Chapter 1
Mount
Six feet. Three feet. Almost there. Doorknob.
I yank it open, and the familiar scents of leather, tobacco, and musty books fill my nostrils as I cross the threshold of the library and close the door as carefully and silently behind me as I can with these shaking hands.
I drop to my knees, the rug cushioning the weight of my body as I collapse onto my forearms, forehead resting on my clenched fists.
What have I done? What have I done?
Agony tears through me, immobilizing me until the tremors begin.
God, what have I done?
Tears I gave no permission to shed course down my face as the image of Keira wrapping our precious daughter in her arms, pressing kisses to her face, flashes through my mind. Anguish follows, blotting out the picture.
What have I done?
What have I become?
What will become of them?
I’ve ruined everything. The purity of my daughter. Her unblemished soul. The sanctity of her innocence. She was never supposed to know violence or danger. She was never supposed to know anything but love and safety.
I failed her.
I failed both of them.
A tortured sound rips through the room—the sound of a dying animal howling in pain. Locked in the prison I created myself, it takes me a moment to realize the torment came from my own open lips.
I can’t hold the agony in. I can’t hold any of it in anymore. I just can’t …
I press my lips to the carpet as a broken roar wrenches from the depths of my soul.
Helplessness. Fear. Terror. Gut-wrenching horror unlike anything I’ve ever felt. All the blood. V’s body. I’d almost lost my baby girl forever.
The suppressed emotions pour out of me, along with torrents of salty tears as my legendary control shatters. My joints give way as my muscles go weak, and I sag onto the wool.
Inhuman noises vibrate through the floor, surrounding me in the suffocating haze of my own misery.
I did this. No one else. There’s no one to blame.
I did this. Me. If I wasn’t who I am, none of this would have ever happened.
But it did.
Because I am who I am.
Cracks in my once-impenetrable armor become rents and tears, until I fear I won’t survive the emotional onslaught shredding what’s left of my sanity with razor-sharp claws.
“God, help me,” I whisper, uncertain I’ll survive to draw in my next breath. “What have I done? What have I done?”
My fists clench, and my nails dig into my palms. I lean into the cutting pain. It’s the only thing I understand right now. It’s the only thing that makes sense and keeps me anchored to this moment.
The weight of my sins and the empire of darkness I’ve built crashes down upon me as my muffled sobs escape. The helplessness of my baby girl in that psychopath’s hands slashes at my soul.
I almost lost her. I almost killed her. It wasn’t him. It was me.
This is all because of me. I did this. All of this.
The magnitude of the nightmare I’ve created seeps into every fiber of my being. The bullet in his brain didn’t fix anything. Nothing can fix this.
Nothing.
I did this. I brought death and darkness to the ones I love the most. The ones I would die to protect.
But I didn’t protect them. Not even the purest innocence I’ve ever seen—conceived from my own essence.
I failed her. I failed all of them.
The Devil incarnate didn’t come for me. He came for my soul. He came for my heart. And he ripped it out of my chest and showed me just how powerless I truly was.
All the bullets, all the blood, all the leverage, all the money, all the men—none of it could protect my daughter from being kidnapped or save the life of my best friend.
Tears of grief soak the rug for V. He died a hero.
It should have been me.
“And then I had to send my wife in to get her,” I whisper into the carpet as disgust and helpless rage mix with the tears, becoming an amalgam of my failure, suffering, and horror.
What kind of man am I? Not worth the name or the breath it takes to speak the word.
God should strike me dead, but the pain keeps coming. He won’t let me escape so easily. I wouldn’t either. I deserve this. I created this. This is my nightmare. My living hell. My monster.
It can’t be escaped—only slayed.
I failed.
I failed everyone.
My fingers dig into the pile of the rug, gripping the strands like they might hold me together as everything I am—everything I once believed—slips away like a ghost from my grip.
My strength. My confidence. My certainty.
My very identity.
And there I lie, prostrate with grief and the knowledge that Lachlan Mount must die.
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