Page 90 of Wicked Mafia Beast
Seamus turns to his brother. "Declan. Don't."
Declan doesn't look at Seamus. He looks at me. At the blood on my face. At the zip ties cutting into my wrists. At the daughter his wife died protecting.
"Catherine would have wanted me to do this a long time ago." His voice barely reaches me, but I hear the truth in every cracked syllable and it nearly breaks me.
"Declan." Seamus's voice goes blade-sharp, the same commanding tone that's kept his brother in line for forty years. "I am warning you."
It doesn't work this time.
My father lunges for the nearest guard with all the grace of a man who has never thrown a punch in his life. The move is clumsy and desperate, his feet tangling as he grabs the knife from the guard's belt in a motion so awkward the guard barely reacts. This is not the bold action of a hero. This is a lifelong coward trying to be the man his daughter needed him to be all along.
He drops to his knees beside my chair and saws at the zip ties with hands that shake so badly the blade nicks my wrist beforefinding the plastic. I hiss at the sting but I don't pull away because the look on his face tells me this is the bravest thing Declan Malone has ever done and I will not take it from him.
The first zip tie snaps and blood rushes into my right hand so fast the pins-and-needles burn brings tears to my eyes. Then the second tie gives way. Seamus's men grab Declan by the shoulders and throw him to the concrete, but the damage is done.
I am free.
I stand. My legs protest after however long I've been in this chair, knees stiff, calves cramped, the cold concrete biting into my bare soles. But the adrenaline overrides all of it.
I roll my shoulders and shake the last of the numbness from my arms. My legs are shaking but holding and my vision has gone diamond-sharp, every detail in the warehouse crisp and vivid and burning itself into my memory.
Seamus is four feet away. His blue eyes are wide, his mouth open, genuine shock plastered across features that have never known what it feels like to be challenged by someone he considers beneath him.
Forty years of controlling everyone around him and he never planned for a twenty-five-year-old woman with blood on her face to swing back.
I punch him in the jaw with everything I have.
The crack echoes off the steel rafters. Pain shoots through my knuckles and up into my wrist and I don't give a damn because the look on his face, that pure, unfiltered shock, is worth every bone in my hand.
He staggers backward, hand flying to his mouth, blood spraying from his lips. His polished shoes slip on the concrete and for one beautiful second the great Seamus Malone looks exactly like what he is.
A bully who just got hit.
"That's from my mother." I shake out my throbbing fist. "And from me."
The warehouse door explodes inward.
The steel panel rips off its track and slams into the concrete wall hard enough to shake the rafters. Headlights flood through the opening, dust and debris swirling in the beams, and a silhouette fills the doorway that sends a jolt through my entire body so hard my vision blurs.
Kon.
Alive. Massive. Covered in blood that soaks through a field dressing on his left arm and another wrapped around his waist. His henley is torn half off his body, exposing the barbed wire and roses inked across his chest and the thick slabs of muscle rolling beneath his skin as he steps through the ruined doorway. His dark hair hangs wild and loose around his face, matted with blood and sweat, and his black eyes sweep the warehouse with a predator focus that raises every hair on my body.
My heart explodes into thundering beats. My hands tremble at my sides. He's been shot, but he’s still standing. I feel like I can finally breathe, but we are not safe yet.
His eyes find me. He quickly logs the blood on my mouth, my knuckles and then his attention shifts to the man over my shoulder.
I angle my head around to see Seamus clutching his jaw.
I turn back to Kon and watch his expression shift. The rage is still there but relief cracks through it, raw and unguarded, and for half a second I can see the man I love underneath all that blood and fury. His chest heaves on a breath that shakes his entire frame and his dark eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that makes my knees buckle.
I blink and then the Beast comes back. And he is terrifying.
I've watched Kon spar in the training room. Controlled punches, pulled force, careful technique. I watched him fight Brennan on the rooftop, savage and territorial, two big men trying to destroy each other.
This is a different animal entirely.
Seamus's guards raise their weapons and Kon is on them before the first trigger gets pulled. His arm sweeps the nearest barrel upward and the shot punches into the rafters while his fist drives into the guard's throat. The man drops. Kon is already turning. The second guard swings a rifle stock toward his wounded side and Kon catches it mid-swing, rips it free, and cracks it across the man's jaw. Teeth and blood hit the concrete.
