Page 46 of The Sins That Bleed

Tortured Souls

RAI

E arlier that evening…

The plan had come together quickly, after Valeska got us all together to read the letter and show us the pictures; we agreed we needed to go into this together. Nico nearly flipped a table. He’s never been outwardly violent and it took me by surprise, he must be really into Sunny.

It had surprised me that she even told us about it, and after hearing her read out those vile words Alaric had written to the woman I love, I wanted to kill him myself. But I’ll have to settle for putting him away for a long, long time.

I should be happy, this is everything I’ve been working toward, my entire career has been building to this moment but now I have so much more to lose.

I might not have found my sister, but I did find the other half of my tortured soul and if anything happens to her, if I lose her, there won’t be much left for me in this world.

We’d agreed that Valeska needed to look like she would go through with the plan, she needed to convince him that she’d go through with marrying him while we staged his scene without him knowing.

I’d called in some undercover agents who would be close by and in the restaurant, replacing some of the patrons who’d booked.

This fucker was going to force her into marriage in front of a public audience so that she could do nothing about it.

The idea to put a bullet between his eyes pops in more frequently than I care to admit.

I should be flying the flag for a clean arrest so we can nail him at trial, but men as slimy as him always have a card up their sleeve that lets them get away with it.

Everyone has a limit—apparently Valeska is mine.

With our plan set, we split up so Valeska can arrive on her own, but we will be there, not long after she arrives, close enough that she can alter the way we look to everyone else so nobody recognises us.

It’s risky and I don’t really know how it works, but it’s the only plan we have.

There’s no way I am letting ma reine walk into that situation with nobody watching her back.

We’re seated a few tables down. Watching Alaric saunter in with his henchmen and putting his hands on my woman was excruciating. If Nico hadn’t physically held me down by placing a firm grip on my thigh, I’d have blown our cover immediately.

Until I hear him say my sister is here, then there’s nothing that can hold me back.

Not even Nico.

I see red, and I explode.

“What the fuck is he talking about, Valeska, where is my sister?” I bellow.

Alaric laughs at me and I rush him only to be stopped, not by his men, but by Valeska. Her hand is on my chest as she steps into my path, blocking me from the man that has taken everything from me as she somehow slipped past his men.

“Don’t do it, Rai, this has to be clean,” she whispers.

“Someone better tell me where she is before I turn this restaurant inside out, I don’t care who gets caught in the crossfire!” I can’t calm down, I go to move around Valeska’s hand, but she holds firm.

“Well, Valeska, do you care to share the information with him, or should I? Oh, I do hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there should be no secrets between lovers. I wonder if your love will be strong enough to survive such a devastating blow.” His eyes sparkle with glee and I hate how much he is enjoying this.

My chest heaves with unspent anger as my eyes flick to Valeska’s, but she isn’t looking at me. She’s looking to the side, and I follow her gaze to the table I was sat at—everything around me turns to white noise, my heart beating an unsteady rhythm of hope and fear.

Time seems to slow as I scan the area she is looking. I don’t see anyone other than Sunny and Nico, and my confusion grows. Surely, I’d recognise my own sister; it may have been years and she’d be well and truly an adult now, but I’d know her anywhere.

Wouldn’t I?

Doubt creeps in, I start to turn back toward Valeska to demand that she spit it out when Sunny takes a step away from the table toward me.

All the times I had felt like there was something familiar about her play out in my mind.

Her face shifts until her eyes are an electric blue, exactly like my own, her hair turning a dark brown like my mine.

She looks like me.

“ Azara ?” I choke out.

Her features shift back to how she looks today. Valeska must have adjusted it in my mind for me to finally see that she’s been in my grasp all along. I whirl on the woman I thought I loved as the betrayal slices through me, slashing every inch of me over and over again until I’m in ribbons.

“How fucking could you?!” I cry, tears building in my eyes.

I know now isn’t the time to be falling apart, I need to finish the job, but I am beyond devastated and hurt. I step back from her, no longer able to stand her touch. The resigned look that graces her features confirms everything I need to know about her.

“It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

“The fuck it wasn’t! You kept this from me, all this time, you, oh fuck…you turned?—”

A large hand on my shoulder makes me pause. “Not now, we’ve got a job to do.”

Nico’s words are quiet and he squeezes my shoulder. he’s trying to reign me in before I expose the real monsters in this world. She turned my sister into a fucking vampire, but as much as I want to kill her for that, I won’t expose them.

I scan for Azara, my eyes landing on the woman I’ve come to know as Sunny. I want to hug her, cry with her, and take her away from Valeska to keep her safe, but we need to take Alaric out of the equation first.

“I’m so sorry, Rai,” Valeska says, but I ignore her.

“Sorry to interrupt this reunion, but there’s more, isn’t there, Nico?” The bastard isn’t sorry at all.

What the fuck is going on?

“We had a deal, Alaric. I did my part so don’t back out now,” Nico spits.

I look at my partner, my best friend and brother, for a clue as to what they’re talking about, but he fixes his stare on the man in the centre of this mess.

“Yes, well, that was before I found out you sabotaged me. You did a great job with those pictures you took behind the walls of her little empire,” he gestures to Valeska, “they were invaluable, but you tipped her dog Zyon off about my compound having acquired a taste for blood, didn’t you?”

“You’re a fucking prick!” Nico snarls, but he doesn’t move.

None of us do, it’s like someone has paused time and everyone around me is responsible for cleaving my heart in two. Betraying me for the sake of their own gain. I’ve lost everything.

“Why?” I plead with Nico, shattering the stillness.

He looks at me with tears in his eyes and regret on his face. “He told me he had information on what happened to my family, Rai, he knows who killed them,” he sobs.

I don’t know what to fucking do, I want to hug him and tell him it’ll be alright, but he sacrificed us all instead of asking us to help him. I shake my head in disbelief as the weight of everyone’s deception keeps me rooted to the spot, when all I want to do is flee.

“Rai, I’m so fucking sorry, brother,” Nico whispers.

I can’t look at him.

My eyes find Alaric’s and his grin is wide as he opens his mouth to speak, “Me too.”

That’s when I see the gun drawn and I throw Valeska and Nico behind me as I prepare for the bullet to hit me. The gun goes off with a deafening bang and I prepare myself to feel the hot pain explode somewhere on my skin, to mix with the raging storm within my heart.

But it never comes, and I realise too late that the gun is aimed at my sister, a bullet flying towards her that will land squarely between the eyes and I’ll lose her all over again. She might be immortal, but even vampires need their brains to live.

My scream tears from my throat, echoed by the one unleashed from Nico, but we’re too slow as we dive for Alaric and his men. Agents pour in from all areas of the restaurant before this becomes a massive bloodbath with bullets flying everywhere.

The distinct sound of a bullet piercing flesh ricochets through the restaurant. We manage to get some of the men pinned down and cuffed but the others are in a stand-off. I take stock of the situation so we can take them all.

Alaric and four of his men have their backs to the wall, Valeska faces off with them with only her dagger in her hand.

I have her back to me, but I need to get to Azara.

I expect to see her with a bullet between the eyes, but she is perfectly fine.

There’s not a scratch on her, and she’s trying to get to Valeska’s side.

I won’t allow it.

And neither will Nico by the looks of it, we both hold her, the need to protect her now when I couldn’t back then stronger than anything else I’ve ever felt. Azara tries to shake us but we hold firm. The need to protect her overriding the rift that has formed between us.

“Get the fuck off me, I need to help her!” she shouts but we can’t do that, not when I just got her back. “I will tear you both to shreds if you don’t let me go right now.”

She struggles harder and it’s a fight to hold on, but she stops suddenly and gasps, and Nico and I turn to watch the scene unfold.

Valeska has taken down the four men in quick succession, stabbing them with her wicked silver dagger as they lay in a pile at her feet.

She’s stepping over them and pinning Alaric to the wall.

“What the fuck did you say to me, motherfucker?” I hear her deadly words in the now quiet restaurant.

Those of us that remain are unable to move—we are an audience to this moment in time, as if the very balance of nature teeters on a knife’s edge. We stand and watch the horror unfold before us.

“I said, you killed my father ! I came to take back what I was owed, and you’ve ruined it.

We could have had it all! You stole what was rightfully mine, I should have been the one to inherit his empire, but you pilfered it like the gold-digging slut that you are.

” His words seem to echo in the stillness of the air.

“Father? He-he had a son? I didn’t know, but how? Vampires can’t have children.” Valeska stumbles over her words, shock obvious in them.

Alaric laughs but stays pressed against the wall, his gun nowhere near him now.

“No, they can’t, but he chose me! He knew he couldn’t trust a dirty, used whore like you, so he found me.

Turned me in secret and stashed me away, teaching me everything I needed to know about running an empire.

We had plans, big fucking plans, but you went and ruined it!

I told him he couldn’t trust you, but he always was a sucker for that tight cunt of yo?—”

He never gets a chance to finish that sentence. Dark blood oozes from his mouth as he slides down the wall. Valeska steps back, and from this angle I can see she is holding something in her right hand, the dagger still pressed in her left.

His heart.

She ripped out his black heart with her bare hands. I hear gagging and throwing up behind me, but I can’t take my eyes off her.

“Say hello to your daddy for me,” is all she says before plunging her dagger through the heart and pinning it to the wall.

I watch the dark, thick blood as it bubbles out of the organ nailed to the wall, dripping down and creating a painting, the wall the canvas.

Alaric doesn’t move, his mouth remains open in horror and it hits me then, why Valeska turned this into a bloodbath and not allowing me or my agents take them.

These were vampires—we’d never have been able to take them.

Valeska turns to face us, looking like the beautiful, murderous, démon queen she is. She sways and it looks like she is dancing, a soft smile on her lips as she looks at me with so much love that for a moment, I forget everything that happened leading up to this point.

All I can see is her.

I watch as the tear slips down her face and her hand clutches her heart. It’s only when I glance at it properly that I notice the blood spilling over her pale fingers, coating them with the dark crimson substance.

I make my way over to her. I might never want to see her again, but I don’t want her to be hurt. I’d never wish that on her. But I only make it a few steps before she falls forward and I’m running.

I catch her in my arms before she hits the floor, and I gently lower us down to the hardwood beneath our feet. The blood pours from her, fast and thick, darker than I’d expect it to be, darker than Alaric’s. I place my hand over hers to try and stop the flow, but it doesn’t work.

“She’s going to die.” I barely hear Nico over the cacophony of panic rising within me, I’m going to lose her.