Page 34 of Unleashed (Dark Sovereign #11)

ISAIA

The Hummer jerks to a stop at the curb.

“Third floor,” I say, eyes locked on the building across the street.

Caelian pulls his pistol from the holster and checks the clip. “Friendly little reunion, huh?” He grins like a shark.

Alexius doesn’t waste words. He just tugs on gloves, his expression steel. Maximo rips the slide back on his weapon and chambers a round with a metallic snap that cuts through the silence.

The street’s empty. Too empty. No neighbors milling, no music bleeding from the building. Just the hum of electricity and the sound of my pulse roaring in my ears.

I slam the door shut and cross the street, my boots eating the distance. Every step is a countdown. Time's bleeding out for Molly up there, and with every heartbeat I'm away from Everly, something in me withers, too.

We file into the building one by one, ascending stairs where pine-scented chemicals and dollar-store air fresheners wage a futile war against nicotine. With each step, my grip whitens around the pistol.

We climb three flights of stairs, our boots silent on concrete hollowed by years of traffic, until the third-floor landing stretches before us like a threshold to hell.

My chest is tight, not from the climb but from the certainty of what waits. Sean’s face in that video, smug, hungry for vengeance, is engraved in my head. Melanie’s father has been sharpening his hatred for years. And that makes him dangerous. Unpredictable.

At the landing, Maximo takes point, his back pressed to the wall. He glances at me. “Three, two—”

I kick the door in.

The apartment yawns open, white walls, glass gleaming under too-bright lights.

Nostalgia hits me, the familiarity of it all.

Her old apartment is exactly as it was when she was still alive.

Open, airy, neutral tones and minimal furniture.

Melanie hated clutter, kept it sleek and clean like a page torn from a design magazine. Her dad didn’t change a fucking thing.

We rush in and enter the living room through the large archway. That’s the moment everything turns into the bowels of hell.

“Fuck,” Caelian breathes.

Molly hangs from the ceiling by chains bolted into steel beams, her head angled downward. Her arms stretch above her head, chains sliced into her wrists, mouth stitched with black thread into swollen lips, blood crusted down her chin.

Her bare skin maps a grotesque ledger of violence—thin red lines tallied across ribs, thighs, arms, too many to count. Each shallow breath lifts her chest barely enough to confirm she’s alive.

“Jesus,” Maximo mutters, but it’s not just a word. It’s a sound torn out of him, rough, strangled, like it caught on barbed wire in his throat. His gun dips an inch before he corrects it. His jaw locks so tight I hear the grind of teeth.

I’ve fought beside Maximo long enough to know he doesn’t rattle.

He’s seen things, done things that would gut most men, and he walked away steady as stone every time.

But right now? His face goes tight, his nostrils flare, and there’s a flicker in his eyes I’ve never seen before.

Something raw. Anger. Horror. Maybe both.

“Okay, this looks like a real fucking problem.” Caelian stares at a black box beneath Molly’s tied feet, her toes pressed on top of it.

“Is that a—”

“Yes, it is.” Sean appears at the top of the spiral staircase, wooden cross in hand, his hair white at the temples, his suit black but rumpled, as if he’s been living in it for weeks. His eyes burn with a holy madness, gleaming with manic satisfaction.

Instinct kicks in, and I aim, finger on the trigger.

"Don't even think about it." He gestures at the black box with a flick of his wrist as he descends.

"That device needs a code. One that only exists up here.

" He taps a finger against his temple, his smile stretching wider as my jaw locks tight.

"Shoot me, the code dies with me. Try to free her, and the pressure plate under her feet detonates.

Either way, they'll be scraping pieces of all of us off the pavement. "

The words land like a blow. Not because they’re surprising, but because they close options. There’s no clean hero’s bullet here.

“Let her down,” I say, voice flat to hide the tremor underneath.

A soft chuckle escapes him, dry as bone against stone. “Not doing that.”

“She has nothing to do with this.”

“Just like my Melanie had nothing to do with your family fucking drama!” His voice reverberates around the room, an echo of vengeance. “But she died anyway.”

“I’m sorry you lost her,” Alexius’ voice cuts sharp. “But we didn’t do that to her. We didn’t kill her.”

Sean’s eyes flick to him. “Micah killed my daughter. But you—” He points the cross right at me. “You marked her. You tainted her with your hands, your lust, and she paid for it with her life.”

Caelian raises his pistol. “Want me to shut this fucker up?”

“Not yet,” I growl.

Sean approaches Molly, and her body jerks on the chain, her eyes rolling, pleading, the sound she tries to make muffled by thread and blood. She’s barely able to keep herself up, keep her toes on that bomb.

“Jesus Christ,” Maximo breathes out next to me. “We gotta do something fast.”

“You see those scars?” He slides a fingertip across Molly’s ribs where the cuts tally like a ledger. She flinches, and a fresh trickle of blood beads at the corner of her mouth where black thread still pulls the seam tight. When her feet slip, just an inch, my fucking heart explodes.

“Every sound she made when I sewed her. One mark for every whimper she gave me. I counted.”

I don’t take my eyes off him. “You’re a special kind of sick fuck, aren’t you?”

“Contrary to what you might believe, I didn’t enjoy doing that.

I didn’t enjoy torturing any of the women I killed.

But I did it. I forced myself to do it, forced myself to face exactly what my Melanie went through.

” His eyes cut to mine, a crazed look hard on his face.

“Do you know what Molly begged for?” His voice lowers. “Death.”

Maximo lets out a growl that’s something between a hiss and a roar. His entire body pulses with the rhythm of his fury. Knife-edged rage trembles in his voice, "You're going to face a lot more than that, you son of a bitch."

“Maximo, don’t do something stupid,” I warn.

But Sean only grins, as if our reactions are fuel for his sick delight.

“Molly begged, just like Melanie probably begged when Micah had her,” he continues.

“But you didn’t save Melanie, did you, Isaia?

You left her to die. Just like you almost left Molly here.

” His gaze pins me with so much hatred, I feel it down my spine.

“You were about to leave, weren’t you? You wanted to take your pregnant wife and leave, not giving a shit if Molly here lives or dies. ”

My trigger finger itches to paint the walls with his insides, but the pressure plate under Molly's feet means we'd all be decorating the neighborhood. I force myself to breathe, the copper taste of rage thick on my tongue.

He slants his head, studying me like I’m a bug under a microscope. “What changed your mind?”

My skin crawls as he drags the cross down between Molly’s naked breasts. The chains clink as her body shivers.

“Was it your pretty wife? Did she somehow turn you into a decent fucking human being?”

Alexius steps forward. Calm. Collected. “What is it you want, Watson? Money?”

“My daughter was murdered, and you think I want money?”

“The message,” I cut in. “Punishment owed to the Troublemaker. That was aimed at Everly, so why take Molly?”

“Ah, see…that’s where my plan shines. At first, Everly was my target.”

A sound rises from my throat—half-growl, half-choke—as my finger twitches on the trigger, wanting blood but knowing better.

“But then she got pregnant.” He actually looks disappointed. “And no matter what you might think of me, I will not hurt a child. I will not inflict the same amount of pain my daughter endured on a woman carrying an unborn baby.”

“That’s refreshing,” Caelian quips. “A psycho with a conscience.”

Sean shoots him a warning glare, then turns his attention back to me. “So, I went for her best friend. Figured if Molly here dies gruesomely, Everly won’t forgive you. From what I could find out, you’re on your last strike with your pretty wife.”

His words are gasoline on my rage. I’m two seconds from charging him when Alexius’ voice cuts across the room, cold steel. “Isaia. Don’t.”

Every muscle in my body turns to wire, my hands already imagining the wet snap of bone beneath them.

Sean smirks. “That’s right. Leash your brother.”

“How do you see this ending, Watson?” Alexius inches closer.

He drags the cross down the side of Molly’s face, brushing over the stitches. Molly jerks, a tiny animal sound ripped out of her throat. The stitches catch, the skin puckers, fresh little stars of pain blooming along the seam.

“Everly won’t be pregnant forever. And after I walk out of here alive, I’ll live rent-free in—” he points at me “—your fucking head, constantly wondering when I’ll come for her. When I’ll make her suffer the same way you allowed Melanie to suffer.”

Heat roars in my ears. Rage makes my tongue heavy and my mouth full of bile. I picture tearing the cross from his hand and using it to slit his throat. I picture a dozen ways to end him that are small, brutal, precise. “You think you’re walking out of here alive?”

“I know I am because you need your wife’s friend alive. The last thing you need is another strike, another reason for Everly to hate you.”

“Make no mistake…I will. Kill you.”

He smiles. “Torture is a far worse punishment than death, Isaia. Every day I breathe, I’ll be in your head.

But my face? My face will be in every shadow that surrounds your wife.

You’ll constantly see me coming for her.

” There’s a vicious smirk on his lips as he leans closer. “And it will drive you…fucking…mad.”