Chapter 34

A s I speed down the country road, my vision zeros in on the horizon in the distance until it blurs into nothing.

My long fingers curl around the leather steering wheel, and I push down harder on the accelerator, but I’m already flooring it. Despite my dance with death, my heartbeat remains calm and steady, like a glassy lake reflecting the trees outside.

Each pounding heartbeat thuds like a kick drum. What I feel now is beyond anger or rage. I’m emotionless—an empty void of unleashed darkness with one goal in mind.

Complete destruction. Aim and kill.

One quick glance at the speedometer has a small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. If I make the slightest mistake now, take my mind off the target for even one second, I’ll be snuffed off this planet in a heartbeat.

My phone rings in the passenger seat, the phone vibrating across the leather.

Sinclair.

Always the voice of reason in my muddled mind.

I press answer on the steering wheel.

“This is fucking madness,” he says, his voice filling the car when the call connects. “You’ll kill yourself.”

I stare at the mirage ahead, glimmering in the distance. “The only one dying is the Bishop.”

“I can’t let you do this, Darian. Not like this. I know you’re angry, but we need a plan before we attack.”

My gaze flicks to the climbing speedometer again, and my breaths grow shallower until I barely feel its whisper on my lips. Sinclair wants me to turn back and formulate a plan of attack, but I don’t have precious seconds to spare. I’m bringing my wife home, no matter what it takes or what nightmare greets me.

“Darian!” Sinclair’s sharp voice snaps me back from my thoughts, and a frown creases my brow.

When I flick my eyes to the rearview mirror, he’s hot on my tail. “Go home, Sinclair.”

His deep, resigned sigh fills my car and then he says, “You forgot one very important thing.”

The horizon stares back at me, a speck in the distance. “What’s that?”

“I have your Bugatti, and it’s a fuckton faster than your car.”

I can’t help but laugh when he pulls out and speeds past me, maneuvering the car with an ease most professional racers would covet. He whizzes by like a bullet, flying down the road before pulling the handbrake and spinning the car around like a suicidal madman until he faces me.

“Crazy motherfucker,” I chuckle as I slam on the brakes, the tires squealing loudly on the road.

When our cars finally come to a standstill, we stare at each other through the windshields, high on adrenaline and breathing like bulls, road dust swirling around us.

“Are you going to move your car?” I ask, resting against the headrest.

“Are you going to use some common fucking sense?” he counters, his voice filling the car through the speakers.

I chuckle. “Nope.”

“Then no, I think I’ll stay parked right here.”

Smacking the glovebox, I retrieve my gun, ensuring he can hear it click before I exit the vehicle, walking toward him with the weapon drawn. “Move your fucking car, Sinclair.”

Instead of responding, he grins behind the steering wheel and shakes his head. Then he opens the door, slams it shut, and walks toward me. Women of all ages have always loved this side of Sinclair, his masculine cockiness and lack of fear. He’s an arrogant fucker, and if I didn’t respect him so much, I would’ve shot him by now.

“What good do you think you’ll be to your woman if you’re dead?”

“Now is not the time for chit-chat. Move out of my way.”

“You know, I always admired you for being a strategist, but all it took was one warm, tight pussy for you to become so fucking blinded, you’ll get both of you killed.” Before the words have left his mouth, he wrestles the gun from my hand and swipes my feet from underneath me.

Surprised, I hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from my lungs.

Sinclair is about to empty the gun of bullets, when his phone vibrates in his pocket.

With a brief glance at me—coughing on the ground and clambering to my feet—he pulls it out and taps the screen.

“Shit,” I grumble, straightening up. “I think I broke my back.”

“Where’s your phone?” Sinclair asks carefully as he pockets his.

Something about the change in tone has me stiffening, and I eye him for a second before darting to the car to retrieve my phone, but he anticipates my move and tackles me.

“What the fuck?” I shove him off me, but he launches himself at my back and we wrestle for reasons I can’t fucking figure out.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I growl, refraining from punching him in the face as we roll into the ditch. “Ow, fuck! What the hell are we doing, Sinclair?”

Shoving off me, he jumps to his feet and runs for the car. Confused as hell, I pop my head up from the ditch, watching him grab my phone from the passenger seat.

He tosses it to the ground and stomps on it, looking as frazzled as I am.

I climb out of the ditch, dirt and sticks stuck in my hair, and throw my hands out. “What was that for?”

Sinclair’s attention lands on me, and he does a double take as though he forgot I was here. Then he walks closer, hesitantly, peering into the distance. “I need you to listen to me carefully.”

Frowning and out of breath, I wait for him to continue while he rests his hands on his hips. When he doesn’t, I gesture impatiently, “Yes?”

“You can’t freak out. Something bad has happened. Something really fucking bad?—”

My eyes widen, but before I can storm back to the car, he puts his hand on my shoulder. “Darian, I need your head in the game. Okay? You’re not thinking straight.”

Releasing me, he removes his phone from his pocket and makes a few calls. Meanwhile, I eye the cell with my nerves on fire, debating if I should steal it from him to see what he’s hiding. But maybe he’s right. I’m already volatile. I need to keep my head on, and I’m already doing a piss poor job of that.

“What happened to a plan of attack?” I ask when he hangs up.

With his chin on his chest, he rubs his eyes, his other hand on his hip. “Time’s up.”

When he looks at me, I feel my face drain of color. He breaks eye contact, strides to the Bugatti, and leans back on the hood. Shoulders slumped, he hangs his head in defeat.

Is Cecilia dead? Is that what he’s not telling me?

Fear, unlike anything I’ve experienced, sinks its hooks inside me, and the anger from earlier drains away until I’m as tired and broken as Sinclair.

I cross the road and sit beside him, staring into the distance beyond my car and the tire marks on the asphalt. A cawing bird disturbs the silence, taking flight from a nearby tree.

“I know I said it before,” Sinclair says, watching it circle above. “There’s no going back—not for you or me.”

“You don’t have to come along. This is my fight,” I reply with a heavy breath. He looks away from the sky and studies my face, then he wraps his arm around my shoulder and points a finger at the approaching blacked-out Range Rovers. “Here comes the cavalry.”

They park up behind my car, and Elijah opens the driver’s door and steps down on the cracked road, his signature smirk revealing the dimple on his cheek. “Let’s get your woman back, Delacroix.”

It wasn’t safe to park too close to the warehouse, so we parked farther down the road, close enough that we could make a hasty escape, but far enough away not to draw attention.

I look out behind the tall trees, relieved when the desolate warehouse appears, the metal rusty after years of neglect. Tufts of dry, yellow grass line the building, and tall fir trees stand guard around the abandoned structure.

I share a terse look with Sinclair. Behind us, we hear sticks snapping as Elijah approaches, dressed in all black. “Something is wrong,” he says.

His father nods and studies the building.

“It’s too quiet,” I reply, noting the absence of cars.

“Come on,” Sinclair says as he sets off walking, and we follow behind.

Elijah is a steady, formidable presence at my side. Just like his father, he’s got his head screwed on tight when he needs to. Me? I feel like I’m falling apart, layer by layer, as the large structure looms ahead.

I try to force down the insistent fear that wants to render me useless, but something is terribly wrong. I feel it in the air.

Gray, ominous clouds gather overhead, crows caw in the distance, perched on the roof, and the air smells of an impending storm.

We walk up to the entrance, weapons drawn. Sinclair puts his ear against the surface and makes a few hand signals before slowly opening the door. After a final nod, he steps inside. I follow, hearing the crunch of dried leaves underfoot. Elijah comes in next, holding the door open for the man behind him.

Sinclair puts his arm out to stop me, and I raise my gaze to see a Pawn tied up on the floor, beaten unconscious, by the looks of it, but alive. A note written in blood is stapled to his shirt, and I crouch down and rip it off.

“Darian, enjoy your gift.”

Elijah frowns when I hand it to Sinclair. Behind us, the other men look around the vast empty space.

“She’s not here…” My voice shakes as I feel something break inside me—the small sliver of hope I had left.

Sinclair drops the note, allowing it to flutter to the ground, and looks at me. His brows pull down when a drop of red splats on my shoulder, and I swallow, feeling the warm liquid on my fingers as I touch it. We share a worried glance before looking up.

“Holy mother of God,” Sinclair breathes, and all hell breaks loose around me.

“We need something to get her down. NOW!” someone shouts in a panicked voice that sounds muted and far away.

Suspended from the roof, crucified, Cecilia’s beautiful hair cascades from the upside-down cross, her naked body whipped and covered in dried blood.

The floor opens to swallow me whole, and I feel myself endlessly falling and spiraling until there’s nothing left but an unquenchable desire for revenge.

As she’s lowered to the floor, I fall to my knees beside her broken body while they remove the ropes and call for medical assistance.

“I’m sorry,” Sinclair says, squeezing my shoulder while I feel for a pulse in her neck.

“She’s not fucking dead,” I spit, refusing to lose my wife, refusing to let the fucking Exodus break me a second time. They’ve taken too much already. They’re not taking my wife, too. She will survive this, and I will bathe in their blood and burn the entire society to the ground. I don’t care what it takes.

Their reign ends with me.

Sinclair crouches beside me, stroking her blood-streaked hair away from her brow, a wretched look on his face. “Fuck, I’m so sorry,” he says again, and fury explodes inside me like a supernova as I stare at the bloodied nails in my wife’s pale hands.

I launch myself at the tied-up, unconscious Pawn on the ground, lift his head off the floor, and smash his skull against the concrete until there’s nothing left—until my fingers are slick with his blood and brain matter.

With an agonized roar, I hop to my feet and kick his dead body. I kick the living shit out of his remains for my mother, for my wife, for every helpless woman who’s fallen victim to the Bishop and his reign. Some of the men try to stop me and calm me down, but I shove them away before stomping on his bleeding corpse.

How the fuck could the Bishop do this to his niece. His own flesh and blood.

To the woman I love.

“We have a pulse. It’s weak, but we have a pulse.” I’m torn away from the broken body, and Sinclair jostles my shoulders, his face blurring in front of me. “She’s alive, Darian.”

I whip my head around. Paramedics have entered the room. Paramedics we can trust.

Because we’re on the run now.

Fugitives on the run from everything we’ve ever known.

Sinclair’s big hands clamp down on my tear-streaked cheeks. “She’s alive.”

In the few months I’ve known my wife, we’ve been through hell and back, yet here we are, still fighting.

Well, she’s healing, and I’m fighting.

Always fucking fighting for her.

Standing by her hospital bed in our secret location, the sun streaming in through the window, I stare at the fading bruises on her face. One day soon, I’m going to avenge each mark on her body.

She hasn’t woken up yet, and I’m grateful for every moment she stays asleep and lets her body heal from the ordeal she has suffered through.

Every time I think about what they did to her—nailing her to a cross, whipping and beating her pale skin before suspending her upside down from the ceiling—the putrid hatred inside me expands.

In a way, it’s good. I’ll need it to survive what’s to come. But as I stroke my finger over her bandaged hand, I wish I could go back in time and take it all away.

I should’ve killed the Bishop when I had the chance.

Why didn’t we take him out years ago? What was I waiting for? He doesn’t have a soul, never mind a heart, and he proved as much when he killed his own brother-in-law for refusing to sell his daughter.

We’re all collateral damage in this war, our hearts blackened and tarnished from the heartbreak we’ve suffered at the hands of greed for power.

“How is she doing?” Sinclair asks from the doorway.

“She’ll heal. There might be some nerve damage in her hands and feet, but she’ll survive, and that’s what matters. The same can’t be said for the Bishop and his son.”

“You know this was a warning, right?” he says, approaching the bed. “A declaration of war.”

I raise my dead glare; my wife’s bandaged hand is the only thing keeping me grounded.

“Trust me, I’ll make him regret the day he looked at my wife wrong.”

Sinclair nods, glancing at Cecilia. “You will need to keep your head in the game.”

I listen to the sound of the heartbeat monitor for a moment before I lean down and press my lips to her forehead. When I straighten, I say, “Whatever it takes to keep her safe.”

“Good. Because I have a plan.” Smiling mischievously, he holds out his hand. “Head in the game?”

A smirk curves my lips, and we do our secret handshake from youth. “Let’s kill the Bishop.”

“And burn the Exodus to the ground.”