Chapter Twenty-Five
Hannah
“Vik?” I shout into the receiver, my knuckles turning white around the phone. “What happened? Are you okay?”
My questions go unanswered. And I know why. Because the sound I hear is all too familiar. Screeching tires. Metal crunching against metal.
It’s followed by a broken gasp. Painful, choking coughs.
Then...
Silence.
Endless silence.
“Vik, please say something.” Tears blur my vision as I plead with no one. I sink to the floor, clamping a hand over my mouth.
I want to scream. Nothing comes out. It can’t be. I don’t believe it. I tell myself Vik is fine. That what I heard wasn’t a crash. That he’s simply concentrating on the road.
Lie after lie... Anything to keep reality at bay.
Then, glass shatters somewhere in the house. The sound jerks me back to reality. Another crash follows. Then another. Then another.
They’re here.
I scramble to my feet and run.
All I have to do is reach the garage. Get into one of Vik’s cars. Get away. If I can put enough distance between us, I can call the police and let them deal with this. The way Vik should have from the beginning.
God... I feel so stupid. I could’ve stopped this. If I’d ignored Vik’s wishes and gone to the police sooner, maybe none of this would’ve happened.
Instead, I convinced myself he’d eventually come to his senses. That once he’d found these men... He’d let them go.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The voice comes from one of the guest bedrooms, just as I reach the hallway. I barely manage another step before a man’s hand clamps around my wrist and yanks me backward. His free arm snakes around my waist, crushing me against his chest.
“Let go of me!” I scream, punching and kicking wildly.
Another pair of hands grabs my ankles, lifting me clean off the floor.
“You smell good.” The man holding me breathes the words against the back of my head. “I bet you taste good too.”
The others laugh.
Ice floods my veins.
I’ve become so used to Vik’s intensity that somewhere along the way I’d forgotten what real monsters looked like.
Vik is big. Strong. Dangerous. But he never made me feel powerless. These men do. And unlike Vik, they won’t let me simply fight until I’ve exhausted myself.
“If only we had time for a little fun.” One of the others chuckles.
In the darkness I can only make out his outline. Tall. A swollen belly. The others seem to wait for his approval before doing anything.
He’s the one in charge.
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask.
I already know the answer.
But if they’re talking... They’re not killing me. Not yet.
“We’re going to kill you,” he says bluntly. “See, your boyfriend became a thorn in our side. It was one thing when he was knocking off pill pushers and street thugs.”
He snaps his fingers. The other two move immediately. They carry me into the dining room like I’m nothing more than another piece of furniture.
“But then his arrogance got the better of him. Thought he could throw his weight around with people I trust. Now I’ve got to teach him that actions have consequences.”
They tie me to one of the dining chairs, binding my wrists behind the backrest and securing my ankles to the legs.
For the first time... I get a proper look at the men who destroyed Vik’s life.
They’re older than I’d imagined. Thirty years past their prime for this kind of work. The two who carried me are twins. They share the same cold, pale green eyes. The same hardened expressions.
One has thinning hair around the crown. The other keeps his head completely shaved.
The third man—their leader—has a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. Although it’s thinned over the years, there’s still enough to sweep back into a 1950s-style widow’s peak. A scar runs down the left side of his face, turning one brown eye milky white.
I also understand now why he didn’t help carry me. He’s holding two jerry cans. Even from where I sit, the faint smell of gasoline reaches me.
“What are you going to do to me?” I don’t know why I bother to ask again.
Everything they’ve done so far—and the gas cans in his hands—answers the question. It’s not as though hearing him say it will make it any easier.
“You?” he says. “Well, you’ve gotta die. Same way his mother did.”
My heart stops. My eyes lock onto his. He remembers Vik’s mother. And he wants Vik to relive that night all over again.
“But you can rest easy knowing we don’t have anything against you, Hannah. Your death merely serves a purpose. It’ll prove to the little fish he wasn’t ready to swim with the sharks.”
He slides one of the jerry cans across the table. One of the twins catches it before unscrewing the cap on his own.
“He keep money in the house?” the other twin asks as they begin pouring gasoline across the floor.
“I don’t know.” It’s the truth. I’m sure Vik has money or jewelry hidden somewhere. But I’ve never cared enough to ask where. Something tells me they don’t care about the money either.
It’s just another way to hurt him.
One last insult.
One more twist of the knife.
It makes me sick.
I’ve spent the past few days wondering whether Vik was a monster for wanting to kill these men. Now, staring at them, I finally understand the difference. Vik did what he did because he believed it was the only way to bring justice to a world that had failed him.
These men... They’re the real monsters. Cruel for the sake of being cruel.
Hurting. Killing. Stealing.
Because they enjoy it.
Part of me hopes Vik never comes back here. If he survived whatever happened... I want him to stay as far away from this house as possible. I don’t want to be the reason he dies. But more than that... I don’t want him to become anything like these men.
I love him too much to watch this darkness consume him.
“You’ve got ten minutes to find whatever Vik’s got hidden around here,” the leader says, flicking open a gold lighter.
“Then the whole place burns.”