Page 53 of Sacred Vow

CAESAR

A fter scouring the internet and plucking every last detail about Jordan’s life out of Zephyr’s head, I finally hit the road. Speeding through traffic, I turn onto a road that will take me toward an old forgotten town, a little over two hours out from the city.

It was a risk, but I’m going with my gut on this one. I know he’s got her out there somewhere.

His mother owns a small property on the outskirts of the city, so small that the neighbors would be able to hear them take a shit, so it didn’t make sense for Jordan to have taken Tilly there.

I had to keep looking, which is when I found this old property that sits on ten acres of land out in the middle of nowhere.

Jordan inherited it from a long-lost uncle a few years ago, and the second I found it, I was already racing out of the house.

I can’t even recall if I took a second to lock up my home.

The garage door is probably still wide open, just waiting for some asshole to swoop in and steal the cherry-red Mustang right out of it, but truth be told, I couldn’t give a single shit.

All that matters is getting to Tilly.

My stomach aches with just the thought of what could be happening to her right now, and judging from the few experiences Tilly has already had with Jordan, I can only guess what he wants with her. I just hope she’s strong enough to fight him off before I can get to her.

Every minute that passes makes me sick.

Zeph didn’t call for at least fifteen to twenty minutes, giving Jordan a head start, which I’ve more than made up for on the drive, but there’s no telling exactly how long Jordan will have to play his sick games on my girl before I’m able to get there.

All I can hope is that she was able to regain consciousness and give herself the chance to fight before he took her beautiful innocence from her.

It took me an hour to figure out where he likely took her, and with every passing second, the demons in me threaten to take over. Very soon, I will no longer be able to control the rage inside of me.

Somebody will lose tonight, and it won’t be me.

Zeph has called four times already, needing to know if I’ve found her, but every time I have to tell him no, it guts me even more.

I will find her. I have to. There’s no other alternative.

Finally reaching the property, I veer off the road, turning into the long dirt driveway, and I don’t bother slowing down.

If this motherfucker wants to take my girl, then he should already be expecting me.

He’d be a fool to think he could get away with this without me slaughtering him like the fucking animal he is.

The property is huge, and judging by the lack of upkeep, there could only be a few places Jordan would take Tilly where she’d be secure enough to hold her without the risk of her getting away or breaking through the fucking drywall.

My car screeches to a halt outside the rundown home, creating a dust storm from beneath my tires, and I don’t wait to cut the engine before I’m already out of my car and storming up the sagging porch stairs.

The rickety decking creaks under my foot, and I have no doubt that sooner or later, this porch is going to give way, probably killing somebody in the process.

Instead of stopping to knock on the door, I kick my foot through it, watching as the hinges give up their fight, sending the door flying back.

I storm inside, the rage swelling inside my chest like a goddamn beast, and with every second I don’t have Tilly safe in my arms, the beast roars with hunger.

Sooner or later, I’m going to let him out.

Thoroughly checking the old house, I break through every door, frantically searching the rooms until there are no rooms left to search, and as the frustration builds like a deadly weapon, I find myself back outside, more than prepared to walk the whole property for just a clue about where I can find her.

The afternoon sun dips low on the horizon, and I suddenly feel as though I’m in a race against the clock.

The second the sun disappears, plunging this small town into darkness, I’ll be fucked.

Finding any sight of her will become a million times harder, but even if it comes to that, I won’t stop searching. I’ll never fucking stop.

I make my way behind the house to look out at the property around me when a blood-curdling scream comes from my right, and I whip around, focusing on exactly where the scream came from, when I find what looks to be an old tornado shelter.

My feet pound against the hard, dry earth, and as I grip the heavy door and yank it open, another terror-filled scream tears through the silence, the sound gutting me.

It’s Tilly.

My gun is in my hand, and the second the door is out of the way, I launch down the stairs, landing at the bottom with a heavy thud.

Tilly stands in the middle of the small cellar, but as I take a second to really take her in, I realize she’s not standing at all; she’s dangling from a fucking chain, barely fucking breathing.

Her skin is black and blue, cuts and scrapes littered across her body. She looks as though she’s been trampled by a stampede of angry gorillas. She sucks in a breath, her screams falling away as her broken stare lifts to mine, relief shining in her beautiful green eyes.

Blood is smeared across her face, but there’s too much, and until I can properly assess her, I won’t be able to figure out where it’s coming from. Either way, I see red.

Barely a second has passed since I opened that goddamn door, and my gaze snaps to the asshole beside her with a knife clutched tightly in his hand. His grin falters, and his expression shifts into shock, then fear.

He knows what’s coming for him, and he knows his chances of surviving are slim.

“Caesar,” Tilly whimpers.

I don’t hold back, storming across the small cellar in a flash of lightning. My hand wraps around Jordan’s throat, and I lift him off the ground before slamming the fucker against the side of an old shelf. Rusted cans tumble to the ground as his blood-stained knife falls right along with them.

I slam the tip of my gun right against his temple, my finger resting on the trigger, ready to pull, but something holds me back, a tightness in my chest forcing me to at least think this through.

Can I really do this? Can I shamelessly take another man’s life and spend another ten years behind bars?

Ten years away from Tilly and in the prison where my demons were born?

The vile shit I had to go through, the man I had to become just to survive . . . fuck.

There’s no question about it, I would end Jordan’s life without hesitation if Tilly’s life were on the line.

If it were either her or him, I’d take the shot a million times over, but she’s right here.

She’s alive and banged up, still breathing, still surviving.

If I take this shot to end his life, I’ll be thrown straight back into that prison, letting my demons rule my life, but knowing the alternative is spending the next ten years building a life with Tilly, there’s no fucking question about it.

I can’t do this.

My hand tightens around Jordan’s throat, not daring to give him a chance at taking even the slightest breath, and as I stare at the kid who has spent years hanging out with my son, building BMX tracks in my backyard, and dying my fucking pool green, the betrayal eats at me.

How the fuck could he do this?

The anger consumes me, and as that roaring beast inside me threatens to break free of his confines, I war with myself. This new life I’ve built for myself, a life I could so easily share with the woman I love, could all be over in a second.

“Tilly,” I breathe, my haunted stare swinging back to her, desperately needing her to tell me what to do, but as my gaze sails over her body, taking in the blood smeared across her face and the purple bruises peeking out from beneath her top, my control slips even further.

I search out her stare, and as she watches me in return, I see the same desperation flashing in her eyes. “Tell me to stop,” I beg her.

Tears slowly roll down her dirtied cheeks, and she shakes her head, the slight movement looking as though it causes her pain. “I can’t do that,” she says, her bottom lip quivering. “I want him dead.”

I clench my jaw, my grip tightening on the gun as I slam it against Jordan’s temple again.

“I . . . I can’t go back to that place,” I tell her, not sure if I mean the physical prison or the mental one I’d be trapped in if I had to become that old version of myself, the version who could slit a throat without so much as flinching.

A coldness creeps into her stare as she shifts her gaze from me and directly to Jordan.

“He needs to be stopped,” she tells me, her chest heaving.

“If it’s not me, then it’ll be some other girl.

Somebody else’s daughter. Somebody’s girlfriend.

Sister. Niece. I can’t just . . . I can’t walk away from this without knowing that it’s over. ”

“Tilly.”

“What if Zeph is next? Chloe?” Her tears fall harder, and she groans, agony clear in her broken stare. “Please.”

My chest heaves, the mental war quickly weighing me down.

“Let the darkness in,” Tilly tells me, a stark sureness in her tone, as if somehow knowing exactly what she’s asking for. “It’s okay, Caesar. Let the demons out. Give them control. I trust you. I’m not scared of you, but if it’s too much to risk, then let me go. Release me and I’ll do it.”

Her words are like a magical undoing, stripping me bare, peeling back all the layers I’ve worked so hard to keep concealed. Within a moment, I’m tossing the gun aside, and I pull Jordan’s head away from the metal shelf before slamming it straight back and watching it rebound with a sickening crack.

I won’t kill him, but she’s right; he needs to be stopped.

I drop him to the floor, grab one of the discarded cans, and use it to nail Jordan again and again, punishing him for every little mark he left on Tilly’s body, every wicked thought he’s had against her, every time he attempted to take what’s mine.

It goes on and on, the beast inside of me completely taking control until I can barely make sense of anything that’s happening.

I’m a fucking machine, working on autopilot.

I keep going for Zephyr. For the betrayal he surely feels.

For the thirteen-year friendship that was reduced to nothing.

For me. For the anger of not having seen any of this.

For letting this bastard into my home and into our lives.

Jordan never stood a chance.

This is the darkness I’ve warned her about, the real man I’ve kept locked away and refused to let her near, yet despite my warnings, despite me telling her to run, she was the one who released me.

“Caesar.”

Tilly’s soft voice cuts through the insanity, and my head whips up like a crazed man, my grip so tight on the dented can that it caves in under my hand.

“It’s okay, Caesar. It’s done,” she says. “Come back to me.”

Her voice is like a beacon in the night, calling me home, and I glance down, taking in Jordan’s lifeless body beneath me.

He’s still breathing, and a wave of relief crashes through the pit of my stomach like a wild tsunami.

He might be breathing, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to be okay, and judging from the look of him, I doubt he’ll ever step outside of a hospital ever again.

I drop the can and shakily get to my feet.

“That’s right,” Tilly coos, her eyes beckoning me forward as her soft tone is somehow able to lure the demons right back into their cages without a fight. “You’re okay. It’s time to look after me now.”

“Fuck,” I breathe, snapping out of the fog, the haze clearing inside my mind and setting me free before realizing that Tilly is still hung by chains.

I spring toward her, desperation pulsing through my veins as I take her body weight with ease and lessen the pressure on her arms before lifting her just enough to free the chains from the industrial hook that’s screwed directly into the rock above the cellar.

The moment her arms are freed, she crumbles into me, her legs wrapping around my body as her arms flop heavily down by her sides. I wrap my arms around her, holding her against my chest and vowing to myself that I will never let her go, no matter what demons possess me.

I breathe her in, holding her tight. “I’ve got you, hellcat,” I tell her. “I’m never letting you go.”

I feel her tears against my neck as I walk us straight out of the cellar, not wanting her to be in there a moment longer than necessary, and as I make my way back to my car, my hand roams up and down her back. “Tell me you’re okay, hellcat. Tell me he didn’t—”

“He didn’t,” she says, cutting me off. “That’s not what he wanted.”

I pull back just enough to meet her broken stare. “What are you talking about? I thought—”

“I did too,” she says. “But it’s not me he wanted. It was Zeph. He’s obsessed. He just wanted to get me out of the way.”

My brow arches, never having imagined that in a million years, and as I reach my car, I slip straight into the driver’s seat with Tilly on my lap, not even caring if this is how we have to drive home. I’m not letting her go.

“Annie?” she suddenly asks.

“What?”

“The woman from Vixen,” she clarifies, confusing the shit out of me as she sits up on my lap, hastily wiping her eyes before sucking in a sharp breath as her fingers brush over a wound.

“She’s Jordan’s mother. She was here earlier, completely in on it.

She knew what Jordan was going to do and told him to do his worst. She wanted me out of the way so you’d seek comfort from her. ”

Fuck.

“How long ago was she here?”

Tilly shakes her head. “It’s hard to say. It doesn’t feel like it’s been long. But I don’t know. It was dark down there.”

I wrap my hand around the back of her head, pulling her back in against my chest. “It’s okay, hellcat,” I tell her. “I did a sweep of the main house, but she wasn’t there, though that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to make this right. She’ll pay for her part in all of this. I promise you that.”

Tilly nods against my chest, her tears soaking through my shirt. “Don’t ever let me go.”

I close my eyes as I rest my chin over her head, my fingers weave into hair, and I hold her closer than ever. “I love you, Tilly. I was an idiot to push you away like I did. Believe me, hellcat. I can’t fathom the idea of ever letting you go now.”

“Okay,” she finally says, her voice muffled against my shirt. “Take me home.”