By the time I reached the front door, my gun was already drawn.The moment I stepped inside, I heard it.A broken, ragged sound that punched every ounce of air from my lungs.
I moved through the foyer, and when I rounded the corner to the kitchen, the world stopped.
Victor Kane was in my house.
On the floor.
Bleeding out.
A crimson pool seeped beneath him, spreading across the hardwood like a slow-moving shadow.His limbs twitched weakly, his breath coming in wet, desperate gasps.
Ariana straddled him, her cheeks streaked with tears, her hair wild, her entire body taut as she dragged a knife across his abdomen, the blade sinking into his skin with a sickening, deliberate precision.
I froze in the shadows, my breath locked in my throat as I watched her carve a word onto his flesh.
Weak.
“Please,” he rasped, his face scrunched up in agony.“This isn’t you.You’ve gone mad.”
Ariana’s eyes flashed with something I’d never seen in her expression before.She pressed the blade deeper, and Victor howled, the sound echoing through the rafters.
“Funny,” she hissed, shaking with rage but smiling.“You never seemed to mind madness when it was yours.”
“Ariana,” he choked.“P-please d-don’t do this.”
He tried to push her away, but his body refused to cooperate.Blood poured faster when he struggled.
“Please?”Ariana echoed, her voice soft in a way that made my skin crawl, but at the same time filled me with immense pride.“That’s interesting coming from you.”
“I’m begging you.I?—”
She let out a short, humorless laugh.“You want mercy?”
She leaned closer, lowering her voice to a whisper, but it still carried across the room.
“You didn’t give me mercy.Not once.Not when I begged.Not when I cried.Not.Once.”
“Ariana, listen?—”
“No.”She tightened her grip on the knife.“You listen.For the first and last time in your life.”
His breathing quickened, panicked, shallow.
“This,” she said, dragging the tip of the blade down his sternum, her cut slow and deep, “is for every woman you’ve hurt.”
The knife moved lower.Another stroke.Another blood-curdling scream.
“For Sarah.”
His eyes rolled back, pain overtaking everything else.
“For Henry,” she continued as she drew another deep line, her voice cracking around my name.
“And this,” she whispered, curving toward him so her face was inches from his.A flicker of worry flashed through me, but I pushed down my innate need to protect her.
She needed this.
She needed to be the one to end him.
