The Disciples: A Dark Romance Collection

by Sweet, Izzy

  But that’s what happened.

  Somewhere between her pulling the trigger on me in the church and when she got shoved in the car by Alexei, I’ve grown to need this woman with my very fucking being.

  She’s mine. Mind, body, heart, and fucking soul.

  Loving her makes me feel human again.

  Knowing that Alexei has dared laid a hand on my fucking woman, on my fucking salvation, has my damn mind shutting down to a narrow fucking focus.

  “In on three… two… one…” I say as I quickly move through the door with my M4 raised up to my shoulder and my finger already on the trigger.

  “Following,” Johnathan says quickly behind me.

  “Targets moving through the building,” James comes over the comms as I quickly aim my rifle at a staggering man.

  “Hostile One down,” I say after a burst of three shots from my rifle.

  “Hostile Two and Three already down on the floor from the explosives,” Johnathan reports.

  Andrew grumbles into the comms as he follows us in, “Couple of shots for good measure.”

  Six suppressed shots snap loudly in the room as he puts a hole in the heads and hearts of each downed target.

  Nasty business that, but it ensures that we won’t have any sneaky fuckers getting up and shooting us in the back.

  “Front office clear,” I say, and quickly move to the door that has a stairwell exit next to it. “Entering stairwell. Flashbang only.”

  Pulling a second flashbang grenade off my vest, I wait for Johnathan to open the door before I toss the grenade inside. Pushing the door closed, we wait outside for the bang and ultrabright flash before yanking the doors open.

  Finally hearing it go off, I look in and up to see if I can spot anyone. Empty.

  “Stairwell empty,” I report.

  “Got two guys coming up on the roof. Looking to see what they’re up to before—Holy tits!” I hear him shout before there’s a loud bang and the front of the office implodes on us.

  Brick and metal shrapnel explode all around us as we rush into the stairwell for cover.

  “What the fuck was that?” I yell into the comms strap around my neck.

  Fuck me, I can feel a large chunk of something lodged in the back of my right shoulder. Lodged and fucking burning a damn hole in me. Pressing myself up against the wall, I pant for a moment, trying to center my mind away from the wound.

  “RPG took out your car, Gabriel,” James says before I hear him start to snicker loudly in his mic. “Both targets down. Shot one in the pecker first, though, before I got a good headshot on him.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I hear Simon grumble into the comms chip in my ear.

  “Get extraction vehicles out here if you can, Simon,” Johnathan says into his mic.

  “Already on their way,” Simon says.

  “Michael and I are fifteen minutes out,” Lucifer says into the mic.

  Well, fuck me. Big man’s getting involved.

  “Yay! Lily let you come out to play with the rowdy kids!” James cheers into the mic like a fucking kid.

  “Shut up, James,” Lucifer says with laugh.

  James isn’t as old as most of us, only a couple of years younger, so I’m guessing the fucker gets to be the fucking baby of the family. Lucifer treats the immature shit as if he’s another one of his sons anyway, from what Johnathan and Andrew say.

  “I’m telling mom,” James taunts before his voice snaps into business mode. “They’ve got another guy coming up on the roof. Shooting in one… two… three. Target down. Searching the building for heat signatures.”

  “We need to fucking move,” I growl into the mic.

  I don’t have my brother’s fucking eloquent words or fucking analytical mind. I’m the brute fucking force. I smash through the fucking walls. I don’t sit behind and fucking work on a fucking keyboard. I’m the fucking hellhound. I’m not paid to think. I’m paid to fucking move and hurt.

  All this shit’s going on and all I can do is grind my teeth at the slow fucking pace we have to keep. I want to charge in and murder every fucking soul in this damn building.

  Sliding along the wall, I move toward the stairs. If they haven’t decided to move toward us in the stairwell yet, they will soon. I don’t want to be a fucking fish in the barrel. I hate stairwell fights, topside always has the advantage.

  “Moving up,” I say as I start sliding my body around the outside of the stairwell, trying to get the best view I can of what’s above me.

  “Hold up,” Andrew says. “Fucking hell, you’re trailing blood.”

  Looking back to the wall, I growl. I don’t have time to be injured. But there it is, a trail of my blood smearing against the wall as I move.

  “No time to patch me up,” I grunt as he shoves his hand against the wound.

  “You got a fucking chunk of metal in your shoulder, I need to get this fixed up,” Andrew says.

  “After,” I say, before I feel him ripping at my shirt. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Putting a temporary bandage on there to keep you from bleeding out like an asshole,” Andrew grumbles before I feel him pushing something against my shoulder.

  Pushing around the wound, he says, “It’s a compress with blood clotting shit in it. I’m going to need to remove that chunk of metal as soon as we can, though.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” I mutter and wait for him to finish up.

  “Looks like he stuck a maxi pad on you,” Johnathan says with a chortle.

  “It’s not,” Andrew says with a small laugh himself. “But I’ve used ‘em before when I had to stop someone from dying on me.”

  Moving forward, we quick-step up to the second floor of the building. It’s a three-story building, but James has seen all activity on the second floor through the heat signature scope he’s been using. I’m guessing the guys that got onto the roof used the stairwell at the opposite end of the building.

  My hands start to jitter. Not good. I have to remain calm. I have to remain in perfect fucking control of my body. I can’t fucking wait for this shit to be over and done with. I need Meghan fucking safe. This waiting shit is for the birds.

  “Taking target down,” James says into the comms. “They don’t seem to understand that windows are bad places to hide in front of.”

  “Exiting stairwell on three,” I say into our comms before quickly kneeling on the floor.

  Johnathan quickly pulls the door open and I lean around the edge to look out.

  Bullets hit where a man’s chest would be above me.

  Spotting the two shooters standing behind a desk of some sort, I blast a hole through the throat of one guy and the forehead of the second.

  Andrew moves into the long room as I stand up from where I’ve been kneeling.

  Standing up though, I can feel a warm fresh pulse of blood seep out of my wound. Andrew was right about me needing to get this fixed up, but now’s not the time. If we don’t get moving, we’re going to lose the advantage.

  Jogging in the lead of our trio, I stop when I come to a door leading down a long hallway.

  “Anything on the heat scope?”

  “One coming out of the office on my side. Your right,” James says quickly.

  Kneeling again, I wait for them to poke around the corner. Lining up my sights on the M4, I shoot the guy in the knee while Andrew blasts a bullet through the head of our target.

  “Fucker. We’ve got a big heat signature rushing back to the suspected room with Meghan. You need to move. I don’t see any more discernible targets,” James says in a rush.

  “Moving,” I shout into my comms and start off at a quick pace.

  Each pounding stomp of my foot brings a jolt of pain through my body. That piece of metal isn’t the best thing to have hitchhiking inside me right now.

  With each step, though, I can feel the anger in my blood boiling. Boiling so fucking full of hate and rage. My eyes want to glaze over in a berserker-induced blackout, but I can’t all
ow myself to do it. Not with Meghan in so much danger right now.

  “I’ve got a shot. It’s going to be through the wall, but I’ve got one I feel I can take without endangering Meghan,” James says

  “Any idea who it is?” Andrew asks.

  “No, but taking it now,” James says.

  I hear Meghan’s high-pitched scream coming from up ahead of me.

  “Target One down. Second is ducking behind Meghan and the dead body that collapsed on her,” James says.

  “Fuck,” I spit out.

  “Distance to the office?” I ask quickly.

  “Fifteen feet,” James says. “Ten… seven… four... You should be close to the entrance now.”

  “Put two more rounds through the walls. Close enough to scare the shit out of them, but not hit them,” I say.

  “Doing so now.”

  A bullet round slams through the outer wall of the office wall and Meghan screams again. Fuck, I don’t want her to ever have this kind of fear. I can’t stand it. It’s fucking murdering my fucking brain to hear her screams.

  The second bullet tearing through the wall gives me a damn good idea of who’s alive inside of the room with her, though.

  Alexei’s bitch voice shouts, “Goddammit! Pick up your fucking radios!”

  Shouting into the room, I say, “They’re all dead, motherfucker!”

  “I’ll kill you all and then this fucking whore!” Alexei yells back at me before he starts shooting through the walls at us.

  Good thing I’m not close enough for him to hit me.

  “He’s only got a gun and he just shot six times!” Meghan screams out to me.

  “Holy fuck!” Johnathan bellows with a rough, tumbling laugh. “Chick’s got some fucking balls on her!”

  “Shut your whore mouth!” I hear Alexei scream followed by a heavy slap of skin.

  “Fuck you, tiny dick!” Meghan yells back.

  Alexei roars in anger.

  Racing around the corner, I flip my M4 around in my hands. Instead of holding it like a rifle, I wield the motherfucker like a baseball bat.

  Taking a monstrous swing, I cover the ground between Alexei and me with an almost inhuman speed. I don’t know why time has slowed down so much for me, but I thank every fucking devil I can name that it does as the stock of the rifle connects with the Alexei’s hand.

  His eyes go wide as fuck as his pistol goes flying across the room.

  Alexei’s a big fucking man like me, but I can see in his fucking eyes he isn’t a warrior. He’s pumped some weights to give himself a look, he didn’t spend those hours in the gym to build muscles to hurt. He spent them to look good in fucking suits. He may be good with a pistol, and has probably been in a couple scrapes before, but he isn’t a brawler like me.

  Squaring up on him, I raise my hands as I give him a smile. It’s probably not what he was expecting when I bum-rushed his ass, but I’m going to give him a chance to fight me.

  He’ll fucking die here one way or the other, but I don’t want it to be quick and painless.

  “I’ll fucking kill you all,” he snarls at me.

  “Doubt it,” Andrew says from behind my back.

  And then I hear Johnathan laughing. “I want a piece of him, if anything’s left after you’re done.”

  Slowly circling to Alexei’s right, I wait to see if he’s going to try to make a play for Meghan or me.

  “I’m taking my wife home with me. We’re also going to be waking your dear old dad up, too.” I grin.

  Eyes wide, Alexei seems momentarily stunned by my words. And I don’t think it’s me taking Meghan home that has him looking like he’s seen a ghost. We’ve got a lot of questions for his father. Questions that will be pulled out of him at our warehouse, where we can take all the time in the world.

  “Possibly pregnant wife,” Meghan slurs.

  Glancing over at her, I see that her lip is busted and a trickle of blood is running down it.

  My eyes swing between Alexei and her.

  My brain is processing too much shit. Her hurting and exposed. Him fucking living and breathing.

  She’s strapped down on a fucking medical table, her legs up in fucking stirrups. And I have no clue who the fuck the dead man slumped on top of her is, the way his face is mangled from the exit wound of the bullet makes it impossible to tell.

  “You hit her. You fucking touched her,” are the only words I can get out before I finally allow the red haze of lustful rage filter my sight.

  There’s a loud roaring sound that reverberates around the room as I charge at Alexei, and from the wide-eyed look the bastard gives me, I get the feeling it’s me who’s doing the roaring.

  I thought it was the fucking blood rushing in my veins, pounding in my ears, but it’s not. It’s me, and I’m finally allowing myself to be the fucking Hellhound I’ve always been.

  There’s nothing fancy in the way I’m going to hurt him. I just want to get my hands on him and beat his body to a bloody fucking pulp. I don’t need weapons or instruments of torture. Those wouldn’t work for what I want to do.

  I need to get my fucking hands on his fucking body and cause pain.

  I throw a huge fucking haymaker at his jaw, but he’s smart enough to see how much I’m telegraphing that punch. While he’s ducking low to steer clear of my overswing, I change the direction of my punch to land the arm around his shoulder.

  Wrapping him up, I slam into the desk that’s been pushed over into a corner of the office.

  He screams at me in Russian as he wrenches an arm around my neck, trying to get a hold of me.

  Nothing he does though is going to work. My mind has had too many fucking ups and downs. Too many gains and losses over the last couple of weeks.

  The final straw that breaks the chains of my inner fucking beast is Meghan’s blood. Blood that’s my fault. Blood that I should have been able to prevent from being spilt.

  He keeps going for the choke, but he can’t get the grip he so desperately needs around my neck. Growling out, I get both arms under him before I rip him off my neck. Tossing him across the office, I watch as he slams into the wall.

  His body leaves a good fucking sized dent. He’s only crumpled down for a moment before he starts to stand up.

  I’ve shaken his ass and rattled that big fucking head of his.

  Stalking over to him, I grab him by the collar of his shirt. He’s a prissy-dressed fuck in his suit and tie. But that about figures, all fucking dressed up like a bitch. Probably never truly had a hard day’s work in his life.

  Slamming my fist into his face makes me feel so much better as I wrangle him to stand up in front of me.

  “Didn’t your cunt of a mother ever tell you not to hit a lady?” I ask him, slamming him into the wall.

  “Fuck you!” he screams at me as he punches me in the stomach.

  He’s got a good jab, but it’s not hard enough to make me release him.

  Slamming my forehead into his nose is so fucking cathartic I do it two more times. Each time, I hear a crunch of bone breaking.

  Blood is all over my face when I finally pull back from him. It’s all his, though.

  Eyes glazed, he continues to shout a litany of broken English and Russian.

  I have no clue what the fuck he’s saying right now, and I really don’t care.

  Moving my hand down to his waistband, I lock onto it with a firm grip, then I latch onto his hair with my other hand.

  I want to see how far I can toss this motherfucker.

  Twirling around once, I lift his body into the air and send him flying across the office to slam into the opposite wall.

  “Fuck me! He tossed him at least ten feet!” Johnathan says with a laugh.

  Stomping over to Alexei, I can feel my hands squeezing. They ache with a need to hurt him right now, to cause more damage.

  Dragging Alexei up by his hair, I lean back and finally let the full force of my pent-up rage out.

  The first couple of hits are to th
e side of his jaw. It might be more than a couple, though, because soon enough I feel something shatter in his jaw.

  Teeth spit out of his mouth as he tries to desperately get my hands to release the grip I have on his head.

  “Useless motherfucker,” I snarl into his face as I rain blows into his ribs.

  Him being on the floor isn’t good enough for me right now so I stand him up like a fucking punching bag.

  How he stands there wobbly as a motherfucker, I don’t know, but I want to see if I can keep him from falling with just my fists.

  Each hit lifts him up enough to keep him from dropping between blows of my fists. I know there’s ribs cracking and breaking beneath my fists.

  Five or fifty blows go by and I can’t recall which number I’m closer to. All I know is that he stopped screaming somewhere in the middle of my punches.

  Pulling back from him, I watch as his body crumples to the floor.

  “Fucking anticlimactic motherfucking pussy!” I bellow at his unconscious lump of a fucking shit body. “You’re supposed to be some big bad! Some motherfucker who can put some damage on me! Fucking waste of breath!”

  Rearing back, I kick his kidneys with my fucking boots. Kick ‘em until I know I’ve caused serious internal bleeding.

  “You made me this fucking mad and you can’t even fucking put up a real fight!” I scream at him.

  Kneeling beside him, I raise my arm to start working on the side of his head when something pierces my brain like a bullet.

  “Gabriel,” a soft, feminine voice calls to me.

  I drop a fist to the side of his head with the intention of seeing if I can cave in his motherfucking skull.

  “Gabriel, stop it! I’m fucking naked under this sheet! Help me. Please,” she calls to me again, and that the red haze finally fades away as the colors of the real world seep back into my vision.

  “Fucking bitch,” I spit out on the body that’s barely breathing.

  Standing up, I look over to Johnathan who’s watching me with a bored look on his face. “You done?”

  Glancing around the room, I notice the blood splattered all over. All Alexei’s.