She is lashed to an iron bed frame. Her dress is torn down to her waist, baring her chest to the freezing air. Her face is bloodied, and her right eye is swollen shut. Her lip is split,blood tracking down her chin and staining the mattress. She’s no longer screaming, losing the fight to stay conscious.
Julian is on top of her.
His fist is raised, his face a sweating mask of pure hatred. He is mid-swing, caught in the momentum of his own depravity.
Something inside me snaps, and all that is left is a singular need tokill.
My vision washes out into a blinding red, and the sound in the room vanishes.
There is only the roar of my own blood in my ears.
I cross the distance in a violent rush, my forearm slamming into Julian’s head with the force of a high-speed collision before his fist can connect with her face. The impact shoves his weight back with such sudden ferocity that his knees lose their balance on the mattress. He goes reeling, his tall frame snapping backward until he hits the far wall with a thud, leaving him slumped against the masonry, gasping for air.
When I look at Katarina, the sight of her—half-naked, bloodied, and half-conscious—sends me into a darkness I’ve never seen before.
My breath shudders out in a ragged gasp, knees threatening to buckle as relief and terror crash through me. My head snaps to the roach on the floor, who’s looking at me like he’s seen the Grim Reaper.
I don’t reach for my gun or my knife. No. I want to feel the resistance of his skull when I bash it with my own hands. I want to feel his life leak out onto my knuckles.
“Traditore,”I hiss, the word vibrating in my chest, but I can’t hear it.
He looks at me, his eyes staring wide, the realization of his doom finally reflecting through his gaze.
He tries to get up, but my hands find his collar first. I lift him off the floor like he weighed nothing and throw him againstthe other wall, the back of his head hitting the stone with a loud thud.
He slumps to the ground, and my fist connects with his face.
The first one makes blood sputter out of his mouth as his jaw cracks.
My fist dives again, this time it hits his nose, and that breaks with a loud crack too.
One more swing.
More blood.
Another.
His eye socket breaks.
But I don’t stop.
I keep hitting.
Until all his face is nothing but a red pulp dented in all angles.
Someone is screaming—maybe Katarina, maybe me, maybe Julian.
The world is all blood and noise.
But I won’t stop.
Chapter 40
Katarina
I come to in a fractured state. As I open my eyes, my right eyelid feels so tight that I can only open it halfway. Then a high-pitched ringing pierces through my ear before I notice the nauseating scent of sweet copper that fills my nostrils. When my vision clears, I finally remember where I am.
Thud. Squelch. Crack.
