He locked her in.
Mary’s voice, small:“Open the door, Evan.”
“When I’m finished.”
My vision tunnels. Everything but the throttle, the road, and that apartment door drops away.
That’s when I stop thinking like a strategist. And start thinking like a killer.
The Ducati tears through Vegas like I’m fleeing hell instead of racing toward it. Traffic lights blur into streaks of red and green. Cars swerve, horns blare, but none of it reaches me.
The feed in my ear crackles. Mary’s voice, high and ragged.“I never want to see you again! You cheated on me! You lied tome! You made me feel like I was nothing, and I let you, but I’m done! I’m DONE!”
Her voice shreds in my chest.
Then Evan. That nasal, coward’s snarl.“You don’t get to be done. You don’t get to decide when this is over.”
My hands tighten on the grips until the leather bites.
If he touches her, I’ll peel his skin off inch by inch, feed it to him until he chokes. I’ll string him up by his Achilles the way the old brigadiers did in Chechnya and let red ants eat him alive. I’ll pull out his fucking heart with my hands and show it to him before he stops breathing.
“I said GET OUT! I never want to see you again!”
Pride flickers through the fury. She’s finding her spine. But it won’t be enough. Not against a man who’s already decided she belongs to him.
Yob tvoyu mat!
I know seventeen different ways to keep a man conscious while you peel him like fruit. Fourteen ways to make him beg for death that won’t come for hours.
By the time I’m done with Evan Cook, he’ll pray for the mercy of red ants and desert sun.
“You’re done? You don’t get to be done.”
I downshift, engine braking into a turn that scrapes my knee against asphalt. The speedometer climbs past anything resembling legal.
Then the sounds change.
Struggle. Real struggle. Mary fighting, panicking, the kind of sounds that turn rational thought into pure violence.
“Stop making a scene. God, you’re embarrassing.”
I could break every bone in his hands. One by one. Make him watch while I do it.
“You think some meathead who punched me gets to keep you?”
His voice is different now. Cruder. The mask coming off to show what was always underneath.
“You’ll always be mine. Always.”
The apartment complex appears ahead—Sunrise Gardens, faded stucco and broken dreams. I don’t slow down. Don’t look for parking. Just aim the Ducati at the walkway and kill the engine as I hit the stairs running.
Fourteen minutes, fifty-five seconds. Too long. Every second, I hear her.
Through my earpiece:“Stop pretending you don’t want this.”
Three flights. I take them four steps at a time, every muscle in my body coiled for violence. My Glock sits heavy against my ribs, but guns are too quick. Too clean.
Evan Cook deserves something slower.
