Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
He shook his head. “I don’t know anything.”
“Wrong answer.” I stepped forward and brought my barefoot down on his sternum. Bone to bone. The crack that echoed around us was beautiful.
He folded like rotted paper, spine slamming into stone. “Argh!”
That’s when I saw it.
His right hand, the one he’d kept clenched—wasn’t shaking from pain. It was holding a knife. He hadn’t been begging. He’d been waiting to stab me with it.
A killer is always a killer to the end.
I snatched the knife from his hand. “Was this for me?”
“I-I didn’t—”
“Don’t waste your breath” I used his blade on him.
The first slice was an arc through air, clean and brutal. It took off his left ear like it was never meant to be there.
He howled and his hand shot to the side of his head as blood sprayed the wall.
Fast, I grabbed a fistful of his hair—wet, greasy, slick with blood—and yanked his head back so hard his spine popped.
He thrashed and spat. “No! No! Please!!”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t blink. Didn’t waste words on liars. I drove the blade up beneath his jaw. The steel pierced the soft spot behind his chin and kept going—through tongue, through palate, through sin and intention.
A second later, my Eyes were next to me, watching and silently waiting.
His scream turned into a wet, gurgling rattle as the blade pushed higher, until the tip of it punched through the nasal cavity.
His eyes went wide.
His lips moved, but it was too late for prayers.
I twisted the blade.
His body spasmed like a puppet cut from its strings.
Then I yanked it free.
He crumpled.
Blood spreading.
Limbs twitching.
I dropped the knife. It fell to the floor. Then, I wiped my hands on my pants and looked at my Eyes. “What happened?”
Itsuki spoke first, “Over fifty men took over the building. We killed pretty much everyone.”
“Who told them the location?”
Arata sighed. “Reo is working on that now.”
I stepped over the dead man and headed off.
My Eyes followed.
Outside of the building, a fresh round of gunfire boomed through the air like thunder splitting the block open. Sharp and merciless. The windows rattled. Glass trembled in their frames. Somewhere below, something heavy crashed hard against the building.
The fight hadn’t died down.
It was escalating.
I could hear it in the rhythm of the shots—tight groupings, return fire, someone screaming.
They were pushing inward from every angle. Vehicles probably had rammed the back alley gates. The perimeter would be splintering.
We’re probably surrounded. Damn it.
Terror surged through me.
I wasn’t worried for myself. Let them come. Let them stack bodies at my feet until the hallways clogged with the dead. I would kill until the barrels melted, until my fists split open and the bones in my hands showed.
But Nyomi?
My Tiger.
For a breath, I saw her again. The way she’d looked up at me several minutes ago—flushed, laughing, her voice still hoarse from moaning my name. The air around her had been peace.
And now that peace was dead, gutted on this floor.
I could keep her safe—of that, I had no doubt. But I couldn’t stop her from knowing.
From seeing.
From realizing the dragon she’d tamed had never lived in a castle but a kingdom of corpses.
She was near, her body still trembling from the way I’d worshipped it, and I hated that this was what would follow our amazing night—the sound of war erupting.
I bared my teeth into a snarl.
Who the fuck is to blame for this?
For these next days, I had planned to give her nothing but diamonds, champagne, long mornings tangled in silk bedsheets, and my tongue on her pussy.
Goddamn it.
Even worse, there was another complication in the mix.
Please don’t let Hiro hear about this.
Even with so many after us right now, I knew we could get out. My men weren’t just trained—they were bred for this. Reo had already prepped the building for at least five different ways out. Add the fact that my Fangs didn’t bleed easy and my Eyes saw every angle before it formed, and there would be no one that could stop us tonight.
But none of that mattered if Hiro found out about this.
He’d just buried Nura. His grief was raw. If he caught even a whisper of what was happening right now, he would come.
With the Claws.
With his swords and guns.
With his heart torn open and ready to die for me without even thinking of the fact that we would be fine.
Fuck.
I could already see Hiro bursting through the front entrance, barefoot in blood, wild-eyed and too quiet. Shirtless. Still smelling like the whiskey he was currently using to drown Nura’s memory. Screaming in rage with a lollipop clenched between his teeth.
He would fight everyone and give no thought to his own safety.
Damn it.
After Jobon’s and my mother’s death, I couldn’t lose Hiro too.
This had to end now.
Clean.
Fast.
Total annihilation within the next hour.
Before the calls started, and Hiro discovered what was going on.