Where Mercy Dies
Where Mercy Dies
Ivery Clark POV
What..? He's dead…!?
Alrigo didn't move.
His face had gone completely pale as he stared down at Dominic's lifeless body, his hands trembling.
A broken breath escaped him.
"No…”
My heart clenched violently in my chest, a cold spike of panic piercing through the terror. I had never seen Alrigo like this.
Before I could force a single word past my frozen lips, a shadow swept in through the threshold. Heels clicked slowly against the marble, sharp and sickeningly calm against the silence.
“Oh my…what a sight!”
It was Julia.
Tears immediately welled in her eyes as she looked at Alrigo’s devastated face, her voice trembling with devastating grief and heartbreak.
"Oh Alrigo, what did I tell you? She came here to tear your family apart, but you didn't listen. And you fell for all of her tricks! Look at now... your closest brother is dead.”
My blood run cold. No!
I stared at Julia, unable to believe the words coming out of her mouth. Then I felt Rowan's grip on my wrist tighten.
I turned toward him. The color had drained from his face as he stared at Julia. “That voice…..fuck it's a trap.”
Trap? What trap?
"Ivery..." His voice came out barely above a whisper. “Run. I'll shield you, run.”
“What?” I looked at him in disbelief. “No!"
"Just run, Ivery!!" he roared, yanking my hand with terrifying force and dragging me toward the dark secondary corridor.
I stumbled blindly after him, my legs trembling so badly I could barely keep my footing, too utterly terrified and confused to process the nightmare unfolding around me.
"IVERY!”
The voice sliced through the air like a blade.
I froze. Every muscle in my body locked, the entire world shrinking down to that single, raw call.
Slowly, against every instinct screaming at me to move, I turned back.
Alrigo’s eyes were fixed entirely on me. The grief that had consumed him moments ago was turning into something far worse…an abyssal, terrifying betrayal.
His gaze dragged down to Rowan’s hand clamped tightly around mine, the silver blade still glinting with Dominic's blood just inches away.
Right before my eyes, the last piece of light inside Alrigo completely shattered, leaving behind a cold, lethal emptiness that made the air freeze in my lungs.
"Don't take another step.” Alrigo hissed, his voice dropping to a deathly, dangerous whisper that promised absolute ruin.
My vision blurred as tears brimmed in my eyes. "Alrigo…”
I wanted to explain. I wanted to tell him I hadn't known. That I had never wanted any of this. That I had begged Dominic to bring Rowan to me, never imagining that Rowan would do this.
But the words died in my throat.
I saw it in his eyes. The same hatred I had witnessed before. Only this time, there was something else buried beneath it.
Pain. So much pain that it terrified me.
He wasn't going to listen to me….not after seeing Dominic lying dead on the floor and Rowan and me standing covered in his blood!
"Don't run, Ivery." Alrigo's voice was barely above a whisper. "You won't get anywhere.”
Rowan looked at me, the fury that had filled his face earlier was gone. His eyes were tired, almost hollow.
"Ivery..." His voice broke.
I stared at him through my tears.
"Dont listen to him. Run. It's too late now. I'll shield you. Please at least you should escape from this hellhole, even if I can't.”
What…?
My head shook violently. "No. I'm not leaving you."
"You have to." He stepped in front of me, shielding my body with his own. "It's too late now, damnit. You think he'll treat you any better!"
His voice dropped to a broken whisper. "I did this, I knew what I was doing when I came here. I knew there would be blood. But I never wanted you to be caught in it. Your brother was too foolish to see it was a trap, Ivery. Please forgive me.”
A sob tore from my throat. "I don't want to leave you!"
His jaw trembled.
For a moment, he looked like the same brother who had once held my hand when I was a child.
Then he forced a faint, devastated smile.
"You were always the one thing I wanted to keep safe. So let me do that one last time. Run. Whatever happens to me... don't look back.”
I couldn't move.
I could only stare at my brother standing between me and the man whose heart we had just shattered.
Then Alrigo slowly raised his gun.
A single tear slipped down his cheek.
"Stay put, Ivery. Or I won't hesitate.”
My heart broke into pieces. Hot, bitter sobs burst from my chest, my vision blurring into a sea of red and grey as I fell to my knees.
“I'm sorry..." I cried out, my voice cracking, raw with unbearable sorrow. "I'm so sorry, Alrigo! Please... please, just let him go! Please, Alrigo, let him go! I'll do whatever you say, please have mercy!”
A low, hollow laugh scraped past Alrigo’s throat…a sound so bitter and devoid of life it sent a paralyzing chill straight through me.
He didn't lower the gun. His hand didn't even tremble.
"Begging again, Ivery?" Alrigo whispered, his voice dropping to an icy, lethal register that cut through my sobs like a blade.
“Every single time you open your mouth, you beg me," he said softly, each word weighted with a suffocating, unbearable sorrow.
“You begged me to spare his life. You begged me to trust you. You begged me to look into Elias..." His eyes flicked briefly toward Dominic's pale, motionless face on the marble, and a muscle in his jaw clenched so hard the skin strained. "And look where your begging got me…”
He brought his hollow gaze back to mine, locking me in a grip of pure, unadulterated betrayal.
"You think your tears still work on me now?”
"Alrigo, no it's not what you—!"
"Silence!" He roared, the sheer power of his voice shattering the room.
I flinched, stepping back.
The single tear on his cheek had dried, leaving behind nothing but a stone mask of death.
"No more tears. No more pleas, no more of your lies.." Alrigo hissed, locking his gun directly onto me while his gaze stayed glued to my breaking heart. "You used up the last of my mercy, Ivery.”
"Guards, take them to the cellars!" Julia shrieked, seizing the moment, her voice echoing off the high ceilings. "Before they commit any more bloodshed!"
Her words broke the spell.
"Now, Ivery!" Rowan roared.
He grabbed my wrist with a terrifying, iron grip and yanked me sideways into the dark archway of the emergency stairwell just as a deafening gunshot shattered the air.
BANG!
A sickening, heavy impact echoed through the stairwell. Rowan’s body jerked violently sideways, a ragged gasp of pure agony tearing from his throat.
The bullet caught him flush in the upper chest, the force throwing him hard against the cold concrete wall. Blood immediately bloomed thick and dark through his shirt, staining his trembling fingers as he clutched at the wound.
"Rowaaaaannnnnnn!" A violent, blood-curdling scream tore from the depths of my lungs, the world spinning out of control as I tried to catch his collapsing weight.
“Run—”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
More bullets slammed brutally into Rowan's body. Thick, hot crimson splattered across my face, blinding my vision and soaking through my clothes.
Rowan collapsed forward, hitting the concrete with a heavy, sickening thud. Screams tore from the depths of my lungs, raw and agonizing, echoing wildly off the damp walls.
“ROWAN!!” My legs completely gave out, and I fell forward onto my hands, sinking into the warm pool of my brother's blood.
The world narrowed down to the lifeless body in front of me, Rowan’s unseeing, hollow gaze staring into nothingness.
Through my tear-blurred eyes and the haze of burning gunsmoke, I looked up the steps.
Standing at the threshold, his arm outstretched, the smoking barrel of the gun held entirely steady, was Alrigo.
He killed my brother.