Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
In the distance, I could hear the rumble of debauchery. Could sense the wickedness that crawled the walls and haunted this place.
My heart pounded out of time, frantic and hard, while I struggled to keep my shit together. To keep from busting free and racing to find Tessa.
But I had to stick to the plan. Pray I knew Stefan well enough to know exactly what he intended inside.
They kept shoving at me as we took the stairwell down to the basement, and I was tossed into the old locker room.
My fucking head spun, the memories coming at me from all sides.
Every goddamn mistake I had made.
Every misstep.
The greed and the violence and the perversion of who I’d once been.
“Be ready in ten.”
With clenched teeth, I gave a tight nod and moved to the sink, where I splashed cold water on my face.
I had no clue what I was walking into, but I at least knew it would be the fight of my life.
Because this fight?
It was for Tessa.
For Autumn.
For Bobby.
For my kids.
I peeled off my shirt and shoes, and I looked at myself in the mirror.
I let the old rage come.
Unlocked the fury.
Gore.
A shiver crawled across my flesh when I felt the presence cover me from behind. Rage brimmed from the depths. The thirst for vengeance. Retribution. The need to destroy him for what he’d stolen from me.
Slowly, I shifted to look at Stefan, who leaned against the wall so casually.
As if the last night I’d seen him face-to-face he hadn’t taken the beauty I was supposed to protect and destroyed it as if it were nothing.
Bile ran my throat while savagery hacked through my senses.
Stefan’s stare traced me with a sick pleasure. “I see you still possess it.”
My teeth gnashed, and it took everything inside me not to rush across the space and snap his neck.
A twisted smile curled on his mouth, like he’d seen the vision play out and he took a sordid satisfaction in it. He tsked. “So angry.”
“You killed my wife.” It left me like fragments of broken glass.
He shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. “I warned you to do what you were told. It’s you who failed to follow instructions. You knew what was at stake.”
“I never agreed to anything.”
A scoff ripped from his mouth. “Oh, but you did, Milo. The day you came crawling back to me…just like I knew you would. I warned you the stakes were higher, and you said you would do whatever it took. I gave you another chance because of my love for you, and then you turned around and showed me the greatest disloyalty. Do you know how that made me feel?”
Loathing clawed through my body, every muscle bound, curled with the urge to end him where he stood.
But he had Tessa, and I couldn’t be so reckless.
He smiled then, pure condescension. “And then rather than learning from your mistake, you hunted my men. You killed them. Your brothers. We were all supposed to be a family, and you betrayed me.”
His head cocked to the side. “But I trust that won’t happen again? One more chance, Milo. One more chance for you to prove your loyalty. The chance to keep the promise you made me when you were sixteen. The one where you promised you’d always be loyal to me, the same day I accepted you into my family. Don’t make me regret that decision because then I’ll have to make you regret it, too. First, the girl, then your children, then you. Do you understand?”
Terror curdled in my guts, my chest stretching so tight I thought it would rip apart to expose the torment gushing out from underneath.
“I do,” I told him, lifting my chin.
I understood this was it.
There could be no blunders or mistakes.
I had to end it.
“Good. I’ll see you in the ring.”
He rapped his knuckles on the wall like he was signing a deal.
Agony ripped my throat when he disappeared out the door, and I spun around, holding onto the edges of the sink as I bent over, trying to catch my breath.
To hold on to sanity.
Because I could feel it slipping away.
Logic.
Rationale.
The violence rising up to asphyxiate everything else.
Taking in a steeling breath, I forced myself upright and stepped out of the locker room.
Greed hummed through the desolation, and I could hear the chants of anticipation in the distance.
Bloodlust.
It rippled and roiled, a darkness that pulsed through the cavern.
Striding down the hall, I called on every ounce of strength that I possessed, knowing this was it.
My attention moved around the space to catalogue everything as I stepped out into the vapid light that cast a dingy, hazy glow through the basement.
Shadows played at the walls, darkness hovering in the corners, the pit nearly throbbing with the wickedness that toiled at the fringes.
The ring was in the middle of the immense room, exactly where it had always been. There was no elevation to it, just the bare concrete stained with blood beneath.