Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 115400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
“It’s over,” Killian taunts. “You and I both know how this is going to end, so you might as well come out so we can get this over and done with.”
Killian remains on the opposite side of the couch, and without warning, he shoots through the cushions. I expect to hear a pained groan, or a gasp at the very least, but when we hear nothing, my heart starts to race just a little faster. “What the—”
A hand grips my ankle, and I’m dragged across the marble tiles as a sharp yelp tears from the back of my throat. I barely have a moment to register that Sergiu has crawled around the back of the couch and through the sitting area without detection.
Killian whirls around as I’m painfully yanked to my feet by my hair. Horror rushes through me, knowing he could kill me in an instant, just as quickly as Killian killed Monica. There’s no time to think. No time to plan. I have to act now, and I have to do it fast.
Then before Killian can even attempt to make a move, my hand strikes like lightning, grabbing the knife strapped to my thigh and blindly whipping it up in a quick arc over my shoulder. I feel the bite of something in my waist at the same moment my blade plunges straight through Sergiu’s eye.
Sergiu roars in agony as Killian lunges toward me, violently yanking me away from his cousin, and as my head whips back to take in Sergiu, all I see is the blade protruding from his eye socket as he crumbles to the ground.
“Holy fucking shit,” I screech before I’ve even hit the ground.
Everything happens so quickly.
One minute Killian is flying toward me, and the next, I’m sprawled on the floor of his mega-underground mansion as he subdues his cousin. “You good?” Killian throws over his shoulder with a bite in his tone.
“I . . . I don’t know,” I say, scrambling to my feet and looking over myself to see a patch of blood beginning to seep into the soft silk at my waist. “I think he cut me. Maybe. I can’t be sure.”
Not wanting to risk turning away from Sergiu, he knocks him unconscious before finally moving toward me, his gaze roaming over my face. “You sure have a thing with eyeballs,” he murmurs as his fingers dance across the high split of my dress and drag the material higher to my waist.
He looks over my body, taking in the fresh wound. “He got you, alright. But you moved just in time. It could have been worse.”
“So I’ll live?”
“You’ll live,” he tells me, that bite still in his tone. “Now, let’s really finish this.”
“Hey,” I say, grabbing his chin and bringing his gaze back to mine. “What’s wrong?”
His gaze darkens, and every bit of it eats at my already blackened soul. “I should have been able to play that out before it happened. He should never have gotten that close to you.”
“You’re not a mind reader.”
“No, I am not,” he agrees. “However, I was the one who taught him how to move like a ghost. I should have seen the signs.”
“It’s okay, Killian. We’ve got him now,” I tell him as I reach up onto my tippy toes and brush a kiss to his lips, still so addicted to the way everything pulses within me just being this close to him. “And if you need, you can spend the rest of your life making it up to me. For now, though, we need to end this because I’m hungry, and dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower is sounding pretty damn good to me right now.”
Killian laughs and rolls his eyes, but he gets back into action, and twenty minutes later, all I can do is gape at the sight before me.
“What in the ever-loving fuck?” I murmur to myself.
We’re standing in some kind of tiled chamber. It doesn’t look like the cells back at his home, but there’s definitely something eerie about it. Plus, any room that comes equipped with a hose and drainage system seems somewhat sketchy to me.
If I thought the room was bad, it’s got nothing on what Killian actually plans to do in it.
All four of Sergiu’s limbs are chained, and I watch with my jaw hanging open as Killian presses a button and the chains retract to each corner of the room. They pull him up off the ground and stretch him wide like a fucking chunky star, and it’s got to be the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Not to mention, the knife I jammed through his eye is still there, flopping around with every little movement.
I thought mafia wars were all about taking out family lines, the occasional standard torture, and a bit of unfriendly gunfire. But this goes to show just how deranged some of these men are. And the fact that this was already installed into the property says a lot. There’s nothing spur-of-the-moment about this.