by Chloe Walsh
With slumped shoulders, I made my way up the porch steps, Kyle's words of wisdom still pelting around in my mind…
"You stupid little shit," my brother hissed. "If you don’t stop this goddamn suicide mission, I'll kill you myself. She's your woman. Her worries are valid. You want a long and happy marriage? Then listen to an old man. Make. Her. Happy. Don’t put the girl under unnecessary strain. And she comes above all else. Pride. Fighting. Career. She needs to be your number one. Top, middle, and only priority. Remember that, kid, and we might just make a husband out of you."
She brought me to my knees.
Loving that woman was going to be the death of me and I would gladly die if it meant she would live. I would retire if it meant my world wouldn't be devoid of my Thorn. She was too brilliant, too good, too fucking important to me to risk on wounded pride.
The moment I stepped inside the front door, I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something was wrong. Very fucking wrong.
"Thorn?" Calling out her name, I rushed from room to room, looking for my wife and coming up empty. "Teagan?"
Where was she?
I checked every floor of the house, looked in every room and closet.
Nothing
I just knew something was wrong; everything inside of me was on alert, coiled tight with worry and anxiety.
What the fuck was happening and where was my wife?
When my phone rang in my pocket, I quickly pulled it out and physically sagged in relief when her name came up on the screen.
"Thorn? Thank god. Where the hell are you, baby?"
The relief in my heart quickly turned to ice in my veins when I heard the voice of my nightmares.
"Noah fucking Messina," JD Dennis sneered down the line. "How the hell are you, you little pyromaniac?"
"You're alive," I said flatly.
"And so is your pretty little wife," he sneered. "For now, at least."
"What do you want, JD?"
My scalp prickled.
My body was on high alert.
I weighed in my options – I didn’t have any.
Not a single one.
I was willing to do anything for Teagan's life and that's exactly what this prick wanted.
Power over me.
"Come to the Ring of Fire, and we can talk."
"I'm on my way."
"Oh and, Noah?" JD added. "Come alone. Tell a soul and your wife joins your daddy in the family plot."
****
Teagan
"I'm going to kill you." Smiling sadistically at me, the red headed man I knew as JD Dennis walked in slow circles around my slung up body. "Before the sun comes up, I'll have put a dozen bullets in your pretty little body."
"Then get on with it." I yanked against the chains shanking me. My arms were slung up above my head, dangling in a pair of steel shackles, my feet were tied with rope. "You already have me so what are you waiting for?"
"You're not afraid of dying?"
"Not much point in being afraid when you're going to kill me anyway," I shot back with a weary, humorless laugh. JD failed to realize that I had been tortured beyond all measures. "Death doesn't scare me anymore. Fucking do it."
"Soon," he mused. "Have a little patience."
"Have a fucking aneurysm," I shot back. Freddy Kruger was a beauty in comparison to this freak. One side of his face had been literally melted "I thought someone smoked your ass in a motel up north?"
"Courtesy of your husband," JD growled, pointing to his mangled face. "But as you see, I made it out."
"Pity," I muttered under my breath as I reeled. Noah set the fire? He tried to kill JD? Oh god. They weren't ever letting me leave this place.
"You have one dirty mouth for a little lady."
"Didn't your mother ever tell you size doesn't matter?"
"No, as a matter of fact she didn't."
"Well, I bet you've heard that from at least one other woman in your lifetime," I sneered. I was physically exhausted and freezing to death, but I still managed to scrape up the energy to hack up a phlegm-ball and spit in his face.
"Haven't you figured it out by now," he chuckled darkly. "Talking back is going to cost you, Blondie." Turning to one of his stooges, JD said, "Taz, remove the little wife's shirt."
I didn't bother protesting when the lanky blonde man with the greased back ponytail walked towards me. He'd already taken my jeans and coat. I didn't flinch when he took his knife and ripped my shirt down the front so that it hung limply on my shoulders like an opened shirt. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. The other three men that were here leered at my body, taking their fill of my flesh.
"Ah," JD announced cheerily. "This is much better." Turning his attention back to me, he studied me with feigned interest, though when his gaze landed on the bare flesh of my stomach, his eyes lit up with genuine curiosity. Not even JD could dismiss or hide the keen interest in his ice grey eyes as they roamed over my skin.
The soft, saggy, silvery scaled skin of my stomach that housed my caesarian section scar was a cruel reminder. A reminder of the child beneath the dirt that I was supposed to nourish and keep safe.
The child this bastard stole from me.
My baby.
"That's right," he mused, taking a step towards me. "They had to cut it out of you."
"It?" I demanded in absolute fucking horror. "It?" Yanking so hard against my chains that layers of skin scraped away, I longed to kill this man. I longed to take the air from his lungs. I yearned to expel his very existence. "That was my daughter, you sick son of a bitch, and her blood is on your hands."
Turning to his gang, he explained, "Messina's bastard," before inclining his head towards me. "And if you'd taken my sister's advice all those years ago when she told you to stay away from Noah Messina, then maybe that little baby of yours would have had a different paternity and a different outcome," he roared at me. "But you didn't heed our warning. Not only did you not listen, but you directly interfered with our affairs."
"You're a baby killer," I screamed, thrashing against the binds that held me in place. "You're a piece of shit."
Suddenly JD was in my face and branding a shiny silver knife. "I wonder how long it would take you to bleed out if I opened this wound," he growled as he pressed the tip of the blade against my scar. "Seconds?" He increased the pressure. "Minutes?"
Whimpering, I recoiled away from the blade. A loud sob broke through my resolve as I cowered away from the sadistic psychopath brandishing the knife.
The men around me laughed. They enjoyed my fear. They were as sick in the head as their leader was.
"All talk, Blondie," JD sneered as he tucked his knife back into his jeans. "Feisty like a pretty little kitten, but no real claws or fight in you."
Fury raged inside of me, overtaking all common sense – overriding the will to stay alive.
"Here's some talk for you, asshole," I snarled. "How did it feel when your dear old daddy died all alone in a prison cell and you weren't there to say goodbye to him?" Straightening up, I jutted my chin out and glared. "And you want to talk about me being a kitten?" I laughed humorlessly. "You're the pussy who ran and hid for the past god knows how many years."
JD's nostrils flared.
His cheeks turned the same color of his hair. "Not smart, Blondie." Seconds after the words were out of JD's mouth, his boot came towards my face and cracked me in the mouth with more force than I'd ever felt. "Not smart at all."
My head jolted backwards, a direct result of the blunt force trauma.
And then he kicked me again and again.
Pain engulfed me.
Burning agony spread through my body, taking leave of my senses until all I could feel was pain, see was darkness, and smell was blood. I was trying to calm myself down. I was breathing fast and hard. And even though I was breathing fast, I felt as though I was inhaling through an empty abyss. I wasn’t getting any of the goodness of the oxygen flooding my lungs. My chest was burning. My eyes we
re stinging. My vision was blurring.
I could feel their eyes on me; leering, laughing beady eyes. My skin was flushed with embarrassment. I was dying from the inside out and these men were enjoying it. If it was the last thing I ever did, I would save face. I would not go down giving these men the satisfaction of knowing they had gotten to me. Because they had. And I was close to cracking.
"You know he's going to come for me," I managed to gargle as I choked and spluttered on my own blood. "Noah's going to come find me!"
"As a matter of fact, he's already on his way," JD shot back with a smirk. "Stupid little prick thinks he can save you." JD laughed darkly. "I'm going to enjoy this. I honest to god don’t know whose face I'd rather watch. His while I kill his precious Thorn, or yours while I kill him?" JD walked over to me and dipped his face into the crook of my neck before inhaling deeply. "Fuck," he said with a glint in his eyes. "I just might try me out some wifey before I cut that pretty body of yours up."
My skin prickled with unease.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I narrowed my eyes in disgust. It would be a cold day in hell before I begged this rat bastard for a thing – certainly not my life. "You don’t get it," I snapped. "You've already won. You took my child from me. Believe me when I tell you there is nothing left inside of me to break."
"Except him," JD mused. Raising his arm, he backhanded my face and laughed when I cried out. "Except for your darling husband."
"He's a better man than you," I spluttered, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Furious, I glared at the other men just standing around and watching this prick manhandle me. There were five men in total, JD included, and three of those men had dark, bloodlust looks on their faces, like this was turning them on "He's a better man than all of you," I hissed before looking at the fourth man. The man JD had called Taz. He was the one who had ripped my clothes off, and yet he didn’t look… pleased.
He didn’t look at me in the same way the other men did and all I could think when I looked into his cold brown eyes was 'maybe this one won't rape me…'
The sound of car tires screeching filled the air and JD actually clapped with joy. "It's party time, boys," he told the men.
And just like that, my avenging angel walked into my peripheral vision.
More beautiful and inhuman than anything I'd ever seen before.
My husband.
He'd come for me.
Like he always promised he would.
Here to save me.
Here to bleed with me…
****
Chapter Thirty-Four
Teagan
"Let her go, JD." Noah said in a deathly cold tone as he walked through the crackling flames and into the trap. From the look on Noah's face, he knew it was a trap too, but he didn’t have a choice. He was black and blue and limping, clearly injured from his earlier fight against Cole, but he was here.
I didn't want Noah to see me like this. I didn't want to compromise his position. To conflict him. I swallowed the blood in my mouth. Forced my features to remain impassive. He didn't need to know how much pain I was in.
"Of course I will," JD replied. "When you give me what I want."
Immediately, the three men surrounded Noah, all brandishing knives – their obvious weapon of choice.
Taz, on the other hand, came to stand beside me and JD. His weapon of choice was a gun and I flinched away from the black metal weapon.
Noah's head was cocked to the side as he slowly circled around. When we were younger, I would have interpreted that move as cockiness. But now that I knew Noah I knew this move as agitation. As fear. He was studying his surroundings. He was adding up the danger. He was preparing for a fight.
"What do you want?" Noah finally asked, never once looking at me. His voice was strained. He spoke slowly and carefully as if he was analyzing their words, their every move.
I knew my husband was on full alert and I hoped he didn’t look at me.
I didn’t want him to see me like this.
"You know," JD mused. "I thought I wanted to make you watch me kill your bitch, but I'm starting to grow fond of her smart mouth."
My smart mouth couldn’t resist hacking up a phlegm ball in that moment and spitting straight into JD's face. "Drop dead, asshole."
"You know what?" JD said as he wiped my spit from his face. He looked at Taz and smiled darkly. "Untie this bitch. I'm gonna put that mouth of hers to use."
"Touch her again and I'll fucking kill you," Noah snarled, chest heaving. He moved to come for me and three knives were pressed against his body.
Without hesitation, Taz pulled a blade out from behind his back and cut me down.
I fell heavily to the ground, groaning in pain.
"Good," JD said with a grin. "That's how I like my bitches. On their knees."
"Don’t you fucking dare," Noah strangled out, stepping into the knives the men had pressed to his chest. Blood trickled down his body but he kept moving for me.
"Noah, don't," I begged, feeling furious and desperate, as I dropped to my knees in front of JD Dennis. "I'm okay. I swear."
“Don’t beg them, Thorn,” Noah snarled before hissing in obvious agony. “Not for me, baby."
"Strip," JD ordered and I did.
I took everything off; every layer I had left on my body. As I removed my clothes, I saw that JD's focus was on my husband and it was then I realized it wasn’t me he was degrading.
It was Noah.
"I'm going to enjoy taking your bitch, Messina." JD said before slicing his knife across the tip of my breasts.
Hot, scorching pain shot through me and I cried out in agony.
"Scream," JD taunted. "It gets me hard."
"I'm going to kill you," Noah snarled as he struggled in vain to get to me "Slowly."
****
Noah
I knew I was walking into a trap before I step foot out of my car. But I didn’t have a choice. I knew whatever they did to me tonight and whatever they would ask of me, I would have to accept and endure because I didn’t have a choice.
The moment he took my wife he took my choices away from me.
"Let's play a game," JD announced with a grin, as he towered over my wife, holding a knife. "My best against my father's best. A fight to the death."
I wasn’t buying it.
Win or lose, I was going to die here tonight, but if fighting meant I could extend my wife's life, then that's what I would do. If I had to bleed every last drop of blood from my body in order to give her a fighting chance, then I would do it and I would do it gladly.
"Messina," JD said, gesturing to one of the pricks holding a blade to my chest. "I'd like you to meet Roy Jenkins."
This was the kid Tommy had forewarned me about, I realized, as I watched him circle me, blade in hand. The one JD had been grooming. He couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty.
I looked at this kid and realized this was me ten years ago.
I was this kid.
This hopeless, lifeless kid with blood on his hands and money in his mind.
"You might remember his mama," JD added. "The night you tried to burn me alive? Well, lucky for me, Roy here dragged me out. Couldn’t save his mama though. I'm sure you heard her screams."
Christ…
Staggering backwards, I held my hands up and looked into this kid's eyes. "I didn’t know she was in there," I told him in a low voice, never taking my eyes off him. "If I had… things would be different."
"I'm going to gut you," he hissed as he lurched forward, blade aimed at my throat.
Dodging his arm, I backed up, putting my fists up. "They killed my father," I said calmly, watching this kid like a hawk. "So I know how you're feeling." I ducked another blow and rolled out of the way. "But I won't let you kill me, kid." Ducking his blade once more, I speared him in the stomach and took him to the ground before wrestling the knife out of his hand.
"Well that was disappointing," JD muttered almost deje
ctedly. Waving his hand, he said, "Rules are rules. Go on and finish him."
Struggling to keep the kid pinned, I turned and glared at JD. "He's just a fucking child, man."
Reaching down, JD grabbed Teagan by the hair and dragged her roughly to her feet Pressing his knife to her throat, JD hissed, "Kill him, or watch me kill her."
I slit his throat.
He was dead within seconds.
I took this kid's life away and I did it without hesitation.
With the blade still in my hands, I climbed to my feet and stood beside the kid's dead body, feeling more vulnerable and broken than I had in my life. "What now?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the other two men closing in on me; one with a blade, the other brandishing a gun.
Every nerve in my body was on high alert. My muscles were tightened, coiled, preparing to strike and defend.
I knew there was no way out of this.
It was fight or die.
Lucky for me, I'd been training for this fight my whole life.
I looked around, desperately seeking out any exit Teagan could take. Some small glitch in their armor I could have her slip through.
She had to live.
And if I had to die in order to make that happen, then so be it.
When all was said and done, she was the only thing I saw. The one I'd give my life for. The one I breathed for.
Roughly throwing my wife on the ground, JD stalked towards me. "Did you think we were going to sit back and watch you and that slut have everything after destroying our world?"
Pulling a gun out of his pocket, he walked towards me with purpose.
My gaze flickered behind him, where I watched the guy with the ponytail ushering Teagan away and I sagged in relief.
I was going to die tonight, but she would live.
It was the way it should have been years ago.
If I'd died in the car that night, she would never have had to experience the horror she had.