Page 23 of Unleashed (Dark Sovereign #11)

ISAIA

Her name lights up my phone.

The letters blur, like my vision’s been sucker-punched. My thumb twitches, hovering just above the screen. One tap and I’d have her—her voice, her breath, the proof that she’s real and still mine. My whole body leans toward it, hungry, reckless.

But I don’t.

I lock my wrist. I force my hand back down against my thigh until tendons strain, until it hurts enough to hold steady.

It’s the worst fucking feeling. My wife is reaching out; she’s on the other side of that connection, and I know she needs me.

The mother of my unborn child needs me, and all I can do is stare at her flashing name because I can’t answer.

God, I wish I could tell her why I can’t be there, tell her that this is me protecting her.

This is me finally doing the right fucking thing. For her.

But I can’t. Not now. Not yet.

The ringing keeps going, each pulse snapping through me like lightning, rattling up my teeth, making my jaw ache. I stand rigid, choking on restraint, until the line cuts dead.

“Fuck,” I snarl, pulling a hand through my hair, yanking at the strands until my scalp stings. Everything is so fucked up, so fucking wrong. When I finally lift my head—when I force myself to look—I stare straight at the reason I couldn’t answer her call.

“This is un-fucking-believable.” Alexius pulls a palm down his face, the collar of his coat standing up like sharp, black daggers against his throat.

“Tyla Cummings,” Caelian mutters. “She’s barely fucking twenty, man.” Even he can’t hide just how rattled he is.

I crouch, elbows on my knees, as I stare at the gruesome picture. She’s lashed to a marble support column in the center of her penthouse living room, stripped bare, her skin pale as porcelain except where the ropes bite deep, oozing red.

Everything’s the same. Her lips are sewn shut, black stitches pulling cruel Xs across her mouth. Her eyes, gone. Empty sockets stare out at the glittering Chicago skyline, two pits of hollow shadows.

Behind me, a guttural sound tears through the air.

A man’s grief, raw and unbridled. Andrew Cummings, her father—the criminal lawyer on our payroll whose job is to keep our soldiers, our associates’ asses out of jail.

He falls to his knees just inside the doorway, and I swear to God it’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen.

The leather briefcase hits the marble with a dull thud, papers spilling out like his entire life’s work just got ripped apart in front of him.

Hands slap the polished floor, then claw at it like he could dig into the stone itself, pull her back from whatever place she’s gone.

His face contorts, red and wet, spit stringing between his teeth as a sound comes out of him that isn’t even human—it’s the sound of a man whose flesh is being torn off bone.

“My baby!” he chokes, the words splintering in his throat. His body pitches forward, forehead nearly cracking against the ground. “My little girl!”

The weight of his pain slices through all of us; it cuts sharper than the stench of blood.

He lurches forward, reaching for her, but Maximo and I catch him, locking hands around his arms before he can throw himself into the scene. He fights like a man possessed, muscles straining, veins bulging, his roar shredding his throat. “Let me go! Let me go! I have to hold her!”

“She’s gone, Andrew.” Maximo tightens his grip on the man.

“No! No! She’s not. Jesus, no!” He bucks harder, nails raking my sleeve, spittle flying with every word, the denial in him so violent it feels like it might tear the walls down.

Andrew’s body heaves between us, all fight and grief and terror, and for a split second I forget how to breathe.

I’ve seen men gutted, burned, buried alive, and not once has it touched me.

You can’t survive in this world if you let yourself feel every scream, every death.

My body wants to lock down, bury it, the way I’ve been taught since I could walk. Don’t feel. Don’t flinch. Don’t bleed.

But this—fuck—this is different.

The sound of a father losing his child doesn’t just pierce.

It annihilates. His cries hit like bullets, tearing through flesh, ripping open veins, shredding everything soft and human in their path.

I don’t just hear it. I feel it. Right inside where something fragile’s been stirring ever since I found out I’m going to be a father.

My gut twists. My throat locks. The only thought pounding through my skull is what if that were me? What if that were my baby—the one I haven’t even met, the one whose heartbeat I missed today?

My hands tremble against Andrew’s convulsing body. I can’t even picture it without unraveling—the screams that would tear my throat raw, the kind of grief that wouldn’t just burn, it would hollow me out until there’s nothing left but the echo.

“Tyla!” His howl rips the air apart as his body buckles, going limp in our hold.

Maximo and I go down with him, still gripping his arms, still trying to keep him tethered.

When I meet Maximo’s eyes, there’s something there I’ve never seen before—something softer, stricken.

I know his mind’s right where mine is. The unspoken question flashes between us, heavy as the blood in the room. What the fuck do we do?

Alexius crouches in front of Andrew, placing his hands on the man’s shoulders, squeezing firmly enough to ground him but not cruelly. His voice is steady, low, carrying the weight of someone who’s seen too much death but refuses to let it hollow him out.

“She’s with God now, Andrew,” Alexius says, sympathy threaded through steel.

“And I swear to you—whoever did this will pay. You’ll have your justice.

You’ll have your vengeance. That’s my word.

But right now, we need to comb this scene.

My brothers and I have to keep our heads if we’re going to catch the motherfucker who did this. ”

He straightens, and with a single nod toward Maximo the order’s clear. Get him out of here.

As soon as Andrew’s led out of the penthouse, I drag my hands down my face, desperately trying to get my shit together.

“Jesus Christ.” Caelian leans against the floor-to-ceiling windows and lights a cigarette.

“Bet you got no other lame-ass theories now, do you?” I quip.

“Don’t start your shit,” Alexius warns.

I scoff then scan the room. The penthouse itself is high and glossy, walls of glass staring out at Chicago’s skyline.

Expensive furniture in shades of white and neutral tones, steel trimmings and silver accents gleaming under recessed lighting.

But it doesn’t feel like luxury anymore.

It feels like a coffin dressed up in designer fabric.

Blood spatters the chrome-legged coffee table and streaks down the column in jagged ribbons that catch in the light, turning it all into a sick kaleidoscope of crimson.

A half-finished glass of champagne sweats on the counter.

A silver laptop lies open on the couch, frozen mid-Netflix episode, a pink throw blanket folded neatly over the armrest. All the trappings of a young woman’s night in.

Now destroyed.

With a gloved hand, Alexius picks up the note Maximo extracted from her mouth earlier and reads it aloud.

“For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. Isaiah, sixty-three, verse four.”

“Isaiah,” Caelian scoffs. “Bet that annoys the shit out of you, doesn’t it?”

“Shut up,” I snap, and he smirks. “Is it too early to call a pattern?”

Alexius looks at me with question.

“Both scriptures are about vengeance.” I point out the obvious then cross my arms. “I think, whoever this fucker is, it’s personal. It’s not a warning. It’s a fucking prelude.”

Caelian exhales smoke. “To what?”

“I dunno.” I glance down the body, one part specifically. “Has anyone checked…” I swallow hard, “you know…for—”

“No,” Nicoli’s voice cuts clean through, final. “I’ll do it.”

He crouches beside Tyla’s body, the latex of his gloves squeaking faintly as he presses his palm against her thigh to steady himself. For a moment, the room is hushed, everyone watching. Then his other hand slips between her blood-smeared legs.

The wet sound that follows makes my stomach pitch. A slick, sucking resistance as he grips something wedged deep inside her and starts to pull. Inch by inch it drags free, tearing loose with a grotesque squelch, thick strings of blood sticking, stretching, snapping.

The cross comes out dripping, heavier than it looks, carved wood stained crimson, the edges serrated with gore. The air reeks instantly sharper—iron, rot, something foul that coats the back of my throat.

Nicoli holds it up, and the man pales as blood runs down the grain and spatters against the white floor.

“Something written on it?” I try to study the cross from a distance.

“If you mean carved, yeah.” Nicoli wipes carefully at the wood with a gloved hand. “Owed to.”

“Owed to?” Caelian frowns. “What the fuck does that mean? Owed to what?”

“Or to who,” I say absentmindedly.

Nicoli bags the cross and gets rid of the gloves. “We can try to figure it out back at the house. Right now, we need to scrub this place before the cops get here.”

“Make it look like a lovers’ quarrel?” Caelian drops the cigarette and stomps it out with his shoe.

“Seriously?” I stare at him, gobsmacked.

“So her murderous lover smoked. Nasty habit.”

I’m about to run my mouth, then remember the car I have parked outside—Caelian’s car. A comeback that cannot be put into words. Fucker.

Two hours later, we finally leave the scene with our cleaning crew. Usually, we don’t stay around for cleanup, but tonight’s different. It feels different. We need our hands on this fucking mess at all times.

Our crew got the place scrubbed of anything that could trace back to us—surfaces wiped, papers burned, pocketed cameras.

Not one fingerprint, not one shred of evidence left behind to invite cops or reporters sniffing around our business.

The last thing we need is a media frenzy splashing our family name across every headline.

But even stripped clean, the stench clings—the copper bite of blood, the stink of death, and that carved cross still seared into my vision like it branded me too.

“It’s not finished,” I mutter, mostly to myself.

Nicoli shoots me a look. “What’s not finished?”

“The sentence.”

“What sentence?” Caelian snorts. “Jesus, Isaia. Are you glitching?”

I ignore him, drag in a breath that feels sharp as glass.

“The first cross said punishment. This one—‘owed to.’” Blank stares meet me.

Christ. “Don’t you get it? Punishment, owed to…

? It fits with the scriptures. Vengeance?

” I pace through the penthouse. “Vengeance doesn’t exist without purpose.

You punish because something’s owed.” I lift my gaze to Alexius, my gut iced over.

“And whoever this fucker is, he’s not done. He needs to finish that sentence.”

Alexius goes pale. “I hope you’re wrong, brother. I really do.”

“Me too.” But it’s clear as fucking day. Punishment. Owed to. The words line up in my head like a noose being knotted. And I know—we’re waiting for the rest of the rope.

The night air slaps cold against my face as we file out of the penthouse, boots crunching over salt-dusted concrete.

My head’s still thick with blood and scripture, Tyla’s hollowed sockets burned into the back of my eyelids.

I can’t get her father’s screams out of my chest, like they branded themselves into my ribs.

Every step feels too slow, too loud, like the city itself might hear us bleeding.

I move fast, shoulders hunched, the need to get out of here crawling under my skin like ants. By the time we hit the curb, I’m already digging for my phone, already thinking of her. Of Everly. Of the baby.

Then I stop mid-stride. “Here,” I mutter, tossing something over my shoulder without looking.

Caelian snatches it from the air, and it makes him freeze. “Wait. Are these—?” His voice spikes. “The fuck! These are my car keys. You drove my car?”

I glance back, smirking despite the sour taste of blood in my throat. “Yeah. It’s parked out front.” I pause, let it hang a beat, then add, “Oh, and I jerked off in your car. While you drive home, you can try to figure out where.”

His face goes slack, then red. “You sick son of a—” He cuts off, jabbing the keys into his pocket like they might burn him. “You better hope it wasn’t the driver’s seat, or I swear—”

“Relax,” I throw over my shoulder. “Maybe.”

Nicoli steps up beside me, his brows furrowed, voice low. “Where the hell are you going?”

I slide my phone into my pocket, jaw tight, eyes already locked on the skyline like it might lead me to her. “I’ve got an angel to look over.”