Rage snapped through me. My palm cracked him in the face, hard enough to sting my hand. His head whipped to the side, but he only laughed, the sound low and mocking.
"God, I love that fire in you. Makes me hard just watching the spark in those fucking eyes."
Becca surged forward before I could stop her. She slammed her fist into his jaw. "Shut the fuck up!" She screamed, her voice raw from weeks of swallowed pain.
Hector chuckled through the blood that dripped down his chin. "Ah…icy blue finally grew some claws. I wondered when you would show them."
He tilted his head toward me, his eyes dark and gleaming.
"Careful, green eyes. Your little friend may fall into favor with me, and you'll be second in line. I love her energy."
I stepped closer and pulled his head enough to expose his Adam's apple. I pressed the knife against his throat just hard enough for him to feel the cold metal on his skin. "You don't get to look at her. You don't get to breathe her name."
He sneered. "You're adorable when you try to play the executioner, but we both know you don't have the guts. You'd rather save me for your boyfriend, wouldn't you?"
His lips curled into a sarcastic grin.
"Atlas, the assassin. Tell me—does he fuck you as hard as I did last night? You know, you will always hear my voice in your head, green eyes. I will always own your soul."
My vision blurred with hot tears. He was right.
I could never play the executioner, no matter what he did to me, but I didn't back down.
"The only difference between you and him is that when he touches me, it's because I want him to. Abusing women is all you're good for. You have no balls without your scumbag guards surrounding you. You're pathetic."
There was a flicker of something in his expression. Anger maybe, or jealousy, but he buried it fast, twisting it back into sarcasm. "Are you too stupid to know the difference between love and obsession? Sounds like he's obsessed, not in love, green eyes. Crave his touch all you want, but he kidnapped you just like I did."
He grinned, his voice ridiculing.
"He's no better than I am. We are cut from the same cloth, don't kid yourself."
I pressed the knife harder against his throat, firm enough to make him suck in a breath. "He may have kidnapped me, but he never treated me the way you did. Say another word, and I'll open you up right here."
Becca crouched beside me, her eyes blazing. "Do it, Kit. He deserves it. After everything…what he did to the girls and what he did to us."
She spat in his face.
"He's not even a man. He's a fucking parasite."
Hector's tongue darted out, licking the spit on his cheek. Then he grinned wide and feral.
"Mmm. Salty. Even your hate turns me on, icy blue."
My hand shook with the knife, every muscle in my body screaming to drive it into his throat. He wasn't afraid of dying; that much was obvious, but it wouldn't happen by my hand.
I wasn't brave enough to take his life, but for the first time since we'd been kidnapped, Becca and I towered over him. Now he was the one trembling at the edge of someone else's mercy, and I loved it.
I moved in close, my voice shaking, but firm.
"You're right about one thing. I'll hear your voice in my head forever, but it won't be because you own my soul. It'll be because when you die, I'll remember you choking on your own blood."
His smile faltered then, just slightly enough for me to know he felt it…the shift, and for the first time probably in his life, Hector realized he wasn't the one who was in control anymore.
The knife slipped from my hand, clattering against the floor as the door creaked open. For a minute, I thought it was another guard coming to drag us out. Then I saw his broad shoulders and the way he filled the doorway.
My chest heaved.
"Atlas," I gasped. "Finally."
