Page 52 of Unleashed
He didn’t…
Oh, God.A double-breath chokes out of my lungs, a strangled sob wrapping itself around my heart—a hollowed out ache that hurts too damn much.
“Everly?” Molly pads across the carpet, a blanket sliding from her shoulders, her face softening the second she sees mine. She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t press. She just lowers herself beside me, tucks me against her, and lets me fall apart.
“I’ve got you,” she whispers into my hair, her hand rubbing slow circles against my back. “Even if he doesn’t pick up, I’ve got you.”
Chapter 18
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 hecould 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?
