I was a lover forged from protection.
I’d entered this fight willingly but even with my training at the hands of my old master, I was losing.
I’d studied and practiced for a moment such as this and I’d failed. I’d accepted my grave without truly, truly trying.
Pim would soon be without me.
I would soon be without her.
And life would continue without any say or sway from me.
That couldn’t happen.
I’d been stupid and feeble and wrong.
I’d believed I was ready to kill my past but I wasn’t.
Not really.
Until now.
Until this very moment where Pim looked away because she couldn’t stomach to see me defeated and Daishin laughed knowing he’d won.
My destiny was already written, my burial already planned.
But I finally reached that edge.
That jagged, dangerous edge ringing the well of feral blackness inside me.
I’d run from it my entire life. I’d feared it. I’d hid it.
I cursed it because it twisted everything good that I’d tried to be.
But now, I had nothing left. I had limited heartbeats and rationed existence...so I sank.
I sank and sank and breathed deep, deep, deep, admitting that I wasn’t just a man born of honour and regret and protection. I was a Chinmoku bred for pride and service and heartless, ruthless extermination.
I was a killer.
And I’m ready.
The parts of my body I could no longer feel blazed with raw power. My forsaken limbs and broken bones knitted together for one purpose and one purpose only.
To win.
To murder.
To save.
I saw red.
Lots and lots of red.
Blood of my brotherhood, blood of my brother, blood of the woman I’d taken as mine.
I’d spilled waterfalls of blood but I’d yet to spill the most important one—that of my leader. His needed to rain if I ever had a chance at being free.
I’d wasted enough time.
He’d taunted me, enjoying my weakness, my humanity, my hesitation.
No more.
I didn’t pause to think. I didn’t second-guess. I no longer believed the story my body whispered, telling me to lay down my fists, to stop this useless attempt at winning, to honourably accept defeat.
The instincts I’d let loose when I’d found Pim with her tongue severed, unravelled into something I could no longer control.
I’d been getting in my own way, believing I could win without killing. That I was better than the Chinmoku’s when I’d forgotten the most important thing.
I was them.
I was better than them.
I had the power to end this.
I backed away from Daishin, breathing hard, streaming with sweat and sickness. Our eyes met as I stopped breathing and bowed my head.
That was the only warning I gave.
A simple bow in ode to everything he’d made me become.
Goodbyes weren’t required and respect wasn’t given. I centred myself, reached deep for everything I’d chained inside, and gave myself over to the method I knew best.
The method he himself had taught me.
The method that didn’t require anything but sheer, brutal talent.
Rushing at Daishin, he stumbled backward sensing everything had changed and unable to prevent my descent. His hands struck, doing their best to subdue me. His body parried, doing its best to avoid me.
But it was too late.
I wouldn’t kill him by gun or blade.
That would be too easy.
And this was personal.
Grabbing his neck, I willed every strength I had left into my fingers and dug my nails into his throat.
He dropped to a knee, scrambling at my hold, eyes bugging, lips gasping as I dedicated myself to no more.
No more fighting.
No more running.
No more losing.
I’m done.
With a savage twist of my hand, I broke his spine, crushed his windpipe, and turned living into corpse.
And then, I fell with him.
I’d done what I feared I never would.
I became him just as he’d promised.
I smiled as everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Four
______________________________
Pimlico
MY SCREAMS WERE silent as Elder ripped out Daishin’s throat then collapsed beside him. My tears were dry as blood gushed from his old leader’s throat, cascading over both of them.
I didn’t move or blink as someone untied me from the door.
I didn’t breathe or speak as I stumbled to Elder and kneeled beside him.
Gathering his head, I pulled him toward me, hugging him, stroking his drenched black hair.
I didn’t know how long he stayed unconscious.
I didn’t know how long blood seeped into my skin where I kneeled and I didn’t care conversations and life went on around us.
All I cared about was the man who’d just become a weapon.
A man who took a life with a single touch.
Elder had given himself over to something dark and he’d won.
He’d become more dangerous than any man who’d tried to buy me. More terrifying than any moment I’d endured so far.
He was everything I was afraid of and everything I’d grown to adore.
I was confused.
I was afraid.
I was in awe and shock and thankfulness.
He’d defeated his past, conquered his enemies, and proven once and for all he was unstoppable.
But at what cost?
What sort of man would he be when he woke?
What sort of future did he want from me?
And what could I do to make the monster I fell in love with return to me?
Chapter Twenty-Five
______________________________
Elder
I WOKE LIGHTHEADED and nauseous.
My eyes opened to let in blinding light, followed quickly by the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Pim stared down at me, her nose almost on mine, tears dangling on her lashes like jewels. “You’re awake.”
I swallowed back the rank stench of death and jerked in her arms as every injury and illness I suffered returned in full force.
The pressure almost knocked me out again.
Fading, promising, whispering.
I was so close to succumbing—to letting the sanctity of sleep prevent more buckling pain.
All it would take was one breath and slip.
But I couldn’t.
I clung tight to life even though it hurt like fucking hell.
For any normal person, passing out would be met in equal amounts of relief and exhaustion. They’d accept that they’d done enough...for now...and to rest—to be able to admit that they’d reached the point where nothing else was possible and to finally, finally relax after decades of running and revenge.
But I never claimed to be normal.
The blackness I’d embraced still coated my insides and thoughts. An inky slime that whispered of power and destruction as deadly as gunpowder.
I didn’t want to give up its power, but at the same time, I didn’t want to touch Pim with such filth residing in my heart.
If I passed out now, who knew what I’d be when I woke. Who knew if Daishin’s soul would hitch a ride on mine. If reincarnation would switch my life for his and I’d forever end up in purgatory for what I’d done.
No.
The only thing I could do—the only thing possible, even in my current state of brokenness, was to stand and breathe and live.
Looking up, I winced at the terror on Pim’s face. She studied me as if afraid of the same thing I was—searching my eyes, hoping to see the man she knew but horrified she’d find something different.
Flinching beneath every agony
, I reached up and cupped her cheek. “I’m okay, little mouse.”
She crumpled over me, her hair curtaining around us as she kissed me everywhere. I permitted her love, stroking her back, willing her to understand I hadn’t forgotten who I was or what I’d promised.
I wanted to snap my fingers to a time where we were alone and safe and the aftermath of this carnage was behind us so we could rest, but it wasn’t over yet.
I had other tasks I needed to complete.
“Help me stand,” I whispered, grateful when she obeyed, scurrying off me and lending me her strength. In an impossible move, I managed to trade the floor for air and stood swaying as vertigo twisted my world upside down.
I stumbled forward—barely cohesive—holding onto the woman I needed more than anything.
My ankle had put in its sick notice and stopped working days ago. My elbow was a close second to pulling a worker’s strike, and my shoulder felt as if the bullet hole had increased until my entire joint was open to the elements.
In short, I needed to rest after some serious medical attention.
But I couldn’t.
Not yet.
Tonight wasn’t finished even though dawn had arrived.
I grunted as Pim kissed me again, dragging my thoughts from things to do to people I needed to care for. Her lips were rampant and passionate, more forceful than she’d ever been. Latching her arms around me, she pressed kisses to my sweaty bloody face and breathed strangled whispers into my ear. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
I pulled her away, narrowing my eyes at the finger lacerations swelling purple around her neck.
Goddammit.
I’d done my best to keep her safe, but yet again, I’d failed.
I shook my head, cursing the unstable room and the steady creep of my condition tiptoeing into my tiredness.
The mess.
Fuck, the mess all around us.
The stench of death. The reek of blood. The sight of utter mayhem. My condition normally meant I was tormented by numbers and patterns. As long as I could avoid repetitive songs or thoughts, I could get by.
But not today.
Today, my OCD latched onto the vile ruin of Mercer’s home, and I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Brain. Gore.
Mess, mess, mess.
Pushing Pim away, I regretted the hurt I put on her face but couldn’t ignore the hated voices inside my head. They were a demanding lot—a cruel task master with the never-ending chant of clean, clean, clean.
But they were better than the blackness I’d sampled—the blackness I would never taste again. I accepted the punishment and hiccup in my thoughts, bowing beneath the pressure to obey.
I dragged my good hand through my hair, finding more bruises on my scalp than yesterday. “It’s too much. I need to clean.”
I had no products, no bleach, but I’d fallen down the slippery slope to the pit where I’d always hoped Pim would never see me. I wouldn’t be able to stop the compulsion until the mess was gone and everything righted the way it was before.
Throwing her a look of utter dismay and self-condemnation, I dragged my weary form back to Daishin and pulled at his ankles.
I’d done this.
I’d fix it.
Pim drifted closer as I commanded my depleted body to haul the dead man’s weight. The determination to toss him outside and stop him from marring this perfect family home was too loud to ignore.
Soft hands landed on my shoulder blades. “El.” Pim’s voice remained battered and bruised, stilted and stiff. “El, stop.”
“Can’t. Need to get it clean.”
“You need to rest. We all need to rest.”
I shook my head, tugging Daishin’s ankles once again, sliding his corpse through disgusting body fluids. “I’ll rest once it’s clean.”
Voices sounded behind me as someone guided Pim away from my angry jerks that weren’t quite strong enough to lug a body. Female voices murmured as a black shadow fell over Daishin, hinting I had company.
He didn’t touch me, but his French voice lowered with understanding rather than judgment. “It seems the men most bound by their passions are the worst to pay.” A hand wrapped around one of Daishin’s ankles, bumping me away until we each held one leg.
I didn’t like sharing tasks. This mess was because of me. I would be the one to clear it, but Mercer appeared in my vision, distorting my drive, my endless craving to disinfect.
I blinked, focusing just long enough to understand Mercer tried to offer me a lifeline before I drowned in compulsive complication.
He carried his own wounds and injuries from a night of fighting, but instead of condemning me or ridiculing me for a chemical unbalance I couldn’t change, he nodded as if my need to eradicate tonight wasn’t a stupid idea at all.
He didn’t smile, deadly serious and just as intense as he had been while killing trespassers in his home. “I have migraines. Had one ever since you entered my house. I get it, Prest.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll help you clean. And then...fuck, then I’m taking my esclave to bed and not coming out for days.”
Knowing he’d help me fix this slaughterhouse ought to have taken pressure off my rampaging need to clean, clean, clean, but just like I didn’t want help removing Daishin’s body, I didn’t want him taking away my other jobs.
I didn’t want help cleaning. I needed the sole responsibility—the gluttony of hard work. The utmost satisfaction of putting something right that I’d damaged.
Having his help ruined that.
Snatching my hands off Daishin’s ankle, I skipped to another chore I could do without his interference.
It was suddenly very, very important to my analytic brain. “I need to count them.”
Twenty plus Daishin.
There had better be twenty-one dead Chinmoku. Otherwise, my tired and agony-riddled brain might very well have a stroke and finish me off for them.
“Okay. Go count. I’ll ask my staff to help fix this catastrophe.” Mercer clapped me on the back, smiled at Pim, then wrapped his arm around his wife and vanished into the house.
I should be grateful.
I should thank him.
But I wasn’t grateful.
I was furious he’d stolen any hope at redemption.
Good riddance.
If I had the energy, I’d tear around cleaning before he had time to rally his help. But that was the point in all of this. I didn’t have the energy to do anything, and that made my brain even worse.
Franco and Selix stood by, no longer enemies but soldiers in the same war. I nodded at Selix, thanking him without words for what he’d done.
He nodded back, a quick salute to his temple before following Franco to find more cleaning gear.
Alone in the foyer with the dead leader of the faction I’d been terrified of with the woman I was now petrified of scaring away with my stupid fixating brain, I slowly turned to face her.
“Pim, I...”
What could I say? How could I explain the bone-deep need to clean this place from top to bottom? How could I admit that sleep would be impossible, rest, healing, sailing away—all of it utterly banned to me until I’d done this.
She pressed herself close, threading her arms around me and tucking her head into the crook of my neck. She didn’t care blood covered us or that I stunk to high heaven from sickness and sweat; she merely held me and didn’t need to say anything else.
Accepting what she gave me, finally trusting her when she said she loved me enough to overlook my flaws and accept me unconditionally—just as I’d accepted her with her scars and panic attacks and any other issues that might haunt her for the rest of her life—we turned together and headed outside to complete the grisly tally of death.
* * * * *
It took hours.
Between my hobbling and stiffness and the scattered locations of the Chinmoku’s resting places, dawn turned to morning long before we’d finished counting.
&nb
sp; With each body we found, I ticked it off on a mental checklist, and my brain settled a little more.
Pim held my hand the entire journey, never complaining or suggesting someone else finished counting for me.
I didn’t know if it was because her throat was still too sore to talk or if she’d reverted to her favouritism of silence—but I was grateful.
We’d won but we’d lost a fair few of Mercers men. Four lives to be exact. Four lives that had died yet again for me.
Guilt sat heavy. Triumph over winning not an option.
Tallying the deaths took us all over Mercer’s estate, and by the time we counted the final bodies and trailed down the spiral staircase from Mercer’s bedroom, the foyer had already been removed of carcasses and stank of fresh bleach.
Maids and security guards alike donned rubber gloves, mopping, scrubbing, removing any evidence of what had happened.
The crime scene was erased.
Once again, I wished I was normal and could breathe a sigh of relief and be done with it. But my idiotic brain couldn’t let me rest. Even though my eyes barely functioned, my eyelids drooped heavily, and I now leaned on Pim instead of walked beside her, I kept patrolling the house until I found Mercer speaking to Franco in hushed French in the kitchen.
They both looked up as Pim and I interrupted, their faces just as ashen and drawn.
At least one good thing about tonight had come true. Daishin had lied when he hinted he’d brought more than law stated to fight me. He’d stuck to the twenty men permitted.
And we’d found twenty-one with him included.
All of them dealt with and no longer a threat to Pim or my family.
Some had fatal stab wounds. Others had bullet holes. But all of them were deceased.
Thank God.
Mercer raised an eyebrow, knowing full well I wasn’t here for a social call. “Need something?”
“Yes. A truck.”
“A truck?”
I nodded. “Something large with lockable doors and opaque panels. And I need to buy it off you because I won’t be returning it.”
“Quoi?” He shook his head at his slip, morphing effortlessly back into English. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to load up the Chinmoku and drive them to Calais.”
“What?” Pim piped up, the first word she’d said in hours. “You can’t be serious. It’s almost lunchtime. What the hell are you going to do with twenty-one bodies at the port?”