Venomous King (Venom #2)

29. Issy

Chapter twenty-nine

Issy

“Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

T he loud sounds of gunfire reach me through the thick wooden door, and an explosion feels like it shakes all the walls. Fuck, what was that? Is this place under attack? Could it be Diego and Kai finally here to rescue me and Julia from this hell?

I force myself back to my feet on unsteady legs, determination once more filling me. It doesn’t matter what is happening out there, or who is here, I have to get to Julia no matter what. I swipe at the blood still caked in my nose, and force myself to take a deep, shuddering breath. Don’t stop until you reach Julia. You are a Stratford, my grandmother’s voice demands in my head, and I grasp onto the doorknob while my other hand tightens around the whip. Fuck anyone who tries to stop me, they’re going to meet their end at my hands.

I charge out of the room, the whip raised and ready to unleash on anyone who tries to prevent me from leaving, and I step into complete fucking chaos. Men are racing in all different directions, some wearing all-black tactical gear, others in plain clothes, and a few of them badly injured. The ground and walls shake as more explosions go off, forcing me to brace my abused body against the wall, as rubble and smoke fill the hallway.

A man gets too close to me, and a shudder races through my body. I lift the whip robotically and strike out, before I’m even conscious of what I am doing, and it hits him with a vicious hiss. He releases a screech as he darts away from me, yelling at me in Spanish. Only once he’s long gone do I dare take another step forward. Breathe, Issy, just fucking breathe.

My eyes search in front of me, for a path that will lead me to where they are holding my daughter. Before I can move my body back to the safety of the wall, a man falls near my feet with a crash, blood and brain matter splattering my legs as he dies in front of me. A scream flees from my lips even as I try to swallow it, and I end up dropping the whip to the ground. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The warm, wet feeling of his blood coating my bare legs has another round of bile racing up the back of my throat, but I force it back down as I wrap my arms around my aching frame, and tremble from all the emotions accosting me at the same time. Be fucking strong, don’t fall apart right now.

I push off the wall on jerky legs and force myself to bend forward, reaching for the gun still clenched in his hand, as his sightless brown eyes stare up at the ceiling. My naked flesh feels chilled as the horror of what is happening around me reaches my eyes. Men are dying everywhere, and parts of the building have caved in, the ceiling and walls giving way to the dark night sky. I can see a fire starting out of the corner of my eye in one of the open doorways. It will only be a matter of time before this whole place is ablaze, and my Julia will be trapped within its walls, if I can’t get to her first.

A large man in all-black clothing slowly approaches me, and I raise the gun in his direction, my eyes desperately trying to focus. Is he real or a figment of my mind? Is any of this really happening, or am I trapped in another nightmare? I blink away the fog that is trying to roll my mind and force my eyes to meet his, as my fingers tighten around the grip of the gun. This is real, it has to be. I have to get out of here, I can’t let him hurt me. I won’t allow anyone to hurt me again. My finger twitches on the trigger; just a little more pressure, and he will be dead. I can do it, I can murder him before he can hurt me.

“Ms. Stratford, I’m with your grandmother. I mean you no harm.” He holsters his weapon and goes to grip his chest area, but I press the trigger, and the shot goes wide and hits the wall behind him. He jumps forward, a look of terror on his face. “Jesus! Take it easy, I am not going to harm you. I’m going to strip my shirt off for you to wear.” He utters in a soft, placating tone, but I’m done trusting men and their intentions. Everything that comes from their mouths are lies. I keep the gun trained on him, as he does what he said he was going to do.

“Turn around and throw it backward, lace your hands on the top of your head, and if you move, I will shoot you.” I watch him wearily as he follows my instructions, and I hastily throw on the large black shirt to cover my nakedness, while my heart beats thunderously in my chest. “Where is my daughter?”

“You’re the first one we have found, to my knowledge, but there are other forces inside searching, including your husbands and brothers-in-law.” I grasp onto his words. My husbands? Brothers-in-law? He must mean Kai, Diego, and Mia’s men, who must have also joined in the rescue attempt. I release all the pent-up air, and some of the anxiety that was trapped in my lungs. They have finally come; my only hope is that it’s not too late.

“Where is my grandmother?” I have no doubt that she is somewhere close by, if not in the very building. There is no way she would have remained behind, while her heirs were being held hostage. I step forward, still keeping him in my sights, but allowing him to face me and lower his arms. I still don’t trust him, and I don’t know that I will ever be trusting of the male species again. It’s a lesson I wouldn’t wish on any woman; the need to protect herself from any male, regardless of his good intentions, because eventually, they could turn on you, and they could hurt and rape you. I would rather face a wild animal in a forest than a man alone again. I will carry the battle scars of what happened to me here for the rest of my life; the outside wounds will heal and fade, but the harm done to my soul never will. I will never forgive, and I will never forget the moment when a man took everything from me against my will, and tried to shatter every piece of me just because he could.

“Ma’am, she’s about a mile down the road, secure and protected. We are to bring you back to camp immediately if you are found.” He makes a move towards me as if to grab my arm, but my self-preservation kicks in, and I fire the gun in a warning shot, just grazing his shoulder. “Don’t touch me. You will not stop me from getting to my daughter. If you try to stop me, I will end you.”

I don’t wait for his compliance, turning on my bare feet and racing down the corridor in the direction of where I faintly remember a vast space being, when I was first dragged in here. The sound of my blood thundering in my veins echoes in my ears, helping to drown out the sound of guns firing, explosions, and men dying all around me. Julia. I need to get to Julia, she’s all that matters.

I turn the corner, and my eyes meet the monster from my nightmares across the wide open space of what might have been a lounge, before the chaos erupted. Now, it lies in utter destruction, with furniture upended, parts of the walls succumbing to damage, and glass shattered from the skylight above, littering the ground. His eyes go wide when he spots me, and I take him in. He’s ragged and dirty from debris, with bleeding cuts to his forehead and cheek. The monster turns back into a man before me. He’s just a man, an evil man. He has no power over me, not anymore. He can’t hurt me, I won’t let him.

I raise the gun, pointing it at his head, and he tries to duck behind a chair, but I refuse to allow him to get away. Fuck that, he will die here, just like parts of me did in that room. I race forward, my focus wholly centered on him, even though my mind is screaming for me to run away, and I find the coward crouched down on his knees. He has no weapon in his hands as his sinister, bottomless brown eyes meet mine. His eyes glance at the gun before meeting my eyes. “We both know you don’t want to do this. Put the gun down, Isabella,” his menacing voice implores me, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end as my stomach clenches. That voice will haunt all my nightmares forever. I will hear it even in the afterlife as it follows me, never allowing me to have a moment of peace.

I fire the gun towards his head, taking the top of the chair off with the blast, and he flinches down, his ear bleeding, as he lays his upper body along the debris-strewn floor. “Scream for me, whore, let me hear the sound of you begging!” I shout as I fire again, this time getting him in the shoulder.

“Pl... ease, please, don’t... hurt... me.” Tears slide down his miserable face, as he clutches at his injured shoulder. I cock my head to the side; everything inside of me is numb as I watch his dark, red blood soak his shirt, and the ugly trail of tears slide down his monstrous face. “Crawl for me, whore. Let me see how you slide like a useless worm on the ground,” I demand as I watch him push himself across the floor, slithering towards me like a repugnant insect that I wish to squash. I inhale a deep breath, my ribs protesting against the effort, and fire again, this time getting him in the side. He screams, falling on his face as he grabs at the wound. “Mercy! Please, mercy!”

I squat down, despite the protests from my own body at the effort, until I’m close to eye level with him, but still far away enough that I could shoot him in the face if he lunged at me. Pitiful. He doesn’t seem so terrifying now. “You thought I was weak. You thought you could take from me without consequence, you spineless, worm-dicked monster. I am a Stratford, and death will be a mercy that I will grant you, because the world needs you gone and not breathing its air, but I will find you in hell to continue your punishment.” I fire again, this time hitting his other shoulder, and then again, until I put a bullet in his stomach. He spits up blood, and it seeps from his lips, coating his chin. The sight of it should cause a momentary delay to my wrath, but all it does is fuel me further to see more of it coating him. “Beg for mercy, slut.”

“Pl... ease!” It’s the final word he utters as I fire for the last time, and put a bullet in his skull. There is no mercy left in me, only rage resides where once I was a woman filled with dreams, compassion, and aspirations for a better world. Now that world is dull and gray, and with it goes all my good intentions. It’s still not enough; even seeing his lifeless eyes doesn’t soothe my rage. I reach across me for a large shard of broken glass, wrapping my fingers around it, even as the bite of pain from it slicing my skin tries to bring me back to the here and now.

I slide forward and stab Joaquín in his eye with the tip of the shard, pulling back and doing the same to the other one. I grip the glass tighter and slide it down his face, first one side, then the other, watching as his skin parts like a piece of fleshy fruit. I reach his lips and cut through the bottom one, no longer feeling the pain in my fingers. My other hand releases its hold on the gun, and I reach up and yank him backward by his hair, exposing his throat to me, and I thrust over and over, embedding the glass inside of the column of his neck. “What a pretty whore you are, you’re going to feel me inside of you forever,” I whisper until the shard snaps, and I release my hold on it. I stare at what I have done, at the monster bleeding grotesquely before me. I lean forward until my face is next to his and blow him a kiss. “I’ll be seeing you in hell, monster.”

My grandmother was always right; there are Stratfords, and then there is everyone else. I will never be a pawn in anyone else’s game. From now on, I plan to be the queen I was always raised to be, and I will ensure that I raise my daughter the same way. Power and strength are the only armor a woman has against a predator. I plan to be at the top of the food chain, like the other Stratford women before me, and I will ensure the survival of the ones who come after I am long gone. I swipe at my face, my mind momentarily lost in nothingness, as I continue to stare at what I have done. Joaquín’s blood rapidly seeps across the floor towards me, like a bottle of rich merlot having lost its contents, and I step back, not wanting it to taint me further.

“ISSY! Thank fuck!” A large man races towards me with another quickly on his heels, both dressed in all black. Blind panic seizes me, and I reach for the gun and raise it once more, my hand trembling as I attempt to tighten my grasp. A pitiful sound leaves me, the sound of a cornered animal about to die. No, not like this, not without my Julia. I shake my head even as silent tears leave warm tracks down my face. I can’t die here, I can’t let them retake me. My core tightens painfully with the reminder of what I have survived, and I force myself to plant my feet and steady my hand. “NO!”

“Issy! It’s Theo, Mia’s Theo!” He stops instantly, his hands rising where I can see them, but all I can focus on is how large he is, and how those hands will hurt me. “I am not going to hurt you. Focus, Issy, see me .“ He pounds on his chest and then drops all his weapons to the ground, before getting on his knees. “Carter, get fucking down, drop all your weapons, and get down on the ground, so she doesn’t see you as a threat; she’s traumatized.” The blond man looks at me with compassion on his face, but follows the instructions, dropping all his weapons to the ground and lacing his hands in front of him, so I can see them. “It’s us, Issy, Theo and Carter. We are not going to hurt you. We would never hurt you.”

Theo... and Carter. Mia’s Theo? Their words penetrate the emotional twister I am currently inhabiting. My body goes slack, my arm dropping from its position and resting at my side. I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming, from completely losing my mind. I didn’t see them; I only saw more monsters ready to hurt me. Even now, my brain is registering that it’s them, but it is doing nothing to stop the fear from racing through my limbs. “You’re safe, Issy. Let’s get you to Julia, and back to Stella.” Theo’s midnight blue eyes plead with me, and in their depths, I see understanding and sorrow. With just one look, he lets me know he understands what has happened to me, and it’s what makes me release my hold on the gun, as it goes tumbling to the ground, and I sway on my feet.

Carter jumps to his feet and tries to reach for me, but Theo yanks him back forcefully. “Don’t touch her.” I’m so grateful for those three words that a sob rips from my throat. Even if I were to fall to the ground, and have to crawl my way out of here, through broken glass, I would rather that than to have them touch me right now.

“Jesus fuck, Theo. She looks half dead,” Carter argues, but doesn’t make another attempt to reach for me.

“No, she looks like a Stratford queen, and she will walk out of here on her own two feet.”

Just as I take the first step away from them, my body aching and my limbs shaking from exhaustion, I hear a shout from across the room. My head perks up, and my eyes meet my little girl, who’s cradled in Kai’s arms. “MOMMA!”

Heaven . Heaven is the sound of my child’s voice, calling for me and needing me to hold her. I don’t hesitate to race across the room. I rip her from Kai’s arms, and envelop my body tightly around her, protecting her from all the evil that surrounds us, even when I failed before. Her little arms and legs wrap firmly around my neck and waist, as I sway with her in my arms. I allow my nose to breathe in her scent, and my tears to fall into her beautiful dark hair. Safe, she’s safe. Kai tries to approach me, to pull us into his arms, but I slide back out of his reach and bare my teeth at him, like a feral animal wanting to protect her young. I retreat into the dense ice that is forming around my heart, the barrier I need to protect and defend myself, and my daughter, from all that this world will use to destroy us.

“Isabella? Baby, I’m not going to hurt you or Julia.” His words are soft and pleading, but they don’t move me. I keep my distance from him, and as I make my way closer to the entrance of the room, I spy Diego being carried by Clark, and one of his men. He’s out cold, his feet dragging across the floor, as the two men try to cope with his large, heavy body between them. My heart lurches in my chest, and I tighten my hold on Julia. She lifts her little head and peeks behind her, and a wail leaves her. “Momma, Papi (daddy) is hurt. He’s hurt ’cause he saved me.”

He saved her. Diego saved my Julia, and now he’s hurt.

“Isabella, we have to go. This place is going to blow. There’s fire everywhere, little rose. We have to get to safety, to get home.” Kai’s pleading tone has me moving forward, cradling Julia until I am crushing her against me. My ribs protest the movement, but I refuse to loosen my grip. No, she’s only safe with me, in my arms. I can and will protect her.

Home and safety. Those two words seem foreign, and nothing but a long-ago memory now. Do I have a home, and will I ever be safe again? I doubt it.