Chapter 13
You’re my obsession, I’m your possession. You own the deepest part of me…
Words lost all meaning.
I became a creature of suffering.
Tess wanted to die. My Tess. The woman who made my heart keep beating had resorted to the last option available.
She wants to die.
She wants to leave me permanently.
Whatever she’d lived through had been too much. Gone was the strong woman I knew, replaced with a shadow, a damaged hologram of who she used to be.
My arms tightened so hard I worried I might snap her in half. My entire body suffered jittery horror at the thought that even though I held her, I’d lost her.
I was too late.
The image of that f**king na**d bastard with his rancid c**k and the pitiful blonde girl beside Tess raped my mind.
My heart combusted with horror when I saw how similar Tess and the blonde looked. Their hair colour was so alike it tore my soul into pieces at the thought that I might’ve been too late. Too late to stop Tess being raped. Too late to stop her from suffering such tragedy again.
But I checked. When Tess passed out as I wrapped her snapped finger in some sheeting, I made sure to check she hadn’t been used. It killed me to invade her privacy, but I needed to know.
I had to know. I wouldn’t live with myself if she’d been violated again. Not after Lefebvre. Not after what I put her through. No one person should ever live through as much as Tess.
I wanted to howl to the bloody moon and shed my body in favour for something vicious with claws and fangs and no f**king conscience. I wanted to be the devil.
My mind dismembered from rational thought. I couldn’t think straight. I doubted I’d ever be sane again. The fact that Tess wasn’t bleeding between her legs helped me stay human for a little longer.
Tess weighed nothing in my arms as I carried her back the way we came. She’d lost so much weight she looked like a wraith. A blonde, delicate wraith with so many black bruises all over her she looked like a f**king domino.
My body wouldn’t stop trembling as every emotion went on hyper-drive. I wanted to kill. Fucking kill and kill and kill.
Tess thrashed, her face scrunched up with whatever hallucination she suffered. The track marks on her arms gave a vivid story of just what she’d endured.
I kept begging over and over. Her mind isn’t broken. Her mind isn’t broken. Once she detoxed, she’d be fine. I had to believe that.
My teeth clacked hard as I remembered what she’d said. She f**king talked to Brax. He lived in her mind, whispering to her, offering all sorts of comfort. Why didn’t she dream of me? I would give anything for her to think of me. To find solace in my memory.
You were never comforting. You were her master who played with her mind. How could she ever think of you fondly?
I couldn’t answer and it killed me all over again.
Coming to the fork in the corridor, I turned left, heading toward the large factory floor where we’d snuck inside.
We found the old fish-processing warehouse after a day of bribing the head of police. He’d had morals and refused for a time, but then we’d found out via other means that Smith paid off airport officials to transport his cargo.
I admit I went berserk at the thought of Tess flying away from me again. I grabbed the police chief by the throat and pulled out my trusty knife, all while Franco kept watch so we weren’t disturbed.
Faced with losing his life, the police bastard spilled his guts. He knew Smith. He knew enough to make me want to exterminate him, too. However, once he squealed, we walked. Someone else would kill him. I had other men I wanted to bleed.
My skin wouldn’t stop crawling as we entered the compound, moving in shadows and silence. When I found Tess, my heart spontaneously exploded into shards.
I’d never felt this way before. So weak. So afraid. So helpless.
The tightness around my throat squeezed harder as I looked at the unconscious woman in my arms. Blood oozed through the sheet around her finger, and I would never be able to erase the image of her bone sticking through her skin.
Her jaw was swollen and shadowed while other abuse marked her perfect skin. Every mark punctured a hole into my soul.
If only I never went to work. If only I was strong enough to be open and tell Tess I cared deeply for her. Be brave enough to share every secret and swear every promise.
If only I’d asked her for proof that she removed the f**king tracker.
Because of me the Red Wolverine saw through my act and took revenge on Tess. He managed to cut my balls off and bury me alive by taking the one thing I couldn’t live without.
I did this by being selfish. I wanted her too much to let her go, but at the same time she lived in constant danger thanks to me. And it would only get worse. The word was out that I killed cocksuckers who traded women. Death threats were coming and I knew I had to kill them, before they killed me.
I cradled Tess closer, willing my heat to enter her freezing form. Franco appeared, striding toward me, carrying the other blonde girl who had blood smeared on the insides of her thighs. She was white as a corpse and her eyes held an expression I knew all too well: the expression of no return. An empty shell where a soul had flown free to escape reality.
So many slaves had come to me with that look. They were the hardest to fix. To coax back into their bodies and not let them whither into nothingness as they lost the will to live.
Franco set his jaw and didn’t say a word.
I hugged Tess ever harder and strode toward the back of the warehouse. The whole place was black with filth and stank. Unused for years, it’d found a new purpose: trafficking.
Normally, if I found a place like this, I would dispatch Franco and a few of his best men. I would let them infiltrate and get their hands dirty. My profile as CEO was too well known to risk becoming a vigilante.
But that was over now. I could indulge in a little ‘kill the f**king ra**st.’
This time I would tear every motherfucker into pieces. I would dance in the cooling puddles of their blood as I burned the entire place to the ground. Q Mercer no longer existed. I didn’t care about my company or image.
Now all I cared about was smashing every single f**ker who hurt women. Who hurt my woman.
Gone was my act. This would be the first time I’d fully let myself go, and I didn’t want witnesses. I planned to savour the kill. Drag it out, taunt my prey until he begged. And then, when they could no longer speak from such agony, I’d dispatch them with no mercy.
“Frederick has taken Alpha team to round up the remaining ass**les while Beta squadron has found over twenty girls in numerous rooms.”
Tess coughed, wheezing loudly in my arms. My heart lurched at the sound. It wasn’t good. She was sick. Her pallor and fever scared me shitless.
Franco muttered, “She’ll be fine. We just need to get her home.”
Home.
A place where I used to be free, but not anymore.
The moment Tess walked into my life she owned me. I would never be free again. I never wanted to be free again. If Tess thought she’d leave me by killing herself, she’d hate me for eternity when I kept her alive.
Footsteps sounded behind us. Franco and I turned to face the crowd of people as they arrived from the corridor. The cavernous factory floor with old rusty machinery and decrepit conveyor belts welcomed both traffickers and slaves.
Frederick ushered in the malnourished and dirty women. They blinked when they came closer to me.
Franco murmured to the girl in his arms, “Can you stand on your own?”
The girl took a while to reply, and even then it was a vacant nod. Franco settled her on her feet, making sure the blanket covered her.
The girls all came to a stop, clutching each other’s hands, looking frantically around the room.
Now his arms were free, Franco strode toward his team who had guns trained on the ten or so traffickers who moved forward in a mixture of hatred and guilt.
When the na**d ass**le who’d raped the blonde girl walked past, Franco slapped him around the head. I’d never seen such a black look of rage in Franco’s eyes. He’d always been so good at hiding it, but I guessed tonight was a first for all of us. He would kill and love it and I’d let him. There were enough for both of us to sate our murderous hunger.
Violence was permitted when such f**kers existed as these.
“Where do you want them?” Franco asked, looking at me with anger glowing in his eyes.
I jiggled Tess in my arms, positioning her higher all the while I itched to go and finish what I promised.
Surveying the best place for a massacre, I pointed with my chin. “Line them up over there.” Directly in the middle of the factory floor, with the conveyer belt to their backs and spray-painted windows to the front. No one would see and at two a.m. in the morning, I doubted anyone would hear. But just to be sure.
“Gag them. All of them.”
Franco smiled tightly. “No f**king problem.”
I stayed frozen with a fitful, unconscious Tess in my grip while Franco ordered everyone onto their knees and directed his team to stuff old packing material into their mouths before sealing with duct tape.
“Take the women outside,” I ordered one of Franco’s men. They shouldn’t have to see this.
The man nodded and motioned for the women to leave. They shuffled away, looking over their shoulders, seeing their kidnappers for the last time.
Once they were gone the na**d ra**st tried to stand and fight. “You won’t f**king get away with this. People will come and slit your throats in your sleep. They’ll put a bounty on your head.”
Franco pushed him back, almost forcing his fist inside his mouth as he stuffed him like a Christmas turkey. “We’re counting on it, you dickshit. The more of your kind we can cull the better.”
The man in the blue shirt and jeans—obviously the f**king ringleader—said softly, “You’re making a huge mistake, my friend. Just take your girl and go, but leave the rest with us. I’ll pretend this never happened and I won’t tell the Wolverine a thing.”
My hands clenched around Tess. This was the bastard who ordered every diabolical thing that’d been done to my woman. I trembled with ferocity, forcing myself not to break Tess’s fragile form.
“You’re not my f**king friend and I will take my girl and leave, but I’m not leaving you alive.” I took a few steps closer. “The Wolverine is already dead. Just like you.”
A woman whimpered; my heart hardened to rock. Her long black hair was tangled, her cheeks stretched with the duct tape over her mouth. A woman involved with trafficking women? I couldn’t think of anything more traitorous. She’d be the first to die.
Some men cried, some moaned, others pleaded, warbling around their gags, but it fell on deaf ears.
Not one of my team held any compassion. We were there to do the human race a favour by obliterating such evilness.
My jaw clenched. It was time to get dirty. Time to bloody my hands in honour of the woman who owned me.
I moved toward Frederick. He gave me an understanding nod as his eyes fell on Tess.
Her head lolled like a floppy doll against my shoulder. I couldn’t bear the thought of putting her down. But I had no choice.
Frederick made eye contact, asking silently to take her.
I looked away, wanting so badly to kiss Tess and make everything disappear from her mind. I wanted her to wake up whole and undamaged. But I would never live with myself if I didn’t kill every last bastard. I had to relinquish her…for now.
Slowly, I angled my body toward him. Frederick moved closer, brushing my arms with his as he readied himself to take her weight.
“Wait,” I snapped.
Frederick didn’t say a thing, stepping away. I rolled my neck, centring myself.
I cleared my throat, facing the men and women who made their living stealing the lives of others. Police hadn’t punished them. Karma hadn’t cared. But me? I cared a shitload, and they were about to get their just rewards.
“See this woman?” I held Tess higher, raising my arms like she was on a pyre ready to burst into flames. “You did this to her.” My eyes glazed recalling the fighter, the amazing woman who captured my heart, and not the flightless bird in my arms. My voice came thicker, roughed with hatred. “You stole everything from her. You stole her entire life not once but f**king twice. I don’t know what goes through your head. I don’t f**king want to know. I’ve always classified myself as a fair man even though every day I battle black desires. I see the satisfaction such a trade can bring. I see the temptation for money and the dark call of lust. But what I don’t see is how you lost so much of your humanity that you let yourself give in. You sicken me. You disgust me, and I promise no one will care when you rot in your unmarked graves.”
The line of ten or so men squirmed on their knees, testing the ropes around their wrists, working the gags. The woman hung her head, but kept glaring at me with black evil. She was a true psychopath. No feelings or sense of right and wrong.
I motioned to Frederick to take Tess. He came forward and opened his arms, easing them beneath mine. My body ripped into pieces as Tess’s gentle weight transferred from my arms to his. He cradled her with such compassion I suffered a bolt of hot green jealousy.
I lashed out, clamping my fingers around Tess’s arm.
Frederick froze, watching me carefully. “She’s yours, man, I get it. She’ll always be yours. I’m just keeping her safe for you while you avenge her honour.”
It took everything I had to relax my grip and nod.
I held out my hand to Franco, who stood to my right. “Give me the pliers, Franco.”
Frederick sucked in a breath and stepped hastily back, cradling Tess’s head on his shoulder. Immediately Franco obeyed, passing over the tools used to break my woman’s finger.