Chapter 12: Breaking Point
The groaning steel fractured with a final deafening shriek, the vault door tearing inward from its hinges as Dayne stood silhouetted in the corridor's flickering emergency light, his form etched in blood and cordite. His triumphant breath caught, the raw, violent joy draining from his face as his emerald eyes locked onto Zariah’s trembling form, the swollen curve of her belly unmistakable beneath the thin cotton of her ruined shirt. A spasm of profound, primal possession—savage, unyielding, and absolute—twisted his features, erasing all thought of the carnage behind him as the slick, metallic scent of her sweat and fear filled his lungs. "Look at you," he exhaled, the choked whisper shredding the last of the safe room’s silence while the distant wail of a fallen man died unanswered in the hall. Her steady, cocked 9mm remained frozen, a useless effigy dangling from her fingers as he stepped across the ruined threshold, drawn toward the living, breathing consequence of their last night together five agonizing months prior.
Her arm went slack and the gun clattered onto the plush carpet, a dull, impotent sound swallowed by the alarm’s dying keen. Her wide eyes flooded with liquid disbelief, the tears tracing hot, clean paths through the grime on her cheeks as her lips trembled, forming the impossible words she’d been forced to swallow for half a year. “How?” she breathed, the syllable cracking open, raw and desperate. “Robert… Robert showed me the photos, the blood… he told me he’d put three bullets in your chest himself.” A shuddering sob escaped her then, breaking the awful, pristine silence his presence had carved.
He crossed the final steps and crushed her against him, the heat of his body absorbing her violent tremors as he buried his face in her matted, lavender-scented hair. “He lied, probably some kind of photoshopped image” he rasped, his voice thick and raw against her scalp. His hands, still slick with another man’s blood, framed her face, smearing red across her jaw and merging with the salt of her own frantic tears. Dayne cradled her face in his hands, his face had tears as well. He’d mourned her every day she was gone.
He looked down at her wet face, the gun still smoking in his own hand, and his final, protective fury unraveled at the seams. "We have a few seconds before my men don't like the looks of this situation, and come in gins blazing" Dayne said, his voice startlingly calm. He tugged at his bloody collar to loosen it, wrapping one arm swiftly around her waist, his hand gripping a new assortment of bruises and scarring left on her from Robert hand. She gasped as he tried to pull her, she shook her head.
“It's just a tightening of the muscles” she gasped as she handed him her handgun. Her hand shaking violently. “My legs simply won't do what i’m telling them to do.”
Another, sharper pain clenched deep within her pelvis, a vice grip that stole her breath and buckled her knees. She gripped his forearm, her nails biting into the blood-slick leather of his jacket. “Dayne, I… I can't walk.”
He slung the pistols across his back, the crude, unforgiving sight of Robert’s fingerprints alongside his sending her memories souring the moment. Forged from that cold, surgical comprehension, he moved, ignoring the deep, vengeful protestation from his hip and the landscape of heaving concrete glimpsed behind his eyes. Sweeping one powerful arm swiftly under her shaking knees, he hoisted her torso upright, folding her excruciatingly full weight with delicious purpose against the bloody grit and iron stitching of his jacket’s stiff breast.
A low, traitorous sound escaped her lips, equal parts excruciating pressure and rampant relief upon her freely offered waters. He staggered, adjusting her exquisite gravity, ignoring the sticky heat breaking its seal down her quivering thighs as she buried her face into his now wet tearstained skin.
He held his breath against a fresh thrust with every step.
He carried her through the shattered foyer and out into the punishing glare of floodlights, his boots crunching over glittering glass and the things that used to be men. The waiting SUV’s door was already open, engine idling with a low growl, and inside Alex gave a tight, grim nod while Leo scanned the tree line, his weapon resting on the window ledge. Dayne lowered her onto the soft leather seat, his movements gentler now, his bloody hands careful as he brushed her sweat-damp hair from her face and pressed his lips to her forehead. “I’ll be there soon,” he promised, the words a rough vow against her skin, and he pulled back, sealing the door with a solid thud after one silent, understanding look exchanged with his brothers. The SUV peeled away into the night, and Dayne turned, his face hardening into a mask of glacial intent as he walked back toward the compound where his father Vito and several other men waited with his prey, Robert.