44. Milo

FORTY-FOUR

MILO

I stared vacantly at the placid blue waters while my insides boiled and raved, my guts a snarl of shock and foreboding. The mess of it was tossed with the heartbreak that severed me through.

Had known all along I couldn’t give. That I couldn’t fall. That I didn’t deserve the light that was Tessa McDaniels because I was just going to stamp it out.

Smother her beauty with the depravity.

I just never could have imagined the tragedy it was going to be.

That our lives could collide quite like this.

I roughed my hands through my hair, fighting the panic as I paced the edge of the lake farthest from my house, unable to sit still within the vacancy of its walls, the hollowness screaming too loud.

Bobby.

Fuck.

I choked out the disbelief that was coated in pain.

All these years, I’d thought Immortal was dead.

Guilt slashed through me like a blade, a sharp pain driven directly into my soul.

I deserved this, didn’t I?

Should have known it was going to catch up to me.

The only thing I could do now was stop Stefan before the bastard destroyed anyone else.

Gulping down the chaos that spun through the summer air, I let determination slip into my consciousness.

Let the vengeance take over.

I couldn’t sit still and wait for something else to happen.

It was time this debt was paid.

I turned and began to weave my way back around the lake. The trail wound around the perimeter, sometimes dipping into the forest in the areas where the beach was rocky. My footsteps were quick as I made my way around, resolution lining my bones, the prayer on my tongue that I could see this through.

My chest tightened as I broke through the line of trees, and the back of my cabin came into view. The treehouse stood proud while my shame oozed from the walls and spread out over the atmosphere in a murky gloom.

Like the rays of sunlight couldn’t quite break through.

I hustled through the gate, crossed the lawn, and bounded up the porch steps.

I yanked open the door and strode inside so I could grab my keys and continue the hunt I’d started last night.

Though this time, I wouldn’t stop until I found him.

I was at close to a jog when I stalled out, because in my periphery, I noticed a car outside through the front windows. My eyes narrowed as I moved that way and saw it sitting with the driver’s door wide open.

It took me a second to recognize it was Eden’s.

My spirit clutched.

Tessa was here.

And fuck, how could I face her? How would she ever look at me the same? But I unlocked the front door and burst out there, anyway.

Only I slowed when I felt the stillness that bound the air, the only movement the limbs of the trees waving in the breeze.

“Tessa?”

My gaze scanned the area.

“Tessa?” I shouted that time.

Silence echoed back.

My heart climbed to my throat as a sticky dread prickled across my flesh.

“Tessa!” Shouted it again as I jumped down the steps and hit the ground running.

I searched the car. It was empty.

I ran up the drive a few hundred yards, searched the line of trees, shouting her name.

Anxiety clutched me as I darted around back.

I prayed I’d just missed her. That she was looking for me, too.

And I was calling and calling her name.

My girl who’d changed everything.

The one who’d lit that dead spot that now screamed inside me.

Silence echoed back.

Relentless.

Overbearing.

Crushing.

Panic seized me, and I went running back inside through the back door, flying to the kitchen counter where I’d plugged in my phone after I’d come crawling back here after dawn.

I’d spent the night searching.

Hunting.

Scouring every place I thought the fucker might be and coming up empty.

A ghost again.

No trace.

But I knew he was here.

Lurking.

Hiding.

Lying in wait.

I yanked my cell from the cord.

Horror wheezed out of me when I saw the text.

It was a picture of my girl, bound and tied in the same vile pit where I’d lost myself years before.

Where I’d become a man I didn’t want to be.

It’d been completely empty last night, the way it’d been for years when I’d searched for Stefan.

And now, he was there, the sick fucker using Tessa as bait.

And the only thing it said below it was, Don’t be late .

“You sure you want to do this?” The last thing I wanted to do was put the Lawson brothers in danger.

They’d had enough of it to last a lifetime. I didn’t want to bring it on their families or cause them risk.

But I also couldn’t risk Tessa.

Couldn’t put her through the very thing I’d been terrified of bringing to her door.

What my spirit had warned me against—dragging her into my sordid world, tainting her beauty, stamping out the light—while the rest of me couldn’t resist the persuasion that was Tessa McDaniels.

I should have resisted.

Shouldn’t have given.

She wouldn’t be in this position if I had.

Now there was nothing I wouldn’t do to free her. To give her a chance at the life that she should have been living all along.

Whatever it took.

My children’s faces flashed through my mind, and every molecule in my body contracted.

Fear that I was letting them down, too.

But I had to stand for this woman who’d stood for me even when she shouldn’t have.

The deviant had gotten away before, and I couldn’t take the chance of it happening again.

When I’d sent the text saying I needed help, it’d taken all of twenty minutes for all three Lawson brothers to show at my door.

Ready to stand for what was right.

Tessa.

“You think we’d let you go this alone?” Trent asked as he stuffed a gun into a holster hidden under his shirt.

“Tessa is family, man,” Jud said. “Same as you. Means we’re in this together.”

Logan straightened out his suit jacket. “Besides, who else are they going to let in there but me? Obviously, I’m the only one around here with this cool sophistication. Best looking one of the bunch, am I right? You’re going to need me.”

Dude winked, as cocky as they came, and he gestured to himself before he tucked a thick stack of cash into the inside pocket of his jacket.

“These guys are foul. To the core. Nothing good about them,” I warned.

Trent’s grin was menacing when he clapped me on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t be the first time we dealt with these types of assholes, now, would it?”

“No.”

Jud smacked his hands together. “Then let’s roll.”

Darkness reigned, the night thick and deep, the air stifled and stagnant.

Aggression coiled my muscles into one seething knot, and my chest was jutting in these spastic snaps as I forced the oxygen in and out of my lungs. Every part of me vibrated as I stood at the door to the dungeon beneath the blacked-out building.

You would think it was completely uninhabited except for the vileness that seeped out from the cracks.

The evil that oozed out on noxious tendrils.

The dirty VIPs gained access on the backside, and you got to it by following a hidden trail that started up on the next street. There was a second door about twenty feet down where Stefan’s men came and went.

For years, it’d remained abandoned, and now I could feel the full force of the corruption rising from within.

The atrocity that had found its way back to my doorstep.

The first time I’d come here, I should have known to run far away, but I’d been drawn to it.

Thirsty for the deviance I could still feel curling from the pit below and slithering through the cracks.

Nausea twisted my guts, and sweat slicked my skin, nerves skidding and skipping, firing with violence and possession.

Tonight, it ended.

My attention swiveled both directions, and I caught sight of Trent slipping around the right side of the building at the same time Jud went to the left. When they were out of view, I inhaled a steadying breath and rapped my knuckles against the metal door.

Some meaty fucker peered out at me through the grate, and there was a rustling on the other side a moment before the door creaked open.

Instantly, I was flanked by two guards as they dragged me inside.

One pushed my chest against the wall and patted me down to ensure I wasn’t armed.

The other stood guard with a rifle strapped over his shoulder.

“He’s clean.”

Anxiety rattled through me.

This whole thing was fucked. So dangerous. One misstep, and we were done.

But there was no other option.

Tessa was inside, and I wasn’t coming out of there without her.

So, I acted like I was playing by their rules when one shoved me forward, gesturing for me to head down the grungy hall lit by a line of single bulbs that hung from the low ceiling.

In the distance, I could hear the rumble of debauchery. Could sense the wickedness that crawled the walls and haunted this place.

My heart pounded out of time, frantic and hard, while I struggled to keep my shit together. To keep from busting free and racing to find Tessa.

But I had to stick to the plan. Pray I knew Stefan well enough to know exactly what he intended inside.

They kept shoving at me as we took the stairwell down to the basement, and I was tossed into the old locker room.

My fucking head spun, the memories coming at me from all sides.

Every goddamn mistake I had made.

Every misstep.

The greed and the violence and the perversion of who I’d once been.

“Be ready in ten.”

With clenched teeth, I gave a tight nod and moved to the sink, where I splashed cold water on my face.

I had no clue what I was walking into, but I at least knew it would be the fight of my life.

Because this fight?

It was for Tessa.

For Autumn.

For Bobby.

For my kids.

I peeled off my shirt and shoes, and I looked at myself in the mirror.

I let the old rage come.

Unlocked the fury.

Gore.

A shiver crawled across my flesh when I felt the presence cover me from behind. Rage brimmed from the depths. The thirst for vengeance. Retribution. The need to destroy him for what he’d stolen from me.

Slowly, I shifted to look at Stefan, who leaned against the wall so casually.

As if the last night I’d seen him face-to-face he hadn’t taken the beauty I was supposed to protect and destroyed it as if it were nothing.

Bile ran my throat while savagery hacked through my senses.

Stefan’s stare traced me with a sick pleasure. “I see you still possess it.”

My teeth gnashed, and it took everything inside me not to rush across the space and snap his neck.

A twisted smile curled on his mouth, like he’d seen the vision play out and he took a sordid satisfaction in it. He tsked. “So angry.”

“You killed my wife.” It left me like fragments of broken glass.

He shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. “I warned you to do what you were told. It’s you who failed to follow instructions. You knew what was at stake.”

“I never agreed to anything.”

A scoff ripped from his mouth. “Oh, but you did, Milo. The day you came crawling back to me…just like I knew you would. I warned you the stakes were higher, and you said you would do whatever it took. I gave you another chance because of my love for you, and then you turned around and showed me the greatest disloyalty. Do you know how that made me feel?”

Loathing clawed through my body, every muscle bound, curled with the urge to end him where he stood.

But he had Tessa, and I couldn’t be so reckless.

He smiled then, pure condescension. “And then rather than learning from your mistake, you hunted my men. You killed them. Your brothers. We were all supposed to be a family, and you betrayed me.”

His head cocked to the side. “But I trust that won’t happen again? One more chance, Milo. One more chance for you to prove your loyalty. The chance to keep the promise you made me when you were sixteen. The one where you promised you’d always be loyal to me, the same day I accepted you into my family. Don’t make me regret that decision because then I’ll have to make you regret it, too. First, the girl, then your children, then you. Do you understand?”

Terror curdled in my guts, my chest stretching so tight I thought it would rip apart to expose the torment gushing out from underneath.

“I do,” I told him, lifting my chin.

I understood this was it.

There could be no blunders or mistakes.

I had to end it.

“Good. I’ll see you in the ring.”

He rapped his knuckles on the wall like he was signing a deal.

Agony ripped my throat when he disappeared out the door, and I spun around, holding onto the edges of the sink as I bent over, trying to catch my breath.

To hold on to sanity.

Because I could feel it slipping away.

Logic.

Rationale.

The violence rising up to asphyxiate everything else.

Taking in a steeling breath, I forced myself upright and stepped out of the locker room.

Greed hummed through the desolation, and I could hear the chants of anticipation in the distance.

Bloodlust.

It rippled and roiled, a darkness that pulsed through the cavern.

Striding down the hall, I called on every ounce of strength that I possessed, knowing this was it.

My attention moved around the space to catalogue everything as I stepped out into the vapid light that cast a dingy, hazy glow through the basement.

Shadows played at the walls, darkness hovering in the corners, the pit nearly throbbing with the wickedness that toiled at the fringes.

The ring was in the middle of the immense room, exactly where it had always been. There was no elevation to it, just the bare concrete stained with blood beneath.

It was standing room only for the patrons who seemed to boil and froth around it, the mass of them held back by a chain-link fence about three feet tall that encircled the entire thing.

It gave about four feet of space between them and the ring.

These men who stood in expensive suits, accepting tumblers of amber liquid from the near-naked women who slithered through the crowd, amping the greed that only served to increase Stefan’s profits.

My stomach twisted.

An aisle was carved down the middle by the same fencing, hugged by the same bastards who vied to get a closer look.

It could have reminded me of the crowd at Absolution except for the fact it was void of any decency. Void of any goodness.

It had been the reason I’d walked that club’s floors for years. Hunting out the degenerates and protecting the innocent.

Like I could make up for what happened here, within these walls.

But I should have known there would be no escaping it. No absolution for who I was.

There was no forgiveness for men like me, and the only thing I could do now was make this one thing right.

Off to my left, near the wall, was an exposed metal stairway that led to a pathway that hung from the ceiling above. Wrapped completely in the same chain-link as the fencing below, it was a walkway where Stefan’s men guarded over the mayhem.

At its end was a large cage, hanging high above the ring where Stefan sat on his throne like some kind of twisted king who watched over the perverted.

The reigning demon.

He was standing then, his hand pressed to the chain-link, his eyes glinting as he met my glare from where I stood just outside the end of the hall.

A challenge.

A warning.

One of his guards poked the barrel of his gun into my back. “It’s time,”

he said.

Vengeance thundered in my chest, as loud as the shouts that suddenly erupted when I stepped into the tumult.

My eyes scanned, taking it in—I counted at least four guards that were stationed at each corner of the basement, and the three above who walked the elevated path.

More would be outside.

It seemed Stefan had upped his game since the last time I’d been here.

Nerves scattered when I caught sight of Logan with his chest pressed to the fence on the opposite side, standing there with an arrogant smirk on his face like he was just another of the fiends, though I felt the weight of his passing glance.

Blood thundering through my veins, I strode up the aisle, trying to ignore the shouts, the inhumanity, the greed that banged and ricocheted from their vile mouths.

Another round of roars went up when my opponent was pushed out from the hall on the far side of the basement, the man cutting a path up the opposite side where we both came to stare across at each other from our side of the ropes.

He looked to be close to seven feet tall and was pure muscle.

His eyes wild and untamed.

Bouncing on his toes and ready for the fight.

But the only thing that mattered was Tessa.

My guts fisted in rage, and I could barely keep it together when the crowd suddenly split apart, and Tessa was led by a fuckin’ leash through them, her hands tied behind her back, paraded in front of these monsters like she was meat.

At the sight of her, a furor of lust ripped through the throng, her pain their pleasure, and I fought the welling of vomit that pooled in my mouth.

They had her all dressed up like she was a prize, wearing a shimmery white dress, though she was barefoot, her fiery red locks matted to her gorgeous face. There was a stream of blood running down her right cheek that had dried from a gash on her temple.

Fury flashed.

Overwhelming.

They hauled her up to the side of the ring, and I nearly buckled when she found me standing there.

The way those fathomless eyes wept.

Churned with grief and fear and a plea.

It took everything in me not to go barreling that way.

Not to say fuck the plan and get my girl in my arms and off to safety.

The guard who hauled her along forced her into the ring. Tears streamed down her face as she stumbled forward, and she turned in a traumatized circle, her eyes wide with grief and fear.

My fingers twitched.

Needing to go to her.

To stop this madness.

Take her away from the place she never should have been exposed to.

This torture that should not be her own.

Wickedness pierced me like a brand, and I looked up to find Stefan staring down at me.

He wasn’t parading her for these sick fuckers.

He was parading her for me.

A warning.

A threat that I was prisoner to his twisted game.

The guard yanked at Tessa with the leash, and she jolted forward, her gaze coming to me for a beat of desperation, and I prayed she saw that I’d meant what I told her.

That I would fight for her.

Die for her.

That I hated that I’d dragged her into my mess, but I would do whatever it took to get her out of it.

She was led back down the opposite aisle, chants riding up through the darkened atmosphere as she was forced up the steps and across the walkway to the cage where Stefan waited.

The whole time, my heart hemorrhaged in my chest.

Bleeding out.

While the aggression rose to take its place.

Taking over.

Stefan pulled Tessa in front of him, his arm around her waist and his mouth at her jaw while he glared down at me.

Violence streaked across my flesh, and every muscle in my body flexed, my being rigid and rolling with aggression.

Anticipation rushed through the murky haze as I moved to the ropes and slipped into the ring.

My opponent climbed in on the opposite side.

Bets had already been cast, and there was no question left about what they were betting on.

Death.

And Stefan was sure, this time, I would see it through.

The bastard wielding Tessa like a tool, the threat of what would happen if I didn’t concede inscribed in the memories of my wife.

He cracked an ominous grin as he played with a lock of Tessa’s hair, baiting me, loving the way the rage burned across my flesh.

He wanted me on my knees.

My teeth ground, and I inhaled a violent breath and focused. Getting distracted wasn’t going to win me any points.

The ref gestured for both of us to meet in the middle. He lifted our hands in the air, holding us by our wrists.

My opponent sneered. “I hope you’re ready to die tonight.”

No question, this wasn’t the first time he’d stood in a ring such as this.

He took pleasure in it.

But it wasn’t either of us who were dying tonight.

The ref dropped our wrists and jumped back to indicate the start of the fight.

I conjured all the focus and strength I had as the fucker came at me, setting free the rage I’d tried to tame for years, letting it boil over into the aggression.

I punched him so hard that he was out cold.

Dropped like a brick to the floor.

Because we only had one chance, and there was no messing around.

Shouts erupted, “End him! End him!”

It curled around me in a cloud of iniquity.

Only it shifted to confusion when I ran across the ring, heading in Logan’s direction.

I tossed myself over the ropes, flying by Logan and snagging the knife he’d hidden at the bottom of his shoe as I went, running for the stairs.

At the same time, I could hear the shouts and screams tear through the vileness as shots began to ring out.

Without having to look, I knew it was Jud and Trent taking out the guards who stood at each corner of the basement.

I didn’t slow to verify, no seconds to waste.

I started to race up the stairs, the metal clanging under my feet as I took them two at a time. Shots pinged through the air, missing me each time.

That was the thing about this set up—what I’d been counting on—the cages might have protected Stefan and his men, but it also put them at a disadvantage since they couldn’t get in a good shot.

Uncertainty rocketed through the grunge, chaos erupting below.

A toil of bodies crushing into each other as more shots rang out.

I made it to the top just as a guard was reaching the end of the pathway. Before he could whip around the corner and get a shot, I reached around and took hold of the barrel of his gun, wrenching it out of his hands. I shifted around and used the butt of it to slam into his face.

He somersaulted down the stairs behind me, and I had his gun lifted, firing at the next guard who came running my way.

His body rocked back with the blow before he fell facedown, and I stepped over the top of him on the way to my girl.

I could feel the pandemonium that ensued as shots kept ringing out.

Trent and Jud and Logan in a battle below. Undoubtedly, an army of men had descended on the scene as soon as things had gone awry.

My insides ripped and screamed, praying they were good, that my seedy life wouldn’t cost more than it already had.

I couldn’t fathom it.

Couldn’t.

But I didn’t pause to give myself time to contemplate.

Because Tessa…Tessa was relying on me, and I wouldn’t stop.

A shot rang out as I enclosed on the cage. A guard had edged around just enough that he could pop off a shot.

I felt the heat as it grazed my left shoulder, pain burning through, but I ignored it. I lifted the gun, steady, waiting.

The second he edged around again, I took the chance and fired.

He dropped in a pile at my feet.

Below, people raced everywhere, trampling each other, pussies who were all too keen to watch someone else get beaten to death running for the doors at the thought that they might get caught in the crosshairs.

I rounded the end of the pathway and went into the side of the cage.

Stefan had hold of Tessa, whirling her around to face me as he pulled her back to his chest. He pressed a blade to her throat.

“You’ve made a grave mistake,” Stefan hissed.

Energy zapped from Tessa.

Tumultuous.

Terrified.

Did she see it now? Who I was?

“You’re right, Stefan. I made a grave mistake falling in with you. One I rectify tonight.”

Sweat gathered at the monster’s temples, though he was sneering, taunting me where he stood. “One step closer, and she dies. You know I don’t make idle threats.”

Except he knew if he hurt her, then he was done. Literally backed into a corner.

“That wouldn’t be a good idea, now, would it? So, drop the fucking knife, and you and I can deal with this ourselves,” I warned instead, voice low and shuddering with hate.

That would be a fight to the death I would take.

“I saved you, Milo. Picked up a pathetic kid and made him a man. Gave you everything. And you repay me how?”

“You killed my wife.” Venom poured from my mouth.

“You and I both know she was the reason you strayed. She needed to go. You were the fool who didn’t understand it for what it was. The gift I was giving you. She got in our way.”

Tessa whimpered, her sorrow stark, her grief gutting, while my knees weakened at his depravity.

I forced myself to keep speaking, goading him, distracting him. “You think you ever had my loyalty? Do you think you were something special to me? I used you…just like you used me. So why don’t the two of us fight it out like men? Let the girl go.”

Tessa’s eyes were so wide. Wide and terrified.

Spite flew from his mouth. “You should know better than that, Milo.”

He angled around her left side, and for a split second, his leg came into view.

Before I could doubt it, I took the shot.

Stefan cried out in rage and pain when blood began to pour from the wound in his thigh.

It was the chance Tessa needed. The chance to rip herself from his hold.

She whipped around and kicked him in the gut.

The momentum sent her falling to her butt.

A cry ripped from her throat.

Fear and terror and relief.

I dove for her, cutting the bindings from around her wrists and shouting, “Run, Little Dove. Run.”

She was freed and on her feet, and I was lifting the gun again to take aim at Stefan.

“You die tonight,” I seethed, years of hatred pouring out with the statement.

Only another shot rang out.

Pain splintered from my own leg. I tripped to the side, unable to stop the fall. I hit the ground hard.

Stefan was on me in a flash, a small handgun lifted and ready to fire. “I should have come sooner and ended you long ago. What I should have done was left you floating with your wife that night. I should have seen who you really were. Should never have believed in you.”

And it was a blur of red and white from the right, and I was shouting, “No, Tessa!” a second before she slammed into him.

A gunshot went off.

A wail of torment lacerated through the air as she dropped to the ground.

Stefan stood and swung around with the gun aimed her direction.

His back to me.

I fired three times.

Making sure this demon would never draw air again.

He slumped to the ground, falling on top of Tessa.

I scrambled to my feet, tossing him off so I could get to her.

She was lying in a pool of blood.

Misery sheared through my spirit. Years of hate culminating to one single point.

“Little Dove. No, baby, no.” It groaned from that vacant space that only this girl could fill.

Wept from my soul as I gingerly scooped her into my arms.

My arms that wouldn’t stop shaking as I stared down at her where her head lolled on my arm.

“You can’t leave, Tessa. You can’t. You have to shine. This world needs you.”

Ignoring the pain wracking through my body, I ran back with her down the elevated pathway, banging down the stairs and into the havoc that still ensued below.

The shots had ceased, and it was now a confused chaos that banged through the mass. Shouts that the cops were on their way, causing the vile fucks to scatter.

Trent, Jud, and Logan suddenly busted through the crowd. “We have to get out of here,” Trent ordered.

“She’s hurt.” The words cracked, my chest feeling like it was going to cave, Tessa breathing but bleeding out.

“Fuck.” Dread splintered through Jud’s expression, and I knew it was bad, what they were seeing.

“We have to get her out of here,” Logan urged.

“This way.” I ran with her down the long, dank hall.

A hall where I’d made a million promises to Autumn.

Promises I didn’t keep.

And I might hate myself for it forever.

But I was making one more.

“You’re going to be fine. I promise, Little Dove, you’re going to be fine.”