Page 26 of Ravaged Saints (BloodHawks Duet #1)
Why the fuck did they kill her? It’s a woman, for fuck’s sake! I thought Ethan liked her!
When I get him, I won’t kill him. I will fucking torture the life out of him. Slowly. Painfully.
I fucking trusted him! I put my hands in the fire for him, Ryker warned us. Fuck! Fuck! This is on me! Her death is on me, the way I—
“Grit.”
Knox’s voice brings me back, stopping me from spiraling even more.
He pulls Aspen up, and her jeans shift down slightly, the button undone, part of the zipper open. Rage boils through my veins even more. If he fucking touched her, I will cut every finger off his goddamn hand.
Aspen looks up at me, then back at the blood on her clothes, her eyes pleading, begging us to do something, and it feels like a fucking dagger was shoved into my chest.
Fuck, Bryn. We should’ve protected you better, and I should’ve been better.
I kneel near the puddle, a scrap of fabric lying in the water. “I’m sorry, Bryn.”
The words break, cracking under the weight of the pain. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
The tears come, hot and relentless, and I let them fall. She deserves them—and the next thing to spill will be Ethan’s blood.
“We need to move, Grit.”
Knox’s command slices through the fog of grief, dragging me back to reality.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and push to my feet. Fuck, it hurts like hell.
Knox drags Aspen along, and she turns her face away, refusing to let go, but she has to. We all have to if we want to survive.
The radio crackles.
“The base is taken!”
Max’s grits through heavy static, background noise swallowing his words.
We freeze while gunfire erupts through the speaker.
“Are those fucking gunshots?”
I step closer to Knox.
“Pull back!”
Knox orders, his pace picking up into a sprint, and Aspen doesn’t hesitate. She runs too, but her face doesn’t show fear. No, she’s gone full fucking anger mode.
As we follow Knox, I yank the spare gun from my holster and shove it into Aspen’s hands.
“You know how to use it, right?”
I ask, remembering Knox telling me she had a great aim.
She nods, fingers tightening around the grip.
“Shoot to kill,”
Knox grunts.
“I will.”
Her lips tremble, but not with fear; it is with rage. “I will kill Ethan.”
Knox and I exchange a glance. We both know Aspen has killed her rapist before, and she’ll do it again to avenge Bryn; we will be right next to her.
“Recon, where’s your twenty?”
Knox calls through the radio.
Silence.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise, and Knox speeds up, but Aspen falls back.
Fuck.
She stops, chest heaving. “Go!”
she yells.
“I’ll be safe! Just go; they need your help!”
She orders, her eyes red from crying full of pain and shadows.
I exchange another look with Knox.
“Don’t go near the base, Aspen. Head for the river,”
I order. “Promise me.”
She nods, and I shove the radio into her hands. “Stay in contact at all times.”
“I will. Just—please, save them.”
She pleads.
“We will,”
Knox reassures her, but we both know the odds of getting out of this alive are slim.
Aspen takes off in the opposite direction, and we storm forward, boots slamming hard into the dirt.
“Are you ready, Grit?”
Knox growls.
“I’m ready, Reaper.”
Gunfire echoes ahead as we reach the south side of the base. Men are on the fucking roof, using our own weapons against us.
“They have access to our shit,” I hiss.
“Not all of it.”
Knox kneels behind a tree, scanning the area for Max and Ryker.
“What do you mean?”
I frown, lifting my rifle, searching for my first kill.
“I changed the passcode last night.”
Knox grins.
Fucking hell.
The armory is locked behind a reinforced steel door, and without the code, they have no chance of reaching the rest of the gear.
This might give us a shot.
Knox watches the men on the roof; their rifles are aimed toward the north side.
“There.”
He points, and my gaze follows.
They’re shooting at someone near the trees by the main gate. My bet? Ryker and Max.
I pray I’m right.
“Cover me.”
Knox starts to move.
“No, Reaper, let me.”
It’s too dangerous, and Knox is our best chance at taking back the base—if he goes down, we’re fucked.
“No.”
His eyes harden. “We lost Bryn. I’m not losing anyone else.”
He tosses me his radio and moves before I can stop him.
I drop low, hiding beneath the underbrush as my finger tightens on the trigger.
I fire.
The bastards on the roof turn, searching for the source of the shot, giving Knox the chance to sprint through the trees.
I move, firing again, making them turn once more.
They’re sloppy and untrained. They follow the sound of the shots without covering their angles.
“Aspen,”
I click the radio, “Where are you?”
The seconds it takes her to answer make my stomach turn.
“Getting near the river”
Her soft voice finally speaks, and I take a deep breath.
“Good girl, stay there, hide!” I order.
“I will.”
The radio clicks, and I aim at the guy on the roof.
Bang.
One fucker down.
Bang.
Another.
They scream, wondering where I am, and I look to where Knox went. Some guys are still shooting in their direction, but I can’t reach them.
My radio clicks, but all I hear is a gunshot, then silence. The kind that stretches, thick and suffocating.
“Recon?” I ask.
“It’s not us; Reaper is here.”
Ryker’s words are swallowed by the rapid gunfire in the background. “We’re almost out of ammo.”
I check mine—fuck. Only two left.
Then it hits me. If it’s not them on the radio…
I storm out, boots digging into the damp forest floor, dead leaves crunching under me. The trees loom tall around me, gnarled branches clawing at the sky like skeletal fingers. The moonlight barely touches the ground, swallowed by thick foliage, and the shadows stretch in every direction, hiding threats, hiding her.
“Aspen!” Silence.
Fuck!
“Aspen, answer.”
Knox crackles through the radio, sharp with urgency. But there's nothing—no breath, no movement, no goddamn reassurance.
“Aspen, pet, please answer.”
His next plea breaks, raw and desperate. My chest tightens painfully, and my legs move faster than my mind can follow.
Then her breathless response slams into me. “I got them. I shot them both.”
I freeze, and the world stills.
“How did they find her?”
I ask through the radio.
There is a minute of silence.
“Ethan has another radio; he is hearing us!”
Knox snaps.
“Run out of there, Aspen,”
he orders.
“We will find you; just fucking disappear, doll.”
My teeth grind together, my pulse hammering.
Silence.
Then a shaky breath. “But… what if you don’t? You are all I’ve got.”
Her words break me, my heart beating fast; she is part of us; they both were.
All of a sudden I see movement ahead, three men, heading in Aspen’s direction.
I raise my gun and squeeze the trigger—one drops. The other dives behind a tree, firing back, and I duck, my heart slamming against my ribs. One bullet left.
Another bastard moves to run, and I take the shot. He collapses, but then—
Click.
Fuck, I’m out.
Two more men appear, slipping through the shadows like predators. They’re closing in. They’ll take her. They’ll—
No. Not while I’m breathing.
I grip my radio, my tone steady even as my hands shake. “Reaper.”
A second later, Knox answers. “Grit?”
I swallow hard. “No matter what happens, I want you to know you were the best man I’ve ever served under.”
A pause.
“, what the fuck are you doing?”
Knox’s voice is sharp, edged with fear.
“I can’t let them reach her.”
The words come out even, calm. If taking me down buys her time, I’ll take it.
“, please, don’t.”
Aspen’s shatters through the line, raw and pleading.
I exhale. “I’m sorry we couldn’t protect Bryn.”
My voice is shaking too much.
“No, !”
She’s screaming now.
I shove the radio into my pocket and charge them.
The first fucker doesn’t expect it—too slow, too stupid, and I slam him to the ground, ignoring the burn in my muscles, the way my breath drags in my throat. He struggles, his fingers clawing at the dirt, but I grab his head and twist. The snap is sickening.
I push to my feet, panting—
Bang.
Pain rips through my shoulder, and I stagger back, clutching the wound, heat flooding down my arm. Blood. Fuck, it’s bad.
“!”
The radio crackles with Knox screaming, but I can’t answer.
A familiar chuckle sneers from behind me. “That was stupid.”
Ethan.
I turn slowly, pressing my palm against my bleeding shoulder, forcing myself to stand tall. His gun is trained on me, but it’s the gleam in his eyes that’s worse—wild, unhinged.
“Losing all of this over some pussy,”
he chuckles.
Rage licks up my spine like fire. “Fuck you, Ethan. You were our brother.”
He laughs—loud, manic. “Brother? Let’s be honest. I was never part of the BloodHawks.”
I shake my head. “You might not have been, but you were part of our family.”
My tone is low and controlled; even as my hands tremble, the blood drips between my fingers.
“Yeah, right. Then why didn’t I get a say in anything?”
He’s shouting now, waving the gun like it’s part of the conversation. “Hiding. No women. Who the fuck decided that?”
I watch him carefully. “So what? Did you want to make prisoners? Take women by force?”
His grin is sharp as a blade. “A lot of them would’ve been grateful to be at our base. Like Bryn. Like Aspen.”
Something inside me snaps.
I lunge forward, fury roaring in my veins, but he presses the gun to my forehead.
“We can make something here,”
he whispers alight with twisted excitement. “This could be our fucking empire.”
He’s delusional. A fucking lunatic.
Ethan picks up my radio, his grin widening. “You there, Reaper?”
His question drips with venom.
“Yes.”
Knox’s answer is cold.
“Good.”
Ethan chuckles, low and cruel. “Now listen to your brother die.”
The gunshot rings out, and I squeeze my eyes shut, the sound echoing in my skull like a death knell.
Knox’s and Aspen’s screams slice through the radio, jagged and desperate, but my body stays frozen.
I don’t feel a goddamn thing.
A numbness blankets me—cold, suffocating. I’m distant, untouchable.
I open my eyes.
I don’t feel anything. Not the crushing weight in my chest, not the hot burn tearing through my skin.
Ethan stumbles into my view, clutching his stomach as blood spills in thick, pulsing waves onto the dirt—vibrant and red, like life bleeding out of him.
What the fuck?
“!”
Knox’s yells crackles through the radio. “Brother, answer the fucking radio!”
I reach for it, but a voice stops me cold.
“Not yet, Grit.”
The cold wind slithers through the air, sending a chill down my spine.
Ethan groans, falling to his knees, his breaths wet and uneven.
And then I see him.
A tall man stands behind him, brown hair threaded with silver, piercing blue eyes as cold as death itself. His grin is sharp, knowing.
“Long time no see, my friend.”
The blood drains from my face. No. No fucking way.
“?!”
Aspen sobs through the radio, raw and desperate.
The man’s smile widens.
“She loves you,”
he muses, like it’s some kind of joke.
On the ground, Ethan claws at the dirt, panting through his pain. “We were a team,”
he rasps, and my heart clenches. He was one of us. He killed Bryn, but— fuck, it was ten years with him.
I reach out to him, but the man laughs and presses the gun on my injured shoulder, and I hiss, his eyes on Ethan, “How could I trust you? You sold out the BloodHawks for pussy and power.”
He doesn’t hesitate. He lifts the gun, Ethan screams, and he fires again.
His body jerks before going still, his blood pooling into the earth, tears of anger form in my eyes.
He turns to me, his smirk lingering as he steps closer, and plucks the radio from my pocket, his gun never wavering.
“Reaper,”
he says into the receiver.
Silence stretches.
“Who is this?”
Aspen’s breaks through the radio, thick with tears.
Roman chuckles. “Oh, princess, no need to cry.”
“Stop,”
I grit out.
He presses a button, cutting her off from hearing me.
“Where is Da—”
She doesn’t get the chance to finish.
Knox cuts in, cold as a blade.
“Roman.”
Roman grins. “Reaper. So good to finally hear your voice again.”
“How the fuck are you still alive?”
Knox growls.
“You know me,”
Roman hums. “Always have a backup plan. You’ve got a nice little fortress here. Ethan was right about that.”
“Tell him he’s a dead man.”
Knox barks, and I can hear the anger in his tone.
“Oh, don’t worry. He already is.”
Roman nudges Ethan’s corpse with his boot as two of his men step forward, dragging the body away. “Never trusted the bastard. He’d have put a bullet in my head the first chance he got.”
“And ?”
Knox demands.
Roman tilts his head, eyes locking onto mine. “Speak.”
I swallow the blood pooling in my mouth. “Reaper.”
A sharp exhale comes through the radio.
“He’s alive,”
Roman says. “For now.”
Knox’s voice hardens. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I want the code to the weapons.”
He pauses, a smirk on his face, “And the girl.”
Ice spikes through my veins, and silence crackles on the other end.
“Fine!”
Aspen’s answers shatters through the static.
No.
“Aspen, don’t you fucking dare!” I roar.
Pain explodes in my skull as Roman pistol-whips me, and my vision sways. Blood drips warm down my temple.
“Me for ,”
Aspen demands.
Roman grins. “Deal.”
“Reaper, don’t—”
The second blow knocks me to my knees, and the world spins.
“Fuck.”
“We won’t, brother,”
Max growls through the radio.
Roman sighs, shaking his head like this is all so disappointing. “Oh, so the whole crew is still breathing? Shame.”
He turns to me, his smile widening. “I’m sure Miss Aspen will do the right thing. Won’t you, princess?”
A beat of silence.
“Yes,”
she whispers.
The radio clicks off.
Roman chuckles, full of sick amusement. “Isn’t love a beautiful thing?”
A slow exhale filters through the radio, and then Knox speaks, his voice like death itself.
“Don’t worry, brother, we will find her, and we’re coming for you. We won’t leave you behind.”
A pause. Then, lower, colder:
“And Roman—I’ll fucking kill you myself.”
The radio goes dead.
Roman smirks, his gun still trained on me, “Move, Grit.”
I get up, blood dripping from my shoulder, the pain feeling like a thousand needles, and my head is cracking.
I walk inside the base, looking around. All of Roman’s men are moving around, gathering the guns we had in our rooms. “You can give me the codes, and I won’t need your little princess.”
Roman grins, but I know him; he will use our guns to track Aspen and my brothers and kill them.
“Not a chance, Roman,”
I say through gritted teeth. The thing is, Knox changed the codes, and I’m glad I don’t know them, but I have a feeling Roman already knows it, and that’s why he’s keeping me alive.
I enter our living room, and a chill runs down my spine when I see a pair of long legs sitting on the coffee table near the couch.
“Oh, look who’s here.”
Her voice cuts like a fucking blade.
“Bryn?”
I snap as the blood drips down my shoulder and head.
“Hello, ,”
she smiles.
What the fuck?!
Revenge Saints Coming soon...