Den of Vipers
: Chapter 46

I watch D play with the man. My own hands are caked in blood, and the pain of my knuckles breaking has long since passed. Ryder gave us permission, and we didn’t need to be told twice.

I let it all out—the aggression, the hatred. All my emotions pour into the city like a disease, leaving bodies behind. They should have never challenged us…and taking Roxy? Dumb fucking move.

We might have let them off easy before. Now? Now they will die with our names on their lips.

I shy away from thinking about her, because when I do, I can’t control what happens, and right now, this guy is D’s, but the idea of her in pain…of her scared… alone, fills me with such fury, I have to kill something, anything.

We promised to protect her always.

And look what happened. I will never forgive myself for it, or for the fact it was my own fucking fault. If I wasn’t so consumed by my hatred for Daphne and the shock of seeing her alive, I might have noticed her using me to get my phone, to lure my girl, but I didn’t until it was too late, and now this. I am to blame.

She came for me.

And now I will come for her, always. I will save her, and then I will damn her, making her mine forever. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I found out she was gone, it’s that I can’t live without her. Not anymore.

She worked her way under my armour, under my ruined skin to the fighter, the warped killer beneath, and she loved him and made him love her. She is my reason to breathe now, to fight my demons every goddamn day. D laughs, bringing me back from my morose thoughts.

The man is crawling with tears pouring from his eyes. His legs are broken in millions of places, dragging uselessly behind him. The blood trail he’s leaving almost makes me laugh. He pulls himself away while D laughs harder, holding the hammer he used to break his legs in his hand.

“Where is she?” he screams, and then brings the hammer down on his back. I watch, letting him get it all out. He dies shrieking in pain with no information for us. So we move on to the next one.

But before we can, I get a call back from Cherry. She owed Roxy, and she mentioned Triad members before, so I told her to put in some work. “What?” I answer, snarling.

“They’re dead, all three men that come here. They didn’t know much, but they mentioned something about the men you assigned to trail the ex—they’re dead.” Fuck, that’s why we can’t get a hold of them, and it leaves us with another dead end.

“Thanks, Cherry, want me to send clean up?” I inquire, trying to play nice.

“No, we got this, you just get her back,” she demands, as she hangs up.

We jump on our bikes and speed away, pushing it as we wind dangerously through traffic. I need that adrenaline, that high, and the wind to carry me away for just a moment, but when we end up outside the next building, a convenience store, it’s all back.

I have to get it out before it twists me and there is no coming back. Yanking off my helmet, I swing my leg over and look at D. “This one is mine,” I growl.

He nods but follows me in, and I head straight up to the counter. The man there glances up from his newspaper, and his face pales when he spots me. He stumbles away as D starts wrecking the shop behind me, throwing shit everywhere, getting his own feelings out.

“Oh God!” He grabs a bat from under the counter and tries to strike me. I catch it mid-air and wrench it from his hands, snapping it over my knee before grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and dragging him over the counter. He screams and jerks as I throw him onto the floor. He starts to scramble to his feet, so I bring my boot down on his back, grinding him to the ground, but it’s not enough.

It will never be enough until she’s back in my arms.

“You know why we’re here,” I growl.

“Oh God, please, please, no, I worked for them years ago—”

I snort. “Once a hitter, always a hitter.” I stomp on his back before picking him up, holding him effortlessly in the air. He strikes out with a knife he got from somewhere, and I frown down at the small weapon sticking from my side before glaring up at him.

His anger drains away as I smile. I smash my fist into his face repeatedly before throwing him onto the counter and continuing the assault. I can’t stop. All that anger pours from me, my knuckles cracking as his face splits open, and it’s still not enough.

My demon calls for more until a noise draws my attention. Jerking my head up, my chest heaving, I meet the eyes of the man hiding in the back room. We stare at each other for a moment before the owner tries to grab the knife in my side again.

I go back to pummelling in his face as he tries to block, tries to fight back, but I’m too strong for him.

I’m beating the shit out of him as D laughs. “Oh, they have Mars, I love Mars ice cream,” he calls, and when I look over, he’s sitting on the freezer, munching on an ice cream.

Just then, when I’m not looking, the man breaks free from the back room and runs past me. “D, stop him,” I snarl.

He sighs but his leg goes out, tripping the man before he goes back to eating his ice cream, his legs swinging back and forth happily like a fucking child.

The man against the counter isn’t moving now, so I turn to the man on the floor who groans. Grabbing his head, I drag him to his feet and lean down to get in his face. “Warn them, tell them we are coming, let them know this city will run red with the blood of anyone who ever helped them, worked for them, or knows them. They will all die, because of them.” I let go and move away.

The young man turns to look at me before taking a step back like he doesn’t believe me. “Go!” I shout.

He turns and dashes away. Yanking the knife from my side, I throw it at him, hitting his shoulder. He screams as he falls. “Better go faster before I change my mind!” I call, and he gets to his feet, gripping his bleeding shoulder, and disappears, blood trailing after him.

D groans. “Let me hunt him, look at that pretty trail.”

“No, you can get the next one,” I snarl, as I turn back to the other man who is immobile. Grinning, I turn back to D. “We’re done here, that felt good.”

He nods, licking another ice cream before he offers me one. Snorting, I take it and rip it open, swallowing it whole while he watches. “And they say I’m nuts,” he mutters, before flinging his arm around me. “Where to, big guy? The clothes shop or the market?”

“Market,” I snap.

“Market it is.” He laughs and then chucks the wrapper away. A woman with grey hair walks past, and he grabs her. He turns her, his hand on her throat, and I watch her scream and kick. His face is dark, needy. “Little—” He realises it isn’t Roxy and tosses her away. She falls to her knees with a whimper, takes one look at us, and gets the fuck out of here. I clap him on the shoulder as he glares after her. “Soon, brother, soon, just hold on.”

“Let’s go kill some fuckers,” he growls.