[ARTEMY]
The sound of a gunshot was a shock through my body. Everything was silent, cold, as I stared at the piano thinking about Rebecca.
And then the silence was gone. Replaced with the sound of a gunshot. I heard a scream. Then another gunshot.
Everything else happened in a blur. My feet acted of their own accord, and I was running out of the piano room without a second thought.
Another painful scream. Lynda’s voice. It was Lynda’s voice.
I followed the scream toward the end of the hall, my heart racing wildly in my chest. I heard footsteps behind me, and without looking, I knew it was Brayden and Avim. They were a few rooms away from mine. Without a doubt, they must have heard the gunshot too.
My feet slightly faltered to a stop when I realized the scream was coming from Milandro’s room. I felt my eyes widen in panic and picked up my pace. Was the estate under attack?
Fuck no! Not again!
My hands tightened in fists as my body went tight with alarm. I rushed to open the door, my eyes wildly searching around the room, looking for the threat.
The first thing I saw was the broken window, and just for a brief moment, my mother’s face flashed in front of my eyes.
This moment. The gunshot. The screams. It felt so familiar.
My eyes snapped to the floor when I heard a pained whimper. My muscles locked tight as my body went rigid at the sight in front of me.
I almost stumbled back in shock but stopped myself in time as I stared at Lynda in complete horror. My eyes followed the pool of blood surrounding her, and my stomach rolled.
Blood wasn’t something new to me. I was accustomed to blood and the horror that came with it. I made people bleed. I laughed when they bled. Hell, I took pleasure in seeing them begging for their lives as they bled to death.
No, I wasn’t scared of blood. It wasn’t why my stomach rolled and my knees felt weak.
It was this moment, this feeling of deja vu that made me sick. I saw this when I was seven, when my mother took her last breath.
And now I was seeing it again.
I rushed to Lynda’s side and knelt down beside her before pulling her into my arms. “Lynda?” I choked.
Her next words were filled with pain, but I heard them. Clear as day. They brought another type of pain in my chest. Pain and then anger. So much anger.
“Milandro…” she gasped through the pain. “He…is…the…the…traitor…spy…”
Lynda winced as her body convulsed. She stared at me with frightened eyes, begging me. I didn’t have to see my face to know my expression thundered with fury. I felt it vibrating through my bones.
Lynda kept talking even through her labored breathing.
“He…knows,” she broke off and her face twisted, sweat breaking out on the skin of her forehead. Blood dribbled in the corner of her lips.
Tears slid down her cheeks as she tried to speak. “He…knows…where…Rebecca…is…”
Rebecca. At the sound of her name, my heart picked up a beat. My arms tightened around Lynda.
The numbness was gone. My mind was clear once again. Instead of the coldness seeping through my body, all I felt was burning anger.
“Get him!” I bellowed. I saw Brayden running out of the room. Avim jumped out of the window.
I felt hot, my skin itching with the need to kill. To make him bleed.
Milandro, one of my most trusted men. How did I not see it? I trusted him, yet he betrayed me. For how long?
He was dying, cold, homeless, starving. But I picked him up, gave him a home. A family. Even when his father was a traitor, I believed in him.
Stupid. So fucking stupid. I didn’t trust people easily, but trusting Milandro had been a mistake. A big fucking one.
Shaking my head, I looked down at Lynda. She had to pay the price. Rebecca had to pay the price of my stupidity.
Lynda cried in my arms, her entire body shaking with how heavy her sobbing was. She placed her hand over her stomach, right over where the bullet went through.
Closing her eyes, she whispered. Her voice was low, her words so softly spoken. “My…baby…”
What-?
I stared at her, completely horrified.
I heard her wrong. My mind was playing tricks on me. I wanted to ask her, try to clear this confusion, but my tongue felt heavy.
She opened her eyes again. “Baby…my…baby…” she cried in my arms.
There was no mistake. No confusion. My mind wasn’t playing a trick on me. I heard it clearly, and it hurt. The words hurt, and I couldn’t imagine how badly it was hurting Lynda.
My lips didn’t move. I just stared. Even when Lynda was taken from my arms, Leon screaming, crying, begging her not to leave him, I didn’t move.
My eyes slowly made their way to Lynda’s stomach, where she was bleeding profusely. There was no way the baby would make it. It was impossible.
Would Lynda even make it?
I didn’t fucking know anything.
I was snapped out of my thoughts when Wyatt came running into the room. Leon carried Lynda to the bed, and I quickly got to my feet.
My blood roared at the unfairness. No, it roared with anger, with the need for answers. I was raging, my body shaking with the force of my fury.
My eyes moved around the room, making contact with Brayden as he rushed into the room again.
I saw the fury, impatience, and worry in his expression. I also knew he was wrestling for control. I was too. We all were.
Milandro wasn’t going to make it out alive.
Brayden stared at me and gave me a single nod before walking out again. One nod was all it took to drive me to the point of insanity.
Milandro had been captured, and my control had snapped.
Giving Lynda a final glance, I walked out of the room. I didn’t call Leon. There was no point. He wasn’t going to leave Lynda’s side now.
Making my way to the basement, I let the fury boil. I let myself feel the anger, knowing it would serve me well later.
Only the anger would keep me going. There was no time for weakness. I pushed the image of Rebecca frightened and hurt, Lynda bleeding and close to death, to the back of my mind.
Brayden was waiting for me in front of the door, his expression fierce. He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. One of our own betrayed us. Someone we trusted and treated as a brother.
But we couldn’t dwell on that betrayal now. There was no time for it. Our only purpose was to get answers and find Rebecca.
Brayden opened the door, and I walked inside, my stride confident and purposely. Slow even through my anger.
Milandro was tied to a chair, facing me. His head was cast down, but I knew he heard me come in. The way his body tightened gave him away.
Avim was standing behind him, a murderous look on his face.
I walked forward, stopping just two feet away from Milandro. The room was filled with silence. No words were uttered, but the air was heavy and tensed. Almost suffocating.
I let the silence drag for a few more minutes. Milandro grew more tense. It was all a game, a game of dominance, and in that moment, I held the power and Milandro was just a pawn.
When I felt myself barely hanging on the thin thread of control, I moved forward. I’d give him credit. He didn’t move or flinch.
Grabbing his chin, I raised his head. He stared at me blankly, completely void of emotion. Fueled by deep hatred and anger, I pulled back and punched him. I heard his nose crunch under the force of my knuckles.
I craved his scream, his blood. When he didn’t make a sound, I punched him again, harder than before. There was a very satisfying sound. Another broken bone. This time he winced, his eyes shutting tight in pain.
I grabbed his throat and squeezed, watching him fight for his breath. His face turned a shade of red and then purple. The cells broke across his skin, tiny red dots as his wide eyes stared at me in panic.
The whites of his eyes turned red as he suffocated under my grasp. His pupils enlarged, and I smiled, watching him struggle for his life, for another gasp of air.
The corner of his mouth was swelling, and there was a laceration over his cheekbone. His nose was already swelling, turning an ugly shade of green.
I pressed my fingers just a little harder, feeling his windpipe. He choked against the pressure building in his throat as it traveled up into his face.
I fought against the urge to laugh at his suffering.
Rebecca was suffering because of him. She was innocent, yet paying for something she didn’t deserve. All because of this man in front of me. Whatever was going to be handed to him would never be enough. I would never be satisfied.