Chapter 8 - An Eye for an Eye
"Drop the gun!" Corbin screamed, pressing the blade deeper into Briar’s neck. A thin trickle of crimson slid down her collarbone, staining the pale silk of her emerald dress. "Drop it or she dies right here!"
Briar’s heart was hammering against her ribs, but strangely, the terror that had ruled her life for two years had evaporated.
She looked past Corbin’s trembling arm. She saw Baron crouching five feet away, his muscles coiled like steel springs, his teeth bared, waiting for her command. She looked into Damien Ashworth’s freezing gray eyes, and in them, she saw something she had never witnessed in any man: absolute, unshakeable certainty.
"Briar," Damien said, his voice entirely steady, cutting through Corbin’s frantic breathing. "Do you remember what you told me in the clinic?"
Briar swallowed, the steel blade cold against her windpipe. "I... I told you predators strike when you show your neck."
"Good," Damien said softly. "Stop showing it."
In that split second, Briar didn't shrink. She slammed her head backward with every ounce of strength in her body, her skull colliding violently with Corbin’s already broken nose.
Cartilage crunched with a sickening snap.
Corbin shrieked, stumbling backward, his grip slipping from the knife.
"Baron! Take!" Damien snapped.
The beast struck like lightning.
Baron’s massive jaws clamped onto Corbin’s right arm, the crushing force instantly shattering the bones of his forearm. Corbin hit the concrete with a thud, wailing in sheer agony as the hundred-and-fifty-pound hound pinned him to the floor, amber eyes burning with ancestral fury, pressing his muzzle inches from Corbin’s face. One word from Damien or Briar, and the hound would tear the man’s jugular clean from his throat.
Damien holstered his weapon, walked calmly over to where Briar hung chained against the rusted pillar, and pulled a set of heavy steel bolt-cutters from the shadows. With two effortless snaps, he severed the chains.
Briar collapsed forward, her knees giving out from the shock.
She didn't hit the filthy floor.
Damien’s powerful arms caught her, lifting her off her feet effortlessly against his chest. His embrace was rock-solid, smelling of rain and cedar, shielding her from the cold, violent world of the warehouse.
"I have you," Damien whispered against her hair, his low voice thick with an emotion he couldn't entirely conceal. "You're safe, Briar. You will always be safe."
Tears she had held back for two long years finally spilled down her cheeks, soaking into his white dress shirt. She buried her face into his neck, her hands clutching his shoulders, letting the trembling wreck her body.
On the floor, Corbin wept, clutching his mangled arm, blood pooling beneath his torn jacket. "Please... please don't kill me! Take the money! Let me go! I’ll leave New York! I’ll disappear!"
Damien turned, keeping one protective arm wrapped tightly around Briar’s waist. He looked down at Corbin the way an emperor looks at a cockroach beneath his boot.
"Kill you?" Damien murmured, his voice dropping into that chilling, silky register. "Death is a mercy, Corbin. Death is an instant release from pain. You spent three years keeping this girl locked in dark rooms, starving her, beating her spirit until she thought she was nothing."
Damien stepped forward, signaling Mateo, who emerged from the shadows carrying a heavy black duffel bag.
"You are going to an offshore facility in the North Atlantic," Damien stated calmly. "A container ship that never docks. You will scrub the engine bilges twenty hours a day in total darkness. You will eat plain rice and drink stale water. And every time you hear the key turn in the lock, you will remember Briar Lennox."
Corbin’s face twisted in horror as Damien’s operatives hauled him to his feet, dragging him screaming into the rainy night.
"No! Please! Shoot me! Just shoot me!" his screams faded into the distance, swallowed by the roar of the river.
Silence descended upon the warehouse.
Baron trotted over, nudging Briar’s limp hand with his warm snout. Briar sank to her knees, burying her face into the dog’s thick silver fur, sobbing uncontrollably. The hound rested his massive chin over her shoulder, shielding her with his body, a silent guardian who would never let anyone hurt her again.
May you like
Damien knelt beside them on the damp concrete. Slowly, gently, his long fingers reached out and tilted her face up to meet his.
"The nightmare is over, Briar," he said softly, wiping a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "You never have to run again."
