Page 57

Rafferty

N o. It’s not possible.

It can’t be him.

My mind is already a minefield of hallucinations and half-formed shadows, so it takes a full second to actually believe what I see. But then the figure steps forward, and I catch the sharp, chiselled angles of his face, the glint of familiarity in those cold, calculating blue eyes.

My breath snags in my throat.

Lionel Heath.

Scarlett’s father. Supposedly dead and buried. At least, that’s what my family were stupid enough to believe.

Yet here he is, walking down the staircase toward me with the kind of slow, deliberate movements of someone who knows he doesn’t need to rush. Someone who knows all their carefully laid plans are coming into fruition, as if God himself ordained it.

The man radiates power, and it’s not just the broad shoulders, the tailored black coat, or the faint scar that bisects his left eyebrow, giving him a permanent air of menace.

No, it’s in the sharp weight of his presence, in the way the air shifts just from him being here.

The door slams shut behind him, and I flinch at the echo. His voice follows, smoother than oil and twice as slick. “Well look what a fine mess you’ve made of everything, Rafe.”

I glare up at him, my wrists still straining uselessly against the chains. “What, how?” My voice sounds wrecked, like it’s been scraped over sandpaper. But me? I’m the one who’s made a damned mess?

I guess in a way he’s right. I didn’t stick to the plan, I didn’t stick to any of it.

I’m not meant to be here, in this god forsaken dungeon. I was meant to leave, to disappear days ago so that today, I’d be the one meeting him on the mainland. I’d be the one ensuring he got safe passage.

But did he really think I’d just leave Scarlett to it? Did he really think I was capable of that? Throwing her to the wolves and letting them feast on her carcass?

“What the hell are you doing here?” I snarl. It’s not me that needs help. It’s not me that he should be prioritising. Scarlett is out there, somewhere in this house. And now that she’s of age, there’s no more reason for her to keep breathing.

Lionel stops just short of where I’m chained, feet planted with a kind of command usually reserved for generals surveying their troops. He smirks, God, I can see exactly where Scarlett gets her smirk from. But while hers is soft around the edges, his is razor-sharp.

“Cleaning up your disaster, boy. Isn’t that obvious?” He snaps back.

My teeth grind. “You’re the one who allowed your daughter to be used as bait. So, you don’t get to call this my mess.”

He kneels suddenly, so close that his face swims into terrifying focus. He smells like clean leather and cigarette smoke, an elegant menace all wrapped up in a tailored package. “That’s not the argument you want to be making, considering your treatment of her.”

I still, waiting for whatever words are next to come out of his mouth.

He grabs my jaw, his grip unrelenting and brutal.

“I asked you to watch over her. Not to fuck her.” He growls. “But I guess I should have known what you’d do. You’re just like the rest of them, just like your father, you’re only capable of thinking with your cock.”

“That’s not true.” I spit back. “I didn’t force her, I didn’t…” My voice trails off because those words aren’t exactly true. No, I didn’t hold her down, I didn’t fuck her, but she wasn’t exactly consenting, at least not the first time.

If he thinks I’ll apologise for it, if he thinks I’ll go down on my knees and beg his forgiveness, he can fuck right off.

“We don’t have time for this.” I state.

He tilts his head slightly, watching me like he’s already planned ten different ways this conversation could end.

Then, as if deciding to humour me, he pulls a sleek handgun from beneath his coat.

He places it in my lap with unsettling grace, as if handing me a gift wrapped in silk ribbon.

“Why do you think I’m here, Rafe? You think I’m capable of just marching in there and killing everyone single handedly? ”

For a moment, I’m too stunned to move. Then urgency surges within me like wildfire. “The chains, get them off. Now.” My voice is more desperate than I’d like, but I don’t care. Scarlett’s name drums in my head, over and over, and it feels like any minute now all of this will be for nothing.

Lionel’s smirk twists into something closer to satisfaction as he removes a slim tool from his pocket and leans forward.

Why the fuck isn’t he the one panicking? Why the fuck isn’t he racing to save her?

The chains fall away with a metallic clang that echoes through the dungeon, and I don’t even wait to rub the circulation back into my wrists. I’m on my feet, grasping the gun he offers me in one hand, ignoring the ache in every muscle. Lionel rises lazily, unconcerned with my frantic energy.

“Careful where you point that,” he says, as I dart for the door.

“We’re here for Scarlett,” I throw over my shoulder, already halfway up the stairs. “You said it yourself.”

“I did. Scarlett is my priority. So don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m doing any of this for you,” he replies coolly, following with measured steps. The weight of his words lingers, but I don’t have the luxury of analysing them.

We barely make it into the hallway when the first set of footsteps barrels toward us. I see the glint of a blade before I hear the shout.

Lionel’s already moving, faster than I anticipated for someone who talks like every second is an inconvenience. He doesn’t hesitate. Raising a second pistol from his coat, Lionel fires a single, silenced shot like he’s a practiced assassin.

The assailant crumples to the floor before I even have time to process the attack.

“Stay sharp, boy,” Lionel murmurs, cool and detached, like he just stepped out of a business meeting instead of taking a life. “There’s more where that came from.”

Boy? Fucking boy? I’m a thirty-seven-year-old man. I bite back the retort that’s on the cusp of my tongue.

He’s right. The commotion has drawn others. Shadows spill from open doorways as armed men charge toward us. My grip tightens on the gun, and for the first time since waking in that cell, I feel something close to control surging through me.

My aim is steady, my movements instinctual. It’s like I’ve been preparing for this moment my entire life.

The first man goes down with a shot to the leg. He bellows, collapsing into a heap, and I finish him with a kick to the jaw that sends his head snapping back against the marble floor. I turn just as another closes in on Lionel’s flank.

Before I can shout a warning, Lionel spins, moving as if he’s done this a thousand times. Two shattering gunshots later, the hallway falls silent again.

“Well, at least you’re not entirely useless,” he mutters, picking a speck of non-existent lint off his sleeve.

I ignore the jibe. There’s no time. Scarlett is all I can think about. Scarlett, alone in this house of horrors. There’s no telling what Alexander has done to her while I’ve been locked away.

My stomach churns with the images my mind conjures, possibilities too dark to dwell on. I grit my teeth and push forward, Lionel keeping an infuriatingly cool pace behind me.

The closer we get to the heart of the mansion, the louder the noise becomes. Music, twisted and warped, echoes from a distant source—the ballroom. Beneath it, I can make out the faintest sound of raised voices. Screams, maybe. My pulse quickens at the sound.

The next group of attackers comes at us on the grand staircase.

They’re better equipped, but Lionel and I fight like men possessed.

A bullet grazes my shoulder, and the pain is sharp but grounding.

I barrel through the nearest man, slamming his head against the banister before shoving him down the stairs.

Blood splatters the carved wood, and I hear Lionel let out an exasperated sigh as he dispatches two others with a knife he’s somehow produced from nowhere.

“Are you always this messy, or is that just part of your charm?”

“Shut up and keep moving,” I snap, wiping blood from my face with the back of my hand.

My focus is a laser, locked on the massive double doors at the end of the hall.

The ballroom.

I know that’s where she is. Where he’s holding her captive.

The music grows louder with every step, a grotesque waltz that seems to mock the chaos surrounding us. My lungs burn, but I push harder, faster.

Scarlett is in there.

All this blood, all this noise, it’s nothing if I can’t reach her in time.

Lionel keeps pace with unnerving ease, his movements as precise as a surgeon’s. I almost hate him for it, for the way he seems unbothered, untouchable, while I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams.

Is he incapable of emotion? Is he that devoid of any form of fear?

He doesn’t look my way when he speaks again, his voice a knife’s edge of warning. “The moment we step through those doors, everything changes.”

I ignore him. It’s already been changed. “Save the philosophy for later.”

His silence is damning, but I don’t stop.

We reach the doors, and I swear the sound of my heartbeat is louder than the music now, a frantic drumbeat in my ears. My hand trembles as I grip one of the handles, but I steady myself with a sharp inhale.

What awful things am I going to see when we open them? What horrific scene is waiting for us, just the other side?

Lionel steps beside me, his hand covering the other handle. For a second, we’re both still, breathing hard, our bodies coiled like springs. “Ready?” he asks, his voice almost casual.

I glare at him. “No. Are you?”

He smirks. “Always.”

With that, we push the doors open, and the air inside slams into me like a physical force. Hot, thick, alive with an unnatural energy.

The ballroom is a gilded nightmare, a cruel parody of elegance.

Chandeliers drip with crystal, throwing fractured rainbows across the polished marble floor, but the light feels wrong, too bright, too sharp. Everything is wrong. The air tastes like salt and copper, the metallic tang of blood.

And in the centre of it all is Scarlett.

I stop dead in my tracks. My knees almost give out, but I force myself to stay upright because she needs me. She’s on the floor, sprawled out, held in place by a bunch of men.

And she’s naked. Completely and utterly naked.

Her blonde hair is tangled like a crown of thorns around her pale face.

Alexander looms above her, his hand gripping her chin so tightly that she can’t move while another man was clearly fucking her just moments ago.

My throat burns with the scream clawing to escape, but no sound comes out.

My vision tunnels, the edges darkened by the rage flooding every cell in my body. But before I can take one unsteady step forward, Lionel moves, fast as a viper.

The gunshot shatters the moment. Only, it’s not aimed at Alexander. Instead, it goes up.

Lionel’s bullet punches through the room’s great Tiffany skylight, a massive, intricate piece of art.

The sound reverberates, silencing the music and halting every figure in the room mid-motion. For one frozen second, no one breathes.

Then the glass gives way.

It shatters.

Shards cascade down like deadly jewels, catching the garish light in fragments of ruby, sapphire, and emerald. Chaos erupts. People scream, diving for cover, and Alexander’s grip on Scarlett slackens as he instinctively shields his face.

In a flash, Scarlett is up, on her feet.

I see the movement as if in slow motion.

See as she picks up a piece of jagged blue glass, the fragment is almost the length of her entire arm.

And with deadly accuracy she drives it into the throat of the man who was just raping her. Impales it right in his Adam’s apple.

He splutters. He coughs. Blood seems to explode from the wound, covering him, covering her.

And that’s all the opening I need.

I run.

Lionel’s shouting something behind me, but his words are muffled under the pounding of my pulse, the roar of desperation in my ears.

I barely feel my legs moving, but suddenly I’m there, slamming into Alexander with the full weight of my body.

He stumbles back, losing his grasp on Scarlett entirely, and we both hit the floor hard.

My knees crash against marble, sending a jolt of pain up to my spine, but I don’t care. I lunge at him.

I don’t see his face anymore, just a blur of sickening confidence replaced by something I’ve longed to destroy. My fists find his jaw, his ribs, any part of him I can reach. There’s a cracking noise; bone, maybe his nose, but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.

The rage in me is endless, bottomless, and for a fleeting moment, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stop even after he’s unrecognizable.

Scarlett’s voice cuts through the red haze.

“Rafe.”

It’s broken and small, but it’s her. Her voice sounds nothing like the haunted cries I heard in the dungeon, all shadowed hallucinations compared to the rawness in this single word. My movements falter, Alexander’s blood slicking my knuckles as I lower my hand.

In that instant, Alexander twists beneath me, his knee driving up into my stomach with a bruising force that knocks the wind out of me. I grunt as my breath feels like it’s been stolen from my lungs, and roll off him, clutching my abdomen for a fleeting second that feels too long.

Alexander scrambles backward, a guttural snarl escaping his lips, blood streaming down his face from where I split his brow. His eyes burn with a manic hatred that’s too familiar; it’s a fire I’ve seen before, in the smirking devil who orchestrated this nightmare.

A gunshot rings out again, and I instinctively flinch.

My body feels torn between shielding Scarlett and searching for its source.

But it’s Lionel. Of course, it’s fucking Lionel.

The older man stands at the edge of the chaos he’s created, quiet and composed despite the riot of screams echoing through the ballroom.

His gun is raised, smoke curling from the barrel, and the body of one of Alexander’s goons lies in a heap near the doorway.

Lionel’s eyes meet mine briefly beneath the fractured light of the shattered skylight.

“Hurry up,” he snaps. No sympathy, no concern for the carnage surrounding us. Just urgency, razor-sharp and demanding.

I roll to my feet, the taste of blood metallic in my mouth as I force my legs to steady beneath me. My body protests every movement, a chorus of aches and burning muscles, but I don’t care.

Scarlett. Scarlett’s all that matters.