Page 12 of Freaks
FIX
She was dead. She was fucking dead, and I’d just let it fucking happen. As I raced upward, around and around, taking the stairs four at a time, my head was turning itself inside out. How was I going to face the sight of her lying on the floor, arms and legs at strange angles, those beautiful eyes of hers staring blankly into nothingness? It was going to break me. Kill me. The universe would cease to exist. Everything would end. Only one thing would matter: my need to exact revenge upon the man who had snatched the sun right out of the sky and blown it out as if it were nothing more than a candle flame.
I could barely see straight as I barreled up the last flight of steps, my throat swelling closed as I raced toward the open door to the penthouse. And then, inside…
I stopped dead.
What…the…fuck?
My imagination had painted a horrific picture of Sera’s death. It could never have conjured up the image that faced me instead. Sera wasn’t lying dead on the floor after all. She was standing in the middle of the living room with my M4 butted up against her shoulder, and she was pointing the business end right between Zeth Mayfair’s eyes.
“Aim was a little off with that first shot,” she said calmly. “I won’t miss again, though.” Her gaze flickered to the right, toward me. “Jesus, Fix. Are you okay? You look like you’re about to drop down dead.”
What in the actual fuck was going on? I’d thought the back of her skull had just been blown out, butshewas the one who’d fired the gun? I glanced around, disbelief slapping me in the face when I saw the huge, smoking hole in the wall behind me, a foot to the left of the front door. She must have barely missed his head.
Zeth slowly turned and faced me, holding his hand out in front of him so I could see them. He should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. His dark eyes were alive with what looked like intrigue. “Wanna call off your body guard?” he asked.
I squared my shoulders, then strode across the room, slamming my hands into his chest and grabbing the fucker by the shirt. “You’re not from New York,” I snapped, shoving my face into his. “Where did you come from? And why?”
He didn’t flinch. “I came from Seattle. I’m here because my boss told me to come.”
Seattle? Well that was no fucking coincidence. No way in hell a guy like Zeth, a guy from Seattle, the city where Sera lived, would just suddenly appear in New York. Not for a goddamn thumb drive. There was no such thing as chance. If there was one thing I’d learned over the years, putting people down, cleaning up other people’s messes, it was that everything happened for a reason.
“Why?” I pushed him, slamming his back into the wall. It had to have hurt. Zeth blew down his nose—a wild animal, outraged by the fact that it had been cornered.
“You already know why,” he said sharply. He locked eyes with me, and I saw into the bottomless depths of his soul. He was a raging tempest, but then again…so was I. I pulled my arm back, then drove a savage right hook at his head, intent on forcing my entire fist through both his skull and the wall behind it. He wasn’t having her. He wasn’t fucking taking her life. If he thought for one second that I’d allow him to even disturb a—
A hand clamped around my arm, pulling me away. The force of her grip was nowhere near enough to hold me back, not even close, but her touch alone stopped me in my tracks. I’dneverrisk hurting her. Sera adjusted the assault rifle, hitching it up so she had a better purchase on it. “Brawling isn’t going to solve this,” she hissed. “You’re bleeding everywhere. If he’s…” She risked a sidelong glance in Zeth’s direction. “Ifhe’sthe one Carver sent, we should just hand him over to the cops. They might be able to find out who paid him. They can arrest Carver and we can fucking move on with our lives.”
Zeth began to laugh. In his position, I’d have done the same thing. He rocked his head back, resting it against the wall. “Your boyfriend isn’t gonna hand me over to the cops. He’s a stone-cold killer. And even if he wasn’t, he knows better than to think they’ll do anything about this. They’ll let me go inside of an hour. I’ll be gone. You’ll never see me again. Until I’m slitting your throat in your bed,” he added. Turning his attention to me, he flared his nostrils, his mouth forming a tight smile. “If I were you, I’d let your girl press that thing up against my head and pull the trigger. Be the easiest way to solve this.”
It would. It really would. Sera had tried to do it moments before I charged into the penthouse, too, so it wasn’t as if she wasn’t capable, but…
If Zeth died, Carver would just send someone else, and someone else, and someone else after that, and Mayfair fucking knew it. There was only one way to end this permanently, and that was to convince Carver that Sera had been taken care of. At least that way, we’d buy ourselves some time. We’d be able to find out who Carver was and where. Then I could roll up on him in the middle of the night and peel his fucking flesh from his goddamn body.
Zeth’s eyes flashed as he nodded at me—the motherfucker knew what I was thinking, and he’d already realized I wasn’t going to kill him. I closed my hand around his neck, and the man did absolutely nothing to stop me.
“Let’s start with your boss, shall we?” I growled. “Give me a name.”
Zeth didn’t hesitate. “I work for a very angry, very mad Englishman. Goes by the name of Charlie Holsan. And whoever this Carver guy is, he paid Charlie directly. I don’t have a fucking clue who he is, so I wouldn’t waste your breath trying to beat it out of me. It won’t get you anywhere. Trust me.”
I’d already made the mistake of trusting this asshole and it hadn’t ended well. I tightened my grip around his throat. “Did you even need the thumb drive?”
Slowly, Zeth shook his head. “Your little hacker friend told me where you’d be tonight. He’s quite the double agent. All bent out of shape about you not meeting him for coffee or some shit.”
Sera took a step back, clearing her throat. “Oh my god. I don’t know what’s going on, but I swear I’m going to kill Rabbit myself.”
Ha. She was a fucking spitfire when she was riled. My beautiful, fearless, brave Angel. She’d kill Rabbit, I had no doubt, but I wasn’t going to let her. Selfishly, I wanted the honor of that task all to myself, and I didn’t plan on sharing. I was going to relish every last second as I destroyed Rabbit piece by piece. He was going to suffer for fucking with me like this, and I didn’t care what it did to me. I’d give away the very last gentle, good part of my tattered soul if it meant he paid for endangering Sera’s life. He’d known Zeth would come back here with me. He’d known all too well that Zeth would never make it inside the Gas and Electrical Works unless I let him in. So he’d orchestrated this entire night—the fight at The Barrows; Zeth and I having to work together; having to leave together once we’d taken the thumb drive. He’d already planned all of this out as he’d sat in that booth and smiled congenially at Sera, complimenting her on how beautiful she looked.
He was scum. He was a lying, backstabbing fucking monster. But most importantly, he wassofucking dead.
“So. Where we going from here?” Zeth asked. He didn’t seem remotely bothered by the fact that I had him by the neck. Honestly, we were so evenly matched, he probably could have broken free. He could have tackled me, and we would have found ourselves locked in another fight, trading blow for blow until one of us eventually fucked up and the other took advantage. But he was obviously good at reading people, just like I was, and he’d made a firm judgment where Sera was concerned. He’d taken her measure. He knew she’d fucking shoot him if he so much as sneezed right now, and he was biding his time, waiting to see what would happen.
“Wedon’t go anywhere,” I snapped. “We’re going to figure out our next move, and you…you’re going in the bathtub.”
A cold, hard light burned in Zeth’s pupils. “Better tie me up good, Priest. I’m not known for being a well behaved captive.”
“Don’t worry. I got you covered.” I flashed my teeth at him. “I learned all of my knots at motherfucking church camp.”
