by Keta Kendric
He waited until the sound of gunfire lessened before he proceeded to shove me back towards the living room.
“Arjen! Arjen!”
His loud yell detonated like a boom, rumbling throughout the house. How was Arjen supposed to hear him yelling with weapons fire still sounding off?
Like the men were connected to his mind, the gunfire ceased. The silence hung heavily in the air, a willing participant in the chaotic drama unfolding. Arjen, along with two of his men stormed into the living room, M4’s jammed into their shoulders, aimed and primed to take down whoever and whatever.
They looked like members of the deadliest mercenary team ever assembled. The determined set in Arjen’s stance and grip on his weapon drew tighter once he set his sights on the man standing behind me. Recognition and anger flashed in his gaze that led me to believe he was staring at the living representation of the ghost that haunted him.
“How the fuck did you get out? Are you ready to die because your men are already dead?”
Who the hell was standing behind me? What devil had staggered from hell to put that death-threat of an expression on Arjen’s face and in his tone? Why at first glance had the man appeared familiar to even me?
He’s blind in the left eye, Mecca, the little voice of reason and memory reminded me.
Arjen’s face changed from dangerous sexy mercenary to a demon possessed by pure evil. There was no doubt about it, if I hadn’t been in the way, the man would be long dead.
“I figured you would kill them all, and would have been disappointed in you if you hadn’t. I trained you well, son.”
The chill that rode my back at the man’s confirmation was as chilling as if a black widow had bitten into my skin and poisoned my blood, before it dissolved my bones.
Silvia’s explosive reveal, along with Arjen’s father crawling his way back from hell, confirmed that the amount of chaos in this day knew no bounds.
The story Arjen told me about his father and their vow to get rid of him after he took Khane’s eye was still fresh in my mind. He was supposed to be rotting away in a Russian prison, but here he was, the devil himself with his hooves wrapped around me.
“I needed them to hold you off long enough to finally get my hands on this slippery little bitch, and you sent her right to me. You picked a good tough one. I’ll give you that. Twice, I’ve tried to kill her, but she refuses to fucking die. Figured I’d have to do it myself.”
If the glare in Arjen’s eyes got any deadlier, it would replace the weapon in his hand.
“After seven years of hell, the idiots I paid to find me if I ever disappeared finally did their fucking jobs. You’ve been getting feedback from a decoy they paid with cigarettes to take my place in prison for the last six months until I recovered, only to find out I will die anyway. Tuberculosis. I’m a fucking walking disease thanks to you and that bastard brother of yours.”
“Good. I hope you’ve been suffering well.”
The edginess in Arjen’s body suggested he was ready to set hell loose on his father. The hard shove that the old goose-necked bastard delivered to my back, had me standing in the middle of a father and son that hated each other enough to set the world on fire.
Why hadn’t Arjen’s men fired on the old man? A glance at them revealed the kind of stressed expressions I never expected to see on their faces. What had them so shaken? Why had Arjen’s grip on his weapon loosened? Why had Khane walked in and stopped in his tracks, his gun aimed, but his expression a thousand miles away? Why hadn’t I accepted the truth already?
I peered across my shoulder at the man whose smile cemented me in place. His eyes were aimed at Arjen and the gun at me.
“Revenge is all I wanted before I died. But, before you kill me, son, I’m going to take the one thing I know you cherish more than your own life. My plan was to kill that bastard standing next to you, until I discovered you actually had enough love left in you to give to someone else.”
He was going to shoot me in the back. Thoughts were zooming through my head like a freight train. My eyes were fixed on Arjen’s now, hoping he could read my last words.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
No sound registered, but the look of horror on Arjen’s face, and the rest of his men’s faces, was followed by the harsh push that came from the force of the bullet traveling from a Glock-17. My Glock. The asshole had used HB to end my life.
The heat, the pain, the pressure of a ripped apart organ. All of this registered as I ignited in burning pain before I went hurtling towards the floor. The first things to strike the immovable marble were my hands, which did nothing to stop the floor from giving me a full-body punch.
I had prayed that my death would be swift. It was all that I had asked for when my time came. However, my senses sharpened, allowing me to see and feel everything. The scent of my blood replaced the air I struggled to breathe. The taste of death on my tongue mingled with the pain biting through me like acid.
“Mecca!”
My name was being shouted, causing an eerie echo to bounce against my one half-working eardrum at full volume before fading into whispers.
I attempted to pick myself up, but my arms were overcooked noodles, limp and useless. My attempts only left me lifting a little and trembling back down to the cold floor, lifting and back down. The center of my body, the part that needed the most protection, had to have been ripped open.
With each desperate breath I sucked in, my chest heaved and my lungs flatlined, unwilling to participate in a process that should have been normal. Air would only go so far down my throat before I gagged, choking on what I believed was my own blood.
“Mecca! You’re all right.”
Arjen was lifting and turning me so that I faced the ceiling. The room swam across my vision, shadows that I assumed were Arjen’s men were floating around me.
“You’re okay,” he kept saying. I had either lost my chain or the device had stopped working because I could no longer hear Arjen and relied on my ability to read lips. I was suffocating, choking on the thick rusted liquid filling my mouth.
“Let me see. Slowly. Take breaths as slowly as you can.”
He took deep breaths, attempting to breathe with me. I think I said okay, but panic set in when the struggle to breathe grew increasingly difficult, and each breath brought on a hacking cough that shot blood from my mouth into the air.
My legs kicked, and my arms were barely flailing while I fought for my life, for air, for Arjen. I had always known that this life would snuff me out, but I never imagined I would go this way, in my own home.
“Don’t you even think of leaving me, Mecca. You fucking fight. Fight!”
I was trying, for Arjen, trying to breathe, but I was too broken. I sensed death lurking the same way I had always been able to sense danger. The grim reaper had a tight grip around my neck and wouldn’t release me—wouldn’t allow me a single drop of air.
“Don’t close your eyes? Keep looking at me.”
The vibration of his voice bounced off of me, and I was barely able to read his lips because my eyes were too heavy for me to keep them open. My lungs felt like they were cooking over a flame, blazing from the inside out.
I lost muscle control and was left jerking while I heaved and gagged, struggling for breaths that wanted nothing to do with me anymore. The hacking coughs came with each sip of air I fought to take. Arjen was working on me, attempting to fix something that was too damaged for repair.
At least I had been lucky enough to experience love before I was taken. Now, I was in the quiet with the chaos in my mind laying claim to me. I caught snatches of Arjen’s tensed face, his haunted eyes, and his frantic hands searching for healing where there was none.
He was so handsome, the best thing to fill my vision before my strength was snatched, and I began thrashing violently while gagging on a river of blood.
Would Arjen morn me, or would vengeance be his new mistress?
39
Arjen
“Mecca, listen to me love. I’m not going to let you leave me. Not like this. You’re strong baby, fight. Fight goddammit!”
My stubborn tear ducts that I was sure had dried up when I was a kid, still worked. Tears flowed like my eyes held storm clouds. The over accumulation of emotions tortured me. The sight of my wife fighting for air snatched away my sanity piece by piece. The helplessness ripped holes in my nerves, rendering me as helpless as her lungs were at the moment.
Think! Goddammit think! Help your wife, you fucking fumbling idiot!
I went from coaching myself on how to help Mecca to yelling for her to fight when her body went into a fit of harsh jerks.
Khane was stooping on the other side of her with an expression of horror I had never seen on his face. He gripped her hand, not saying a thing, but appearing to be willing her well with his thoughts and set gaze.
A set of harsh trembles invaded me as my mind exploded into a mountain of scrambled words. I was unable to put the words in sequence to form logical thoughts for me to follow. I was losing it along with the only woman I had ever loved.
The walking devil that called himself my father was right about one thing, I loved Mecca more than I ever loved myself. I had fallen head over heels for her almost instantly, although I was too damn stubborn to accept it right away.
Discovering that she loved me back, spoke a new purpose into my life. Her love had caused me to seek out what there was about myself that I could start loving. If someone as precious as Mecca could love me, there was goodness and decency in me that I could love too.
We hadn’t been together long, but Mecca was my everything. With her, I’d begun to live my life for the first time. Every aspect of me had grown more vibrant. Sharing this life with her had opened me to myself, and I was learning what it was like to live, to appreciate, and to grow as a man and a husband.
“Mecca, please. If you leave me, I’ll wither up and die. I know I will. I won’t make it without you. I won’t do this without you.” Eyes blurred, lips quivering, and my heart in my throat, I was a fucking mess.
When she stopped convulsing, I froze. My gaze zoomed in on her shut eyes as her body relaxed.
“No! No! No! Mecca, nooo!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, fully aware that every eye in the room was on me. I shook her, refusing to let her go, refusing to let her slip away. It was too soon. We’d hardly had any time together.
A hand on my shoulders pressed hard, attempting to stop me. The sound of multiple voices called out, telling me she was gone. Fuck them! I wasn’t letting my wife leave me.
“Wake up, love. I need you.” I sobbed, my weeping cries tore from my chest as tears leaked down my cheeks and over my chin.
“Get up, Mecca. You can’t leave. You said we were in this together, remember?”
When the hand on my shoulder slipped down and encircled me, I twisted, shaking the person off.
“Get the fuck off me! I need to help my wife!”
Khane continued to hold on to Mecca’s hand, but his gaze was locked on me. More hands tugged at me, attempting to separate me from her, but I fought them away.
I positioned her so that I could start CPR. I didn’t give a fuck about what anyone had to say, I wasn’t going to let my wife die. Pinching her nose, I cupped my mouth over hers and breathed into her, watching the rise and fall of her chest. She couldn’t do it on her own, so I would breathe for her, for as long as it took.
I don’t know how long I’d been forcing breaths into Mecca, but Khane was right there with me, giving her chest compressions. He was the only one not attempting to convince me that she was already gone. He was the only one that would have been willing to march clean through to the other side of life with me to get Mecca back if that was what it took.
When a force I couldn’t fight dragged me, yelling and kicking away from Mecca, Khane stood and came to my aid, fighting off the group that had gathered at my back to separate me from my wife.
“If she dies because you didn’t let me help her, I’m killing every last one of you. Get the fuck off me!”
I fought like a mad man, throwing wild punches, as my eyes found Mecca laying lifeless on the floor. In my frantic attempts to shove life into her, I hadn’t noticed the large puddle of blood that had pooled around her body. Even at the sight of it, I wasn’t convinced that she was gone. She was still here. I felt her.
“Mecca!” I yelled. My roar shook the walls while I attempted to break free of the multiple sets of arms holding me.
“Let me go. Get the fuck off. Let me help my wife!”
“She’s gone, boss. She’s gone.”
“Mecca!” I continued to yell, kicking and punching. The force of my blows had knocked one set of arms free and gave me the leverage I needed to get the rest of them off me. With Khane’s help, I fell back to Mecca’s side and continued breathing life into her. I didn’t care what anyone had to say, she was not gone. It was something that I was not accepting. Ever.
I knew I was delirious, losing my sanity, but if Mecca was leaving, I was set to follow her wherever she was going. I stilled and my blood froze in my veins. My abrupt stop had caused Khane to go still and stare up at me.
Was that her pulse that just jumped under my fingertips?
40
Khane
My brother was on the warpath and rightfully so. The love of his life had been gunned down by our father, the devil that turned us into death soldiers.
I stared into the face of one of the few left of the fifteen that were my father’s keepers and instrumental in setting him free. It had taken Arjen and me three weeks to find them all because our dedication to avenging Mecca had been that strong.
The men’s loyalty to our father had cost them their lives. Time didn’t matter. Who they were associated with didn’t matter either. We weren’t going to stop our deathly rampage until they were all dead.
The screams were music to my ears. I relished the sound of death, the incredibly unnecessary actions one would take to prevent that which was inevitable. Arjen was feeding my sinful connection with a death straight from the pages of the devil’s playbook.
We had hunted high and low, near and far until we found the man with the accent. He was someone me and Arjen knew. He was who had hired the assassins that facilitated the highway ambushes on Mecca and us.
Adrik Morozov was my father’s long time Russian associate. Adrik was the closest thing my father had to a best friend and my father’s connection to all sorts of illegal business in Russia. Now, his loyalty to our father had Arjen, the Lord of Untimely Death, peering down at him.
The man had suffered at Arjen’s hand for the past week as he fed him pain to extract the information we needed to find most, if not all of the members of our father’s loyal rescue party.
Arjen had the man on his knees in the prayer position with his face tilted down. It wasn’t so much the position that was the kicker, it was how Arjen had staged the man’s face.
He began asking questions, and each time the man gave an answer he didn’t want to hear, he’d force him to open his mouth and bite the pointed edges of the stone wall before him. The man resembled a mouse biting into a too big wedge of cheese.
His mouth was wide open, with the jagged edges of the gray stone wedged between his teeth. His shrill yells bounced off the walls like invisible yo-yo’s, the sound waves almost tangible.
Each day, Arjen would come up with a new horror to put the man through, siphoning information from him each time. Now, he had a tight grip of the man’s hair, controlling his head.
“How many of you are left?”
Blood drizzled down the man’s chin from the stone pushing at his teeth and biting into his tongue.
“We are it. Fifteen.”
Fifteen was the answer we had gotten from each man we had tortured, and I was starting to believe it as the truth because we were down to the last two, and the answer hadn’t changed yet.
“I don’t believe that shit.”
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br /> Arjen pressed the man’s face into the jagged edges of the thick chock of stone until a nasty crunch sounded, breaking his nose. Blood poured from the man’s face.
“Open your fucking mouth and bite the rock,” he ordered. The sight was horrific enough to make the devil proud. Once the man had his mouth wide open, Arjen shoved his face into the stone so that a wide wedge was back between his exposed teeth. The pressure that was put on the back of the man’s head had his jaw stretched alligator wide.
A sickening crunch sounded before teeth went flying in different directions from the sudden punch Arjen delivered to the back of the man’s head. I had witnessed horrific shit, most of it delivered by my hands, but Arjen was earning his nickname this day.
Piss leaked from the screaming man’s pants. Arjen jerked the man’s mangled mouth from the rock as blood and teeth continued to fall from his face. He leaned down next to his ear, telling him something I couldn’t hear.
The man’s lips were so damaged that his begging words were nothing more than bloody mumbles. Mercy was not on his side tonight as his mouth was placed back on the stone, his jaw even wider as his cries and whimpers, and trembling and begging groans were ignored.
A deep squint tightened my eyes when Arjen held the man’s head in place with a hand pressed to the back of his head. His arms were long enough that he stepped back from the struggling man and sent a powerful kick to the area where his hand had been.
The man’s face was crushed into the stone. The rest of his teeth, along with his jawbone, shattered as the red of blood mixed with the ebony of bone and teeth fragments poured from what was once his face.
A gaping opening was left where his mouth and nose used to be. His convulsing body slid down the wall, leaving a trail of blood and tissue behind until he hit the floor.
Arjen didn’t even stay to survey the damage he had done as he was on to the last man. For once, I was worried about my brother’s mental state when he was usually the one that worried about mine.