“Put it down, Rafe,” he said.
I inhaled deeply. Then I tossed my rifle into the grass.
“Good.” Viktor’s lips curled into a tight smile. “Now, where is she?”
My heart stopped.
“Where is my fucking Doll? She’s here, isn’t she? You two are rarely apart,” he continued, studying me. “If she isn’t here yet, then she’s close.”
My hands twitched at my sides, my eyes dropping to his gun. I could wrangle it. I was sure I could. I tilted my head, eyeing his backup. The guard I bashed wasn’t the only one. There were at least six along the back of the house. I’d walked right past them like an idiot. I was shocked they didn’t try to stop me when I first walked out, but maybe that was the point. Maybe all of this was about Arden. Viktor knew we were each other’s lure. I hated that he was right, that she was almost here. She had to be.
But he was also severely wrong to call my girl a Doll. She was as much of a corpse as any Creed, and I knew she had no plans ofearning an early grave without Viktor’s skeleton burning beside hers.
Viktor’s attention snapped behind me, his smile flattening before he jammed the gun against me, furious. “Cops? Do you have a fucking death wish?”
She was here. She was here. She was—The thought fractured everything else, adrenaline burning through the anger as my focus locked forward.
We are exactly as you made us, I signed despite my fucked hands and snapped forward.
Viktor tugged down on the trigger, the bullet grazing my stomach, but the pain registered distantly, my body adjusting its balance around it. He. Fucking. Missed. Control flooded into my limbs. I smiled broadly, snatching my rifle and crouching to the grass as bullets flung in my direction. My weight settled low, spine aligned, breath forced slow through clenched teeth. Then I let go of two shots in the same instant Viktor took a step back, lifting his gun again. I aimed without mercy, both shots to his thighs.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Viktor was still upright, his face caught between intention and disbelief. His muscles recoiled, and his weight shifted. Blood wet his pants, spreading fast, soaking through just the same as Thorne's had.
Then—evil fell to his knees, power stripped from him without the release of death.
The sight carved itself into me, his gun falling from his hand as he pressed his palms against his legs with an open-mouthed scream. I wanted to hear it. So fucking badly. But I didn’t let that stop me from memorizing the sight. I would cherish that memory for the rest of my life, but reality slowly came back into focus.
I rammed up from my position in the grass and ducked behind the play set, climbing to where Henry had been. The plasticladder flexed under my weight, bolts biting into my palms as I hauled myself up, splinters sticking and the smell of old sun-warmed wood clinging to everything. From up there, the yard changed. Angles opened. Sightlines sharpened. I could see them clearly now—every guard. They were closing in.
Gunfire cracked into the wood of the playhouse, shaking the frame. Bullets tore through painted panels inches from my head, chewing divots into the chalk drawings some of the kids had made. I flattened myself, let the panic burn out of my muscles, and then I positioned my rifle between the slats, took a single, calm breath, and shot dead every guard on duty.
One by one.
I used to think in a moment like this, if I were to achieve it, that I would see all the ways I was wronged flash behind my eyes, but all I saw in their spilled blood was the future…having one. Because of my girl, for my girl, I was finally looking forward. I didn't care if what happened to Viktor or S.I.N. was done by my hands; I only cared that they died, that Arden Creed was mine, that Kane—I fucking needed to believe—was safe, and that whatever came next, I found peace in it. Imprisoned. Free. I didn't give a shit. I just wanted the people I loved alive, and I wanted to be done. With all of it.
The last guard fell, and my throat worked as Arden sprinted through the back door.
I flicked my safety on immediately, my entire body lighting up at the sight of those mismatched eyes and feral anger, her gun in one hand and her lighter in the other. A staggering, gawking cop was at her back.
Viktor Shaw was crawling on his stomach across the grass like the prey he damned himself to be the moment he ever laid a finger on an innocent child.
I climbed down from the playhouse, my boots denting the grass as I crossed to her. She gave me one look, didn’t say asingle word, but I knew in its grief that she’d seen that empty trunk, and that she’d held the same hope I had coming into the orphanage. Kane wasn’t here.
Red and blue flashed on the other side of the fence, likely more cops arriving to the scene. Arden studied Viktor’s squirming body for a second longer before she turned to the trembling officer at her side. She reached over to where he was gripping what looked to be a recording device, her thumb clicking down on it to turn it off.
“It’s time,” she told him, signing along with her words for me. “Make your choice, Officer Morris. Will you cuff us, or will you go back inside and direct your friends’ efforts toward the kids?”
The cop swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. He looked between the two of us, then at Viktor still belly crawling like a fucking worm. The officer was white as a sheet, terrified of my girl as he should be, but gently I set my rifle in the grass, and in the same instant, Arden closed her lighter, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket. We both waited, calmly, respectfully.
Creed, myself included, had killed hundreds. Whether at the instruction of Buyers or of our own volition, we were entirely guilty, but there was peace in this moment. Arden’s eyes were soft, her expression turning even softer, and I wrapped an arm around her. Whatever the verdict, we would accept it. I think both of us were ready for a great rest, even if that rest was behind bars. Viktor would die before this Officer Morris got cuffs on us, but we wouldn’t resist the arrest in the end. We were tired, and we’d earned the right tobetired. Kane…we needed to grieve him, and we would, but in this moment, Arden and I stood united in front of the law.
Officer Morris swallowed again, some of the color coming back to his ruddy cheeks, before hope, I chose to believe, finally won. He turned away, lifting his radio as he went, his lips moving justover his shoulder so I was able to make out what he said before he disappeared inside: “Backyard is clear but call cleanup and forensics. There’s nothing alive out here.” He shot us one last look, the emotion in his eyes bright as he pocketed his recorder. “Shift all focus to the kids.”
?Arden?
Viktor was quiet as we dragged him out of the backyard and into the woods. As much as I still craved to hear him beg, there was also some beauty in his forced, pained silence—the same kind he’d beaten and raped into us. Rafe had shot him in both legs, the fucker’s blood loss leaving him half-lidded and panting but still alive. I aimed to rectify that with fire.
We drug him for over a mile, and I kept my good ear trained behind us, listening for any sound of the cops. Officer Morris could change his mind, but I had no desire to make this a quick death. Kane was…was…I blinked hard, clearing the tears.Not yet, I again had to promise myself. I didn’t believe it. I wanted to see his corpse in that van wreck before I believed Kane Creed was dead. “Don’t you know? I’m the unkillable man.”Those were his words, and I was choosing to put all my faith in them.
