Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
“Hunt?”
Spinning to face me, he snapped, “I don’t have time to explain. I need your help. Before he does something stupid.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
………………………….
Henri
IT TRULY WAS AMAZING WHAT you could do when you were no longer afraid of death. When you had nothing to lose. When you just didn’t care.
Life parted like a miraculous sea for me.
Death laid out a red carpet for me to tread.
Destiny led me by the hand and delivered me exactly where I belonged.
Any love I’d ever had. Any hope or yearning or faith, all hardened until I was nothing more than coal.
A heart made of coal.
No embers.
No cinders.
The fire completely burned out.
Ily was dead.
And…I was done clinging to life hard enough for both of us.
I let go.
I put my existence in the hands of fate and had to laugh at how easy it was.
How fucking easy it was to drive away.
How convenient it was to find a bag in the trunk of my stolen car with spare clothes for a doctor who travelled often. He favoured black slacks and black shirts which suited me fine. We even wore the same sizes. Where I was going, I didn’t want colour. I didn’t want light.
The darkness seeped out of my skin and turned me as black as the borrowed clothes I wore. The beast inside me no longer had to crawl through my veins and search for a way free.
I let it take me over.
I sank deep into my rotten soul and gave in.
I stopped on the side of the road and input Q’s passcode into his phone. I pulled up the list of traffickers again. I ignored the endless ringing as he tried to contact me and put the stupid device on flight mode so he couldn’t get through.
I itched for retribution.
I felt as if I’d tear myself apart if I didn’t tear someone else apart instead.
How lucky for me that a few names on Q’s little list lived in France.
I chose the first one. A man with a membership to a club called The Dolls.
I drove all night.
I pulled up outside his house at daybreak.
I knocked on his door with no weapons, no protection.
And fate once again intervened by delivering him right into my hands.
He was home alone.
Rambling about in a huge townhouse with a ridiculous giant poodle for company.
I didn’t bother to fake my way in.
I merely looked down the street, grabbed him by the throat, and shoved him inside before kicking the door closed.
He begged.
I remember that.
He fought and tried to run, but…that was the thing about a man fighting for their life and a man who’d lost his. My strength came from hell. My power from the ever after.
He was no match.
I dragged him into the kitchen.
I used the closest blade.
His fountain of blood stained his dog as it ran around barking.
As the man lay gurgling on his own fluids, I wondered briefly if I should’ve asked for his name.
But I didn’t care.
I’d sank below caring.
I’d never been so cold.
Besides, his eyes had told me.
The same eyes as all the rest.
The same eyes as mine.
As his dog tried to lick him awake, I stole his cellphone and prowled through his house. I found his bedroom on the third floor.
I noticed his safe behind an ugly portrait of Aphrodite.
And just like fate had delivered me here, it paved my way with yet another golden carpet.
The safe sat open as if I’d interrupted him.
Inside rested a gun, cash, notebooks, and a little screen showing a girl gagged and blindfolded on a bed. A single key hung on a hook.
I snatched everything.
Pocketing the cash and tucking the gun into my waistband, I took the live feed video with me and opened every locked door in that townhouse.
I found her on the seventh try.
I untied her. Ungagged her. And bundled her in a blanket.
The poodle came in and sat beside her.
I placed the rapist’s phone in her hand and left.
* * * * *
The next on my list didn’t live far.
Perhaps they were friends.
Maybe this was the post code for traffickers and flesh peddlers.
It made my job easier.
Armed this time with a stolen gun, I knocked and waited.
He came to the door, laughing as he listened to what someone said in a room beyond. His eyes flared as he noticed me on his doorstep.
And then they closed as I shot him point blank.
I didn’t care about neighbours.
I didn’t worry about being seen.
Death stalked me as surely as I stalked them. This was just a game to see how many I could bring with me before my end.
Kicking his corpse aside and closing the door, I stalked into his home and found the other bastard sitting on the couch. On the coffee table lay playing cards.
But not just any cards.
Pictures of women.
Some naked.
Some crying.
All of them unwilling.
I’d interrupted a trade. A deal.