CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
ALICE
There are things I have done in my life that I will never regret, and on that list, what I am about to do to the man in this basement is going to sit right at the very top.
The tires of my Porsche screech to a halt, the engine cutting out as I kill the lights.
Nate is right behind me, his door flying open before the car even fully stops.
I look up at the heavy, reinforced facade of the building.
I've known about this place since I was in diapers, but a vicious, nagging question loops in my mind: why would any fucker dare to bring her here?
"Julian brought his team. They're already in position," I mutter, gesturing with a sharp nod toward the perimeter.
Julian is standing near the side entrance, flanked by a handful of heavily armed men.
It's mostly for show—he's only here because my father likes to remind me that his reach extends everywhere, even into my personal hell fire.
Nate steps up beside me, his chest heaving as his eyes sweep the area.
"You're sure this is the place? We've been here a thousand times, Zade. Why the hell would they bring them here?"
I don't answer.
I'm too focused on the glowing screen in my palm.
The GPS signal for Alice's phone is active, pulsing rhythmically.
It shows her location deep within the building. Right in the VIP music room.
The guards fall into formation behind us as we breach the heavy front doors.
I stop dead in the center of the plush, vaulted main lobby and signal the men to fan out.
The room is crawling with the city's corrupt elite, all here for a high-society show.
The guards begin a swift, aggressive sweep, checking the private alcoves and searching behind the sweeping velvet curtains.
Nothing.
I look up toward the shadows of the mezzanine balconies.
Still nothing.
Suddenly, Nate freezes.
He looks up, tapping his boot sharply against the hardwood floor, listening to the hollow echo beneath us.
I don't need him to say a word. I know that sound.
The sub-level.
I turn on my heel, descending the service stairs in an instant.
"Get these people out. Now," I command the lead guard, Harry.
He's one of the most ruthless operators on my father's payroll, a man who doesn't ask questions.
Within a matter of seconds, the guards ruthlessly clear the upper room, shoving the wealthy patrons toward the exits.
The heavy, thumping bass of the club's music continues to blare through the speakers.
If the bastard chose this place because the noise would swallow his victims' screams, he's about to find out that the noise works both ways.
Nate lunges forward, violently wrenching open a heavy iron floor-door hidden beneath the stage, revealing a dark, yawning drop into the concrete basement.
Two of our guards plunge into the dark first. A split second later, the muffled pop-pop of suppressed gunshots echoes from below, completely swallowed by the roaring music above.
The guards signal from the shadows, clearing us to enter.
We drop down into the subterranean corridor.
It isn't pitch black, but the dim, flickering halogen lights overhead cast long, predatory shadows against the damp concrete.
One of the guards is already stationed outside a heavy steel security door at the end of the hall.
It's flush with the wall, designed to be invisible, but I know better.
I place a hand on the cold steel.
"No one comes in until I give the word. Stay here, Nate."
"I am not staying out here to watch you play the fucking martyr, Zade," Nate hisses, his face pale with a lethal mixture of fear and rage.
"I'm not playing a martyr, Nate," I snap, my voice dropping into a cold, deadly whisper.
"I need you alive to handle the aftermath if I don't make it out of this room."
Before he can argue, I raise my boot and kick the steel door with everything I have.
The lock shatters, and the door slams open against the inner wall with a deafening crash.
The scene inside makes the air instantly freeze in my lungs.
Tied to a heavy wooden chair in the center of the room is Alice.
And standing directly in front of her, holding a weapon, is Marcus—a man I used to call my friend.
My eyes lock onto Alice.
Her face is a devastating mess of tears and fresh blood.
A dark, ugly bruise is already swelling on her cheek, clearly stamped with the outline of fingers, and a steady trail of crimson leaks from the ruptured corner of her lips.
She looks up, her eyes meeting mine, and for the first time since the day we met, I see her crying without restraint.
It isn't just fear anymore; it's an overwhelming, heartbreaking wave of relief at the sight of me.
The sight doesn't erase the blinding crimson film over my eyes—it ignites it into a roaring inferno.
This pathetic bastard dared to lay his hands on what is mine.
It's time he learns the exact price of that mistake.
"Get your hands off of her," I growl, taking a lethal step forward.
"Take another step, Zade, and her brains will be splattered across this fucking wall," Marcus barks.
I freeze mid-stride, my boots locking onto the concrete.
Marcus has shifted his stance, the barrel of his matte-black handgun now pressed hard against Ellie's temple.
She's completely unconscious, her head lolling limply as the steel digs into her skin.
Seeing me stop, a sick, victorious smirk spreads across Marcus's face.
"You know what your problem is, Zade?" he taunts, his voice manic and utterly unhinged.
"You always try to take what's mine. You always steal the best things in my life. You stole Lila from me. You killed my child... but I won't let you be the one to take my Alice. We're soulmates. I knew it the moment she stepped onto the Oakhaven campus. We're going to live together, and we're going to die together."
Jesus Christ.
He's entirely sick.
The man standing before me isn't the Marcus I grew up with; he is a creature possessed by his own delusions.
But as his words echo through the damp room, a sudden, violent shock hits my system.
The child Lila was carrying... it was his. She was pregnant with this bastard's kid.
My fingers slip silently into my coat pocket, sliding over the emergency tactical button Harry had pressed into my palm earlier.
I don't press it yet. I need to close the distance.
"You've always been a pathetic loser, Marcus," I say calmly, deliberately taking another slow, measured step forward, keeping his eyes locked on mine.
"You don't know how to keep anything that belongs to you. You're a parasite that bleeds whatever host feeds it. You want to know a secret, Marcus? Even Lila didn't know you were the father. She came to me. She begged me to pretend to be the father of that baby. You want to know why?"
I take one last explosive stride, closing the gap until I am standing completely chest-to-chest with him.
My finger slams down on the tactical button in my pocket.
"Because she knew you weren't worth a single drop of human affection."
The words have barely left my lips when the thunderous thud of tactical boots floods the basement entrance.
Before Marcus can even register the noise, I lunged forward, my hand clamping around his wrist.
With a brutal, fluid twist of my forearm, I snap his wrist backward.
A sickening, loud crack echoes through the room as the bone shatters under my grip.
Marcus screams, his fingers instantly spasming as the gun slips from his hand, clattering harmlessly onto Ellie's lap.
Alice stares up at me, a flurry of hysterical, silent sobs wrecking her fragile body.
The sight of her trembling does something agonizing and completely unnatural to my chest.
"Ellie! Ellie!" Nate screams, moving in a frantic, blurred motion as he rushes past me to lift his girlfriend's limp body from the chair.
Julian's guards instantly swarm Marcus, pinning his thrashing body to the floor.
I ignore them entirely, crossing the short distance to Alice's chair and dropping to my knees in front of her.
"Missed me, wildfire?" I ask softly, my voice rough.
At the sound of the nickname, the final dam breaks.
A loud, ragged sob tears from her throat as I work frantically to untie the coarse ropes binding her wrists.
"You... hiccup... took... hiccup... so... long,"
she chokes out, the moment the ropes fall away, she completely throws the entire weight of her body against my chest.
She clings to me like a lifeline, her violent sobs vibrating through both of our chests.
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her impossibly closer into my space.
But the relief is violently short-lived.
A sharp, frantic rustle of fabric echoes from the floor behind us.
Alice's entire body hitches, tensing up in an instant.
Before I can even register what's happening, she violently shoves against my shoulders, using every ounce of her remaining strength to push both of us down toward the hard concrete.
BANG.
A deafening gunshot rings out, the muzzle flash illuminating the damp basement walls.
We hit the floor together.
I spin around instantly, my eyes scanning the room.
Marcus is on the ground a few feet away, writhing in pain and clutching a fresh, bleeding bullet wound in his bicep.
A second handgun lies on the floor just inches from his twitching fingers.
It doesn't take a genius to realize what just happened.
The bastard had a concealed weapon. He tried to shoot me in the back.
Standing directly behind him, a smoking gun held casually in his hand, is Julian.
A cold, arrogant grin pulls at his lips as the guards violently drag a screaming Marcus back up by his broken arms.
"This piece of shit will be taken care of permanently, Zade," Julian says, his voice completely nonchalant as he steps over the blood on the floor.
"But you might want to get her to a hospital. Right now."
Julian points a finger toward Alice.
My heart stops.
I look down at the concrete floor beneath her. A dark, terrifying pool of crimson is rapidly spreading across the gray stone.
"Zade... she's bleeding," Nate's voice breaks through the sudden silence of the room, tight with panic as he cradles Ellie.
I slide my arms beneath Alice, lifting her into my chest.
The moment my fingers slide under her back, they are instantly soaked in a hot, gushing torrent of blood.
The warmth of it coats my palms, leaking through her torn hoodie.
I carefully shift her weight, looking at her back.
A thick, rusted steel nail is protruding from her skin, deeply embedded into her flesh near her shoulder blade from when she violently threw herself onto the floor to shield me.
I snap my gaze back to her face.
A single, silent tear slips from the corner of her eye, tracing a path through the dust and blood on her cheek.
Then, her eyelids flutter shut, and her head falls limply against my shoulder