So, I do the absolute stupidest thing ever and slowly lower the heavy gun to the pavement.
“Slide it over here,” Damon orders, his tone dripping with smug satisfaction.
“Fuck you,” I growl, the venom burning in my throat.
A sharp shot instantly rings out, Storm letting out a muffled grunt as he takes another bullet directly to his leg.
“I hate you,” I tell Damon, my voice dead and cold as I violently shove the firearm across the rough pavement toward his boots.
He stops the sliding metal with the sole of his shoe, bending over with a smooth grace to pick it up. He carelessly shoves it into the waistband of his trousers before strolling over to where I’m stranded on the ground.
Casually.
As if he isn’t the most vile, disgusting creature to ever walk the face of this planet.
The second he stands beside me, he reaches out his hand, running it over my hair in a sickeningly paternal gesture. “Good girl.”
Something about him uttering those specific words to me turns my entire system completely feral. The switch flips. I move with a lightning speed I didn't know I still possessed, my jaws snapping shut as my teeth lock violently into the flesh of his forearm. They dig deep, cutting through the expensive fabric and tearing into the muscle tissue until his hot blood fills my mouth. Then, I yank back with every single ounce of energy left in my broken body, ruthlessly ripping a chunk out of his skin.
Damon screams like a little bitch.
I spit the copper-tasting flesh onto the asphalt, a wild, maniacal laugh exploding from my chest. “There is only one man who ever gets to say that to me, you bastard, and it willneverbe you.”
In the far distance, the unmistakable, thunderous roar of pipes begins to echo down the highway, and my laughter turns completely wild.
“Oh, you are going to be in so much trouble,” I taunt, wiping the blood from my chin as the bikes gets closer. “He’s gonna make you cry so hard, Damon. You’ll beg for your mother—”
His heavy fist cracks violently against my cheek. My skin instantly splits open under the force of the blow, but the fiery sting only spurns me on, feeding the chaotic rush of adrenaline. I spit a mouthful of fresh blood right at his feet, meeting his furious gaze with a look of pure, unyielding ice.
“Ε?σαι ?να αδ?ναμο ανθρωπ?κι,” I say, a lopsided, bloody smile pulling at my lips.
The ancient words hit him a hell of a lot harder than his punch just hit me. In English, it’s a standard jab. In Greek, it’s a total execution sentence. I’m telling him he’s a hollow, pathetic excuse for a human being, a weak little man, and we both know he will never be half the man Tomcat is.
Damon's face contorts into a mask of pure, ugly rage. I try to roll away, but the concussive fog makes me too slow. I don’t get a single chance to move out of the way of his heavy boot before it impacts ruthlessly with the side of my head.
Well. That was fun while it lasted.
The world tilts. The pavement comes up slow, or maybe I go down slow, and the sound of the pipes is still there somewhere at the edge of everything, getting louder…
Chapter Twenty-Three
Therehavenotbeenmany things I’ve feared in this life. I learned young that life does what it does, and you either move with it or get buried under it. Fear was a luxury I couldn't afford, and eventually I stopped feeling it.
Until her.
My obsession. My stalker. The thing beating in the center of my chest that I didn't know was missing until she put it there.
Now, the one thing I fear above everything else is unfolding right before my eyes, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it because I’m too far away.
The exact second I got the emergency ping from Storm’s phone alerting us that they were under active ambush, I stopped breathing. Everything inside of my chest just completely froze over. It hardened in a way I’ve never felt before, a cold, unyielding armor locking down over my organs. In a twisted way, the chill helped to clear my mind. It sharpened my vision,slicing through the terror so I could think straight enough to do what needs to be done to save my woman.
We couldn’t find Damon because the bastard had already been planning his next strike.
But how the hell has he stayed so far under the radar in a city we know like the back of our own hands? It doesn’t fucking make sense. Could someone inside our own circle be feeding him intel? Someone we know?
I fucking hope not, because this club has had enough goddamn betrayal to last us ten lifetimes. If there's a rat in the ranks, I'll skin them myself.
From miles out, I spot thick black smoke curling into the coastal sky. Whatever waits for us ahead is going to be ugly, and every instinct screams that I am already too late.
