Invincible(52)

Shane waves his hands. He’s telling the guy he’ll wait.

The guy gets to his feet. Wipes the blood off his face. He puts his fists up and nods. A sign of respect, sure.

Ten seconds later Shane gets the knockout punch. A hard right to the guy’s jaw that sends him spinning and collapsing to the floor. Later, we’ll find out that the guy broke his jaw in two spots.

After the fight, I stand there as Shane unwraps bloody tape from his hands and wrists.

“Why’d you let him back up?” I ask. “You had him.”

Shane looks at me and smiles. “Nothing wrong with a little honor, brother. He’s pressing against my body, shaking. So I let him up. Let him go with honor.”

Honor.

It sticks with me.

Honor.

I respect it.

Honor.

The moment is the most important between me and Shane.

Well, until I’m on my knees, scooping up his brains from the floor… when he’s killed…

My eyes popped open. My hands pressed to the floor and I pushed up. I got to my knees and looked around. The room spun for a few seconds and I fell forward. I heaved with a thundering groan and then fell to my side.

“No,” I whispered. “Rose…”

Darkness again.



~



My eyes opened a second time. Or maybe it was a third time. All I knew was that I needed to get to my feet and get the f*ck out of the cabin. Someone had taken Rose.

Luke?

The Assassin?

On my knees, I looked around. The room was much calmer. Back on my feet, I was good to go. I looked around and felt like I was going to throw up again. Two of the black masked men were on the floor, shot to death. And then there was Tommy.

“Tommy,” I whispered.

I reached down and put my fingers to his eyes and closed them.

Rest in peace.

Yeah, Tommy was a bad guy. He killed a lot of people. But nothing came without some kind of warrant. Aton ran the show and Tommy was always loyal. Even if he was a grumpy, Italian prick. He didn’t deserve this kind of death. Yeah, maybe a bullet was the way to go in this life, but not because of me. Because of Rose. Because of the lie I started and now spread to this.

I went to the door and looked out.

How the f*ck did it get like this?

I rush to the car I had stolen and half expected it to blow up.

It didn’t.

I got it to start and drove. I couldn’t stop thinking about Rose. My hands were tight on the wheel, my anger at an all time high. There was so much damage I wanted to do to the world, all because the only beauty in it was gone. That was Rose.

I knew it had to be her brother.

Who else would come for her like that? And we had been so close to leaving. With Aton alive that meant we had hope.

But now, without Rose, there was no hope.

I was back to square one.

A lonely fighter with an empty heart.

The difference was that Rose was alive. So I had something to fight for.





37.


(Rose)



I was back in the apartment. The little piece of shit apartment that stunk of garlic and tomatoes. There was always a lingering smell of the restaurant, but it was the worst when they were preparing the food for the night. The smell was good for about two seconds but it quickly became overwhelming.

There was nothing I could do to get out of the apartment. Not because I feared what Luke would do but because he had me tied to a chair. This was where everything broke down.

He left to take a phone call and I sat there alone.

My heart ached. My body ached. Everything ached.

I wanted to know if Wes was okay. He didn’t need to die in all this. He put himself in the mix of this without knowing the full truth. I didn’t want him to know that Luke had been the one who killed Shane. Because of that, Wes wanted Luke to die. The crazy part was that I believed Wes could do it. Even with all of Luke’s power…

The door opened.

Luke tucked his cell away. He looked angry. He stormed right at me and slapped me across the face. The pain was white hot and I fell over, still tied to the chair. Luke quickly lifted me back up and had his face near mine.

“Fuck,” he growled.

“What did I do now?”

“You want to go rot in jail, Rose?”

“I don’t care, Luke.”

He curled his lip. “What? You love Wes?”

“Yes. I do.”

Luke shook his head. “And you told him about me, didn’t you?”

“That you killed his brother? Yes.”

“Fucking bitch.”

“You had no right to do that,” I said. “Dad told you. How many times…”

Luke made a fist and I shut right up. The rage was back in his eyes. He turned and ran toward the wall, driving his fist through it. The wall crumbled like it was a brown paper bag. Luke pulled his fist back and it was bleeding.

“I never wanted that life,” Luke said. “He forced me into it. He forced you into it. This life, Rose, is better. For all of us. Let someone else do the fighting.”

“No,” I said. “You can’t handle the power. Look at all the damage you’ve caused, Luke.”

There was no reasoning with Luke, yet I was trying to do it.

“And the damage will keep coming,” he said. “Until I’m in control.”