Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“You will have to do just that many, many times.” He looked at the blade. “But let’s return to the hypothetical. If I have to kill you then that means I need a new Mountain Mistress.”
I gazed at the ground.
“Which means that Lotus Blossom would have to be vacant again. And your sisters well. . .there’s no need for them to be alive if they’re not a part of my plan.”
I snapped my view back to him. “Don’t you threaten my sisters!”
“TT is brilliant, sweet, and kind, but I would kill her, if you don’t do what is expected tonight.” He sighed. “Can you see it? Me kneeling in front of little TT and taking out my blade. The surprise on her innocent face and then the inevitable sadness as I slice away at her soft flesh.”
You son of a bitch.
The world slipped away from me and my vision narrowed as this monstrous sensation rose inside of me like a tidal wave.
Fierce and unstoppable.
Every nerve in my body hummed with fury.
My blood boiled beneath my skin.
It wasn’t fear anymore.
No, this was something far darker, something I had never felt before.
This was brutal rage.
Pure, unfiltered, primal fucking rage.
Leo stood there, blade gleaming in the moonlight, so calm and collected, as if he hadn’t just threatened to slaughter the people I loved most.
As if he hadn’t turned my world upside down with a smile on his face.
His words echoed in my mind, and with each passing second, they fueled the fire inside me, stoking the embers into a blazing inferno.
He nodded. “I would do it. Kill you. Kill her, Chloe, and Jo. Could you imagine what Lei would go through? The heartbreak. The insanity that he would descend into. What would happen to Banks and everyone else? Their lives would be shattered. Can you consider the darkness that would settle on Paradise City after that?”
The image flashed before my eyes—Leo standing over my sister, his blade slicing through TT’s skin, blood pouring from her as he smiled.
That smile.
That damn smile.
It burned itself into my brain, and suddenly, I wasn’t just angry.
I wasn’t just scared.
I wanted to kill him!
Like me.
Only me.
No one else.
It had to be my hand.
The thought surged through me and it wasn’t just a passing thought.
It was a need.
A hunger.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to take a life.
Leo’s life!
I wanted him to bleed for what he had done with this fucking target game and for the threat he had dared.
“You would kill her?” My voice was low, shaking with barely contained fury. I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore. “You would kill my sisters?”
“I would, If that’s what it takes.”
I broke apart.
I wasn’t Monique anymore, not the same woman who had hesitated, who had refused to let herself be consumed by the darkness.
That Monique was gone.
She had been swallowed by the monster that now clawed its way to the surface, desperate to protect the ones I loved.
The guns had been taken from me and Leo was lucky for that.
Perhaps, Song had anticipated it.
Surely, I would have fucking used them on him. I could see myself pointing at Leo’s head and pulling the trigger over and over.
“What are you thinking about, Monique?”
“That I want to kill you.” The words came out before I could stop them. They felt foreign on my tongue, like they belonged to someone else. But they were mine. They were true. I wanted him dead. I needed him dead.
A dark chuckle left him. “There it is.”
I stilled.
“Now the killer inside you is speaking.” He let out a sigh and grinned. “I’ve been waiting for her to show herself. Welcome, my little monster.”
I could barely hear him over the roar of blood in my ears.
Everything else fell away—Song, the targets, the dead men.
None of it mattered anymore.
All I could see was Leo, standing there with that smug, arrogant look on his face, as if he knew he had won.
As if he thought he had control over me.
But he didn’t.
Not anymore.
My hands shook, not from fear, but from the need to act.
The need to strike.
I wasn’t thinking.
I was barely breathing.
All I could focus on was the image of Leo’s blood spilling from him, soaking the ground, just like those men I had unknowingly shot.
I wanted to make him suffer.
I wanted him to pay.
The rage inside me surged, hot and all-consuming, and for the first time, I embraced it. I let it wash over me, filling every inch of my being.
I didn’t fight it anymore.
I didn’t try to hold onto the person I had been.
Because that person couldn’t protect my sisters.
That person couldn’t survive in this world.
But the monster I was becoming?
She could.
In fact. . .she would!
Completely out of it, I lunged at Leo before I even realized what I was doing. My body moved on instinct, driven by the fury and the raw need to end him.