pulled one man from his side down in front of him, the bullet hitting flesh as he caught the second man off guard and pulled him down next.
Moritze fired again, but the bullet struck the second guard, blood spraying out as Callan shoved to his feet and ran forward.
My heart lurched to a sudden start when he knocked Moritze to the ground, broke his wrist with a loud snap as he wrenched the gun from his hand, and then stood over him with an expression on his face that whispered the promise of death.
Both the woman beside me and I breathed out simultaneously, our hearts no doubt pounding the same jagged rhythm, our eyes locked on the two men, one on his back, the other standing over him.
But when I thought Callan would pull the trigger and end the fight, his lips curled at the corners and he tossed the gun toward us.
I couldn’t move, but the woman inched forward to grab the weapon, understanding that Callan hadn’t simply tossed it away, he’d thrown it to us just in case something went wrong and we needed the protection.
While Moritze lay still, his eyes glaring up at the threat that stood above him, Callan slowly lowered his body down to wrap a fist in Moritze’s shirt to lift his back off the floor.
“As I was saying earlier, you killed two of my men and you touched something else that doesn’t belong to you.”
The first punch to Moritze’s jaw caused his neck to snap back painfully, blood leaking down his lip from where the flesh had split.
“That was for Benny.”
The second punch landed with equal fury, another snap of his neck, more blood spraying out as bone crunched beneath the blow.
“And that was for Connor.”
“Just fucking kill me,” Moritze snarled, his lips pulling into a sneer despite the swelling.
“Gladly.”
It wasn’t a quick or easy death.
I’d witnessed Callan fighting before, had watched the lethal fluidity of his strength, had shivered against the truth of his brutality. But in this, in the violence he unleashed on a man he had reason to hate, Callan was without mercy, each punch breaking the bones it hit, Moritze’s face nothing but pulp by the time Callan pushed to his feet and threw the man across the room, only to stalk toward him to stomp at his arms and legs.
Screams tore through the room, bile creeping up my throat to witness such unrestrained aggression, the scent of blood and piss a toxic stew in the air as Callan continued the lethal assault, his expression cold, his temper unleashed.
I thought Moritze was already dead as Callan continued to toss him around like his body weighed nothing, as he continued to punch and crush, torture and destroy.
I cried. Not for Moritze’s life, but to understand that Callan wasn’t just destroying one man who’d wronged him, he was expelling all the darkness he’d carried his entire life.
A boy made a slave.
A slave treated as a beaten dog.
A man that had risen above the flames of a painful life to prove he was the most powerful of us all.
Watching him revealed another truth buried beneath all the secrets and lies in our life:
He had shown such a gut wrenching level of restraint when it came to me, even when I believed he was at his most violent.
I knew what it felt like to be the target of those angry amber eyes, but I also knew the tender touch of hand that could have crushed me without guilt for doing it.
It was enough. I’d had enough.
And while Callan couldn’t seem to pull himself back from the edge of the death he was delivering, the woman beside me let go of my hand to run after him, daring to step up behind him and say exactly what I was thinking.
“Callan, stop. He’s dead. You’ve done enough.”
He spun to face her, his shoulders and chest beating with heavy breath, blood and sweat dripping from the ends of his dark hair. Crimson rivulets flowed down his arms and face, his eyes narrowing on the woman with such ferocious intent that I feared for her in that moment.
She didn’t move, her face tipped up to his as he stared down.
Maybe it was because my eyes were unfocused that I didn’t recognize what I should have seen. Or maybe it was the shock and pain that kept me from understanding why both of them stood so still it was like looking at a photograph rather than at two