He wants blood.
He wants chaos.
He wants revenge.
But I’m not giving him the satisfaction of seeing me break.
So, I lift my bruised, bleeding face and meet his crazed gaze head-on.
“Well,” I whisper, “you’re going to be very disappointed in how hard I am to break.”
His eyes flare.
Then, the gun whips across my cheekbone, and everything explodes into white.
Then the black swallows me.
Chapter Thirty-Four-Atlas
Dimitri’s compound sits on the edge of the old cliffs, a mockery of the estate my father once owned. It was meant to be a retreat. A private sanctuary.
Tonight, it is a tomb.
My car barely stops before I’m off it, sprinting across the pier with four of my remaining loyal guards at my heels.
I don’t wait. I don’t strategize.
I don’t fucking breathe.
My wife is inside there.
The gates to the compound hang crooked, one of them broken clean off the hinges and smoking from an earlier blast.
Stone walls charred black. Windows blown out. The scent of gunpowder and ash thick in the air. I stalk through the rubble, each step heavy with purpose, the weight of rage coiled in my gut.
My breath rasps loud in my ears, harsh and uneven.
But louder still is the sound of my heartbeat.
A war drum in my chest.
Faster. Louder. Unrelenting.
And underneath it, the fear.
It claws at me like a living thing.
That I’m too late.
That she’s hurt.
That I’ve lost her.
I tell myself I can’t think like that, not now. Not when every second counts.
Men approach. My uncle’s men.
They’re outfitted for battle, but they look hesitant.
