Chapter 11 KILLED
Constantine's POV
The elevator opens back in the lobby and I walk outside in the dark on my shaky, aching legs. I can barely stand. I feel the air on my face, it's cold but I don't feel it. I can’t even feel anything apart from the emptiness in my chest and the pains between my thighs. It just reminds me of what I just let to happen to me. That I had just sold myself. Again.
I have just gone down the street when I feel a buzz in my purse. I want to ignore it because, maybe it's the hospitals calling. But for some reason, I don't know why I later pull it out from my purse. I turn it on and the screen lights up with a notification. It's from my bank. Could it…
CREDIT ALERT: $2,500,000.00 has been deposited into your account.
I stop walking. Two and a half million dollars.
The number doesn't even feel real. It's too big, too impossible to believe. But it's there, glowing on my screen like evidence of a crime I just committed against myself.
My mother's nursing home bills. My father's hospital care. My student loans. The rent I couldn't pay. Every single crushing weight that's been suffocating me for years is just gone. Erased. Bought and paid for with my body and whatever scraps of dignity I had left.
The phone slips from my shaking hands and clatters to the sidewalk.
I sink down after it, right there on the dirty pavement, and the sobs come. Ugly, broken sounds that tear out of my throat like they've been trapped there for years. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold the pieces together, but it's useless.
I'm shattered. Completely, utterly shattered.
People walk past me. Some glance over, but most don't. This is the city. Broken people on sidewalks are part of the scenery. I cry until there's nothing left, until my throat is raw and my eyes are swollen and I feel emptied out.
Finally, I force myself to stand. I pick up my phone with trembling hands and start walking again. Home. And when i refer to home, I'm talking about Ivy's apartment.
I take a shortcut through an alley I know, one I've walked a hundred times before. It's dark, but it's faster, and I just want to collapse somewhere and forget this night ever happened. I'm halfway through when I hear the footsteps behind me. My heart jumps. I walk faster, but the footsteps speed up too. Multiple sets. My stomach drops.
'Hey, beautiful.'
The voice comes from ahead of me. Three men step out from behind a dumpster, blocking my path. They're young, early twenties maybe, wearing hoodies and grins that make my skin crawl.
'Where you headed so late?' one of them says, looking me up and down in a way that makes me feel violated all over again. I almost want to cry…or puke, I have no idea which one will come first.
'Leave me alone,' I say, my voice shaking. I try to step around them, but one grabs my arm.
'Don't be like that. We just want to talk.'
'Let go of me!' I try to yank my arm free, but his grip tightens. The other two move closer, surrounding me.
'You're crying,' another one observes, his hand reaching for my face. 'Who hurt you, baby? We can make you feel better.'
His fingers brush my cheek and I flinch away, but there's nowhere to go. They're pressing in on all sides now, hands reaching, grabbing me. One touches my waist. Another slides his hand down my back toward my ass.
'Stop! Get off me!' I try to fight, try to push them away, but I'm so tired. So emotionally drained. My body won't respond the way it should. The fight I should have just isn't there.
'She's feisty,' one of them laughs. 'I like that. They're the ones that are usually too sweet'
A hand grabs my breast through my dress and I scream, finally finding some strength to shove him back. But another one catches my wrists, pinning them.
'Hold her still—'
He isn't able to finish his word when I hear a sharp, sickening crack.
The man holding my wrists drops like a puppet with its strings cut to the floor. Blood sprays across my face, warm and sticky. I stumble back, gasping, and that's when I see him.
Wyatt.
He's standing over the fallen man, his fist covered in blood. But it's his eyes that freeze me in place. They're completely empty. Cold. Like looking into the void itself.
'Get the fuck away from her,' he says quietly,but his voice is cold as ice.
The other two men stare at their friend on the ground, then at Wyatt.
One of them tries to run. He makes it three steps before Wyatt catches him, slamming him face-first into the brick wall with enough force that I hear bones crack. The man crumples, leaving a smear of blood on the bricks.
The third one pulls a knife, swinging it forward and backwards. 'Back off, man. This isn't your business—'
He doesn't get to finish. Wyatt moves faster than I've ever seen anyone move, disarming him with brutal efficiency. The knife clatters to the ground. Then Wyatt's hands are around the man's throat, lifting him off his feet.
'You touched what's mine,' Wyatt says, his voice eerily calm. 'You put your fucking hands on her.'
The man claws at Wyatt's hands, gasping for air, his face turning purple.
'Wyatt,' I whisper, but I don't think he hears me.
The man can't answer. He can't do anything but struggle weakly as the life drains out of his eyes.
'Wyatt, stop!' I find my voice finally, it's shaky, but louder this time. 'You're going to kill him!'
'That's the point.'
The casual way he says it makes my blood run cold. He's not angry. He's not out of control. This is a deliberate, calculated act.
I watch, frozen, as the man's struggles grow weaker and weaker until they stop completely. Wyatt drops him like garbage. The body hits the ground with a dull thud.
The alley is silent except for my ragged breathing and the sound of blood dripping onto pavement. Three men. All of them down. Two definitely dead, the third…the one against the wall not moving.
Wyatt turns to face me. His white shirt is splattered with blood. His knuckles are torn and bleeding. But his expression hasn't changed. It's still cold and empty.
'Are you hurt?' he asks.
I can't speak or move. I just stare at the bodies on the ground, at the blood, at him. He steps closer and I flinch back. For the first time since I've known him, something flickers in his eyes. Something that might be concern. But it's gone so fast I think I imagined it.
‘маленькая птичка.’ His voice is softer now. 'Did they hurt you?'
I shake my head, still unable to find words. He reaches for me and I let him, too shocked to resist. His hands, the same hands that just killed three men cup my face gently, tilting it up so he can examine me in the dim light.
'You're covered in blood,' he says. 'But it's not yours.'
'You killed them,' I finally manage to whisper. 'You just... you killed them.'
'Yes.' He says without hesitation or remorse.
'Why?'
His thumb brushes across my cheekbone, wiping away blood. When he speaks, his voice is low, dangerous, possessive.
'Because they touched what belongs to me. And I don't think I made it clear enough,’ his hands grip my throat. ‘No other man should touch what I touch because they don't equal me. No one should touch what belongs to me, because if they do? If you let them? I'm going to dismember them and I'm going to make you watch. Then I'll feed you their fingers.’
The words should terrify me. They should send me running. But instead, something hot and twisted coils in my stomach. Because despite everything…despite the horror, the blood, the bodies…some primal part of me responds to the raw possessiveness in his voice.
He protected me. He killed for me.
'Come on,' he says, taking a step backward and leaving me. 'I'm taking you home.'
'The police—'
'Won't find anything.' He says it with such certainty that I believe him. 'This never happened. Do you understand?'
I nod numbly.
He leads me out of the alley, away from the carnage, his hand warm and solid around mine. A hand that just took three lives without hesitation.
As we walk toward his car parked at the curb, I realize with growing horror that I don't know which version of him scares me more.
The cold, cruel man who used my body like a toy. Or the deadly protector who just slaughtered three men for daring to touch me.
He opens the passenger door and guides me inside. Before closing it, he leans down, his ice-blue eyes boring into mine.
'You're mine, Constantine,' he says quietly. 'And I protect what's mine. Remember that.'