The effect is immediate. Dominic's composure shatters. Two steps and he swings the gun across Phoenix's face with a force that has nothing controlled left in it, just rage, just grief, just a man who has finally run out of patience.
Phoenix goes down to one knee. Blood on his mouth. He stays there, head down, breathing.
Dominic stands over him, his chest moving hard, the gun still in his hand. The composure comes back slowly, visibly, like watching a man rebuild a wall brick by brick. When he speaks again his voice is almost steady.
"I was going to make this quick," he says. "But now I'm going to make you watch while I hurt her. And then I'll kill you both."
He turns toward me.
The last loop of rope comes free.
I'm out of the chair before he's taken a step, my legs numb from hours on concrete, the feeling in them returning as fire as I push to my feet. Dominic stops. His pale eyes drop to my hands, to the rope falling away from my wrists, and for one suspended second the warehouse holds its breath.
Phoenix moves from the floor.
CHAPTER 32- JADE
Dominic doesn't see it coming.
He has turned toward me. Phoenix is still on the floor. Dominic's gun is rising. In the part of my brain that has gone very quiet and very fast, I register the dead guard two feet to my left.
I move.
My legs buckle and I go down hard on one knee. My hands find the guard's weapon on the floor beside him — it came free when he fell — and bring it up with both hands. I’ve never held a gun before but I’ve seen plenty of movies.
Dominic spins around.
He sees the gun in my hands and he brings up his weapon fast.
I fire before I can think about it.
The shot goes wide and catches his shoulder. He staggers into the nearest pallet, one hand going to the wound, blood spreading dark through his jacket. We both go still in the ringing aftermath.
Then he laughs.
Low and genuine, like I've done something that amuses him. When he raises his face his pale eyes are almost bright.
"You missed," he says.
"I wasn't aiming for your heart."
The laugh dies. He straightens off the pallet and raises his weapon again, slower now, compensating for the shoulder. I watch him do it and I don't look away and I don't wait.
I fire again.
Center mass. Dominic looks down at his chest with an expression I will never forget, not pain, not anger, just surprise. Like a man who never once considered that things might not go his way.
"You—" he starts.
His knees go. Then the rest of him follows, slowly, the way tall things fall, and he hits the floor and stays there.
I stand over him with the gun still raised and my hands shaking so hard I can feel it in my shoulders and my face. The warehouse is very quiet around us. The fluorescent light buzzes overhead. The chain taps against itself in its patient rhythm, indifferent to everything that has just happened beneath it.
Dominic is still breathing. Shallow and wet, a sound that has no business coming from a human chest, and his are open and fixed on the ceiling above him. Blood pools beneath him on the concrete, spreading slowly outward, dark and deliberate.
I lower myself until I'm crouching over him, close enough to see the scar above his left eyebrow and the broken capillaries in his eyes. He turns his head and looks at me. The brightness that was there a moment ago is already going out.
"Your brother tried to rape me," I say. My voice comes out cold in a way I didn't know I was capable of. "And you used me as bait to try to kill the man I love."
