Her heart broke for him. For the weight he must carry around. How destroyed he must have been by it that he couldn’t even tell Reyna the full truth to this day. And how difficult it must have been to hold that guilt and try to become a better person post–blood type cure.
“My sister is not a pawn for you to use,” Beckham said.
Harrington shrugged. “I use all my pawns as I see fit, and she is not a menace I want walking the streets of my city.”
“Mycity,” Beckham growled. “I own this city. I bought it in blood. Bronwyn at my side.”
“That was long ago. Cities no longer belong to anyone. The world belongs to me,” Harrington said. “I did you a favor by getting her out of the way. Haven’t you thrived without her?”
Reyna saw the instant something inside Beckham snapped. Harrington had kept Bronwyn from him all these years, and now he was trying to justify it by calling it afavor.
Beckham unleashed. He lunged for Harrington, who took a step backward in displeasure. Cassandra and Roland still stood in his path. Beckham would have to go through them to get to Harrington. Always another barrier. But there was nothing left in Beckham except revenge, death, and destruction.
He was savage and uncontrollable. She’d seen him fight Roland before, but this was beyond anything she could imagine. His movements were lightning fast. So fast she could hardly register them. He took on Cassandra and Roland as one, hands flying, arms moving, legs kicking. It was a blur.
Beckham was larger than both of them. Roland had a slimmer frame with equally quick movements, and Cassandra was tall and lithe. She had none of his supreme strength, but she was slippery like an eel, evading capture and delivering blows that would have incapacitated an ordinary man. Roland was the opposite of Cassandra’s stealthy movements, diving right into Beckham’s calculated advances.
And then the fight shifted.
Beckham had Cassandra in a neck hold, her back to his chest, his arm across her shoulders. His hand cupped her chin. A sickening snap rang out, and Cassandra’s body went limp. The light left Cassandra’s eyes. When Reyna’s gaze snapped back up to Beckham’s there was nothing in his eyes, either.
He didn’t stop there. He used the rest of his strength and physically ripped Cassandra’s head from her shoulders. He let the body drop, the severed spinal cord showing through. Blood coated the patio floor. Vampire blood. Beckham still held Cassandra’s head. Her mouth was still open in shock and fear, her red hair blowing in the winter breeze.
He tossed the head at Harrington’s feet, wiped his bloody hands on his tuxedo pants, and turned to face Roland. He lifted one hand and beckoned Roland forward.
“If you dare,” he snarled.
Harrington toed the decapitated head of his ex–senior vice president with disdain. “Now you’ve made a mess.”
Beckham and Roland weren’t listening. They were circling each other like champion fighters.
“It will be with great pleasure when I finally end you,” Roland said. “After what you did with that little bitch.”
“You always were all bark and no bite,” Beckham said and then lunged.
“Enough,” Harrington said.
But neither of them were listening to him any longer.
Reyna’s eyes were wide with fear. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen. Beckham had snapped. Finding out Bronwyn had been alive all this time had wrecked him. Would he be able to come back from the brink after this ended?
Then she felt Harrington’s hand on her elbow. She shrieked and tried to wrench herself out of his grasp, but he was too fast. He put her body in front of his and held her in place in the same manner that Beckham had just held Cassandra.
He was going to snap her neck.
Fear rolled off her. As if sensing the danger, Beckham tore himself away from Roland and rounded on Harrington. His eyes cleared, and he saw the position she was in. That he should never have allowed her to be in.
One move, and she’d be dead.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Cease or I’ll kill her,” Harrington said.
“You won’t kill her,” Beckham said. He was breathless. The fighting was intense. He and Roland were nearly evenly matched. “You need her.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t need her. I found one other. A little old lady who has gone her entire life without ever having to get her blood drawn. No children. No surgeries. Truly miraculous. Thank Visage for the Blood Census.”
Beckham paled.
