Greyson. I watch Melanie disappear through the gaping hole of the open door

My world bottoms out.

I watch Melanie disappear through the gaping hole of the open door. Something takes over me. I hear myself yelling one more time, “PRINCESS!” as I charge for the empty space. My brother lunges at me, tackling me against the wall, grabbing my arm where I’m holding my gun. I overpower him easily, slide my SIG between us and aim it right in the center of his rib cage.

BOOM!

He howls, and I drop his writhing body to the ground and drop the gun as I run to the empty doorway. My chest is tight. I can’t breathe. Five stories below, I see a pool of golden hair.

“MELANIE!”

No response.

Derek steps out of the elevator and is instantly by my side, unrolling a piece of rope as I bark, “Lower me, I don’t want to crush her.” I grab one end of the rope as he slowly lowers me one floor, and then two, until there’s no more rope, and from two stories up, I leap down, crashing to the ground with a curse. “Call an ambulance!” I yell at Derek.

“Princess.” I roll to the side and crawl over to her. “Princess.”

She’s pale and lifeless. Streaks of blood cover her cheeks, streaming from her lips and nose. She mumbles something unintelligible.

“Baby,” I say as I reach out to touch her neck for a pulse.

I feel it, fluttering faintly under my fingers. My heart hurts in my rib cage. It hurts so fucking bad. For the first time in my life, I feel impotent.

“Melanie, stay with me.” I sound like a pussy. Begging. But holy shit, she can’t leave me. She can’t fucking leave me.

I check the back of her neck; it’s not broken, but I’m not moving her. I don’t dare. I simply cup her head in my hands because I thought I’d never see this fucking face again and I stare at it. And stare at it. Her eyes closed, her smile gone, the blood trailing from her lips. Before I know it I duck my head and press my lips to hers, kissing her bloodied lips, my voice roughening as it starts breaking, “Baby, I told you to stay away from me.”

She’s not moving. I can’t breathe.

The room closes in on us, sucking out the oxygen. I can’t fucking breathe. “Melanie, look at what I’ve done to you.” I brush her hair back with my gloved hands. I growl in anger then pull my gloves off, shoving them into the back of my jeans, then I take her hair, silk in my hands as I tug the strands into a braid so that she won’t have to worry about her hair on her face.

I feel like I’m losing control, like I’m about to snap and nothing will ever hold me together again.

“Stay with me,” I still beg, lifting her hand to my lips and kissing it, over and over. “Don’t leave me again. Stay with me.”

I want to see her eyes. Those save-me green eyes. Holy shit. I need to see her smile at me. Laugh at me. Call me an asshole. Tell me she loves me.

When the basement elevator doors open, I’m shaking with rage as I look up to watch Derek shove my brother in my direction. My god, I’m going to fucking kill him.

I charge across the room to where Wyatt stands, arms tied behind him, stomach bleeding out. He’s hurt, but it does nothing to calm me. I want to grab all my knives and start cutting up his limbs, bit by bit. I want to hear him scream, I want to spill his blood, I want REVENGE FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO HER.

Raging in pain, I smash my fists into his face. “Why’d you take her? Why? You motherfucker, WHY HER?!”

“To fuck YOU!” he yells back, spitting out blood from his mouth.

“What did she say?” I shake him hard before I slam my knuckles into his jaw again. “Her last words before she fell, what did she say?”

He grins a bloodied grin, and I slam him with my knuckles, blood spurting from his mouth. “What did she say, asshole?” I demand, the pain so deep I feel like an animal. Soulless. Lifeless. A killing machine, nothing more. A brutal rage beats through me.

I’m a raging maniac, stewing inside, hurting inside.

I’m inadequate for her but it can’t stop me.

She’s the soul I don’t have.

I thought I was dead before.

No.

I was only dormant.

She woke me up, but now, if anything happens to her, I’m dead. A walking corpse. He groans in pain when I slam him again.

“You make her beg? You make her beg you to let her go?”

Wyatt sucks in a breath. “Yeah, asshole, I made her beg.”

“How’d she beg you? For how long?”

“Look, I was angry.”

“How long did she beg for her life? Did she say please? Did she?”

“Minutes. Only minutes!”

“Did she tell you I would kill you? Did she tell you I would skin you alive for harming so much as a hair on her head ?” I slam my fist again and he groans and rolls uncomfortably to the side, bringing the chair with him.

“Z, she fell on her own . . . !” he begs. “I was just keeping her to keep you from finishing the list!”

“You touched her, you fucking cunt, didn’t you?”

“YES! I grabbed her tits, I wanted to piss you off!”

I slam my fists into him, repeatedly, yelling, “Congratulations, I’m pissed. And now. You’re. DEAD!”

I pummel him, then curl an arm around his neck and start squeezing the life out of him.

Promise you won’t kill anyone. The words come back to haunt me. My eyes begin to sting as I remember the hope in her eyes that one night. Promise me you won’t kill anyone.

Growling in defeat, I let go, panting as I catch my breath and drag my arm across my wet eyes.

Promise me you won’t kill anyone . . .

“Zero,” I hear someone yelling. “The ambulance is here.”

I walk to my unconscious girl, still fallen in that same spot, and I drop to my knees, taking her hand in mine. “Remember when I told you I didn’t beg?” I whisper. “I’m begging you. Come back to me.”

♥ ♥ ♥

WHEN I WAS thirteen years old I lost the most precious thing in my life.

Then I built a fortress around myself so that I’d never again lose anything I cared about. Never again feel lost, betrayed, alone, or kidnapped.

I became as cold as ice and as calculating as a robot.

I let no one in.

Loved no one, not even my family.

And it all works out great until you let down your guard.

And you finally do let someone in.

A blonde, green-eyed girl who just laughs about everything.

Who loves everything and everyone.

Who connects with people like she was born to it.

And you start wishing in the deepest part of you that she’d connect with you.

And no matter how demonic you are, what an asshole you are, that you lie to her, refuse to share the truth about you with her, she does connect with you.

She opens up the gate and walks inside you before you know it, and you feel so fucking full, so fucking blessed, you slam the doors closed and lock her inside, protecting yourself, protecting her.

Until you realize you’re done for.

Until you’re no longer cold, no longer a robot. You carry your weakness deep in your heart and her pain is your pain.

Until her smiles are all you live for.

Until you sit in a hospital chair and wait and pray for the first time in your life to a god that never heard you when you prayed for him to let you see your mother.

You still pray because Zero has no power here. Your money holds no sway here. Nothing counts except your will, and you can do nothing except pray, please, not her.

But it is her.

The doctors walked out to speak to me. To let me know the news.

She’s in a coma.

She’s barely breathing on her own.

She’s somewhere far away where I don’t exist, where I can’t get her, can’t protect her. And I still see her, feel her, hear her. Need her. LOVE THE DAYLIGHTS OUT OF HER.

She never knew that I did.

Hell, I didn’t know.

Neither of us knew.

I brush my arm over my eyes when they keep burning, then stare at the text message from C.C. I got several minutes ago, numb to what it says.

Your father just passed.

Without a word, I stand and go stare through the window at her, my one and only princess, then I head down the hall to plan my father’s funeral.

♥ ♥ ♥

“CONGRATULATIONS, Z.”

“Congratulations, Z!”

“Zero, congratulations!”

I scowl when we reach the compound the day after my father’s funeral, watching Eric cautiously approach with a large, closed steel box.

“What’s this?” I ask. I’m not only thrown by the reception of the team, but by the items he’s holding outstretched in his hands.

“Everything, Greyson. Ownership to the Underground. Something that belonged to your mother. And this.”

I’m confused as he hands me an envelope, but then my mind is worth shit now. I’m worth shit. I feel like roadkill. I haven’t eaten in forty hours. Haven’t slept. Haven’t taken a bath.

“I didn’t finish the list, Eric,” I feel obligated to specify.

“Yes you did. By the time your father died, every last name on the list was accounted and paid for.”

“Not Melanie . . .”

“Her friend brought in her payment for her.”

He pulls out the necklace from his pocket, and I almost unravel at the sight of the familiar jewels, sparkling like mad.

The diamonds glitter, and I touch the necklace she used to wear on her neck.

Memories assault me. Melanie asking what list would this be? Melanie wanting to go inside my steel room. Melanie cooking for me. Melanie Melanie Melanie. I want to see her eyes sparkling bright. I want to see her eyes open and LOOK THE FUCK AT ME LIKE SHE ALWAYS DOES! With life. Like I’m her god. Like I’m her guy.

Princess, do you realize what this means? I want to tell her as I take her necklace in my hands and stare at it while I feel poleaxed in the gut, chainsawed in my chest. You saved me, baby. You fucking saved me. I can find my mother now.

But there’s no joy in my heart, not even at this news. There will never be joy in my heart if those green eyes don’t fucking open and see me. Please just see me if only to tell me what a fucking asshole she thinks I am. Tell me I’m the reason she’s like this right now.

“So this is it? This is where she is?” I ask Eric as I look down at the sealed envelope, my voice rough with the emotions I’m trying hard to keep concealed.

He nods toward that envelope. The one containing the information I’ve waited over a decade for. Things claw and knife at me as I grab the note and tear it open. I’ve waited thirteen years for this. Thirteen. I have done unspeakable things for this, for her. To find her. Try to protect her.

Pulling out the paper, I read the address written down in my father’s handwriting, and that’s when it hits me. Like a torpedo slamming into me, it hits me.

My mother is in a cemetery.

I stand there, absorbing it without swaying, without even a muscle in me twitching. I’m motionless, while at the same time, there’s a nuclear destruction within me. Here it is. The answer to why I could never find her.

My mother. Is dead.

The death certificate is dated several years ago. Around the time I left the Underground to look for her. She was on an island, a private island. That’s where she died. Natural causes, the autopsy reads. My mother died, alone, on some sort of secret island that will now belong to me.

My mother is dead.

My father is dead.

And my girlfriend is . . .

The thought of her in that hospital bed sends a fulminating, raging pain through me. The way I found her, unconscious, her skull banged, bleeding to death, her body small and pale and lifeless.

MY. FUCKING. GIRL.

Barely a pulse beating in her throat.

Pale and motionless on the ground when all I wanted was to lift her in my arms.

I stalk toward the bar and yell as I slam my fist into the wall.

♥ ♥ ♥

I WAKE UP to an eerie silence and dozens of bottles are scattered across the floor. This shithole can’t be my room. The fucking mess can’t be where I slept.

I groan as I push myself up and the pounding in my head rolls to expand across my entire skull. I blink and take in my surroundings while instinctively pulling out my gun from under my pillow. I cock it as I stand and kick aside a fallen pillow. The place looks destroyed, like some motherfucker didn’t have the intention of anything in here surviving.

“You alive, man?”

I groan and tuck my gun back as I spot C.C. Apparently one thing survived, the one the motherfucker didn’t want to: me.

“You have anything else to break in here?” he asks me.

“So I did do this?”

So I destroyed my place. Great.

I’m so fucking proud of myself.

“Hell, it could be worse. Bro, you’re a fucking legend, the king of the Underground, rich as fuck . . .”

“My mother is dead. My mother is dead and my girl is . . .”

I can’t say it. My heart rips open at the thought of her. I put my head in my hands.

“I’m sorry, Z. I’m fucking sorry we didn’t reach her in time.”

“She was coming back to me, C.C. She was coming back to me even with this . . .” I spread my arms out and look around at the mess I look like—I finally look the part of the criminal I was born to be. “I may be revered in our own little dark world, but out there I’m shit. Out there there’s something very wrong with us, C.C. And a girl like her can do much, much better than me. And she was coming. Back. To me.”

He’s silent.

I start picking up my knives from where they lay scattered all over. “If I’m doing this, C.C., if the Underground is mine to deal with . . . things are going to change.”

“What do I do about Wyatt?”

“Jail him. Pin everything wrong there is with the Underground and my father on him. We start with a clean slate.” I look at him. “C.C., I want to be the man she wants. The man she needs. The man I could be.”

“Z, she may never wake up. She could stay like this for months until her family decides it’s time to turn off the artificial . . .”

I grab him by the shirt and warn, “Don’t fucking finish that sentence!”

C.C. quiets, and I start putting all my weapons aside.

“Grey, the Underground will fucking thrive with you. Your father was weighing it down. You can take it to another level. You can give our fighters more, our clients more.”

“I’ll take care of things. I’ll take care of things like I always do, but not now. Not now. I can’t now.” I start packing some stuff.

“Dude, where are you going to sleep?”

“For now, at the hospital.”

He signals to the box, my mother’s box, on my bed.

“Aren’t you going to open it before you leave?”

It’s a steel box, rather large. I stare at it for a long time, haunted by the sight of it. I rub the top and wish I could talk to her. I’m sorry I failed you. I’m so fucking sorry I failed you.

I failed proving to her that I could be good and tempered when I shot a man. I failed finding her in time. I became the thing she had been running away from for as long as I can remember. She died thinking I was a killer and probably never wanted to see her. She died thinking me a criminal just like the man she hated, my father. The reason I lost my mother is the same reason I lost the woman I loved. The Underground.

C.C. leaves, and I fist my hand around the key and eye the slot. The box is old, larger than a shoe box, made of steel.

“Fuck this.” I force myself to shove the key into the slot and crack it open. I peel open the lid, and it’s heavy, creaking. Then I stare inside. There’s a pendant with a diamond I remember her wearing. So simple. The scent of her lingers somehow. I pull out a set of pictures of me. Age fifteen? Check. Age eighteen? Check. Age twenty? Check. In all of them, I’m training with my knives or at a shooting range—unaware of the camera. Fuck me. What a way to say hello to your mother.

Next I find a bundle of letters tied in a white sash. Hand delivered, maybe. No addresses. Just her name on them. I open all three and immediately recognize my father’s handwriting.

Lana,

I’ve been told you’ve been uncooperative as of late. Let me assure you how cooperative I will personally be if you stop trying to leave the island . . .

J

Lana,

He’s doing well. How else would you expect a son of mine to do? He thrives under pressure and he’s thriving now. If you mean to ask me if he’s been asking about you? He has. I’ve assured him you’re all right. Don’t make me a liar.

I cannot guarantee I’ll let you see him and risk all the work I’ve done so far, but it’s in both his and your best interests that you get on my good side.

J

P.S. There’s a cook on the island for a reason. Eat.

Lana,

As you requested, it’s at the Waterfront. The deal was this for your cooperation; it will be gone in an instant if you ever defy me or my wishes again.

J

Motherfucker. Even with keeping her locked up, he still wanted her to accept her fate without quarrel? I’m gritting my teeth as I go to pull out the rest of the box’s contents.

And a set of keys falls out and to the ground. I’m about to bend down and grab them when I see, at the bottom of the box, another letter.

And this one’s addressed to me.

To my son, Greyson,

I remember you. Every day I wonder what you’re doing and how you’ve grown. I ask for pictures, and as you can see I’ve gotten quite a few. You’re as handsome as I imagined you’d grow up to be. I look at these, wishing all your inner strength will be able to stand living with a man as hard as your father. But I try pretending that you’re all right. I try remembering how strong you are, how resilient, and I tell myself, one day you’ll outgrow your father and then you’ll be unstoppable. You will make yourself to be exactly what you want.

I’ve written you countless letters, none of them ever reach you. So I stored this one away to make sure that, somehow, it will.

I remember all our years together, I cling to them. And of all those years, I remember our time in Seattle most. You liked it when we walked to the waterfront.

We used to stare at the yachts out on the water and we’d wonder what it would be like to have a home that gave us that kind of freedom.

We both wanted to stop running, remember? We were tired of running from city to city, home to home, and yet every time I told you to pack, you did so quietly and without complaining.

I’ve never forgotten what a noble son you were, and I never forgot those days. Not when we moved to Dallas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Boston.

I’m surrounded by water now.

Since I got here, I’ve seen these lovely yachts sail by, and I became obsessed with finding a way to make sure that one day you have a boat of your own, where you can sail far away from any trouble, away from all those bad men around you.

In the end, I couldn’t see another way to do this except to cooperate with your father.

Escaping has been futile. And even if it were successful, who’s to tell me he won’t take his anger out on you before I reach you?

I’ve stayed put and tried to make the best of what I have.

The best of what I have is you, Greyson.

In this box you will find the little that was of value to me, most especially the keys to the boat I wanted you to have. It’s not much, and not nearly everything I would have wished to give you, but I hope that the ocean can give you the kind of comfort it has given me all this time.

Your loving mother,

Lana