Page 2 of Burn It Down

My Sire.

“You heard me correctly,” he said, the corner of his mouth turning up. “Just come with me now. You’ll have that and more. You’ll be free.”

He was certainly laying it on thick.

Pity for him that it meant nothing to me.

“There’s no freedom for me without him. Without Kill and Aurora either.”

“You’re a fucking fool.” He blew out a breath, checked his watch worriedly, then signaled the muscle he’d brought along for the ride—his pet enforcers. “The hard way stands then. Jesus, fuck, Jo.” He grimaced as they closed in, telling them, “Bring him around to the car when you’re done.”

Unlike Asher and Killian’s fathers, mine didn’t relish the prospect of me being hurt. At least not physically. He’d been all about pushing me to become the one who did the hurting. It didn’t make him a saint, though. He still had a fucked-up twisted side like the other two. And he’d forced me to follow in his footsteps for the longest time, made me commit fucked-up acts, hurt people in ways that kept me awake at night, in ways that went way beyond spilling a little blood and inflicting a little pain, the kind that really did it for me. Nah, his shit—the Infidels’ way—was a hell of a lot more than that.

As he disappeared out of sight, the ten robes closed in around me.

I was unarmed because of that fucking security check we’d all been exposed to before coming into the gala earlier.

But I was nothing if not a weapon in my own goddamn right.

There was a reason Reed had brought along so many with him.

He knew what I was capable of and he wasn’t taking any chances as a result.

I stepped forward and cracked my knuckles. “Last chance to walk away, fuckers.”

A few of them pulled up short, clearly fucking worried. Smart.

But then the others who were determined to do their master’s bidding, signaled them to get their shit together.

So be it.

Normally, showing mercy and giving a chance for them to walk would’ve been off the table, but my focus wasn’t on the fight as it normally was. It was on getting the hell out of here, getting this shit over with, so I could focus on what mattered—finding Asher and Kill, and figuring out where the hell Aurora was.

I shrugged off my gold suit jacket and twisted it in one hand, fashioning it into a rope of sorts.

As they hit in the next second, I blew one back with a brutal push kick that had him slamming into a wall. I spun out of the way of another, then pivoted and came up with a hammer fist to the asshole. His head flew back and he stumbled, barely keeping his balance.

I snatched the hood of another and smashed him down to my knee, breaking his nose, blood covering my pants in the process.

Hell, yeah, first blood.

Now we were really getting started.

I took a hit to the ribs from another robe.

At the same time, one of them jumped on my back, trying to trap me in a headlock.

I threw my hefty weight backward and he smacked against the wall, choking as he jarred painfully against it.

As I went to reach back to haul him back over my shoulder, another came at me.

I caught him with my suit jacket, looped it around his neck and tugged hard. He flailed and clawed at it as I yanked brutally, choking him out.

The guy on my back hammered down on my shoulders, trying to break my grip.

No way in hell.

He moved his arm back around my throat, shifting to trying to choke me out, just like I was doing to his buddy.

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