But I Need You - W. Winters Page 0,53

my pace to go inside and call up the stairs for my mother.

It’s quiet. Too quiet and my damned heart starts racing again.

“What’s going on?” Cody asks at the same time I feel someone or something behind me.

When I turn, I fully expect it to be Marcus.

I don’t have enough time to tell Cody who it is as the scream is ripped out of my throat and a bag thrown over my head.

With the dizziness, the clatter of my phone hitting the floor and the wind knocked out of me, I swear I try, but then there’s another bash to my head.

Marcus

There’s always a calm before the storm. Some may think there’s hope that it’s over when the gray skies clear and the harsh wind silences its angry cries. I’m more than aware that hope is nowhere in sight and that the quiet moment is for readying, for preparing for the violence that’s sure to come.

There’s a reason I paired them together years ago. They were the only two people outside of the chaos who needed to stay there, in the blur on the edge.

She’s only a little mouse, not even a pawn in the games. And yet … he couldn’t hold on to her; he couldn’t contain her. He couldn’t keep her safe in his small, insignificant world.

My brother failed me. It’s a betrayal of the worst kind. He’s too careless, blinded by her and that’s only going to cause more problems. I was too late, but he was supposed to be there with her. Cody was supposed to be watching her.

Without him, my pieces are limited and for the first time in years, I’m lacking. I’m behind. And it’s all his fault.

“Tell me the moment you find her.” My command is short, my tone even and just as placid as the autumn skies above me. The shades of red and orange bleed in my mind. Just as they did, one by one, massacred in the alley behind the abandoned warehouse, giving me every detail as I flayed the flesh from them. I had enough of them, watching the condo from their positions in windowless vans. So fucking obvious.

I slowly tortured one while the others watched.

Ask a simple question: What car did they leave in?

Get a simple answer: A black Mercedes SUV.

And ended his suffering with a gunshot to the back of his head.

Cody should be grateful for the use of the gun. It would have been better for me, for my sanity rather, to be a bit more harsh. But evidence will be on his side.

“Of course. Is there anything else?” The man I’ve hired who’s on the other end of the line is a specialist of sorts. He acquires things … certain precious things.

I swallow thickly, breathing in deep to stay levelheaded. Is there anything else other than her?

Time changes so much. There’s always been more, far more important things than the little mouse who set me on this course. But now?

How could there possibly be anything other than her?

A stirring in my gut travels up my throat at the thought of her no longer existing. At the vision of her laying in a pool of her own blood like I’ve seen so many times with people in their last moments.

A strangled muffle echoes from the small closet. A quick glance proves the blood has leaked through the gauze once again. The bastard bit off his tongue and tried to swallow it.

An honest effort at suicide if ever I saw one.

I couldn’t kill all of them. After all, someone had to talk. And he will, with two hands that work just fine.

“Did you have something to say now?” I ask him, not bothering to hide my face. He will die the slowest and most painful death I can conjure for the last words he spoke to me:

You’re no ghost. You’re no grim reaper.

You’re just a man about to have his heart ripped out.

Any of the myriad enemies I have could be behind this. But there’s only one I can tie each of these pricks to. Only one who would go after her entire family.

There’s a reason she’s supposed to be mine.

Everyone will pay.

This world will burn if they hurt her.

Cody

“Tell me again what happened,” Skov asks me. Again. The fucker doesn’t know when to give up.

“They were already dead,” I tell him. My tone is menacing and I pray to God for more control than I currently have while staring at the half-wit across the steel table