I think about the girls in that trailer, the hollow-eyed fifteen-year-old, all the women who’ll be sold and used and broken if someone doesn’t stop him. I think about Harper, dead on the floor beside me because she trusted Viktor’s promises. I think about Matteo, waiting for me at an altar I never reached.
I think about the flower shop I want to open, the life I want to build, the future I refuse to let this monster steal from me.
“Watch me.”
I squeeze the trigger.
The recoil kicks through my arms, hard enough to jar my shoulders. Viktor jerks backward, a red bloom spreading across his expensive suit.
But he’s still standing. Still moving toward me.
It’s not enough.
I scramble to my feet and fire again. And again. And again.
Each shot is a punctuation mark, a refusal, a denial of everything he tried to take from me. I don’t stop until he’s on the ground, until his chest stops moving, until I’m absolutely certain he’ll never hurt anyone again.
The gun clicks empty.
I don’t lower it. My arms won’t unlock. My fingers are cramped around the grip, frozen in place.
Viktor’s not moving. Harper’s not moving. The ringing in my ears drowns out everything except my own ragged breathing, and even that sounds far away. Like it belongs to someone else.
My dress is soaked. My hands won’t stop shaking. My face is wet.
I stay there, pointing an empty gun at a dead man, and wait to feel something.
Footsteps. Heavy and moving fast.
My head snaps up.
Viktor’s men. Six of them, spreading out around me with weapons drawn. I’m holding an empty gun. This is how I die.
Then the warehouse doors explode inward with a deafening crash, and my fiancé storms through.
Gun raised, face like thunder, eyes scanning the chaos until they find me.
And even covered in blood, even surrounded by death, even with Viktor’s body still warm on the floor beside me, all I can think is:
He came.
He came for me.
41
MATTEO
Gunshots.
The crack of them hits my ears before we’re through the warehouse doors, and the world narrows to a single point.
I slam through the entrance with my weapon already drawn, Dario at my six and our soldiers fanning out behind us.
I see her immediately.
Sierra. Standing over Viktor’s crumpled body. A gun trembling in her grip. Her wedding dress soaked red, the white silk turned to something out of a nightmare.
Six men are closing in on her. Circling like wolves.
