Page 96 of Firethorne
“I need to see him,” he demanded. “I have to make sure he’s dead. I can’t leave here without knowing that.”
“But he is. I’m sure of it. And we don’t have time for this, Damien. We have to go.”
I didn’t want him going up there and seeing what had happened.
“If he’s dead, then there’s no rush,” he stated plainly. “He can’t chase us if he’s dead, can he?”
I couldn’t argue with that logic, so I begged, “I don’t want to be here for a second longer. Please, Damien. Come with me. Let me get you to a hospital.”
“You can wait for me down here, or outside on the driveway,” he told me. “But I can’t let this go, Maya.”
That was out of the question.
There wasn’t a chance in hell that I was letting him out of my sight again, not after I’d just found him. But I didn’t want him seeing what I’d had to do to escape, not without me being there.
“I go where you go,” I said, placing my hand gently over his blood-soaked chest. “If you want to see his body, I’ll go with you.”
“No, Maya.” Damien took my hand from his chest and placed a gentle kiss on the back. “I want you safe. That’s what I’ve always wanted. That’s what I live for. I’ll be happier if you’re out of this house.”
“And I’ll only be happy if I’m with you. I’m not leaving you again, Damien. I’m never leaving you.”
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against mine, and with the gentlest whisper, he said, “You know I love you, don’t you?”
“I love you, too.” I sighed. Wishing those words could’ve been spoken at a better time, and yet, the timing couldn’t be more perfect if I really thought about it. Because we’d won. Love had kept us going and brought us to this place, where we were free. Nothing could hurt us now.
Or so I thought.
We held on to each other as we walked up the stairs that led to Firethorne’s office. As we came to the top, we saw Beresford’s dead body slumped against the wall. The bullet wound that Lysander had inflicted went straight through his forehead.
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Damien quipped as we passed him.
Then we came to the office door, and Damien pushed it open.
I expected to find Firethorne on the other side, lying on his back where I’d left him.
But he wasn’t.
He was sitting up against his desk, his breaths short, sharp and laboured, as red stained the front of his shirt.
He had a blanket thrown over his lap to hide the mutilation I’d inflicted, and he looked ashen. But he wasn’t dead, and that thought sickened me.
“And here... they are...” he managed to croak. “My beloved... son... and his... little... whore.”
Even as he sat there, with no hope of fighting back, he still lashed his wicked tongue at us, thinking his words could hurt us.
“Father,” Damien said, letting his arm drop from my shoulder as he stepped forward. He puffed his chest out as he pointed to his wounds with the knife in his hand and announced, “Is this the best you could do? A few lashings from two useless fuckers who wouldn’t know how to torture a man if they tried.”
Firethorne huffed.
“Looks like... I employed... the wrong... people,” he stammered as his breaths became weaker. Then, pulling the blanket off his lap to expose his own wound, he added, “I should’ve... paid her... to do it. She really... knows... how to... get a job done.” He glanced towards the fire, where his severed dick lay in a pool of watery vomit on the carpet in front of it.
Damien saw it, too.
And I almost threw up all over again.
Damien flew across the room and launched himself at his father, grabbing him around the neck, and dragging his limp body over to the fireplace where his dick lay.
The urge to finish what I’d started burned viciously inside me, and I ran over to them, taking the knife out of Damien’s hand, desperate to use it again. But Damien blocked my attempts to fight, forcing me to move back so I didn’t injure him.
