“The fuck are you doing?” Aria seethes beside me, her body shaking so violently with fear.
“You hear that attitude?” I smirk, watching Mercer easily get distracted by the bait. “Somebody needs to teach her a lesson. That could be you. All you gotta do is take her from me, and she’s all yours to do with as you please.”
Mercer grunts, the corner of his lips twisting into a vile smirk. “Hold him down,” he mutters to his sidekicks, and as one, all three of the men move toward me, stepping over fallen bodies asthey move around the discarded metal table in the center of the room.
Excitement brims in my chest as I flip the shiv in my hand, getting a better grip. I’ve been waiting for this fucking day, and I won’t lie, if the prison gains control of this shitshow before I tear Mercer’s throat out, I’ll be pissed.
His guard dogs come at me from either side, and I put up a small fight before letting them get a hold on me, giving them a false sense of security. Mercer grins like a Cheshire cat, thinking all his fucking dreams are coming true.
“What the hell are you doing?” Aria snaps at my back. “Fight them off!”
I pretend, pulling against their tight grips as they laugh like this is going to be the easiest takedown they’ve ever experienced.
Mercer strides forward, his hand sinking into his pocket and pulling out a shiv of his own. It’s better than mine. There’s no doubt. But the effectiveness of a weapon comes from the hand that uses it, and Mercer? He couldn’t handle a blade if his life depended on it.
“Oh, this really is going to be a treat.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, keeping my eyes trained on him as he slowly makes his way toward me, then just as he gets past the table, I kick this party up a notch, gripping the assholes on either side of me and pulling them in so hard together that they knock each other out cold, one of them smashing his nose directly against the other’s skull.
They crumble to the ground without a single word, and Mercer’s face falls, realizing he’s drastically underestimated me. “How about now? Still feel like this is going to be a treat? It sure as fuck does for me.”
He scrambles back, but I’ve waited too fucking long for this. He’s not getting away from me that easily.
I slam my foot against the edge of the table, letting it fly across the room. The metal corner impales itself right into the center of Mercer’s back. “AHHHHHHH,” he screams, pinned up against the wall with nowhere to run or hide.
He drops his blade as I amble toward him, every step like a fucking gift from the gods.
“No,” Mercer panics. “I swear, I was only fucking around. I wasn’t really going to do nothin’ to you.”
I grin. “You’re a real piece of shit, Mercer. I’m thoroughly going to enjoy this.”
“No. NO!”
I turn back to look at Aria. “You. Hold his head.”
Her eyes practically fall onto the floor. “WHAT?”
“Now.”
My tone is final, and I watch as a shiver trails across her skin. After visibly swallowing hard, she hastily makes her way across the blood-soaked conference room. “Hold his head back, Menace,” I tell her again.
Aria awkwardly steps in behind the guy, looking as though she hasn’t got a clue what to do while bracing her knee against the table that’s jammed in his back to give her just a little more height. And while this would be a shitload easier if she’d put the gun down, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Mercer spits.
“You had your chance, asshole.”
Aria snakes her arm around his forehead and yanks back, exposing his throat just perfectly as he frantically tries to fight her off, but with the table impaled in his spine, there’s nowhere for him to go.
A satisfied grin rips across my face, and without even a moment of hesitation, I let the asshole have it. My hand shoots out, the shiv slicing deeply down the left of his Adam’s applebefore slashing out again, this time taking the right. He wails in agony, blood spurting from his throat, but I’m not done yet.
Tossing the bloodied shiv onto the table, I force my fingers deep inside the gaping wounds I’d made. “Hold him fucking tight,” I tell Aria as Mercer roars in agony.
She does as I’ve asked, her eyes full of terror, and before she gets a chance to pull away, I sink my fingers around his trachea and tear it right out of his throat.
Mercer immediately collapses, the aggravating sound of his relentless screaming finally put to rest as Aria scrambles away, her eyes wider than ever before. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she gasps, staring at me as though I’m a monster. Although, I suppose that’s exactly what I am. This isn’t new information to her, especially considering the pages of notes currently scattered across the blood-soaked floor.
“Would you have preferred I left you to deal with them instead?”
