my feet, a final display of contempt for another gang being useless in helping me get Olivia back. “Fucking scum.”
Jaxon leans against the grimy brick wall of the alleyway, his posture relaxed, arms crossed in an almost casual stance. He watches as if I'm grocery shopping and not slitting throats. “You’ll be making headlines before you know it at this rate,” he muses, his voice a curious blend of admiration and mockery.
I ignore his remark, the echo of his words blending with the adrenaline thudding in my veins as I soak up the cool night air. The bodies might make headlines, but there will never be a link to me or my crew. Damon makes sure of that each and every time. I don’t always know how, but he’s never let me down and I’m certain he won’t this time, either.
I walk toward the waiting SUV, its sleek black exterior providing a stark contrast to the sordid scene I'm leaving behind. Damon sits in the driver's seat, his hands resting calmly on the steering wheel, a sentinel guarding the entrance to the alleyway while I've had my fun.
Olivia has been missing for three nights now. Three interminable nights that have wrapped around me like a vice, suffocating my every thought. There have been no demands from Titan, no threats, no nothing. Jaxon and Damon have tried to convince me that’s a good thing, but I don’t see how no news in this instance could be considered anything other than a mindfuck.
Not knowing if she’s already dead is driving me mad, and just as I promised, the streets are running red, along with several buildings having already burned because of it, dozens of people killed in my search for Olivia.
Every corner, every shadow, they all whisper her name to me. But I'm yet to hear her voice, and that thought gnaws at my sanity a little more with each passing hour.
I open the back door of the SUV, but Damon throws a towel at me with a faint smirk playing on his lips. “Murders aside, we’re not savages,” he states matter-of-factly. “Clean yourself up.”
He’s right. I’m normally not this…eccentric with my work. Taking men back to the compound is my typical style, but I don’t have time to go through them one-by-one. I need answers now. I wipe the towel across my face, removing the traces of death that cling to me. It's a futile attempt to cleanse myself, but at least my appearance is less grim now.
Once I’ve soaked up the excess blood, I get into the back seat. Jaxon is already in the front, but he reaches back to hand me a syringe, a lifeline that's becoming more frequent. “Time to juice up unless you’re done for the night.”
It’s been hours since I’ve thought of my bullet wound. The pain that was a constant companion is now a dull throb, buried beneath layers of medications and determination. I push away the syringe filled with some sort of cocktail drug, resisting the urge to become dependent on its false energy. “I don’t need it.”
Jaxon raises an eyebrow, a silent challenge in his gaze. “You say that now, but in an hour, when the last dose wears off and you realize the damage that you’re doing by not fucking resting, you’re going to wish you’d taken this.”
