Page 86 of Burn for Me

“Shut up!” Bossman yells and clicks his walkie, “Where are they?”

There's a broken tsk over the comes, then a sigh,“We’re everywhere. Until we can get to you, though, do you mind handing my husband your walkie? I have something I need to say to him.”

“I’m here, Darlin’,” I call out, and he quickly releases the button as if it’d stop my voice from carrying over the coms.

“You're in big trouble, mister.”She teases, but I can hear the worry in her tone. Playtime is over; I need to get to her. I scan the room for any object I can use as a weapon and assess my surroundings for the best possible exits, but a harsh punch to my cheekbone disrupts my survey.

“You're always fucking shit up! Do you realize how hard it was to lure you out here?! How sodden difficult it was to set all this up! I spent a fucking fortune on a worthless building just to get you here!”

My brows furrow, and I rub my cheek against my shoulder.

“I take you, Sam Black Morana, to be my husband…”

“Where the fuck is she?” He yells again, and his crew looks around like she’d magically pop out of the walls.

“She’s probably trying to claw her way out of hell to find me. I think I forgot to do the dishes.” I joke. However, my smile quickly fades when the man on the left starts pouring something onto the carpet and flings it against the walls. The substance is strong and potent, overpowering the musky scent with the smell of gasoline.

“To have and to hold from this day forward.”

“God damn it, you're always fucking shit up! My childhood, my father…”

His… wait, what? I shake my head and pull against the restraints. Red-hot fury starts to churn in my abdomen.

“You've got to be bloody kidding me…” I mutter. There's no way. Even if there is a possibility–it still wouldn't make sense. “Brady?”

“You think this is fucking funny?” Brady pulls his mask from his head. Not much has changed about him since our youth. “I spent years preparing to end my father the way I wanted to. Then you were next for stepping into our lives and making him change.”

“You're seriously fucking blaming me?” I scoff. I understand that PTSD can manifest in various ways. I have my struggles, and Sharkie has hers as well. However, I worry that Brady's experience has shaped his trauma in a more damaging way. I thought I was messed up? His thought process makes mine seem like a walk in the park.

“He only got worse after you came around. He had a plan, and you messed it up. Guess who got the shit end of the stick?” Brady grinds out and steps closer, pulling a lighter from his pocket. He starts to flick the switch.

“I thought you were dead! I spent fuckin years lookin' for you!!”

I always believed he fought his father to protect me, but now I suspect he just wanted to save my life so he could end it himself.

“No, that was all staged. I needed to cover if I was ever going to succeed. I couldn't do that with cops constantly breathing down my neck and doctors telling me that the drugs Hex used on us altered my brain chemistry. Can you believe that? They act as if I'm insane or something!” He laughs humorously, but it fades when the walkie starts to crackle again.

“For better and for worse.”With that, a bullet comes whizzing through a window and knocks the man dumping gasoline to the floor. Blood pools around his head, mixing with the dooming liquid from the red container. Brady growls at the noise and flicks the lighter again, prompting me to blow it out. It’s a dangerous game, but it’s enough to keep him distracted. In all honesty, I’m terrified—not for myself, but for my precious little devil. I can’t see her; I can’t protect her.

“It’s your fault,” he murmurs slowly, utterly unfazed by another body dropping to the floor. “Call your little bitch off so I can finish what my father started. I didn't spend years playing the fucking business game not to succeed. Do you even realize how annoying these sods are here?”

He's close enough that I kick his shin. A god-awful sound comes from the bone breaking, and he screams in pain.

“For richer and for poorer.”

“Talk about my wife like that again,” I warn, and he laughs. After everything my uncle put us through, I scoff, “You’re just as fucked up as he was, but at least you can blame it on the drugs.”

“In sickness and in health.”

“So are you. Except you’re naturally that way.” He wobbles to stand up and grips the front of my shirt as he stabilizes his body before throwing a gnarly punch into my cheek. He's not wrong; I am like him. I take pleasure in the pain I caused only because it gives me control, whereas he does it simply because he wants to see someone else suffer as he did.

“I’d love to give you the same fate as him, but I'm low on time and have a ball to return to. Once you're out of the way, I will expose your perfect little team. Too bad you won't be alive to see what it's like to have all you've ever worked towards be ripped away.”

“You're acting like a spoiled child! You planned on doing the same thing!” I take a deep breath and look around the room again. This is the boy I grew up with–the one I spent so long hunting for so he could live a proper life like we deserved. “Call everything off. Hand me the walkie, and I’ll get her to back down. You can come with us.”

“His life wasn'tyoursto take! I’m the one that grew up with it! I’m the one who watched the man who’d laugh when we threw a ball turn into a monster who beat the shit out of me for backtalking! You just got in the way and made everything worse! It's your fault he started using his own product. It's YOUR FAULT!”

With that, he flicks the lighter toward the corner, and the curtains instantly erupt into flames.

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