Page 55 of The Burdens We Share (Satan’s Angels #3)

Dallas

I’m on a rafter, having split up from the other guys. I’m on the second floor of the big set building. We swept the rest of the area and didn’t find anyone so we took the biggest building in hopes this was the right one.

It’s dark as all hell in here, but I can see just enough to know where I’m going. I’m running full speed in search of Ivory or one of the girls. The faster I get through this building, the faster I can find her.

I’m running so fast I don’t hear the footsteps coming from my left and just as my rafter intersects with another, a body collides with mine and rebounds so quickly, I hear a loud thud and a grunt of pain on the floor below me.

I was thrown off balance, but whoever it is is small enough that I barely moved.

I look down, my heart swelling with hope that it’s Ivory, but when my eyes find an angry-looking blonde with black streaks and makeup-stained cheeks, that hope dies.

“Brody,” I take her in. I scan her from head to toe as I reach down to help her to her feet.

I can’t see her face too clearly in the dark, but it seems she’s mostly intact aside from some cuts and scrapes on her face.

Brody’s eyes widen in surprise and she launches herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Oh my fucking God. You’re here. You’re really here. We’re saved,” she says to herself into my white dress shirt. I didn’t have time to change.

I gently pat her back. The only person I’m affectionate with is still missing.

Brody and I have become sort of friends?

I mean, she’s dating my best friend and I’m dating hers so we’ve grown rather used to each other.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to see her very much alive and somewhat intact.

She drops her arms from my neck and grips my shirt in her fists, “Oh my God! Dallas, he’s crazy.

He was chasing us all over, and he-” she’s flustered, the memories all coming back to her. “He has a knife and he’s just insane!”

I grip her shoulders, holding her in place, “Where is Ivory?”

Brody’s face falls and her brows furrow in fear, “I don’t know. We had to split up when he found us.”

“Fuck,” I mutter.

Footsteps pad from behind me and without hesitation, I shove Brody behind me and retrieve my gun, pointing it directly at the perpetrator. When I see my best friend standing across from me, I lower my gun.

Harvey’s face is fearful. He looks like he’s seen a ghost and it’s one of the only times the man has ever shown emotion in front of me.

He’s truly petrified that Brody is hurt or worse and I know the feeling all too well.

His face also seems as though he’s in disbelief like he heard her voice, but now that he’s not seeing her he thinks he made it up in his head.

I realize then that her entire body is hidden behind me so I step to the side and look down at her before returning my gaze to his.

When Harvey’s eyes land on Brody, he starts breathing again and his shoulders sag.

Brody has a similar reaction as a cry tears from her throat and she sprints to him, launching herself into his arms. He catches her and holds her so tightly against him that I doubt he’d ever be able to let go.

His grip is iron as he uses one hand to support her weight and the other to hold her head against his neck.

Sobs wrack through her chest and I see a single tear stream down his cheek before he looks at me and mouths, Find her.

I let them have their little reunion in peace and turn, more motivated than ever to have my own reunion with Ivory.

As I take my first step, an ear-piercing scream comes from our left and my head whips to the side.

I know that voice. I know that scream. I know it just as well as I know my own voice, if not better.

Ivory.

Rage. Panic. Anxiety. Fear. It all forms an overwhelming feeling in me so uncomfortable that it feels like my heart was wrenched clean from my chest, killing me instantly. In all of the many dangerous and life-threatening situations I’ve been in, I’ve never been as afraid as I am at this moment.

My feet start taking me to her, running at full speed, ready to destroy the man responsible for that sound escaping her. I find a door and shoulder through it, finding a gray stairwell. “Ivory!” I shout, raising my gun to be prepared.

I wait. I don’t expect her to respond, but I expect some kind of sound to give away what floor she’s on.

Either footsteps from him or better yet, voices.

When nothing comes for a moment, I start to panic.

I need a hint as to what floor they’re on.

I can’t just sweep every floor. Not after she made that noise.

She could be seriously injured or close to it.

A moment later I hear it. A door slamming shut from the floor above me. I race up the stairs, taking them three at a time as I round the bend and make it up the last flight. When I reach the top, I swing the door open and raise my gun, stepping right through and into the chaos.

My ribs shatter into a million pieces, piercing my heart and leaving me to die as I take in my surroundings.

This is a set scene of Ivory’s childhood home, and there in the middle of the replicated living room is the girl that I love, unconscious and dripping blood from her head and forearm, her face bloody and bruised.

Her attacker holding her off the ground with an arm wrapped around her waist, her body slumped forward as he supports her weight.

The sight of her like this completely kills me and I’m so ready to say fuck it and drop my gun just so I can rip him apart with my bare hands.

I’m so distracted by the sight of her limp body, that it takes a moment for my stomach to sink as I lay my eyes on her attacker. The air is stolen from my lungs as piercing blue eyes meet mine, a wicked smirk on his lips. “No,” my voice is barely a whisper, but he still hears it.

He raises his chin at me, arrogance radiating off of him. “Yes. Long time no see, old friend.”

“Calvin fucking Worshire,” I spit, venom in each word. He’s alive. He’s alive and breathing somehow. I thought he was dead for years, but this whole time he was just waiting in the shadows.

Calvin cocks his head to the side, “Glad you haven’t forgotten me. How’s Mommy doing?” I want to shoot him right in the face for his mention of my mother, whom of which he killed. “Oh, that’s right,” he pretends to think critically, “she’s dead. I killed her.”

My nostrils flare and my eye twitches. He’s baiting me.

He wants me to lose control so that I get distracted because if my concentration falters for a second, he can hurt her worse than he clearly already has and he could kill me too.

I’m not a fool. This man before me was a friend once upon a time.

I know he has a gun or a knife on him somewhere and I know his aim with both is impeccable. Almost as impeccable as mine.

I clench my jaw, “Right, because your psychotic brain blames me for Lita’s death and you can’t hate me like a normal person. You have to resort to murdering my mother, faking your death for years, and then kidnapping the woman I love.”

At the mention of Lita, his calculated demeanor cracks. “Do not say her fucking name,” he seethes.

I smirk, “I’m sorry,” I tilt my head at him, “Did I upset you?”

His brows pull together, “Shut the fuck up.”

“Let her go and I will,” I nod my head towards Ivory who is still bleeding all over the place. At this rate, she’s going to bleed out. I need to get this situation under control now so that I can get her to a hospital.

Calvin growls, “You can’t have her. She belongs to me. She always has, you just didn’t know it.”

I cock my head at him, “She will never be yours. She’s been mine since I first laid eyes on her and over my dead fucking body will you take her from me.”

“I already have,” he presses his lips to the side of her head and my fingers itch to strangle him to death. “I took her from you months ago.”

Months ago? He didn’t just kidnap Brody and then Ivory in an attempt to get back at me? I narrow my gaze, “What are you talking about?”

Calvin’s arrogance returns and he suddenly looks so proud of himself.

“Do you want the full story?” My silence is all the answer he needs as he begins, “When you had me sent to jail for the murder of Mommy dearest, I had quite a bit of time to think. About you, about Lita, about Harvey. I watched TV one night in the common room and saw the news where you and Harvey were pictured with the famous ‘Satan’s Angels.’ It didn’t sit right with me that I was locked in a cage for avenging my woman while you and Harvey were out falling in love with rockstars.

I knew I had to do something about it so I faked my death in prison.

I paid off a few guards, and I was able to fly under the radar for a while.

“I spent months following you, watching you closely. I wanted to know every facet of your life so that I could take everything you loved and destroy it in front of you. Which is how I found this little beauty,” his eyes lower back to Ivory before focusing back on me.

“I discovered your little infatuation with her and thought to myself, ‘What better way to destroy your life than to take that which you love most?’ And just like that, I had a new target. I was going to gut her like a fish and leave her for you to find like how I left your mother for you, but when I went to do it, I couldn’t,” he looks back down at her and his gaze softens.

Bile creeps up my throat and my blood boils under my skin like molten lava as he tenderly brushes bloody strands of hair from her face.

He doesn’t look back at me as he adds, “She was too beautiful. There was just something about her that stopped me and made me spare her.”