My lungs froze.
My chest froze.
I couldn’t think.
“What?” I whispered, my head slowly shaking and my eyes squinting, unsure if I heard her right. I couldn’t have heard her correctly, but my heart must have. Hard and heavy hits slammed inside my chest, an extra skip than before.
It was loud and eternal, Ba-dub. Ba-dub. Ba-dub …
“Mia’s pregnant,” she blurted, and tears froze in my eyes. “I saw her four weeks ago. She had that glow about her, one only a mum could see. I’ll never forget that look in her eyes, Oliver. If you do this, you’re not only risking Mia’s life. You’ll risk your babies too. Who knows what Dex would do once you’re dead.”
As soon as she said that, the door opened, and everything that followed seemed to happen so fast in slow motion.
A tall man in a suit took one step into the room when Mum pulled a gun from under her skirt, pointed it at his head, and pulled the trigger. A thunderous Bang! pierced my eardrums as the man collapsed to the ground. A ringing ruptured in my ears, my hearing temporarily impaired, and my eyes darted around when Mum’s lips moved, “RUN!”
Two men launched forward over Ghost’s body, and I turned and ran for the exit as another shot rang out, whistling past me.
I’d made it through the door, the cold wind slammed against my face, turning my tears to ice when Adrian’s Civic pulled up with the window rolled down. “Get in,” he shouted, and I quickly rounded the car and slid in just when open gunfire blasted from inside the building, one right after the other, each one ripping my heart to shreds knowing Mum was inside.
I’d left her there.
Mum was dead, and I’d left her there.
My palms pressed against my ears as I screamed out, and Adrian peeled out, tires sliding and asphalt spraying.
What have I done?
I pounded over the dashboard, my anger ripping through me.
“Mia needs you. The baby needs you,” Mum’s paralyzing words replayed, and I ran my palms up and down my heated face as Adrian sped through the alleyway, but the fury only fueled the malicious thoughts pulsing inside my head.
I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out Mia’s Christmas gift, creasing the paper over and over with trembling hands in a rage-filled daze.
It would never be fucking over. My family would never be safe.
Not as long as Dex was alive.
“Adrian,” I fumed, and cocked my head to face him. “Take me to Dex.”
ADRIAN SPED through the run-down streets of Thurrock to Dex’s house, and I couldn’t stop the rage flaring up inside me. My hands shook, eager to wrap around his throat and steal every bit of life he threatened to take from me. My jaw clenched, holding back from tearing Adrian’s arse apart for not going fast enough. And my chest and lungs burned from holding back the Saint trying to talk sense into me. Bitch, It’s not your fucking turn.
My knee bounced at an impossible speed. My ears still rang from the same shots that took Mum’s life. I gave up trying to calm myself down a long time ago. Dex had sent Leigh to kill my wife—my baby. Sweat and infuriated tears poured down my face in the dead of winter. I couldn’t feel the cold. I couldn’t feel anything aside from the madness. My clenched fist pounded over the middle console. “Hurry the fuck up,” I screamed out.
Adrian jumped at my side and gripped the steering wheel. “You need to think about this. Stop for a second, and think about what you’re about to do.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Don’t fucking question me.”
“What the bloody hell are you going to do?”
I’m going to crack the world open and swallow them whole.
I’m killing them all.
The Honda hopped the curb, and before Adrian had a chance to come to a complete stop, I jerked open the car door and jumped out.
Flames. Red, yellow, and searing orange flames blazed through my hazy sights as I sprinted up to the house and through the door with no weapon, no gun, only me. Vengeful, enraged, and on the warpath, anger ripped me open and controlled me. My emotions turned into ammunition, and at this point, I wondered if I cut my own flesh, if I’d still bleed because the power roaring inside me made me believe I was invincible.
And if I’d die tonight, perhaps my immortal anger would bring me back to life.
Three men lounged in the living room when I’d busted through the door, none of them expecting me.
Dex jumped from the couch, and his smile quickly faded when his confused eyes locked with mine. Smith stood beside him, eyes bouncing between Dex and me, and I picked up the small telly over the three-legged table and pitched it across the room and into the side of Smith’s thick skull, and he instantly went limp and fell over the couch.
Dex’s eyes widened as he reached behind him for his gun, and I flipped up the coffee table into his face just as the gun went off, the bullet punching a hole through the ceiling. The sound of the gunshot couldn’t affect me. Nothing could throw me off. Not until all three of them were dead.
The single thought of her kept my mind racing, my feet moving forward, and my reactions moving quicker. The third bloke took off to the kitchen where his gun sat over the fridge, and Dex pushed the table against my chest, shouting vulgar threats. I gripped the edge of the table and threw it against the wall, and a window shattered.
Dex threw a punch, but I dodged his fist and landed mine into his jaw. He fell back against the couch, and I snatched the dropped gun from the floor and snapped up, pointing it at the runaway bloke’s back.
It all happened so fast.
A bloodcurdling scream shot up from my pained heart, and I pulled the trigger, again and again, firing at his back. The color of red stained my vision as blood sprayed over the white fridge, and the bloke dropped to the ground, head bouncing off the tile.
By the time I looked back over to Dex, his fist connected with my jaw, and I tumbled backward but quickly steadied myself. I lifted the gun at Dex, and he backed away as the sound of another gun cocking echoed to my side.
Smith.
My eyes slid to him, and he stood off to the side with his pistol pointed at me.
“You don’t want to fuck with me!” I screamed, my hand shaking and tears streaming down my face. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
A single gunshot cried out, ripping through my side. My eyes bulged. Tears stopped. The impact jolted me back and knocked the air from my lungs. I fell back against the wall, the gun heavier in my hand and gravity dragging me down.
Mia, my baby … I grasped at every ounce of strength to pull myself up against the wall and waved the gun in Smith’s direction, refusing to stop until they were all dead.
Desperate, I pulled the stiff trigger, and a thunder sliced through the air as a bullet tore through the center of Smith’s forehead, blood painting the wall behind him.
A second wind jolted a rush inside me like a shot of adrenaline. Despite the burning, the heart-wrenching pain materializing, and the warm blood seeping from the bullet hole at my side, I stormed over to Dex.
He slowly shook his head, panic invading his senses, and before he could get a word out, I slammed the base of the gun into the side of his head.
Dex fell back into the couch, and I gripped his black hair, yanked his head back, and dug the tip of the barrel under his chin.
“Alright, I get it,” Dex’s voice shook with his palms in the air. “I get it, Oliver.”