Chapter 40 #2
“I’m going to do whatever I want.” He grabs my chin and forces me to look at him, his fingers digging into my jaw hard enough to bruise.
“That’s what you never understood, darling.
You never had any power here. You never had any choice.
Everything that happened between us, every kiss, every fuck, every moment you thought you were in control? That was me letting you play pretend.”
I want to spit in his face. I want to claw his eyes out. But his men are right behind me, their presence a threat I can feel even without looking.
Harper makes a small, choked sound, and I’d almost forgotten she was here.
Viktor releases my chin and glances over at her. She’s standing where the men left her, shaking so hard I can see it from where I stand.
“Did you give him access to the truck too?” I turn on Harper, needing somewhere to aim the disgust churning through me. “The warehouse?”
Her face is sheet-white. “I didn’t know what he was using it for. I swear, I had no idea.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“I was trying to save my husband!” Her voice breaks, desperate. “I didn’t want to know, okay? I just wanted him to leave us alone. He promised.”
I’m about to tell her that’s not good enough, that nothing will ever be good enough, but Viktor cuts me off.
“Thanks for your help.” He reaches behind his back with a casual movement, like he’s just adjusting his jacket. “But here’s the thing about promises. They’re just words. And words don’t mean anything.”
The gun appears in his hand.
Time slows down.
I see Harper’s eyes go wide with the realization of what’s about to happen. I see her mouth open to scream. I see Viktor’s finger tighten on the trigger, his expression as blank as if he’s swatting a fly.
The shot is deafening in the enclosed space.
Harper crumples. One second she’s standing there, alive and terrified, and the next she’s on the concrete with blood pooling beneath her body.
The scream that rips out of me doesn’t sound human.
“No!”
For one horrible second, I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can only stare at the blood spreading across the concrete floor.
Then something inside me snaps. I don’t think. I just move.
My shoulder slams into Viktor’s ribs before I even realize I’m running. The impact knocks him off balance and sends the gun flying from his grip. It skids across the concrete, spinning away somewhere behind Harper’s body.
I swing at his face. Miss. Swing again, and this time my knuckles connect with his jaw. Pain explodes through my hand, but I don’t care. He betrayed me. He threatened my family. He’s selling women like property. And he just killed Harper right in front of me.
One of his men starts forward, but Viktor waves him off without breaking eye contact with me.
He recovers faster than I expect. His palm connects with my cheek, hard enough to make stars explode behind my eyes. I stagger sideways, nearly falling.
“Stupid bitch.” The smile is gone. What’s underneath is worse—flat, empty, like something human switched off. “I was going to make this easy for you. Find you a nice owner, someone who’d treat you well. But now?”
I kick at his knee with everything I have. The crack is satisfying, and he howls in pain, doubling over. I use the opening to drive my elbow into his temple.
But I’m not a fighter. Matteo taught me only the basics, and basics don’t mean anything against a man who’s been hurting people his entire life.
Viktor’s hands close around my arms, and he shoves me backward with brutal force. I hit the concrete hard, the impact rattling my skull, and something warm and wet soaks into my dress.
I’m lying in Harper’s blood.
My stomach heaves as I scramble backward, trying to get away from the sticky warmth spreading across my skin. My hand closes around cold metal.
The gun.
Viktor is already coming for me, his face twisted with rage, blood trickling from his lip where I hit him. Never point a gun at anything you’re not willing to shoot.
Matteo’s voice in my head, calm and steady and grounding.
I lift the gun. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely aim, but Viktor’s only a few feet away. Even I can’t miss at this distance.
He sees the weapon and slows down. For the first time, uncertainty flickers in his dead eyes.
“You won’t do it,” he says, but his voice isn’t quite as confident as before. “You don’t have the nerve.”
I think about the girls in that trailer, the hollow-eyed fifteen-year-old, all the women who’ll be sold and used and broken if someone doesn’t stop him.
I think about Harper, dead on the floor beside me because she trusted Viktor’s promises.
I think about Matteo, waiting for me at an altar I never reached.
I think about the flower shop I want to open, the life I want to build, the future I refuse to let this monster steal from me.
“Watch me.”
I squeeze the trigger.
The recoil kicks through my arms, hard enough to jar my shoulders. Viktor jerks backward, a red bloom spreading across his expensive suit.
But he’s still standing. Still moving toward me.
It’s not enough.
I scramble to my feet and fire again. And again. And again.
Each shot is a punctuation mark, a refusal, a denial of everything he tried to take from me. I don’t stop until he’s on the ground, until his chest stops moving, until I’m absolutely certain he’ll never hurt anyone again.
The gun clicks empty.
I don’t lower it. My arms won’t unlock. My fingers are cramped around the grip, frozen in place.
Viktor’s not moving. Harper’s not moving. The ringing in my ears drowns out everything except my own ragged breathing, and even that sounds far away. Like it belongs to someone else.
My dress is soaked. My hands won’t stop shaking. My face is wet.
I stay there, pointing an empty gun at a dead man, and wait to feel something.
Footsteps. Heavy and moving fast.
My head snaps up.
Viktor’s men. Six of them, spreading out around me with weapons drawn. I’m holding an empty gun. This is how I die.
Then the warehouse doors explode inward with a deafening crash, and my fiancé storms through.
Gun raised, face like thunder, eyes scanning the chaos until they find me.
And even covered in blood, even surrounded by death, even with Viktor’s body still warm on the floor beside me, all I can think is:
He came.
He came for me.