Look at him…
I stared at my brother as he carried her damn Tooti Frooti Bumble bags. He’d had to force her into the candy store after she’d stood outside staring at the damn thing for twenty minutes. If I had to hear, ‘It’s just like Holidate’ one more damn time, I was going to throw up.
No, it wasn’t like fucking Holidate.
It was worse.
A piercing child’s squeal ripped through the air. I winced at the sound and was smacked from behind, driven facefirst into the glass window of a lingerie store. Dong. My head hit the window and rage seethed just under the surface, making me jerk a savage glare toward the woman wrestling three goddamn terrors in an attempt to pass through the crowd.
A low threatening sound rumbled in the back of my throat and spilled outwards. Under the roar of the shoppers, she heard it, cast a panicked glance my way, drove her creatures forward, and disappeared.
Fuck, I hate Christmas. I searched the crowd and found my brother, glaring at me over his shoulder as they walked.
Fine…
I shoved away from the wall and kept moving until I saw where she was heading. “Oh fuck no.”
A snarl resounded in the back of my throat as she headed for the towering Winter Wonderland display that took up the entire span of the massive shopping center.
An ugly red sleigh was wedged between two massive Christmas trees smothered in three inches of fake snow, the kind of snow that spewed out of a machine in the corner of the exhibit. Kids squealed as parents were frantically trying to look everywhere at once. Still the white shit floated in the air. It was a goddamn nightmare.
My phone vibrated in my pocket as I pushed faster through the crowd. “Colt, tell her no fucking way!” I roared, as I pulled my phone out. “Colt! COLT!”
But my goddamn brother kept walking as Vivienne rushed forward with an ugly ass grin on her face.
No…
Fuck no.
I glared at the caller ID: London, and answered. “I swear, I’m about to end them both.”
“Carven,” He started, and the cold, careful tone made me freeze. Someone smacked into my shoulder as they passed, but I barely saw them as London kept talking. “There’s been a change of plans.”
A change of plans.
The way he said it sent a chill down my spine. I lifted my gaze to Colt and Vivienne as she laughed and lined up with the herd of shouting kids to gain entry as I murmured. “What kind of change?”
“I’m heading into the city.”
“Why?”
“There’s…there’s a goddamn picture. I don’t know how she got it. I don’t even know how much information she has. But Ophelia has a fucking picture. She has this.”
Beep.
I pulled my phone away and hit the message on the screen to pull up a picture of my vehicle. My goddamn vehicle outside the warehouse where we’d saved Ryth and her fucking stepbrothers. I lifted the phone. “How the fuck did she get that?”
“I have no idea.”
Then it hit me. “She sent it to you and not Hale.”
Silence, then. “Yes.”
I ground my jaw, lifting my gaze to my brother as the line moved closer to the towering display. “She’s blackmailing you…”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “You can’t—”
“I have no choice, son. I can’t take the risk she has more. It could…ruin us.”
I closed my eyes and felt my world sway. The shrill screams of kids pushed in…
Ruin us…
Ruin…us.
Ruin me, he meant.
“I’ll be back when I can.”
My gut clenched with the words. “London, no.” But it didn’t matter how hard I pleaded, because he’d ended the call.
Rage filled me as I found Colt staring at me with a look of concern. It was like he knew, like he always knew. That invisible tether that bound me to him hummed with a charge. Then slowly, my vision widened and the glimpses of black moved in.
Crack!
I jerked my gaze toward the sound at the same time my brother did.
Crack!
Crack!
CRACK!
Screams started, turning deafening as mothers and children ran for their lives. Colt was already moving as the gunmen pushed their way through, tearing the Winter Wonderland display apart in an attempt to get to her…
To her…
I jerked my gaze toward the woman in the center of it all.
The woman who couldn’t see a damn thing around that ugly fucking sleigh.
“VIVIENNE!” I screamed, and lunged.
But the frenzied crowd slammed against me, driving me backwards. Black peppered my view and between the gaps of frantic shoppers I caught the sight of more of the bastards heading their way.
“Get the fuck out of the way!” I roared, shoving people aside.
I reached back for my gun and was bumped sideways. I wrestled my weapon free and drew it up as one of the attackers went for my brother. The fuck you do.
I raised the muzzle, took aim, and sidestepped a kid before I squeezed the trigger.
Crack!
The shot went to the side and slammed into one of the Christmas trees. I took aim again as shoppers continued running away and squeezed off a shot as Vivienne screamed.
Crack!
The bullet hit true that time and slammed into my brother’s attacker as he drove the butt of his gun at Colt’s head. But I didn’t have time to shoot again as one of the assholes grabbed Vivienne from behind and lifted her feet off the floor.
Colt roared as he threw his attacker to the side, only to be surrounded by more of them. He took the blows and lifted his hands to protect his face as he lashed out, clocking one in the jaw.
I shoved forward, raised my gun, took aim, and was slammed from the side. More of those motherfuckers came out of nowhere. One tore a screaming kid from its mother and threw the damn thing at me.
Flailing hands and legs and a wide-open mouth. I grabbed the screaming missile with one hand, dropped him to the floor, then rounded the kid and pistol-whipped the fucker across the face.
A calmness washed over me. Quiet. Controlled. The panicked roar of the crowd dulled. There was only blood now. Only violence. Only this.
The square jaw of the bastard in front of me snapped sideways, but I didn’t give him a second to recover. I lunged forward, driving my fist and the barrel of the gun upwards…but a voice pushed in.
Her voice.
Her screams.
Her fighting.
“Get the fuck off me!”
I sank deeper into that cold, hard rage, where there was nothing but revenge, and drove the patterned steel of my weapon into his nose. Again, and again, and again. Even as he stumbled backwards, I advanced.
Blood shot out of the attacker’s nose as his buddy lifted his gun. But I was expecting it. I hoped for it. I swung my fist and pulled the trigger. Crack! And the side of his head disappeared in a spray of red.
I turned back as the first guy wiped at his nose.
Fear bloomed in his eyes.
He saw me now.
Saw what I was.
What they’d made me become.
And it terrified him.
I lunged and pushed him backwards into the scattering crowd so fast his feet couldn’t keep up. He swung, but his blow was pathetic and too fucking wide. I ducked, then rushed forward, grabbed him around the throat, and shoved.
His arms windmilled as he fell backwards and hit the floor with a sickening thud. Chaos descended around us. All I saw were boots and legs and black. Black. Black like mercenaries. I risked a glance upwards, to see my brother fighting two of them, before I looked at Vivienne…but she was gone.
There were no screams for me to track now, no thrashing fists as she fought. I scanned the crowd as I lunged after the bastard, grabbing him as he lay on the floor and gripped the bastard’s throat as more of his team invaded, one shoving the panicked shoppers aside to get to my brother.
I didn’t think anymore, just lifted the gun. Crack.
The gunman’s head snapped backwards as blood sprayed. But I was already scanning the crowd, until I saw her. One bastard held her shoulders, his hand over her mouth. Another carried her legs, his body between her thighs as she bucked and thrashed, reaching over her head to claw the other fucker’s face. The last guy followed them through the service. She fought…
Still, it was three on one.
I shoved against the bastard on the ground, driving myself upwards as Vivienne disappeared through the door, and tripped.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” the bleeding scumbag croaked underneath me.
I swung my hand upwards, taking aim. But he was on me in an instant, shoving against the ground to drag me back down as I slipped in that fake fucking snow.
My face hit with a crack! Pain stabbed through my cheek, making my eyes water. Still, through the blur, I saw rage as he swung his fist. The animal in me snapped. I went for his face, driving my thumbs into his eyes until they bulged.
“You have idea who you’re messing with.” Slick coated my nails and flowed over my knuckles. “But you will.”
I didn’t stop, twisting with all I had until I heard a gut-clenching pop.
Then it was over…and so was he.
His body dropped to the floor.
I didn’t waste a second as I shoved upwards, using all the strength I had, and leveled the gun on my brother’s attackers. But they were gone. I scanned the crowd, then looked down. No, not gone. Dead.
Three of them lay on the ground, one with his head at an angle that wasn’t conductive to life, the two others motionless. I tore my gaze away and rushed forward, headed for the open service door, praying I wasn’t going to find my brother lying in a puddle of his own blood at the bottom of the goddam stairs.
Move!
I drove myself forward…and prayed.
