I step over Noah’s body, my boots crunching on the broken glass, and I stop inches from her. I smell like the jungle and adrenaline; she smells like fear and jasmine.
I lift the knife.
She doesn’t flinch. She just watches as I use the tip of the blade to tilt her chin up, forcing her to look at me through the haze of her own tears. The cold steel is a reminder of the ‘K’ on her chest, a reminder that the pain I give is the only thing that’s real.
“Look at the mess you made, little sister,” I whisper, my voice dropping to a low, lethal hum.
I lean in, my lips ghosting over the blood on her mouth, tasting the copper and the salt. My thumb brushes the bruise starting to form on her cheek, and for a second, my grip on theknife trembles with the urge to go back and finish the job on the floor.
“He’s not dead,” I rasp, my eyes boring into hers, stripping her down to the soul. “But he’s done. This wedding? This life? It’s over. I’ve burned the bridge, Scarlett. There’s nowhere left to go but the dark.”
I pull the knife back, the edge trailing a thin line of red down her throat, stopping right above her heart.
“You wanted to see if I’d come back for you? You wanted to see if I’d still bleed for you?”
I grin, a jagged, terrifying expression that promises nothing but ruin.
“Now you know.”
I step back toward the shattered balcony, the wind whipping the curtains into a frenzy. I look down at the pathetic, broken heap of Noah one last time before focusing on her.
“Run, Scarlett.”
My voice is a whip, a command, a final dare.
“Run into the trees. Run until your feet bleed. Because if I catch you before the sun comes up, I’m never letting you see the light again.”
I don’t move. Neither does she.
The silence in the room is a living, breathing thing, punctuated only by the wet, rhythmic wheezing of the man bleeding out on the marble floor. The wind howls through the jagged teeth of the shattered glass, tossing the sheer curtains around us like ghosts, but my world is reduced to the two inches between my blade and her throat.
“I said run, Scarlett.”
My voice is a low, vibrating snarl, thick with the kind of possession that doesn’t just want to hold her—it wants to consume her. I don’t give a fuck about the villa, the guards, or the billionaire dying at my boots. I only care about the way herchest is heaving, the way the ‘K’ I carved into her is pulsing with every panicked strike of her heart.
She doesn’t move. Her feet are rooted to the rug, her eyes locked onto mine with a terror so pure it makes my blood boil.
“What’s the matter?” I step closer, my chest grazing hers, forcing her head back further with the tip of my knife. “Are you waiting for him to get up? Are you waiting for your ‘husband’ to save you?”
I glance down at Noah’s crumpled, pathetic form. I kick his limp hand away from her hem, the sound of my heavy boot against his bone a dull, satisfying crack.
“He’s not coming for you,” I hiss, leaning down until my lips are brushed against the shell of her ear. “Nobody is. You’re in my world now, little sister. A world where the only law is what I decide to do with you.”
I slide the knife down, the cold steel tracing the line of her collarbone, lingering on the edge of her silk robe. I want to rip it off her. I want to see the brand. I want to remind her that I’ve already written my name on her soul.
“You have a ten-second head start,” I whisper, my hand coming up to tangle in her hair, jerking her head back until she has to look at the feral, unhinged light in my eyes. “If I find you out there in the dark, Scarlett—and I will find you—I’m not bringing you back to a bed. I’m bringing you back to a cage. I’m going to keep you so deep in the shadows you’ll forget what the sun looks like. I’ll be the only thing you breathe. The only thing you feel.”
I let go of her hair, the strands slipping through my fingers like silk. I step back, my eyes never leaving hers, my body coiled like a spring, ready to tear the world apart just to get to her.
“Run, little sister. Run until your lungs burn and your heart screams. Because if I catch you, I fucking keep you. Forever. Nomore courtrooms. No more weddings. Just you and the monster you created.”
I flick the blood from my knife onto the floor, a red splatter across the white marble.
“Ten.”
She gasps, her eyes darting to the shattered balcony.
“Nine.”
