Page 91 of Wicked Mafia Beast
He moves through them with brutal efficiency, every strike precise, every counter anticipated, his massive body flowing between targets in a way that makes my breath catch because a man that big should not move that fast. The third guard pulls a knife and Kon catches his wrist, twists until the joint pops, and drops him with a knee to the chest. The fourth guard takes one look at what just happened to his three colleagues and runs for the loading dock.
Kon lets him go. His eyes are locked on Seamus.
My uncle backs against the wall, his silver hair messed up for the first time in my life. Blood stains his otherwise always impeccable suit. He presses a weathered hand to his bleeding mouth and real, honest fear twists his aged face.
In a blink, forty years of power get stripped away by one man. Kon.
Kon closes the distance between himself and Seamus with the slow, measured walk of a man who has all the time in the world and wants his prey to feel every second of it. His fists hang at his sides, bloodied and swollen, and the muscles in his forearms jump with every clench and release. He doesn't speak. He doesn't need to. The four men on the floor behind him have already made his introduction.
Seamus presses his back flat against the wall. Nowhere left to run. His silver hair hangs in his face and his tailored suit is spotted with blood and for the first time in my life the great Seamus Malone looks small.
Kon's hand closes around my uncle's throat and lifts him off the ground. Seamus's polished shoes dangle above the concrete, kicking uselessly, his fingers clawing at Kon's wrist. The choking sounds that come out of his mouth are wet and desperate and nothing like the smooth, controlled voice that has ruined lives for forty years.
My heart slams against my ribs so hard my entire chest aches. The warehouse smells like gunpowder and blood and the acrid smoke still curling from the metal drum where my files turned to ash. My palms are slick with sweat and the bullet graze above my ear throbs in time with my pulse, hot and relentless.
Kon's arm doesn't shake. His expression doesn't change. The Beast has his prey by the throat and the only question left is whether he squeezes until it's over.
Part of me wants him to. The part that read my mother's therapist notes and watched my files burn and felt my uncle's backhand crack across my face. That part of me wants to watch the light leave Seamus Malone's eyes.
But the other part of me, the part that loves the man behind the Beast, knows that if Kon kills my uncle with his bare hands in this warehouse, a piece of him won't come back from it. A piece of the man who grows roses and whispers Russian in the dark will stay on this concrete floor alongside Seamus.
And I cannot lose that man. Not after everything we've survived to find each other.
"Kon." My voice breaks. My legs are shaking so hard I can barely stay upright. The cold from the concrete floor seeps up through my bare, bloodied feet and my fingernails dig crescents into my palms. "Kon, please. Come back to me."
His hand tightens around Seamus's throat. The tendons in his forearm strain against the barbed wire ink. Seamus's face turns a mottled purple and his kicks grow weaker, his shoes scraping against the wall behind him.
My heart hammers in my ears. My breath comes in short, ragged pulls that taste like copper and smoke.
He doesn't turn or let go.
Eighteen
Kon
The bullet that hit Onyx replays behind my eyes every time I blink.
The spray of blood above her left ear. The way her body crumpled sideways onto the gravel. The way her hand flew to her head and came away red while I was ten feet away fighting a man who doesn't matter instead of standing between her and the gun.
I beat Brennan until his body stopped twitching for what he did to Onyx. Then I took two steps toward her and my knee gave out and the second wave of Seamus's men poured through the stairwell door and dragged her across the rooftop while I bled on crushed roses and reached for a hand that was already gone.
She might be dead.
That thought sits in my chest with the weight of a bullet lodged between my ribs and every breath I take pushes it deeper.
Luca found me on the rooftop eight minutes after the second wave pulled out. I was on my knees in the garden, covered in blood, half of it mine and half of it Brennan's, trying to stand on legs that kept buckling. He didn't waste time on questions.Grabbed my arm, hauled me down the stairs, shoved field dressings against the wounds and pushed me into the back of a black SUV before the first wave of shock could settle.
The left arm is a through-and-through. Clean entry, clean exit, missed the bone by a centimeter. Hurts like getting stabbed with a hot poker but I've had worse. The right side is a graze along the inside of my waist. Bled hard enough to soak through my shirt and convince Onyx it was a chest hit. Superficial once you clean it. Still burns when I breathe.
Brennan emptied three rounds at close range and managed two grazes and one hit on the wrong person entirely. The man was two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle with the marksmanship of a drunk teenager. Any other day I'd find that funny.
Right now I can't find a damn thing funny because the woman I love is in the hands of a man who destroys women for sport and the last image I have of her is blood in her dark hair and her blue eyes going glassy as the light bled out of them.
"Brennan's men took her south." Luca drives the way he does everything, fast and precise, weaving through traffic with one hand on the wheel and the other scrolling through feeds on a tablet mounted to the dash. "Cameras on the expressway picked up three vehicles heading toward the docks. Black SUVs, no plates, standard Malone transport protocol."
"How long ago?"
"Forty minutes. Maybe less." His gold-flecked eyes cut to the rearview. "I've got a location, Kon. South side warehouse near the stockyards."
