Her lips tremble—my lips, the ones I’ve kissed awake every morning since dragging her here.
And then she says my name.
“Atlas.”
A broken, breathless whisper.
But it destroys me.
It detonates whatever thin strand of sanity I had left. Cuts through the last fragile tether holding the beast inside me at bay.
This is it.
This is the moment the monster takes over completely.
Because she’s mine.
Because I love her more than my own pulse.
Because whoever touched her will beg for death long before I grant it.
The entire world has just been given notice.
There will be no mercy.
No prisoners.
No escape.
Not for the man who dared lay a finger on what’s mine.
Dimitri Stavros is already dead.
He just hasn’t realized it yet.
My blood is lava. My bones feel like they’re splintering under the pressure of holding in the monster clawing its way up my throat. I can barely hear over the roar in my head—rage, grief, fury so sharp it could cut steel.
“Speak of the Devil,” I growl.
Dimitri steps out from behind her like he’s taking a bow on a stage built from my nightmares, wearing that smug, oily grin I’ve hated since childhood.
The grin that says he thinks he’s clever. That he thinks he’s won. That he thinks he’s already counted Cecilia as his prize.
He’s smiling like this is some grand finale.
Like this is his moment.
Like tonight ends with me broken and him triumphant.
He has no idea.
“There you are,” he sneers. “I knew you would crawl back to rescue the fat American whor?—”
He doesn’t finish.
Because I don’t let him.
Something inside me snaps—clean, violent, irrevocable.
