On the Edge of Love (Mama's Brood Book 1) (38 page)

His smile turned cruel. “They all think that way in the beginning, but in the end they all give me exactly what I wanted. You will give me what I need over and over again. You won’t want to exist unless my dick is pumping somewhere deep inside of you.”

Sabrina felt some of the wildness that had overcome her when she was a child left with no options but to claw her way out of a bad situation. “Kragen, you try to touch me and I’ll give you more than you want or can handle.”

“So brave. So foolish. I’m going to enjoy digging my way through your body from the root all the way up to that vicious mouth of yours. I will possess every inch of you.”

“Just try it, asshole.”

Kragen stalked forward as she pushed off the wall and settled in a defensive stance Zeus had taught her. He grabbed for her, but she knocked his hand away, slamming her other fist into his jaw. She tried to put her foot through his dick and invert the son of a bitch, but he shifted and her foot grazed off the outside of his thigh. When she tried to correct her balance, he backhanded her, spinning her into the wall. She grimaced as he fisted her hair and slung her onto the bed. She tried to scramble to the other side, but he caught her ankle, flipping her onto her back. She kicked out her feet, rapidly hitting him in his wounded chest, his gut, and the side of the neck.

“Bitch!” he said. Securing one leg, he pulled her closer and punched her twice in the face. She continued to fight, but she was dazed, her movements less effective.

Tasting the coppery blood pooling in her mouth, she spit it toward his face and reached for her chopstick again. Instead of stabbing him, she scraped the metal tip down his face from temple to cheek.

He cried out, his hands going to his face as he flung himself away from her. Instead of running for the door, she leaped in his direction, her weapon poised to pierce his eye. Kragen shifted again, grabbed her wrist, and slammed it over and over against the corner of the end table.

“Never lose your blade,”
Zeus had instructed. She feared Kragen had fractured her wrist, but she never released her weapon. Kragen flipped her onto her stomach. Her wrist throbbed, but she wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t. Kragen pressed her face and throat into the carpeted floor. She could feel the heat of his erection pressing over her ass. Being held down, feeling him press his length against her, terrified her like nothing else could, and she struggled harder. Kragen chuckled as he thrust against her, grunting. Her struggles only seemed to arouse him more.

Sabrina had believed she was strong enough to withstand whatever he was capable of dishing out, but in this moment, she knew she had lied to herself. He pulled her clothing down her thighs, his erection bouncing against her bare ass as she tried to buck him off. She was losing touch with time, space, and matter in her seemingly useless struggle.

He had no right. She closed her eyes. Only Zeus had permission. She screamed in rage. She would
kill
Kragen for this. Kill him.

There was a thump, and Kragen’s hand went lax against the back of her neck as he cursed softly. His weight shifted, and she exploited the opportunity, scooting from beneath him and crawling forward in the direction of the bedroom door. She felt moisture spray over her body. It was raining blood. So much blood. Where did it all come from? It was in her hair, on the floor, on the bedcovers…

“You all right?” a cool, disembodied voiced asked behind her.

She jerked at the sound and looked back to see what could only be described as something not fully of this earth. Zeus was saturated in blood and human bits. The whites of both eyes were red. His soft golden hair was bloody. His thin white T-shirt and jeans were saturated, as was the double-sided ax he held. Kragen’s headless body lay at his feet.

“Zeus,” she whispered, clumsy in her attempt to stand. She took a step toward him but slipped on the blood-soaked carpet.

Zeus lunged and caught her before she fell on the body.

“He told me you were dead,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I thought you were dead, that Eddie had killed you and thrown your body in the ocean.”

“Overactive imagination,” he said, lightly running a finger over her face. “He beat you up pretty bad.”

“I got in my licks.”

“If I could, I would resurrect him. Kill him for each cut, each bruise, all the pain.”

“He would have raped me.”

“We would have handled it. I’d have helped you get back right.”

She snorted, laying her head against his chest. “You don’t even know the definition of right.”

“It means the opposite of wrong and left.”

She laughed through the hurt as her body trembled uncontrollably. He pulled her tighter against him, resting his chin on the crown of her head.

“I can get used to this, you always being there when I need you.”

“You love me?”

“Um hum.”

“Say it so they can hear it.”

She turned around to see Big Country, Price, and Bride at the bedroom’s door. Each Brood member held a black balaclava in their hand.

Lynx pushed through the group and came to a standstill after tripping over Kragen’s head. “You have
got
to stop with the severed body parts,” he shouted as he righted himself. “This is the twenty-first century, man. You don’t have to do this barbaric shit. Buy a gun, put a bullet in them. Pop, pop, bad man goes down. Done.”

“Lynx, you don’t get to yell at the hero because he makes a mess. He saved my life, and I love him and all those blade spirits that possess him,” Sabrina said.

Zeus smirked, cocking up a brow at the crowd. Smug, she thought. He was being smug.

“So it’s true? Oh hell no,” Lynx said, pushing back through the group as Big Country tipped an imaginary cowboy hat at them. Bride rolled her eyes and followed Lynx down the hall.

“Thought I told you to stay with Bertha,” Price said.

“Did. Then she kicked me out.”

Price rubbed the back of his neck as he continued to address Zeus. “Basir’s guests are secured on the first floor. Coen is downstairs dealing with the victims. We took all the video feed, but we’ll need to clear out of here before the cops arrive.”

As they walked into the hall, Sabrina saw two more bodies. One was Reed. “Did you kill all of Kragen’s men?”

“Only the ones that got in my way,” Zeus said.

“All,” Price muttered. “A few of Basir’s security too.”

“What about Basir?”

“Haven’t found hide nor hair of him or the lone individual that was in the basement. We’ll hunt Basir down in time,” Big Country assured her.

Sabrina and the Brood left the house masked, with no survivors able to identify the group that had caused so much destruction. Big Country contacted Terry, who had spoken with the guy named London. London was already orchestrating the dispersal of information. Apparently, the English guy she had heard on the phone at Mama’s House had a smooth tongue when it came to manipulating events, spinning them in whichever direction Mama and her coconspirators wanted him to.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, they arrived at Mama’s House, washed up, and got medical care before briefing Mama and Terry. Eventually each Brood member made their way to their beds.

High on painkillers and adrenaline, Sabrina lay on Zeus’s bed and closed her eyes. She heard the door to the bathroom open and moments later felt Zeus lie down beside her. He pulled her against him, his hold on her the only thing from keeping her floating off in the pitch-black oblivion of his room.

“You know we have to get married,” Zeus declared.

“You
know
we’ve known each other less than a month.”

“You really think anyone else would put up with you?”

“Yep.”

“Do you want to see more men die?”

“How ’bout we get married in France? We could save up, go find your mother, and don’t say no, because I want to tie up loose ends before starting a new life with you. We need to hold family close, remember. We’ve lost too much,” she said, wishing Sam and her mom could have lived to see her become something more than a person who needed to guard herself from the world. Wished Sam could have lived to experience her as a better sister.

“Just so long as you know we’re getting married.”

“Well, Zeus, now I know.”

He grunted, and soon they both fell into drug-induced sleep.

The next morning Sabrina woke alone. She dressed slowly, careful of the injuries she’d sustained, and went up to the second level to find Zeus. She found him in Mama’s living room. He was dressed and seemingly on his way out the door.

“Where are you going? You can barely walk.”

“Be back tomorrow. Loose ends. Lynx will take you back to my cabin. ”

“Man, I’m not going back to that fucking place. I’ll give her cab fare,” Lynx said.

“I’m going back to
my
place. I need to deal with my job, the cops, my apartment. I doubt I’ll get my security deposit back at this point.”

“Bride and I will go back with her,” Mama told Zeus. “Help her straighten things out.”

He shrugged and limped out of the room, Big Country and Lynx tight on his heels.

“Where are they going?” Sabrina asked.

Mama’s smile was cold and slightly terrifying. “Like Zeus said, they have to tie up loose ends.”

* * * *

The Miami night was thick with humidity. Even inside the ranch-style house, Zeus’s T-shirt felt like a layer of skin he would soon have to shed.

He hovered over the man’s body, watching dispassionately as he slept.

In sleep, Ernesto Diaz looked too vibrant for a dead man. His skin was a much lighter shade of brown than Sabrina’s, but still darker than Zeus’s. Diaz’s skin resembled the olive tones of the people from Cizan’s culture. He had closely cropped black hair and angular features that made him look suitable for a boardroom or a magazine cover. But he was a thug. Higher up in the food chain than most with his drugs and laundering, but a thug nonetheless.

Zeus tapped the hilt of his blade against the space between the sleeping man’s brows. The moment Ernesto’s eyes opened, he reached for the semiautomatic that had been hidden beneath his pillow.

“Lookin’ for this here?” Big Country asked as he held the gun up.

Ernesto froze, then looked from Big Country to Zeus to Lynx. “Money’s in the safe, hombre. Behind the painting.”

“Oh, I think you know we ain’t here ’bout no money,” Big Country said.

“We’re here because our Brood mate found a woman crazy enough to love and marry him. Your ex has been lying low a long time trying to avoid getting on your radar,” Lynx said.

“Our Brood mate here has issues with how you treated her. He won’t allow his woman to be afraid of what could happen if you were to ever find her. None of us will,” Big Country said.

“Means you gotta go, hombre,” Zeus said. “Can’t have my woman worrying.”

“You got it all wrong, friend. Sabrina, she is
mine
. When I find her—”

The blade struck.

“You won’t find her,” Zeus reassured the man clutching his throat.

“Well,” Lynx said once the man was dead. “That was…uneventful.”

“You’re as fickle as an old woman,” Zeus told Lynx. “One minute too much carnage, the next not enough.”

“Whatever, man.”

“Let’s go to the titty bar on Barrington Street and get a beer. Haven’t had a good brew in days,” Big Country said as he walked toward the bedroom door scratching his crotch.

Lynx looked back at the body. “We should probably call London.”

“Why call?” Big Country asked. “He’ll be stateside in a few hours. Plus, ain’t no need for a spin. This cocksucker could’ve been done in by any number of folks round here. He wasn’t well liked.”

Back out on a street made dark when they had killed the lights earlier, they got into the rental car, a sedate black sedan. After a few minutes of the car sitting idly, Big Country turned to the man in the driver’s seat. “Problem, Zeus?”

“Sabrina loves me.”

Lynx rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we know already. Get over it.”

“Not ever.”

Epilogue

Sabrina waited three steps from the bottom of the stairwell as Randy trotted down in jeans and a green T-shirt, carrying a handful of mail. “This was all that came while you were gone,” he said, kissing her on the forehead before turning to walk down to her apartment. “Gotta get back in there before Helen Keller and the mama bear from hell totally destroy my organizational efforts. I mean, really, Bree. Who ever heard of linen and shoes going in the same box? Please.”

Sabrina smiled as she sat gingerly on the third stair, feeling like an old, arthritic woman as she flicked through the envelopes. She saw mostly bills and junk mail. Her splinted hand froze when she saw the envelope with a return address identifying both Mrs. and Mr. Jace and Samantha Redding as the senders. It was an Illinois address. Her heart stopped, then sped up as she placed the rest of the mail beside her and carefully opened the bulging manila envelope.

Hey Bree,

So I’m gone, and I know you have a lot of feelings about that. I arranged to have this letter sent out if certain events came to pass, and they have. First, though, I’ve been asking you this most all my life. I’m gonna ask it one last time. Please forgive me.

I know what I did was wrong. I tried to fight against this outcome only because of you, not for Daddy or none of that side of my family. Just for you. I tried all those years to get back right. I know I worried you something terrible. I know what it cost you to bury Ma, and I’m sorry for making you bury the only other family you’ve ever known.

You have to know, if not for you, I wouldn’t have tried to stay as long as I did. I thought that once I escaped hell, I’d be free. But it stays with me, Bree. No matter where I went and what I did, even in my own home, he’ll never let me go.

I know you don’t want to hear this again, but I’m so sorry for abandoning you when we were young. I was never able to be as strong as you needed me to be. I know, if the situation were reversed, you would have fought for me. You always did. I should have pitched a fit until my daddy pulled you from foster care and brought you to me. I tried too hard to be the good one, and it always cost you. I don’t want you to pay for my weakness anymore. I am asking you to nurture my strength. The part of me that fought to live when I wished it away. This part of me I had to let go, and I need you to retrieve her.